294 Natural Theology. 



needs light from a written word, is the immortality 

 of the soul. We have already seen from the consti- 

 tution of man that immortality is needed to make 

 him correspond in completeness to other created 

 beings. But when from the light of nature we are 

 led to admit the fact of immortality, how vague must 

 be all our conclusions respecting a world which the 

 body does not enter ! " It is a dread unknown," 

 from which we shrink almost as much as from anni- 

 hilation. Besides all this, belief in a future life, so 

 essential to the highest well-being of this life, could 

 never exist with any definiteness among the mass 

 of mankind if left to the light of nature. It needed 

 the Bible to bring life and immortality to light. It 

 was needed that the dead should be raised, and that 

 our Saviour himself should rise from the tomb, to 

 make immortality anything more than a grand phi- 

 losophical speculation. The future life as presented 

 in the Bible, is all that can be desired to satisfy the 

 wants of the whole being. The power of language 

 is exhausted in describing the blessings of that state 

 which all may enjoy. 



We have then in the Bible a guide of life which 

 the experience of all past ages has proved to be 

 the best for the progress and happiness of the 

 race. The wisdom of the present can devise 

 nothing better. We have in it a plain statement 

 of our present relations to our Creator. We have 

 not only the assurance of a future life, but its 

 conditions are so fully set forth, that nothing 

 more can be added to influence the present life, 



