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
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
true they are sensible objects which furnish us either the matter or the occasion of all our speculations But there is no man but knows that from those sensible things of which our Fancie receives the forms and representations our minds elevate themselves to considerations infinitely more purifi'd and which retaining nothing of the Nature and condition of Bodies sufficiently confirm that there are faculties in us which though they make use of corporeal organs for some few of their operations are nevertheless immaterial themselves To proceed yet further There is no person in the World but is desirous of Immortality and every one is convinced in his conscience of such an inclination Whence therefore comes that desire to be so Universal amongst us if there be nothing that is able to satisfie it For the same Aristotle hath written that the natural appetites are not given us to no purpose but that there are certain things naturally designed for their satisfaction and that Philosopher is provided with irrefragable reasons to justifie his opinion Therefore where is that Immortality which we all seek after Not in our bodies Since all men yield to the stroke of fate Nor yet in Statues or Books nor in the Memory of men nor in triumphal Arches nor the Inscriptions of Monuments For the number of those is very inconsiderable who have provided themselves Memorials that they have been and of those which have been erected to this day there are not above two or three in a manner whose durable materials have secur'd them from the silent depredation of consuming Time At the utmost although the ancient Monuments should have still survived as the Arches of triumph Pyramids and Mausolaeum's yet they could not give the Immortality we seek they are no more but testimonies that we are not to expect the same in this world as they which want issue take pleasure to keep little Dogs and to behold their Breed It remains then that we have a complaint to make against nature who hath given us a desire without hope of being able to content it which is unworthy and disagreeable to the care which she hath had of us in so many other things For as for what some may possibly alledge that Brutes have almost alike inclinations and that even insensible things are lead by a natural instinct to their own conservation 't is a frivolous objection Shall we say that because a Stone naturally tends downwards it desires to be there perpetually being ignorant of the impulsive cause that moves it or the place whence it comes and whether it goes and even of its own being it cannot to speak properly desire its own conversation The cause is for that every thing which is heavy falls naturally downward if a Stone should not do so it would have no gravity were not a Stone In a word heavy things have as little desire to descend down and light to mount upwards either from the regions of Heaven or the centure of the Earth as the number of Two being doubled ha's to make Four 'T is the nature and order of things which knows not it self who would have it to be so As for Animals destitute of Reason all the care they have of their Preservation lyes in that which we term the estimation of things present which accordingly as they are hurtful or profitable are desired or avoided by them without all knowledge of the future or any thought that reaches so far much less are they able to do as men who anticipate not onely intire Ages but thousands and millions of Years to come And who so compares that blind instinct of Pismires which seem to provide in Summer against the necessities of Winter with the thought of immortality must either be an Idiot or a mad man For can any man of common sense imagine that those little Animals have an apprehension that the Sun being returned to the Tropic of Capricorn will have no more power to make the Earth produce what is necessary to their subsistence Surely no But that small insect being naturally theevish as long as she finds food in the fields steals it from thence and carries it to her little Cell without dreaming that there will be a Morrow and far from foreseeing the Rain and Frosts of Winter being notwithstanding all Elogies of her Ignara atque incauta Futuri But that Providence which governs all things and takes care of their conservation because it created them gives these creatures those blind instincts and inclinations to theft to cause them to lay up a store of necessary sustenance as a Falconer makes use of the swiftness and rapaciousness of Hawkes to cover the table of their Masters with excellent fowl without their understanding of the design But for us our desires are ardent and our thoughts extend themselves wonderfully forward to the Future and forasmuch as the inquietude of ardent desires when we see no hopes of contenting them is extremely importunate in case we have no part in Immortality Nature will not onely have put the desire of it in us to no purpose which she hath done in nothing besides but also to deject and torment us which were a cruelty beyond the spleen of Stepdames Moreover experience it self teaches us that there is such a difference between the Body and Mind that they seem oftentimes to have no communion one with another so different are their functions and so little mutation doth a great and universal change in the one work in the other You may see a man blasted or lamed in all his Members by some accident who yet hath the motions of his mind as strong plyant and nimble as when he was in perfect health You may see