the Night shineth as the Day The Darkness and the Night are both alike to Thee And forasmuch as the closing of our Eyes to Rest so nearly resembles Death and our Beds are but models of our Graves out of which we must one Day be called by the sound of the last Trump to Arise and come to Judgment Let this and every Evening and every Morning of our Lives put us in mind of our dying Hours And let no worldly Affairs hinder us from being always in a readiness for our last and final Conflict with the Prince and Powers of Darkness who knowing their time is but short will be sure to make their fiercest Assaults upon Departing-Souls when they find them struggling with Bodily pains and sharp Diseases and drawing nigh to their last Agonies And sometimes to terrify them with frightful Dreams and Visions to make them if possible utterly to despair of God's Mercies and to let go their hold and quit their Hopes of Eternal Life and Happiness Make us therefore sensible how highly it concerns us while we have Health of Body and soundness of Mind to arm our selves like good Souldiers with Christian Courage and Resolution for those Death-bed Combats and critical Hours Minutes and Moments of our Lives And because we are to wrestle with invisible Enemies of mighty Power and wonderful Knowledge great Subtilty and long Experience who know too well our Tempers Inclinations and Infirmities and where and how to set upon us with the greatest Advantage Be pleased to send thy blessed Angels and Ministring-Spirits to comfort and assist us in all those siery Tryals and Temptations That so Death which is to so many others the King of Terrors may be to us a kind Friend and a welcome Guest and we may with all cheerfulness quit these Houses of Clay and fleshy Tabernacles and exchange the Troubles and Sorrows of a painful Pilgrimage in a Valley of Tears for the Joys of Heaven and Everlasting Happiness with blessed Saints and Angels in the highest Heavens All which with whatever else Thou knowest to be needful either for us or for any of ours or for any of Thine we humbly beg in the Name and for the sake of the blessed Jesus who in compassion to our Infirmities has taught us thus to pray Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy NAME thy Kingdom come thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this Day our daily Bread and forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive them that Trespass against us and lead us not into Temptation but deliver us from Evil for thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen A MORNING-PRAYER FOR Sundays Fasts and Festivals LET us now fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker Most Holy Blessed Glorious and incomprehensible Triniry Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons and One God Almighty Maker of all Things and Judge of all Men Have mercy upon us miserable Sinners who are by Nature Children of Disobedience and by our actual Sins every Day and Hour of our Lives liable to Divine Wrath and Vengeance Remember not O Lord the many Follies and Vanities of our Child-hood and Youth nor the innumerable Transgressions of our riper Years and how we have always erred and strayed from the Ways of Truth and Righteousness and trod in forbidden Paths through the several Stages of our Lives leaving undone those things which thou hast absolutely commanded and doing those things which thou hast exprelly forbidden and many times drawing upon our selves the guilt of other Men's Sins by our Encouragement Connivance or ill Examples breaking the solemn Vows and Promises either made for us by others in Baptism or by our selves in Times of Danger or Sickness unthankful for Mercies and incorrigible under Judgments rejecting the Motiors of thy blessed Spirit and following the Devices Desires and vain Imaginations of our own Hearts and so running the hazard of losing our precious and immortal Souls for the enjoyment of a few sinful and short-liv'd Pleasures Blessed LORD we cannot but confess and acknowledge with shame and confusion of face that it is a wonder of thy patience and forbearance that we are yet alive and that thou hast not cut us of in the midst of our Sins and Doom'd us to dwell with everlasting Burnings among damned Souls and Spirits But this is our hope and humble confidence that we have to do with the God and Father of Mercies who takes no delight in the death of Sinners but is slow to Anger and ready to forgive all those who sincerely repent and truely believe in our blessed Lord and Saviour CHRIST JESUS for whose coming into the world to save lost Sinners and to open the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers with Angels and Arch-Angels and all the Company of Heaven we laud and magnify thy great and holy NAME as we likewise do for thy other Mercies and Favours daily and hourly bestowed upon us We bless and praise Thee for giving us a Being in the World for that admirable Frame and Structure of our Bodies while we lay inclosed in our Mother's Wombs for breathing into us the Breath of Life and enduing us with reasonable Souls after thine own Image and Likeness for being Born where the Gospel of thy SON is openly preached and professed and not among Heathens Turks or Infidels For the unparallel'd