forthwith depart willing or unwilling ready or unready 6. Souls that go out of this World of ours on the turn of this Key go not out of being He that hath this Key of Death hath also the Key of Hades a Key and a Key When he uses the former to let them out from this he uses the latter to give them their Inlet into the other World and into the one or the other part of it into the upper or the lower Hades as the state of their case is and doth require Our business is not now with Pagans to whom the Oracles of God are unknown If it were the best and wisest of them who so commonly speak of Souls going into Hades never thought of their going no whither nor therefore that they were nothing They had reasons then which they thought cogent that induced them tho' unassisted with Divine Revelation to conclude they surviv'd their forsaken bodies And what else could any unbrib'd understanding conclude or conceive When we find they have powers belonging to them which we can much more easily apprehend capable of being acted without help from the body than by it We are sure they can form thoughts purposes desires hopes for it is matter of fact they do it and coherent thoughts and thoughts arising from thoughts one from another Yea thoughts abstracted from any thing corporeal the notions of right and wrong of Vertue and Vice of moral good and evil with some agreeable resolves Thoughts quite above the sphere of matter so as to form a notion of the Mind it self of a spiritual Being as unexceptionable a one as we can form of a body Yea of an Original self subsistent Mind and Spiâ—iâ— the Former and Maker of all other T is much more apprehensible since we certainly know that all this is done that it is done without any help of the body than how flesh or blood or bones or nerves or brains or any corporeal thâ—ng should contribute to such Methods of thinking or to any thought at all And if it can be conceivâ—d that a Spirit can act without dependence on a body what should hinder but we may as well conceive it to subsist and live without such dependence And when we find this power of thought belongs to somewhat in us that lives since the deserted Carkass thinks not how reasonable is it to suppose that as the body lives not of it self or life is not essential to it for life may be retir'd and gone and it remain as we see it doth the same body still that the soul to which the power of thought belongs lâ—ves of it self not independently on the first cause but essentially so as to receive life and essence together from that cause or life included in its essence so as that it shall be the same thing to it to be and to live And hereupon how obvious is it to apprehend that the Soul is such a thing as can live in the Body which when it doth the Body lives by it a precarious borrowed life and that can live out of the Body leaving it when it doth so to drop and die These Sentiments were so reasonable as generally to prevail with the more deeply thinking part of Mankind Philosophers of all sorts a few excepted whose Notions were manifestly formed by vicious inclination in the Pagan World where was nothing higher than Reason to govern But we have life and immortality brought to light in the Gospel and are forewarned by it that these will be the measures of the final Judgment to give eternal life at last to them who by a patient continuance in well-doing seek honour glory and immortality To the rest indignation and wrath c. because there is no respect of persons with God As supposing the discovery of another World even by natural light much more by the addition of supernatural to be so clear as that the Rule of the Vniversal Judgment even for all is most righteously to be taken from hence and that there is nothing but a resolution of living wickedly to be opposed to it It is also no slight consideration that a susceptibleness of Religion should among the Creatures that dwell on Earth be so appropriate and peculiar to Man and some rare Instances excepted as far diffused as Humane Nature So as to induce some very considering Men of the Antients as well as Moderns both Pagans and Christians to think Religion the more probable specifying Difference of Man than Reason And whence should so common an impression be but from a cause as common Or how can we avoid to think that this signature upon the Soul of Man a capacity of Religion should be from the same hand that formed the spirit of Man within him and that a Natural Religiousness and Humane Nature it self had the same Author But who sees not that Religion as such hath a final reference to a future state He was no despicable Writer tho' not a Christian that positively affirmed hope towards God to be essential to Man and that they that had it not were not partakers of the Rational Nature 'T is so much the more a deplorable and monstrous thing that so many not only against the light of their own Reason but of Divine Revelation are so industrious to unman themselves And having so effectually in a great degree done it really and in practice aim to do it in a more compendious way notionally and in principle too And make use or shew of Reason to prove themselves not to be reasonable Creatures or to divest themselves of the principal dignity and distinction of the Rational Nature And are incomparably herein