last eradicated. But parents and governors are, in this case, more apt to have recourse to fear than to hope (in general, I suppose with reason, because hope is too feeble to withstand the violence of the natural appetites and passions.) And it is to be added to all, that adults, by discovering, in general, much more of fear and sorrow in the apprehensions or prospect of death, than of hope and comfort, from the continuance of the causes just mentioned, propagate and increase the fear still farther in one another, and in children, infecting all around them, as is usual in other cases of the like kind. And by this means it comes to pass, that the fear of death does in some circumstances, particularly where the nervous system is, through a bodily disorder, reduced to an aptness to receive uneasy and disgustful vibrations, only or chiefly, being in a state of irritability approaching to pains, grow to a most enormous size, collecting and uniting every disagreeable idea and impression under the associations belonging to death; so that such persons live in perpetual anxiety and slavery to the fear of death. And where there is the consciousness of past guilt, or the want of an upright intention for the future, it rages with still greater fierceness, till these be removed entirely, or in part, by repentance and amendment.
It is farther to be observed, that the fear of death is much increased by the exquisiteness of the punishments threatened in a future state, and by the variety of the emblems, representations, analogies, and evidences, of natural and revealed religion, whereby all the terrors of all other things are transferred upon these punishments; also by that peculiar circumstance of the eternity of them, which seems to have been a general tradition previous to the appearance of Christianity, amongst both Jews and Pagans, and which has been the doctrine and opinion of the Christian world ever since, some very few persons excepted. The consideration of any thing that is infinite, space, time, power, knowledge, goodness, perfection, &c. quite overpowers the faculties of the soul with wonder and astonishment: and when the peculiar feeling and concern belonging to self are applied here, and excited by the word infinite, by meditation, reading, &c. we must, and we ought to be alarmed to the full extent of our capacities. And the same conclusion follows, though we should suppose the punishments of a future state not to be absolutely and metaphysically infinite. For their great exquisiteness, and long duration, which are most clearly and plainly declared in the Scriptures, make them practically so.
This is a brief sketch of the origin and progress of the fears attending the consideration of death, and a future state. We now come to inquire, how the hopes are generated.
First, then, We are to observe, that repentance, amendment, and consciousness of past virtue, and of good intentions for the future, give a title to the hopes and rewards of a future state;
