cure this any more than any other Bodily Diseases and he that is afflicted with them must bear them as he would the Gout or Stone or any other Disease that is incident to us but since these affect the Mind more and the Mind also by its close Union and Re-action upon the Body does in great measure raise and excite or abate and allay those therefore it is a great part of Human Vertue and a proper Work of Religion to take as much care as can be of those natural Passions which are caused in 〈◊〉 those different Humours and Temperaments of Body for all Anger and First and the other Bodily Passions that are so troublesome both to our selves and others arise from them The Soul is the same in all Men not more inclined to any of those Passions by its Original make and nature than the contrary they all arise from our Body and our lower Nature and are the results of that and therefore they are in Brutes we often see as well as Men but the Soul by being Vitally united to the Body has a Preception and Sensation of them and such thoughts are necessarily caused in it by them Now neither the first motions of the Body nor first thoughts of the Soul upon them are sinful because they are both necessary but the Soul has a Power within it self either to consent or not consent to these Bodily Motions and Inclinations which we call Passions and this Principle of the Soul we call the Will I do not mean a power to consent to their first rising or not rising in us that is often necessary and unavoidable and so not within the power of the Soul but perfectly unvoluntary but then whether it shall continue such a thought that is excited upon such a Passion at least continue it so far as to approve and like it and consent to it and put it into Act if it can and actually execute it and let it produce any outward and lasting Effects this is in the power of the Soul and herein lies the great Exercise of its Virtues in governing and subduing the Passions and mortifying the carnal Lusts and Bodily Inclinations if it yields to those so as to commit any Unlawfull Actions or any sin in pursuance of them then it fulfills the Lusts of the Flesh and walks after the Flesh and is carnal and carnally minded in St. Paul's phrase Rom. 8.6 but if thro' the Spirit and by help of Religion it does mortify these deeds of the Body it shall live v. 13. If it suffer no sin to reign in its mortal Body nor give way to those Passions and Lusts so as to commit sin by them but with the greatest care and pains keep them within the bounds of Reason and Religion then it does Crucisie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts Galat. 5.24 not that they must become quite dead and extinct so that we feel no motions of them no they may remain in the best and most regenerate Man as to some inward motions of Concupiscence but they are not sinfull unless they conceive i.e. are consented to in the heart and bring forth sin in the life James 1.15 Now Religion is so to Govern and keep under all these Passions and bodily inclinations that they run not into Sin but it cannot quite cut them up and extirpate them it is to improve and perfect Nature by Grace but not to destroy it These Passions therefore caused by those Bodily Humours and Tempers which we are naturally inclined to these which are one of the greatest causes of the troubles and disorders of the mind and which bring the greatest Uneasiness and Perturbation to it and rob it of that Evenness and Calmness and Tranquility which is the great Happiness of it these Religion cannot so wholly remove and take away as that we should be perfectly free from them and from all the motions and risings of them but it will and must so far subdue and conquer them as that they neither have Sinful and Unlawful Effects upon others nor so far disorder our selves as to spoil and destroy the Peace and Rest and Quiet of our minds I do not mean that they should never disturb us for so they will a little as often as we feel them but not to that degree as to take away the Peace and Tranquillity of our mind and to destroy the habit and temper of it if they do we can never be Happy with them How Religion cures them and to what degree it must overcome them I shall consider afterwards at present I shall only observe that Religion does not wholly destroy and root them up nor alter our bodily Temper and Constitution but a good Man still lies open to the first motions of Anger Peevishness Melancholy and the like and may never be quite otherwise any more than alter his Complexion or his Stature and make his Hair White or black but he may have Peace in his Mind and Rest in his Soul notwithstanding that in the rational Frame and Habit and Temper of it founded upon the Hopes and Principles of Religion these are troublesome and uneasie to him and will also affect his Mind as well as any other bodily Pain and Disease but yet his Rest and Tranquility may be consistent with both those for 't is a rational intellectual Sense and Perception in the Soul which depends upon Principles and Rules and not upon mere Temper and Mechanism of body for then ill Weather as well as an ill body would alter and destroy it I come now to show how we may attain it which is the most considerable thing of all and when we have if we shall better understand it than by any other account of it like Health we know what it is tho' we cannot so well describe it and like ease and pleasure we can best Judge of it by feeling it 'T is as Tully calls it sanitas animi the Health and Soundness and good Temper of the Soul and when the Soul wants it it is Sick and under a Disease in Pain and Disorder We all know how good and sweet a thing health and ease is both of Body and Mind so that there need not many words to commend them how to get it and preserve it and recover it when it is lost is the greatest Question Our Saviour here tells us we may find rest to our Souls and obtain this Peace and Tranquility of mind I shall consider what the means are and by what ways Religion does effect this in the following particulars 1. Religion teaches us that Happiness lies chiefly in our Mind that that is the proper seat of it and that it lies not in things without us but is a Treasure in our own Breasts something within ourselves which belongs to our Souls and consists in the Perfection Improvement and Enjoyment of them this is in other words called the Salvation of the Soul restoring it to its lost Happiness and freeing it from the
Resurrection Why should it be thought a thing incredible with us and especially with any curious searcher of Nature that God should raise the dead 2. If we take in the almighty Power and Wisdom of God this will remove all the difficulty and incredibility that seems to be in the thing So that the very first principle of Religion will make all the difficulty of the Resurrection vanish the considering that there is an infinite Being who has power sufficient to do every thing that implies not a contradiction and is not in the nature of the thing utterly impossible or contrary to some standing and fundamental principle of truth and certainty nor does any way reflect upon his other perfections of Wisdom Justice and Goodness this will make the whole thing very easie to us for how easie will it be to him who put every part of matter into that regular order that constitutes the Heavens above and earth below and all Plants and Animals that are upon it he who founded the Earth by his power and stretched out the Heavens by his understanding as the Scripture speaks He who telleth the number of the Stars and calleth them all by their names as the Psalmist expresses it Ps 147.4 He who made and moved and knows and permeates every part of matter that is in the vast Creation and ranks and orders it in its due place how cannot he put and bring together all the scattered parts of our dead bodies He from whom our substance was not hid when we were made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the Earth Psam 139.15 whose Eyes did see our substance yet being unperfect and in whose Book were all our members written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them v. 16. how cannot he also as easily know and rejoin all the parts and members of our corrupted bodies He by whom the very hairs of our heads are numbred how easie will it be for him to know the body of every man and every part and Member of that body he who gives life to every little Creature and to those innumerable Animals that are in the World who preserves so many thousand Essences by a continual influx derived from himself and has millions of Angels and other Souls who live and move and have their several beings in him In a word he who made and preserves all things by a word of his mouth and needs nothing but the mere willing of a thing to make it how great is this our Lord and of great power his understanding is insinite Psal 147.5 and he can do any thing that implyes not a contradiction nor is contrary to the reason and nature of things nor contrary to his own other perfections of Wisdom Justice and Goodness as I shall show briefly the Resurrection is not 1. Then there is no incapacity in the subject nor no contradiction in the nature of the thing to make the Resurrection incredible A dead body is no more uncapable of life than a body at rest is of motion or than a torch put out is of being kindled again and the soul may as well be united to it afterwards as is was at first It may be brought into it when raised from the Grave by the same Laws of the Universe or the same vital Congruity by which it came into it when it was first formed and every soul may as well be directed to its own body then as it was before the greatest difficulty in the subject is this That the parts of the body are so scattered and divided in several places