more unnatural than such as we commonly count 〈◊〉 upon themselves who only act against their own bodily life but these against the much nobler life of their Soul They against the life of an individual These against their own whole species at once And how deplorable is their case that count it their interest to be in no possibility of being happy when yet their so great dread of a future state as to urge them upon doing the most notorious violence to their own faculties to rid themselves of it is a very convictive Argument of its reality For their dread still pursues and sticks close to them This shews it lies deep in the nature of things which they cannot alter The terrible Image is still before their Eyes and their principal Refuge lies only in diverting in not attending to it And they can so little trust to their own Sophistical reasonings against it that when they have done all they can they must owe what they have of ease and quiet in their own Minds not so much to any strength of reason they apprehend in their own thoughts as in not thinking A bold jeast may sometimes provoke others laughter when it doth not extinguish their own fear A suspicion a formido oppositi will still remain a misgiving that they cannot
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Angels-fellows Luk 20.36 it is indifferent to our purpose Let us only consider them all as intelligent Spiritual Beings full of Holy Light Life active Power and Love to their common Lord and one another And can we imagine their state to be a State of torpid silence idleness and inactivity or that they have not much higher and nobler work to do there than they can have in such a World as this or in such bodies as here they lugg to and fro And the Scriptures are not altogether silent concerning the distinct orders of those glorious Creatures that inhabit all the Heavens with this upper Hades must be understood to contain Tho' it hath not provided to gratifie any ones curiosity so far as to give us particular accounts of their differences and distinctions And though we are not warranted to believe such conjectures concerning them as we find in in the supposititions Dionysius ' his Celestial Hierarchy or much less the idler dreams of Valentinus and the Gnosticks about their Aeones with divers more such fictions yet we are not to neglect what God hath expresly told us viz. That giving us some Account of the Creation in the Hades or the invisible part of it there are Thrones Dominions Principalities Powers Angels and elsewhere Archangels Authorities Col. 1.16 with 1 Pet. 3.21 which being terms that import Order and Government can scarce allow us not to conceive that of all those numberless multitudes of glorious Creatures that râ—plenish and people those spacious Regions of Light and Bliss there are none who belong not to some or other of those Principalities and Dominions Whence therefore nothing is more obvious than to conceive that whosoever is adjoyned to them ascending out of our Woâ—ld presently hath his Station assigned him is made to know his post and how he is to be employed in the seâ—vice and adoration of the Sovereign Lord of all and in paying the most regular homage to the Thâ—one of God and the Lamb. It being still to be remembred that God is not worshiped there or here as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as though he needed any thing since he gives to all breath and being and all things Acts 17. But that the felicity of his most excellent Creatures doth in great part consist in acting perpetually according to the dictate of a just right mind And that therefor tehey take highest pleasure in prostration in casting down their Crowns in shrinking even into nothing before the Original Eternal Subsistent Being that he may be owned as the all in all because they follow herein a most satisfy'd judgment and express it when they say Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created Rev. 4.11 And worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive Riches and Wisdom and Strength c. ch 5.12 And they that rest not Night or Day from such high and glorious employments have they nothing to do Or will we say or think because we see not how the Heavenly Potentates lead on their bright Legions to present themselves before the Throne to tender their obeysance or receive commands and dispatches to this or that far remote Dynasty or suppose to such and such a mighty Star whereof there are so numberless myriads And why should we suppose them not replenish't with glorious Inhabitants Whither they fly as quick as thought with joyful speed under the All-seeing Eye glad to execute wise and just commands upon all occasions But alas in all this we can but darken Counsel with words without knowledge We cannot pretend to knowledge in these things yet if from Scripture intimations and the concurrent reason of things we only make suppositions of what may be not conclusions of what is let our thoughts ascend as much higher as they can I see not why they should fall lower than all this And because we cannot be positive Will we therefore say or think there can be no such thing or nothing but dull inactivity in those Regions Because that other World is Hades and we see nothing shall we make little or next to nothing of it We should think