Pattern of all Goodness in the Life of the holy JESUS and for the pious Examples of the blessed Patriarchs Prophets Apostâ—â—s and Martyrs who are gone before us and with their own Blood have traced out for us the true Way to Life and Happiness beseeching thee that we following their good Examples may with them be made partakers of Everlasting Life in the World to come We thank Thee LORD of Heaven and Earth for the wonderful Works of the Creation of which we all enjoy our shares and proportions for the Sun that shines by Day and for the Moon and Stars That rule by Night and by their regular Motions and sweet Influences serve for Signs and Seasons Days and Years for the Clouds that give Rain and drop Fatness upon our Fields and Pastures and for the Springs that go up by the Mountains and run down among the Vallies for reserving to us the appointed Times of Harvest and giving us the kindly Fruits of the Earth in their due and proper Seasons for our Food and Raiment and all the good things of this Life and our manifold preservations from sundry Dâ—â—â—â— and Dangers ever since we hung upon our Mother's Breasts for protecting us this last Night from many calamitous Accidents which in a Night might have befallen us and bringing us safely to the light of another Day and so giving us a longer time and space for Repentance and Amendment of our Lives most humbly beseeching Thee to continue these thy Mercies and Favours to us and to keep us the remainder of this Day and of our Lives from
Earth and carry their Bodies as upright towards Heaven as any of us and that showres of Hail and Rain in calm Weather fall upon any part of this Terrestial Globe directly towards the Center in a straight line He might very easily have judged that this Globe of Earth hanging in the expanse by nothing but the Almighties Word and Power has its own proper Center as all other Bodies of the same or greater Magnitude have and consequently that if underneath there were a great Cavity and that Cavity filled with a fluid body of Fire and Brimstone the convex Superficies of that globular fiery Lake would in every part of it be the uppermost and the parts adjoining to its Center would be the lowest and probably the Bodies of damned Reprobates being thrown into this Lake would sometimes float upon it and sometimes plunge to and fro in it But forasmuch as the Center of this globular Lake would be but an imaginary point those Bodies would plunge and move to and fro within it in Saecula Saeculorum without finding any solid Fulcrum or firm Bottom neither could the most learned Philosophers or skilful Geometricians in the whole World be ever able by contemplating all their Lives the Dimensions of that fiery Lake and its Center of Gravity to make any other thing of it then truly and properly a Bottomless-pit And if those learned Men should allow in that case the shell of this Terrestial Globe to be no more then 17 or 18 hundred Yards in thickness and then compute how many cubick Yards and Feet would be contained within its concave Superficies they would perhaps find room enough and to spare for all the Bodies of Human Reprobates from the first Creation to this present time and for some Thousands of Years to come As for the Devil and his Angels if above six Thousand of them were crowded into the body of one Gadarene a few thousands of cubick yards might very probably contain all his Infernal Legions And as for the Bodies of Human Reprobates they being once Spiritualiz'd may for ought any Man knows be pressed into a much less compass than ours that are of a grosser substance Besides all this who knows whether the Confinement of both Devils and Reprobates within a small compass and narrow space may not rather augment and encrease than any way lessen or diminish their everlasting Torments Ejaculation From being shut up with the Devil and his Angels in that dreadfull and bottomless pit and from so near a conjunction with those infernal Finds and Furies in the Blackness of Darkness Good Lord deliver us And methinks our Saviour's making so often mention of a Lake of Fire and Brimstone should strike all Atheists and Libertines with as great a dread and fear as the Hand-writing on the Wall did of old Belshazzar When they do but consider what vast quantities of sulphureous Matters have been cast out of the gaping Orifices of Mount Aetna and Vesuvius in Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples and what horrid Noises as Travellers report have been sometimes heard out of those burning fiery Furnaces like the howlings and skreeches of some miserable living Creatures Especially that prodigious Lake of burning Brimstone which a few Years since if we may believe Gazettes was vomited out of one of those Mountains and like a mighty Torrent run along upon the ground and so into the Sea a whole League in length before it was extinguished For my own particular if it were lawfull to make Conjectures in matters of that consequence I should be apt to believe that the Sun were a Body much more convenient for that purpose forasmuch as First It is a Body greater than the Body of the Earth by many Degrees as is plainly demonstrable by Ecclipses Secondly We have reason to believe from Sacred Writ that at the End of the World