And the business of the Clergy and their Maintenance with the belief of some Authority and Power conveyed in their Orders lookt as he thought like a piece of Contrivance And why said he must a man tell me I cannot be saved unless I believe things against my Reason and then that I must pay him for telling me of them These were all the Exceptions which at any time I heard from him to Christianity To which I made these Answers For Mysteries it is plain there is in every thing somewhat that is unaccountable How Animals or Men are formed in their Mothers bellies how Seeds grow in the Earth how the Soul dwells in the Body and acts and moves it How we retain the Figures of so many words or things in our Memories and how we draw them out so easily and orderly in our Thoughts or Discourses How Sight and Hearing were so quick and distinct how we move and how Bodies were compounded and united These things if we follow them into all the Difficulties that we may raise about them will appear every whit as unaccountable as any Mystery of Religion And a blind or deaf man would judge Sight or Hearing as incredible as any Mystery may be judged by us For our Reason is not equal to them In the same rank different degrees of Age or Capacity raise some far above others So that Children cannot fathome the Learning nor weak persons the Councels of more illuminated Minds Therefore it was no wonder if we could not understand the Divine Essence We cannot imagine how two such different Natures as a Soul and a Body should so unite together and be mutually affected with one anothers Concerns and how the Soul has one Principle of Reason by which it acts Intellectually and another of life by which it joyns to the Body and acts Vitally two Principles so widely differing both in their Nature and Operation and yet united in one and the same Person There might be as many hard Arguments brought against the possibility of these things which yet every one knows to be true from Speculative Notions as against the Mysteries mentioned in the Scriptures As that of the Trinity That in one Essence there are three different Principles of Operation which for want of terms fit to express them by We call Persons and are called in Scripture The Father Son and Holy Ghost and that the Second of these did unite Himself in a most intimate manner with the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ And that the Sufferings he underwent were accepted of God as a Sacrifice for our Sins Who thereupon conferred on Him a Power of granting Eternal Life to all that submit to the Terms on which He offers it And that the matter of which our Bodies once consisted which may be as justy called the Bodies we laid down at our Deaths as these can be said to be the Bodies which we formerly lived in being refined and made more spiritual shall be reunited to our Souls and become a fit Instrument for them in a more perfect Estate And that God inwardly bends and moves our Wills by such Impressions as he can make on our Bodies and Minds These which are the chief Mysteries of our Religion are neither so unreasonable that any other Objection lies against them but this that they agree not with our Common Notions nor so unaccountable that somewhat like them cannot be assigned in other things which are believed really to be though the manner of them cannot be apprehended So this ought not to be any just Objection to the submission of our Reason to what we cannot so well conceive provided our belief of it be well grounded There have been too many Niceties brought in indeed rather to darken then explain these They have been defended by weak Arguments and illustrated by Similies not always so very apt and pertinent And new subtilties have been added which have rather perplexed than cleared them All this cannot be denied the Opposition of Hereticks anciently occasioned too much Curiosity among the Fathers Which the School-men have wonderfully advanced of late times But if Mysteries were received rather in the simplicity in which they are delivered in the Scriptures than according to the descantings of fanciful men upon them they would not appear much more incredible than some of the common Objects of sense and perception And it is a needless fear that if some Mysteries are acknowledged which are plainly mentioned in the New Testament it will then be in the power of the Priests to add more at their pleasure For it is an absurd Inference from our being bound to assent to some Truths about the Divine Essence of which the manner is not understood to argue that therefore in an Object presented duly to our Senses such as Bread and Wine We should be bound to believe against their Testimony that it is not what our Senses perceived it to be but the whole Flesh and Blood of Christ an entire Body being in every Crumb and drop of it It is not indeed in a mans power to believe thus against his Sense and Reason where the Object is proportioned to them and fitly applied and the Organs are under no indisposition or disorder It is certain that no Mystery is to be admitted but very clear and express Authorities from Scripture which could not reasonably be understood in any other sense And though a man cannot form an explicite Notion of a Mystery for then it would be no longer a Mystery Yet in general he may believe a thing to be though he cannot give himself a particular account of the way of it or rather though he cannot Answer some Objections which lie against it We know We