THE CERTAINTY Of A FUTURE STATE THE CERTAINTY Of A FUTURE STATE OR AN OCCASIONAL LETTER CONCERNING APPARITIONS By J. Roe A. M. And Chaplain to the Right Honourable Charles Earl of Burlington If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be persuaded if one rose from the Dead Luke 16.31 LONDON Printed for Joseph Wild at the Sign of the Elephant at Charing-Cross MDCXCVIII To the Right Honourable Charles Boyle Baron Clifford of Lansbrow and Earl of Burlington Baron of Youghall and Bandon Viscount Kynalmeaky and Dongarvan and Earl of Cork in the Kingdom of Ireland Chief Governour of the County of Cork and of the City and County of the City of Cork Lord High Treasurer of Ireland Lord High Steward of the Royalty of Knaesbrough in the County of York and one of the Gentlemen of His Majesty's Bed-Chamber My Lord IT is not with any Design to Inform Your Lordships Judgment by any thing that can be met with in so mean a Discourse that I am induced to lay it at Your Lordships Feet But being Composed under Your Lordships Roof it Claims a Natural kind of Right of coming under Your Lordships Protection Things of little worth receive a Value when they are made the Offerings of Respect and Gratitude and this I am ohlig'd to Acknowledge upon the account of those Remarkable Instances of Generosity which I have received not only from Your Lordship but from Your truly Honourable and good Lady both before and since I had the Honour of being Entertain'd as Your Lordships Chaplain which I needs must own with all that deference which is justly owing to Your Lordships Eminent Quality and Personal Accomplishments It is Your Lordships Happiness to receive the Extraordinary Blessings of Providence without any Alteration of Temper which can only be Attributed to a peculiar Greatness of Spirit which the World is fully convincd of and of which Your Lordships Family in all degrees are particularly sensible It will be a difficult thing for Posterity rightly to distinguish between those who have deserv'd Well or Ill since some have been so averse to Truth that they have supplyd what has been really wanting in due Merit by their many Flattering and Excessive Commendations But I need not take such Measures with Your Lordship whose Accomplishments ate so Signal that they render Your Lordship in the Opinion of all that know you one of the greatest Ornaments of the Age we live in That Your Lordship may be truly thankful to Almighty God for so Great Endowments that Your Lordshiy may live Many and Many Years to make a Right and Good Vse of them in this World and be Rewarded for Well-doing in the Next is and always shall be the hearty Prayers of My Lord Your Lordships Most Obedient Servant and Chaplain I. Roe THE PREFACE TO THE READER THe following Letter was not Writ out of a desire to appear in Print nor from a Principle of too nicely Enquiring into the Judgments and Opinions of other Men but to gratifie the Requests of some whom I could not modestly refuse If it may any ways Contribute to Promote the Dignity and Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures or prove the Certainty of a Future State against the Scepticks of the Age without the Testimony of Apparitions I have my chief Aim Farwell THE CERTAINTY Of A FUTURE STATE OR An Occasional LETTER Concerning APPARITIONS SIR I Have often thought since our last meeting of the strange account you gave me of the Apparition of G. S. to W. D. and likewise of the dreadful Consequences that have attended some Persons who have entertain'd too credulous a Belief of them insomuch that to this very Day too many are grown to that height of Impiety that they will not be perswaded of any Future State unless some one rise from the Dead to make proof of it As you were pleased to be very free with me I shall take the same Liberty and must beg pardon if I cannot condescend so far as to be of your Opinion In the first place then I shall give you my own Notion of an Apparition 2dly The Reasons why I cannot believe any thing of them The Word Apparition is usually taken to signifie no more then the Species or Resemblance of a Deceased Person and that there are no such Apparitions whatever some may pretend I am very apt to believe upon these three accounts First Because it is a Supposition so far from being countenanced that it seems directly contrary to the sense of the Scriptures 2dly Because it is a Supposition altogether useless and unnecessary 3dly Because it seems to be inconsistent with common Reason I would not be thought to question much less to deny that that there are Spirits neither will I presume to limit the Wisdom and Power of Almighty God But as for the Apparitions of Deceased Persons so frequently Discoursed of in the World I believe there is nothing in them The Holy Scriptures in my opinion are so far from giving us the least encouragement to expect an Apparition upon any account whatever that God himself has strictly forbid us to apply our selves unto or have any manner of intercourse with the Dead Isaiah 8.19 And altogether as strict is the prohibition given by Moses Deut. 18.11 there shall not be found among you any one that is a Charmer Consulter with Familiar Spirits or a Necromancer for every one that doth these things is