it very absurd reasoning if we should use it in reference to such mean trifles in comparison and say there is no such thing as Pomp and State no such thing as Action or Business in the Courr of Spain or France of Persia or Japan because no sound from thence strikes our Ear or the beams of Majesty there dazle not our Eye I should indeed think it very unreasonable to make meer magnitude or vast extent of space filled up with nothing but void air Ether or other fine matter call it by what name you will alone or by it self a very considerable note of excellency of the other invisible World above this visible World of ours But I reckon it much more unreasonable and unenforc't to say no more by any Principles either of Philosophy or Religion finding this World of ours a baser part of the Creation so full of Life and of living Inhabitants of one degree or another to suppose the nobler parts of the Universe still ascending upwards generally unpeopled and desert when it is so conceivable in it self and so aptly tending to magnifie our Creator and Redeemer that all the upper Regions be fully inhabited with intelligent creatures whether meer Spirits unclothed with any thing material or united with some or other matter we need not determine And whereas Scripture plainly intimates that the Apostate revolted Spirits that fell from God and kept not their first Stations were vastly numerous we have hence scope enough for our thoughts to conceive that so spacious Regions being replenisht with intelligent Creatures always innocent and happy the delinquents compared with them may be as despicable for their paucity as they are detestable for their apostacy And that the horrid Hades wherein they are reserved to the blackness of Darkness for ever may be no more in proportion nay unexpressibly less than some little Rocky Island appointed as a place of punishment for Criminals in comparison of a flourishing vast Empire fully peopled with industrious rich sober-minded and unhappy Inhabitants We might further consider 3. The high perfection they presently attain to who are removed though in their younger years out of this into that other World The Spirits of just Men are there said to be made perfect Waving the Olympick Metaphor which is at most but the thing signifying That which is signified cannot be less than the concurrence of Natural and Moral Perfection The perfecting of all our faculties mind will and active power and of all holy and gracious excellencies knowledge wisdom love holiness The Apostle makes the difference be as that of a Child and that of a Man 1 Cor. 13. And would any one that hath a Child he delights in wish him to be a Child always and
correspondent things to be practised and done which must also suppose dispositions and frames of Heart and Spirit agreeable thereto 1. Let us Live expecting a period to be ere long put to our Life on Earth For remember there are Keys put into a great hand for this very purpose that holds them not in vain His Power is of equal extent with the Law he is to proceed by And by that it is appointed for all once to Die Therefore as in the Execution he cannot exceed so he will not come short of this appointment When that once shall be it belongs to him to determine And from the course we may observe him to hold as it is uncertain to all it can be very remote to none How short is the measure of a Span 'T is an absurd vanity â—o promise our selves that which is in the power of another How Wise and Prudent a thing to accommodate our selves composedly to his pleasure in whose power we are And to live as Men continually expecting to die There are bands of Death out of which when they once take hold we cannot free our selves But there are also bands of Life not less troublesome or dangerous 'T is our great concern to be daily by degrees loosening and disentangling our selves from these bands and for preventing the necessity of a violent Rupture To be daily disingaging our Hearts from an ensnaring World and the too close embraces of an over indulged Body Tell them resolutely I must leave them whensoever my great Lord turns the Key for me and I know not how soon that may be It is equally unhappy and foolish to be ingaged in the pursuit of an impossibility or in a War with necessity the former whereof cannot be obtained the latter cannot but overcome We owe so much to our selves and to the ease and quiet of our own Minds to be reconciled at all times to that which may befal us at any time How confounding a thing is surprizal by that which our selves regret and dread How unaccountable and ignominious must it be to pretend to be surprized with what we have so great reason always to expect And whereof we are so oft forewarned Is it no part of Christian watchfulness to wait for such an hour Tho' that waiting all the days of our appointed time mentioned John 14.14 refers to another change than that of Death viz. as the foregoing and following verses shew That of the Resurrection yet it cannot but be equally requisite upon a no less important reason And the requests that the Lord would make us know our end and the measure of our Days that we may know how frail we are Psal. 39.4 And that he would teach us so to number our Days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom Psal 90.12 are equally