soul to be of such a nature that it was not capable of dying with the body and some of them such as none of their Adversaries were ever able to answer For the most common acts of sense are unaccountable in a meer Mechanical way and after all the attempts of the most witty and industrious men I despair of ever seeing the powers of meer matter raised to a capacity of performing the lowest acts of perception and much more of those nobler faculties of memory understanding and will But although the arguments from hence are sufficient to justifie the belief of the souls immortality to all considering men yet the far greatest part of mankind was never so and a matter of so great consequence as this is ought to be proposed in the most plain most certain and most effectual manner While these disputes were managed among the Philosophers of old though those who asserted the immortality of the soul had the better reason of their side yet their Adversaries spake with greater confidence and that always bears the greatest sway among injudicious people And some men are always fond of a reputation for wit by opposing common opinions though never so true and useful especially when they serve a bad end in it and do thereby plead for their own impieties But it cannot be denied that those who were in the right did likewise give too great advantage to their enemies partly by their own diffidence and distrust of what they had contended for partly from the too great niceness and subtilty of their arguments partly from the ridiculous fopperies which they maintained together with that of the souls immortality as the transmigration of them into the bodies of Brutes and such like But the main disadvantage of all to the world was that the immortality of the soul was rather insisted on as a Principle of Philosophy than of Religion Some of the best of their arguments were such as made the souls of Brutes immortal as well as those of men and those could not be imagined to have any great force on the lives of men which would equally hold for such creatures which were not capable of rewards and punishments in another life But therein lies the great excellency of the doctrine of the souls immortality as it is discovered in the Gospel not only that it comes from him who best understands the nature of souls but is delivered in such a manner as is most effectual for the reformation of mankind For the fullest account herein given of it is by the rewards and punishments of another life and those not Poetically described by Fictions and Romances but delivered with the plainness of truth the gravity of a Law the severity of a Judge the authority of a Law-giver the Majesty of a Prince and the wisdom of a Deity Wherein the happiness described is such as the most excellent minds think it most desirable and the misery so great as all that consider it must think it most intolerable And both these are set forth with so close a respect to the actions of this life that every one must expect in another world according to what he doth in this How is it then possible that the doctrine of the souls being in another state could be recommended with greater advantage to mankind than it is in the Gospel and what is there can be imagined to take off the force of this but the proving an absolute incapacity in the soul of subsisting after death It is true indeed in the state of this intimate union and conjunction between the soul and body they do suffer mutually from each other But if the souls suffering on the account of the body as in diseases of the brain be sufficient to prove there is no soul why may not the bodies suffering on the account of the soul as in violent passions of the mind as well prove that there is no body It is not enough then to prove that the soul doth in some things suffer from the body for so doth the Child in the Mothers womb from the distempers of its Mother yet very capable of living when separated from her but it must be shewed that the soul is not distinct from the body to prove it uncapable of being without it But on the other side I shall now shew that there is nothing unreasonable in what the Scripture delivers concerning the immortal state of the Souls of men as to future rewards and punishments because there are those things now in them considered as distinct from their bodies which make them capable of either of them And those are 1. That they are capable of pleasure and pain distinct from the body 2. That they have power of determining their own actions 1. That the souls of men are capable of pleasure and pain distinct from the pleasure and pain of the body Where-ever pleasure and pain may be there must be a capacity of rewards and punishments for a reward is nothing but the heightning of pleasure and punishment an increase of pain And if there be both these in men of which no account can be given from their bodies there must be a nobler principle within which we call the Soul which is both the cause and the subject of them We may as easily imagine that a Fox should leave his prey to find out a demonâ—tration in Euclid or a Serpent attempt the squaring of the circle in the dust or all the Fables of Aesop to become real Hisâ—ories and the Birds and Beasts turn Wits and Polititians as be able to give an account of those we call pleasures of the mind from the affections of the body The transport of joy which Archimedes was in at the finding out his desired Problem was a more certain evidence of the real pleasures of the mind than the finding it was of the greatness of his wit Could we ever think that men who understood themselves would spend so much time in lines and numbers and figures and examining Problems and Demonstrations which depend upon them if they found not a great delight and satisfaction in the doing of it But whence doth this pleasure arise not from seeing the figures or meer drawing the lines or calculating the numbers but by deducing the just and necessary consequences of one thing from another which would afford no more pleasure to a man without his soul than a Book of Geometry would give to a Herd of Swine It is the Soul alone which takes pleasure in the search and finding out such Truths which can have no kind of respect to the Body it is that which can put the Body out of order with its own pleasures by spending so much time in contemplation as may exhaust the Spirits abate the vigour of the Body and hasten its decay And while that droops and sinks under the burden the Soul may be as vigorous and active in such a consumptive state of the Body as ever it was before the understanding as
