Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A51225
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Of the immortality of the soul a sermon preached before the King and Queen at White-Hall upon Palm-Sunday, 1694 / by the Right Reverend Father in God, John Bishop of Norwich.
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Moore, John, 1646-1714.
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1694
(1694)
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Wing M2550; ESTC R9455
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17,023
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40
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name such ridiculous stuff is sufficient to confute it nothing being plainer than that men must either part with these Principles or the Doctrines of their Saviour for they can never consist and agree together 2. That after the Dissolution of the Body the Soul doth exist and live in the separate State It appears from our Lord's words fear not them which kill the body c. that he does rather suppose than go to prove the Immortality of the Soul which he took for a granted truth by them steddily believed And therefore it was not his design to convince them that the Soul does live after its separation from the body but to shew that it is such a simple and incorruptible substance that nothing beneath Almighty Power can destroy it But I fear a general decay of Faith and Piety will not only justify but make it requisite that we should endeavour to prove that fundamental Doctrin of the immortality of the Soul the truth whereof our Lord supposed while he was instructing his Disciples 1. The first Argument I shall use for the Immortality of the Soul shall be from the general sense and perswasion of men that the Soul does survive the Body This Belief seems to be as early as the first Inhabitants on the earth for Authors of the greatest Reputation and Antiquity who write of the Opinions and Manners of men do relate almost of every Country that they thought the Soul did subsist after death This Perswasion prevailed among the Jews not only while they were the immediate and peculiar Care of God but hath been diligently preserved and transmitted to their Posterity the Sect of unbelieving Sadduces being long since extinct The Aegyptians a Nation famous for Invention of Arts and Sciences are said first to have taught the Doctrine of Immortality of Souls Which Opinion found Entertainment among all the Antient Inhabitants of the East was the Perswasion also of the old Greeks and Gauls and Thracians This was the Opinion of Homer who preceded all the Sects of Philosophers he in words very like our Saviour's declaring that nothing was so valuable to him as his Soul and he makes Ulysses to summon before him the Souls of the dead and to hold discourse with them And among the old Greek and Latin Poets scarce more than a Dissenter or two from the Judgment of Homer are to be found Thales supposed by some the first Physiologer who treated of Nature is supposed also first to have taught the Immortality of Souls But as Herodotus does ascribe the first publication thereof to the AEgyptians so Pausanias ascribes it to the Chaldaeans and Indian Magi as Tully does it to Pherecydes Pythagoras's Master and some to others insomuch that this belief of the Souls future Subsistence seems so general and very ancient that the first Writers are not able to discover the Authors of it or fix the time of its beginning This also is the avow'd Doctrine of Pythagoras the Founder of the Sect of Italick Philosophers and of Plato with all his judicious Interpreters and Plotinus Amelius Porphyrius Proclus Alcinous And into this List we may bring Aristole about whom tho' there is some Controversy yet Photius affirms that they did not dive deep enough into his Profound Mind who were of another OpinÃon And as Moses relates that after the body was formed of the Earth God did breath a living Soul into it so Aristotle expresly teaches that the Soul only enters the body from without and is of Divine Extraction he may also pass for a good Witness both when he affirms that the Renowned Philosophers who were before him believed that the Soul lived after it had left the body and also when he says no Philosopher before him held the World to be Eternal That great man Tully urges for the truth of this Doctrine Immemorial Tradition that we have the consent of all Antiquity for it and that the voice of all men is the Law of Nature and that all are much concerned for those things which shall take place after death Seneca also treating of the Eternity of Souls does affirm that he has the Publick perswasion on his side and the consent of men who either fear the invisible Powers below or worship those above and that the Soul is of Divine Original obnoxious neither to old age nor death and that as soon as it is set at liberty from the heavy Chains of this Body it will return to its place in Heaven Macrobius declares that the Opinion hath universally obtained as well that the Soul is an incorporeal substance as that it is immortal And as the Belief of Immortality was generally received among the Antients so men all along since have been stedfast and constant to it For from Modern Histories Voyages and Travels it is found to be the common Opinion of the World as much in these later days as it was in old time The Turks have so strong a perswasion both of the Resurrection of the Body and the subsistence of the Soul after it leaves the body that not only the Alcoran but their Offices of Prayer have frequent relation thereunto The Arabian Philosophers think that a virtuous Soul when it has taken leave of the body shall partake of immense Pleasures and Joys and be as the chief Angels which are nearest to God The Chinese hold the Soul spiritual and separable from the body and that after death pious Souls shall be rewarded and bad souls tormented They who have of late travelled in Persia India Japan and other Countries of the East have observed the same Belief to prevail among the present Dwellers of those places and the like accounts we have of Southern Inhabitants from them who have visited Guinea and other parts of Africa And though they who first touched at the Cape of Good Hope either through want of time rightly to be informed or not having Curiosity sufficient to discover the Truth did relate the people of those Parts to have no Religion yet we have quite another story of them from late Travellers who with more care and accuracy have searched into those matters And what is remarkable the first Discoverers of America found the people of Brasil Canada Virginia c. tho severed from the rest of the world by the vast Ocean and with whom probably they had no intercourse in many ages to have generally the same belief of the Souls Immortality But after all it must be allowed That there have been here and there some who resolving to live wickedly in this Life have pretended to deny a Future One even the Christian Church hath not wholly escaped this Infection For within its Pale some have started up who maintain the Impious Doctrines of Epicurus to the great dishonour of the Lord who bought them
