dissembled what he thought of the best Form of Government for fear of offending Aristotle I am willing to ascribe my self into the number of them who believe that there is greater apparance that Aristotle was of the Opinion that affirms the Souls immortality and I know many excellent passages may be produc'd out of his Writings which favor it But yet so it is that in other places he seems to lay down principles which are incompatible with the same and some of his most famous disciples have believ'd that he held the contrary Socrates as we find in Plato knows not how to be confident of it and perswades himself by reasons which for the most part are but of slender moment and always speaks of it as of other things with doubting and not determining any thing although through the desire he had that his Soul were immortal he inclined more willingly to this opinion and accounted it of most probability which is Cicero's judgement in his Tusculan Questions And truly I conceive that in all things of this Nature the vulgar had better apprehensions then the Philosophers yea that the Philosophers corrupted the sentiments of Nature which remain'd more lively and genuine in the breasts of the people For they had wit and knowledge enough to frame objections against the common conceptions of men but yet they had not sufficient to resolve them whence their minds became unsetled and wavering Whereas the people who understood not so much subtilty held themselves more firmely to that which was taught them by nature it self and they had received from her though doubtingly in regard of the weakness and ignorance of humane reason As it often falls out that a man that knows nothing in Civil Law and yet hath some natural faculty of understanding better discerns the right of a certain Case then knowing Professors who have their heads full of Statutes and Paragraphs great skill rather perplexing and confounding then resolving them in the knowledge of things But Philosophical disputes being spread from the Scholes into Towns among the people have obscured and disorder'd such natural notions much more then the people by their own ignorance and negligence could have depraved and embroiled the same of themselves However were they much better assured then they are that their Souls do not perish with their bodies yet they must necessarily be extremely ignorant of the estate of them after their separation For how blind so ever the reason of man be in that which concerns the Deity his Nature Perfections and Providence yet the arguments which satisfie us of them are so clear and resplendent in the World that in spight of all the darkness of the humane Intellect there is always some beam that breaks through affording that dubious and confused knowledge we mentioned was found amongst the Nations of the World And how intangled soever the disputes of Philosophers were the rational soul of Man gives always so many proofs of its incorruptibility that the knowledge thereof cannot be totally extinguish'd But as to its estate after this Life it is not onely impossible for men to divine of themselves what it will be by reason of the corruption and irregularity which is befallen their faculties but though the eye of their reason were as clear and luminous as could be desir'd yet they were hardly able to make the least probable conjecture concerning it because God hath written nothing of it in the book of Nature from which we draw all our knowledge But they which are instructed by Religion in the History of the Worlds Original can very easily give account thereof For God having produc'd Man in the Nature of things in such an estate that if he had persisted in it he should not have feared death the revelation of that estate which must follow this Life would have been unprofitable to him who was made in case that the design of his creation had been pursued to live perpetually in the World and never to undergo the separation of his Soul from his Body For that Truth teaches us and likewise reason being informed in this particular either consents to or is convinced of it that it was the Offence which the First Man committed which introduced death into the World To what purpose therefore should God have imprinted in Nature any evidence or token of the estate of man after death since in that first integrity of nature there was no suspition nor shadow of Death it self It is true indeed that God denounced to man that if he degenerated from his integrity he should dye which might have occasion'd some thought in him of the pains which follow death being he knew that his Soul was immortal But the apprehension of punishment after sin and also of that which follows death do's not infer any other of remuneration unless God reveal mercy and hope of pardon after the transgression Which God had not as yet done in the integrity of Nature So that man having from God neither hope of pardon in case he should sin nor any cause to think of death in case he should not sin he had no occasion to raise his mind higher towards a better life But if any one conceives some scruple touching the perpetuity of the life of man upon the Earth if he had not fallen into sin and imagines rather that God after he had lest him for some Ages in the World to practice obedience and virtue would have at last taken him to himself and given a greater recompense then that which he could have injoy'd in a terrestrial felicity he must also confess that to instate man in the injoyment of such remuneration there would have been no need of Death and so that it was not necessarily for him to know what the estate of his Soul after separation from his body should be Moreover whatsoever that compensation would have been which man should have received for his Obedience and Virtue insomuch as it