an abomination to the Lord. But besides thâ—se and such like Prohibitions the Holy Scriptures plainly do assure us that the Body of Man after Death returns to the Dust and the Spirit i. e. the Soul unto God that gave it i. e. to be disposed and determined by him to a fixt Station either of Happiness or Misery This is evident from the Account we have of Dives and Lazarus there being so vast a Gulf between them i. e. an irreversible Decree by the wife Order and Appointment of God passed upon them insomuch that as one observes it is impossible for all the Saints in Heaven to obtain any manner of Release for them Dr. Hammond in his Annotations on Luke 16. and altogether as impossible for themselves to be one Minute out of that State Now since it appears Demonstrable that the Souls of the Righteous are confined to a State of Happiness after Death where they are to continue and remain till the Day of the Resurrection and this by the special designation and appointment of God then it must necessarily be supposed that the Souls of the Wicked are closely confined by the same appointment to a State of Misery and Horror where they must necessarily and unavoidably continue till they receive the final Sentence And if both the Souls of the Righteous and the Souls of the Wicked are respectively Determined to their several States and have their bounds fixt by the positive Order and Appointment of Almighty God if the Body turns to Dust as we daily see it does and
deny but it is God's Prerogative and peculiar Priviledge to Fashion and Compose a Man and every Man from the first Creation till the Dissolution of all things is the undeniable Work of his Hand For it is he that has made us and not we our selves his Eyes beheld our Substance when imperfect and in his Book and his alone are all our Menbers written Now if to Create is God's peculiar Priviledge If nothing of an Inferior Being can pretend to it If Death makes a real Division and Separation both of Soul and Body by the special Appointment and Designation of God himself and such a Disolution that the Body returns to Dust Corruption and Putrefaction and the Soul is taken into the safe Custody of Angels who are to answer for it and Conduct it to that State either of Happiness or Misery where it is to remain till the Resurrection yet there can be no reason to think supposing there may be an Apparition that this Apparition should consist of the same Body and Soul which did belong to the Deceased Person because it is Gods Prerogative only to Create and Vnite the Body and Soul of Man and the same Body and Soul being once dissolv'd and separated by Death are consined by the Wise Order and Appointment of God to their respective States untill the last Trumpet sound and Command them to rise again and therefore as it cannot be with the same Body and Soul it is altogether as unlikely it should be with the Body or Soul of any other Deceased Person whatever for the same reason of Confinement already given And therefore to suppose there may be an Apparition yet of what can we imagine it should consist It must either consist of Substance or Matter or else it must be Immaterial and without Substance If it consists of Substance and Matter and consequently may be Seen Felt and Understood why may it not be secured and kept for the Conviction of such as will not believe there are such Beings but this was never yet attempted and therefore I dare conclude that either there can be no such thing at all or if there be it must be Incorporeal or Immaterial And to suppose this How is it likely it should perform the same operations with Matereal and Corporeal Beings as is frequently pretended either by discoursing with discovering things past or foretelling things that are to come Or to suppose a Point further that it is neither meerly Corporeal nor yet meerly Incorporeal But as some Philosophers Imagined a Being or Existence between both yet if so how is it likely it should so nearly resemble such a Being as was both Material and Immaterial and as such consisted both of Soul and Body for if it be Incorporeal it must necessarily be Immaterial and if it is Immaterial it must as necessarily be Invisible and if so the Controverfie is at an end But to beg your Patience a while longer according to the Platonick Hypothesis Spirits are Embodied Mr. Locks Humane Understanding page 162. Book 2d Chap. 23. and altho' a very ingenious Person seems to think that Spirits can assume to themselves Bodies of different Figure and Conformation of Parts yet the same Person as ingeniously confesses 't is but a meer Conjecture owns that he can give no manner of Reason for it but common Report and is so far from imposing it upon the World that he calls it his own extravagant Opinion Historians I am sensible make frequent mention of the Miracles of Magicians and several other Unaccountable Prodigies by Invisible Powers and wicked Spirits thus they tell us that not only the time but the place of Cesars Death was fortold to Pompey and Crassus but as this happen'd in a little time after so it was as much expected as it was foretold as Tully witnesses lib. 2. de Divinatione And altho' some of their Predictions might happen to be true yet this must be suppos'd in Common