Heaven so infinitely repugnant to its Nature And certainly to be thus excommunicated from the supreme Happiness of our Natures and be forced to live in everlasting Exile from God and blessed Spirits and wander about like wretched Vagabonds that are chased and driven from all Hopes of Contentment will be unspeakable Damage to our Souls 2ly The Soul of Man is liable to the most dreadful Punishment and Correction of the Father of Spirits There is no Doubt but spiritual Agents can strike as immediately upon Spirits as bodily Agents can upon Bodies and though we who are Spctators only of corporeal Action cannot discern the Manner how one Spirit acts upon another yet there is no Reason to Doubt of the thing and if there be such a mutual Communication of Action between them there is no Doubt but they can mutually make each other feel each others Pleasures and Displeasures and if so then it is only to suppose that the less powerful Spirits are subject to the violent Impression of the more powerful ones and consequently that all finite Spirits are liable to the Lash of an infinite one for why should it be more difficult for the Father of our Spirits to correct our Spirits than it is for the Parents of our Flesh to correct our Flesh For though our Souls are no more impressible with material Stripes than Sun-beams are with the blows of a Hammer yet are they liable to horrid and dismal Thoughts and to be as much pained and aggrieved by them as our Bodies are by the most exquisite Torments So that if God be displeased with us he can imprint his Wrath upon our Minds in black and ghastly Thoughts and cause it perpetually to drop like burning Sulphur upon our Souls He can not only abandon us to the furious Reflections of our own natural Consciences which as I shall shew you by and by will be hereafter extreamly painful and vexatious but he can also infuse supernatural Horrors into us and pour in such Swarms of terrible Thoughts upon us as will give us no Rest but sting us perpetually Day and Night with inexpressible Anguish And of this you have a woful Example in that miserable Wretch Francis Spira who upon that fearful Breach he made in his Conscience by a cowardly Renouncing of his Religion was without any Symptoms of a bodily Melancholy immediately seised with such an inexpressible Agony of Mind as amazed his Physicians astonished his Friends and struck Terror into all that conversed with him For he was so near to the Condition of a damned Ghost that he verily believed Hell it self was more tolerable than those invisible Lashes that were continually laid on upon his Soul and therefore wished he were in Hell and would gladly have dispatched himself thither in hope to find Sanctuary there from those vengful Thoughts which continually preyed upon his Soul And if in this World our Soul is so liable to the Rod of the Father of Spirits we may be sure it will be so in the other too where God if he pleases can render it an eternal Hell to it self by pouring continually into it fresh Floods of horrible Thoughts which being thrust on by an Almighty Power and perpetually urged and repeated on the Mind must necessarily create in it not only a most exquisite but uninterrupted Torment And it being in his Power thus to lash our Souls to be sure when once he is implacably incensed against them as he will be hereafter if we do not appease him he will let loose his Power upon them and make them feel his wrathful Resentments in those dire and frightful Thoughts with which he will Sting and Scourge them for ever And if the Soul carry into Eternity with it those provoking Lusts which do here incense Gods Displeasure against it it will there have no Shelter from the Storm of his Vengance which like a Shower of Fire and Brimstone will be continually pouring down upon it For while it continues in this Shop of Vanities it hath a great Variety of Objects to divert those dismal Thoughts which God many times infuses into it but in the other World all these diverting Objects will be removed and then every dismal Thought which God lets loose will seise and fasten upon it and like Prometheus's Vultures prey on its wretched Heart for ever 3ly The Soul of Man is liable to the Fury and Violence of Devils and other malignant Spirits For when ever the Souls of Men do leave their Bodies they doubtless flock with the Birds of their own Feather and consort themselves with such seperate Spirits as are of their own Genius and Temper for besides that Likeness doth naturally congregate Beings and cause them to associate with their own Kind good and bad Spirits are by the eternal Laws of the other World distributed in two seperate Nations and there live apart from one another having no other Communication or Intercourse but what is between two hostile Countries that are continually designing and attempting one against another So that when wicked Souls do leave this terrestrial Abode and pass into Eternity they are presently incorporated by the Laws of that invisible World into the Nation of wicked Spirits and confined for ever to their most wretched Society and Converse and then how miserable must their Condition be who are damned to such a bellish Neighbourhood and are allowed no other Company but of Devils and devilish Spirits For since as I have already shewed you Spirits can as well act