would have been a condition and a glory supernatural some revelation of it must necessarily have been made by another way then nature namely then by the evidences which may be had from consideration of the Works of God and the Government of the World And in truth to hear the Poets and Philosophers speak of it sufficiently evinces that such as have had no other light to guid them in search of these things but that of Nature and Reason have onely groped in the dark For how ridiculous is the description which they make of the Infernal Regions and Elysian Fields Is it not pleasant to behold the Landskip which Virgil hath drawn of them in the sixth Book of his Aeneids where he speaks of Rhadamanthus and the severity of his sentences and forgets not to paint out Tysiphone with her scourges and serpents together with the Furies He also places there hideous Hydra's and I know not what kind of other vile beasts at the gates of Hell and in that horrible prison which he represents twice
certainly to conjecture what the cause of death is God himself would have purposely hid it from them least not being able to discover the remedy of it despair should sink and ruine all the World All other ignorances have been prejudicial and very often pernicious to men to this alone we owe the conservation of humane Society So that we may pertinently apply to this in particular that which Horace speaks generally of the ignorance in which it hath pleased God we should live touching events to come Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosa nocte premit Deus The sole Word of God which is the special revelation we are in quest of is that which accords all these differences and clears up all the difficulties and confusions We shall not dispute at present whether in his first creation the body of man was naturally so well constituted that through prudence whereby he was able to avoid all hurtful things and the use of aliments which the blessing of God rendred as efficacious for the conservation of life by the good and pure qualities which he at first indued them with as now they are often full of noxious juices since the curse of God blasted them for our offence he might without other assistance from the Deity avoid all alteration and corruption either by disease or Age. God hath in the composure of Gold and Diamonds and other like things given sufficient proof of his power and hath so exactly temper'd the contrary qualities of the Elements in the constitution of certain bodies that they seem not subject to any corruption whatsoever And the long life which the first Men liv'd even after sin and the examples of the like we meet with in several profane Histories and some also though few which may be found in the Histories of these latter times give us enough to judge how firm and durable the life of man would be were he as exactly and perfectly fram'd and the aliments that support him as good as the estate of Nature in its integrity could have promised We onely affirm that though as the Philosophers thought the body of man being composed of the Elements and consequently including contrary and repugnant qualities would have carried in its self the seeds of death yet this revelation teaches us that the Wisdom of God would have so provided therein that if no disorder had hapened in the World through sin the propensity which our bodies have to their own dissipation would have been restrain'd and hindred by his Providence For he would have repell'd all sorts of eternal accidents he would have hindred the intemperature of the humors both by preserving them in right harmony and supplying man with aliments indued with excellent faculties and void of all noxiousness and by infusing new vigor of life in time of necessity to hinder the approach of Old-age would have maintained man in a vigorous and flourishing consistence and so given him the immortality of which we have now nothing left but the desire Whence likewise the union of the Soul and Body would have continued to eternity not subject to any important change or evil accident So that admitting death to be an accident that sutes with the natural principles of the composition of their bodies yet the cause that they do dye is because it having been covenanted that the consequences of a mortal condition should be hindred upon condition that man continued in obedience sin supervening hath changed the dispensation of all that and effected that death is become in quality of a punishment and vengeance And this ought nor to be deemed strange For there are things which considered in themselves have nothing so shameful in them but that they may well endure either the presence of another or the publike day-light which yet through the disorder befallen in nature are become ignominious Nakedness which of it self is not dishonest is become unseemly through sin which hath caused rebellion in the corporeal appetites against reason So that they who affirm it indifferent to go naked or clothed shew that extreme profaness hath worn out of their foreheads that shame which causes others to express their consciousness of sin and the unseemliness of the irregularity of our sensual faculties so as to be asham'd of their impudence who are not so themselves Wherefore though death were a natural accident which yet it is not the horror of it is too great to acknowledge no more in it but pure nature and its motions For why then do Infants dye We learn from the same revelation that that so sudden separation of the soul from the Body is not for ever but that the being which is given them though at first it seem's to have been allotted for a moment onely and by consequence little better then not-being shall endure eternally when the considerations shall cease for which it suffer'd the Eclipse of the