and made the parts perhaps of other bodies that its hard to conceive how they should all come together and be united to their proper bodies but tho' they are scattered they are not lost every Atom be it never so small is still to be found in the vast mass of matter and whatever alterations it may have past thro' yet has its being and subsistence some where in the World and so may with Power and Wisdom be put together again like the many little pins and small pieces of a great Machine tho' they are all taken to pieces and misplaced yet they may all be set together again by a skilfull hand Every part of matter is pervaded and fill'd with a spirit that governs all its motions and knows the minutest particles of it and can range and order them as it pleaseth and there is nothing hid from the power thereof There is not the least appearance of a contradiction for a thing that was destroyed or dispersed to become the same it was before it seems nothing so hard as for a thing to be that was not before So that the Resurrection cannot be thought by any so incredible as the Creation and he that is but a Theist and owns natural Religion cannot with reason stick or boggle at this Article of Revelation and he that believes an Almighty Power could make all things out of nothing need not doubt his power to make a thing what it was before 2. Neither is the Resurrection contrary to any certain principle of truth which the God of truth has established in the nature and reason of things if it were it could be no object of Divine power for God's power must not destroy the truth of things there are certain principles of truth and knowledge which must be kept inviolable or else we run into boundless Scepticism and can never know any thing to be true or false and therefore we must not call in the Almighty power to destroy those as the Papists do in Transubstantiation which must be as certainly false as we can know any thing to be certainly true so that neither infallibility can uphold it nor infinite power effect it without destroying those certain principles by which we can know any thing to be true by destroying the nature and properties of a body by making the whole no greater than a part by taking away all evidence of sense about its proper objects and if we remove those we have no way left to know whether any thing be true or false But the Resurrection is no way liable to any such absurdities nor is it in the least contrary to any certain and natural principles of truth for then it would be not only incredible but absolutely false and impossible to be true no Article of Christian Faith is or can be so but as we say tho' it be above our reason yet is not against it The blessed Trinity in Unity tho' it be of another nature of an infinite and incomprehensible being which may communicate it self in such a manner as we know not yet however it be too big for our Conception is not contradictory to any thing we certainly know to be true and tho' it be an Idea by it self it destroys none of those Idea's we have of other things 3. That the Resurrection is no way inconsistent with any of the Divine
from Heaven 2 Cor. 5.2 What more fit than that the materials of this house should be taken out of its former body tho' greatly improved and advanced as I shall show immediately who can tell what proper pleasures God shall fit for our bodies and make them such noble Organs for the Soul as shall be mighty useful to it and who knows whether that can enjoy all that alone without the body as with it and that there is not some new faculty or satisfaction resulting from its animating and being united to a body the Scripture representing the happiness of the other state not to be compleat till the general Resurrection God alone can tell what faculties and powers are fit for his Creatures in any state and while we are in this we can know no more what is proper for us in the other than an Embryo not yet born can conceive what it shall need when it comes into the world were it not absolutely necessary yet it seems very agreeable to Justice to have both the body and soul that were partners in Sin or Vertue to be sharers in the rewards of it And if Christ the Captain of our Salvation is to be perfect Man as well as perfect God in Heaven and his glorious body is probably to be the visible Shechinah of Heaven it self the bodies of all good Christians ought to rise and attend him and be partakers with him of the same Glory that so human Nature even in its weakest and frailest part may eternally triumph over death and the grave and over him who had the power of both 5. And Lastly To take off the incredibility of the Resurrectionn let us consider how far the body that is raised is to be the same with that which is buried and corrupted We must not be too rigorous and exact in insisting upon the same body if we be we cannot be said to have the same body two days together Our bodies are always in flow and several parts of them are always going off by insensible Transpiration and others come in the place of them like a River we call it the same tho' its Water be always running and passing away and scarce any drop of it be exactly the same the next Tide or as we call that the same flame of a Candle all the while it is burning which yet is wasted every moment and supplied with other new parts of oyl so we have the same body in our old Age that we had in our Youth And this very body of ours that was some time animated by our Souls that this shall rise again the Scripture is too plain to have it denied as it is by the Socinians the very word Resurrection supposes it to be in some sense the same body and they which rise again are said to be the same that were asleep and lay in their graves so that if we had quite another new body given us at the day of Judgment this might be said to be new made or created but not to rise again But yet it is not necessary that every part of matter which made up this Body of ours at our Death and was buried in the same Grave should go to the making up of our raised bodies It is sufficient if this Earthly body of ours which we had in this World be the seed or seminal body as it were of the Resurrection body out of some part of which it is as truly raised as the new Corn or Fruit is out of the Corn or Kernell which was set or sowed so the Apostle gives us an account of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.36 37 38. in answer to that question How are the dead raised up or with what bodies do they come i. e. how are those whose parts have been so variously mixt with other bodies and turned into the substance perhaps of other men whose very bodies are again to be raised how shall every part of these men be raised up when perhaps several men might have parts of the same body and therefore in the Resurrection whose body shall it be since many had some of it to be their body and with what body shall every one come if it must be exactly the same and yet that is so very hard if not some time impossible To this the Apostle answers Thou Fool that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die and that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body which shall be but bare Grain it may chance of Wheat or some other Grain But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him and to every seed his own body God does give every Man his own body but not so exactly the same as not to be at all altered but as a building is the same which is repaired tho' with a great many other materials and as an ear of Corn is the same with its seed tho' it has taken in a good quantity of the moisture of the Earth and turned it into its own body Those who have curiously examined the Anatomy of Plants and Seeds tell us that in the little Gemm or Eye of the Seed is contained the whole draught and the perfect Stamina of the Plant with its bark and leaves and fruit and all the lines of it exactly drawn in little which are after to be fill'd up and extended by the heat of the Sun and moisture of the Earth And if so little a seed or kernel can contain all the parts of a large stalk or great tree who knows how much of our present bodies may be sufficient to raise the same bodies out of again and how small a part of this corruptible matter may be the Embryo as it were of our Heavenly bodies It is certain these our bodies shall be so much altered that that which is sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption and that which is now a natural body shall be then a spiritual not that it shall be turned into a spirit and lose its corporeal nature but that it shall be refined and made pliable to the Soul and Spirit and to all its motions and stand in no need of those things that belong to the animal life And yet it may still be the same body for all those new modes and qualities as a Jewel is the same substance of the Earth which was once a common fluid and is now turned into an Orient Pearl and the most clear Crystal Glass is the same matter that was before Sand and Ashes The best Philosophy tells us there is no specifick difference in matter but it is the same in substance tho' its outward figure colour and other accidents be altered which are but several modifications of the same matter and I can conceive God as easily to change these our mortal corruptible bodies into immortal and incorruptible ones as he turns the substance that every Animal eats into blood and spirits and the moisture and filth of the Earth that nourishes every flower and fruit into the
