need are destitute of means of coming to they that abound and are sick of strength and desire to enjoy them But Riches and Health things so essential to his carnal felicity are extreamly uncertain No man can be secure of their possession That vast number of languishing people met withal every-where Wounds falls Bankrupts Sterilities Shipwracks Fires Thefts and a thousand like misfortunes betray their inconstancy and teach us that nothing is so ruinous and uncertain as happiness built uppon them 4ly Supposing that a vigorous health and a perfect plenty of all things should conspire to make you happy how can you be secure of your happiness if your life it self is not secure What is in the World more subject to alteration then our life It depends upon the violence of men or all the accidents of Fortune We may dye in all ages at every time in every place we cannot promise our selves one single year or one day nay which is worse one single hour So many sudden deaths set before our eyes are proofs against all exception and what happens to some threatens and is an argument of fear for all Our life is lent us by moments and there is but that which is present we are really Masters of We cannot be sure of any goods but of those only which this single moment affords all the others are only grounded upon a probable hope And to this is reduc'd that certainty so much boasted of of the pleasures of the present life to which this Maxim is strangely misapply'd that we must leave the uncertain for the certain and so the question is this Whether any man of sense can resolve to give over the hopes of eternal happiness for a transitory one which is so often ruin'd by poverty and diseases and is secure of nothing but the moment of its enjoyment CHAP. V. Limitation to be put to the uncertainty of the promises of Christian Religion IT is to be weigh'd on the other side that the uncertainty of everlasting happiness a Christian proposes to himself is not of so large an extent as one may imagine For tho we condescend so far as to suppose that it cannot be made certain by any internal principles yet it has all the external certainty a rational man can desire 1st The universal consent of Mankind in all times and places The most Barbarous agree with the politest Nation the Turk and the Scythian with the Roman and the Greek and there is no irreligious person but this proposition must stagger that it is impossible to produce since the origination of mankind any Nations or Society of men that ever made profession of Irreligion Irreligious having been lookt upon in all ages as monsters not only for the enormity of their Doctrine but also for the smallness and strangeness of their number 2ly For what relates particularly to Christianity who can deny that it compasses the Irreligious with a cloud of witnesses The blood of so many thousand Martyrs of all Ages Sexes Conditions from the lowest to the highest rank is an astonishing argument And though some other Societies may challenge their Sufferers yet the pains of our Martyrs are dignified by such circumstances as are to be found nowhere else but under the Gospel And thus the Uncertainty of an eternal happiness and misery must not be lookt on as those things we usually call uncertain and admit of equal probability for their not-being as for their being but as a thing which though not evident in it self yet has a strong eternal certainty Then the question proposed is resolved to this Whether any rational man must prefer a single moment of pleasure he enjoyes to the hopes of an everlasting happiness which though not evident in it self yet is expected by all mankind and so strongly believed by Christians that they have lost for it their quiet their Estates their Thrones their Lives Nor must the Irreligious say That Christian Religion is false or impossible For then he argues against himself and is out of power of Claiming for himself that the certain is to be preferred to the uncertain If it be false or impossible it is no more uncertain CHAP VI. Resolution of the question Whether the certainty of the goods of this Life can overpower the uncertainty of those of the next No Condition of men will assent to the choice of the Irreligious ALL those necessary limitations being put on both sides it is easie to state the question in its natural terms It runs thus Whether a wise man ought to prefer advantages very short in their greatest extent interrupted by Diseases Disturb'd by thousand unavoidable accidents uncertain in their Duration certain only for an instant whether he ought to prefer them to the hope of an Eternal happiness which so many millions of men have dyed for and expose himself to an eternal misery which has the same probability Whereas without losing that blessed hope and risking so Dreadful a danger he may enjoy in an innocent life a part of those Delights he haunts after in a sinful course The single proposal of this question is enough to have it resolved Is there upon earth any man so bewitcht and so out of his wits as to doubt one single moment what must be his choice Is it not a stupidity equal to that of Beasts themselves to prefer pleasures attended with so many defects to the rational hopes of eternal happiness because these are present and that is yet to come But alas Who shall make that impertinent