Considerations of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul, with…

Now if the Soul does not survive the Body, and in a separate state obtain its desires, it will reflect upon Nature for imprudence or malignity, in dealing worse with the most noble order of visible ⟨p. 185⟩Beings. The Beasts excel Man in the quickness and vivacity of the powers of Sense, being their perfection, and in him subordinate faculties, and are more capable of pleasure from sensible things; and Reason, his eminent Prerogative, makes him more liable to misery. For Man ardently aspiring to a Spiritual Happiness, that here he cannot enjoy, much less hereafter if the Soul perish, is under a remediless infelicity. His Mind is deceived and stained with Errors, his Will tormented with fruitless longings after an impossible Object. But if we unveil the face of Nature, God appears (who is the Author of our being, and of this desire so proper to it) and we cannot suspect, without the highest Impiety, that he would make all Men in vain, and deceive them by ⟨p. 186⟩a false appearance. But he gives us in it a faithful presage of things future, and indiscernible to sense, to be enjoyed in immortality. This Argument will be the more forcible, if we consider that holy Souls, who excel in Knowledge and Virtue do most inflamedly long for the enjoyment of this pure felicity. And is it possible that the Creator should not only endow Man with rational powers, but with virtues that exalt and enlarge their capacity to render him more miserable? to imagine that he cannot, or will not fully and eternally satisfy them is equally injurious to his perfections. It therefore necessarily follows that the Soul lives after Death, and fully enjoys the happiness it earnestly desired whiles in the darkness of this earthly Tabernacle

Now if the Soul does not survive the Body, and in a separate state obtain its desires, it will reflect upon Nature for imprudence or malignity, in dealing worse with the most noble order of visible ⟨p. 185⟩Beings. The Beasts excel Man in the quickness and vivacity of the powers of Sense, being their perfection, and in him subordinate faculties, and are more capable of pleasure from sensible things; and Reason, his eminent Prerogative, makes him more liable to misery. For Man ardently aspiring to a Spiritual Happiness, that here he cannot enjoy, much less hereafter if the Soul perish, is under a remediless infelicity. His Mind is deceived and stain'd with Errors, his Will tormented with fruitless longings after an impossible Object. But if we unveil the face of Nature, God appears (who is the Author of our being, and of this desire so proper to it) and we cannot suspect, without the highest Impiety, that he would make all Men in vain, and deceive them by