ever shew better and greater at a distance than they prove in our Possession but this that they carry no proportion to the Appetites of the Mind which is of a Spiritual and Heavenly Nature and can never hope to receive adequate Satisfaction from any thing here below Wherefore if these vast Capacities and Desires were placed in us by a Being of Infinite Wisdom and if a Being infinitely wise can do nothing in vain then it follows that our Souls were created not only for this World but to live in another where they shall converse with and enjoy such bright and glorious Objects as will compleatly gratify and delight them And from hence I deduce a fourth Argument for the Immortality of the Soul viz. 4. From the common appetite in Men to live for ever and in that Eternal State to possess the chiefest good which will satiate the highest and most extensive Desires of the Mind Every Man that comes into the World loves happiness and would enjoy it eternally it was not only the desire of St. Paul to be dissolved and be with Christ but the wish of Balaam to die the death of the righteous He believed a future Life and that good Men should be blessed in it and he wisht he might have a share of their Blessedness We have had great experience of God's Goodness who hath enriched us with many favours and therefore we ought to believe that he loves us and did intend good to us in the whole contrivance and constitution of our Nature wherein he only could put these unextinguishable Appetites to live and subsist happily for ever and to partake of such Felicity as this World does not afford and which indeed is no where to be found but in his infinitely perfect Being Now he who loves us exceedingly well and of whose Bounty we have shared thus largely already would not have endued our Nature with those vehement Appetites which unless he be pleased in fit time to give them satisfaction can only serve to distract and torture our minds and render us extremely miserable For such a Treatment would be not only inconsistent with his infinite Wisdom which appears in every part of the World but repugnant to his boundless Goodness which always disposes him to promote the Happiness pity the weaknesses and supply the wants of his poor Creatures 'T is hope of enjoyment of Everlasting Happiness which makes us to bear Injuries Pains and Losses patiently and at length yield to the stroke of Death with a willing and contented mind But had we reason to believe that Death would make an utter end both of Body and Soul as the conceit thereof all-along this Life would be an intolerable burthen so we should leave the world with deep Horror But if there be a God and that God is the Author of our Nature and the Author of our Nature is infinitly Good and always acts suitably to that Goodness and if it be the property of infinite Goodness to bestow all that endless Bliss and Felicity upon its Creatures which it not only hath made them capable of but which it hath inclined their very Nature earnestly to desire and hope for then we may from hence beyond all question and doubt conclude the Immortality of our Souls And our hope of a joyful Eternity can no where rest so safely as upon the Divine Goodness 5. I shall but name one Argument more tho it is of unconquerable Force to prove the future subsistence of the Soul and that is Divine Providence which governs the World preserves all things in their natural order and observes whatever is done upon Earth to the end all men may receive a Treatment from God agreeable to their behaviour That those who love and fear and serve God may partake of the Glories with which he will reward the Heavenly-minded and that they who neglect and forget and dishonour God may be banisht into outer Darkness That they who have done good in their Generation and shew'd pity to their fellow-creatures may obtain a Recompence and they who have been impure and malicious and have laid wait for the righteous opprest the poor and not spared the widow may receive Judgment without Mercy But since this equal distribution of Rewards and Punishments which the Divine Justice does require is not made in this world we have full assurance our Souls shall live in another and there have Judgment pass upon them according to their deserts It now but remains that I make a short Reflection or two upon this Discourse 2. If our Souls shall survive our Bodies it ought not only to encourage us to be patient and resigned to the Will of God under the great variety of Troubles and Afflictions which happen in this Life but also to arm us against the fear of Death Since Death only will lay open a passage for us into another Life which will infinitely surpass this For as much as there we shall be deliver'd from all those things which render our present condition either dangerous or uncomfortable We shall no longer be exposed to the Temptations of wicked men or of our own Lusts now so dangerous and dreadful to us when admitted into the Conversation of Angels and Souls made Perfect we shall not so much as suspect treachery and wrongs when out of reach of the Malice of Men and Devils we shall not fear Pains and Diseases wherewith it is not possible our incorruptible nature should be affected in a word we never again shall