another upon the borders of the grave emaciated like a skeleton without vigor and pulse whose understanding nevertheless is more sublime then before and his thoughts more refined who will judiciously discourse of every thing that is propounded to him and that which is the greatest wonder will do it with so little astonishment at death as if to devest himself of his body were of no more value to him then to stripoff his cloathes although he apprehend full well on the one side what death is and do not contemn it out of stupidity and is on the other absolutely perswaded of the immortality of the Soul But it 's true this is not universal and great mutations of the body sometimes produce remarkable changes in the Mind Nor do I deny but that the Body is so constituted in its particular temper and so neerly ligued with the Mind that the disposition of the one contributes very much to the functions and operations of the other As when a Lute is untuned how skillful soever the Musician be he can never make any tolerable harmony so in the total dyscrasie of the Body and its principal instruments the Soul sometimes remains stupified and astonish'd But seeing this happens not equally in all men and that there are as many
experiences of people who amidst aches and mutilations and losses of their limbs have preserved the whole strength of their Minds intire till death it must needs be that this Tabernacle lodgeth something else that is of a more durable temper Whence it is easie to conclude that since it is not a Body it must be an immaterial substance and consequently incorruptible For being of a spiritual nature it cannot be assailed by external things which offend us nor suffer from any accident that befalls it from without and holding nothing of the matter of the Elements or their contrary qualities which naturally encounter one another to their mutual destruction it involves not in it self any seed of corruption which seems to attend every thing that is composed of them I shall add moreover what ha's been above demonstrated that there is so great a difference between Vice and Virtue that he that do's not acknowledge the same is unworthy the name of a man Which how is it possible for us to acknowledge if the Faculties of our Minds be not different from those of Brutes since they have no understanding at all of it For it is certain that we argue from the disproportion of effects to the difference of causes and from the diversity of actions to that of the Faculties which produce them and lastly from the difference of Faculties to that of the essence it self of the things in which those faculties reside If therefore Brutes have no knowledge of Good and Evil as every one sees they have not and if we perceive an infinite distance between them as reason informs us and our conscience acquiesces therein and the consentment of Nations hath declared in all the World it follows that there is an infinite disproportion between our Faculties and theirs and consequently that the like distance is found between the essence of their Souls and that of ours And I appeal to reason whether being the perfection of a Man consists in the knowledge of the most excellent objects and in the exercise of Virtue and the perfection of a good Horse lyes in the strength of his Limbs and in the agility of his motions whether I say it be not abundantly evident that the excellence of the one lyes in his Body and the excellence of the other in some thing wherewith the body hath scarce any communication or commerce Whence it necessarily follows that their natures differ wholly and absolutely in regard of reason which alone is capable of conferring that perfection on man as weighty things differ from light by the massive solidity of their matter in which gravity is seated and as the circular Figure is discriminated from the rest by the roundness of its circumference equally distant from the centre Of which the luctation and combate of reason against the corporeal appetites which even Aristotle and other Philosophers have plainly acknowledged affords a testimony satisfactorily manifest For since there is no shadow of such reluctance in Brutes who follow their sensuality without any rule or check and that the same is sound in the most dissolute men in whom conscience cannot be absolutely extinguish'd it follows that it must have its original from something which is naturally destitute of that sensuality and consequently which is also not corporeal Because it is manifest that those appetites which are called sensitive and are common to us with Brutes have their seat and root in the Body and depend on that Soul by which we have resemblance with them in asmuch as we are Animals Wherefore whether there be in man two distinct Souls one Sensitive as it is called by which we are Animals and the other Reasonable by which we are men or whether there be but one onely which is indued with different faculties whereby we are provided to perform all the Functions appertaining to those two respects it is clear that that sensitive faculty is not displayed but in the Body being so linked to it as never to be separable from it and that on the contrary the other is not seated in the body since it is designed to check our appetites which it performs oftentimes with very great violence and power And this is so true and so universally received saving by the Epicureans who think they have won the Palme for noble inventions in Philosophy because they have degraded themselves to the rank of Brutes that the most excellent persons have been so far from believing the Soul to perish with the Body