upon one another as Bodies what can be expected when such malignant Spirits meet but that they should be continualâ—â— snarling among themselves and baiting and worrying one another When Wrath and Envy Malice and Ill-nature are the common Genius that inspires and acts the whole Society what can their Conversation be but a continual Intercourse of mutual Mischiefs and Vexations especially considering how they have here laid the Foundations of an eternal Quarrel against one another For there the Companions in Sin will meet who by their ill Counsels wicked â—nsinuations and bad Examples did mutually contribute to each others Ruin and when these shall meet in that woful State how will the tormenting Sense of those irreparable Injuries they have done each other incite them to exercise their hellish Fury upon and play the Devils with one another And when a Company of waspish Spirits so implacably inâ—ensed against one another shall meet and like so many Scâ—rpions Snakes and Addâ—â— be snut up together in the inâ—ernal Deâ—s how is it possible they should forbear â—issing at and sliâ—ging and spitting Venom in one anothers Faces But then besides the mutual Plagues which those incensed and furious Spirits must needs be supposed to instict upon one another they will be â—lso nakedly exposed to the powerful Malice of the Devils those fierce Executioners of Gods righteous Vengeance who as we now find by Experience have Power to suggest black and horrid Thoughts and to torture our
What then remains but that being seriously affected with the Sense of our Danger we presently awake out of our Security and with the deepest Concern for our immortal Souls cry out with St. Peter's Auditors Men and Brethren what shall we do to be saved Verily when I reflect upon the strange Unconcernedness of Men about their future Condition I am tempted to think either that they do not believe they have an immortal Soul in them or that if they do they believe it is impossible it should for ever miscarry For how is it conceivable that Men who in other matters are so solicitous when their Interest is at Stake and exposed to the least Hazard should believe that they have Souls in Danger of perishing for ever and yet take no more Care or Regard of them but like the forgetful Mother who when her House was on Fire to save her Goods forgot her Child lay out all their thoughts upon the little Concerns of this frail and mortal Life and in the mean time forget their precious Souls and leave them perishing in the Flames of Perdition O stupid Creature what art thou made of that canst consider that thou hast an immortal Soul surrounded with so many Dangers of being lost for ever and yet be no more concerned for its Preservation Methinks if thou hadst any Sense in thee having a Prospect of such endless Miseries before thee the remotest Possibility of falling into them should be enough to startle and awake thee but when thou art so near the Brink of those Miseries and hast so many Causes round about thee shoving thee forward and thrusting thee headlong down into them and yet be no more concerned at it is such a Prodigy of sensless Stupidity as Heaven and Earth may justly be astonished at 'T is true if the Danger thou art in were such as is impossible to be evaded it would then be the wisest Course thou couldst take to concern thy self as little as may be about it but rather to live merrily whilst thou mayst and not antedate thy Misery by thinking of the dismal Futurity But God be praised this is not our Case though our Condition be dangerous yet it is far from desperate for if we will use our honest Endeavour and vigorously exert the Faculties of our Nature we not only may but shall escape There are indeed a great many Causes of our Danger a great many Enemies concurring to our Ruin but none of these are able to effect it unless we our selves joyn hands in the fatal Conspiracy If we will be but faithful Friends to our selves and true to our own eternal Interest it will be beyond the power of all those Causes together to do us any material Injury For blessed be the good God those that are for us are far greater and mightâ—er than those that are against us against us we have the World the Flâ—sh and the Devil the weakest of which is I confess a dangerous and puissant Enemy but for us we have God and Angels and our own Reason assâ—â—â—ed with the most invincible Motives with vast and glorious Promises that stand beckoning to us with Crowns of Immortality in their hands to call us off from the Pursuit of our Lusts to the Practice of Virtue and Religion with direful Threatnings that are continually Alarming and warning us of the dreadful Consequents of our Sins and sundry other such mighty I had almost said Almighty Motives as if we would seriously attend to would certainly render our Souls impregnable against all the Temptations of Vice And besides our Reason thus Armed and Accoutered we have on our side the Holy Angels of God who are always ready to prompt us to and assist us in our Duty and to second us in all our spiritual Combats against the Enemies of our Souls And besides all these we have with us the Almighty Spirit of God who upon our sincere Desires and honest Endeavours is engaged to aid us and co-operate with us in working out our Salvation whose Grace is abundantly sufficient