The Right Reverend EDW. STILLING FLEET D.D. Lord Bishop of Worcester TWELVE SERMONS Preached on Several Occasions By the Right Reverend Father in God EDWARD Lord Bishop of Worcester The First VOLUME LONDON Printed by I. H. for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1696. THE CONTENTS A SERMON I. AMos IV. 11. I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a fire-brand plukt out of the burning yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. Page 1 SERMON II. Prov. XIV 9. Fools make a mock at sin p. 48 SERMON III. Luke VII 35. But Wisdom is justified of all her Children P. 88 SERMON IV. Rom. I. 16. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the Power of God unto salvation to every one that believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek p. 131 SERMON V. Heb. II. 3. How shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation p. 169 SERMON VI. Heb. XII 3. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds p. 209 SERMON VII Jude V. 11. And perished in the gainsaying of Corah P. 261 SERMON VIII Matth. XXI 43. Therefore say I unto you the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof p. 306 SERMON IX John VII 39. But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Iesus was not yet glorified p. 353 SERMON X. Isa. LVII 21. There is no peace saith my God to the Wicked p. 387 SERMON XI 2 Corinth V. 2. Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men P. 431 SERMON XII Matth. XVI 26. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall he give in exchange for his soul p. 469 Advertisement THERE will speedily be Published a Second Volume of Sermons by the same Author SERMON I. Preached at St. Margarets Westminster Before the Honourable House of COMMONS Octob. 10. 1666. Amos IV. XI I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a fire-brand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. IT is but a very little time since you met together in this place to lament the remainders of a raging pestilence which the last year destroyed so many thousand Inhabitants of the late great and famous City and now God hath given us another sad occasion for our fasting and humiliation by suffering a devouring fire to break forth and consume so many of her habitations As though the infected air had been too kind and partial and like Saul to the Amalekites had only destroyed the vile and refuse and spared the greatest of the people as though the grave had surfeited with the bodies of the dead and were loth to go in the execution of God's displeasure he hath imployed a more furious Element which by its merciless and devouring flames might in a more lively manner represent unto us the kindling of his wrath against us And that by a Fire which began with that violence and spread with that horror and raged with that fury and continued for so long a time with that irreâ—â—stible force that it might justly fill the beholders with confusion the hearers of it with amazement and all of us with a deep and humble sense of those sins which have brought down the judgments of God in so severe a manner in the midst of us For whatever arguments or reasons we can imagine that should compose the minds of men to a sense of their own or others calamities or excite them to an apprehension of the wrath of God as the cause of them or quicken them to an earnest supplication to him for mercy they do all eminently concurr in the sad occasion of this days solemnity For if either compassion would move or fear awaken or interest engage us to any of these it is hard to conceive there should be an instance of a more efficacious nature than that is which we this day bewail For who can behold the ruins of so great a City and not have his bowels of compassion moved towards it Who can have any sence of the anger of God discovered in it and not have his fear awakened by it Who can as we ought all look upon it as a judgment of universal influence on the whole Nation and not think himself concerned to imploâ—e the mercy of Heaven towards us For certainly howsoever we may vainly flatter and deceive our selves these are no common indications of the frowns of Heaven nor are they meerly intended as the expressions of God's severity towards that City which hath suffered so much by them but the stroaks which fall upon the head though they light upon that only are designed for the punishment of the whole body Were there nothing else but a bare permission of Divine Providence as to these things we could not reasonably think but that God must needs be very angry with us when he suffers two such dreadful calamities to â—read almost upon each others heels that no sooner had death taken away such multitudes of our Inhabitants but a Fire â—ollows it to consume our Habitations A Fire so dreadful in its appearance in its rage and fury and in all the dismal consequences of it which we cannot yet be sufficiently apprehensive of that on that very account we may justly lie down in our shame and our confusioâ— cover us because God hath Covered the daughter of Sion with a cloud in his anger and cast down from Heaven to earth the beauty of Israel and remembred not his footstool in the day of his anger For such was the violence and fury of the flames that they have not only defaced the beauty of the City and humbled the pride and grandeur of it not only stained its glory and consumed its Palaces but have made the Houses of God themselves a heap of ruins and a spectacle of desolation And what then can we propose to our selves as arguments of God's severe displeasure against us which we have not either already felt or have just cause to fear are coming upon us without a speedy and sincere amendment If a Sword abroad and Pestilence at home if Fire in our Houses and Death in our Streets if Foreign Wars and Domestick Factions if a languishing State and a discontented People if the ruines of the City and poverty of the Country may make us sensible how sad our condition at present is how much worse it may be if God in his mercy prevent it not we shall aâ—l surely think we have reason enough this day to lay to heart the evil of our doings which have brought all these things upon us and abhor our selves repenting in dust and ashes
