fons of GOD in glory. Luke xvi. 20, 22. Judges vii. 16, 19.

Let us take a diftinct review of each of these different circumftances of the flesh & fpirit, and set them in a juft light and in due oppofition.

The body with all its bonds and nerves lies dead and movelefs, a demolish'd prison and broken fetters; the foul all life and vigour, a prifoner released from all its chains, and exulting in glorious liberty.

The body an unworthy load of earth; the foul a burden fit for an angel's wing. The body thrown under ground, and hid in darkness; the foul rifing above the skies, and fhining there in garments of light.

The body the entertainment & the contempt of worms; the foul proper company for CHRIST and his faints.

Was it not a ftroke of Divine Love that demolish'd the prifon-house, and releas'd the captive? that broke the dark earthen pitcher, and bid the lamp appear and skine?

SPECTATOR, N° 289.

On MORTALITY.

UPON taking my feat in a coffee

houfe (fays the Spectator) I often

draw

draw the eyes of the whole room upon me, when in the hotteft feafons of news, and at a time that perhaps the Dutch mail is just come in, they hear me ask the coffee-man for his last week's bill of mortality: I find that I have been fometimes taken on this occafion for a parifh fexton, fometimes for an undertaker, and fometimes for a doctor of phyfick. In this, however, I am guided by the fpirit of a philofopher, as I take occafion from hence to reflect upon the regular increase and diminution of mankind, & confider the several various ways through which we pafs from this life to eternity. I am very well pleafed with thefe weekly admonitions, that bring into my mind fuch thoughts as ought to be the daily entertainment of every reasonable creature; and can confider, with pleasure to myself, by which of those deliverances, or, as we commonly call them, diftempers, I may poffibly make an escape out of this world of forrows, into that condition of exiftence, wherein I hope to be happier than it is poffible for me at prefent to conceive.

But this is not all the ufe I make of the abovementioned weekly paper. A bill of mortality, is in my opinion an unanfwerable argument for a providence. How can

we,

X

we, without fuppofing ourselves under the conftant care of a Supreme Being, give any poffible account for that nice proportion which we find in every great city, between the deaths and births of its inhabitants, & between the number of males and that of females, who are brought into the world? what else could adjust in so exact a manner the recruits of every nation to its loffes, and divide these new fupplies of people into fuch equal bodies of both fexes? Chance could never hold the ballance with so steady a hand. Were we not counted out by an intelligent fupervifor, we fhould fometimes be overcharged with multitudes, and at others wafte away into a defart: We fhould fometimes be a populus virorum, as Florus elegantly expreffes it, a genertion of males, and at others a fpecies of women. We may extend this confideration to every fpecies of living creatures, and confider the whole animal world as an huge army made up of an innumerable corps, if I if I may use that term, whofe quota's have been kept entire near five thousand years, in fo wonderful a manner, that there is not probably a fingle fpecies loft during this long tract of time. Could we have general bills of mortality of every kind of animal,.or particular

ones

ones of every fpecies in each continent and ifland, I could almoft fay in every wood, marsh, or mountain, what aftonishing inftances would they be of that providence which watches over all its works?

I have heard of a great man in the Romifb church, who upon reading those words in the fifth chapter of Genefis, And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died; and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died; and all the days of Methufelah were nine hundred and fixty nine years, and he died; immediately fhut himfelf up in a convent, and retired from the world, as not thinking any thing in this life worth pursuing, which had not regard to another.

The truth of it is, there is nothing in hiftory which is fo improving to the reader, as thofe accounts which we meet with of the deaths of eminent perfons, and of their behaviour in that dreadful feafon. I may alfo add, that there are no parts in hiftory which affect and please the reader in fo fenfible a manner. The reason I take to be this, because there is no other fingle circumstance in the ftory of any perfon, which can poffibly be the cafe of every one who reads it. A battle or a triumph are conX 2 jectures

jectures in which not one man in a million is likely to be engaged; but when we see a perfon at the point of death, we cannot forbear being attentive to every thing he fays or does, because we are fure that fome time or other we fhall ourfelves be in the fame melancholy circumstances. The general, the statesman, or the philofopher, are perhaps characters which we may never act in; but the dying man is one whom, fooner or later, we fhall certainly resemble,

The confideration with which I fhall close this effay upon death, is one of the most ancient and most beaten morals that has been recommended to mankind. But its being fo very common, & fo univerfally received, though it takes away from it the grace of novelty, adds very much to the weight of it, as it fhews that it falls in with the general fenfe of mankind. In fhort, I would have every one confider, that he is in this life nothing more than a passenger, and that he is not to fet up his reft here, but to keep an attentive eye upon that ftate of Being to which he approaches every moment, and which will be for ever fixed and permanent. This fingle Confideration would be fufficient to extinguifh the bitterness of hatred, the thirft of avarice, and the cruelty of ambition,

I