[55] The general consideration of a future state of punishment, most evidently belongs to the subject of natural religion. But if any of these reflections should be thought to relate more peculiarly to this doctrine, as taught in Scripture, the reader is desired to observe, that Gentile writers, both moralists and poets, speak of the future punishment of the wicked, both as to the duration and degree of it, in a like manner of expression and of description, as the Scripture does. So that all which can positively be asserted to be matter of mere revelation, with regard to this doctrine, seems to be, that the great distinction between the righteous and the wicked, shall be made at the end of this world; that each shall _then_ receive according to his deserts. Reason did, as it well might, conclude that it should, finally and upon the whole, be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked: but it could not be determined upon any principles of reason, whether human creatures might not have been appointed to pass through other states of life and being, before that distributive justice should finally and effectually take place. Revelation teaches us, that the next state of things after the present is appointed for the execution of this justice; that it shall be no longer delayed; but _the mystery of God_, the great mystery of his suffering vice and confusion to prevail, _shall then be finished_; and he will _take to him his great power and will reign_, by rendering to every one according to his works. [56] [Our language furnishes no finer specimens of the argument analogical. Butler here seizes the very points, which are most plausible and most insisted on, as showing the harshness and unreasonableness of Christianity; and overthrows them at a stroke by simply directing attention to the same things, in the universally observed course of nature.] [57] Chap. i. [58] See chaps. iv. and vi. [59] [This chapter, more than any other, carries the force of positive argument. If in this world, we have _proofs_ that God is a moral governor, then in order to evince that we shall be under moral government _hereafter_, we have only to supply an intermediate consideration,--viz.: that God, as such, must be unchangeable. The argument, as just remarked, assumes a substantive form, because admitted facts, as to this world, exhibiting the very _principles_ on which God’s government goes at present, compel us not only to _suppose_ that the principles of God will remain, but to _believe_ so.] [60] Chap. ii.