Laws and make his own terms with God can he dissolve the chains of darkness with a few death-bed tears and quench the flames of another world with them O foolish sinners who hath bewitched them with these deceitful dreams will heaven-gates fly open with the strength of a few dying groans will the mouth of hell be stopt with the bare lamentation of a sinner Are there such charms in some penitent words extorted from the fear of approaching misery that God himself is not able to resiâ—â— them Certainly there is no deceit more dangerous nor I fear more common in the world than for men to think that God is so easie to pardon sin that though they spend their lives in satisfying their lusts they shall make amends for all by a dying sorrow and a gasping repentance As though the unsaying what we had done or wishing we had done otherwise since we can do it no longer for that is the bottom of all putting off repentance to the last were abundant compensation to the justice of God for the affronts of his Majesty contempt of his Laws abuse of his Patience and all the large indictments of wilful and presumptuous sins which the whole course of our lives is charged with The supposal of which makes the whole design of Religion signify very little in the world Thus we have examined the foundations of a sinner's peace and found them very false and fallacious 2. We are now to shew that those things do accompany a sinner's course of life which certainly overthrow his peace which are these two 1. The reflections of his Mind 2. The violence of his Passions 1. The reflections of his Mind which he can neither hinder nor be pleased with No doubt if it were possible for him to deprive himself of the greatest excellency of his being it would be the first work he would do to break the glass which shews him his deformity For as our Saviour said Every one that doth evil hateth the light lest his deeds should be reproved not only the light without which discovers them but that light of conscience within which not only shines but burns too Hence proceeds that great uneasiness which a sinner feels within as often as he considers what he hath done amiss which we call the remorse of conscience and is the natural consequent of the violence a man offers to his reason in his evil actions It was thought a sufficient vindication of the innocency of two Brothers by the Roman Judges when they were accused for Parricide that although their Father was murthered in the same room where they lay and no other person was found on whom they could fasten the suspicion of it yet in the morning the door was open and they fast asleep For as the Orator saith No man can imagine that those who had broken all the Laws of God and nature by so great an act of wickedness could presently sleep upon it for they who do such things can neither rest without care nor breathe without fear We are not to believe saith he the fables of the Poets as though wicked men were haunted and terrified with the burning torches of the furies but every man's wickedness is the greatest terrour to himself and the evil thoughts which pursue wicked men are their constant and domestick furies It would be endless to repeat what force the more civil Heathens have given to conscience either way as to the peace which follows innocency and the disquiet which follows guilt Which they looked on as the great thing which governed the world Quâ sublatâ jacent omnia as the Orator speaks without which all things would be in great disorder for these punishments they are sure not to escape though they may do others and these they thought so great and weighty that upon this ground they vindicated divine providence as to the seeming prosperity of wicked men thinking it the most unreasonable thing in the world to call those persons happy who suffered under the severe lashes of their own consciences If there were such a force in the consciences of those who had nothing but the light of nature to direct them how much greater weight muâ—t there be when the terrours of the Lord are made known by himself and the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men I know that wicked men in the height of their debaucheries pretend to be above these things and are ready to laugh at them as the effects of a strong spleen and a weak brain but I appeal to their most sober thoughts when the streams of wine are evaporated and the intoxication of evil company is removed from them when in the deep and silent night they revolve in their minds the actions of the foregoing day what satisfaction they then take in all the sinful pleasures they have pursued so eagerly but especially when either their lusts have consumed their bodies or the vengeance of God hath overtaken them when death begins to seize upon their vitals and themselves not wholly stupified through the power of their sins or their disease let then if it were possible any repâ—esent the fears the horrour and astonishment which the consciences of wicked men labour under in remembrance of their evil actions How mean and poor would they leave themselves if with all their honours and riches they could purchase to themselves a reprieve from death and from the miseries which follow after it what would they then give for the comfort of a good conscience and the fruit of a holy righteous and sober life with what another sense of Religion do men whose minds are awakened speak then in comparison of what they did in the days of their mirth and jollity Neither is this to take them at the greatest disadvantage as some of them have been ready to say for I suppose their minds as clear then as at any time and so much the clearer because freed from the impediments of such freedom of their thoughts at another time for the same thoughts would have possessed them before only the pleasures and the hopes of life diverted their minds from them but now the nearness of the things they feared and the weight and consequence of them make them more diligently examine and impartially consider them But that demonstrates the great misery of a sinner's State that what cures the other greatest troubles of our life doth the most increase his which is the exercise of reason and consideration that allays the power of griefs that easeth the mind of vain fears that prevents many troubles and cures others that governs other passions and keeps them in their due bounds but this is it which of all things doth the most increase the trouble of a wicked man's mind for the more he considers the worse he finds his condition and while he finds his condition so bad he can never enjoy any peace in his mind 2. The violence of his