choice Men being different amongst themselves in age condition birth the older they are the proner they will be to catch at future happiness being so near their end that there remains for them but very little of the present The ordinary sort of people whose estate lies in their arms will think as old men To them may be added all that live a laborious life that is almost all mankind I ask then an Irreligious person what man is mad enough to side with him in his choice If he is a Child who knows yet nothing of another life and very little of this he must not be proud of it A Child knows but what he has tried and he has tried but few things He cannot therefore compare those objects which affect his senses with those his understanding apprehends not And his judgement though never so pertinent will be still that of a Child If he is an old man in whom nature begins to decay what would induce him to so strange a choice Does he think he ventures too much when he parts with those pleasures he is not capable of for a state eternally happy which though uncertain yet is very probable And would it not look as an incredible madness in him that is dead to all the pleasures of this life should he not renounce them and choose those of the next If he is needy and fickly how can he determine himself to it I leave it to any mans
with them as to make use of neither nay as to lay aside all the proofs History Philosophy and Nature affords and only stick to their doubts and uncertainties I say doubts and uncertainties for if they have no demonstration for Christian Religion they have none against it The most learned in the mysteries of Irreligion have not yet demonstrated the Eternity of the World the Mortality of the Soul the Impossibility of a Judgment and of an eternally happy or unhappy Life All that they have done is to elude and evade the Arguments brought to assert them all which summ'd up amounts at most to a probable doubt but can never reach to a full and real perswasion But the nature of doubt being to be equal on both sides they must give us leave to doubt of the Dogmes of Irreligion as of things that may be false Nor can they complain we require too much of them when we desire them to assent That it may be there is God it may be our Soul is immortal it may be the World had a beginning and must have an end it may be there is a Life to come The Authority of so many Nations that ador'd God for five thousand years and Christ near two thousand is enough to counterballance their reasons and make the question at least dubious and uncertain and is so far from doing them any wrong that their condition cannot be more advantageous than to suppose their doubts and look upon them as principles that must end the difference CHAP II. That in things that are doubtful 't is an infallible Rule of Prudence To close with that Party where there is nothing to lose and much to gain Application of that Rule to Christianity SElf-interest is the part man is most tender of all external considerations may move but that only can perswade and determine him to any thing and since the time sin brought him to take himself for his ultimate end he loves nothing but himself or if he loves any thing besides 't is still for himself and the advantages he hopes from it The greater they are and the nearer they come to him the more he is affected with them Thus tho friends riches and all other external advantages sway extreamly with him yet their influence comes short of that which his liberty health life reputation and generally all those wherein his happiness is concern'd have upon him So that if such advantage is set before his eyes as not only concerns him for a while or for a part of himself but embraces whatsoever his body and soul can compass through the space of his eternity there is no doubt he will earnestly run to it If in things of less importance as are his friends his liberty or his life he seems so concern'd what must not be expected from him when he is sensible that from what is propos'd to him depends his eternal happiness or misery Upon that principle which no man can deny that has not divested nature it is easie to raise another In the choice of Opinions the truth and falshood whereof cannot be certainly known that Party is to be preferr'd wherein you venture nothing if it be false and win much if it be true and that rejected wherein nothing is to be got if it be true and the loss irreparable if it should prove false There is no wise man but assents to this maxim Thus men order their undertakings and not trusting the event of things or their own measures which often miscarry they work upon that which is more certain to them Thus of two Remedies that are to be try'd that is never apply'd which must kill the Patient if it does not cure him but rather that which if it restores him not to his first strength will at least prove harmless Thus there is no Merchant but would engage in a Commerce which if successful there is much to be got if not nothing to be lost and he that should leave such a bargain for another which if attended with all imaginable prosperity there is nothing to be got and if not there is an inconceivable loss to be suffer'd would be lookt upon as bewitcht and befool'd Now let Christianity and Irreligion be try'd by this Rule since both are a sort of