suitable aliment from our bodies affect to dwell there and is loath to leave us It were a ludicrous pity to be there-therefore content to endure its troublesome vâ—llications because we fear the poor Animal should be put to its shifts and not to be otherwise able to find a subsistence 'T is true that the great Creator and Lord of the Universe hath not permitted us the liberty of so throwing off our bodies when we will which otherwise are in dignity far more beneath our spirits than so despicable a Creature is beneath them And to his dispose that hath order'd this conjunction for a time whether we look upon it as an effect of his simple pleasure or of his displeasure we must yeild an awful and a patient submission till this part of his Providence towards us have run its course and attain'd its ends And then how welcome should the hour of our discharge and freedom be from so troublesome an Associate which upon no other account than that of duty towards the Author of our beings one would more endure than to have the most noysome offensive Vermine always preying upon his flesh At least though the consideration of our own advantage had no place with us in this matter the same sense of duty towards our great Creator which should make us patient of an abode in the body while he will have it so should also form our spirits to a willing departure when it shall be his pleasure to release us thence But that neither a regard to his pleâ—sure nor our own blessednâ—ss should prevail against our love to the body is the unaccountable thing I speak of And to plead only in the case the corruption of our natures that sets us at odds with God and our selves is to justifie the thing by what is it self most unjustifiable or rather as some that have affected to be styl'd Philosophers have been wont to expedite difficulties by resolving the matter into the usual course of Nature which is to resolve the thing into it self and say It is so because it is so or is wont to be and indeed plainly to confess there is no account to be given of it This being the very thing about which we expostulate that reasonable nature should so prevaricate The commonness whereof doth not take away the wonder but rather render it more dreadful and astonishing The truth is the incongruity in the present case is only to be solved by redress by earnest strivings with God and our own souls till we find our selves recovered into a right mind into the constitution and composure whereof a generous fortitude hath a necessary ingrediency that usually upon lower motives refuses no change of Climate and will carry a man into unknown Countreys and through greatest hazards in the pursuit of honourable enterprizes of a much inferior kind It is reckon'd a brave and manly thing to be in the temper of one's mind a Citizen of the World meaning it of this lower one But why not rather of the Universe And 't is accounted mean and base that one should be so confin'd by his fear or sloath to that spot of ground where he was born as not upon just inducement to look abroad and go for warrantable and worthy purposes yea if it were only honest self-advantage as far as the utmost ends of the earth But dare we not venture a little farther These are too narrow bounds for a truly great spirit Any thing that is tinctur'd with earth or favours of mortality we should reckon too mean for us and not regret it that Heaven and Immortality are not to be attained but by dying so should the love of our own souls and the desire of a perpetual state of life triumph over the fear of death But it may be alledged by some That 't is only a solicitous love to their souls that makes them dread this change They know it wiâ—l not sare with all alike hereafter and know not what their own lot shall be And is this indeed our case then what have we been doing all this while and how are we concerned to lose no more time But too often a terrene spirit lurks under this pretence and men alledg their want of assurance of Heaven when the love of this earth which they cannot endure to think of leaving holds their hearts And a little to discuss this matter what would we have to assure us Do we expect a vision or a voice or are we not to try our selves and search for such characters in our own souls as may distinguish and note us out for Heaven Among these what can be more clear and certain than this that we have our hearts much set upon it They that have their conversations in Heaven may from thence expect the Saviour who shall change their vile bodies the bodies of their â—â—milâ—â—tion or low abject state and make them like his own glorious body God who will render to every man according to his works will give them that by patient continuance in well doing seek honour and glory and immortality eternal life They that set their affections or mind on the things above not those on the earth when Christ shall appear who is their life shall appear with him in glory Mistake not the notion of Heaven or the blessedness of the other world render it not to your selves a composition of sensual enjoyments Understand it principally to consist in perfect holiness and communion with God as his own word represents it and as reason hath taught even some Pagans to reckon of it and you cannot judg of your own Right by a surer and plainer Rule than that eternal blessedness shall be theirs whose hearts are truly bent and directed towards it Admit we then this Principle and now let us reason with our selves from it We have a discovery made to us of a future state of blessedness in God not as desirable only in it self but as attainable and possible to be enjoyed the Redeemer having opened the way to it by his