Reason to happen but by Chance because they so often failed which can be owing to nothing more then the over-ruling Power and Providence of God who bringeth the Councels of the Heathens to naught and maketh their Devices to be of none effect thus Demosthenes confessed that the Delphian Oracle was determined by Philip of Macedon and their Corruption is clearly taken notice of in several other Authors Eusebius Prepar lib. 4. shews that several of the Heathen Priests publickly confessed the Impostures of their Oracles and that their Confessions have been if they are not still upon Record and as the World increased in Knowledge they were rejected and laid aside For as soon as Light and Immortality became discovered by the Power of the Gospel they were visibly slighted and disregarded till at length they became despicable every day more and more I make no doubt but there have been Apparitions as in the several forementioned Instances from Scripture for Ends and Designs best known to God as perhaps for the Manifestation of his Power and Wisdom of his Love and Goodness to Mankind but I cannot see the least reason why or how there should or can be any such in these times Since Miracles are Ceased Gods ways are sufficiently known upon the Earth and his saving Health amongst all Nations For as God cannot propose any thing considerable to Mankind as to the Revelation of his Will and Pleasure here or his Rewards and Punishments in the other Life either by raising the Dead or suffering or permitting an Apparition as has been already shewn so neither can I think that any other Being has Power to do it for altho' the Devil had a Power once given him to Metamorphose and take strange shapes upon him as he did to Eve in the shape of a Serpent yet it does not follow that he has the same Power to do so still and altho' God might permit and suffer it in those times and likewise Eve to be tempted by him perhaps to bring about that profound Mystery of his Love the Incarnation and Crucifixion of our Blessed Saviour yet since the Coming of our Saviour into the World according to that Prediction of him the Seed of the Woman has bruised the Serpents Head the Power of Satan is destroyed and his Kingdom is at an End and thanks be to God who has given us the Victory through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ God has engâ—ged himself by a solemn Promise to us in the first Epistle to the Corinthians chap. 10. that no temptation shall befall us but such as is common to Man and more over that he will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able Now if this be so it cannot be in the Power of Satan or any of his Agents to make any extraordinary Assaults upon us without our own Concurrence and altho' some Persons do pretend to Praeternatural and Extraordinary Temptations I dare be possitive this is more owing to their own Wickedness and Debaucheries then to any thing
to all the World will appear upon these two accounts First By considering the Nature of God Secondly By considering the Nature of Man First By considering the Nature of God himself who is an Omnipotent Powerful and Wise Being which appears by the bare Work of his Creation He regards not the Actions of his People whom he hath made so as to have only a Naked speculative Knowledg of them but with an Eye of Providence and Judgment he does not meerly gaze upon us as an indifferent and unconcerned Spectator but beholds and views us with the highest concernment either with Infinite Complacency or Detestation And what can we imagine all this should be for But in order to be produced either for or against us whensoever he shall be pleas'd to call us to an Account that so he may distribute his Rewards or Punishments accordingly this Solomon clearly Determines Eccles 12.14 he will bring every Work into Judgment with every secret thing And if there are any who will not be persuaded as to the truth of this only because God has spoken it who is not a Man that he should lye nor the Son of Man that he should Repent there will be a time when with Shame and Confusion of face they shall be forced to confess Righteous art thou Oe Lord and true are all thy Judgments Almighty God is not only a Powerful and Omnipotent Being but Truth and Justice are Attributes as Essential to him as any other and if God be Just he must needs do Justice to every Person for shall not the Judge of all the World do right And if he does not distribute this Justice for the present it unavoidably follows that it must be done hereafter and that the dispensations of his Providence are in many things promiscuous and uncertain now is an invincible Argument of the Great Certainty of a Future State 2dly This Truth will apear farther by considering the Nature of Man The very Nature and Condition of Man shews him to be a Creature that must give an Account of himself hereafter this the Scriptures are positive in and therefore St. Paul tells us Rom. 14.12 Every one must give an Account of himself to God But besides the Scripture Reason will make out as much for as Man was Created in time his Creation must needs argue some Design in the Creator and as Man was endued with Reason it is but rational to think that he should be also Accountable to his Creator