and Philosophy who expose the articles of revealed Religion and especially this of the Resurrection I shall endeavour to vindicate Christianity and to make good St. Paul's question to them of old Why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead or what that question plainly implys The Resurrection is not in it self an incredible thing And this I shall do by these following considerations 1. There are a great many other things which we see and know to be true and have no manner of doubt of which if we consider and endeavour to give account of them they seem as puzling and difficult to our reason as the Resurrection 2. If we take in the almighty power and infinite Wisdom of God this will remove all the difficulty and incredibility that seems to be in the Resurrection 3. We must take in this the power and wisdom of God or else we cannot be able to give account not only of the Resurrection but not of any the most commonland ordinary appearance in nature 4. Our not knowing the particular uses and purposes that our bodies shall serve for after they are raised should not make the Resurrection incredible to us 5. If we consider how far the body which is raised is to be the same with that which is buried and corrupted we shall not think it so incredible that God should raise the dead 1. There are a great many other things c. These unbelieving Sadduces and wary Philosophers who dare not let their thoughts go beyond visible nature nor step any thing farther into revelation than reason shall guide and go along with them may yet find a great many things there as puzling and unaccountable as the Resurrection and which they would think as incredible too were they not common and frequent They cannot imagine how a body when it has been corrupted many years and turned into dust and all its parts separated and divided and mixt with a great many other things should have all those again united and brought together into the same vital frame and lively Compages and can they imagine how this body of theirs could be formed at first and have all its various and different parts made out of a principle as unlikely for an humane body to rise out of at first as out of the dust afterwards Can they comprehend how the Pullus or Chick should be hatch'd out of the Egg how the Colliquamentum should be set on moving and the Cicatricula begin the first race of life and what should guide the unthinking matter to draw every vital part without any error and besides all other things how Bones and Claws and Feathers should grow out of a mere fluid As well one would think might we conceive a Ship with its Keel Sails and all its Tackling to be made out of the Water in which it sloats and the strongest Castles to be built if not in the air yet out of it as all the strong and solid parts of an Animals Body its Bones and Muscles and Cartilages to be formed as they are Thou who thinkest it incredible for a dead and corrupted body to arise again thou wouldst think it as incredible to have any animals body formed as it is if there were not every day a thousand instances of it Thou who knowest not how that can be done knowest as little what is the way of the spirit as the wise man speaks Eccles 11.5 or how life is first given to the Embryo or how the Bone do grow in the Womb Nay thou as little knowest the manner how this body of ours can be nourished and repaired how that which is in continual flux by perspiration and has some of its parts dying as it were and departing every moment so that we are not the same in a less time than every seven years how this should be made new and the Milky Chyle repair all the wasted parts of the Body and consequently be turned into Bones and Sinews it 's not easie to account even for this daily Resurrection as it were and continual restoring of our decaying bodies But I need send these doubters and unbelievers of the Resurrection only to that Emblem of it which the Apostle has given 1 Cor. 15. that of Corn sown or buried in the ground which seems there first to die and corrupt and then it passes through abundance of alterations shoots into a stringy root and grassy top grows into a stem a stalk an ear and some of the least of Seeds waxes a great Tree so that the Fowls of the air may lodge in the branches of it and yet these after they are so altered and quite lost one would think in the various Metamorphoses they have passed thro' have every Seed it s own body given it again as the Apostle expresses it 1 Cor. 15.37 and rise as it were again the very same sort and species tho' it be mixt with a thousand others This seems almost as strange if we reflect upon it as the Resurrection of our bodies after all their corruptions and alterations and it might be thought as incredible too if it were not frequent and familiar to us As there are a great many appearances in nature which tho' common and unregarded yet to those who are strangers to them they seem impossible and no way to be believed The works of God and Nature have so much of wonder in them beyond all humane Conception and Understanding that if they were not daily before our Eyes we should think them as incredible as those difficult matters which some complain of in Revelation But I need offer but one Phaenomenon of Nature to represent the Resurrection by And that is that Revolution of Nature which we call the Spring which is the general Resurrection as it were of terrestrial nature in which after it has grown old and hoary in Winter dead as it were and stiff with cold and every part of it was shrunk and crept into its grave and been lock'd up there as in a cold Sepulchre yet how in the spring does it recover life again how is a vigorous warmth diffused into it and how on a sudden is all the beauty and gayety all the strength and vigor the health and fruitfullness of youth bestowed upon it every Plant and Herb and Flower revives and flourishes and puts on as it were a new and glorious body and yet every one it s own body And how this should be and how every dry tree should bloom and blossom and have life and say conveyed to its withered branches and the same juice turned into leaves and buds and fruit of so many kinds This seems as strange as how dry Bones should live and how flesh and sinews should again come upon a Skeleton Ezek. 37.8 and all we who daily see these wonderfull things before our Eyes these constant Miracles of Nature which if we consider and endeavour to give account of are as puzling and difficult as the
perfections which are the bounds also which the Divine power can never violate is so plain that it rather seems to follow and be fairly inferred from them for what more agreeable to Gods goodness than as that he gave us our Souls at first and put those Souls into curious and well framed bodies which are the other part of Humane Nature which makes us to be Men and Beings of such a rank and order in the Creation so that he should continue the same entire nature to us as long as he is pleased to continue us in being It wou'd be a charge methinks upon the Wisdom of God that he should give Man so curious a body above any other Creatures and yet suffer that to continue and last a much shorter time than the bodies of many other not only Animals but Plants and Trees do if he did not design that this noble fabrick should be rebuilt and repaired again after death and that the Soul should have a longer term of aboad in it afterwards and in reversion than it enjoys in this present life It would seem strange if these two Friends should be so closely and intimately united here but for a few days if they were not to meet again and dwell together for ever and that God should make us of such a compound nature in this life and of a quite other nature in the next this would not be to keep that wise order and regular course of thing that he does in the whole System of the Creation As to the Divine Justice that seems to be more exactly answered by raising the same bodies without which we are hardly the same persons that every one may receive in his body according to that he has done whether it be good or bad as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 5.10 that not only the same Souls but the same Bodies which have either glorified God by Suffering or any other Vertue or have been the Instrument of any sin should be glorified or tormented in another World and that the whole of Humane Nature and not only a part of it which the Soul is should be made capable of the everlasting rewards and punishments that are proper to it The Resurrection then is every way consistent with the perfections of the Divine Nature and is no way contrary to any natural principle of truth nor implys any contradiction in it and therefore is a proper object of God's Almighty Power and by the help of that may be easily effected and accounted for 4. And without this power of God nothing else can be effected in nature we must take in this not only to give an account of the Resurrection but of every thing else we see done before us and of every effect and appearance in the visible World how we were made at first and how our bodies were formed is as perfectly unaccountable without taking in the Divine Power and Wisdom as how we shall rise again and so is every other Mystery of nature if we well consider it and follow and trace it thro' all second causes it will necessarily bring us to the first and we must resolve all at last into the Power and Wisdom of that How we move our bodies by the thought of our minds we know no more than how God shall raise them what directs the spirits into such Tracts and Muscles and by what pullies they draw up the heavy parts is so admirable a Mechanism that it requires the same Divine Wisdom as to raise the dead how we live how we think and how we speak is to a Philosopher as curious and as secret as how we shall rise every thing indeed is so in the Volume of Nature which has the plainest Characters of Divine Power and Wisdom every where writ upon it as being to teach every one that there is a God To look upward we see the Sun shines but can we tell what light is or how it streams from the Sun to our Eye how such a mass of sire should so long hold together without being quenched or lessened do we know how the Stars are sixt to their Orbs how those glistering gemms are set and fastned to the fluid firmament can we imagine what Pillars there are upon which the Earth is founded and what it is supports the heavy Globe and keeps it from sinking what it is that poizes and makes it swim in the liquid Aether and keeps it at so just and exact a distance from the heavenly Bodies so as to be neither frozen nor burnt up and can we be able to know what it is makes their motions so regular and harmonious so usefull and serviceable to the World what guides their mighty bodies in such even Tracts what draws the crooked Zodiac for the Sun or Earth to move in and keeps the violent and rapid matter from going on in an infinite streight line or some other way sallying and running out of order Can any man who justly considers these things give any account of them without a wise God and Almighty Intelligence not only a Sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father as our Saviour speaks Matth. 