for us to strengthen us in our Weakness to support us under our greatest Difficulties and carry us on victoriously through the most violent Temptations And being back't with such mighty Auxiliaries how is it possible that we should miscarry unless we are resolved to betray our selves and give fire to the fatal Trains of our Enemies and if we are so bent there is no Remedy for our Obstinacy and it is just and sit we should be left to the dismal and pitiless Effects of our own Folly and Madness For if when we see our selves in so much danger and it is yet in our Power to escape if we please we will notwithstanding precipitate our selves into Ruin all the World must agree upon an impartial Inquisition for the Blood of our Souls that we murdered our selves that God is just and that his hands are clean from any stain of our Blood and that our own Ruin is wholly owing to our own invincible Obstinacy III. I proceed now to the Third Proposition That our renouncing of Christ and his Religion will most certainly infer the loss of our Souls For as I have shewed you these Words are urged by our Saviour as a Motive to deter his Disciples from forsaking him as is plain from Ver. 24 25. which necessarily supposes that upon their forsaking him this Loss would most certainly and inevitably follow In the Prosecution therefore of this Argument I shall endeavour these two things 1. To shew you what that forsaking of Christ is which Infers this Loss 2. Upon what Accounts our thus forsaking him infers it 1. What that forsaking of Christ is which infers this Loss To which I answer there is a Four-fold Forsaking of Christ which the Scripture takes notice of as capital and damnable to the Souls of Men. 1. When we forsake him by a total Apostacy 2ly When we cowardly renounce the Profession of his Doctrine or any Part of it notwithstanding we still belive and are convinced of the Truth of it 3. When by obstinate Heresy we either add to or subtract from the Faith of Christ. 4ly When by any wilful Course of Disobedience we do vertually renounce the Authority of his Laws 1. We lose and forfeit our Souls when we forsake Christ by a total Apostacy from him When after we have been Baptized into his Name and thereby have made a visible Profession of our believing his Doctrines and obeying his Laws we turn Runagadoes and cast off our Belief of the one and disown our Obligation to the other we do most justly incur the Loss and Forfeiture of our Souls For so strong and cogent is the Evidence of Christianity that it is not to be supposed that any professed Christian can be either innocently or excusably seduced into a Disbelief of it For Religion being a Matter of the vastest Moment and Concern he is a Traytor to himself that either takes up his Religion without Examination or that
courted you to accept of it and though time after time you scornfully refused and rejected it yet in hope that at last you might be prevailed with you know how long I waited upon you even till you had tired out my Patience and I saw there was no Remedy And do you now charge your not returning to your Duty upon your Hoplesness of Pardon for your former Rebellions 'T is true Lord we cannot deny but thou didst offer us Pardon but alas it was upon an impossible Condition even upon a hearty Repentance and a thorough Reformation which thou knewest we were not then able to perform For by a long Custom of Rebellion against thee we had contracted so many inveterate evil Habits which had so weaken'd and debilitated our Powers that we were no more able to reform and amend our selves than the Leopard is to change his Spots or the Aethiopian his Skin To what Purpose then should we attempt Impossibilities or set our selves to wrestle with Difficulties which we knew we were never able to surmount But pray how did you know that it was impossible for you to repent when by all the Arguments I used with you I could never persuade you to make Trial of it You know in your own Consciences that there are many things that you could do you could have betaken your selves to a serious Consideration of the Duties and Motives of Religion you could have attended and abstained at least from the outward Acts of Sin and humbly implored my Grace and Assistance and that to encourage you to do this and what else was in your Power I gave you the most ample Assurance in the World that I would back and enforce your Endeavours with the Aids of my Grace and in despite of all opposition crown them with Success So that though by your own single Strength indeed you could never have effected your Repentance yet it was far from being impossible to you since you knew that by doing what was in your power you should infallibly oblige me to enable you to do all the rest But blessed Lord what Encouragement had we to repent and return to our Duty for if we had done it we must have bid adieu for ever to all those Pleasures and Delights by which we were invited and detained in the Service of our Lusts and Thou offered'st us nothing in exchange for them but only Sighs and Tears with other ungrateful Rigours of a bitter and severe Repentance How then canst thou blame our Disobedience against thee when we had so many inviting Temptations to it and so little Encouragement to the contrary O prodigious Impudence with what Face can you assert such a