believe many such in Humane matters which are more within our reach and it is very unreasonable to say We may not do it in Divine things which are much more above our Apprehensions For the severe Restraint of the use of Women it is hard to deny that Priviledge to Jesus Christ as a Law-Giver to lay such Restraints as all inferiour Legislators do who when they find the Liberties their Subjects take prove hurtful to them set such Limits and make such Regulations as they judge necessary and expedient It cannot be said but the Restraint of Appetite is necessary in some Instances and if it is necessary in these perhaps other Restraints are no less necessary to fortifie and secure these For if it be acknowledged that Men have a property in their Wives and Daughters so that to defile the one or corrupt the other is an injust and injurious thing It is certain that except a man carefully governs his Appetites he will break through these Restraints and therefore our Saviour knowing that nothing could so effectually deliver the World from the mischief of unrestrained Appetite as such a Confinement might very reasonably enjoyn it And in all such Cases We are to ballance the Inconveniences on both hands and where we find they
after a long and free Conversation with him for some months I was not long in his Company when he told me He should treat me with more freedom than he had ever used to men of my Profession He would conceal none of his Principles from me but lay his thoughts open without any Disguise nor would he do it to maintain Debate or shew his Wit but plainly tell me what stuck with him and protested to me That he was not so engaged to his old Maxims as to resolve not to change but that if he could be convinc'd he would choose rather to be of another mind He said He would impartially Weigh what I should lay before him and tell me freely when it did convince him and when it did not He expressed this disposition of mind to me in a manner so frank that I could not but believe him and be much taken with his way of Discourse So we entred into almost all the parts of Natural and Revealed Religion and of Morality He seemed pleased and in a great measure satisfied with what I said upon many of these Heads And though our freest Conversation was when we were alone yet upon several Occasions other persons were Witnesses to it I understood from many hands that my Company was not distastful to him and that the Subjects about which we talked most were not unacceptable and he expressed himself often not ill pleased with many things I said to him and particularly when I visited him in his last Sickness so that I hope it may not be altogether unprofitable to publish the substance of those matters about which We argued so freely with our reasoning upon them And perhaps what had some effects on him may be not altogether ineffectual upon others I followed him with such Arguments as I saw were most likely to prevail with him and my not urging other Reasons proceeded not from any distrust I had of their force but from the necessity of using those that were most proper for him He was then in a low state of health and seemed to be slowly recovering of a great Disease He was in the Milk-Diet and apt to fall into Hectical-Fits any accident weakened him so that he thought he could not live long And when he went from London he said He believed he should never come to Town more Yet during his being in Town he was so well that he went often abroad and had great Vivacity of Spirit So that he was under no such decay as either darkened or weakened his Understanding Nor was he any way troubled with the Spleen or Vapours or under the power of Melancholy What he was then compared to what he had been formerly I could not so well judge who had seen him but twice before Others have told me they perceived no difference in his parts This I mention more particularly that it may not be thought that Melancholy or the want of Spirits made him more inclined to receive any Impressions for indeed I never discovered any such thing in him Having thus opened the way to the Heads of our Discourse I shall next mention them The three chief things We talked about were Morality Natural Religion and Revealed Religion Christianity in particular For Morality he confessed He saw the necessity of it both for the Government of the World and for the preservation of Health Life and Friendship and was very much ashamed of his former Practices rather because he had made himself a Beast and had brought pain and sickness on his Body and had suffered much in his Reputation than from any deep sense of a Supream being or another State But so far this went with him that he resolved firmly to change the Course of his Life which he thought he should effect by the study of Philosophy and had not a few no less solid than pleasant Notions concerning the folly and madness of Vice but he confessed he had no remorse for his past Actions as Offences against God but only as Injuries to himself and to Mankind Upon this Subject I shewed him the Defects of Philosophy for reforming the World That it was a matter of Speculation which but few either had the leisure or the capacity to enquire into But the Principle that must reform Mankind must be obvious to every Mans Understanding That Philosophy in matters of Morality beyond the great lines of our Duty had no very certain fixed Rule but in the lesser Offices and Instances of our Duty went much by the Fancies of Men and