Commerce which every body is to measure by the risque he runs or the reward he hopes Laying aside all the particular reasons that evince the truth and excellency of Christianity let this suffice that it is certain that following it if it proves true there is eternal happiness to be expected and nothing is ventur'd if it proves false Whereas the contrary is to be said of Irreligion The first part of this Assertion is so notorious and so palpable that it seems needless to prove it So that there remains but the second to be made out that supposing Christianity proves false we venture nothing at all CHAP. III. That supposing Christianity proves false we venture nothing at all ALL the loss Christianity exposes us to is that of the inordinate pleasures and sensualities of this life which he that has been made a Disciple of Christ at his Baptism has promis'd to renounce The Irreligious man can find no other risque but this and all he can say is that a Christian is oblig'd by his condition to deny himself and forsake the World the Flesh and the Devil But to unvail and cure this mistake let us compare as exactly as we can the Irreligious man and the Christian both in their deaths and in their lives and it will easily be seen who of them ventures most There is no other time wherein they may be compar'd for after their death both in the opinion of the Irreligious are annihilated and besides that two annihilated beings cannot be compar'd the non-being putting them in the same rank it were impossible to judge of the difference of their lives by a state which makes them equal after their death If then we look upon an Irreligious man and a Christian when they are a-dying we shall find them both so even concerning pleasures or riches and generally all that has past that the one cannot claim the least advantage over the other I suppose that each of them liv'd a whole Age with that difference that the first enjoy'd without any interruption and to the highest degree all the pleasures a long and happy life can afford and the second was depriv'd of all the delights the Law he observes prohibit to its Votaries Nay which is more I suppose that he barr'd himself even from those that are permitted and studied nothing all his life but to hate and mortifie himself Yet after all it must be said that how vast a difference soever be seen between them whilst they live they are perfectly even when they dye The pleasures of the Irreligious and the sufferings of the Christian are equally gone The voluptuous life of the first does not make him more happy nor to have liv'd in
those resemblances exaggerated with the greatest care extend not to the rational which is his grand difference And so all that can be inferred hence is that he dies in all that is beastly in him in his body in his sensitive life in all the faculties and operations that depend from corporeal Organs But what is all this to the destruction of his soul which depends upon those Organs neither in his being nor his operations Who can hear without indignation this manner of arguing Man is like beast in that which is common to both Therefore in all that is peculiar to him Beasts die in their bodies in that sensitive life which constitute the beast so does man therefore he dies in that rational intellectual life which is proper to him Man dies in his body therefore in his soul The Sun shines not when it is Ecclipsed therefore he shines not at all CHAP. VI. Conformity between Man and Beast THe conformity between man and beast is threefold the first natural and necessary the second shameful the third laborious The first is the consequence of an animal life Man and beast agree in eating drinking sleeping c. And although this state be imperfect as supposing many wants yet there is neither shame nor pain for man He does in that nothing against his reason which is one part of his nature and it is agreeable to the body which is the other This conformity is inseparable from man in this world Nor is the state of innocence it self free from it The second is the consequence and punishment of sin It consists in the reign of our passions over us the disorders of body and senses which rebell against the law of the mind and in all the share lust claims in the propagation of nature This state is natural to beasts and shameful to man because he is a stranger to it 'T is a shame for him that passions should command when reason must give laws that he should not master his own senses that he should covet what is not his own and love what he is convinced he should not nay sometimes that which he would not love Man is naturally no less stranger to the third than to the second So many labours incident to his life so many sufferings and distempers that end but with him cannot naturally fall upon an innocent creature He must have been guilty to be afflicted Nor can the Irreligious instance the sufferings of beasts who are innocent after their manner Why must man the most excellent creature upon earth who was to command beasts be twice more miserable than they First in the multitude and diversity of his pains which come from the infimite number of his wants Secondly The quicker and more galling sentiments of his pains Beasts are afflicted with no evil but the present Man fears besides and foresees the future He who is condemned to