time that it was to appear in this Life For the being of man when it hath once had a beginning is of perpetual duration and the time of Death is but as an Eclipse of his course But this is not the place for this discourse and therefore we shall add but a word more and pass forward Whether we consider the justice or the goodness of God this revelation amply furnishes us what to answer in defence of both He takes away little children at their birth and notwithstanding does not incur thereby any blame of cruelty because before they were born they deserved that punishment by reason of the natural infection of sin which they drew from those that begat them And indeed as we crush the Eggs of Scorpions before they are hatcht not because they have as yet deserved to be destroy'd for any wound which we have received by them but because in growing up the seeds of venome which that brood hath by nature will infallibly be exerted to our mischief so is it sometimes expedient for God to stifle from the wombe such children as have so many seeds of vice in them that coming to years would do much more mischief then any Scorpion in the World This the Philosophers never understood and therefore could not return in answer But if there opinion were admitted it would be requisite to defer judging of the merit of Infants till they come to the age that ennables them to manifest and display their Vice Moreover God resumes some of them back to himself whom he pleases to render happy by his goodness Nor is it necessary that he should permit them a longer abode in this life that so they might be capable of happiness for their practises of Virtue because he do's not give it as a Salary deserved from his justice by our Virtues but as a beneficence purely out of his liberality which likewise the Philosophers never thought of for according to them if there remains any beatitude to be hoped after this Life it cannot be aspir'd unto but by Virtue How then can Infants obtain
little evince that man was not destinated by nature her self to an incorruptible condition so this impossibility of obtaining as we desire the perpetuity of the Supreme Good does not argue that we were not made to injoy it by him to whose power and goodness we are indebted for our Original It must follow then that either those natural desires which are not at all thwarted by reason were given us to no purpose at all which is a conclusion that true Philosophy disdaines to own or that there is a supreme Felicity which is of perpetual duration Now the injoyment of that immutable Happiness is the compensation allotted to Virtue by the Divine Goodness as the privation thereof is the retribution and penaltie constituted by Divine Justice to Vice The cause of the whole mistake is the ignorance of what we were in beginning and what we are become since by our own fault for at our first creation we were constituted in full injoyment of that Felicity of which Aristotle fancied some kind of Idea but Sin hath dispossess'd us of it The Soul and the Body were both created to Immortality but the Body is become mortal by our revolt Both of them were destinated to durable Happiness without diminution or interruption throughout all Ages but disobedience hath separated both the one and the other from it The Privation of that blisseful Estate is an effect of the Justice of God but the Hope that God hath by his Truth given us to recover it is an effect of his Mercy and both indubitable testimonies of his Providence in as much as they are the most remarable instances and parts of it For although God takes upon himself the care of Governing the motions of the Heavens though he orders all the mutations of the Elements and their mixtures for production of all things in Nature and though he afford daily supply of sustenance necessary to the Fish of the Sea the Beasts of the Field and ths Fowles of the Air and all this most manifestly bespeaks his Wisdom Power and Goodness yet there is not in all this conduct any thing so worthy of himself as the exercise of his Justice in punishing and the works of his clemency in rescuing those from condemnation which deserve it In as much as in the former instance he uses goodness towards creatures which have not offended him he follows his natural inclinations and the inviolable relation which is between Him and Them But in punishing he is inforced to commit a kind of violence as I may so speak to retain the effects of his Benignity and to inflict those of his indignation out of the onely consideration of his Justice And when he comes to pardon his Goodness as it were overflows of it self to swallow up his Justice in Mercy Now although I have been somewhat more prolixe in this dispute and principally in the deduction of these last particulars being lead to it by regard of their importance yet I conceive I have not been tedious to the Reader who understands how fruitful and thriving that Doctrine of Epicurus is and with how much obstinacy and opiniastry his successors of the present time labor to defend it I omit to meddle with those sentiments of theirs that purely relate to Natural Philosophy wherein the Glory of God and Piety and Virture are not so neerly and particularly concern'd Though I must not dissemble that it is to be fear'd that some of those which so much recommend the Physicks of that Sect do it chiefly to prepare some good impression for their Theology and Morality I shall onely add in reference to such as openly declare themselves for Epicurus in that which belongs to Religion that they have a very high opinion of the strength and subtilty of their wits and bring a great obstinacy to the defence of their Tenets For which reasons it was necessary to discuss their subterfuges exactly either to reduce them to a better mind which I