that on the contrary not being able to conjecture how after the dissipation of the Body they could ever be reunited and render the whole man immortal they have affirmed that the Soul in which the Understanding resides is really the man and that the Body is not but as the receptacle and prison But by the grace of God we shall see hereafter that man was created for immortality as well in reference to his body as to his Soul and that being fallen from this prerogative by sin he hath been restored thereunto by the Divine clemency and mercy Seeing it is so therefore that the Soul of man subsists after separation from the Body and consequently is of an incorruptible substance it follows of necessity that there is somthing to be hoped and feared from the Deity and that though his Providence were not so cleerly intelligible in the world here yet at least his justice is to be dreaded in that which is to come For what will become of the soul after Death Will she act or will she be buried in eternal sleep Certainly she is of a nature so active vigilant and averse from idleness that it is with regret that she allows the body its necessary intervals of refreshment Even as plung'd and immur'd as she is in it when that is at rest she is not surpris'd with sleep but is ever imploy'd on some kind of speculations how unprofitable and extravagant soever they be Like as a Musitian that is affected to the exercise of his Art chooses rather to play on his Lute though half untuned and at the inconvenience of making false Musick and committing dissonances then to suffer his fingers to become torpid by continued disuse And the more excellent she is that is the more exercis'd in generous contemplations the more she hates repose even to the abandoning all care of her habitation though she otherwise loves and is a good companion unto it So that she would be clean diverted from the end to which Nature ha's designed her if she were condemned to a perpetuall sleep in eternal night What then will her occupations be at that time Will she frequent in Towns or will she resort to unhabited placs Neither of which is worthy of her nor sutable to her inclinations Whilst she is here by reason of the body confined to sensible things yet she quits her self from them oftentimes to busie her vivacity in the contemplation of those which are intellectual For whatsoever beauty the World hath
in this opinion And nevertheless I can scarce be perswaded that our Times could bring forth men so unnatural against themselves unless perhaps some wild dissolute young persons whose minds are wholly taken up with Wine and Women But being now to dispute against those that acknowledge a Providence in God by which he governs the Universe I must presuppose that they esteem their Souls survive their bodies and that death hath no power over them So we find that all such as believed a Providence have likewise taught the Immortality of our Souls as things inseparably conjoyn'd excepting the Saduces who having the Books of Moses to instruct them ought to be judg'd the blindest people of the World that could not discern this truth therein For all Religion being founded on this Hypothesis that our Souls are incorruptible seeing they acknowledge God to have been the Author of the Religion taught and commanded in those Books why should they not likewise acknowledge that God did by the same means establish and confirm this Common Hypothesis Truely all Religion aims at a double End The illustrating the glory of God's Providence and Perfections and The comforting good men in their afflictions Now whereas good men fall into so many calamities in the World but Wicked oftentimes prosper and that even the Good are oppressed by the wicked what glory would redound to that Providence from a Religion which should constitute no time at all after this Life in which the Good might receive comfort for their sufferings the Bad vengeance for their crimes What great commendation were it to preside over the mixture of Elements in the composition of Things and to cause every one to follow its nature regularly and in the mean time to take no care of those which reverence the Deity but connive at the lewdnesses of such as contemn him Not to conduct the course of Nature in a due manner might speak some defect of Wisdom But not to compensate the Virtue of the Good nor punish the crimes of the Vitious besides the defect of Wisdom in not adjusting things aright sutably to their qualifications and crossely coupling prosperity with Vice and Misery with Virtue there would be a too notorious defect of goodness and justice And perhaps it would not be less expedient to follow the doctrine of Epicurus which notwithstanding we have convinced of infinite absurdities and impieties then to ascribe a Providence to the Deity and not to believe the immortality of the Soul it being less unworthy the Divine Nature to neglect the Universe altogether then to administer humane affairs with so much negligence injustice and irregularity But if there redounds little glory to the wise good and just Providence of God from such a Religion there accrues no more consolation to men there being so small grounds to expect the remuneration of Virtue in this Life that the greatest admirers of it perceiving themselves fall short of their attempt at the end of their account term her a meer vain shadow and most deserving persons complain that all things fall out preposterously to their hopes while they observe unjust men flourishing in the midst of Pompe and Pleasure and themselves insulted over and oppress'd by arrogant and haughty Wickedness For