are infinitely beyond the racks and torments of the body It hath sometimes happened that the horrour of despair hath seized upon mens minds for some notorious crimes in this life which hath given no rest either to body or mind but the violence of the inward pains have forced them to put an end to this miserable life as in the case of Iudas But if the expectation of future misery be so dreadful what must the enduring of it be Of all the ways of dying we can hardly imagine any more painful or full of horrour than that of sacrificing their Children to Molock was among the Canaanites and Children of Amon where the Children were put into the body of a Brass Image and a fire made under it which by degrees with lamentable shrieks and cryings roasted them to death yet this above all others in the New Testament is chosen as the fittest representation of the miseries of another world and thence the very name of Gehenna is taken But as the joys of heaven will far surpass all the pleasure which the mind of a good man hath in this life so will the torments of Hell as much exceed the greatest miseries of this world But in the most exquisite pains of the body there is that satisfaction still left that death will at last put an end to them but that is a farther discovery of the unspeakable folly of losing the soul for the sake of this world that 3. The happiness of this world can last but for a little time but the misery of the soul will have no end Suppose a man had all the world at his command and enjoyed as much satisfaction in it as it was possible for humane nature to have yet the very thoughts of dying and leaving all in a short time must needs make his happiness seem much less considerable to him And every wise man would provide most for that State wherein he is sure to continue longest The shortness of life makes the pleasures of it less desireable and the miseries less dreadful but an endless State makes every thing of moment which belongs to it Where there is variety and liberty of change there is no necessity of any long deliberation before-hand but for that which is to continue always the same the greatest consideration is needful because the very continuance of some things is apt to bring weariness and satiety with it If a man were bound for his whole life-time to converse only with one person without so much as seeing any other he would desire time and use his best judgment in the choice of him If one were bound to lie in the same posture without any motion but for a month together how would he imploy his wits before-hand to make it as easie and tolerable as might be Thus solicitous and careful would men be for any thing that was to continue the same although but for a short time here But what are those things to the endless duration of a soul in a misery that is a perpetual destruction and everlasting death always intolerable and yet must always be endured A misery that must last when time it self shall be no more and the utmost periods we can imagine fall infinitely short of the continuance of it O the unfathomable Abyss of Eternity how are our imaginations lost in the conceptions of it But what will it then be to be swallowed up in an Abyss of misery and eternity together And I do not know how such an eternal State of misery could have been represented in Scripture in words more Emphatical than it is not only by everlasting fire and everlasting destruction but by a worm that never dies and a fire that never goes out and the very same expressions are used concerning the eternal State of the blessed and the damned so that if there were any reason to question the one there would be the same to question the other also 4. The loss of this world may be abundantly recompenced but the loss of the Soul can never be For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul If a man runs the hazard of losing all that is valuable or desirable in this world for the sake of his Soul heaven and eternal happiness will make him infinite amends for it He will have no cause to repent of his bargain that parts with his share in this evil world for the joys and glories that are above They who have done this in the resolution of their minds have before-hand had so great satisfaction in it that they have gloried in tribulations and rejoyced in hopes of the glory of God they have upon casting up their accounts found that the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed because the afflictions they meet with here are but light and momentany but that which they expected in recompence for them was an exceeding and an eternal weight of Glory O blessed change what life can be so desirable as the parting with it is on such terms as these It was the hopes of this glorious recompence which inspired so many Martyrs to adventure for Heaven with so much courage patience and constancy in the primitive times of the Christian Church How do they look down from Heaven and despise all the vanities of this World in comparison with what they enjoy And if they are sensible of what is done on earth with what pity do they behold us miserable creatures that for the sake of the honours pleasures or riches of this World venture the loss of all which they enjoy and thereby of their Souls too Which is a loss so great that no recompence can ever be made for it no price of redemption can ever be accepted for the delivery of it For even the Son of God himself who laid down his life for the redemption of Souls shall then come from heaven with flaming fire to take vengeance on all those who so much despise the blood he hath shed for them the warnings he hath given to them the Spirit he hath promised them the reward he is ready to bestow upon them as in spight of all to cast away those precious and immortal Souls which he hath so dearly bought with his own blood Methinks the consideration of these things might serve to awaken our security to cure our stupidity to check our immoderate love of this world and inflame our desires of a better Wherein can we shew our selves men more than by having the greatest regard to that which makes us men which is our souls Wherein can we shew our selves Christians better than by abstaining from all those hurtful lusts which war against our souls and doing those things which tend to make them happy We are all walking upon the shore of eternity and for all that we know the next tide may sweep us away shall we only sport and play or gather cockle-shells and lay them in