be liable to the power of Death the King of Fears for our Lord says we cannot die any more The Poet supposes the Soul of Achilles after he was slain to be introduced into the presence of his Son and to exhort him not to grieve and be cast down for his Fathers Death by means whereof he was admitted to familiarity with the Blessed Gods but to furnish his mind with his Virtues from which he should reap most pleasant Fruit. Is not Death not Evil Are we not of kin to God and come from him Let us go back thither from whence we came and get loose from these Fetters which are strait and heavy Here are Robbers and Thieves and Judicatures and Tyrants who if they have Power over us it is with respect to our BODY and its Possessions Let us shew they have no power and wait the pleasure of God unto whom as soon as he shall discharge us from our Duty in the present Station we shall return What befals the righteous Man in his Death and how little reason he has to be concerned and dread it we learn from the Excellent Author of the Book of Wisdom For God created man to be immortal and made him to be an image of his own eternity nevertheless through the envy of the devil came death into the World and they that do hold on his side do find it But the Souls of the righteous are in the hands of God and there shall
name such ridiculous stuff is sufficient to confute it nothing being plainer than that men must either part with these Principles or the Doctrines of their Saviour for they can never consist and agree together 2. That after the Dissolution of the Body the Soul doth exist and live in the separate State It appears from our Lord's words fear not them which kill the body c. that he does rather suppose than go to prove the Immortality of the Soul which he took for a granted truth by them steddily believed And therefore it was not his design to convince them that the Soul does live after its separation from the body but to shew that it is such a simple and incorruptible substance that nothing beneath Almighty Power can destroy it But I fear a general decay of Faith and Piety will not only justify but make it requisite that we should endeavour to prove that fundamental Doctrin of the immortality of the Soul the truth whereof our Lord supposed while he was instructing his Disciples 1. The first Argument I shall use for the Immortality of the Soul shall be from the general sense and perswasion of men that the Soul does survive the Body This Belief seems to be as early as the first Inhabitants on the earth for Authors of the greatest Reputation and Antiquity who write of the Opinions and Manners of men do relate almost of every Country that they thought the Soul did subsist after death This Perswasion prevailed among the Jews not only while they were the immediate and peculiar Care of God but hath been diligently preserved and transmitted to their Posterity the Sect of unbelieving Sadduces being long since extinct The Aegyptians a Nation famous for Invention of Arts and Sciences are said first to have taught the Doctrine of Immortality of Souls Which Opinion found Entertainment among all the Antient Inhabitants of the East was the Perswasion also of the old Greeks and Gauls and Thracians This was the Opinion of Homer who preceded all the Sects of Philosophers he in words very like our Saviour's declaring that nothing was so valuable to him as his Soul and he makes Ulysses to summon before him the Souls of the dead and to hold discourse with them And among the old Greek and Latin Poets scarce more than a Dissenter or two from the Judgment of Homer are to be found Thales supposed by some the first Physiologer who treated of Nature is supposed also first to have taught the Immortality of Souls But as Herodotus does ascribe the first publication thereof to the AEgyptians so Pausanias ascribes it to the Chaldaeans and Indian Magi as Tully does it to Pherecydes Pythagoras's Master and some to others insomuch that this belief of the Souls future Subsistence seems so general and very ancient that the first Writers are not able to discover the Authors of it or fix the time of its beginning This also is the avow'd Doctrine of Pythagoras the Founder of the Sect of Italick Philosophers and of Plato with all his judicious Interpreters and Plotinus Amelius Porphyrius Proclus Alcinous And into this List we may bring Aristole about whom tho' there is some Controversy yet Photius affirms that they did not dive deep enough into his Profound Mind who were of another OpinÃon And as Moses relates that after the body was formed of the Earth God did breath a living Soul into it so Aristotle expresly teaches that the Soul only enters the body from without and is of Divine Extraction he may also pass for a good Witness both when he affirms that the Renowned Philosophers who were before him believed that the Soul lived after it had left the body and also when he says no Philosopher before him held the World to be Eternal That great man Tully urges for the truth of this Doctrine Immemorial Tradition that we have the consent of all Antiquity for it and that the voice of all men is the Law of Nature and that all are much concerned for those things which shall take place after death Seneca also treating of the