there will be no further use of the Sun 's light Thirdly According to the Opinion of the best and most accurate Astronomers of latter Ages the Sun is placed in the very Center of the World however in the Holy Scriptures that are written as is supposed ad captum vulgi it is expressed otherwise And therefore must be of all other Bodies the most infernal and then one would think that place is most likely to be Hell which is furthest off from Heaven Fourthly If the Rays of the Sun which are sent out from its lucid body at a vast distance being contracted here below and with the help of parabolical and eliptical Figures become in their Focus much hotter and sooner melt down Gold and Silver than any Culinar or indeed any chymical Fire How great must we then imagine the heat of that fiery Globe to be in its own proper body especially if the Sun were darkned and its glowing Rays turned inwards and those few Spots which we discern on its supersicies were multiplied till they should become an entire Cover and be made the Blackness of Darkness for ever and the body of the Sun made a fluid and eternal Fire by God's Almighty Power And now if all these things should be so the History of Abraham Dives and Lazarus would not be extream difficult to be explained by Interpreters If Telescopes help us to discover unknown Stars of different Lights If speaking-Trumpets or close Pipes may be so made as to conveigh Words several Leagues And if Stephen's mortal Eyes could look from Earth into Heaven and there see Jesus standing at the distance of no Man knows how many mvriads of Miles how easy had it been for the Maker of all things by his Almighty Power first to translate the Bodies of Dives and Lazarus after they were dead and buried as well as those of Enoch and Elias before they were interr'd the one to Heaven and the other to Hell And afterwards so to clear up all the Mediums between Heaven and the Center of the World as that the immortaliz'd Eyes of Abraham and Dives might plainly see one another's Persons and Postures and their Ears might hear each other's Voices at as great a distance as the length of the Semidiameter of the whole Universe But here I must put the Reader in mind that in truth all these things are meer Conjectures And far be it from such a poor Worm as I am to be the Broacher of new Opinions in Matters so far above the reach of my own Understanding and Conception For I must ingenuously confess once more That I am lost in a Labyrinth of Thoughts and should I go on further but a few steps I should lose both my Reason and Senses and never be able to finish this small Treatise And therefore all I shall here add is to beseech all Libertines to take heed and beware how they turn plain Scriptures into meer Metaphors or make a derision of the true Tophet or Vally of Hinnon least one day they hear the dreadful Voice Go ye Cursed into the place of Torments where the Worm of Conscience never
Repentance with a stedfast and firm Resolution to reform and amend our Lives Bless us in our going out and our coming in when we are upon the Way when we lay us down and when we rise up When we are in our private Closets lend an Ear to our Prayers and answer the Desires of our Souls When we are employed about our Lawful Callings give success to our honest Labours and Endeavours When we are conversing with others let us behave our selves with all humility and meekness in all our Words and Actions esteeming others better than our selves and doing to others what we would be willing they should do unto us Being patient gentle and easy to be entreated slow to wrath and ready to forgive all those who have trespassed against us until seventy seven times Loving our Enemies doing good and shewing kindness as we have opportunities to those who hate persecute and despitefully use us Living in humble Obedience to and heartily praying for Him who hath the supreme Power over us together with all those who are related to Him or who are in Authority under Him Being no Busy-bodies in other Men's Matters no Whisperers Tale-bearers Slanderers or Back-biters No Deceivers or Covenant-breakers but sincere and upright in all our Dealings and Transactions No lovers of Earthly Treasure no Worshippers of Gold or Silver or greedy of filthy Lucre. With all chearfulness and alacrity dealing our Bread to the Hungry giving Drink to the Thirsty Clothing the Naked visiting the Sick relieving Prisoners redeeming Captives helping the Fatherless and Widows comforting and assisting the Desolate and Oppressed and never shutting up the Bowels of our Compassion from any who want our Help or Assistance And forasmuch as we are here but Strangers and Pilgrims let thy good Spirit guide and conduct us in our Way to our long Homes through the vast and wide Wilderness of this sinful World where there are so many Turnings and Windings Cross-ways and By-paths Thorns and Briars Pits and Precipices Traps and Snares laid for us by the Devil and his Emissaries to entice us to Sin and Wickedness and then to plunge us into endless Woe and Miseries Where there is no true content or Satisfaction to be found and where the most refined of Human Pleasures and Delights are allayed with the mixture of Cares and Troubles Fears and Jealousies Sicknesses and