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A60609
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The great salvation in another world, ascertain'd as to faith, and consider'd as to practice by William Smith, D.D.
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Smith, William, D.D.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing S4279; ESTC R13254
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14,500
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31
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and inconsiderate Minds say to all this Can they dare they Controul the Validity of such a Divine Attestation as the Gospel Exhibits for another World Either they must plainly and positively prove that the whole Gospel is False and the Religion of it a Cheat and our Saviour an Impostor or they are utterly lost and undone by their Atheistical Pretensions upon which they licence themselves to live in their Vitious and Leud Practices or at best to act only for their Worldly Ease and present Pleafures I say again are they sure Infallibly sure that they have Arguments sufficient enough to over-rule the Truth of Christiantty so as to adventure the Eternal Loss of their Souls upon it A Truth which even to this day hath so controul'd all publish'd Contests by fair Trials of Learning that the Vast Nations which do now Embrace a Religion in opposition to it are necessitated to let their People creep in the dark shades of Ignorance to preserve their fond Persuasions from any Learned Discourses or Rational Inquisitions And now who would Venture the Loss of an Eternal Safety upon the hazard if it were no more that Christianity should not prove to be true at last The very Doubt of it upon such likelihoods of Truth do not so much commend the Discretion of such as take a liberty from thence to act only for the Concerns of the Vain and Transient World and then lose their Souls at last This is the last Part of my Arguing Application to ascertain the Existence of the Great Salvation And now having dispatch'd my First Subject of Discourse upon that future Salvation which the Jaylor Enquired after and made the best Use and Application I could think proper as to the Ages Irreligious Humour I am fairly prepared to undertake the next Discourse I promised you And that is To demonstrate by an uncontroulable Argument that there is an Obligation upon every Man whomsoever in the very instant in which they now exist without any pretensions to make any delay of following the Jaylor's Example in seeking after and then acting what they should do to be Saved And to make this Argument plainly Convincing I shall move to the Conclusion of it from these three Approveable Premises apartly to be Considered I. First I hope I need not Question your Belief but that the only Season in which it is possible for any Man to persue and finish the Work of his Salvation must be acted in the compass of his Mortal Life For when that short Scene is over there will be no after Attempts to be made no Rafts to save Life after that Natural Shipwrack The foolish Virgins knock'd too late for Admission The undressed Guest had no Apology for himself when the time was elaps'd in which he might have put on his Wedding Garment This the First II. Secondly as my next Promise let me persuade you to consider what the Worth is which must be done in that short Season before you can secure your Salvation at last And that I may assist your Thoughts and Memories therein give me Leave to offer a summary Account in few Words of that Work which is to be done to attain your Salvaion First I desire you to consider what Work your Intellectual Faculties have to perform that is fully to understand what that whole Will of God is which must be done if you expect ever to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven saith our Saviour Mat. 7. 21. And are you sure that you have done all that is morally possible in that Point to avoid the Danger of perishing for the willful Ignorance of your Duty in any Part of it And then have you inform'd your selves how many unruly Passions you are to subdue how many impetuous Appetites to be restrain'd how many Temptations to contest and overcome sometimes in Cases which may perhaps make a Self-denial as severe as if you were obliged to pluck out your righ Eye or cut off your right Hand as our Saviour advertiseth Mat. 5. 29 30. in a particular Case Then consider how nice and numerous the Cases of Justice and a peaceable Life are and then to understand how necessary it is that Satisfactions are to be undertaken when Breaches are made as to either Duty After that I may put you in mind how many Possibilities of doing good God hath allowed you and for the Omission of which you will be accountable at the last Day Mat. 25. Then advertise your selves how many Prayers and Acts of Devotion will be sufficient to answer St. Paul's Injunction of performing them without ceasing 1 Thes 5. 17. And are you sure you have discharged your Duty of receiving the holy Sacrament with that Frequency which St. Paul intimates 1 Cor. 11. 25. and which holy Men in holy times carefully practised But to shorten this my Undertaking take all the Commandments into a general View of your Consciences and examin your selves whether you live knowingly deliberately and habitually in the Transgression of any one of them And if so then consider what must follow that is either your inevitable eternal Ruin or a timely Repentance And when it is come to the Case of repenting are you sure you have found out the true Notion of that necessary Duty and the various Acts and Circumstances of performing it It may cost you some Labour to be delivered from the mistaken Senses of them both And then when you come to lead a new Life the chief End and Design of repenting and that you can't but observe the many Failings and Imperfections which the greatest Care can't always avoid And that then nothing else but an intire Sincerity of Endeavour will avail Your next Work then must be how to acquit your Consciences as to the Reality of that Sincerity A Case that hath perplexed some very good Mens Minds unto their Lives End Now take all this whole work into one View and seriously think with your selves whether every Man is not necessarily oblig'd on that account instantly to enter upon the Jaylor's Design in Enquiring what he should do to be Saved But if it be Objected in confront to my Representation of this Work that the Apostles did only advertise the Jaylor to Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and he should be saved Ver. 31. In Answer to this it 's to be presumed that the Apostles intended that he should afterward take upon him and proceed in the whole Discipleship of Christ of which Faith was to be but an entring and an initiating Grace and Duty Had the Jaylor gone no further than Believing he had stumbled at the Threshold of all his Hopes as too many amongst us I fear have done when they pretended to make Faith as it were an abridged Sum of the Gospel-Condition not considering that if they would enter into Life besides their Faith they must keep All the Commandments Mat. 19. 17. to which Faith was only designed to be a Beginning and afterward to be a constant and necessary Attendant