Eternity of Souls does affirm that he has the Publick perswasion on his side and the consent of men who either fear the invisible Powers below or worship those above and that the Soul is of Divine Original obnoxious neither to old age nor death and that as soon as it is set at liberty from the heavy Chains of this Body it will return to its place in Heaven Macrobius declares that the Opinion hath universally obtained as well that the Soul is an incorporeal substance as that it is immortal And as the Belief of Immortality was generally received among the Antients so men all along since have been stedfast and constant to it For from Modern Histories Voyages and Travels it is found to be the common Opinion of the World as much in these later days as it was in old time The Turks have so strong a perswasion both of the Resurrection of the Body and the subsistence of the Soul after it leaves the body that not only the Alcoran but their Offices of Prayer have frequent relation thereunto The Arabian Philosophers think that a virtuous Soul when it has taken leave of the body shall partake of immense Pleasures and Joys and be as the chief Angels which are nearest to God The Chinese hold the Soul spiritual and separable from the body and that after death pious Souls shall be rewarded and bad souls tormented They who have of late travelled in Persia India Japan and other Countries of the East have observed the same Belief to prevail among the present Dwellers of those places and the like accounts we have of Southern Inhabitants from them who have visited Guinea and other parts of Africa And though they who first touched at the Cape of Good Hope either through want of time rightly to be informed or not having Curiosity sufficient to discover the Truth did relate the people of those Parts to have no Religion yet we have quite another story of them from late Travellers who with more care and accuracy have searched into those matters And what is remarkable the first Discoverers of America found the people of Brasil Canada Virginia c. tho severed from the rest of the world by the vast Ocean and with whom probably they had no intercourse in many ages to have generally the same belief of the Souls Immortality But after all it must be allowed That there have been here and there some who resolving to live wickedly in this Life have pretended to deny a Future One even the Christian Church hath not wholly escaped this Infection For within its Pale some have started up who maintain the Impious Doctrines of Epicurus to the great dishonour of the Lord who bought them
globular or round Figure Just as if a massy piece of Lead when melted and form'd into Bullets was in a nearer capacity to think meditate debate and act like a Soul But I appeal to the common sense of Mankind whether that Philosopher has a right to call any Legendary Tale into question who can believe that little balls of Matter by being briskly moved can come to have Understanding Will and Judgment Surely they ought to doubt of nothing who can be perswaded that small Bodies round or of any other shape should by justling and moving one against another be endued with Reason and Wisdom and a Talent to dispute concerning the Nature of their own Beings to raise Questions whether they are Matter or Spirit bodily or incorporeal Substances And not only yield to or resist the impressions of Objects present to them according to the acknowledged Laws of Motion but also reflect on the times long since past and meditate on those which are to come nay stretch out their consideration to infinite Space and eternal Duration But as the Epicureans would rid us of our Difficulties by assigning the Figure of the Parts which compound a corporeal Mind so the Stoicks would make the thing intelligible by describing the kind or sort of Motion which causes Matter to think Now it 's their Doctrine that the Soul is Fire and consequently that it performs its Office by such motion as is in Fire But this is strange Fire which gives us Understanding and yet no Light whereby we may any whit more easily conceive in what manner it is possible for Matter to think For who can shew so much as the shadow of an Argument to move a sober Man to conclude That there should be Reasoning Powers and Faculties any more in a Fire of Coles than in a lump of cold Clay or that a Log of Wood should get sense and understanding by being put into a Flame If Materialists will make their Senses to which they so often appeal the Judges they must confess That the Natural Effect of Fire is to separate and rend the Parts of Bodies asunder which action can bear no faint resemblance to the Thoughts Deliberations and Judgments of the Soul nor to that freedom of Will with which it either sets its Faculties on work or stops them These are some of the gross and nauseous Absurdities which unhappy licentious persons are forced to cram down who yet are so nice and squeamish as not to yield their Assent to any Truths of Religion for which there is not Mathematical Proof or Demonstration Aristotle a man of most profound Judgment and penetrating Thoughts who was of opinion that every thing under the Sun was compounded of the four Elements observing that the Faculties and Operations of human