die dies a thousand times before his execution He feels infamy which outvies any grief And by the help of memory is galled at the privation of a state the happiness whereof he knowes most exactly and desires most earnestly Beasts are incapable of any of those pains and nothing but a cause stranger to mans nature such as is sin could have subjected him to them Sin alone could let into the world wars distempers and death And God could not punish the pride of man with greater justice than to make him so like beasts in sensible things as they seem even to obscure the immortality of his nature CHAP. VII The difference between Man and Beast THe chief difference between Man and Beast is reason which comprehends memory of things that are past and foresight of those that are to come Hence arises speech which is not only proper to man but a general means to communicate thoughts covering them with such sounds that men applied their notions to Speech is divided into all sorts of Languages nor is there any Nation but makes use of it to keep up civil society Hence arise also Sciences Arts Commerce Societies and Kingdoms The second is liberty an indifference of doing and not doing what he pleases Whereas beasts are determined in all their actions by a predominant instinct they cannot resist Hence arise Laws to secure private men and promote publick interest which are grounded only upon liberty there being no room for them in a nature determined to the same thing Hence also arise vertues which result from the good use of liberty and obedience to the Laws Nay man is discernable by his vices The love of Glory and the desire of Commanding distinguishes us from beasts though our condition be not a jot the better for it since all desires not overswayed by reason render us more miserable and misery is never an argument to raise our selves above any other Now the question is whether besides so many palpable differences there is not yet some other invisible that distinguishes man in his duration August 1st To consider the thing it self it is already very possible that amongst so many external differences there is some internal unknown to us There is great probability that souls so contrary in all things are so too in their duration and in their essence How could man do things so far beyond the reach and capacity of beasts were not his nature nobler and perfecter than theirs This supposition is very probable 2ly If we survey attentively all the advantages of man above beasts they do all imply a natural tendency to immortality The nature of the soul is spiritual This appears from her thoughts which represent to her spiritual objects and from general ideas from private images of things But if the being of the soul be spiritual it is also immortal Since a being totally independent from matter is subject to no alteration 3ly If we examine reason which is the character of the soul it is bound within no compass of time By the help of memory and foresight nothing is future or past to man Memory recalls precedent ages foresight sets before our eyes events that are to come Reason enacts laws to order matters of men if 't were possible for ever Books shall teach posterity as long as men live Dying people intend by their last will to dispose to all future ages of the goods that are in their power There is no man but desires eternal life and happiness None but fears infamy after his death Nay those very men wish for immortality who desire their souls to be immortal Are not these prejudices strong enough to move any man We have a clear notion of immortality Our mind foresees our heart wishes for every body aspires to it It is therefore at least to be concluded in the number of possible things And the contrary opinion cannot be received unless it brings along with it an evidence equal to that of having seen a soul annihilated which never happened and never shall Our eyes saies the Irreligious are not witnesses of the
as younger Brothers The Egyptians and the Ethiopians claimed that honour and declared that they came immediately from the womb of the earth And the Athenians took the proud title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Chaldaeans and Egyptians carried their Dispute to the very height The first as refer Diodorus and Tully who laugh at both said that when Alexander the Great over-run Asia they had already applied themselves to the study of the Stars just four hundred seventy thousand years And not reckoning their years by the reign of their Kings but divers periods some of six thousand others of six hundred the least of sixty years they made up their account The Egyptians wanted no number to outvie them They found in their Archives that since they had the name of Egyptians the Stars had already compleated four times their great revolution that is returned to the same state where they were when they began to move which includes an incredible number of years Being as proud of Astrology as the Caldaeans they boasted to have kept the Ephemerides of an infinite number of years and the lives of their Kings all that time An Author of theirs relates three branches of them One of Gods the other of Heroes the third of men who reigned an infinite number of ages Nay they were so thirsty of antiquity as to say that Vulcan their first King reigned innumerable