Thus, when we go out of this world, we may pass into new scenes, and a new state of life and action, just as naturally as we came into the present. And this new state may naturally be a social one.[44] And the advantages of it, advantages, of every kind, may naturally be bestowed, according to some fixed general laws of wisdom, upon every one in proportion to the degrees of his virtue. And though the advantages of that future natural state should not be bestowed, as these of the present in some measure are, by the will of the society; but entirely by his more immediate action, upon whom the whole frame of nature depends: yet this distribution may be just as natural, as their being distributed here by the instrumentality of men. Indeed, though one should allow any confused undetermined sense, which people please to put upon the word _natural_, it would be a shortness of thought scarce credible, to imagine, that no system or course of things can be so, but only what we see at present:[45] especially whilst the probability of a future life, or the natural immortality of the soul, is admitted upon the evidence of reason; because this is really both admitting and denying at once, a state of being different from the present to be natural. But the only distinct meaning of that word is, _stated_, _fixed_, or _settled_; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, _i.e._ to effect it continually, or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once. Hence it must follow, that persons’ notion of what is natural, will be enlarged in proportion to their greater knowledge of the works of God, and the dispensations of his providence. Nor is there any absurdity in supposing, that there may be beings in the universe, whose capacities, and knowledge, and views, may be so extensive, as that the whole Christian dispensation may to them appear natural, _i.e._ analogous or conformable to God’s dealings with other parts of his creation; as natural as the visible known course of things appears to us. For there seems scarce any other possible sense to be put upon the word, but that only in which it is here used; similar, stated, or uniform.