Diseases Crosses and Disappointments where Love and Kindness is often repaid with Hatred and Malice and the most bountiful Actions with ungrateful Returns Where the Poor are oppressed by Men of Power and innocent Lambs made a prey to ravenous Wolves where our Eyes are too often entertained with doleful Spectacles and our Ears filled with Sighs and Groans and bitter Lamentations And therefore Gracious FATHER be thou pleased to give us such a measure of Faith Hope and Patience as may bear us up in all the Changes and Chances of this Mortal Life and enable us in whatever State or Condition we are therewith to be content as well to be abased as to be exalted to want as to abound to have nothing as to possess all things And though the Fig-tree should be withered and no Fruit be found on the Vine the labour of the Olive fail and the Field yield no increase though there should be no Sheep in the Fold or Herd in the Stall no Cattel in the pasture or Stores in the Garner no Water in the Bottle or Oil in the Cruce yet still to trust in that GOD who feeds the Ravens and the young Lions when they call upon him who can make Rivers to flow out of hard Rocks and furnish a Table in the Wilderness With whom the very Hairs of our heads are all numbred and in whom none ever trusted and were confounded That so having finished our Course and run our Race and lived the Life of the Righteous our last END may be like unto his And whenever these Houses of Clay shall be dissolved our Souls may be safely conveyed by some blessed Guardian Angels to the place appointed for the Spirits of GOD's Elect there to wait with patience for a joyful Re-union with their respective Bodies at the Resurrection and second coming of CHRIST in Glory with all his holy Angels in whose Name and Words we farther desire to call upon Thee Saying Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy NAME thy Kingdom come thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this Day our daily Bread and forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive them that Trespass against us and lead us not into Temptation but deliver us from Evil for thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen AN EVENING-PRAYER FOR Every Day in the Week MOST Glorious LORD GOD and merciful Father in Christ Jesus who inhabitest the highest Heavens and yet art pleased to dwell in the lowest Hearts and hast graciously promised That where-ever Two or Three are gathered together in thy Name and Fear Thou wilt be there in the midst of them Look down in mercy upon us who are now before Thee and dare not give sleep to our Eyes or slumber to our Eye-lids till we have renewed our Covenant with the GOD and FATHER of Mercies and have humbly offered unto Him our Selves our Souls and Bodies as a reasonable service Be therefore pleased O Lord to forgive all the Sins of our past Lives particularly the Omissions and Commissions of this Day for which alone shouldst Thou enter into Judgment with us Thou mightst justly condemn us to the lowest Hell and give ns our portion with Hypocrites in utter Darkness Blessed LORD we desire from the bottom of our Hearts to be sensible of our manifold Frailties and Infirmities and of that Law in our Members that is always Warring against the Law of our Minds so that whenever we would do Good Evil is present with us and intermingles with our very Prayers and disturbs our most religious Duties and Performances And therefore it is that utterly renouncing our own Righteousness as Dung â—nd Dross we fly to Him who is our Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous to wash away our Sins with his own precious Blood and to present us unto Thee our GOD pure and spotless And for his sake we humbly beseech Thee O LORD to lighten our Darkness and by thy great mercy to defend us from all perils and dangers this Night giving us a moderate and refreshing Rest free from frightful Dreams and sinful Imaginations which are the evil Effects of our corrupt Natures When we awake let our Souls be filled with heavenly Thoughts and pious Meditations always remembring That we are in the presence of a God who knows our down-sitting and our up-rising who understands our Thoughts a farr off and is acquainted with all our ways If we should be so vain and foolish to believe that the Darkness would cover us the Night shall be light about us the Darkness hideth not from Thee but
all Things that may be hurtful either to our Spuls or Bodies From all Evil and Mischief from Sin from the Grafts and Assaults of the Devil from thy Wrath and everlasting Damnation Good LORD deliver us From saying in our Hearts that there is no God or openly denying the Divine Essence and glorious Attributes of which either the highest Presumption or utmost Desperation are the usual and woful Effects Let the visible things of the Creation and the Restections of our own Consciences in our Solitudes and private Retirements be sufficient to disswade and restrain us Against Idolatry and having other Gods besides Thee and from bowing down to and Worshipping either Idols made with hands or those of our beloved Lusts Lord strengthen us by thy Grace To keep us from taking the NAME of the LORD our GOD in vain in our ordinary Discourses or prophaning it with wicked