ever shew better and greater at a distance than they prove in our Possession but this that they carry no proportion to the Appetites of the Mind which is of a Spiritual and Heavenly Nature and can never hope to receive adequate Satisfaction from any thing here below Wherefore if these vast Capacities and Desires were placed in us by a Being of Infinite Wisdom and if a Being infinitely wise can do nothing in vain then it follows that our Souls were created not only for this World but to live in another where they shall converse with and enjoy such bright and glorious Objects as will compleatly gratify and delight them And from hence I deduce a fourth Argument for the Immortality of the Soul viz. 4. From the common appetite in Men to live for ever and in that Eternal State to possess the chiefest good which will satiate the highest and most extensive Desires of the Mind Every Man that comes into the World loves happiness and would enjoy it eternally it was not only the desire of St. Paul to be dissolved and be with Christ but the wish of Balaam to die the death of the righteous He believed a future Life and that good Men should be blessed in it and he wisht he might have a share of their Blessedness We have had great experience of God's Goodness who hath enriched us with many favours and therefore we ought to believe that he loves us and did intend good to us in the whole contrivance and constitution of our Nature wherein he only could put these unextinguishable Appetites to live and subsist happily for ever and to partake of such Felicity as this World does not afford and which indeed is no where to be found but in his infinitely perfect Being Now he who loves us exceedingly well and of whose Bounty we have shared thus largely already would not have endued our Nature with those vehement Appetites which unless he be pleased in fit time to give them satisfaction can only serve to distract and torture our minds and render us extremely miserable For such a Treatment would be not only inconsistent with his infinite Wisdom which appears in every part of the World but repugnant to his boundless Goodness which always disposes him to promote the Happiness pity the weaknesses and supply the wants of his poor Creatures 'T is hope of enjoyment of Everlasting Happiness which makes us to bear Injuries Pains and Losses patiently and at length yield to the stroke of Death with a willing and contented mind But had we reason to believe that Death would make an utter end both of Body and Soul as the conceit thereof all-along this Life would be an intolerable burthen so we should leave the world with deep Horror But if there be a God and that God is the Author of our Nature and the Author of our Nature is infinitly Good and always acts suitably to that Goodness and if it be the property of infinite Goodness to bestow all that endless Bliss and Felicity upon its Creatures which it not only hath made them capable of but which it hath inclined their very Nature earnestly to desire and hope for then we may from hence beyond all question and doubt conclude the Immortality of our Souls And our hope of a joyful Eternity can no where rest so safely as upon the Divine Goodness 5. I shall but name one Argument more tho it is of unconquerable Force to prove the future subsistence of the Soul and that is Divine Providence which governs the World preserves all things in their natural order and observes whatever is done upon Earth to the end all men may receive a Treatment from God agreeable to their behaviour That those who love and fear and serve God may partake of the Glories with which he will reward the Heavenly-minded and that they who neglect and forget and dishonour God may be banisht into outer Darkness That they who have done good in their Generation and shew'd pity to their fellow-creatures may obtain a Recompence and they who have been impure and malicious and have laid wait for the righteous opprest the poor and not spared the widow may receive Judgment without Mercy But since this equal distribution of Rewards and Punishments which the Divine Justice does require is not made in this world we have full assurance our Souls shall live in another and there have Judgment pass upon them according to their deserts It now but remains that I make a short Reflection or two upon this Discourse 2. If our Souls shall survive our Bodies it ought not only to encourage us to be patient and resigned to the Will of God under the great variety of Troubles and Afflictions which happen in this Life but also to arm us against the fear of Death Since Death only will lay open a passage for us into another Life which will infinitely surpass this For as much as there we shall be deliver'd from all those things which render our present condition either dangerous or uncomfortable We shall no longer be exposed to the Temptations of wicked men or of our own Lusts now so dangerous and dreadful to us when admitted into the Conversation of Angels and Souls made Perfect we shall not so much as suspect treachery and wrongs when out of reach of the Malice of Men and Devils we shall not fear Pains and Diseases wherewith it is not possible our incorruptible nature should be affected in a word we never again shall be liable to the power of Death the King of Fears for our Lord says we cannot die any more The Poet supposes the Soul of Achilles after he was slain to be introduced into the presence of his Son and to exhort him not to grieve and be cast down for his Fathers Death by means whereof he was admitted to familiarity with the Blessed Gods but to furnish his mind with his Virtues from which he should reap most pleasant Fruit. Is not Death not Evil Are we not of kin to God and come from him Let us go back thither from whence we came and get loose from these Fetters which are strait and heavy Here are Robbers and Thieves and Judicatures and Tyrants who if they have Power over us it is with respect to our BODY and its Possessions Let us shew they have no power and wait the pleasure of God unto whom as soon as he shall discharge us from our Duty in the present Station we shall return What befals the righteous Man in his Death and how little reason he has to be concerned and dread it we learn from the Excellent Author of the Book of Wisdom For God created man to be immortal and made him to be an image of his own eternity nevertheless through the envy of the devil came death into the World and they that do hold on his side do find it But the Souls of the righteous are in the hands of God and there shall