Customs of Nations and consequently could not have Authority enough to bear down the Propensities of Nature Appetite or Passion For which I instanced in these two Points The One was About that Maxim of the Stoicks to extirpate all sort of Passion and concern for any thing That take it by one hand seemed desireable because if it could be accomplish'd it would make all the accidents of life casie but I think it cannot because Nature after all our striving against it will still return to it self Yet on the other hand it dissolved the Bonds of Nature and Friendship and slackened Industry which will move but dully without an inward heat And if it delivered a man from many Troubles it deprived him of the chief pleasures of Life which rise from Friendship The other was concerning the restraint of pleasure how far that was to go Upon this he told me the two Maxims of his Morality then were that he should do nothing to the hurt of any other or that might prejudice his own health And he thought that all pleasure when it did not interfere with these was to be indulged as the gratification of our natural Appetites It seemed unreasonable to imagine these were put into a man only to be restrained or curbed to such a narrowness This he applied to the free use of Wine and Women To this I answered That if Appetites being Natural was an Argument for the indulging them then the revengeful might as well alledge it for Murder and the Covetous for stealing whose Appetites are no less keen on those Objects and yet it is acknowledg'd that these Appetites ought to be curb'd If the difference is urged from the Injury that another Person receives the Injury is as great if a Mans Wife is defiled or his Daughter corrupted and it is impossible for a man to let his Appetites loose to Vagrant Lusts and not to transgress in these particulars So there was no curing the Disorders that must rise from thence but by regulating these Appetites And why should we not as well think that God intended our bruitish and sensual Appetites should be governed by our Reason as that the fierceness of Beasts should be managed and tamed by the Wisdom and for the use of Man So that it is no real absurdity to grant that Appetites were put into Men on purpose to exercise their Reason in the Restraint and Government of them which to be able to do Ministers a
and Discourses they so carnestly recommended Of this he had gathered many Instances I knew some of them were Mistakes and Calumnies Yet I could not deny but something of them might be too true And I publish this the more freely to put all that pretend to Religion chiefly those that are dedicated to holy Functions in mind of the great Obligation that lies on them to live sutably to their Profession Since otherwise a great deal of the Irreligion and Atheism that is among us may too justly be charged on them for wicked men are delighted out of measure when they discover ill things in them and conclude from thence not only that they are Hypocrites but that Religion it self is a cheat But I said to him upon this Head that though no good man could continue in the practice of any known sin yet such might by the violence or surprise of a Temptation to which they are liable as much as others be of a sudden overcome to do an ill thing to their great grief all their life after And then it was a very injust Inference Upon some few failings to conclude that such men do not believe themselves But how bad soever many are it cannot be denied but there are also many both of the Clergy and Laity who give great and real Demonstrations of the power Religion has over them in their Contempt of the World the strictness of their Lives their readiness to forgive Injuries to relieve the Poor and to do good on all Occasions and yet even these may have their failings either in such things wherein their Constitutions are weak or their Temptations strong and suddain And in all such cases We are to judge of men rather by the course of their Lives than by the Errors that they through infirmity or surprize may have slipt into These were the chief Heads we discoursed on and as far as I can remember I have faithfully repeated the substance of our Arguments I have not concealed the strongest things he said to me but though I have not enlarged on all the Excursions of his Wit in setting them off Yet I have given them their full strength as he expressed them and as far as I could recollect have used his own words So that I am afraid some may censure me for setting down these things so largely which Impious Men may make an ill use of and gather together to encourage and defend themselves in their Vices But if they will compare them with the Answers made to them and the sense that so great and refined a Wit had of them afterwards I hope they may through the blessing of God be not altogether ineffectual The issue of all our Discourses was this He told me He saw Vice and Impiety were as contrary to Humane Society as wild Beasts let loose would be and therefore he firmly resolved to change the whole method of his Life to become strictly just and true to be Chast and Temperate to forbear Swearing and Irreligious Discourse to Worship and Pray to his Maker And that though he was not arrived at a full perswasion of Christianity he would never employ his Wit more to run it down or to corrupt others Of which I have since a further assurance from a Person of Quality who conversed much with him the last year of his life to whom he