Faculties and Desires.  He can have no greater Pleasure from a bare Review of his Works, than from the Survey of his own Ideas, but we may be assured that he is well pleased in the Satisfaction derived to Beings capable of it, and, for whose Entertainment, he hath erected this immense Theatre.  Is not this more than an Intimation of our Immortality?  Man, who when considered as on his Probation for a happy Existence hereafter is the most remarkable Instance of Divine Wisdom; if we cut him off from all Relation to Eternity, is the most wonderful and unaccountable Composition in the whole Creation.  He hath Capacities to lodge a much greater Variety of Knowledge than he will be ever Master of, and an unsatisfied Curiosity to tread the secret Paths of Nature and Providence:  But, with this, his Organs, in their present Structure, are rather fitted to serve the Necessities of a vile Body, than to minister to his Understanding; and from the little Spot to which he is chained, he can frame but wandering Guesses concerning the innumerable Worlds of Light that encompass him, which, tho’ in themselves of a prodigious Bigness, do but just glimmer in the remote Spaces of the Heavens; and, when with a great deal of Time and Pains he hath laboured a little way up the steep Ascent of Truth, and beholds with Pity the groveling Multitude beneath, in a Moment, his Foot slides, and he tumbles down headlong into the Grave.

Thinking on this, I am obliged to believe, in Justice to the Creator of the World, that there is another State when Man shall be better situated for Contemplation, or rather have it in his Power to remove from Object to Object, and from World to World; and be accommodated with Senses, and other Helps, for making the quickest and most amazing Discoveries.  How doth such a Genius as Sir Isaac Newton, from amidst the Darkness that involves human Understanding, break forth, and appear like one of another Species!  The vast Machine, we inhabit, lyes open to him, he seems not unacquainted with the general Laws that govern it; and while with the Transport of a Philosopher he beholds and admires the glorious Work, he is capable of paying at once a more devout and more rational Homage to his Maker.  But alas! how narrow is the Prospect even of such a Mind? and how obscure to the Compass that is taken in by the Ken of an Angel; or of a Soul but newly escaped from its Imprisonment in the Body!  For my Part, I freely indulge my Soul in the Confidence of its future Grandeur; it pleases me to think that I who know so small a portion of the Works of the Creator, and with slow and painful Steps creep up and down on the Surface of this Globe, shall e’er long shoot away with the Swiftness of Imagination, trace out the hidden Springs of Nature’s Operations, be able to keep pace with the heavenly Bodies in the Rapidity of their Career, be a Spectator of the long Chain of Events in the natural and Moral Worlds, visit the several Apartments of the Creation,