blood and given us at once both the prospect and the offer of it so that it is before us as the object of a reasonable desire Now either our hearts are so taken with this discovery that we above all things desire this state or not If they be we desire it more than our earthly stations and enjoyments and are willing to leave the world and the body to enjoy it and so did falsly accuse our selves of a prevailing aversion to this change If they be not the thing is true that we are upon no terms willing to dye but the cause is falsly or partially assigned It is not so much because we are unassured of Heaven but as was above suspected because we love this world better and our hearts center in it as our most desirable good Therefore we see how unreasonably this is often said We are unwilling to change states because we are unassured the truth is they are unassured because they are unwilling and what then ensues They are unwilling because they are unwilling And so they may endlesly dispute themselves round from unwillingness to unwillingness But is there no way to get out of this unhappy Circle In order to it let the case be more fully understood Either this double unwillingness must be refer'd to the same thing or to divers If to the same thing it is not sense they say what signifies nothing For being to assign a cause of their unwillingness to quit the body to say because they are unwilling viz. of that is to assign no cause for nothing can be the cause of it self But if they refer to divers things and say They are unwilling to go out of the body because they are unwilling to forsake Earth for Heaven The case is then plain but sad and not alterable but with the alteration of the temper of their spirits Wherefore let us all apply our selves since with none this is so fully done that no more is needful to the serious endeavour of getting our souls purged from the dross of this world and enamoured of the purity and blessedness of Heaven so the cause and effect will vanish together we shall find that suitableness and inclination in our spirits to that blessedness as may yeild us the ground of a comfortable perswasion that it belongs to us us and then not be unwilling though many deaths stood in our way to break through to attain it FINIS * Mr. Anthony Vpton the Son of John Vpton of Lupton Esq V. 49. V 27. V. 29. V. 36 37. Act. 2. 30 V. 28. 34. â—â—9 V. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35 Isa. 55. V. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Mat. 22. Psal. 110. Act. 2. V. 25 c. V. 25. 26. V. 31. Acts 13. V. 32 33 34. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. 9. Plotin En. 2. 1 6 Isa. 40. Job 27. 19 Heracl 1 Cor. 7. Job 20. 7 8 9. Psal. 73. 20. Psal. 39. 5 6. Jer. 9. 24 Rom. 11. 36. Psal. 119. 68. Psal. 33. 5 2 Cor. 5. 4. 1 Cor. 15. 19. Heb. 11. Rom. 2. 7. Non qua eundum est sed qua itur Sen. 1 Cor. 8. Phil. 3. 20 21. Gr. Rom. 2. 6 7. Col. 3. 2 3 4.
without him in the world To keep our selves strangers to him all our days with a purpose only of flying to him at last when all things else that were wont to please us are vanished and gone And if we could suppose his Wisdom and Justice to admit his forgiving so provoking contempt of him and receiving an exiled Soul forced out from its earthly abode that to the last moment of it would never look after him or have to do with him yet can it be supposed that its own habitual aversation to him could allow it to be happy in him Especially being increased and confirmed by its consciousness and sense of guilt How can these but make it banish it self and in a sullen enmity and despair perpâ—tually flâ—e the Divine Presence What can in this case be more natural to it than to give up it self to eternal solitary wandrings as a Fugitive from God to affect to be ever enwrapt in its own darkness and hidden from his sight and be an everlasting tormentor to it self Can we be happy in him whom we do not love or love whom we will not know or be acquainted with What sure ground of hope can we imagine to our selves that our reconciliation and acquaintance with God shall ever be brought about if it be not done while we are here in the body Will we be so vain as to cherish an hope that not only affronts the visible import of God's revelation but the very reason of things and the natural tendency of our own spirits Nor indeed if we would consider better can we possibly hope for what we desire not or whereto our hearts are in an habitual disaffection other ways than in the present case negatively and that our infidelity permits us not to fear the contrary yea and the lively hope of a blessedness in God as it includes desire would certainly infer that Purity the image of his own that could never fail to incline our hearts to him and which would habituate us to a course of walking with him in inward communion And this were comely and agreeable to our pretences If while we profess our selves made for another state we retire our selves from the fading things that put a vanity into this and single out by our own choice the stable good which we expect ever to enjoy How befitting is it to pass by all things with neglect and betake our selves hither with this sense Lord I have viewed the World over in which thou hast set me I have tried how this and that thing will fit my spirit and the design of my Creation and can find nothing in which to rest for nothing here doth it self rest but such things as please me for a while in some degree vanish and flee as shadows from before me Lo I come to Thee the Eternal Being the Spring of Life the Center of rest the Stay of the Creation the Fulness of all things I joyn my self to thee with thee I