how far he has answered the Design of his Creation either here or hereafter this has been Universally consented too by Mankind That Almighty God does not permit and suffer his Servants upon their departure out of this World either to lye sleeping in the Dust or to be hovering about unrewarded to the End of it But as soon as they have finished their Work upon Earth he either admits them to the Joy of their Master i. e. to all the Felicities that their separated Spirits are capable of in those several Degrees and Measures of Perfection which they have arrived to Or else dismisses them into a State of Misery and Horror where they are to remain during their separation from the Body expecting the farther Completion of their Happiness or Misery by a General Resurrection is sufficiently attested by the Primitive Sages of the Church as Ireneus Tertullian Clemens St. Chrysostome and many others plainly Intimating that the Souls of the Righteous after Death are kept in proper Receptcles enjoying certain Degrees either of Happiness or Misery till the Day of the Resurrection This is called in Scripture sometimes by the Name of Paradise sometimes by the Name of Abraham's Bosome And the Souls of the Righteous are expresly said to be sustinentes Resurrectionem eternitatis candidati i. e. waiting with a solicitous expectation for the Resurrection and to stand Candidates for Immortality And that there is nothing in all this but what is agreable to Scripture is evident from Zachariah chap. 9.10 11. where the Souls of the Righteous are styled Prisoners of hope lying in the Lake where there is no Water i. e. as some interpret no constant Stream of Joy but yet they are supported with certain Showers and farther Illuminations of their Hope And that the Souls of the Wicked are confined to a State of Misery St. Jude plainly intimates when he tells us verse 13. that they are reserved unto the Blackness of Darkness When St. Paul reasoned with Felix of a Judgment to come it made him tremble and that the Common Heathens themselves were convinc'd of as much appears from their Notions which are still upon Record of Minos Eacus Rhadamanthus And with what Artificial and plausible pretences soever Men may seem and endeavour to Colour over their Debaucheries yet 't is not in their Power to drown or stifle the Clamours of their Consciences which will suggest what they must expect hereafter Let us then resolve with a Holy Sobriety and Religious Prudence instead of questioning to confine our hopes and desires only to be directed by the written Word of God which is every way fitted and proportioned for the regulating our Lives in order to that Great End of making us wise unto Salvation and if we have such a certain Rule propos'd to us will it not argue the most monstrous Vanity and unaccountable Perversness to depart from it And if Men will not believe that there is a God and a Future State of Rewards and Punishments without an Apparition or some New Revelation they are never like to have it For God has no where undertaken to gratifie the vain desires and peevish Inclinations of his People he has sufficiently provided for their Welfare and Happiness both by Nature and Revelation and it is not from any thing but the want of a modest and humble Submission thereunto that so many grow wild and unsettled in their Heads that they are always gadding after New Discoveries and Revelations and for all those that will not be saved unless it be according to their own Way and Method of Invention how Insulting or Atheistically soever they may carry it for the present yet there will be a time when they shall be forced to lye down in their own Shame and to cover themselves with their own Confusion FINIS ADVERTISEMENT A Sermon Preach'd at the Funeral of Mrs. Bullivant Who was Barbarously Murder'd by Edmund Eudley By B. Crooke A. M. Rector of St. Michael Woodstreet
if the Soul is confined to a certain Station either of Happiness or Misery from whence it cannot make any escape all which is clearly intimated in Scripture then how is it likely there should be any such thing as the Apparition or real Representation of a Deceased Person It is Gods Prerogative to be the Creator of Mankind and ' t is God only that can give him Life and Being and if so call we think it to be in the power of Dust Corruption or any other created Being whatever either to Vnite or Animate that same Body and Soul which Death has deprived both of Life and Being upon Earth There have been some its true who have maintained the contrary Dr. Henry Moor. Mr. Glanvil's Sadducismus Triumphatus who positively affirm that departed Souls have a care and regard to their fellow Souls upon Earth See Dr. Moor's Letter to Mr. Glanvil because a Soul appeared to St. Stephen when stoned and to St. Paul before his Conversion I shall not trouble you to shew what a forced Inference this is the Scriptures only mention Angels doing so which I am far from questioning but yet I think there is some difference between an Angel and the Soul of Man otherwise the Holy David needed not to have told us that Man was made lower then the Angels and Tertullian likewise de anima to have defined the Angels evocatores animarum i. e. the Messengers of God which command the Souls