dissembled what he thought of the best Form of Government for fear of offending Aristotle I am willing to ascribe my self into the number of them who believe that there is greater apparance that Aristotle was of the Opinion that affirms the Souls immortality and I know many excellent passages may be produc'd out of his Writings which favor it But yet so it is that in other places he seems to lay down principles which are incompatible with the same and some of his most famous disciples have believ'd that he held the contrary Socrates as we find in Plato knows not how to be confident of it and perswades himself by reasons which for the most part are but of slender moment and always speaks of it as of other things with doubting and not determining any thing although through the desire he had that his Soul were immortal he inclined more willingly to this opinion and accounted it of most probability which is Cicero's judgement in his Tusculan Questions And truly I conceive that in all things of this Nature the vulgar had better apprehensions then the Philosophers yea that the Philosophers corrupted the sentiments of Nature which remain'd more lively and genuine in the breasts of the people For they had wit and knowledge enough to frame objections against the common conceptions of men but yet they had not sufficient to resolve them whence their minds became unsetled and wavering Whereas the people who understood not so much subtilty held themselves more firmely to that which was taught them by nature it self and they had received from her though doubtingly in regard of the weakness and ignorance of humane reason As it often falls out that a man that knows nothing in Civil Law and yet hath some natural faculty of understanding better discerns the right of a certain Case then knowing Professors who have their heads full of Statutes and Paragraphs great skill rather perplexing and confounding then resolving them in the knowledge of things But Philosophical disputes being spread from the Scholes into Towns among the people have obscured and disorder'd such natural notions much more then the people by their own ignorance and negligence could have depraved and embroiled the same of themselves However were they much better assured then they are that their Souls do not perish with their bodies yet they must necessarily be extremely ignorant of the estate of them after their separation For how blind so ever the reason of man be in that which concerns the Deity his Nature Perfections and Providence yet the arguments which satisfie us of them are so clear and resplendent in the World that in spight of all the darkness of the humane Intellect there is always some beam that breaks through affording that dubious and confused knowledge we mentioned was found amongst the Nations of the World And how intangled soever the disputes of Philosophers were the rational soul of Man gives always so many proofs of its incorruptibility that the knowledge thereof cannot be totally extinguish'd But as to its estate after this Life it is not onely impossible for men to divine of themselves what it will be by reason of the corruption and irregularity which is befallen their faculties but though the eye of their reason were as clear and luminous as could be desir'd yet they were hardly able to make the least probable conjecture concerning it because God hath written nothing of it in the book of Nature from which we draw all our knowledge But they which are instructed by Religion in the History of the Worlds Original can very easily give account thereof For God having produc'd Man in the Nature of things in such an estate that if he had persisted in it he should not have feared death the revelation of that estate which must follow this Life would have been unprofitable to him who was made in case that the design of his creation had been pursued to live perpetually in the World and never to undergo the separation of his Soul from his Body For that Truth teaches us and likewise reason being informed in this particular either consents to or is convinced of it that it was the Offence which the First Man committed which introduced death into the World To what purpose therefore should God have imprinted in Nature any evidence or token of the estate of man after death since in that first integrity of nature there was no suspition nor shadow of Death it self It is true indeed that God denounced to man that if he degenerated from his integrity he should dye which might have occasion'd some thought in him of the pains which follow death being he knew that his Soul was immortal But the apprehension of punishment after sin and also of that which follows death do's not infer any other of remuneration unless God reveal mercy and hope of pardon after the transgression Which God had not as yet done in the integrity of Nature So that man having from God neither hope of pardon in case he should sin nor any cause to think of death in case he should not sin he had no occasion to raise his mind higher towards a better life But if any one conceives some scruple touching the perpetuity of the life of man upon the Earth if he had not fallen into sin and imagines rather that God after he had lest him for some Ages in the World to practice obedience and virtue would have at last taken him to himself and given a greater recompense then that which he could have injoy'd in a terrestrial felicity he must also confess that to instate man in the injoyment of such remuneration there would have been no need of Death and so that it was not necessarily for him to know what the estate of his Soul after separation from his body should be Moreover whatsoever that compensation would have been which man should have received for his Obedience and Virtue insomuch as it would have been a condition and a glory supernatural some revelation of it must necessarily have been made by another way then nature namely then by the evidences which may be had from consideration of the Works of God and the Government of the World And in truth to hear the Poets and Philosophers speak of it sufficiently evinces that such as have had no other light to guid them in search of these things but that of Nature and Reason have onely groped in the dark For how ridiculous is the description which they make of the Infernal Regions and Elysian Fields Is it not pleasant to behold the Landskip which Virgil hath drawn of them in the sixth Book of his Aeneids where he speaks of Rhadamanthus and the severity of his sentences and forgets not to paint out Tysiphone with her scourges and serpents together with the Furies He also places there hideous Hydra's and I know not what kind of other vile beasts at the gates of Hell and in that horrible prison which he represents twice