ages But the Annals of his reign were lost The Sun succeeded to him as being his Son and reigned six hundred thousand six hundred seventy four years May it not be askt whether the brain of them that made such reckoning or of them that believed them was well settled and yet this is the ground of the belief of the Irreligious Those Dreams are all the shelter they can find if they go to prove the authority of the world by way of authority They agree therefore with Christians in that they believe incomprehensible things But with this difference that we believe only upon the authority of God who has revealed them We are perswaded that his power goes farther than our apprehension And that he includes within and works without himself greater wonders than we are able to conceive And as it is alwaies rational to trust him who is infinitely wise so reason it self forces us to believe things beyond reason This impotency of conceiving the works of God is the only thing can make us happy What sort of God is this that can be included in the narrow minds of men Certainly an object of this nature is a slender ground of felicity And our hopes being inseparable from our faith his incomprehensibility is the greatest comfort of our souls This Irreligious will admit of nothing but what his senses or his experience make plain to him When therefore they believe any thing they neither see nor apprehend their belief is not grounded upon the certainty or evidence but the interest they have in things It is not the object that determines and fixes their belief but their heart and inclinarions They believe that such a thing is after such a manner because they know it and are satisfied but because they would have it so Nay they carry so far that abuse of their reason that when they cannot avoid to believe things morally incredible they had rather believe them incredible by their gross absurdity than any divine grandure that lies in them These are the miserable shifts of the Irreligious But if they could stay there and feed themselves with the imaginations of their hearts without any danger we had nothing to say to them All wise men would only think them out of their wits and so far 't is well 't is no worse But to believe impertinencies and Chimera's with that danger that if they mistake they shall fall into an eternal state of misery 't is a fury a passion an extravagancy that wants a name and can scarce be imagined CHAP. V. Abuse the Irreligious makes against the Immortality of the soul of the conformity between man and beast IT is not intended here to prove the immortality of the soul but only to shew how false and inconsistent are the principles of Irreligion There is a vast conformity between man and beast in their senses in the multiplication of their kinds their self-preservation their passions their distempers their death c. From the mortality of the souls of beasts the Irreligious concludes that of the soul of man and thinks in that to judge according to the natural impression that form in his mind so many qualities which being common to both make a sort of prejuge against man To evince how false is that ratiocination it may suffice to prove that it is no less against than for him He concludes from that conformity that as these of beasts so our souls die Why not that theirs are immortal as well as ours The conformity being equal to both sides it must not be more partial to one than to the other According to all appearances saies the Irreligious Man Beast are altogether alike in the necessity of dying and in all the consequences of death But the whole beast dies body and soul therefore the whole man dies so also But the very self same argument may be thus as probably inverted Beasts and man are are alike in their death But man dies in his body and not in his soul therefore Beasts do so too and their souls are immortal Either of these conclusions must be equal to the Irreligious since professing to believe but what he knowes he knowes and can know the mortality of the souls of Beasts no better than their immortality But Christians saies he acknowledge the whole Beast dies Which answer is the more absurd because he must not argue from what we believe but only from what falls under his senses and experience and what he must thence rationally conclude But he sees only in a Beast the death of the body His eyes can go no further and concludes from that internal equality any thing for their soul Or leaving the answer in its full latitude 't is in vain he makes use of our authority concerning the destruction of the souls of beasts since we do it by reasons which establish the immortality of ours But supposing with them and all the world besides the mortality of the souls of Beasts all that can be concluded from their conformity with man can only fall upon that wherein they are alike There is in man that which is rational and that which is animal Man is born preserves himself by nourishment and his kind by generation He is subject to the distempers of his body the passions of his heart the disorders of the Elements and the necessity of dying All this is common to him and the smallest Beasts Nay many of them out-do him in the perfection of his senses Their light is more piercing their hearing quicker their smelling more refined But all this is still animal All