our nature corresponds to our external condition. Human life and happiness, therefore, are a result from our nature and condition jointly. Hence, though we know not what may be the employment and happiness of good men, in a future life, they must have some determinate capacities and character, to fit them for its enjoyment. Now,

II. All creatures seem constituted with a capability of becoming qualified for states of life, for which they were once wholly unqualified; and have faculties made for enlargement and acquirement of habits. We ourselves, particularly, have capacities not only for acquiring ideas and knowledge, but for storing them up in memory; and our faculties of apprehension, reason, and memory, are improved by exercise. Aptness in action, and in recollection, is plainly the result of habit; hence come habits of perception and action; by the former, we estimate magnitudes and distances (correcting, involuntarily, the impressions of the visual sense); and our readiness in speaking, or writing the words of language, is an instance of the latter. Bodily habits are the result of frequent use; and mental habits are equally so: the one are produced by repeated external acts; the other by the frequent exertion of inward principles-i. e. by carrying them into act, or by acting upon them. Hence habits of obedience, veracity, justice, and charity, are acquired by prac

tically exercising the internal principles; and habits of envy and revenge, by indulgence, whether in act or intention (an intention being an inward act). Resolutions to do well, or to impress upon ourselves, or others, a sense of practical virtue, are, therefore, virtuous acts, and contribute towards good habits. Whereas, mere theorizing upon virtue; may even weaken the moral sense; passive impressions growing weaker by repetition; just as familiarity with danger, or death, lessens fear; and, with distress, lessens pity.

Hence "Habits may be formed and strengthened, by a course of acting upon motives and excitements; whilst these very motives and excitements, themselves, may be less sensibly felt, even as the habits grow stronger:" e. g. perception of distress in others, excites to pity and benevolence; but familiarity with misery lessens the pity, though the principle of benevolence is improved by exercise; and whilst a man passively compassionates the distressed less, he has a greater aptitude actively to assist them.

The appointment of nature seems to be, that active habits are formed by exercise; and by custom we get a readiness, and often a pleasure, in a certain course of action; its difficulties lessen, as does our aversion to it; whilst the reasons for it appear more readily, and excite us more strongly. Practical principles thus grow not only absolutely stronger, but relatively

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so: the contrary principles, by being accustomed to submit, doing so of course; and thus a new character is formed, and many habitudes established, not given by Nature, but which she directs us to acquire.

III. Had not these capacities for improvement been necessary, and for use, we should not have had them; but they are so much so, that, without them, we should be utterly unfit even for the object of our present life, viz. the employments and satisfactions of mature age. But nature does not qualify us either wholly, or at

once, for this. Even maturity of understanding and of bodily strength, is not only gradual, but chiefly the result of continued exercise of our powers. And were a person placed in the world with these in full maturity, he would be totally unfit for life-unfamiliarized to what he saw, and distracted with apprehension and curiosity. Indeed, men not having any acquired moderation and self-restraint, would be acting with an impetuosity, quite incompatible with the state of society; and nature seems to have left man in many respects a deficient creature, unqualified, before the acquirement of habits, for the purposes of mature age.

But we are placed in a condition, during the period of infancy, childhood, and youth, fitted for the supplying those deficiencies, and acquiring those qualifications necessary in mature age;-constant daily observation of things, subordination to authorities, experience of good

and evil, and a variety of other things,—make a gradual but deep impression, and produce habits so interwoven in our nature, as sometimes to be mistaken for instinct.

Hence, the beginning of life is a state of Education for mature age: in which we are assisted by the example of others; urged on by necessity or expedience on our own parts; and fitted by custom for labours, for which otherwise, in mature life, we should be unqualified. And according as this is done, so is the character formed, and the fitness produced, for men's filling different ranks in society. Analogous to this, is our being placed in a state of discipline in this life, to fit us for that which is to come: our condition, in both respects, is uniform, and comprehended under the same general law of nature.

Nor is it any valid objection, that we do not know how, or in what way, this is so. We know not how food or sleep contribute to our growth; neither, as children, do we always see the reasonableness of what we are trained to. Were we not then able to perceive how the present life could prepare us for a future one, yet the Analogy of Providence might show its credibility.

But when we take into the account God's moral government over the world, and consequently, that a character of virtue and piety is a necessary qualification

for a future state, then the matter seems clear. For we want improvement in that character, and are capable of it by moral and religious habits; and the present life is fitted to be a state of discipline for such improvement ; just as childhood and youth are a fit period of discipline for mature age.

From analogy and revelation we may infer, that the future life will not be either solitary or inactive; but a community happily employed under the sensible presence of God, in the exercise (though we may not understand what scope there can be for it) of veracity, justice, and charity. For the government of the Universe being moral, the character of piety, and virtue, must be, in some way or other, our qualification for happiness.

That we are capable of moral improvement by discipline, has been shown; that we greatly want it, needs no proof. But the occasion of this want must be traced up higher, than to excess of the passions by vicious indulgence. Mankind are constitutionally (before habits of virtue) deficient, liable to deviate from right, and needing such habits as a security. Along with our moral understanding, we have inward affections towards particular objects. These affections are properly subject to the moral principle, as to the occasions, degree, and manner of their gratification and pursuit; but the principle of