certainly to conjecture what the cause of death is God himself would have purposely hid it from them least not being able to discover the remedy of it despair should sink and ruine all the World All other ignorances have been prejudicial and very often pernicious to men to this alone we owe the conservation of humane Society So that we may pertinently apply to this in particular that which Horace speaks generally of the ignorance in which it hath pleased God we should live touching events to come Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosa nocte premit Deus The sole Word of God which is the special revelation we are in quest of is that which accords all these differences and clears up all the difficulties and confusions We shall not dispute at present whether in his first creation the body of man was naturally so well constituted that through prudence whereby he was able to avoid all hurtful things and the use of aliments which the blessing of God rendred as efficacious for the conservation of life by the good and pure qualities which he at first indued them with as now they are often full of noxious juices since the curse of God blasted them for our offence he might without other assistance from the Deity avoid all alteration and corruption either by disease or Age. God hath in the composure of Gold and Diamonds and other like things given sufficient proof of his power and hath so exactly temper'd the contrary qualities of the Elements in the constitution of certain bodies that they seem not subject to any corruption whatsoever And the long life which the first Men liv'd even after sin and the examples of the like we meet with in several profane Histories and some also though few which may be found in the Histories of these latter times give us enough to judge how firm and durable the life of man would be were he as exactly and perfectly fram'd and the aliments that support him as good as the estate of Nature in its integrity could have promised We onely affirm that though as the Philosophers thought the body of man being composed of the Elements and consequently including contrary and repugnant qualities would have carried in its self the seeds of death yet this revelation teaches us that the Wisdom of God would have so provided therein that if no disorder had hapened in the World through sin the propensity which our bodies have to their own dissipation would have been restrain'd and hindred by his Providence For he would have repell'd all sorts of eternal accidents he would have hindred the intemperature of the humors both by preserving them in right harmony and supplying man with aliments indued with excellent faculties and void of all noxiousness and by infusing new vigor of life in time of necessity to hinder the approach of Old-age would have maintained man in a vigorous and flourishing consistence and so given him the immortality of which we have now nothing left but the desire Whence likewise the union of the Soul and Body would have continued to eternity not subject to any important change or evil accident So that admitting death to be an accident that sutes with the natural principles of the composition of their bodies yet the cause that they do dye is because it having been covenanted that the consequences of a mortal condition should be hindred upon condition that man continued in obedience sin supervening hath changed the dispensation of all that and effected that death is become in quality of a punishment and vengeance And this ought nor to be deemed strange For there are things which considered in themselves have nothing so shameful in them but that they may well endure either the presence of another or the publike day-light which yet through the disorder befallen in nature are become ignominious Nakedness which of it self is not dishonest is become unseemly through sin which hath caused rebellion in the corporeal appetites against reason So that they who affirm it indifferent to go naked or clothed shew that extreme profaness hath worn out of their foreheads that shame which causes others to express their consciousness of sin and the unseemliness of the irregularity of our sensual faculties so as to be asham'd of their impudence who are not so themselves Wherefore though death were a natural accident which yet it is not the horror of it is too great to acknowledge no more in it but pure nature and its motions For why then do Infants dye We learn from the same revelation that that so sudden separation of the soul from the Body is not for ever but that the being which is given them though at first it seem's to have been allotted for a moment onely and by consequence little better then not-being shall endure eternally when the considerations shall cease for which it suffer'd the Eclipse of the time that it was to appear in this Life For the being of man when it hath once had a beginning is of perpetual duration and the time of Death is but as an Eclipse of his course But this is not the place for this discourse and therefore we shall add but a word more and pass forward Whether we consider the justice or the goodness of God this revelation amply furnishes us what to answer in