Читать книгу Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader - Benj. N. Martin - Страница 59

The argument from the moral nature of man is made still more impressive by the superiority of its design and object. If there is no existence for man beyond the present state, what can we suppose to be the design of his Creator in forming him a moral being? What powers, what capacities are involved in his nature! What capacity to enjoy, and what power to impart happiness to others! Who can reflect on the nature of such a creature, his intelligence, his susceptibility, his will, his conscience, the dignity, the excellence of which he is capable, the moral victories and triumphs he may win, his fitness to hold on his way with archangels, strong in advancing all that good which infinite wisdom could devise, and infinite benevolence could love, the graces with which he may be adorned, and the beatitudes with which he may be blessed, and not believe that he is made to be one with the God who has created him—a partaker of his blessedness, a companion of his eternity.

If we consider what an almost total failure there is, even on the part of every good man, to attain in any respect the great end of his creation; how weak in resolution and feeble in heart—how little success in subduing his passions and governing his temper—how much of life is spent before he even begins to live in obedience to the demands of duty and of conscience—how remote he is from the uniform and settled tranquility of perfect virtue—what dissatisfaction he feels with, the present, unappeased by all the world can offer—what an Impatience and disgust with the littleness of all he finds—what an ever-restless aspiration after nobler and higher things—what anticipations and hopes from futurity never realized, here on earth—how does our spirit labor under a sense of the incongruity between his attainments and his powers! and, unless there is a future state, what an insignificance is imparted to all that can be called virtue here on earth, and also to man himself!

[Footnote 9: An eminent Congregational divine, long professor of theology in Tale College, and distinguished by the vigor and originality of his thinking.]

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=Edward Hitchcock, 1793–1804.= (Manual, p. 532.)

From "The Religion of Geology."