monitory to the same purpose as the most express Precepts As also the many Directions we have to watch and wait for our Lords appearance and coming are as applicable to this purpose For whensoever his Key opens our passage out of this World and These Bodies Hades opens too and he particularly appears to us in as decisive a judgment of our case as his universal appearance and judgment will at last give for all The placid agreement of our Minds and Spirits with Divine determination both as to the thing and time of our departure hence will prevent the trouble and ungratefulness of being surpriz'd and our continual expectation of it will prevent any surprizal at all Let this then be an agreed resolution with us to endeavour being in such a posture as that we may be capable of saying Lord whensoever thou shalt move thy Key and tell me this night or this hour I 'll require thy Soul thou shalt not O Lord prevent mine expectation or ever find me counting upon many years injoyment of any thing this world can entertain me with In further pursuance hereof 2. Be not over-intent on designs for this present World which would suppose you to count upon long abode in it Let them be always laid with a supposition you may this way even by one turn of this Key be prevented of bringing them about and let them be pursued with indifferency so as that disappointment even this way may not be a grievance A thing made up of thought and design as our Mind and Spirit naturally is will be designing one way or other nor ought we to attempt that violence upon our own Natures as to endeavour the stupifying of the intelligent designing Mind which the Author of Nature hath put into us Only let us so lay our designs as that how many soever we form that may be liable to this sort of disappointment we may still have one greater and more important so regularly and surely laid that no turn of this Key shall be in any possibility to frustrate but promote it rather The design for the Kingdom of God to be first sought with his Righteousness Mat. 6.33 or which is puâ—sued by seeking Glory Honour and Immortality to the actual attainment of Eternal Life Rom. 2.7 may if prescribed methods be duly observed have this felicity always attending it to be â—ucessfully pursued while we live and effected when we Die But this is an unaccountable vanity under the Sun that Men too generally form such projects that they are disappointed both when they do not compass them and when they do If they do not they have lost their labour if they do they are not worth it They dream they are Eating and injoying the fruit of their labour but they awake and their Soul is empty And if at length they think of laying wiser and more valuable designs the Key turns and not having fixed their resolution and begun aright they and all their thoughts foolish or more wise perish together Because there is a fit season for every fit undertaking a time and judgment for every purpose or a critical time such as is by Judgment affixt to every such purpose Eccles. 8.6 and because also Men know not their time c. 9.12 therefore their Misery is great upon the Earth and as Birds caught in a snare they are snared in an evil time that falleth suddenly upon them O miserable miserable Mortals So are your immortal Spirits misimployed and lost Their most valuable design for another World is seldom thought on in season their little designs for this World they contrive and pâ—osecute with that confidence as if they thought the World to be theirs and themselves their own and they had no â—ord over them This rude insolence that holy Apostle animadverts upon of such as say To Day or to Morrow we will goe to such a City and continue there a â—ear and Buy and Sell and get Gain whereas they know not what shall be on the morrow And What is their Life a Vapour c. So much of Duty and becoming Behaviour is in the mean time forgotten as to say If the Lord will we shall live
Laws of it what is our prospect To go down here somewhat lower Let us suppose a rational susceptibleness or capacity of Religion to be the difference of Man wherein the Controversie may seem to admit of being compromis'd whether it be Religion alone or Reason alone of which this must be said that it distinguishes Man from the Inferiour Creatures And let it be Reason with this addition an aptness suspicere numen to be imprest with some Religious Sentiment or to conceive of and adore an Original Being The wise and mighty Author and Cause of all things And now how near akin are Religion and Humanity Let us next understand Christianity to be the Religion of fal'n Man designing his Recovery out of a lapsed and lost State i. e. Man having violated the Law of his Creation and offended against the Throne and Government of his Creator the Supream and Vniversal Lord of all It was reckon'd not becoming so great a Majesty tho' it was not intended to abandon the Offenders to an Universal Ruine without Remedy to be reconcil'd otherwise than by a Mediator and a Reconciling Sacrifice For which none being found competent but the Eternal Son of God the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his own Person who was also the First and the Last the Lord God Almighty and partaking with us of flesh blood was capable and undertook to be both Mediator and