would often say That he was happy if he did believe and that he would never endeavour to draw him from it To all this I Answered That a Vertuous Life would be very uncasie to him unless Vicious Inclinations were removed It would otherwise be a perpetual constraint Nor could it be effected without an inward Principle to change him and that was only to be had by applying himself to God for it in frequent and earnest Prayers And I was sure if his Mind were once cleared of these Disorders and cured of those Distempers which Vice brought on it so great an Understanding would soon see through all those slights of Wit that do feed Atheism and Irreligion which have a false glittering in them that dazles some weak sighted Minds who have not capacity enough to penetrate further than the Surfaces of things and so they stick in these Toyls which the strength of his Mind would soon break thorough if it were once freed from those things that depressed and darkened it At this pass he was when he went from London about the beginning of April He had not been long in the Country when he thought he was so well that being to go to his Estate in Somersetshire he rode thither Post. This heat and violent motion did so inflame an Ulcer that was in his Bladder that it raised a very great pain in those parts Yet he with much difficulty came back by Coach to the Lodge at Woodstock-Park He was then wounded both in Body and Mind He understood Physick and his own Constitution and Distemper so well that he concluded he could hardly recover For the Ulcer broke and vast quantities of purulent matter past with his Urine But now the hand of God touched him and as he told me It was not only a general dark Melancholy over his Mind such as he had formerly felt but a most penetrating cutting Sorrow So that though in his Body he suffered extream pain for some weeks Yet the Agonies of his Mind sometimes swallowed up the sense of what he felt in his Body He told me and gave it me in charge to tell it to one for whom he was much concern'd that though there were nothing to come after this life Yet all the Pleasures he had ever known in Sin were not worth that torture he had felt in his Mind He considered he had not only neglected and dishonoured but had openly desied his Maker and had drawn many others into the like Impieties So that he looked on himself as one that was in great danger of being damn'd He then set himself wholly to turn to God unfeignedly and to do all that was possible in that little remainder of his life which was before him to redeem those great portions of it that he had formerly so ill employed The Minister that attended constantly on him was that good and worthy man Mr. Parsons his Mothers Chaplain who hath since his death Preached according to the Directions he received from him his Funeral Sermon in which there are so many remarkable Passages that I shall refer my Reader to them and will repeat none of them here that I may not thereby lessen his desire to edifie himself by that excellent Discourse which has given so great and so general a satisfaction to all good and judicious Readers I shall speak cursorily of every thing but that which I had immediately from himself He was visited every Week of his sickness by his Diocesan that truly Primitive Prelate the Lord Bishop of Oxford who though he lived six miles from him yet looked on this as so important a piece of his
Mind appeared most was in the total change of an ill habit grown so much upon him that he could hardly govern himself when he was any ways heated three Minutes without falling into it I mean Swearing He had acknowledged to me the former Winter that he abhorred it as a base and indecent thing and had set himself much to break it off but he confessed that he was so over-power'd by that ill Custom that he could not speak with any warmth without repeated Oaths which upon any sort of provocation came almost naturally from him But in his last Remorses this did so sensibly affect him that by a resolute and constant watchfulness the habit of it was perfectly master'd So that upon the returns of pain which were very severe and frequent upon him the last day I was with him or upon such displeasures as people sick or in pain are apt to take of a sudden at those about them On all these Occasions he never swore an Oath all the while I was there Once he was offended with the delay of one that he thought made not hast enough with somewhat he called for and said in a little heat That damned Fellow Soon after I told him I was glad to find his Style so reformed and that he had so entirely overcome that ill habit of Swearing Only that word of calling any damned which had returned upon him was not decent His Answer was Oh that Language of Fiends which was so familiar to me hangs yet about me Sure none has deserved more to be damned than I have done And after he had humbly asked God Pardon for it he desired me to call the Person to him that he might ask him forgiveness but I told him that was needless for he had said it of one that did not hear it and so could not be offended by it In this disposition of Mind did he continue all the while I was with him four days together He was then brought so low that all hope of Recovery was gone Much purulent matter came from him with his Urine which he passed always with some pain But one day with unexpressible torment Yet he bore it decently without breaking out into Repinings or impatient Complaints He imagined he had