as for what is alledged that all the Blessings which God promises in the Books of Moses to those whom he prescribes a Religion to upon his Covenant are of Temporal things which have no further relation then onely to the durance of this Life and therefore there can be no certain proof of the Souls immortality drawn from thence if it were so the Covenant would be frustraneous and to no purpose For I dare boldly affirm that of all those which are therein recorded with praise for religiously observing it not one did attain I do not say a perfect felicity of the present life so long as it lasted for recompense of his Piety but not so much as might countervale the afflictions which he suffered In so much that God himself in attesting their constant observance of his Covenant should accuse and condemn himself of being deficient towards them since they liv'd miserably for the greatest part of their Days And those words of Jacob My days have been few and evil would be an eternal reproach to his promises and his Providence Wherefore it must either be denyed that there was any Religion constituted by the command of God in the Books of Moses or the Saducees must confess that the immortality of the Soul is presupposed therein and confirmed by the testimony of God himself since the belief of the corruptibility of our minds subverts the foundation of all Religion in the World Nevertheless although the Doctrines of Providence and the Souls immortality are inseparably allied and the latter is also demonstrated by invincible reasons which we deduc'd briefly a little above yet it ha's hapned to it as to divers other fundamental verities in Religion namely that men remaind in suspence concerning the same till they were acertain'd of it by a divine revelation So that the most knowing Grecians from whom Learning descended to the Romanes spake so doubtfully of it that it is not plainly known what they conceived about it and they which most inclined to believe their Minds immortal never declar'd themselves very positively that they thought so Some have related that Thales was the first among the Philosophers that believ'd the Immortality of our Souls and indeed he is the first of whom Greece boasted for Philosophy Before he and the rest which were termed Wisemen in his time set themselves to refine and regulate it all that had attempted any thing left it but in a rude dress and unseemly equipage And it is a great evidence of the truth of this Doctrine and a fair instance of the Providence of God in favour of it that that Schole of Wisdom among the Pagans began to be polish'd and perfected by it and was as it were built upon this foundation But into how many sects did Philosophy soon after degenerate of which there were some that expresly denied it and others which made a doubt of it as of all other things With what ambiguity and incertainty have even they spoke of it who seem'd desirous to teach it Aristotle is extremely intricate about it and seems sometimes to affirm one thing and sometimes another Nor can it be conjectur'd why he so dubiously explicated himself in this point being otherwise wonderfully eloquent and happy in his expressions unless either because he knew not well what to hold as he declares freely in one place That it is not yet evident what the Vnderstanding of men may be or because he believed that the Soul is extinguisht with the Body and yet would not pronounce it openly for fear of giving scandal as there are found many brave spirits who living amongst men of condition are content to dissemble their opinions in matters of this nature So likewise he seems to have
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
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
how shall the goodness of God which we have abundantly shewn is the liberal rewarder of Virtue render to the body the free recompense of the service it hath done the Soul in the practise thereof and of the obedience which its natural appetites have yielded to reason unless it be raised again from the dust Certainly as we said above man is not onely the Soul he is the body also both which contribute respectively to Virtue of which man is capable Wherefore they ought both to be interested in the reward And that justice which is the avenger of sin and without which the Providence of God would be too narrow and defective how will that acquit its charge unless it equally punish the body with the soul Seing they are usually the affections of the body that debauch the mind and 't is the pleasure of the senses that prevents and misguids our reason But the punishment would not be equally proportioned and distributed to the Soul and Body if the soul were miserable to eternity and the body wholly exempted from it to exist no more And the condition of the body would be happy in comparison of that of the mind although the defect of both were equal Moreover the penalty encreasing proportionably to the dignity of him against whom the offense is committed for an outrage done to an inferior person is punisht otherwise then that which is committed against a Soverain Magistrate the justice of God being an infinite power an immense and unlimited dignity and authority how could the punishment of the body by being no more be proportional to the justice of God Or if the justice of God can be satisfied for the offense committed against it with the extinguishment of the body without revival to perpetuity why is not the soul also extinguisht with the body without remaining exposed to a continual and perpetual punishment Certainly it must either be that the body suffers with the soul