14 A View of tbe DEisT IAL Writers. Let. 23.

Orpbeus, and from the Greeks to the Homans e. But we find it was equally received among the moſt barbarous as among the moſt polite nations. The antient Indians, Sgythiang, Gauls, Germans, Britons, as well as Greehs and Romans, believed that ſouls are immortal, and that men ſhould live in another ſtate after death. There were ſcarce any among the Americans, when the EFuroßcans firſt arrived there, who doubted of it. It has been almoſt as generally believed as the exiſtence of God; ſo that it may well paſs for a common notion.

Anorther thing taken notice of by this writer, and to which he partly aſcribes the belief of the ſoul's immortality, is what he calls the howenful deſire gf continuing to exiſt. Heè obſerves, that this deſire was ſo ſtrong, that the multitude in the **Pagan world were ready to embrace the hope of immortality, «though it was accompanied with the fear of damnation d." This ſtrong deſire of future exiſtence, appears by his own account to be natural to the human mind. And would the author of our beings have ſo conſtituted us, if the object of this deſire was vain, and if there were no future exiſtence to expect? Is not this powerful deſire or expectation of im- mortality, which is implanted in the human heart, an argu- ment that he that made us, formed and deſigned us not merely for this preſent ſtate and tranſitory life, but for a future ſtate of exiſtence?

Lord Bolingbroke further obſerves, that one great cauſe of the ſpreading of this doctrine was its being encouraged by the politicians and legiſlators, as well as philoſophers, on the ac- count of its great uſefulneſs to mankind, and becauſe they Iooked upon it to be neceſſary to inforce the ſanctions of the law of naturée. Now this great uſefulneſs and neceſſity of this doctrine is no fmall argument of its truth. For if men are ſo framed, that they cannot be properly governed without the hopes or fears of a future ſtate; itf theſe are neceſſary to preſerve order and good government in the world, to allure and engage men to virtue, and deter them from vice and wicked- neſs; this ſhews that the author of their beings deſigned them for immortality and a future ſtate, and that conſequently ſuch a ſtate there really is: except it be ſaid, that he formed our natures ſo as to make it neceſſary to govern us by a lie, and by falſe motives, and imaginary hopes and fears.

It ſufficiently appears from what hath been already obſerved, that our author, by denying that the ſoul is an immaterial ſub-

e Vol. v. p. 352, 489. ¹ Ibid. p. 237. e Ibid. p. 281. 351. ſtance