out of their Bodies And whose business as that Father intimates it is to Conduct and shew them whereunto they are designed after Death If any reply that an Apparition may be tho' not of the Body or Soul of any Deceased Person I shall Answer this in its proper place where I am to shew the inconsistency of such a Supposition with common Reason At present I must confess Almighty God can do whatsoever pleases him both in Heaven and in Earth in the Sea and in all Deep Places insomuch that every particle of our Bodies every Dust and Atome that belongs to us is known to him for he who numbers the very Sands of the Sea and the very Hairs of our Heads must needs keep an account of all the scatter'd Bones see into all the Graves and Tombs search all the Repositories of the Earth and know what Dust belongs to each Body what Body to each Soul and by what ways and means as at the first Creation those scatter'd Particles should be again united and the ruined Fabrick of Man's Body once more Composed But to Unite a dead Carkass to a living Soul or to permit and suffer a true and real Resemblance thereof to be acted by any other and all this only to make a slight shew and appearance for some little time either only to be the Messengers of God's Will or a Terror to the Living seems altogether inconsistent with those Methods of Divine Revelation which God has been already pleased to favour us with The Question whether the Souls of Men departed do appear to those who remain alive is decided by most both Antient and Modern Writers negatively and they who are for the Affirmitive Part can resolve it no other way but this that when such Apparitions are 't is only by special Dispensation thus at our blessed Saviours Transfiguration there appeared Moses and Elias and likewise at his Crucifixtion the Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose But now the case is otherwise for since Miracles are ceased and the Christian Dispensation is very sufficiently confirmed to us there is not one Instance in the whole Bible to encourage us to expect an Apparition in these times but on the contrary there is nothing more usual with God then to frustrate and disappoint the Expectations all such as will not acquiesce in the ordinary Dispensation of his Will To suppose therefore that this Course of Consulting with the Dead were not Prohibited tho' you have seen it is and to suppose yet farther that it is a very likely and probable way of succeeding in what may be design'd thereby yet this must be granted of necessity that 't is not the ordinary Course which God has appointed and therefore cannot be depended on as likely to become successful unto any The Pharisees we know desired a Sign from our Blessed Saviour to Confirm his Mission and Doctrine to them they were not contented with those wonderful Miracles that he wrought amongst them and which were then as I may say his ordinary means to Attest his Divinity and Convince the World of their Unbelief nothing would do with them but a Sign from Heaven and no other Sign then such as was given at the first promulgation of the Law But the vanity of all this our Saviour plainly discovers and severely rebukes in these words there shall no Sign be given Thus when Men presume to Capitulate as it were with Almighty God as to the enforcing the Duties of Faith and Obedience upon them as the chief Priests and Elders did with our Blessed Saviour at his Crucifixion namely that if he would come down from the Cross then they would believe him I say when Men begin to question the Power of God and the Authority of his Word and resolve neither to believe in him nor obey him unless he will condescend to let them have such Signs as may answer and gratifie their foolish expectations and unreasonable Curiosities when they will not believe there is a Future State of Punishment prepared for the Wicked without an Apparition to confirm the truth of it 't is not only usual but just with God to frustrate and baffle them in such unreasonable Proposals 2dly But supposing God should permit and suffer Apparitions to wander up and down and haunt his Servants upon Earth yet what end and purpose can we imagine there should be in it Can it any ways tend to promote the Honour and Glory of Almighty God The Psalmist expresly tells us that the Dead praise him not neither they that go down into silence Or can it answer any other of the Designs of his wise Providence in governing the Word Or in the least Contribute to the Reformation of Mankind Some perhaps may object and say why may it not consist with Gods Wisdom to send an Apparition to make a Discovery of some strange Murder which may have been concealed for some time But in this it may be answered that Almighty God has many extraordinary ways to make such Discoveries without an Apparition whereof we have many Instances as well from History as our own Experience for if the Heavens above the Earth beneath and every thing moving therein are the Work of Gods Hands and subservient to his wise Providence in governing the World what need of an Apparition to make such Discoveries Since they may be done well enough without it and by such ways and means as very well consist with his other Methods of Administrations here on Earth And