eternally for satisfaction of the justice of God sutably to his infinite dignity or the soul must be extinguish'd together with the body But neither the justice of the God nor the nature of the soul suffers the same to perish or be abolish'd and therefore the body must be raised from death to partake of the same compensation with it Moreover of how great importance is it for consolation of our minds against the fear of death For death being naturally terrible to all men and the separation of the soul from the body full of bitterness and anguish what more effectual comfort can be received then to expect after a peaceable repose in the grave to be raised by the hand of God from it not to restore us the injoyment of this life that so we might dye over again but to live an eternal life in unexpressible contentment Besides what sweeter consolation in the loss of our friends which is oftentimes more grievous to us then death it self then the hope that they and we shall one day arise from the earth to dwell together in celestial glory Certainly he that represents to himself what joy friends receive here upon an unexpected meeting after divers years absence may in a manner conjecture with what gladness we shall resent the day of that happy resurrection Whence I conceive that excepting the assurance of pardon of sins which delivers the soul it self from the apprehensions of death eternal there is nothing so capable of inflaming the mind of man with love towards God as the hope of resurrection For next to deliverance from the death of the soul which consists in the sense of a remorse and eternal distress what can be more sweet then the deliverance from the death of the body which is to have no more sense nor motion nor life nor being And from the doctrine of the Resurrection however profane men gainsay it results an admiration of the Wisdom of God in reuniting things which nature had so straitly conjoin'd together For since death as we have shewn is not a natural thing but an accident superven'd contrary to the purpose of nature and the design of the first formation of man who in regard of the excellence of his soul ought to be an immortal creature though in reference to his body he was composed of the matter of the Elements what is there more sutable to Divine Wisdom then to reunite without injury either to his justice or his goodness what death had separated by a kind of violence For to repeat those words of of Phocylides it is not meet to dissolve the fair harmony of man And lastly though the power of God may be well understood other ways yet herein is one of the greatest and most admirable testimonies of it to wit that from the earth and the Sea and the entrals of birds and beasts shall be required the bodies of men and that their ashes which are dispers'd and confus'd amongst the Elements shall be recover'd and recollected with so much art that every one shall resume his own body without confusion or mixture Whence is it therefore that this doctrine gives offense and scandal to some Is it repugnant to the Wisdom of God We have prov'd it agreeable thereunto And it would argue defect of wisdom in God if he knew not to distinguish in this confusion of the Elements the places from whence to retake one day the reliques of our members Is it impossible to his power Surely no if we account the same infinite and it is verily infinite if it be divine To conclude doth it encounter reason There is none of us but would naturally desire the resurrection of his body if he esteemed it a thing possible Wherefore seeing God reveals to us both that he will and can do it what is to be doubted more but that reason consents in this desire with nature CHAP. VIII What understanding can be had of true Virtue without a particular Revelation HItherto we have shewn that in the things which relate directly to God and his service and the motives of true and sincere piety men have either been without a particular revelation or absolutely blind or so unresolv'd and wavering in what they knew thereof that they could not from thence render any true devotion to God nor receive any solid consolation to themselves Our next task should be to shew that they likewise needed a particular revelation for the knowledge of true Virtue which ought to be followed amongst men but my design will not permit me to deduce that point at length onely I am to desire the Reader to take notice of two things Indeed I will not question but that they have had far more knowledge of true vertue by the light of nature alone then they had of the requisites and concernments of true piety The excellent instructions of Philosophers commendable Laws of Republicks virtuous deeds of great personages and the universal consent of all Nations any thing civilis'd shew by the account they made of Virtue
