If it be
said that the mode and means of all this is imperceptible by our senses,
it is only what is true of the most important agencies and operations.
The great powers of nature are all invisible. Gravitation, electricity,
magnetism, though constantly present, and constantly exerting their
influence; though within us, near us, and about us; though diffused
throughout all space, overspreading the surface, or penetrating the
contexture, of all bodies with which we are acquainted, depend upon
substances and actions which are totally concealed from our senses. The
Supreme Intelligence is so himself.
But whether these or any other attempts to satisfy the imagination bear
any resemblance to the truth; or whether the imagination, which, as I
have said before, is the mere slave of habit, can be satisfied or not;
when a future state, and the revelation of a future state is not only
perfectly consistent with the attributes of the Being who governs the
universe; but when it is more; when it alone removes the appearance of
contrariety which attends the operations of his will towards creatures
capable of comparative merit and demerit, of reward and punishment; when
a strong body of historical evidence, confirmed by many internal tokens
of truth and authenticity, gives us just reason to believe that such a
revelation hath actually been made; we ought to set our minds at
rest with the assurance, that in the resources of Creative Wisdom
expedients cannot be wanted to carry into effect what the Deity hath
purposed: that either a new and mighty influence will descend upon the
human world to resuscitate extinguished consciousness; or that, amidst
the other wonderful contrivances with which the universe abounds, and by
some of which we see animal life, in many instances, assuming improved
forms of existence, acquiring new organs, new perceptions, and new
sources of enjoyment, provision is also made, though by methods secret
to us (as all the great processes of nature are), for conducting the
objects of God's moral government, through the necessary changes of
their frame, to those final distinctions of happiness and misery which
he hath declared to be reserved for obedience and transgression, for
virtue and vice, for the use and the neglect, the right and the wrong
employment of the faculties and opportunities with which he hath been
pleased, severally, to intrust and to try us.
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