dleness!
So that labour ought only to be looked upon, as a task kindly imposed
upon us by our indulgent creator, necessary to preserve our health, our
safety, and our innocence."

I am afraid, that "the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
beginning." If God _could easily have excused us from labour_, I do not
comprehend why _he could not possibly have exempted all from poverty_.
For poverty, in its easier and more tolerable degree, is little more
than necessity of labour; and, in its more severe and deplorable state,
little more than inability for labour. To be poor is to work for others,
or to want the succour of others, without work. And the same exuberant
fertility, which would make work unnecessary, might make poverty
impossible.

Surely, a man who seems not completely master of his own opinion, should
have spoken more cautiously of omnipotence, nor have presumed to say
what it could perform, or what it could prevent. I am in doubt, whether
those, who stand highest in the _scale of being_, speak thus confidently
of the dispensations of their maker:

"For fools rush in, where angels fear to tread."

Of our inquietudes of mind, his account is still less reasonable:
"Whilst men are injured, they must be inflamed with anger; and, whilst
they see cruelties, they must be melted with pity; whilst they perceive
danger, they must be sensible of fear." This is to give a reason for all
evil, by showing, that one evil produces another. If there is danger,
there ought to be fear; but, if fear is an evil, why should there be
danger? His vindication of pain is of the same kind: pain is useful to
alarm us, that we may shun greater evils, but those greater evils must
be pre-supposed, that the fitness of pain may appear.

Treating on death, he has expressed the known and true doctrine with
sprightliness of fancy, and neatness of diction. I shall, therefore,
insert it. There are truths which, as they are always necessary, do not
grow stale by repetition

"Death, the last and most dreadful of all evils,
is so far from being one, that it is the infallible
cure for all others.

To die, is landing on some silent shore,
Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar.
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.

GARTH.

For, abstracted from the sickness and sufferings usually attending it,
it is no more than the expiration of that term of life God was pleased
to bestow on us, without any claim or merit