will lead my life and spâ—nd my days with whom I aim to dwell for ever expecting when my little time is over to be taken up ere long into thy Eternity And since we who live under the Gospel have heard of the Redeemer of the dignity of his Person of his high Office and Power of his merciful design and great Atchievements for the restoring of lapsed and lost souls It is most agreeable to our apprehensions of the vanity of this present state and our expectations for the future that we commit our selves to him That with intire trust and love devotedness and subjection we give our selves up to his happy conduct to be led by him to God and instated into that eternal blessedness which we look for His Kingdom is not of this world as we profess not to be We cannot be innocently ignorant that its constitution and frame its laws and ordinances its aspect and tendency in its self and the whole course of its administration are directed to that other state He hath overcome death and him that had the power of it hath brought life and immortality to light is the first begotten from the dead and the first fruits of them that slept hath opened Heaven to us and is himself ascended and entred as our victorious triumphant Captain and Fore-runner He is adorned with highest Power and hath set up an Universal Kingdom extended to the utmost bounds of this apostate World and the vaster Regions of innocent and constantly loyal Spirits His Proclamations are issued out his Ensigns displayed to invite and call in whosoever are weary of the sin and vanity of this wretched world of their alienation from the life of God of living in the midst of death to joyn themselves to Him the Prince and Lord of Life and be led by Him to the immortal state If the present state of things appear dismal to us if we reckon it a woful spectacle to behold sin and death reigning wickedness and mortality acting their combined parts to waste the world and lay it desolate If we would deliver our selves and escape from the common ruin are seriously designing for Heaven and that World in which Death hath no place nor any shadow of Death Let us betake our selves to Him enroll our Names put our selves under his Banners and Discipline strictly observing the Laws and following the guidance of that our invisible Lord who will be Author of eternal salvation to them that obey him and save to the uttermost all that come to God through him How dear should he be to us How chearfully should we trust him how dutifully serve him how faithfully adhere to him both for his own sake and that of the design he hath in hand for us and the pleasant savour of Heaven and Immortality which breathes in both But if we neglect Him and disown our relation to him or if we let days and years go over our heads wherein we drowsily slumber roll our selves in the dust of the earth and while we call our selves Christians forget the reason and importance of our own Name and think not of our being under his call and conduct to the eternal Kingdom and Glory This is perversly to reject what we say only we seek to disclaim and renounce our pretences to Immortality to blast and damn our own great hopes Lastly It is congruous to our expectation of so great things after death That we live in a chearful pleasant expectation of it For what must necessarily intervene though not grateful in it self should be reckon'd so for the sake of that which is This only can upon the best terms reconcile us to the grave That our greatest hopes lye beyond it and are not hazarded by it but accomplish't Although indeed nothing were to be expected hereafter yet so little suitable entertainment doth this world afford to a reasonable spirit that the meer weariness of beholding a Scene of vanity and folly might well make a recess acceptable For is it so grateful a thing
stâ—urishâ—l for same generations do challenge observation both as to thâ—se braaches of it which grow in their â—wn more natural sâ—il and thâ—se as I have nâ—w occasion to take further notice that I find to have been transplanted into another Countrey But that such into whose hands this little Treatise shall fall may be induced to consider the true end of their beings to examine and discuss the matter more throughly with themselves what it may or can be supposed such a sort of Creatures was made and placed on this Earth for That when they shall have reasoned themselves into a setled apprehension of the worthy and important Ends they are capable of attaining and are visibly designed to They may be seized with a noble disdain of living beneath themselves and the bounty of their Creator It is obvious to common observation how flagrant and intense a zeal men are often wont to express for their personal reputation the honour of their Families yea or for the glory of their Nation but how few are acted by that more laudable and enlarged zeal for the dignity of Mankind How few are they that resent the common and vile depression of their own species Or that while in things of lightest consideration they strive with emulous endeavour that they and their relatives may excel other men do reckon it a reproach if in matters of the greatest consequence they and all men should not excel Beasts How few that are not contented to confine their utmost designs and expectations within the same narrow limits Through a mean and inglorious self-despiciency confessing in themselves to the Truth 's and their own wrong an incapacity of greater things and with most injurious falshood proclaiming the same of all Mankind besides If he that amidst the hazards of a dubious Warr betrays the Interest and Honour of his Countrey be justly infamous and thought worthy