confess cannot be done but by the sole grace of God or to make them hold their peace if they have not altogether with piety abandon'd all shame And this I believe I have performed in such a manner that no man ought hereafter to be scandalis'd if they esteem the profession of all Religions indifferent For since to speak plainly they have no Religion at all in their Heart it is no great matter to them what it is which they carry in their Lips I shall therefore orderly pass over to examination of the Opinion designed to the second Part of my Work A TREATISE Concerning RELIGIONS Against those who esteem them all Indifferent The second Part. CHAP. I. Of the Vniversal Consentment of all Nations in this Point That there ought to be One Certain Religion And that it is Necessary that God himself prescribe the Model of the same AS all the World consents in this fundamental Truth That there is a God which the Epicureans themselves dare not deny and likewise that God governs all the transactions upon Earth since the number of those that deny it is inconsiderable in comparison of its assertors and they which profess to indubitate the same are constrained as we have formerly shown to confess that they have no other knowledge of God but by the traces and instances of his Providence So we may observe an universal Instinct of Nature in this that all Nations have accounted it necessary to the rendring to God the honor belonging to him that there be one certain determinate form of Constitution called Religion containing the rules according to which men ought to guide and comport themselves therein For never was there any Nation that thought it enough to serve God in thought onely without making demonstration of their devotion by gestures external actions and observation of certain ceremonies unless perhaps some one among those where Barbarism rules all and which in that respect we usually term Savages But the actions of such people are not to be drawn into consequence except we account it also an indifferent matter to live on humane flesh as they do and to be ignorant of all things that are honest and worthy recommendation And yet there will be sound very few people but have at least some shadow of Religion even amongst the Cannibals Now that such Instinct of Nature is not brutish but is either accompanied with or proceded from reason is no hard matter to make appear with irrefragable evidence Man is naturally a Lover of Society and was not created to live in solitude they which so affections to renounce converse with other men must be as One said long since either some thing more or some thing less then Men. Now we have for the principal objects of our affections God and Men like our selves which are also the two chief and perhaps onely things to which we owe any Duties Concerning those duties in which we stand obliged one towards another it hath been requisite to establish certain Societies
vigilant care for the good and conservation of men is rebated so much without question is defaulked from their piety towards him And whereas as we shall see in its due place man is by nature alienated from God and extremely averse and reluctant to be reduc'd to him how clear knowledge soever he ha's by his word of this wise Providence how could those doubts and darkeness ever introduce him to an ingenious and free devotion I conclude therefore that all the Religion of the Ancients who liv'd without a particular Revelation had there been no other particulars to make it so but this was either languid or forc'd and that consequently to beget in the hearts of men a true and since respect towards God it is needful that himself instruct us in the knowledge of his Providence But that which follows shall shew the same more evidently CHAP. V. Of what great moment it is to know whether Death be a Natural Accident or Not And that such knowledge cannot be attain'd without special Revelation DEath is the most ordinary thing in the World For all that are born must necessarily dye Yet there is nothing of whose Cause and End Philosophers have been more ignorant All of them look't upon it as a thing purely Natural which befalls us as inevitably as naturally because our bodies being composed of the Elements which include discordant qualities hot and cold dry and moist so long as these continue in good harmony and are mixed in a perfect temperature they are maintained in vigor but when one comes to prevail against another or one of them fails through absumption of the moisture in which it consists or any other way there necessarily follows a dissipation of the compages Which happens in like manner to all other bodies which have the same principles of their generation the union after a certain time being dissolved and the bodies corrupted Indeed if the Soul of Man were mortal as his body is they would have reason for this opinion and Death would be natural to us as it is to other creatures but it befits onely Epicurus who believes the humane Soul corruptible to hold Death for a thing simply natural if every one will speak agreeably to his principles and not run into absurdities and extravagances For Man is not the Soul onely he is the body to that is to say the body is not only the case of his Soul wherein she is included for a time but a part of man which enters into his composition and without which he cannot be called man Now what a disorder is it in the Nature of man that half of his essence should be extinguish'd at the end of fourty or fifty years and the other half his Soul remain for ever after despoiled of it Unless the wild Metempsychosis of Pythagoras be admitted and that our Souls do not cease to go out of some bodies and re-enter into others sometimes into a horse and sometimes a bird and sometimes a man or if it be confin'd