Oaths on bitter Curses Let us remember that the same LORD hath assured all such Offenders that he will in no wise hold them guiltless To observe religiously the Lord's Day and all other Times solemnly set a part for Divine Worship and Service not following our own Ways nor speaking our own Words nor thinking our own Thoughts Let thy good Spirit dispose and encline our hearts Let us never attempt to sow Discord and Divisions in the Church or to offend our blessed Saviour's Little Ones or any way to disturb the Communion of Saints as knowing who hath told us That it would be much better for us to be thrown into the midst of the Sea with Mill-stones hung about our Necks than to be guilty of such Offences Let us always be conscientiously careful to Honour and Obey our Parents and all others under whose Rule and Government thou hast placed us behaving ourselves with all humility and singleness of heart not as Eye-servants or Men-pleasers And whenever Pride and Vain-glory would puff us up and make us become wise in our own Eyes let the remembrance that we are but Dust and Ashes and born like the wild Asses Colt pull down our haughty Looks and abate our swelling Thoughts From sinful Anger and unbridled Passion from provoking Language and reviling Speeches from Envy Hatred and Malice and all the mischievous and fatal consequences that may thereby happen either to our selves or others LORD ever keep us by thy restraining Grace From Rioting and Drunkenness from Chambering and Wantonness from Adultery Fornication and Uncleanness or living in any known Sin Let the fear of thy Wrath and the Vengeance of Eternal Fire deterr us To wrong our Neighbours by open Violence or by Secret and fraudulent Practises Let it never enter into our Thoughts That we may never Slander speak Evil of or rashly censure others or bear false Witness against them Let us set a watch before our Mouths and strictly guard the Doors of our Lips Let us be afraid of oppressing the Poor and Needy in the Gate or ploughing in the field of the Fatherless because their Redeemer is mighty or of devouring Widow's Houses lest the Stones out of the Walls should one Day be our Accusers and the Beams out of the Timber make Answer and testifie against us To covet our Neighbour's House to covet our Neighbour's Wife his Man-servant his Maid-servant his Ox his Ass or any thing that is his Let no worldly Advantage or carnal Delight be ever able to tempt or allure us From Thieves and Robbers from the Hands of bloody Men and Murderers from Invasion of foreign Foes from the Conspiracies of Domestick Enemies and Treachery of false Friends do Thou O LORD to whom alone all Hearts are open all Designs known and from whom no Secrets are hid defend us by thy good Providence confounding their Counsels and bringing to nought their Devices From Plague Pestilence and Famine from bodily Torments Tempests and Earth-quakes and all the sad Accidents of Fire and Water for thy Mercies sake save and protect us Neither do we pray for our selves alone but for the whole Race of Mankind now living upon or working within the Bowels of the habitable Earth or else floating upon the face of the deep Waters and particularly for the Church Militant where-ever scattered or dispersed that the Gates of Hell may never prevail against it Look down with the Eye of pitty upon all who in this transitory Life are in Trouble Sorrow Need Sickness or any other Adversity more especially upon those thy Servants on whom thou hast laid thine afflicting Hand either for a Tryal of their Patience or a Punishment of their Disobedience Make them sensible that Affliction comes not forth of the Dust neither doth Trouble spring out of the Ground but that the Hand of the LORD hath done it to whom alone belong the Issues of Life and Death and who doth whatever pleaseth him in Heaven and in Earth but never willingly asslicts or grieves the Children of Men and then Why should we receive Good Things at the hands of the LORD and not Evil things And Why should a living Man complain for the punishment of his Sins In the mean time be thou graciously pleased who art the great Physician of Soul and Body to mitigate their Pains and to asswage their Griefs and to lay no more upon Dust and Ashes than thou enablest them to bear with Christian patience and a lively Faith in the Merits and Mediation of JESUS CHRIST the Righteous for the Remission of their Sins and the Salvation of their Souls That so thy Fatherly Chastisements may have their blessed Effects and those thy Children may come out of the Furnace of Affliction like Gold and Silver that hath been tried in the fire and purified seven times Be merciful to these Kingdoms and avert those heavy Judgments which we have done as much as in us lay by our crying Sins and Provocations to pull down upon our Heads Let the choicest of thy Blessings descend upon the Head and Heart of Him whom by thy especial Providence thou hast placed in supream Authority over us together with all His Royal Relations Give Grace and Wisdom to all the Senators and great Counsellors in all their Debates and Consultations Clean Hands and clear Consciences to the Judges and chief Magistrates that so they may help the Fatherless and hear the Cause of the Widow and upon all