10.29 but not a stone can sall thither nor a spark fly upwards however necessary and natural that be without such a frame and such laws of matter and motion as nothing but a wise Being can establish or cause to be observed Why matter is thus figured and disposed and why such effects come from it we cannot tell as why grass is green blood red and not the quite contrary as we cannot of our selves make one hair white or black as our Saviour saith so neither can we tell why it is so but every Phaenomenon must at last be resolved into the Will and Wisdom of the first cause and thither all true Philosophy must bring us and the same Divine Power is requir'd in every the most common effect of Nature as in the Resurrection But 5. Our not fully knowing the uses and designs our bodies shall serve for after they are rais'd should not make the Resurrection incredible to us What use some say will there be of the body in another World when the Soul alone is capable of the rewards of it I answer who can tell but the body may be of extraordinary use to us in another World perhaps it is a necessary part of Humane Nature and we are not our whole selves without it perhaps the Soul is never to be quite naked and wholly stript of all matter and bodily indowment and that it is cloathed with a thinner Vehicle when it puts off the thicker and grosser flesh perhaps no Beings in the World but God himself are to be pure spirits which was a very ancient opinion of some wise Men perhaps the Angels themselves have material vestures of a slaming fire and a resplendent brightness as they used always to appear and if the Human Souls are not to be uncloathed but cloathed upon with our house which is
most beauteous colour and most delicate tast Cannot he give the Soul a shining and a glorious body even out of this corruptible one as well as he made the Sun and Stars and all those luminous bodies out of the dark and gloomy Chaos Cannot he make our bodies to shine as the Stars of glory as well as the Stars themselves which tho' Heavenly bodies yet are of the same substance with Earthly matter Cannot he make our bodies which are now a clog and burden to the Soul to be but like so many fiery Chariots to carry us up to Heaven or like so many Wings to move us nimbly where-ever we please and fleet us thro' all the Heavenly Regions that are above Cannot he do this as well as he has given Wings to the flame and made that which arises out of smoak and foot to cast forth rays and lustre and mount upwards The glorified bodies of Men or Angels are generally in Scripture compared to flame and light their countenance is then like lightning and their raiment white as snow as the Angel is described Mat. 28.3 and as our Saviour when his body was transfigured his face did shine as the Sun and his raiment was white as the light Mat. 17.2 and so shall the bodies of good Men after the Resurrection be turned into such pure and glorious bodies that they shall raise splendour and beauty all about them which tho' it be a great transmutation yet by many the like instances I have given is neither impossible nor incredible to conceive The bodies indeed of wicked Men will be very much altered and lose their animal and mortal nature but they will be gross and heavy and sink their Souls into the regions of Hell and Darkness they will be like so many dismal and filthy Dungeons to keep the Soul in chains of everlasting Darkness or like so many poisoned shirts like that of Hercules that will scorch and inflame and torture them beyond expression and sticking close to them burn them with poisonous flames and fill them with the perpetual stench of sire and brimstone How the bodies of wicked men may be made the Instruments of torment to their Souls is easie to imagine from the exquisite pains they often give them here from whence we may conceive how they may be contrived to be the dreadfull racks of eternal death where the miserable wretches may be always suffering the pains of death without dying and on which they may be made to lie for ever raging and gnawing their Tongues for pain and blaspheming the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores to wit of their bodies as they are described Revel 16.10 And here I could stop and offer one thought to those who are so fond and tender of their bodies here who are for indulging them in every Lust and every Pleasure and think Happiness lieth in the mere delights of the body what they will think of having these pretious parts these dear bodies thus eternally and exquisitely tormented for the sake of a few paulcry sins which are but for a moment but having defended and consirmed this article of our Christian Faith the Resurrection of our bodies I must name but one general use of it and that is Let us all of us so live as if we heartily believed it without making any the least doubt in our minds about it let no mists of Infidelity overcast this Faith of ours which as it is certain by Revelation so is far you see from being incredible by reason which was the point I was to consider and make out It is a great satisfaction to ease our thoughts from some difficulties about it and have the understanding as the eye see things clearly without a film over it But these articles of faith are not only for Contemplation and the Entertainment of our reason but like Principles and Theorems in other Sciences they are to be made use of in practice and to be drawn out and improved into use and action no truth in Religion no Article of Faith is worth making out or proving or satisfying our selves about if it be not some way or other usefull to the practice of Religion and be not influential to the making us good and vertuous in our lives but the Resurrection has such a direct and immediate tendency to do this as it carries in it the assurance of a future state both of Soul and Body that if we fully believe it and are undoubtedly perswaded of it it will do its own work and will necessarily promote Vertue and Religion and be effectual upon all our lives did not a secret Scepticism and Insidelity which is the Vice of our Age hinder and defeat the power of it Let the belief of it therefore be firm and unshaken upon our minds and let the efficacy of it be powerfull upon our Lives and Conversations there is nothing more incredible in the thing that our bodies should rise hereafter than that they were once formed and born there may be difficulties perhaps equal in the account of both but as no Man doubts the one so he that well considers will have no reason to dis-believe the other or to think it incredible that God should raise the dead Let it raise us to thoughts and to things above whither Christ is raised and where he sits with his glorious body at God's right hand Let us often ascend thither in our minds now whither we hope to ascend hereafter with our bodies as well as our Souls Let us consider that these Bodies of ours as well as our Souls were made for higher designs and better enjoyments then any here of this World and that they ought to be the subjects of Purity and Vertue now as they are to be of Happiness hereafter The Resurrection will raise our minds to a great many noble thoughts if we throughly consider it and really believe it and I hope we may be satisfied by what has been said The Twelfth Sermon HEB. III. 13. latter part Lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin THE Author of this Epistle advises in this Chapter those Jewish Christians he wrote to to take care that they fell not into that sad state and temper of mind their forefathers were in in the time of Moses Not to harden their heart now as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness v. 8. when tho' they saw the mighty works of God forty years and had daily Miracles before their Eyes and were fed and maintained by them and lived under a constant dispensation of them yet still a spirit of Insidelity and Obstinacy was amongst them and their hearts were hardned and they would not hearken unto God nor obey his voice but were kept out of the good Land by reason of their monstrous and unreasonable belief so it was also in the times of our Saviour when notwithstanding all his many Miracles done before their Eyes they were yet