onely to humane bodies that he who was a great Philosopher two thousand years ago is now a Cow-heard and that great Prince who discomfited Darius neer the City of Arbela at this present a Porter in the Market An Opinion I conceive they against whom I dispute will not own Shall the Soul then remain eternally a Widow She that cherishes the body so much that she forgets her own interest to be complacent to it She that is not separated from it but with so great regret that the best marriage in the world is not dissolved with so much reluctancy and tears In which respect since these people acknowledge a Providence how come they not to observe that if death be a thing purely natural a good part of that Providence is lost death taking the body from its jurisdiction so that it cannot repay it the rewards of Virtue nor make it feel any penalty for its Vices Or if it be a punishment to the Body to exist no more why do those dy who in consideration of their Virtue and Piety ought to obtain some recompense for their bodies For the course of the World is such as we noted above that in this life neither the greatest part of crimes are sutably punisht nor the least part of compensations distributed and the Colicks Megrims Catarrhs Palsies Goutes and Stone hinder us from boasting of having found our corporeal beatitude here Yea if death be a thing natural as they conceive it cannot be a punishment to the body for the Vices to which it is addicted For that which is natural may indeed be an infirmity or misery but not a punishment which ha's no place but in retribution for sin and because things which are purely natural arrive to us whether we sin or not And besides the Vicious would be no otherwise treated then he which is not so and he that is not Vitious would have no better a condition then he that is culpable Which perverts all order of Justice and all Wisdom of Providence But there daily falls out a certain accident in Life of which in case death be natural noman can give a pertinent reason nor acquit the Providence which governs the world of blame Namely that Infants dye at their birth and even some are extinguish'd in the Womb. To what purpose were it to have lodg'd a Soul so little a time in a body that it had not so much leasure as to know its habitation And since as they teach 't is the Soul it self that fashions and disposes and contrives its mansion why is it ruin'd before she can enjoy it without hope of ever seeing it re-edified And as to the poor wretched body which is not yet sensible of its condition what is it the better for having been so little a while or what hath it committed that it must be no longer I know well that it is taught that it is better to Be then Not to be and I do not gainsay it but yet a Being of so little duration is of no great comfort and he would seem not to satisfie right reason who being ask'd why he breaks an excellent piece of workmanship incontinently after he had made it without having reap'd any use of it either to himself or any other should answer that it was sufficient that he had given it a being of half an hour For it was not to experiment his art that God framed little Infants there are Proofs enough of that in so many millions of men he knows it without tryal and is so expert therein that every work of his being perfect he ha's no cause to repent of or be displeased with it If it be answered that 't is for the exercise of Parents to train them to patience were there no more in it but this the action indeed would have for its end to frame men to Virtue in which their resemblance with the Deity consists but the means that God used to bring them to it
more In like manner the best knowledge that can be had of the revelation of heavenly truth in this point is by proof of the comfort that it affords to the souls of men and by its efficacy of cleansing them from the corruption of sin of which if we do not complain we are more then stupid and insensible But on the one side they that know the truth by this evidence scarce require any other and on the other side we have now to do with them that cannot know this truth by the experience of its virtue till they have first had some tast of it by an other way Wherefore it is necessary for us to speak of it in another sort and to shew briefly that provided a man brings the like docility to attain it that he does to the study of humane Sciences that is to say a mind clear of all prejudice affected to truth and free from importunate and contentious quarrelling the search is not laborious nor the attainment difficult so far are the pains imploy'd therein likely to be unprofitable Indeed I conceive there is none will deny but that if there be a Religion in which all the truths we have above considered are found either wholly revealed or illustrated sufficiently to determine the irresolution of the mind of man and to fix his agitations by contenting the insatiable desire of knowledge which is in us that this Religion is divine For since there never was not onely any Nation but not so much as one single person in any Nation that comprehended all these truths together What God is in his own nature How he hath created the World In what manner he governs it What is the cause and origine of Death Whence all the disorder we behold in man and in the world came to pass where we are to seek the knowledge of the means to obtain remission of our sins What hope there is of the Resurrection of the body yea What certainty there is of the doctrine of the immortality of our souls nor any of them solidly and distinctly do's it not follow that the doctrine which ha's so clear'd up all these truths that for the future there remains nothing to be doubted concerning them or known for the satisfaction of our minds therewith must necessarily