occasions act in their several Places without the least partiality or respect of Persons Spiritual Gifts and Graces to the Ministers of thy Word and Sacraments however Dignified or Distinguished that they may truly and faithfully feed the Flocks committed to their Charge Sobriety and Godliness to the Governors and Inhabitants of foreign Plantations that by their good Conversations and Examples they may convert Pagans and Insidels to the Faith of JESUS and turn many Souls to Righteousness The Dew and Blessing of Heaven to Schools and Universities that out of those Seminaries and Nurseries may grow up Plants that may be useful both to Church and State in their several Capacities and Generations Health and Happiness here and the Joys of Heaven hereafter to our Parents Brethren Sisters Kindred or Christian Acquaintance and to all our Friends and Benefactors who have at any time generously and readily shewed us Kindness in our Distress and when we truly stood in need of their Aid and Assistance A Spirit of Reformation to the whole Commonalty within these Realms and Dominions that so they may live in the true Faith and Fear of Thee our GOD in humble Obedience to their Superiors and in Brotherly Love and Charity one towards another Finally we beseech Thee to be present with us and all those who shall this day meet in any of the publick Assemblies to assist at thy Divine Worship and Service Let our Prayers come up before thee as Incense and the lifting up of our hands as an acceptable Sacrifice Touch with a Cole from thine Altar the Tongues of those who are to speak that they may not spare but cry aloud and lift up their Voices like Trumpets and shew the People of England their Transgressions and tell every Congregation their Sins And let us and all their Hearers receive the Word with meekness and pure Affections laying it up in our Hearts and bringing forth the fruit thereof in our future Lives and Conversations All which with what ever else thou knowest to be needful for us we humbly beg in the Name and for the Sake of JESUS CHRIST the Righteous concluding these our imperfect Prayers with that absolute Form which he himself while he was yet upon Earth taught his Disciples saying Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy NAME thy Kingdom come thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this Day our daily Bread and forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive them that Trespass against us and lead us not into Temptation but deliver us from Evil for thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS and
I have yet one question to ask of certain Persons who are rightly stiled Modern Sadduces and that is For what Reason they deny the Resurrection Or why they should at all doubt God's Omnipotence Or once imagine That He who made all things out of nothing should not be able when ever he pleases out of something to make any thing How many Emblems of the Resurrection have we frequently before our Eyes The Night lies down and the Day arises again The Day departs and the Night comes on The Year that dies in Autumn has a Resurrection in the Spring The seed of Herbs Corn and Fruit-Trees first suffer a Dissolution in the Earth some for a few Days others for a few Weeks and then by the Power of the Almighty Maker of all things have a new Body given them of the same Kind or Species If that be true which some have related of the Phoenix a thing I would rather believe than undertake to disprove since there are so many strange things to be found among the Works of the Creation It is a wonderful Type of the Resurrection In Arabia say they there is a certain Bird called a Phoenix of which there is but one at a time and that one lives 500 Years and when the time draws near that it must die it makes it self a Nest of Frankincense and Myrrh and other Spices into which when its time is fulfilled it enters and dies but its Flesh putrifying breeds a certain Worm which being nourished by the Juice of the dead Carcass brings forth a new Phoenix and when it is grown to a perfect Age it takes up the Nest in which the Bones of its Parent lie and carries it from Arabia into Egypt to a City called Heliopolis and flying in open Day in the sight of all Men lays it on the Altar of the Sun and so returns into the Country from whence it came This done the Priests make search into the Records of Time and find that it returneth at the end of 500 Years Whether this Report be true or no sure I am that nothing can be too hard for the Almighty Let us suppose in two or three Instances things that are within the reach of our apprehensions viz. First a Mariner in a Sea-fight to be shot to death and thrown over-board and afterwards the Flesh of his Body to be eaten up by a great number of small Fishes and these Fishes to be taken in Nets and eaten by hundreds of Men Women and Children of different places and abodes and some of them to be drowned in the Sea and devoured by other Fishes and some to be cast into the Earth and eaten up by Worms In the next place Let us suppose a Man to die in a wide Forest or Wilderness and part of his Carcass to be devoured by wild Beasts part by the Fowls of the Air and part by Flies and creeping Things and again those Beasts and Fowls and creeping