Man might have been immortal, had he never finned; but brutish and ungovern'd Paffions will deftroy us without a Miracle. And therefore we have no Reason now to quarrel at the Divine Providence, that we are mortal, for in the ordinary Courfe of Providence, it is impoffible it should be otherwise.

III. Confidering what the State of this World neceffarily is, fince the Fall of Man, an immortal Life here is not defirable: No State ought to be immortal, if it be defigned as an Act of Favour and Kindness, but what is completely happy; but this World is far enough from being fuch a State. Some few Years give wife Men enough of it, tho' they are not oppreffed with any great Calamities; and there are a great many Miseries, which nothing but Death can give Relief to: This puts an End to the Sorrows of the Poor, of the Oppreffed, of the Perfecuted; it is a Haven of Rest after all the Tempefts of a trou blesome World; it knocks off the Prifoner's Shackles, and fets him at Liberty; it dries

up

the Tears of the Widows and Fatherlefs, it eafes the Complaints of a hungry Belly, and naked Back; it tames the proudeft Tyrants, and reftores Peace to the World; it puts an End to all our Labours, and fupports Men under their prefent Adverfities, efpecially when they have a Profpect of a better Life after this. The Labour and the Mifery

of Man under the Sun is very great, but it would be intolerable, were it endless: And therefore fince Sin is entered into the World, and fo many neceffary Miseries and Calamities attend it, it is an Act of Goodnefs, as well as Juftice in God, to fhorten this miferable Life, and transplant good Men into a more happy as well as immortal State.

IV. Since the Fall of Man, Mortality and Death is neceffary to the good Government of the World: nothing elfe can give check to fome Mens Wickednefs: but either the Fear of Death, or the Execution of it; fome Men are fo outragiously wicked, that nothing can put a Stop to them, and prevent that Mischief they do in this World, but to cut them off: This is the Reafon of capital Punishments among Men, to remove those out of the World, who will be a Plague to Mankind while they live in it. For this Reafon God deftroyed the whole Race of Mankind by a Deluge of Water, excepting Noah and his Family, because they were incurably wicked: For this Reason he fends Plagues, and Famines, and Swords, to correct the exorbitant Growth of Wickedness, to leffen the Numbers of Sinners, and to lay Reftraints on them: And if the World be fuch a Bedlam as it is under all these Restraints, what would it be, were it filled with immortal Sinners!

Ever fince the Fall of Adam, there always was, and ever will be, a Mixture of good and bad Men in the World: And Juftice requires that God should reward the Good, and punish the Wicked: But that cannot be done. in this World: for these present external Enjoyments are not the proper Rewards of Virtue. There is no compleat Happiness here; Man was never turned into this World, 'till he finned, and was flung out of Paradise : which is an Argument, that God never intended this World for a Place of Reward and perfect Happiness; nor is this World a proper Place for the final Punishment of bad Men; because good Men live among them: And without a Miracle bad Men cannot be greatly punished: but good Men must share with them; and, were all bad Men punished to their Deserts, it would make this World the very Image and Picture of Hell, which would be a very unfit Place for good Men to live, and to be happy in. As much as good Men fuffer from the Wicked in this World, it is much more tolerable, than to have their Ears fill'd with the perpetual Cries of such miserable Sinners, and their Eyes terrified with fuch perpetual and amazing Executions. Good and bad Men must be separated, before the one can be finally rewarded, or the other punished; and such a Separation as this cannot be made in this World, but must be referved for the next.

So that confidering the fallen State of Man, it was not fitting, it was not for the Good of Mankind, that they fhould be immortal here. Both the Wisdom, and Goodness, and Juftice of God required that Man fhould die; which is an abundant Juftification of this Divine Decree, That it is appointed for Men once to die.

V. As a farther Juftification of the Divine Goodness in this, we may obferve, that before God pronounced that Sentence on Adam, Duft thou art, and to Duft thou shalt return; he exprefly promis'd, that the feed of the woman fhall bruife the ferpent's head, Gen. iii. 15. in his Curfe upon the Serpent, who beguiled Eve: I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy feed and her feed; it shall bruife thy head, and thou shalt bruise bis heel. Which contains the Promise of fending Chrift into the World, who by death fhould destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the Devil; and deliver them, who through fear of death, were all their life-time fubject to bondage; Heb. ii. 14, 15. i. e. before he denounces the Sentence of Death against Man he promises a Saviour and Deliverer, who fhould triumph over Death, and raise our dead Bodies out of the Duft, immortal and glorious. Here is a most admirable Mixture of Mercy and Judgment! Man had forfeited an earthly Immortality, and must die;

but

but before God would denounce the Sentence of Death against him, he promises to raise up his dead Body again to a new and endless Life. And have we any Reason to complain then, that God has dealt hardly with us, in involving us in the fad Confquences of Adam's Sin, and expofing us to a temporal Death, when he has promised to raise us up from the Dead again, and to bestow a more glorious Immortality on us, which we shall never lofe? When Man had finned, it was neceffary that he should die, because he could never be completely and perfectly happy in this World, as you have already heard: And the only poffible Way to make him happy, was to tranflate him into another World, and to bestow a better Immortality on him. This God has done, and that in a very ftupendious Way, by giving his own Son to die for us; and now we have little Reason to complain, that we all die in Adam, fince we are made alive in Chrift. To have died in Adam, never to have lived more, had indeed been very fevere upon Mankind; but when Death fignifies only a Neceffity of going out of these Bodies, and living without them for fome Time, in order to re-affume them again immortal and glorious, we have no Reafon to think this any great Hurt. Nay, indeed, if we confider Things rightly, the Divine Goodness has improved the Fall of Adam to the raising of Mankind to a more happy and perfect State. G 4 For