A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland
for her here, such Happiness, and such Advantages, even in this Life; how probable must it appear, that this providential Care is yet extended further to a succeeding Life and perfected Hereafter?”3
Antient, Current, and Famous, were the Notices in Paganism, touching the Soul’s Immortality, the Rewards and Punishments of another Life, touching Hades, Elysium, the Isles of the Blessed, Orcus, Erebus, Tartarus, Mercury the Soul-Carrier, the Judges of Hell, which the Stoicks laugh’d at, as vulgar Errors, because they were the Doctrines of vulgar Paganism. But without them Natural Religion would be but Matter of Ridicule. And, accordingly, it is an Article of natural Religion, which is antecedent to any Institution of Paganism, Judaism, or Christianity. And the Christian Doctrine, touching the Rewards and Punishments of a future Life, is so con-natural to the Mind of Man, (which hath the Conscience of Good and Evil,) so agreeable to his Reason, and his Notions of a God and Providence, that it has met with a general Reception, and Approbation. Agreeably to these Sentiments, the generality of Pagan Religionists stiled the Soul Divine, of Kin to the Gods, a Part and Particle of God, deducing it from Heaven, and reducing it thither again, worshipping their Heroes and Benefactors. All which imply’d, that their Religion had this generous Sentiment in it, which Cicero (de Leg. 2.) accounteth one of its Principles, “That Virtue and Piety are Things which raise Men unto Heaven.”4 The Egyptians are particularly fam’d for their Doctrine of the Soul’s Immortality, and the Rewards of the Pious in another Life, as is most conspicuous, from a Funeral Rite of theirs recorded by Porphyry, and which deserveth to be everlastingly remember’d. When they embalm’d one of their Nobles, they took out the Belly, (which it is hence plain, they did not make a God of,) and put it into a Chest, which they held up to the Sun, one of the Embalmers making this Oration for the Dead Man. Porphyry de abst. L. 4. §. 10
“O LORD the Sun, and all ye Gods that give Life to Men, receive me, and transmit me into Consortship with the eternal Gods; for so long as I liv’d in the World, I piously worshipp’d the Gods, whom my Parents shewed me; those that generated my Body I always honoured; I neither kill’d any Man, nor defrauded any of what was committed to my Trust; nor have I done any Thing else of an atrocious Nature. If, in my Life-Time, I committed any Offence in Eating and Drinking what was not Lawful, the Offence was not done by my-self, but by those,” pointing at, or shewing, the Chest, wherein the Belly was. And having so said, he threw it into the River. The Rest of the Body was embalm’d apart, as Pure.5
The Immortality of the Soul, agreeable to the Notions we naturally Form of the Deity.
§IV. It is evident, that his making us capable of Happiness, was the Effect of his Goodness. It will therefore, from thence, and from the Immutability of his Nature, necessarily follow, “That he, who will’d us once into Being, will always Will the Continuance of our Being, and that too in a happy State, except where the Vindication of the Honour of his Laws, and the Common Good requires the contrary.”
It is the Will of God, that we should practise Religion.
§V. GOD, the Author of Nature, has imprinted Characters of his independent Power, Wisdom, Goodness, Providence, & c. upon his Works; he has given us Reason, by which we cannot but discover, if we attend, these his Attributes, and the Relation we bear to him. It is, therefore, his Will, that we should know, and, knowing, acknowledge these his Perfections, and the Relation HE and WE, his dependent Creatures, bear to one another; that is, that we should pursue and promote, to our Power, those beneficent Ends, which he had in creating us, and other Beings like our-selves, capable of Happiness, and give him the Honour due to him, that is, that we should practise Virtue and Religion, which are, therefore, his Laws to us.
A View of the Pagan System of the Rational World.
II. Let us, in the next Place, consider the several Parts of that Society of Rational Agents, of which God is at the Head; first, according to the Notion of the Pagans, and next, according to the Idea we have of it, by Revelation, and the Scriptures; for Truth, and Error, like all other Opposites, will best illustrate each other. For we can no otherwise come to the Knowledge of our-selves, in the political Sense, of our Duty, and the Obligations we lie under, without considering the Relation we stand in to the Kingdom of God, that great and holy Society, of which we are a Part; and to any other Society, if such there be, with which we may have to do; for it is impossible, to understand a Duty which is Relative, without first understanding the Terms of the Relation, (to make use of a Logical Expression.) To begin then with the Pagan System.
In which they consider’d, 1. One intellectual Head of the Universe.
The Heathen Philosophers, who acknowledg’d a Deity, acknowledg’d but one single intellectual Head of the Universe, (whom they call’d Jupiter, Zeus, Baal, &c.) and but one Universe; not such a One as the Epicureans imagin’d, who incoherently talk’d of infinite incoherent Worlds in infinite Space, but one total universal System, made up of several coherent subordinate Systems.
This one Universe is capable of being consider’d Politically and Naturally: Politically, the Heathens consider’d it as a Universe of Rational Agents.
Whom they suppos’d also the Soul of the World.
The Universe was Politically considered by the Heathen Theologers; for they suppos’d it to be a Political System, or Monarchy, having the foremention’d intellectual Head presiding in and over it. But they consider’d it also Naturally, supposing it to be an Animated System, or Mundan Animal, with the foremention’d intellectual Head, as the Soul thereof; yet so, as to be also the imperial Head of the Monarchy of the Universe.
Representing the Universe of rational Agents as but one political System, which is a fundamental Mistake.
§II. The Heathen Theologers, who do not acknowledge any such Society as the Church of God, represented the Universe of Rational Agents, as but one Political System, which is their prime fundamental Mistake. For, in this Scheme, God and the Creature are not sufficiently distinguish’d, but criminally confounded by deifying Creatures. The Kingdoms of Good and Bad Angels (or Demons) are not distinguish’d. The Church and the World are not distinguish’d, but confounded, or rather, the Church is shut out of Being, for which there is no Place in the Heathen System. Heaven, Earth, and Hell, are not duly distinguish’d, but confounded into one Political Society, under one Monarch; and they are suppos’d, as friendly conspiring together, whence they thought themselves secure from any Disaster after Death. And, because they thought themselves by Nature, the Citizens of God’s Kingdom already, they could not be prevail’d with, to enter into the real Kingdom of God, when the Gospel was preach’d, which they oppos’d, as opposite to their System. Upon this fundamental Error, was grounded their whole Morality; and upon this Notion, That they were Fellow-Citizens with the Gods, their Practice was, doubtless, grounded of making new Gods, as it were by a right of Suffrage in Heaven it-self.
§III. Some Christian Writers have, in great Measure, adopted these Sentiments, not discerning the Difference between a Holy Divine Republick, and a Heathen Mundan System, heedlesly entertaining false Notions of the State of the Universe, and speaking the Language of Heathen Philosophers, which is irreconcileable with the Jewish, and Christian Religion.
The Worshippers of the true God indeed are, in a large Sense, Citizens of this lower World; they have a Duty to discharge as such, and must not fail of a dutiful and virtuous Correspondence with Nature, and common Providence; but the proper Design, and Effect of God’s reveal’d Laws, was not to instate men Citizens of the World at large, nor was it the proper Law of that Estate of Life, nor was it the Law of Nature governing all Things as such, but it was the Law of that King, who governeth all Things as Law-Giver of his Church.
From which our Author is not free.
The foregoing