face of the World then if they all kept the same equal and uniform tract So without doubt there appears a greater Providence in the conduct of so many Nations so diversified by various sorts of Laws and Governments Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical and mixt each according to its peculiar genius all which nevertheless conspire to the glory of one and the same God and aspire to the atchievment of one and the same hope then if they were all modell'd and policyed according to the same constitutions Besides that God being willing that Christians should be people of free courage and erected to that honest liberty which is worthy of generous and noble souls it ha's pleased him that men should exercise the actions of Justice and virtue no otherwise then by following the suggestions of a nature almost restored by so excellent a Religion to its primitive integrity so that every one should be a Law unto himself It is true that a good part of the Nations which in these dayes make profession of the Christian Name do not shew that a doctrine so heavenly ha's been efficacious to cleanse the vitiosity of nature and repress the disorder of their passions so that there may seem need of more Laws to prevent frauds and injuries But this is the corruption of these dregs of Ages And he that would know what Christian charity and the uprightness of those that have embrac'd this Law is must not consider it such as it is at the present time but in the first Ages of the Church As for the Ceremonial Law 't is the Christian Religion alone that teaches us to understand the use of it by manifesting the enâ— to which it aimed For by that we are instructed that the whole structure of the Tabernacle and all the Oeconomy of the service which was performed therein by external and sensible things did refer to spiritual verities and virtues So that as much as the knowledge of divine mysteries and admirable doctrines transcends things obvious to sense by so much is the Christian Doctrine and the fruits produced by it more excellent then the Mosaical Worship It would be too long to allegorise all that pertains to it the matter will be evident by two or three examples There were two eminent Sacraments Circumcision and the Paschal Lambe To take them according to the construction of the Jews what other signification had they but onely to separate the people of the Jews and to discriminate them from other Nations and be a commemoration of their deliverance out of Egypt and the death of the First-born The one was a token imprinted in the flesh of a Covenant that seem'd to regard onely the body and the other a memorial of a deliverance meerly temporal Now we have learnt from the Christian Religion that the First was instituted to represent the need we stood in that this corrupt nature of ours which we derive from our fathers by ordinary generation should be retrenched if we would have part in the spiritual Covenant with God and the Second to be a type of him of whom it was said He was lead like a Lamb to the slaughter and whose blood and death secured our souls from the dreadful and universal destruction to which otherwise they were obnoxious And in this we do no more but follow the traces which themselves have hereof in the Prophets but could not discern To this purpose is their speaking of and exhorting to the circumcision of the heart as in contempt of that which was made in the flesh and also that of Moses's diligent injunction to sprinkle the blood of the Paschal Lambe upon the posts and tressell of the house and that it should be a perpetual institution in their generations For what virtue had the blood of a Lamb to divert the sword of an Angel and to warrant the houses of the Israelites from the calamity of others There was moreover prescrib'd by it several washings and purifications for the vessels and utensils of the Tabernacle houses and garments infected with any pollution for men and women seised on by some natural infirmity things which were accounted unclean if all these mysteries were not solicitously observed The Gospel hath taught us that all this represents true sanctification which cleanses the corrupt appetites of man and purifies his conscience And truly otherwise to what end or benefit served all these washings if they did not design something else Or why should corporeal and naturally inevitable infirmities such as the Lunar flux of women debarre them from communion with God and his Tabernacle but onely as figuring those voluntary ones of the conscience In this also we have the authority of their Prophets It is said in Ezekiel chap. 36.25 I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you But how A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes c. Now by how much piety and the internal virtue of the soul is better then the cleanness of the body so much is the recommendation and doctrine of the one more excellent then the observation of the other But this appears remarkably in the principal part of the Ceremonial Law namely in the Sacrifices For the death of beasts being as we intimated formerly incapable to make propitiation for sins and yet it being a thousand times expressed in the Law that those victimes were appointed for propitiation what remains but that they were destinated as types for the representation of a Sacrifice which in truth made real and sufficient propitiation for offenses And indeed what else could the Prophet Isaiah have referr'd to when he said chap. 53.6 All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all He was brought as a Lambe to the slaughter and as a sheep before the Shearers is dumbe so he opened not his mouth Especially since the blood of Bulls and Goats had no virtue for the purification of souls and yet the High Priest entred every year into the Holy of Holies with blood in the presence of the Arke of the Lord as if he had gone to offer satisfaction for the sins committed by the People what had this been but a vain and empty ceremony in case it did not typifie One who in the quality of great and Soverain Priest entred into the presence of God in the Heavens with real satisfaction for the sins of men Truly the resemblance is admirable Onely once a year a period of time in which the world seems to exist a new grow up wax old and terminate its duration by the revolution and succession of the four seasons
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