a Stone in his Passage but it being searched none was found The whole substance of his Body was drained by the Ulcer and nothing was left but Skin and Bone and by lying much on his Back the parts there began to mortifie But he had been formerly so low that he seemed as much past all hopes of life as now which made him one Morning after a full and sweet Nights rest procured by Laudanum given him without his knowledge to fancy it was an effort of Nature and to begin to entertain some hopes of Recovery For he said He felt himself perfectly well and that he had nothing ailing him but an extream weakness which might go off in time and then he entertained me with the Scheme he had laid down for the rest of his life how retired how strict and how studious he intended to be But this was soon over for he quickly felt that it was only the effect of a good sleep and that he was still in a very desperate state I thought to have left him on Friday but not without some Passion he desired me to stay that day there appeared no symptome of present death and a Worthy Physitian then with him told me That though he was so low that an accident might carry him away on a suddain Yet without that he thought he might live yet some Weeks So on Saturday at Four of the Clock in the Morning I left him being the 24th of July But I durst not take leave of him for he had expressed so great an unwillingness to part with me the day before that if I had not presently yielded to one days stay it was like to have given him some trouble therefore I thought it better to leave him without any Formality Some hours after he asked for me and when it was told him I was gone he seem'd to be troubled and said Has my Friend left me then I shall die shortly After that he spake but once or twice till he died He lay much silent Once they heard him praying very devoutly And on Monday about Two of the Clock in the Morning he died without any Convulsion or so much as a groan THE CONCLVSION THus he lived and thus he died in the Three and and Thirtieth Year of his Age. Nature had fitted him for great things and his Knowledge and Observation qualify'd him to have been one of the most extraordinary Men not only of his Nation but of the Age he lived in And I do verily believe that if God had thought fit to have continued him longer in the World he had been the Wonder and Delight of all that knew him But the infinitely Wise God knew better what was fit for him and what the Age deserved For men who have so cast off all sense of God and Religion deserve not so signal a Blessing as the Example and Conviction which the rest of his life might have given them And I am apt to think that the Divine Goodness took pity on him and seeing the sincerity of his Repentance would try and venture him no more in Circumstances of Temptation perhaps too hard for Humane Frailty Now he is at rest and I am very confident enjoys the Fruits of his late but sincere Repentance But such as live and still go on in their Sins and Impieties and will not be awakened neither by this nor the other Allarms that are about their Ears are it seems given up by God to a judicial Hardness and Impenitency Here is a publick Instance of One who lived of their Side but could not die of it And though none of all our Libertines understood better than he the secret Mysteries of Sin had more studied every thing that could support a man in it and had more resisted all external means of Conviction than he had done Yet when the hand of God inwardly touched him he could no longer kick against those Pricks but humbled himself under that Mighty Hand and as he used often to say in his Prayers He who had so often denied Him found then no other Shelter but his Mercies and Compassions I have written this Account with all the tenderness and caution I could use and in whatsoever I may have failed I have been strict in the truth of what I have related remembring that of Job Will ye lie for God Religion has Strength and Evidence enough in it self and needs no Support from Lyes and made Stories I do not pretend to have given the formal words that he said though I have done that where I could remember them But I have written this with the same Sincerity that I would have done had I known I had been to die immediately after I had finished it I did not take Notes
of our Discourses last Winter after we parted so I may have perhaps in the setting out of my Answers to him have enlarged on several things both more fully and more regularly than I could say them in such free Discourses as we had I am not so sure of all I set down as said by me as I am of all said by him to me But yet the substance of the greatest part even of that is the same It remains that I humbly and earnestly beseech all that shall take this Book in their hands that they will consider it entirely and not wrest some parts to an ill intention God the Searcher of Hearts knows with what Fidelity I have writ it But if any will drink up only the Poison that may be in it without taking also the Antidote here given to those ill Principles or considering the sense that this great Person had of them when he reflected seriously on them and will rather confirm themselves in their ill ways by the Scruples and Objections which I set down than be edified by the other parts of it As I will look on it as a great Infelicity that I should have said any thing that may strengthen them in their Impieties So the sincerity of my Intentions will I doubt not excuse