Happiness Riches and Honours and Pleasures which we so fondly admire and esteem and pursue after as the happiest things that are to be enjoyed and think those are not in earnest or only envious and ill-natur'd because they cannot attain them who speak otherwise of them Our Saviour proposes no Worldly advantages to his followers but rather the quite contrary and yet he Preaches happiness to them even at present and joyns the Beatitudes and the Christian Vertues together in his Sermon as inseparable Companions and tho' he left his Apostles in a World full of afflictions and seeming miseries yet he tells them he leaves his Peace with them John 14.27 Such a Peace as was proper for him to give and them to receive not as the World giveth but such an one as should have this effect upon them as that their hearts should not be troubled nor be afraid that no evils should disturb or take away this Peace of mind that in him they might have Peace tho' in the World they had tribulation John 16.33 and that they might always be of good cheer because he had overcome the World 'T is a great thing which he here offers to Mankind be they never so weary and oppress'd with cares and troubles labour under never so many seeming evils and afflictions here have never such great loads and oppressions upon their Minds and Spirits that make them uneasie to themselves and very miserable within that if they come to his Religion and take his Yoke upon them follow the Rules and precepts of his Doctrine and become of such a temper and spirit as he was that they shall certainly meet with ease and comfort relief and refreshment And ye shall sind rest to your Souls This Rest and Tranquility of Mind is the greatest Happiness in the World what Philosophy aimed and pursued after what we should endeavour to attain above every thing and what if we once perfectly reach nothing could ever make us the least miserable what alone is worth seeking after by all the Rules of Philosophy and Religion and without which nothing is worth aiming or seeking after and lastly what Christ and Christianity propose and can bring us to How and by what ways they do it or what is the best means to attain it shall be my chief business to shew as to what it is or wherein it consists that we know better by inward sensation or preception than by any description or Ideas of it we feel what ease is both in Mind and Body and we have a quick Sense of pain and uneasiness in both Indolency of Body and Tranquility of Mind are known by all to be great and desirable things The pleasures of our compounded nature and such as have a near Analogy and Resemblance with one another however we are forced to express and describe one by the other they are not meer Negatives such as suppose only no Sense of pain or evil which may belong to one that is asleep or stupified or to a Stock or a Stone but a positive Sense of what is agreeble to its Nature and the right use of its powers and faculties and an Enjoyment or Perception of a good or Pleasure suitable to them with an intire freedom at the same time from what is contrary and unagreeable painfull and troublesome and uneasie The very absence of what is painfull and uneasie brings a great pleasure because Nature then enjoys it self and has its own suitable perceptions without any disturbance What Diseases and Pains and Tortures are to the Body the same are disorders and troubles to the mind from tormenting passions and uneasie Thoughts from Fear and Guilt and Sorrow the apprehension of evil as present or coming upon it we want words to express what we know and conceive of this and Peace of mind is opposed to all things that weary and disease and disquiet and disturb it whatever they are whether the Evils and Troubles and Afflictions of this World or Passions and Disorders from within inordinate and irregular Desires and inward Commotions contrary to right Reason or the more dreadfull terrors and horrors of some greater evil than any in this World The mind it is certain has a quicker and more smart and cutting sense oâ— Pain by these than the Body from any Disease The Diseases and Maladies Disorders and Pains of the mind are greater and harder to be cured than those of the Body Wisdom and Philosophy Virtue and Religion are the proper Physick the true Cure and Remedy of them the only things that can bring the mind to that Good Sound and Healthfull State that it shall be well and rightly disposed in it due Frame and Crasis sitted to perform its proper Operations and enjoy its agreeable Pleasures the Pleasure and Enjoyment of its self and its own Wife and Vertuous and good Thoughts the pleasant Hopes and Expectations of Religion and all the superadded Enjoyments from thence that Revelation assures us of besides what are natural to it from the right Exercise of its own Powers such as Peace of Conscience upon Pardon of Sin inward Sense of God's Favour or his lifting up the light of his Countenance upon us Joy in the Holy Ghost and rejoycing in hope of the Glory that shall be revealed These are such Pleasures and Enjoyments of Mind as are beyond Nature but within Christianity which raise and exalt the Soul to something beyond that Tranquility and Calmness and Serenity of Mind which Philosophy so talkt of This improves it higher and raises a more noble structure of Happiness to our Souls but upon the same Foundation having the same Bottom to build upon the inward Ease and Peace and rest of the Mind which is the greatest thing we can desire or is worth our attaining To be very easy always within to have Peace and Quiet in our own Breasts to be disturbed with no uneasie Thoughts no tumultuous Passions no Fear Grief or Sorrow no carking Care or corroding Trouble to be rufled with no discomposure have no dark Clouds hanging over our Thoughts no Storms or Tempests raging within our Breasts this is Tranquility of Mind an inward Calm and Serenity of Thoughts contrary to that Temper of mind Which is like the troubled Sea which cannot rest to which the Scripture compares it Isa 57.20 neither apt to be much raised or too much depressed Nec attollens se unquam nec deprimens as Seneca speaks Sed semper aequali placido statu always even and in a placid state propitius sibi sua laetus aspiciens pleased with its self and its own thoughts and having nothing to sowre and disorder it self or infuse a poysonous bitterness into it This is that good state of Soul that rest which is a greater Happiness than all the World can afford which he that has will be Happy in whatever Circumstances or Condition he is and which we might certainly find by Religion and Christianity if we lived up to the Principles
and Duties of it Take my Yoke upon you and learn of me and ye shall find rest to your Souls I shall premise a few cautions to prevent any mistake in this matter and the better to state and explain it Then show how we may by the help and means of Religion attain to this Rest Peace and Tranquility of Mind 1. First then I do not pretend that Religion and Virtue will set Men free from all the evils of this World and be a protection against any manner of outward Troubles or Calamities ever falling upon us This cannot be For Man is born to Trouble as the Sparks fly upwards Job 5.7 They are a great many of them natural and necessary and unavoidable and God must alter the nature of Things and the nature of the World and work perpetual Miracles to free us always from them to have our Bodies subject to no Diseases and Indispositions our Estates subject to no Losses and Casualities or Children or Friends not subject to Death or to be taken away from us this is impossible and what no good Man must expect that the Rain or Drought should not sometimes spoil his Corn the Sea shipwrack his Goods or Vessel the Fire burn his House as well as anothers these common misfortunes which happen alike to all and a great many Losses from the fraud and injustice of others as well as abundance of natural evils arising from the Mechanism of our selves and the World these the most Virtuous cannot expect to be exempted from but like Travellers through this World they must all pass thro' the common Road with others and sometimes meet with bad and unpleasant way and now and then with a shower that may fall upon 'em but the Religious Man is however much better provided against those against the common and unavoidable evils of life than another who is but equally subject to them his Mind is Armed against all the darts of Fortune and they shall not enter so deep nor smart so grievously as to the wicked he has something within to support him under all the Calamities and Afflictions of this World a good God a good Conscience and a good Prospect and Hopes of Heaven when a wicked Man has none of those to keep him up but must wholly sink and fall under them The one will have the Peace of his Mind and a Comfort within that shall pour Oyl and Balsam into all the Wounds of Fortune and make Afflictions more easie and tolerable but the other will increase the smart of them by his wickedness that will then lie heavier upon him when his Spirit is oppressed with other troubles the load of those and of his sins both will be insupportable to him and when his mind is sore by its inward guilt every hard thing from without will more pinch and gall him A good Man may keep this Peace of Mind under any Worldly afflictions but a bad Man cannot 2. Neither will Religion make all things equal as to the outward Happiness of this life arising from Mens different States and Conditions and unequal Circumstances in this World It may be allowed that there is a proper and real good in the Plenty Riches and Conveniences of life and that a good Man is not quite so happy that wants them as if he had 'em but they might be an accession a small Addition to his more true and greater Happiness of Vertue tho' that be infinitely more Great and Valuable and Desirable yet I do not know that Religion takes away or disallows the other we may therefore both Lawfully Desire and Endeavour to make our outward Circumstances in this World as good and easie and comfortable as we can within the bounds of Vertue and 't is both Natural and Lawful to do it and it borders I doubt upon Hypocrisie or