QUESTION I. 271 tion andjoy; these are their reliefs against thecommon miseries of human nature, and their chosen methods to pass away the tiresome hours of life. But would a race of innocent beings, if they ever happened to meet with any accident of pain and sorrow, fly to such sort of mean and foolish, or criminal refuges as these are ? Would they pursue suchgluttonous and drunken pleasures, such vain or vile delights ? Would they become rivals for happiness with the four-footed beasts of the earth, and aim at no higher felicities ? Or would they sport themselves as devils do, in accusing their fellow-creatures ? Surely if we take a due survey of the very pleasures of the bulk of mankind, as well as of their sorrows, we may learn from thence, that we are by no means such creatures as our primitive creation made us, but there is some great and universal degeneracy spread over all the gene- rations of men. XIII. If I were to add one more proof of the general ruin and degenerate state of human nature, I would observe, how we are all posting to death and the grave, and every one ,,of us are succeeding our neighbours, in our proper turns into some unknown state, some invisible and future world, and we profess to believe this too ; and yet how exceeding few are there amongst mankind whoare solicitous about this great and awful futurity ? Though we are exposed to so many miseries, sins, and follies in the present life, and are hastening visibly and hourly to the end of it, yet how few are there that make any careful preparation for a better state than this, or that seek to acquire a temper fit for the superior pleasures of a world of spirits even though they believe this better world ? What mul- titudes are running down daily and directly to death and dark- ness, and speeding to an endless duration in some unknown country, without any earnest enquiries and solicitudes of soul about their manner of existence there, and their final fate and . doom when this life is at an end ? They walk over the busy stage of life, their souls are filled with the concerns of mortality, they toil and labour, or they play and trifle a whilehere, so far as the burdens and calamities of life will permit them, and then they plunge with reluctance into an unseen . and strange world, where they will meet with a just and holy God, whose wisdom will assign them a place and portion suited to their own charac- ter : But we have reason to fear . by their sinful behaviour among men, that that portion and that place, to which the bulk of mankind are hastening, is far distant from the favour of the God that made them, and from other holy and happy crea- tures whom he has framed for the inhabitants of those regions. Fhus far our fears of their future misery are but too justly awakened.
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