proceede from some other then the mind of man For there is no more to be expected after tryal of the utmost power of our understanding in the discovery of these points New Countries have in our times been found in the East and West Indies which were unknown to the Ancients But the Sea and the Wind carried the discoverers thither there needed but a little more daring to sail forth from the coasts of one's country into the main Sea and a something exacter observation of the Needle and the Stars to direct the course and the arrival upon and beholding of those regions was an indubitable manifestation of their existence But should the World be turned about from East to West and from North to South there would be seen but one and the same Sun and the same Heavens Lands Seas Rivers and Men and the same order in the nature of things which the Philosophers contemplated in Greece and Italy the Druyds in Gallia the Brachmans and Gymnosophists in India the Magi and Astrologers in Chaldea and Priests and mysterious divines in Aegypt The very Scythians had their Sages who addicted themselves to the search of things humane and divine Therefore there must either spring up an other new kind of men or it must not be hoped that any should see clear in this wherein all others have been blind Now if this revelation be not proceeded from the mind of man it must be come from God no other could have given it us For Demons cannot here reasonably be brought into the Scene If they be I demand whether they were good or bad If good they did it by the instinct and command of God and so we have what we drive at If bad how could they which are the authors and lovers of lying teach us truths which oppose and condemn them and ruine the dominion which they bear over the minds of men by means of ignorance And since all such truth tends to the glory of God and the wellfare of mankind these especially how could wicked Demons be induc'd to communicate the knowledg of them to men being equally enemies to Heaven and Earth And in as much as every Religion professes either to teach things or to contain mysteries surpassing the apprehension of humane understanding for there never was any but pretended to deep secrets not to be sounded by the Reason of man that so it might be more venerable if there be sound one in which there are certain doctrines raised above our reach so interwoven with truths which we comprehend and whereof it ha's given us an absolute certainty that they illustrate and confirm one another so that what we understand assures us of the truth of that which we do not fully comprehend and what we do not perfectly comprehend connects truths together already understood as a necessary cement to hinder the dissipation of the whole work who can doubt but that it is God that connected those truths together by an indissoluble concatenation For without doubt they are truths though we do not comprehend them seeing they support others of whose evidence reason is convinc'd which would otherwise be ungrounded and infirm their verity I say appears from this consideration and it must needs be some other then the mind of man that ha's imploy'd them to this purpose since that is not capable to comprehend their nature Furthermore whereas it was well said by One That things of greatest antiquity are best and the Philosophers themselves when they treat concerning God and Religion extremely cry up Antiquity and attribute much to the dictates of their Ancestors as if nature it self had suggested to them that there was a source of all these things from which they that were nearest it drew the purest and sincerest waters whereas accordingly as they are derived through several minds as so many several conduit-pipes they become corrupted and tincted with extraneous qualities and contract impurity If there be found a doctrine that ha's all the marks of Antiquity and there appears nothing in the world that equals it it ought not to be doubted but that the same is proceeded from him that is more ancient then all as being author of all things If the language in which it was revealed be as the mother and stock from which others though very ancient are sprung if it describes the history of the world and of men and their propagation upon the earth if it affords the demonstration of times and that without it the knowledge of Chronology would be more intricate then a Labyrinth if it deduces its history from point to point with an exact correspondence if it clearly and certainly relates histories that are as the
in arms Now what is the cause of this misery but their Sins both such as are common to all men in general and particular to their own Nation For certainly God who lov'd them so tenderly and chose them out from all others to communicate his Covenants to them would not treat them so rigorously were there not some lawful cause in their extraordinary offenses And what a strange blindness and stupidity of mind is it to have so quick a resentment of evils relating to the body and not to acknowledge the cause of them What a depravity and perversity of understanding to groan under the strokes of the hand of God never to groan under the load of their own iniquity To pant incessantly after a Deliverer of the Body and never to think of the redemption of the soul They are driven out of Judaea and Heaven and Earth resound with their lamentations They are by their sins debar'd the hope of Heaven and make no matter of it They are inthralled to their corporeal enemies and murmure against God for it They themselves are sold to Satan and to Sin and do not understand the horror of this servitude They are impatient in a waiting the coming of some Person that may reassemble them from their dispersion and deliver them in reference to the body The Redeemer and Deliverer