defence of both He takes away little children at their birth and notwithstanding does not incur thereby any blame of cruelty because before they were born they deserved that punishment by reason of the natural infection of sin which they drew from those that begat them And indeed as we crush the Eggs of Scorpions before they are hatcht not because they have as yet deserved to be destroy'd for any wound which we have received by them but because in growing up the seeds of venome which that brood hath by nature will infallibly be exerted to our mischief so is it sometimes expedient for God to stifle from the wombe such children as have so many seeds of vice in them that coming to years would do much more mischief then any Scorpion in the World This the Philosophers never understood and therefore could not return in answer But if there opinion were admitted it would be requisite to defer judging of the merit of Infants till they come to the age that ennables them to manifest and display their Vice Moreover God resumes some of them back to himself whom he pleases to render happy by his goodness Nor is it necessary that he should permit them a longer abode in this life that so they might be capable of happiness for their practises of Virtue because he do's not give it as a Salary deserved from his justice by our Virtues but as a beneficence purely out of his liberality which likewise the Philosophers never thought of for according to them if there remains any beatitude to be hoped after this Life it cannot be aspir'd unto but by Virtue How then can Infants obtain
was to be lowly riding upon an Ass a Colt the fole of an Ass And indeed the frail dusty ornaments of the Earth would have been too vile and wretched for him that is the Sun of righteousness of souls Wherefore forasmuch as the Christian Religion refers all the promises of the Messias to the good of the Minde making him to be the Redeemer of souls and attributing to him a spiritual Empire and glory it directs them to their right end from which the carnal imaginations of the Jews had perverted them and hath consequently as great pre-eminence above the Jewish in this point as the soul hath above the body and the Heavens above the Earth CHAP. VII That according to Right Reason and the Old Testament the means of obtaining Salvation ought to be such as the Christian Religion holds forth I Affirmed in the precedent Chapter that the Law of God and the nature of his justice require that either all men perish universally or that some person in their stead endure the punishment which they have merited But because this is the Foundation of the Christian Religion and the most usual stumbling-stone on which the Jews and divers other people fall foul it is requisite for us to discover it something more clearly in this Chapter Certainly if they will confess the truth the natural terrors of their Consciences when they consider the justice of God seriously will make them acknowledge that nature it self directs them in order to the obtaining of solid comfort to seek out a satisfaction of merit proportionate to the Majesty of him to whom it is due and to the demerit of their offenses For not onely the Jews to whom God revealed his vindictive justice more manifestly but others who never heard speak of the Law have been invaded by them Which how could it be did not punishment accompany sin as the shadow a body and that for a man to be quit from the penalty it must either be suffer'd by another or he must be exempt from sin himself And the Natural Instinct which lead them to offer sacrifices in the beginning and which was approv'd and authoris'd by the Law of God under the Old Testament is an evident argument of it For whence was it that soon after sin committed Abel offers the first-lings of his stock in sacrifice and that this example became so powerful to all the posterity of Adam that there ha's been no Nation by whom the death of beasts immolated in sacrifice was not practis'd but onely that nature it self taught him to acknowledge what he had deserved and all others have in like manner follow'd his sentiments So that though they could easily judge that the satisfaction was not proportionate to the dignity of him with whom they thus transacted yet being unable otherwise to satisfie they offer'd that which they could and withal referr'd it to the Wisdom of God to supply the rest Moreover it is apparent by several Nations mention'd above and whose names and customes are recorded both in Holy Profane Histories as the Cananaeans Tyrians Carthaginians Egyptians Cyprians Arabians Persians Scythians Cretans the ancient Grecians ancient Romans Gauls and others who sacrifis'd living men that the opinion which Caesar attributes to the Druydes That it is not possible for the Wrath of the Gods to be appeas'd but by offering the blood of men to them was naturally imprinted in their souls Otherwise man being sufficiently prone to elevate the opinion of his faults and flatter himself partly through an immoderate self-love partly by reason of the little knowledge he hath of the nature of God would never be so inhumanely animated against his own species and even against his own children which some of those Nations were wont to make victimes of And for testimony to this I appeal to mens peculiar thoughts in the administration of humane justice How do they detest murderers and robbers and those that give themselves up to perpetrate heinous crimes And when they observe a Magistrate suffering such persons to go on in impunity do not they judge that he is either like them one of their complices and partakers in their prey or that he connives at their facinorous actions through want of power Certainly when any enormous misdeed is committed there ought no dammage to arrive to the Commonwealth either by the Fact or the example But there is a kind of detestableness in the deed that of it self cryes out for vengeance the impunity of which blots the reputation of him who