Compass lest I swell this Paragraph of my Discourse into an unallowable Proportion And therefore to shorten the Work I shall not trouble your Patience as to the Proof of another Worlds Existence by what may be said about the Souls Immortality as it hath been and still is the more general Sense of Mankind And for this I could produce a Cloud of Witnesses both from Historical and Philosophical Authorities if time would admit And tho' many of those Philosophers spake varioussly and uncertainly and the Learned Ancient Poets very Romantickly in their Ingenious Fictions and the numerous Mahometans at this day most fondly and sensually of the surviving State of Humane Things Yet it 's enough to shake the Foundations of all Atheistical pretensions that they all intimated an agreement in the main Point of a future Existence they could not get leave of their Reason to avoid the Sense of it And then as for their wild Ways of stating the Manner of it it doth not at all invalidate the Truth but rather confirms it For as much as in any Christians themselves especially the School-men have run the Notion of the State of the dead into almost as extravagant Conjectures as some Heathens had done And all this ariseth from Mens undutisul Curiosities to open the Curtain upon that Secret which Almighty God for Reasons I doubt not accountable to himself and for the good of Mankind hath concealed from our present perfect Knowledge 'T is now saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 13. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is darkly or as represented in a Riddle as the original Word imports It 's sufficient for God's Designs that there should be so much known in all Ages concerning that State as might serve for a sufficient Reason and Encouragement to oblige Men to live Good and Vertuous Lives and to affect their hopes that all shall be well in the End with them who truly Fear him and honestly Serve Him But now to avoid all Censure of being too short in so mighty a Case and withal consulting the confinements of my Time I shall enlarge upon such Proofs and such only as may be improved from all unprejudiced Mens Observations as they may easily and naturally occur to their Thoughts and Notice In which I doubt not but to say so much as may give a full satisfaction to all that need a further assurance in that Important Point of a Life to come and of the Jaylor's great Salvation in that State And First Let our studied Unbelievers and all others whose Minds are any ways disordered as to any real Sense of another World but engage their Thoughts and Reason to look first Abroad upon the Species of Mankind in general and then think whether it 's any way probable that God should Create a sort of Creatures who of all Visible Beings are only Endued with Rational and Reflecting Minds and yet be Naturally subjected to greater and more numerous Miseries and sensible Calamities than all other the Existing Beings of the whole World besides put all together even with an Exception to those which Men may be said voluntarily to bring upon themselves So that if it were possible that all the Miserable of Mankind were at any time in one View to be represented and that every sorrowful Heart were to tell the sad Stories of his own afflicted Mind That is if all those who at any present time lay under the pressing sense of Pains and Torments All that are pining in languishing Diseases or pinch'd with wants of Necessaries All that are withering out their old Age in Contempt Uselessness and as a Burden to others All that are made Drudges to serve the Ambitions and Pleasures of a few And Lastly all such as in a long continuance of extremity in troubles of Mind Body or Fortune lay under Temptations to Sigh out their time in heavy Wishes never to have been at all I say if all these could possibly be placed in one Prospect who is it that would not be too apt to think that a great part of Mankind would even seem to Live in an Hospital of the Miserable rather than in a Region of so much Ease and Convenience as might acquit the Infinite Goodness of the great Creator why he gave Man a Being and then permitted him to Live in such hazzards of being possibly Miserable a thousand Ways and at last in a short time to be shut up in a Night of nothing like a dead Fly whithout any following Compensation Nothing but the belief of another World can possibly solve this Difficulty in a thinking Mind But further let our silly Prodigals of their Souls as concurrent with this make another prospect of the State of Mankind from an universally acknowledged Observation of the promiscuous Usages and Events of the Good and Evil in this World Which puzzel'd the Minds of the most Learned Opposers of the Christian Religion as might easily be shewn if time would allow it And from thence let our Bravadoes in Unbelief consider whether it 's possible that any Man of Reason should entertain such unworthy Thoughts of a Wise and Kind Creator that such numbers of Unjust and Unworthy Men should ever be permitted to have it in their power to ride in Triumph upon the Necks and Ruins of the Good and Harmless and that such Oppressed good Men must remedilesly bear the Characters of the Unfortunate to their Lives End and then become Nothing without any possible Redress for the Future And how can this be solved to the Honour of the Great God without a Belief that Mankind should elsewhere Exist after their Mortal Durations and thereby be Blessed with the Great Salvation in the Life to me And this is the first Reasoning Experiment to be made by Observations from Abroad to ascertain the Being of another World and a State of Salvation to be expected in it 2. The next Advertisement I give to those of unwilling Minds to Believe the Being of another World is That they would turn the use of their Reason inward and look if they can't make some Observations from every Man 's created Nature within to give them a full Assurance that there is such a State in future That is let them try whether there be not some Dispositions or Qualifications sovereignly implanted in their Natures which must exert their Operations with the same Necessity that inanimate Beings must necessarily follow the Conduct of that Instinct and Impulse which the Creator put upon their several Natures oftimes to act contrary Motions and Operations And then let them observe whether there be nothing in those Qualifications which God implanted in Man's Nature on purpose out of Kindness to prevent his Vndoing in another World by Sin and Impenitence And which may afford an Evidence for the assur'd Existence of such a State to come Now of those natural Qualifications though there be many yet I shall instance but in two only The First of those natural Dispositions or Qualifications is