things to die and part of them to be eaten up by other Creatures Lastly Let us suppose a Man-Child born into the World and as 't is believed the Flesh of that Infant in a few Years to be evaporated and new Flesh grown up in the room of the other and let us suppose this Body to live and change for the space of threescore or fourscore years and then be buried in the Sands as is practised in some very hot Countries and there remain a Thousand or fifteen Hundred Years till such time as it is grown perfectly dry and fit to be made use of for Mummie and this Mummie to be distributed into the hands of several hundreds of Apothecaries and each of these Apothecaries to make use of it in their physical Doses Potions or otherwise and to administer it to as many hundreds of their Patients and each of those Patients to void the same or any part of it by stool and those stools to be carried away by the Scavengers into some common place and there mingled with the Ordours of ten Thousand other Persons and from that place taken up by the Salt-Peter Men and converted into Gun-powder and that Powder shot away into the Air. Give me leave to tell those unbelieving Sadduces my life for theirs that the Almighty God and Maker of Heaven and Earth is able to recall every Particle Dust or Atom of a Human Body in any of the aforesaid Instances to its Original and proper Mass and to form that Mass into its first Original and infant Body As also to give that infant Body its full stature and perfect Dimensions and this done from a Natural and Corruptible to change it into a Spiritual and incorruptible Substance And lastly to reunite it to its own proper and immortal soul and all this in a moment in the twinkling of an Eye at the last Trump and the Voice of the Arch-angel calling for the Dead to arise and come to Judgment I must needs acknowledge That the Disbelief of a future Resurrection is no small encouragement to either Atheist or Libertine to go on in his sin with great presumption For if the Dead rise not our Faith is altogether vain And if this Corruptible shall never put on Incorruption nor this Mortal Immortality then go to Let us Eat Drink and be Merry for to Morrow we die There are some who satisfie themselves that God is so merciful and so just in his Judgments that he will never punish finite Sins with everlasting Punishments but such Men little think how miserably they deceive themselves while they ascribe less Power to the Almighty Maker over his Creatures than an ordinary Potter has over his Clay and earthen Vessels Besides that in the Gospel Dispensation there are propos'd to Fallen Man two things which very well counterballance one the other both as to Time and Measure namely on the one side Eternal and inexpreslible Happiness and on the other endless and unspeakable Miseries Now if the Sinner do voluntarily and with deliberation choose the last of these Volent non fit Injuria he has his choise and desire and has no reason in the World to complain of any hardship much less of any Injury done to him it being a greater Mercy to grant Eternal Life upon a bare Repentance and Believing during our earthly pilgrimage than it is a Severity to inflict eternal Torment for continuing in actual Sin for the very same term of time The Author of Leviathan will by no means admit of a Local Hell or indeed of a Local Heaven For the first of which he has no better Reason than this trusting to his own skill in Geometry and Staticks that it cannot be either in the Cavity of the Earth or any other body of the like magnitude hanging in the expanse forasmuch as in any circumscribed Bodies there cannot be included a Bottomless-Pit which in sacred Stile is sometimes called Hell Whereas if he had considered that our Antipodes tread as heavy on the superficies of the
Arguments if they do but gratify fleshly Desires have great power and force with poor Mortals It was a promise of sensual Delights and Pleasures though in the other World by which Mahomet so advanced his Dominions and gained so many Proselites and at last exalted himself above our blessed Saviour Christ Jesus who indeed as a Prophet is by the Alcoran acknowledged but as to his Divinity or his being the Second Person of the Trinity it is by the Turks utterly denied I can never forget a Passage in Mahomet the Fourth's insulting Letter to the Emperor at the beginning of this last War namely I value not or I am not afraid of your CRUCIFIED GOD to which blasphemous Expression I do really attribute his being Deposed a few Years after with great Dishonour and Disgrace and all the Misfortunes and Disasters as so many Marks and Tokens of God's displeasure which have ever since befallen that Ottoman Empire And here I hope it will not be ill taken to make an humble Address to the young Nobility and Gentry of this Nation that they will be pleased to have so great a regard to their own Eternal Welfare and Happiness as neither to countenance this impious Book themselves nor allow it a place in their Libraries for fear it may one day corrupt some of their noble Race when they are laid in their cold Tombs I most earnestly beseech you Sirs to hearken to a poor Man's Advice who has no sinister Ends or Designs and whatever he here urges is out of true respect and