severest punishments I see not why a debaucht Sensualist that lives as if he were created only to indulge his appetite that so vilifies the notion of man as if he were made but to eat and drink and sport to please only his sense and sancy that in this time and state of conflict between the powers of this present world and those of the world to come quits his Party bids open defiance to Humanity abjures the Noble Principles and Ends forsakes the Laws and Society of all that are worthy to be esteemed men abandons the common and rational hope of mankind concerning a future immortality and herds himself among brute Creatures I say I see not why such a one should not be scorn'd and abhorr'd as a Traytor to the whâ—le Race and Nation of reasonable Creatures as a fugitive from the Tâ—nts and desertor of the common Interest of men and that both for the vileness of his practice and the danger of his example And who that hath open eyes beholds not the dreadful instances and increase of this difection When it hath prevailed to that degree already that in Civiliz'd yea in Christian Countreys as they yet affect to be calâ—'d the practice is become fashionable and in credit which can square with no other Principle than the disbelief of a future state as if it were but a meer Poetick or at best a Political Fiction And as if so impudent inâ—idelity would pretend not to a connivence only but a sanction 't is rockâ—â—'d an odd and uncâ—â—th 〈◊〉 for a man to live as if he thou◠〈…〉 and a great presumption to seem to dissent from the prophane infidel Crew As if the matter were already formally determined in the behalf of Irreligion and the Doctrine of the life to come had been clearly condemned in open Council as a detestable Heresie For what Tenet was ever more exploded and hooted at than that practice is which alone agrees with this Or what series or course of repeated Villanies can ever be more ignominious than in vulgar estimate a course of life so transacted as doth become the expectation of a blessed immortality And what After so much written and spoken by persons of all times and Religious for the immortality of the humane Soul and so common an acknowledgment thereof by Pagans Mahometans Jews and Christians Is man now at last condemn'd and doom'd to a perpetual death as it were by the consent and suffrage even of men and that too without trial or hearing and not by the reason of men but their lusts only As if with a loud and violent cry they would assassinate and stifle this belief and hope but not judg it And shall the matter be thus given up as hopeless and the victory be yeilded to prosperous wickedness and a too succesful conspiracy of vile Miscreants against both their Maker and their own Stock and Race One would think whosoever have remaining in them any conscience of obligation and duty to the common Parent and Author of our Beings any remembrance of our Divine Original any breathings of our ancient hope any sense of humane honour any resentments of so vile an indignity to the nature of man any spark of a just and generous indignation for so opprobrious a contumely to their own Kind and Order in the Creation should oppose themselves with an Heroick vigour to this treacherous and unnatural combination And let us my worthy Friends he provoked in our several capacities to do our parts herein and at least so to live and converse in this world that the course and tenour of our lives may import an open asserting of our hopes in another and may let men see we are not ashamed to own the belief of a life to come Let us by a patient continuance in well-doing how low designs soever others content themselves to pursue seek honour glory and immortality to our selves and by our avowed warrantable ambition in this pursuit justifie our great and bountiful Creator who hath made us not in vain but for so high and great things And glorifie our blessed Redeemer who amidst the gloomy and disconsolate darkness of this wretched world when it was overspred with the shadow of death hath brought life and immortality to light in the Gospel Let us labour both to seel and express the power of that Religion which hath the inchoation of the participated divine life for its principle and the perfection and eternal perpetuation thereof for its scope and end Nor let the time that hath since elapsed be found to have worn out with you the useful impressions which this monitory surprising instance of our Mortality did at first make But give me leave to inculcate from it what was said to you when the occasion was fresh and new That we labour more deeply to apprehend Gods dominion over his Creatures And that he made us principally for himself and for ends that are to be compast in the future state not for the temporary satisfaction and pleasure of one another in this world Otherwise Providence had never been guilty of such a
