This personality extends itself beyond present existence to what is
past, only by consciousness,- whereby it becomes concerned and
accountable; owns and imputes to itself past actions, just upon the
same ground and for the same reason as it does the present. All
which is founded in a concern for happiness, the unavoidable
concomitant of consciousness; that which is conscious of pleasure
and pain, desiring that that self that is conscious should be happy.
And therefore whatever past actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate
to that present self by consciousness, it can be no more concerned
in than if they had never been done: and to receive pleasure or
pain, i.e. reward or punishment, on the account of any such action, is
all one as to be made happy or miserable in its first being, without
any demerit at all. For, supposing a man punished now for what he
had done in another life, whereof he could be made to have no
consciousness at all, what difference is there between that punishment
and being created miserable? And therefore, conformable to this, the
apostle tells us, that, at the great day, when every one shall
"receive according to his doings, the secrets of all hearts shall be
laid open." The sentence shall be justified by the consciousness all
persons shall have, that they themselves, in what bodies soever they
appear, or what substances soever that consciousness adheres to, are
the same that committed those actions, and deserve that punishment for
them.
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