kindness Who reflects with great remorse upon his own mispent Hours Days and Years and were it in his power to recall Time and Opportunities would certainly with God's assistance employ them to better Ends and Purposes Hitherto your tender years and little Experience may justly plead for your not discerning Id manticae quod in tergo est or diving into the subtil Fallacies and Mysteries of the Composer of this Treatise But now that you have some of his Blasphemies Arrogancies Contradictions and Extravagancies laid so plainly and clearly before your Eyes to harbour or cherish in your Bosoms such Snakes and Vipers would admit of no excuse If you find a Gamester making use but of one false Die he never wins a Shilling more of your Monies If a Tradesman cheats you with false Wares you never after by your good Wills come within his doors And then Why should you give the least respect or countenance to one who endeavours to cheat you of your Souls and rob you of Eternal Happiness Forasmuch as you may be well assured That all such impious Discourses as these are Traps and Snares laid for you by the Devil and his Emissaries to entice you to Sin and Wickedness and then to plunge you in endless Woes and Miseries For the timely prevention of which the best and safest Advice that I can possibly give to the Youth of both Sexes is to employ some part of their precious Hours in reading the Holy Scriptures rather than Plays and Romances which are appointed by God himself to be the Rule of their Lives and by which they must be one day judg'd and give an account of all those extraordinary Talents and Donatives which they have received at his hands above the vulgar and meaner fort of Human Race By which I mean 1. In the first place their ingenuous liberal and more refined Education there being few Parents among the Gentry or Nobility who for their own Reputation are not exceeding careful to put their Children under such Discipline of Tutors and Governesses as may break their natural rudeness and mould them into some form of Civility and teach them that fundamental Lesson of Obedience upon which must be built all future Instructions and afterwards to cultivate their Understandings to bend their Wills and â—ncline their Affections as they grow up in years to those things which are proper Accomplishments for each of the respective Sexes Which is an Advantage that poor and indigent Parents can never purchase for either Sons or Daughters by reason of the great Expence they being forced to send them abroad into all places and among all Companies where the one are in danger of learning all sorts of Vices and the other liable to manifold Temptations and can seldom or never observe or practise such a Severity and Reservedness as otherwise would become a Virgin-Innocence 2. A second Advantage is Wealth and Riches which many times comes into the hands of young Heirs and Heiresses as if they were dropt out of the Clouds Houses and Pallaces which they built not Goods which they provided not Lands and Possessions of which they never made the purchase But are now become God's stewards and must one day give accompt of all particulars that is to say what they have laid out upon themselves what they have distributed among the Poor the Widow and the Fatherless and what they have left behind them to their Children and Families 3. A third Advantage is that of Time the Rich have no need to employ their time to gain that wherewith they already abound whereas the poor Man has scarce any vacant Hours or such as he can call his own but they are all forestall'd by their pressing Necessities The Shepherd must by Day and Night watch his Flocks and his Folds the Husbandman is confined to his Plough his Goad and his Oxen the Carpenter to his Saw and Ax the Smith to his Hammer and Anvil the Potter to his Clay and Wheel and so are all Workmen and Artificers to their several Manufactures and Employments So that the Rich and Wealthy have by this means their Time at their own disposal God having prevented them with the Blessings of his Goodness but must be accomptable to God how they have employed it that is to say what part or portion has been by them set apart for private and publick Devotions and what for reading of the Holy Scriptures what has been spent in lawful or unlawful Pastimes and what in sloth and idleness what in gratifying Pride and Vanity or indulging any manner of Excess Besides all this as the Inclinations and Aversions of great Princes are very much imitated by their Courtiers and Attendants Regis ad exemplum totus componitur Orbis so have the Examples of Persons of Quality of both Sexes no small Influence upon the Actions and Behaviours of their Inferiors and those of lower Ranks and therefore they are highly concerned throughout the whole Course of their Lives to become eminent Patterns of Pieâ—y and Godliness A Prayer for the Youth of both Sexes MOst gracious God and merciful Father in Christ Jesus who while he was here on Earth took little Children in his Arms and blessed them Be graciously pleased to have a particular Regard to the Youth of both Sexes but in a more especial manner to bestow a larger portion of Spiritual Graces and Heavenly Benedictions on those whom thou hast placed in higher Ranks and