notorious Falshood when you know in your own Consciences that besides all those Pleasures that are connatural to my Service and which do vastly exceed all the Pleasures of Sin I laid an immortal Crown at your Feet and faithfully promised you that if you would but spend a short Life in my Service I would at the End of it receive you into that blissful State where you should be happy beyond all your Wishes and to the utmost Capacity of your Nature where you should live with God and Angels in the most rapturous Exercise of everlasting Love and Joy which one would have thought had been sufficient to recompence you for those silly Pleasures for whose sake you deserted me and my Service But since you have trampled upon all my Offers and would by no means be perswaded by all those mighty Tenders I have made you Go ye deservedly cursed into ever Hold Lord we beseech thee and before thou passest thy irrevocable Doom upon us hear this last Petition we shall make for our selves We now confess that we are fully convinc'd and O that we had understood it sooner what infinite Reason we had to adhere to thee and thy Service It is our Misery that these things were not sooner discover'd to us or at least that they were not so clearly discovered as to convince and perswade us Had we but known what we now know we would never have deserted thee as we did and therefore we beseech thee have Pity upon our Ignorance and impute not to our Wills the Faults of our Vnderstandings which are not in our Power to remedy Why is this the utmost that you can plead for your selves Have I not told you all these things before-hand as plainly as Words could express them Have I not instituted an Order of Men in my Church to explain these things to you and to put you in mind of them So that whatever you pretend you could not but know and understand them or if you did not it was because you would not And if you would wilfully shut your Eyes against the Light it was your own Fault that you did not see and you may thank your selves for the Consequents of it I plainly told you where your Wickedness would end and unless you were wilfully blind you could not but see what the Event of your Sin would prove even while you were committing it and you know in your own Consciences that this fearful Doom which now you deprecate you were fairly warned of when you might have easily avoided it by a timely Submission but you would not And seeing you would be so mad as to reject Heaven when it lay before you and leap into Hell with your Eyes open your Blood be upon your own Heads For I have tried all the Arts of Love and Methods of Kindness to reclaim you and since you have render'd them all ineffectual what remains but that you depart from me like accursed Wretches as you are into that everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels And now I beseech you do not your own Consciences consent to the Justice and Righteousness of this Procedure Is there any tolerable Plea you can urge at the Judgment-Seat of Iesus Christ which here hath not been fully answered And if so how inexcusable shall we be when we come to plead our own Cause in the great Assembly of Spirits For when these Aggravations of our Disobedience shall be laid open our Guilt will appear so foul and monstrous that we shall doubtless be condemned by the unanimous Vote of all the Reasonable World and as soon as the great Judge hath pass'd his Sentence upon us our own Consciences will be forc'd to eccho Iust and righteous art thou O Lord in all thy Ways Wherefore as we would not be found inexcusably guilty when we come to plead for our Lives before the Tribunal of our Saviour let us all be perswaded to return to his Service and faithfully to continue in it that so instead of Go ye cursed we may hear from his Mouth that welcome Approbation Well done good and profitable Servants enter into the Ioy of your Master III. I come now to the last Proposition in the Text viz. And we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only Son of the Father In
Pilgrimage or the like this is a Religion for your Tooth with which your naughty Heart will be ready enough to fall in love upon the first Interview and when once it hath gained our Heart and Affections if we do not take the greater Heed they will quickly gain our Faith and Judgment For when a Man is angry with his own Religion because it sits uneasy on his Conscience if a more easy Religion presents it self to him he can hardly forbear wishing it were true though as yet he hath no Evidence that it is so and then a very slender Evidence will suffice to induce a Belief of the Reality of any Thing which a Man earnestly wishes and desires If in this ill Temper of Mind therefore you should be tempted to change your Religion it concerns you as much as your Souls are worth to look about you for you have a Seducer in your Breast a prevalent insinuating Seducer viz. some vile and sinful Affection who if you listen to his charming Persuasions will certainly betray you into a most damnable Apostacy Wherefore before you proceed to examin the Merits of the Cause consider seriously with your selves that that Disturbance which your present Religion gives to your vicious Affections for which you are so angry with it is so far from being a just Ground to suspect it that it is a real Evidence of the