Superstition to pretend the contrary and is always confuted by a contrary Desire and Practice in those who have talked otherwise But still a good Man can be contented and easie in a very mean and strait Condition if Providence allots this to him and he will not Disquiet or Disturb himself for what he sees others enjoy if God sees not sit for him to have them and tho he can allow a lesser good and a proper use and conveniency and some small Happiness perhaps as to this life to belong to those outward things in respect of the Wants and Necessities and the State we are in here which made Aristotle and the Peripateticks put the Externa Bona into the Ingredients of compleat Happiness yet he can be very Happy with a few of those as knowing that Man's Life consisteth not in abundance as Christ says Luk. 12.15 and that a few things will suffice nature and having Food and Raiment which is the Apostles as well as Natures competency he can be content and make up a Happiness to himself out of the better and more essential Parts and Ingredients of it to wit Vertue and Wisdom and a good Mind without those Appendages and Ornaments Trimmings and Garnishings of it which we call outward Happiness and Prosperity I am not for maintaining that Stoical Paradox That a virtuous Man was thereby Rich and a King and every thing that 's Great They might as well have said also he is always Strong and Healthfull tho 't is plain he may be both Sickly and Poor and his greatest Virtues may take away neither of those evils and their contraries may be allowed to be both goods in a lower Sence and so Desir'd by us but he will be Happier a Thousand times without those than without his Vertue they can never make him truly Happy without that but he may be Happy without those by the Peace and Comfort the Firmness and Goodness of his own Mind altho' if he had them too they might add something to his present Happiness and Good Condition this I will not Cynically deny Nor yet 3. That Religion will quite alter his bodily Temper any more than his Worldly Circumstances but a good Man may labour under an unhappy Temper and ill Crasis and Disposition of Blood and Humours His Wise and Vertuous Soul may male habitare be lodged not only in a Deformed but a Sickly and Unhealthfull or otherwise ill-framed Body A natural Sulphur and Choler may lodge in his Blood that may be too apt to Fire and heat him or too much dull and heavy Phlegm may clog his Spirits and make them Listless and Unactive and not rise to Warmth and fervor in his Religious Duties the Salts that keep the Humours from putrefying may make them too Sharp or Sowre and apt to make a Temper too Fretfull and Peevish or a black melancholy Humour may be thus produced and become Predominant that will disorder the Spirits and fill the Head and other Parts with dark Vapours and irregular Ferments and draw a Cloud of Darkness and Disconsolateness over the Brain and even the Soul it self Now Religion will not nor cannot
our selves and Mischievous to the World it does not destroy any of our Natural Pleasures but refines and purifies them and draws them off from the filth and Sediments which lies always at the bottom of those that are sinfull and so it makes them clearer and sweeter and frees them from all that Nauseousness and Bitterness that Vice generally mixes with them Virtue does neither Decay nor Disease our Bodies Trouble or Torment our Minds Consume or Squander away our Estates nor Ruin and Shipwrack our Fortunes nor bring any such Mischiefs upon us in this World as Mens Sins often do but as keeping the bounds of it will lead us to Eternal Life so it will generally promote and improve the greatest happiness we are capable of in this 3. Religion is as easie as God could possibly make it and none of its Straitnesses and Severities are Arbitrarily imposed upon us but from the Reason and Necessity of things and the absolute Fitness Goodness and Wisdom of whatever it Commands and its real Tendency to our greatest Perfection and Happiness for Religion is not an Arbitrary and Positive thing made so by the mere Will and Pleasure of God which might have lessened our Burthen and abated of our Duty in many Cases had he pleased and not imposed such hard Tasks and such strait and severe Vertues upon us but have left us more loose and not tyed us up so strictly as he has done this is a great Mistake and a wretched Mis-understanding of Religion for that as to the moral part of it is founded in the Nature and Perfections of God which are Eternal and Unalterable and in the as Eternal and Unalterable Reasons of things and those Respects and Relations which they necessarily have to one another so that as God cannot alter the Nature of a Circle or a Triangle nor make two and two not to be four so neither can he the Nature of Vice and Vertue nor make Good to be Evil or Evil Good Moral Vertues are as much founded in the Nature of things as Mathematical Truths or Metaphysical Verities and the Properties of them are as certain and fixt as those of Lines or Numbers Such Actions are as necessary to the good of the World and the Happiness of Societies and particular Persons as such Offices and Operations of the Body are to maintain its Life and Health so that breathing is not more necessary to the preservation of the one than Justice Fidelity and other Vertues are to the other and should God have let us loose from any of those Virtues even the strictest of them which the Libertines are most apt to complain against such as those which restrain their Natural Passions of Lust and Anger he would have let in a Thousand Mischiefs and Evils into the World and have roade us as Brutish and Uncivilized and as miserable as the very Beasts themselves and as uncapable of Society and the benefits of good Order and Goverment But 4. As all the Laws of God are good and as easie as he could make them so they are made more easie by that Divine Grace and Assistance whereby he enables us to perform them and whereby the Difficulties of Religion are much lightened and abated for every thing is said to be light or heavy in proportion to the strength and power of another and according as our strength is encreased by the Divine Grace and Holy Spirit so is Religion and Vertue made more easie to us so much then of inward strength and power as is conveyed to our Minds by Gods Grace which is a Physical and Secret Energy like that of inward life Strengthening us mightily in the inward Man regenerating quickning renewing raising enlivening us as the Scripture speaks so much lighter is the Burden of Religion that God lays upon us for it is the same thing to take off so much from that or to add so much new strength to him that is to bear it and therefore however hard and difficult Religion be to the weakness and imperfection of Human Nature to our single power which would of it self fall and sink under it yet when we have the Assistance of Heaven and the Aids and Supplies of Gods Grace to help and cooperate with us then we can do all things through Christ which strengthens us and thro' his Grace which is sufficient for us and we cannot in reason complain for want of Power when we may have it and God is ready to give us whatever power we want even to Conquer the strongest Propensities and most irresistable Temptations and this will take greatly off from the badness of the way which leads to Life when we have the Spirit of God like a good Angel to lead us thro' it always to Comfort and Help and Incourage us in it so that it would be much more tolerable tho' it were thro' never so Dark and Unpleasant a Wilderness when like the Jews we have the presence of God and his power to Conduct us all along to the Happy Land 5. Tho' we are apt to complain of the Difficulties in Religion yet there is no great End whatever which we can attain without as much Pains and Labour and going thro' as many Difficulties and Hardships as we do in Religion No Man can arrive to Learning or to any Liberal Art or Science in any Perfection no Man can rise to Honour and Preserment can get an Estate or the like without using as much Diligence as much Care and Watchfullness as in the business of Religion without denying himself as many Liberties spending as much Time and keeping himself to as strict Rules and Measures as are in Religion Nay I dare say many a Man takes more Pains and meets with more Difficulties to get a sorry livelihood in this World than would ordinarily carry a Man to Heaven and make him live Happily for ever what shall we then charge God so Foolishly as if he had used us hardly in Religion and make the way to Happiness strait and narrow and difficult when we as ordinarily and more willingly take as much Pains and go through as many Difficulties in all other things 't is because we have not such a value and Esteem of the Ends and Designs of Religion as we have of other Worldly ones that we complain of the Hardness and Difficulty of that above the other did we think Heaven as Desirable as an Estate and Vertue as great a Good as Honour which is but the shadow of it we should pursue it as vigorously and overlook and contemn all the Difficulties that lie in the way to it and there is this advantage in seeking and pursuing the Ends and Designs of Religion above any of those in this World not only as they are far greater and infinitely more valuable and important but that the one is certainly to be attained if we use our utmost Care and Diligence whereas we may sail and be Disappointed of the other after using all means in order