Sacrifice It seem'd meet to the offended Majesty to vouchsafe Pardon and Eternal Life and the renewing Grace requisite thereto to none of the Offenders but through him and accept from them no Homage but on his Account Requiring wheresoever the Gospel comes not only Repentance towards God but Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ as the Summary of the Counsel of God contain'd therein Acts 20.21 27. And that all should honour the Son as he the Father requires to be honoured John 5.23 Whereas now so apt a Course as this was establisht for restoring Man to himself and to God through the Influence of the Blessed Spirit flowing in the Gospel-Dispensation from Christ as the Fountain What doth it portend when amidst the clear Light of the Gospel that affords so bright a Discovery of the Glorious Redeemer and of all his apt Methods for bringing to full effect his mighty Work of Redemption an open War is commenc'd against him and his whole Design by Persons under Seal devoted to him If there were but one single Instance hereof in an Age who would not with trembling expect the Issue But when the Genius of a Christian Nation seems in the rising Generation to be leading to a general Apostacy from Christianity in its Principal and most Substantial Parts and they are only patient of some External Rituals that belong or are made appendent to it so as but to endure them either â—ith Reluctancy or Contempt When the Juvenile Wit and Courage which are thought to belong to a Gentleman entring upon the Stage of the World are imployed in satyrizing upon the Religion into which they have been Baptiz'd in bold Efforts against the Lord that bought them Whither doth this tend Some would seem so modest as in the midst of their profane Oaths and Violations of the Sacred Name of God to beg his Pardon and say God forgive them But so ludicrously as he whom Cato animadverts upon For begging Pardon that he wrote in Greek which he was unacquainted with saying He had rather ask Pardon than be Innocent for what should induce him to do so unnecessary a thing for which Pardon should be necessary Thâ—se Men think Pardons very cheap things But will God be mocked Or doth he not observe 'T is the prevailing Atheistical Spirit we are to dread as that which may provoke Jealousie and to make himself known by the Judgments he shall execute There is great reason to hope God will not finally abandon England But is there not equal reason to fear that before the Day of Mercy come there may be a nearer Day of Wrath coming A Day that shall burn as an Oven and make the Hemisphere about us a fiery Vault In our Recovery from a lapsed State which the Religion profest among us aims at There are two things to be effected The restoring Reason to its Empire over the sensitive Nature that it may govern that and the restoring Religion and Love to God to its Place and Power that he may govern us While the former is not done we remain sunk into the low Level with the Inferior Creatures and till the latter be effected we are ranked with the Apostate Creatures that first fell from God The Sensualty of Brutes and the Enmity of Devils rising and springing up observably among us import the directest Hostility against the Redeemer's Design And them that bid this open Defiance to Him he hath every Moment at his Mercy In the mean time Is this Emmanuel 's Land His Right in us he will not disclaim And because he claims it we may expect him to vindicate himsâ—lâ— His present Patience we are to ascribe to the Wisdom and Greatness of an All-comprehending Mind He counts not an heap of impotent Worms his Match But when the Besom of Destruction comes one stroak of it will sweep away Multitudes Then Contempt will be Answered with Contempt They cannot express higher than to oppose and militate against a Religion introduc'd and brought into the World by so Clear Divine Light Lustre and Glory not by Arguments but by Jeasts O that we could but see their Arguments to dispute those Keys out of his Hands that holds them But do they think to laugh away the Power of the Son of God He also will laugh at their Calamity c. Prov. 1. or expose them to the Laughter of Men wiser than they Psal. 52.5 6. 'T is little wit to despise what they cannot disprove When we find a connection between Death and Judgment how will they contrive to dis-joyn them They will be as little able to disprove the one as withstand the other But a great residue 't is to be hoped our Blessed Redeemer will in due time conquer in the most merciful way inspiring them with Divine Wisdom and Love detecting their Errours mollifying their hardness subduing their enmity making them gladly submit to his easie Yoke and light Burden He is before the World end to have a numerous Seed and we are not to despair of their rising up more abundantly than hitherto among our selves so as no Man shall be therefore asham'd to be thought a serious Christian because 't is an unfashionable or an ungenteel thing Then will honour be acquir'd by living as one that believes a Life to come and expects to live for ever as Devoted ones to the Ruler of both Worlds and Candidates for a blessed Immortality under his Dominion Nor will any Man covet to leave a better Name behind him here or a more honourable Memorial of himself than by having liv'd an holy