them to caft up into hillocks, and cloathed with grain and herbage for their fuftenance; then accufe their Creator for permitting fpades to deftroy them, and ploughs to lay waste their habitations; the inconveniences of which they feel, but are utterly unable to comprehend their ufes, as well as the relations they themselves bear to fuperior beings.

It is furprising that none of those philofophers, who were drove to the supposition of two first causes, and many other abfurdities, to account for the origin of evil, should not rather have chosen to impute it to the miniftration of intermediate beings; and when they saw the happiness of all inferior animals dependent on our wills, should not have concluded, that the good order and well-being of the universe might require that ours fhould be as dependant on the wills of fuperior beings, accountable like ourselves to one common lord and father of all things. This is the more wonderful, because the existence and influence of fuch beings has been

an

an article in the creed of all religions that have ever appeared in the world. In the beautiful fyftem of the pagan theology, their filvan and houfhold deities, their nymphs, fatyrs, and fawns, were of this kind. All the barbarous nations that have ever been discovered, have been found to believe and adore intermediate fpiritual beings, both good and evil. The Jewish religion not only confirms the belief of their existence, but of their tempting, deceiving, and tormenting mankind; and the whole system of christianity is erected entirely on this foundation.

Thus, Sir, you see the good order of the whole, and the happiness it receives from a proper fubordination, will fufficiently account for the sufferings of individuals; and all such fhould be confidered but as the neceffary taxes, which every member of this great republic of the universe is obliged to pay towards the fupport of the community. It is no derogation from the divine goodness, that thefe taxes are not always impofed equally in

the

the prefent ftate of things; because as every individual is but a part of the great whole, fo is the prefent ftate but a part of a long, or perhaps an eternal fucceffion of others; and, like a single day in the natural life, has reference to many more both past and to come. It is but as a page in a voluminous accompt, from which no judgment can be formed on the ftate of the whole; but of this we may be affured, that the balance will fome time or other be fettled with justice and impartiality. The certainty, therefore, of a future ftate, in which we, and indeed all creatures endued with fenfation, shall somehow or other exift, feems (if all our notions of justice are not erroneous) as demonftrable as the juftice of their Creator; for if he is juft, all fuch creatures must have their account of happiness and misery some where adjusted with equity, and all creatures capable of virtue and vice muft, according to their behaviour, receive rewards and punishments; and, to render these punishments confiftent with infinite goodness, they

mun

muft not only be proportioned to their crimes, but also fome way neceffary to univerfal good; for no creatures can be called out of their primitive nothing by an all-wife and benevolent Creator, to be lofers by their existence, or to be made miferable for no beneficial end, even by their own misbehaviour: fo that all future mifery, as well as prefent, must be fubfervient to happiness, or otherwife infinite power, joined with infinite goodnefs, would have prevented both vice and punishment.

For this reafon, amongst all the shortfighted conjectures of man into the difpenfations of providence and a future state, the ancient doctrine of tranfmigration feems the moft rational and most confiftent with his wifdom and goodnefs; as by it all the unequal difpenfations of things fo neceffary in one life, may be fet right in another, and all creatures ferve the higheft and lowest, the most eligible and moft burthenfome offices of life by an equitable kind of rotation; by which means their rewards and punishments

may

may not only be well proportioned to their behaviour, but also subservient towards carrying on the business of the universe, and thus at the fame time answer the purposes of both justice and utility. But the pride of man will not suffer us to treat this subject with the serioufnefs it deferves; but rejects as both impious and ridiculous every suppofition of inferior creatures ever arriving at its own imaginary dignity, allowing at the fame time the probability of human nature being exalted to the angelic, a much wider and more extraordinary tranfition, but yet fuch a one as may probably be the natural confequence, as well as the reward of a virtuous life; nor is it lefs likely that our vices may debafe us to the fervile condition of inferior animals, in whofe forms we may be feverely punished for the injuries we have done to mankind when amongst them, and be obliged in fome measure to repair them, by performing the drudgeries tyrannically impofed upon us for their service.

From what has been faid, I think, it plainly