of their fouls is offer'd and preach'd to them and they reject him They flatter themselves with hope of a profound and plenteous tranquillity in all sorts of pleasures and delights of the Flesh and cheer up themselves with it They are invited to taste how good the Lord is in his compassions and they refute it Their thoughts are day and night upon gold silver silk scarlet fine linnen and jewels and their hearts leap with the fancy The Gospel tells them of riches and ornaments relating to the minde and they blaspheme it Is this the Posterity of that onely wife and intelligent people with whom God establisht his Covenants But above all the rest they do injury to the glory of that Messias who was promised to them to fancy him an earthly Prince For since themselves call his Kingdom the Kingdom of Heaven what other ought they to hope for but one spiritual and heavenly which beginning to be exercis'd here below in the souls of men which are of a spiritual nature is accomplish'd above in glory unspeakable And truly 't is to this that all the Prophets lead us from the first to the last What does that promise refer to The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head but to the consolation of man by the hope of being deliver'd from the Curse of eternal Death into which he is fallen by the deceit of the Evil One For as he sin'd principally with his soul which is the source and principle of the actions of the body and alone capable of understanding the laws of piety and obedience so it was consentaneous that the condemnation of death should be directed to the soul in case of rebellion And that other promise In thy seed shall all the families of the Earth be blessed and I will give this Land to thee and to thy Posterity after thee wherein did it profit Abraham if it aim'd no further then that Canaan which himself never possess'd and was not given to his Posterity till above 400. years after Was it either a sufficicent consolation to him in all the Crosses that he underwent or a Promise worthy of God who establisht his Covenant with him For which of us cares what will be done a hundred years after his death As for those words of Jacob untill Shiloh come they promise a Prince of peace about whom neither fire nor sword shall glitter but he shall be the author of peace between God and men It shall come to pass saith Isaiah that the Mountain of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountaines and shall be exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it But what to do Come shall they say and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths Therefore 't is to be enrich'd in the knowledge of the Name of the Lord and not in Jewels or Pearls to learn to moderate and subdue their Passions and not to conquer Kingdomes Also in the 25. chap. 6. vers In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things a feast of Wines on the lees of fat things full of marrow of wines on the lees well refined Can they take this according to the Letter It is certain there are some so stupifi'd with the wine of ignorance that they take it so and expect to be satiated with that horrible Leviathan which is powder'd up I know not where against the manifestation of the Messias Poor people who think the Prince of the Kingdom of Heaven will come to fill their bellies But behold what follows vers 7. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all Nations What is the meaning of this but that all Nations being involv'd in ignorance as in the black veil of night he will dispell all that darkness to the end they may behold the light of his knowledge that they may rejoyce I say in the light of that Sun of Righteousness who carries healing in his wings And thus through out all the Prophets which would be too long to recite there needs no more but to read them For it will be found that he is a Prince of peace upon whom the Spirit of the Lord shall rest the Spirit of Wisdom and Vnderstanding the Spirit of counsel and might the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. That under his reign The Wolfe shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard lye down with the Kid and the Calfe and the young Lyon and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them c. That is He will unite the most hostile Nations together in the same society of Religion and cicurate and mollifie the fiercest people by the knowledge of the true God and render the most untractable natures gentle and sweet Which the Prophet himself expounds immediately after They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street A bruised reed shall be not break and the smoaking flaw shall he not quench So far is it that he shall batter all to pieces with Canon-shot or hew all down with the sword And as for his Glory it must needs be other then terrestrial and corporeal Since he was to be despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Since I say he