superstition the design of those is to supersede honest Vertue and inward Goodness and by some other ways to think to purchase the Divine Favour and the Happiness of Heaven 'T is very hard and difficult to men to be inwardly good and exactly vertuous to drive out every known sin and live in the practice of every duty which is the plain and the honest path-way to Heaven and therefore superstition would find out other by-roads and easier passages and would have Religion lie in more easie and outward performances and would relieve it self against that strait and narrow way which the Gospel directs us to and would have it suffice to be sent to Heaven by an Absolution or an Indulgence Thus by a Pass as it were by the Priest or Pope to the other World by making a short Confession and being a little contrite and absolved and anointed on the Death-Bed the work is quickly done and as well he thinks as if the Man had lived a Saint or died a Martyr or if he had been so Religious in his life time as to tell over his Beads every day and carry a Crucifix always about him and perform the Pennance of his Confessor and gone a few Pilgrimages to a few Saints then he has done such works as are very meritorious tho' his Saviour never Commanded one of them and he must be thought to be very Religious tho' 't is such a Religion as the Gospel is a perfect stranger to But Superstition is for placing Religion in some other things than the Gospel does in some inventions of its own in some little and easie and trifling performances in some of the externals and shadows of Religion in a strict observance of some lesser duties and a zealous concern for inconsiderable matters in being over forward for the little adjuncts and appendages of Religion but very negligent of that which is the true life and substance of it and in vainly believing to please God by some other things than by a righteous and good mind and the practice of universal Holiness Thus did the Jews think that often washing their Hands would make their Souls clean that to observe the lesser duties of the Law and the Rites and Traditions of their Elders was the way to render them extraordinary Holy and Religious though they foully neglected the weightier duties of Judgment Mercy and Truth Superstition will often overdo in some parts of Religion and therefore puts on the face of greater sanctity and is a kind of excess in Religion but 't is at the bottom a great defect a want of true and inward goodness and it would supply that defect by other shows and appearances and a mighty zeal in little things it would compound as it were with Heaven and commute its sorry and worthless performances for actions of true and substantial goodness It always lays too much value upon the little things of Religion and does but little esteem and not heartily love Morality and inward Goodness and therefore the truest principle to free us from all superstitious follies and mistakes in Religion is this That nothing will please God but being truly and inwardly good that nothing will commend us to his favour but a Vertuous Mind and a Holy Life and the sincere practice of all the moral substantial duties of Religion and that without those all other little things in Religion will be vain and idle and insignificant which is the truest principle in the World and the best preservative against Superstition The Eleventh Sermon ACTS XXVI 8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead THe Resurrection of the dead is an Article of our Faith of that weight and importance that as it confirms and strengthens all natural Religion for if Mens bodies rise most undoubtedly there is a future State so it is the very Basis and Foundation of Christianity without which our Faith in Christ is as the Apostle says vain and ungrounded It seems not so necessary indeed for the truth of Religion in general to believe the Resurrection of the flesh or body since the Soul without that may be capable of Happiness or Misery in another state and the belief of this alone may be sufficient to the designs of Vertue and Religion But Christianity lays a very great stress upon it makes the Resurrection of the body as necessary and fundamental an Article upon some accounts as the immortality of the soul and this because of the Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour which as 't is the great demonstration of the truth of our Religion so it is an Argument of the Resurrection of all other Humane Bodies for if he be risen again with the same Body with which he lived and with that is gone into the Heavens it 's fit we should follow him thither with our bodies too with our whole Humane Nature which he was pleased not only to assume upon Earth but to carry up to be an Inhabitant of the mansions above if he our head be raised we his Members must be raised with him he the first fruits from the dead has by his Resurrection Consecrated our Bodies to Life and Immortality It would be very strange if he should carry his Humane Body into Heaven were there no others of the same nature to follow him so that as the Apostle argues 1 Cor. 15.13 If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen It does therefore highly concern us to maintain and defend this main post and strongest hold of our Religion by which our Christianity must either stand or fall and that the more because Infidelity and Irreligion is most apt to be making its attempts and assaults upon it in this place the weakest as is supposed which belongs to it and to represent this article above all others as an impossible and incredible thing There were found not only among the Athenians some of the Sect of Epicurus probably who when they heard of the Resurrection mocked at it Acts 17.32 and Pliny I remember reckons it among one of the things that exceed the power of God revocare defunctos but even amongst the Jews there were some known to St. Paul who thought it a thing unreasonable and unfit to be believed to whom he directs himself in this his defence of Christianity the Sadduces were a numerous and prevailing Sect among them who say there is no Resurrection neither Angel nor Spirit Acts 23.8 There are too many of their mind in our days who cannot believe or conceive any spiritual or immaterial substances and who cannot think that a body after it has been dead and lain rotting so many hundred or thousand years and been dispersed into ten thousand atoms and scattered into as many different places and had a thousand other bodies made out of it that this should be brought together again and rise the same body it was before Against these modern Sadduces and Unbelievers these pretenders to Reason
feeling as Scripture speaks so they darken and blind the Understanding which is as it were the Eye of the Soul and bring a cloud over it or cast a mist before it and hinder it from seeing and discerning things as it ought to do These I confess are all figurative expressions whereby we are forc'd to describe and illustrate the Acts and Operations of the Mind by material and bodily resemblances as the Holy Ghost it self does But there are such real effects in the Mind as answer to them and about which we can use no other Words or Ideas Mens Sins at the same time they harden their Wills and bring them to a senselessness and stupidity about their moral Actions they blind their Judgment also and bring them to a Reprobate sense so as not to see the plainest Truths or greatest Evidence nor be aware of the grossest and most notorious Errors nor be convinced by the strongest Arguments and Demonstrations for the Truth or Practice of Religion 2. I shall consider a little more particularly in the 2d place how and to what degrees the mind is thus hardned and blinded by its Sins 1. And this is done first of all by breaking thro' natural shame and the innate modesty of our minds this is one of the strongest sences which God and Nature have set about Vertue and the greatest check and restraint against Vice for it arises from the first quick and discerning sense of the mind whereby it sees the â—â—â—ness and reasonableness of the one and the indecency and natural turpitude and shame of the other and when this is once broke thro' the mind is quickly Prostituted and Debauched to the greatest Lewdness and Villany and comes to Sin Impudently and with a Where 's forehead at first indeed it was modest and reserv'd and blusâ—â—'d at the rude offers of Sin and ran from them but by coming nearer and making some further approaches to it it was drawn in to consent and so having lest its Original innocence and native modesty it is sooner brought to after-acts of Sin and wears off by degrees that shame which was its great guard and preservative at first and then it lies open to every Temptation and 〈…〉 to every offer and opportunity that invites 〈◊〉 and hardly needs to be tempted but becomes a tempter both to it self and others and a Pander in time to all Vice and Wickedness 2. Sin hardens by stupifying Conscience and deadning the inward and natural sense of good and evil on our Minds so as to bring Men by degrees to Sin without struggle dispute or reluctancy It must be a great while before it comes to this and a man must have gone thro' a long course before he can arrive at this state and perfection of Sinning No Man can commit a plain and great Sin at first without great struggle and remorse of mind and great reluctance and opposition from his own Conscience the spirit will strive against the flesh as the flesh lusteth against the spirit Gal. 5.17 there being a natural principle of Vertue in us as well as of Vice And as a good Man must have many conflicts with his lower inclinations before he can arrive at a full state of Vertue so must a bad Man have as great a contest with his Conscience and the natural sense of his own Mind before he can be perfectly wicked Conscience will check and restrain him at first and inwardly smite and reprove him for doing amiss and this is an evident proof of the natural difference between good and evil and an excellent Monitor set up by God in every Mans