Who would lose the present Hour, For one that is not in his Power?  Or not be happy now he may, But for a Future Blessing stay:  Who know not he shall live a Day?

The Revelation of an Eternal Life after this, with an express Declaration of Everlasting Rewards and Punishments annex’d to our Obedience, or Disobedience, to the Law of Nature (tho’ such a Future State may be reasonably infer’d from all things happening alike to the Good, and to the Bad in this World, and from Men’s Natural desire of Immortality) is yet but a necessary inforcement of the Law of Nature to the far greatest part of Mankind, who stand in need of this knowledge, and are uncapable of an Inference so repugnant to what their Senses daily tell them in the case; and wherein the Truth asserted has scarcely ever procur’d an unwavering assent from the most rational of the Heathen Philosophers themselves.  Now the unquestionable certainty of a Future State, wherein Men shall receive Everlasting Rewards, and Punishments, we alone owe the knowledge of to Jesus Christ, who only has brought Life and Immortality to Light.  The willingest to believe the Souls Immortality were before our Saviours coming, at best, doubtful concerning it; and the generality of Mankind, were yet far less perswaded of it.

Fables indeed concerning a life hereafter (wherein there were Rewards and Punishments) the Greeks had; and from them, they were deriv’d to some other Nations; but that for Fables they were taken is evident, and we are expressly told so by Diodorus Siculus, who applauding the Honours done to Good Men at their Funerals, by the Egyptians, because of that warning and encouragement which it gave to the Living to be mindful of their Duty, says, That the Greeks, as to what concern’d the Rewards of the Just, and the Punishment of the Impious, had nothing among them but invented Fables and Poetical Fictions which never wrought upon Men for the Amendment of their Lives; but on the contrary, were despis’d and laugh’d at by them.

Whether, or no, Men should subsist after Death depending plainly upon the good Pleasure of their Maker, the Pagan World (to whom God had not reveal’d his Will herein) could not possibly have any certainty of a Life after this.  Arguments there were (as has been said) that might induce rational Men to hope for a future Existence as a thing probable; and they did so:  But the Gross of Mankind saw not the Force of these Reasonings to be perswaded thereby of a thing so inconceivable by them as that the Life of the Person was not totally extinguish’d in the Death of the Body; and a Resurrection to Life, was what they thought not of, the certainty of which, together with future Reward and Punishment, by enabling us to make a right estimate concerning what will most conduce to our happiness, plainly brings this great encouragement to our Observance of the Law of God, that it lets us see our happiness, and our Duty, are inseparably united therein; since whatever pleasure we voluntarily deprive our selves of in this World from preference of Obedience to God’s Commands, it shall be recompenced to us manifold in the World that is to come:  So that now we can find our selves in no Circumstance, wherein our Natural Desires of Happiness, or love of Pleasure, can rationally induce us to depart from the Rule of our Duty.