Truth of it because it is a sensible Demonstration of its Holiness which is an inseperable Concomitant of Truth and therefore for you to desert it upon this Motive is in Effect to pronounce it a false Religion because it gives you a sensible Experiment of its Truth and Reality 3. When you fall under any Temptation to change your Religion consider whether that which gave you the first Inclination to change was not some temporal Interest whether before ever you admitted any Thought of a Change you did not perceive another Religion appear upon the Stage attended with all the fair Hopes and Advantages of this World and whether this Prospect did not first suggest to you a great Inclination to enter into its Retinue I do not deny but that even worldly Considerations may so far influence honest Minds as to put them upon a more severe and impartial Scrutiny of their present Persuasions in Religion and unless it be in Case of palpable Truth or Falshood it is but honest Prudence when a Man 's temporal Interest lies at stake to take Care that he is sure of his Hand that he doth not throw it away upon a false Persuasion in a Fit of blind Humour or Obstinacy and sacrifice that to an erroneus Judgment which he ows to no other Altar but Truth 's And indeed before I throw my self upon any Suffering whether it be Loss or Pain I am bound in Conscience diligently to enquire whether it be for Truth or Righteousness sake lest instead of receiving the Crown of Martyrdom I am sent away to seek my Reward in the Paradise of Fools But if meerly upon the Consideration of any present Loss or Advantage I find my self strongly inclined to change my Religion before ever I enter into the Merits of the Cause to examine the Reasons pro and con it is a certain Sign that that Loss or Advantage that inclines me hath a more powerful Influence upon me than my Religion that I love the World better than God and do prefer my earthly Expectations before all my Hopes of everlasting Happiness And if in this ill Temper of Mind I should be tempted to a present Change it concerns me as much as my Soul is worth to be very careful what I do For I stand upon the Brink of a Precipice the foul and fatal Precipice of Apostacy into which if I fall I am ruined for ever For if in changing my Religion it be found that I followed this my wicked Inclination more than any sincere Conviction I must expect to be treated by God as an Apostate and Renegado as a wilful Deserter of his Cause and Betrayer of his sacred Truth But if I change while I stand thus inclined it is fearfully hazardous but this will be found to be the Truth of the Case for in all Probability my wicked Inclination will cast a Mist before my Understanding and so darken its Prospect that it will hardly be able to distinguish the grossest Sophistry from the clearest Reason So that now those Arguings which before I saw through with half an Eye and look'd upon as most absurd and ridiculous will appear to my abused and byass'd Mind in the Colours of clear Evidence and plain Demonstration and I shall be ready to surrender up my Faith to those trifling Pretences of Reason and Authority which before I laughed at and despised Now Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church will seem a very pregnant Proof that all the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter are ordained the Supreme Heads of the Church and the Fountains of all Ecclesiastical Authority though they are not so much as mentioned in it no nor from any thing that appears so much as thought of Now This is my Body looks like a substantial Evidence of the Truth of Transubstantiation and of all those wild Absurdities it contains though those Forms of Speech I am the true Vine and I am the Door do as substantially prove that Christ bears Grapes and turns upon Hinges Now every Thing will appear to me in a quite different Guize from what it did before and I shall fancy that I spy Demonstration where before I could only discern Probability for a good Sum of Money or a rich Preferment is a strange Clearer of some Mens Eyesight Thus when a Man begins to think of changing his Religion under the powerful Influence of his worldly Interest that is usually the only effectual Reason that leads and persuades him As for other Reasons they only serve for Form-sake to disguise the foul Apostacy into some Resemblance of a sincere Conversion for till his Interest struck in with them they signified nothing with him made not the least Impression on his Mind but being back'd with that all on a suddain they are wondrous cogent and persuasive from whence it is evident that they received their Strength and Force from his Interest without the Air of which they are not able to operate and consequently that the Change of his Faith is owing to the over-ruling Interest of his Covetousness and Ambition and not at all to the Prevalence of Reason and sincere Conviction For 't was that Interest that strongly inclined him to change before ever he knew any Reason for it and then 't was that Inclination that made his Reasons and created his Convictions and let him talk what he pleases of Reason Scripture and Authority if he was strongly inclined to change before he was moved to it by Reason and Evidence it is plain that the prevailing Motive of his Conversion was either the Fear of losing