In the counsels of a being
possessed of the power and disposition which the Creator of the universe
must possess, it is not improbable that there should be a future state;
it is not improbable that we should be acquainted with it. A future
state rectifies everything; because, if moral agents be made, in the
last event, happy or miserable, according to their conduct in the
station and under the circumstances in which they are placed, it seems
not very material by the operation of what causes, according to what
rules, or even, if you please to call it so, by what chance or caprice
these stations are assigned, or these circumstances determined. This
hypothesis, therefore, solves all that objection to the divine care and
goodness which the promiscuous distribution of good and evil (I do not
mean in the doubtful advantages of riches and grandeur, but in the
unquestionably important distinctions of health and sickness, strength
and infirmity, bodily ease and pain, mental alacrity and depression) is
apt on so many occasions to create. This one truth changes the nature of
things; gives order to confusion; makes the moral world of a piece with
the natural.
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