of the last words of David as we see v. 1. He hath made with me an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure for this is all my salvation and all my desire What so great joy and solace could a dying man take in a Covenant made with him when he had done with this world and was to expect no more in it if he took it not to concern a future blessedness in another world Was it only for the hoped prosperity of his House and Family when he was gone This which is the only thing we can fasten on he plainly secludes in the next words although he make it not to grow Therefore it was his reflection upon those loving-kindnesses mentioned in the former part of the Psalm contained in God's Covenant and confirmed by his Oath but understood according to the sense and import already declared that caused this sudden turn in David's spirit And made him that lately spoke as out of a Golgotha as if he had nothing but death in his eye and thoughts to speak now in so different a strain and after some additional pleadings in which his faith further recovers it self to conclude this Psalm with solemn praise Blessed be the Lord for evermore Amen and Amen We see then the contemplation of his own and all mens mortality abstractly and alone considered cloathed his soul with black wrapt it up in gloomy darkness makes the whole Kind of Humane Creatures seem to him an obscure shadow an empty vanity But his recalling into his thoughts a succeeding state of immortal life clears up the day makes him and all things appear in another hue gives a fair account why such a Creature as Man was made and therein makes the whole frame of things in this inferior World look with a comely and well-composed aspect as the product of a wise and rational design Whence therefore we have this ground of discourse fairly before us in the words themselves That the short time of man on Earth limited by a certain unavoidable Death If we consider it abstractly by it self without respect to a future state carries that appearance and aspect with it as if God had made all men in vain That is said to be vain according to the importance of the word here used which is â—ither False a fiction an appearance only a shadow or evanid thing or which is Vseless unprofitable and to no valuable purpose The life of man in the case now supposed may be truly stiled vain â—ither way And we shall say somewhat to each but to the former more briefly 1. It were vain i. e. little other than a shew a meer shadow a semblance of Beeing We must indeed in the present case even abstract him from himself and consider him only as a mortal dying thing and as to that of him which is so what a contemptible nothing is he There is an appearance of somewhat but search a little and enquire into it and it vanishes into a meer nothing is found a lye a piece of falshood as if he did but feign a beeing and were not And so we may suppose the Psalmist speaking upon the view of his own and the common case of man how fast all were hastning out of life and laying down the beeing which they rather seemed to have assumed and borrowed than to possess and own Lord why hast thou made Man such a fictitious thing given him such a mock-beeing Why hast thou brought forth into the light of this world such a sort of Creatures that rather seem to be than are That have so little of solid and substantial beeing and so little deserve to be taken for realities that only serve to cheat one another into an opinion of their true existence and presently vanish and confess their falshood What hovering shadows what uncertain Entities are they In a moment they are and are not I know not when to say I have seen a man It seems as if there were some such things before my eyes I perswade my self that I see them move and walk to and fro that I talk and converse with them But instantly my own sense is ready to give my sense the lye They are on the sudden dwindled away and force me almost to acknowledg a Delusion I am but mockt with a shew and what seem'd a reality proves an Imposture Their pretence to beeing is but fiction and falshood a cozenage of over-credulous unwary sense They only personate what they are thought to be and quickly put off their very selves as a disguise This is agreeable to the language of Scripture elsewhere Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lye c. In two respects may the present state of man seem to approach near to nothingness and so admit this Rhetorication of the Psalmist as if he were in this sense a vain thing a figment or a lye viz. in respect of the Minuteness and Instability of this his material and perishable beâ—ing 1. The Minuteness the small portion or degree of beeing which this mortal part of man hath in it It is truly said of all created things Their non esse is more than their esse They have more no-beeing than beeing It is only some limited portion that they have but there is an infinitude of beeing which they have not And so coming infinitely nearer to nothingness than fulness of beeing they may well enough wear the name of Nothing Wherefore the first and Fountain-beeing justly appropriates to himself the name I am yea tells us He is and there is none besides Him therein leaving no other name than that of Nothing unto Creatures And how much more may this be said of the material and mortal part this outside of man whatever of him is obnoxious to death and the grave which alone abstractly lookt on is the subject of the Psalmist's present consideration and discourse By how much any thing hath more of Matter it hath the less of actual Essence Matter being rather a capacity of beeing than beeing it self or a dark umbrage or shadow of it actually nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as are the expressions of a noble Philosopher a meer Semblance or a Lye And it is the language not oâ— Philosophers only but of the Holy Ghost concerning all the Nations of men that they are as nothing less than nothing and vanity What a scarcity then and penury of beeing must we suppose in each individuall especially if we look alone upon the outer part or rather the umbrage or shadow of the man 2. The instability and fluidness of it The visible and corporal beeing of man hath nothing steady or consistent in it Consider his exterior frame and composition he is no time all himself at once There is a continual defluence and access of parts so that some account Each Climacterick of his age changes his whole Fabrick Whence it would follow that besides his