breast to mind him of his duty and the great security indeed of all Religion but when Men have by many acts and long customs of wickedness wasted and sinned away Conscience and stifled or stupisied the inward sense of their own minds so as to sin with greater ease and without any trouble or opposition from within without any rebukes or resistances or remorses of their own Consciences for whatever they do then they are become perfect Sinners indeed and come to an absolute and full state of Wickedness to be hardned into an utter insensibility so as to be past feeling and to have their Conscience as it were seared with a hot iron as the Scripture speaks 1 Tim. 4.2 so as to be quite senseless This senselessness may seem an easier and less painfull state but it is more mortal and dangerous and is just such a Disease to the Soul as an Apoplexy or a Lethargy is to the body If this senselessness and stupidity would always last it were much better indeed than sharp and actual pain but the Conscience of a Sinner tho' it may sleep and slumber a while yet it will awake one time or other and like an enraged Lyon tear and devour all about it Either Death or Sickness or some Judgment or Affliction will probably rowse it here and bring the stupify'd mind to it self or to be sure the flames of Hell will make it open its Eyes when it is too late when it can see nothing but horror and despair before it and round about it and where it Conscience shall always torment it with a Worm that never dieth and with never ceasing Anguish and Remorse 3. A third instance and degree of being thus hardned by Sin is doubting of the Truth of Religion and calling into question the principles of it and at last an utter rejecting and dis-believing of them No Man ever did this till he was corrupted in his morals and engaged in a vitious course so that this Scepticism and Infidelity was plainly the effect and consequent of his Vices and proceeded from his Will blinded with his Sins and Lusts rather than from his Understanding or from any want of Evidence about those matters It was first the Sinners wish and desire that there were no God before he question'd whither there was one or no and he never doubted of the truth of another World till it was against his Interest and he was lost and undone if there were one and therefore he was very unwilling to believe it Men must have very much blinded their Minds if they do not see the plainest Evidence for Religion both from Nature and Reason and from History and Revelation from the make and frame of the World and from the make of their own bodies and the inward sense of their own Minds all which make it as unreasonable almost to doubt of the Being of a God as to doubt of their own being and existence and we may as well be Scepticks to the truth of any thing else as to the truth of Religion 4. There is a degree yet beyond this and that is ridiculing Religion and exposing it to Contempt and Laughter which is not only the utmost and most desperate attempt and affront against God but the most rude and unmannerly as well as mischievous thing to all Mankind for all sober and wise Men and civiliz'd
Nations have always believed there is a God and 't is no very civil thing to call them all Fools or Cheats for doing so 't is so much the interest nay the necessity of mankind that there should be one that all Government all Security all Society and living happily in the World must be lost without it to laugh therefore at this as either a Politick Cheat or a Melancholy Delusion on which so much depends both as to the benefit of the publick and the happiness and comfort of all private Men is only to show the boldest folly and ill-will both together and without any reason in the World to take upon themselves to perswade mankind that they are deceived in the most usefull and necessary thing to 'em that can be 'T is certainly the highest impudence and rudeness to run down those things and expose them as ridiculous which have been the greatest objects of Honour and Reverence to all wise men and to treat Religion and things Sacred with jest and drollery about which all the World has been the most serious and in earnest and to mock and scoff at that which others bow down to and tremble at This is only a more mad and daring bravery in wickedness and one of the highest instances of a corrupted and hardned Mind I shall add but another which is an effect as it were of this and that is 5. An industrious design of being wicked and glorying in it to make it their business to spread and promote it and to take pleasure not only in committing Sin themselves but likewise in those that do it This is to love Wickedness for Wickedness sake and out of pure opposition to Vertue and a direct enmity to Religion When Men make it their Trade and a kind of Profess'd Science to be Debauch'd and set down rules to themselves and others of being so When they can boast of their Wickedness and glory in it and assume perhaps more to themselves than they have been guilty of and charge themselves with such Sins as they never committed thereby to Triumph as it were in their mighty deeds and great exploits and to endear themselves the more to their Lewd Companions when they endeavour to out-do one another and out-vye their fellow Sinners in Oaths Drinking and Debauchery and give greater proofs of their highest proficiency in Wickedness and Lewdness This is perfectly giving up themselves to the Devil's Service and to toil and drudge in it as his greatest Slaves and as his Disciples to devote themselves to him and become sworn votaries to Hell and Wickedness and declare themselves Champions and Defenders of his cause and interest against God and Religion 'T is strange that Human Nature should be depraved and corrupted to these degrees but we see too many Examples of it in the World and we see too what is the cause of it namely men's being so strangely hardned and blinded by their Sins and having their Reason and Understanding and all the Faculties of their Minds so horribly corrupted and depraved by them 3. From what has been said I shall make the following Remarks and Observations 1. I observe from hence That our proper and truest happiness lies in the Perfection and Improvement of of our Minds and therefore we ought to take the greatest care of them 2. That Vice is the greatest Corruption and Depravation of the Mind and therefore we should not suffer that to grow upon us 3. I shall enquire into the Scripture-notion of God's hardning Men and whether that be any thing more than our Sins hardning us 4. From hence we may conceive and understand the misery and wretched state of the Devils and damn'd Souls who are come to the highest degree of this hardning 1. I observe that our proper and truest happiness lies in the Perfection and Improvement of our Minds The happiness of any Being must be suited and adapted to its Capacity and Faculties for otherwise it has no root to grow upon and the more those Capacities are enlarged and extended and have agreeable objects to fill and entertain 'em the greater is the happiness of it The lowest Creatures that have sense have very small Capacities and their Enjoyments are very little the more we rise in the scale of Beings the Capacities are greater till we come to the All-perfect Being We have bedily Capacities the same with the Brutes which can partake of such bodily pleasures as they do but these are very little and narrow and confined to few things and a short time We have much higher Capacities even like God himself whereby we take in all the truth that can be known and all the good that can be enjoyed and hoard up these immortal Treasures in our Minds and in the fullest measure of those consists our proper happiness as we are Men and Rational and Immortal Beings 'T is in our Souls those noblest parts of us that our Happiness lies and will lie for ever Our bodies are poor dying decaying matter that can afford very little Enjoyments and for a very little while the capacities of the mind are great and large and comprehensive and can reach not only to all things that are made but even to the God that made them and partake of a proper happiness from all of them for the more it increases its knowledge and grows up to a more perfect Understanding and to a more free choice and entire willing of what is good and the more good it enjoys and the more its faculties are enlarged and filled up with their proper objects the more Happiness and Perfection Satisfaction and Enjoyment it must have and this will be its Eternal Heaven when we shall be as like God as we can be and equal to the Angels in the proper perfections of our rational nature advanced to the highest degrees and the most unspeakable Enjoyments and Satisfactions 2. Vice is the greatest Corruption and Depravation of the Mind and therefore is our greatest misery it sinks and impairs the Faculties decays and weakens the Mind as a Disease does the body and fills it generally like that with pain and uneasiness as being contrary to its natural frame and to its proper and regular Operations Vertue is the Vigor and Health the Soundness and right Constitution of the Soul the Spiritual life which Religion and God's Grace would advance it to but Vice and Wickedness are the Spiritual death of it both in the Language of the Scripture and of the best Philosophers of Old their manner and custom of setting a Coffin in the place of him that had left the Schools and Precepts of Vertue was speaking the same thing in emblem and figure with the Scripture expression of being dead in trespasses and sins The loss of the Soul is justly accounted so great an one as the gain of the whole World will not compensate What shall it profit a Man says our Saviour to gain the whole world and lose his own Soul Matth. 16.26