me at his hands to whom I offer up this small Service I have now performed in the best manner I could what was left on me by this Noble Lord and have done with the part of an Historian I shall in the next place say somewhat as a Divine So extraordinary a Text does almost force a Sermon though it is plain enough it self and speaks with so loud a Voice that those who are not awakened by it will perhaps consider nothing that I can say If our Libertines will become so far sober as to examine their former Course of Life with that disingagement and impartiality which they must acknowledge a wise man ought to use in things of greatest Consequence and ballance the Account of what they have got by their Debaucheries with the Mischiefs they have brought on themselves and others by them they will soon see what a mad Bargain they have made Some Diversion Mirth and Pleasure is all they can promise themselves but to obtain this how many Evils are they to suffer how have many wasted their strength brought many Diseases on their Bodies and precipitated their Age in the pursuit of those things and as they bring old Age early on themselves so it becomes a miserable state of life to the greatest part of them Gouts Stranguries and other Infirmities being severe Reckonings for their past Follies not to mention the more loathsome Diseases with their no less loathsome and troublesome Cures which they must often go through who deliver themselves up to forbidden Pleasure Many are disfigur'd beside with the marks of their Intemperance and Lewdness and which is yet sadder an Infection is derived oftentimes on their Innocent but unhappy Issue who being descended from so vitiated an Original suffer for their Excesses Their Fortunes are profusely wasted both by their neglect of their Affairs they being so buried in Vice that they cannot employ either their Time or Spirits so much exhausted by Intemperance to consider them and by that Prodigal Expence which their Lusts put them upon They suffer no less in their Credit the chief mean to recover an intangled Estate for that irregular Expence forceth them to so many mean shifts makes them so often false to all their Promises and Resolutions that they must needs feel how much they have lost that which a Gentleman and Men of ingenuous tempers do sometimes prefer even to life it self their Honour and Reputation Nor do they suffer less in the Nobler powers of their Minds which by a long course of such dissolute Practices come to sink and degenerate so far that not a few whose first Blossoms gave the most promising Hopes have so wither'd as to become incapable of great and generous Undertakings and to be disabled to every thing but to wallow like Swine in the filth of Sensuality their Spirits being dissipated and their Minds so nummed as to be wholly unfit for business and even indisposed to think That this dear price should be paid for a little wild Mirth or gross and corporal Pleasure is a thing of such imparalelled Folly that if there were not too many such Instances before us it might seem incredible To all this we must add the Horrours that their ill Actions raise in them and the hard shifts they are put to to stave off these either by being perpetually drunk or mad or by an habitual disuse of thinking and reflecting on their Actions and if these Arts will not perfectly quiet them by taking Sanctuary in such Atheistical Principles as may at least mitigate the sowrness of their thoughts though they cannot absolutely settle their Minds If the state of Mankind and Humane Societies are considered what Mischiefs can be equal to those which follow these Courses Such Persons are a Plague where ever they come they can neither be trusted nor beloved having cast off both Truth and Goodness which procure Confidence and attract Love they corrupt some by their ill Practices and do irreparable Injuries to the rest they run great Hazards and put themselves to much trouble and all this to do what is in their power to make Damnation as sure to themselves as possibly they can What Influence this has on the whole Nation is but too visible How the Bonds of Nature Wedlock and all other Relations are quite broken Vertue is thought an Antick Piece of Formality and Religion the effect of Cowardise or Knavery These are the Men that would Reform the World by bringing it under a new System of Intellectual and Moral Principles but bate them a few bold and lewd Jests what have they ever done or designed to do to make them be remembred except it be with detestation They are the Scorn of the present Age and their Names must rot in the next Here they have before them an Instance of one who was deeply corrupted with the Contagion which he first derived from Others but unhappily heightened it much himself He was a Master indeed and not a bare trifler with Wit as some of these are who repeat and that but scurvily what they may have heard from him or some others and with Impudence and Laughter will face the World down as if they were to teach it Wisdom who God knows cannot follow one Thought a step further than as they have conned it and take from them their borrow'd Wit and their mimical Humour and they will presently appear what they indeed are the least and lowest of Men. If they will or if they can think a little I wish they would consider that by their own Principles they cannot be sure that Religion is only a Contrivance all they pretend to is only to weaken some Arguments that are brought for