Souls were so remotely distant from all the Phoenomena or Appearances of Bodies was compelled to believe that there was a fifth Essence or Element of which only Souls were formed To remember the past to consider the present and provide for the future to encrease our own Knowledge and to improve others and such like all the products of a thinking faculty were things in the Opinion of this great Philosopher not possible to be accounted for by the Affections and Modes and Qualities of matter 3. The Soul and Body will appear distinct Substances from the difference every where supposed in Holy Scripture between them To shew which I begin with the Creation of Man And God said Let us make man in our image after our likeness But man is not like God in respect of his Body because God hath no body Besides the body in its nature is divisible and corruptible but God without change or decay is eternally the same a Being for ever infinitely perfect The similitude therefore between God and Man must be with relation to the Soul which is a Spirit as God is a Spirit The distinction between Soul and Body may also be observed from the manner wherein God created Man And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul His Body was made of the Earth but his Soul which gave life to it came immediately from God The Soul therefore was not created of the same Substance nor together with the Body but of one better and more Divine as the Scripture shews For of the brute Creatures void of Reason it says That the Water brought forth some and the Earth others but of Man that God breathed into him the breath of Life Manifesting thereby that he had an Intellectual and Rational Nature more noble than that of Brutes and near of kin to the Divine Beings above Accordingly also Solomon pronounceth that at the hour of death The spirit of man goeth upward and that the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth In which Author the wisest of men if his Authority may be of any weight there is another Passage that demonstrates the Soul and Body to be distinct Substances and puts the matter beyond a possibility of a contradiction Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it The Soul of the dead remain uncorrupted For God lends men the Spirit and 't is his Image But the Body we have of the Earth and we all being dissolved into it shall be dust but Heaven shall receive the Spirit In pursuance of our Argument it may here be proper to observe how difficult it will be for them who maintain that the Soul is only a mode accident or quality of the Body to give a rational account of Christ's words in our Text Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul c. According to these Philosophers other men may kill the Body but are not able to hurt the Accidents and Qualities of the Body which they are pleased to call the Soul And yet it is most certain that men only can destroy the Accidents and Qualities in Bodies but cannot destroy their Substance which after all force used to it will still subsist in other forms and shapes Insomuch as they quite invert our Saviour's Doctrine it following manifestly from their Assertions that men have only power to kill the Soul that is to destroy the Modes and Accidents in the Body but can do no injury to the Body or Substance it self In one Instance more give me leave to shew how repugnant these wild Opinions are to the Christian Religion And it shall be in the Promise of our Lord to the Penitent Malefactor who was crucified with him to day shalt thou be with me in paradise which in their sense must be thus While the Body of this Sincere Penitent was on the Cross or in the Grave the Modifications and Qualities of his Body were to attend our Saviour into Paradise But I think only to
and the reproch of their Holy Profession Of this sort of ill men about the beginning of the last Century Italy produced a plentiful Crop who valuing themselves more upon the Reputation of their Philosophy than Religion taught openly that the Soul did perish with the body so that it seemed necessary to have their wicked opinions condemned by a Council But notwithstanding these vain glorions persons by venting such strange Notions hoped to have been accounted the only Masters of Sense and Reason yet by the judicious and strong Confutations of the worthy Men who answer'd their Writings it does appear that they were as weak Philosophers as bad Christians But as those who bid defiance to God and ridicule Religion bear no proportion to the Bulk of Mankind so 't is no wonder some such should be found For when Men abuse the liberty God has given them over themselves and by continual Debauchery weaken and corrupt their Faculties it may so come to pass that they shall hardly form a true Judgment of any thing Indeed a Mind enfeebled and clouded with the steams of brutish Lust is no more able to contemplate the Glorious Nature of God or to be affected with pure and intellectual Pleasures than a Body brought into the World without Eyes and Hands is capable to do the ordinary Works of Life For Men may make themselves Monsters as well as be born so but then by the Example of a few such Monsters we ought not to suffer either our Faith to be shaken or our Manners to be perverted Before