would seem to carry something of inhumanity of which it is incongruous that he should propose himself an example God who is so good hath so many other means in his hand to lead men to Virtue would never willingly employ any thereunto for which he might be accus'd of barbarousness and cruelty especially seeing it is an accident so frequent that in a Town of a thousand families there do's not pass one day in the year in which it do's not happen 'T is true for certain great and important considerations Kings are excused if they sometimes commit some act of injustice or violence But this must be very rarely done and onely when the safety of the State is concern'd Yet Lucretia could not contain from crying out upon the death of Iphigenia who was sacrific'd for the safety of all Greece Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum But that there should dye five or six times as many Children in the Cradle as attain to mans estate seems an irregularity which not onely an Epicurean but the most devout and pious amongst the Philosophers cannot but judge unsupportable Above all other considerations the Fear which the thought of death begets naturally in all men deserves our animadversion For how couragious so ever any may endevour to appear 't is as Aristotle calls it the most terrible of all terrors And as one hath observed if Julius Câ—sar who was magnanimity it self said that the most unexpected death was the sweetest and most desirable which testifies that he resented some dread when he thought of it what may we think of the horrors which other men have of it And this Fear does not arise onely from the apprehension that a man shall exist no more but it hath something of I know not what other violence and bitterness For otherwise nature and reason being two things which accord very well together if death were purely natural reason would finde something in that consideration wherewith to be comforted and gently drink off that Cup. But experience shews that the consolations taken from the necessity of Nature and the example of so many other deaths are too weak and of too little efficacy when the business is to strengthen a soul that trembles at the presence of death Which if there have been some that were generously resolv'd to undergo they have been very few in number and almost none in comparison of so many men yea Nations to whom the alarms of death have been terrible and hideous For I do not put in the rank of such as resolve generously against it those Caitifs that tye the rope to their own necks and drink to their companions upon the Ladder For this is so far from true generosity conjoyn'd with the discourse of reason that it is meer stupidness and more then bestial brutality And it is diligently to be observed that they who believe not that their Soul is immortal comfort themselves more easily then others do with the consideration of the necessity of death and say that as the Generations which preceeded their Birth belonged nothing at all to them because they were not yet in being so they ought not to care for those which follow after their death in regard they shall be no longer and that Agamemnon is dead and Romulus and Patroclus and the Scipio's Qui multis quam tu meliores improbe rebus And I believe the greatest part of those that have shewn so high a courage in contemning death among the Pagans had not much consideration of their future condition As it is clear by Socrates who says in Plato that he knew not which was best to live or to dye and that it were a folly to redoubt a thing of which there is no certain knowledge whether it be desirable or to be feared Whereas they that think seriously of immortality find nothing in nature that encourages or comforts them A sure evidance that death hath something of terror in it which does not proceed from nature but from something else for they would at least have more ground of consolation then the others in the subsistence of the better part of their essence Now whence can that horror be but onely that death is the forerunner of divine vengeance and makes up a part of it already If hereupon they agree that it is a punishment for sin certainly since all other Philosophers have held it to be simply natural they cannot know it to be so by any other way then that divine revelation that hath inform'd us by what gate it entred into the World For none of the Ancients ever found out or could so much as divine in a dream what was the cause of it And so far were they from having it come into their minds that on the contrary some have believed that Death was rather a gift and gratification to us from the Deity then a punishment inflicted by his Justice Which opinion the innumerable miseries of humane life greatly concurr'd to render authentick the undergoing whereof being look'd upon as so dolorous that sometime the deliverance from them ha's been accounted the greatest good that could arrive Or if some few have not dared to affirm absolutely that death was a Good yet they maintain'd at least that it was no Evil since it rescues men from all calamities which they suffer To fear death said Socrates to his Judges is nothing else but to seem to be wise and not to be so For it is to pretend to know that which we do not know because none knows what death is nor whether it be not the greatest good that can befall a man To which Plutark refers that exhortation of an ancient Greek Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metuenda non est mors arumnarum exitus So also the greatest part of the reflections of Cicero upon this matter in the first of the Tusculane Questions fall into the Dilemma of Socrates To wit that if the soul be extinguish'd with the body and so the sense of all things be absolutely abolish'd death cannot really be an Evil because a man being thereby wholly depriv'd of existence and exempted from among the nature of things that which is not is equally incapable both of Evil and Good But if the soul survive the Body death is so far from being an evil that it ought rather to be accounted in the number of the greatest goods seeing it delivers from the evils of this present life and puts a man in possession of the contentments of a better upon which he does not omit to mention the converse with the Heroes wherein Socrates placed the greatest part of the hopes of his joy But the business is of higher importancy For though the Light of Nature should have taught men that death is an effect of the justice of God yet is it impossible as we shall see in due place for the same to discover to them the remedy thereof And I conceive that though the reason of man should have been able