which is to be laid upon it. This is a general Account of what may be looked for in the following Treatife. And I shall begin it with That which is the Foundation of all our Hopes and of all our Fears; all our Hopes and Fears, which are of any Confideration ; I mean a future Life.

THE

THE

ANALOGY

OF

RELIGION

то тНЕ

Constitution and Course of NATURE.

PART I.

Of NATURAL RELIGION.

S

CHAP. I.

Of a Future Life.

TRANGE Difficulties have been rai- CHAP. fed by fome concerning perfonal Iden- I.

tity, or the Sameness of living Agents, W implied in the Notion of our exifting Now and Hereafter, or in any two fucceffive Mo

C

ments;

PARTments; which whoever thinks it worth I. while, may fee confidered in the firft DifferWtation at the End of This Treatise. But

without Regard to any of them here, let us confider what the Analogy of Nature, and the feveral Changes which we have undergone, and those which we know we may undergo without being destroyed, fuggeft, as to the Effect which Death may, or may not have upon us; and whether it be not from thence probable, that we may furvive this Change, and exift in a future State of Life and Perception.

I. From our being born into the present World in the helpless imperfect State of Infancy, and having arrived from thence to mature Age, we find it to be a general Law of Nature in our own Species, that the fame Creatures, the fame Individuals, fhould exift in Degrees of Life and Perception, with Capacities of Action, of Enjoyment and Suffering, in one Period of their Being, greatly different from those appointed them in another Period of it. And in other Creatures the fame Law holds. For the Difference of their Capacities and States of Life at their Birth (to go no higher) and in Maturity; the Change of Worms into Flies, and the vast Enlargement of their locomotive Powers by fuch Change and Birds and Infects bursting the

Shell

Shell their Habitation, and by this means en- CHAP. tring into a new World, furnished with new I. Accommodations for them, and finding an new Sphere of Action affigned them; these are Instances of this general Law of Nature. Thus all the various and wonderful Transformations of Animals are to be taken into Confideration here. But the States of Life in which we ourselves exifted formerly in the Womb and in our Infancy, are almost as different from our present in mature Age, as it is poffible to conceive any two States or Degrees of Life can be. Therefore, that we are to exist hereafter in a State as different (fuppofe) from our present, as this is from our former, is but according to the Analogy of Nature; according to a natural Order or Appointment of the very fame Kind, with what we have already experienced.

II. We know we are endued with Capacities of Action, of Happiness and Misery: for we are conscious of acting, of injoying Pleafure and fuffering Pain. Now that we have these Powers and Capacities before Death, is a Prefumption that we fhall retain them through and after Death; indeed a Probability of it abundantly fufficient to act upon, unlefs there be fome pofitive Reason to think that Death is the Deftruction of thofe living Powers: Because there is in every Cafe a C 2 Proba

PART Probability, that all things will continue as I. we experience they are, in all Refpects, except thofe in which we have fome Reason to think they will be altered. This is that Kind ≈ of Prefumption or Probability from Analogy, exprefs'd in the very Word Continuance, which feems our only natural Reafon for believing the Courfe of the World will continue to morrow, as it has done fo far as our Experience or Knowledge of Hiftory can carry us back. Nay it feems our only Reafon for believing, that any one Substance now existing, will continue to exift a Moment longer; the Self-existent Subftance only excepted. Thus if Men were affured that the unknown Event, Death, was not the Destruction of our Faculties of Perception and of Action, there would be no Apprehenfion, that any other Power or Eventunconnected with this of Death, would destroy these Faculties juft at the Inftant of each Creature's Death; and therefore no Doubt but that they would remain after it which fhows the high Probability that our living Powers will continue after Death, unless there be fome Ground to think that Death is their Destruction b. For, if it

would

a I fay Kind of Presumption or Probability; for I do not mean to affirm that there is the fame Degree of Conviction, that our living Powers will continue after Death, as there is, that our Subftances will.

b Deftruction of living Powers, is a manner of Expreffion

unavoidably