I part with this Head I would observe where Piety and Virtue and Wisdom have thriven most in the Conversation of Men and the greater good they have done to the World so much the more firmly they have been perswaded that their Souls should subsist after they had left their Bodies and on the contrary that there hardly ever were found any much diposed to scoff at Providence and deny a Future State who had not been infamous Livers A Heathen Philosopher hath spoke of this Point with so much Wisdom and Piety that I think it will be no loss of time here to present you with what he hath said If Conscience awaken in a bad Man a sense of his evil Deeds which tortures his Mind and puts him in fear of Punishment in Hell his only remedy is to fly to Non-entity or Not-being so he cures one Evil with another supporting his Wickedness by the Destruction of his Soul He gives Sentence of himself that after Death he shall be nothing to fly the Penalties of Future Judgment For a wicked Man will not have his Soul immortal that he may not subsist to suffer punishment He anticipates his Judge by declaring it is sit that a wicked Soul should be re-reduced to nothing But as through want of Counsel he was drawn to Sin so through Ignorance of the measure of Things he passes wrong Judgment on himself For the Judges of Spirits departed framing their Sentence according to the Rules of Truth do not judge it meet the Soul should be annihilated 2. My next Argument shall be taken from the fears Men have of Punishment after this Life for their Sins Sin troubles the Minds of Men in such instances as the Law takes no notice of and in such which notwithstanding they are punishable by Law yet were acted too-secretly to be detected and then also when the Offenders having fled their Country were out of reach of the Secular Judge Such Persons likewise have been perplext with the remembrance of their Wickedness whose height and power made them strong enough to break through the Laws and trample on them in which several Cases there was nothing but the Natural Suggestions of Conscience to terrify them Now whence can all this inward Trouble proceed but from an invincible perswasion that after Death will come Judgment If any doubt this we may appeal to disconsolate Sinners themselves who often finding no ease in the business of their Calling in the Conversation of their Friends nor in the change of Company or Place have been driven to seek for relief of another kind and to apply themselves to proper Persons unto whom they may unburden their Souls and confess their secret Offences hoping by their devout Prayers and ghostly Assistance to procure some remedy for their distressed Minds I may add That so insupportable have been the Horrors of a wounded Conscience that men have disclosed their capital Crimes to the Magistrate when they well knew it was his duty to punish such Criminals with Death And the reason why they exposed themselves voluntarily to Temporal Death was to escape Divine Vengeance in another World which they of all things dreaded They did trust that having confest their Sin and repented of it and made all the satisfaction they could to Civil Justice God would not enter into Judgement with them but out of his infinite Compassion forgive them and save their Souls alive Neither was the Course here taken to be imputed to Melancholy or Distraction since experience assures us many hereby have quieted their Minds and found comfort in Death Now if the fears of what shall become of us after Death were the Effects only of the false Principles which are owing to bad Education certainly they would not be so general nor so deeply rivetted in our Nature nor so terrible that Men should be willing to sacrifice their Lives to get rid of them 3. The third Argument I would urge for the Immortality of the Soul and that Men were not made only to live here is this That there is nothing in the World which fills the mind with satisfaction Men are always dissatisfied with their present Condition and endeavouring to make some Alteration in it and after the Alteration is made they do not continue any long time pleased but rather discover that they have only changed their old Grievances for new ones and are disturbed with a fresh set of Complaints Those who have the greatest opportunities to supply themselves with the various pleasures of Sense should if any were be easy in their Enjoyments and yet experience declares that what lately they with much eagerness desired does pall their Appetites and grow flat and insipid It is well known that Men who have had their Treasuries filled with Gold who have commanded Great and Victorious Armies and conquered and ruled over many Nations have after the large encrease of their Wealth their Power and their Glory upon little occasions been disturbed and discontented and fallen into such fits of Rage or Lust or Melancholy as are in no wise consistent with true Contentment of Mind And therefore they still post and press forward from one design to another but with the same dissatisfaction either trusting those who will deceive them or striving to remove that which will never leave them or vehemently coveting what they shall never obtain Now what reason can be given why worldly Goods