hath the authority and power of punishing in his hand and brings him into an evil suspition and esteem And he that shall more attentively consider the emanations of his own minde will finde that Nature ha's not onely indued us with the Passion of Anger to be inservient towards defending us from particular injuries which are offered to us but also ha's imprinted in our Minds a Hatred against Wickednesses which do not particularly reach us which causes us not to be satisfied till we have seen vengeance inflicted upon the same But assoon as we have beheld them expiated by sutable punishment our minds acquiesce in the justice done with a kind of satisfaction and our indignation ceases For corrupt qualities and horrid vices in the soul when they come to be discover'd by actions they are like Ulcers and Cancers which hideously deform the visage we divert our thoughts from the former with indignation and our eyes from the latter with nauseousness Now the Virtues which are but little in us are in God in a degree transcendently eminent he possesses as we may speak the body of them whereas we have no more then the shadow As therefore a good Magistrate do's not onely detest Crimes because they are detrimental to the Commonwealth but also by reason of the natural turpitude which renders Vice odious were it not pernitious so that he thinks he do's not satisfie the natural equity of things nor his own Conscience unless he punish it and the more upright a person the Judge is the more hatred do's he bear against Vice for its own sake So God do's not onely punish Sin being the Universal Judge and Magistrate of the World because it produces prejudice to Humane Society and is an enemy to its preservation but also by reason of that internal and essential deformity in it which is so repugnant to the Divine Nature and the natural order of things so that he cannot possibly prevail with himself not to revenge it And the more perfect his Nature is the greater is this natural detestation he hath against sin But to proceed further The Jews consent that men are naturally corrupted by sin and that they have in them from their conception an evil seminary of Vice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they say is like a mountain to the Good and a straw to the Wicked That is they which are immerged in it are not sensible of it no more then a dead man
But there is something more in the matter which is that although some have more apprehensions of them and others less yet all are desirous to be delivered from them and to finde out some remedy against them For there is nothing that so harrasses the mind or gives it such anguish as Fear does and there is no man finds any pleasure in being tormented in that manner How therefore is it come about that men have been so susceptible of these vain terrors seeing we naturally repell those things that are enemies unto us And is it not so much the more considerable that there have been always found some people although they have been very rare among others that have endeavored as Epicurus to deliver men from such affrightments by openly preaching Impiety either by words or example For David complaines that there were some even amongst the Jews that were so devoid of sense as to deny that there is a God or if there be that he takes any consideration of humane actions by his Providence A strange thing that they which would imprint such vain Fears in the mind of Men should have succeeded so happily and so universally therein notwithstanding all the natural repugnances in us against them and they which would deliver us from them could never effect their purpose although they had the assistance of natural profaneness to favour them thereunto Do's not this surpass all astonishment that the Fear of Divine Justice naturally disquiets the souls of men and causes such painful agitations therein and yet notwithstanding if Epicurus should have mounted upon the Theater at Athens and the Poet Lucretius gone into the Pulpit for Orations and there preached to the people the contempt of God and his Thunders that instead of recompensing them for attempting to free men from such a tyrannical opinion the greatest wretches would have been ready to beat out their brains with stones And that those Nations being so inflamed with love of their Liberty and an ardent hatred against Tyrants which affected the Domination over their Goods and Persons that they erected statues in their streets in honor of them that kill'd them should have so great an abhorrence against those which went about to disabuse them from a fancy which oppress'd and tyranniz'd over their souls Surely it must rather be acknowledged that Nature prevail'd and the wrath of God which is in a high degree revealed to men from Heaven and Quae caput a coeli regionibus ostendebat And it helps not to alledge that it hath not been possible for us to be delivered from these Terrors because we have not been instructed in the Doctrine of Epicurus For whosoever looks narrowly thereinto will not without admiration remark two things First that there are very few men but have a propensity to Prophaneness and consequently every one is an Instructer to himself in the Epicurean discipline Yet nevertheless the number is so small that ha's delivered themselves from the inquietudes of conscience that perhaps there never was so much as one person that became absolutely freed from them not even Lucretius or Epicurus himself In some men the more resistance they employ against those assaults the greater is their importunateness and they are re-enforced by the endeavors that are us'd to repell them so that from Impiety to which they would resign up themselves to sin more at ease without being molested by such alarms in the midst of their pleasures they fall into Superstition like a fugitive slave that is drawn back by the throat into his Masters house where he is inforced to obey whether he will or no for fear of the Scourge and the Torture Others indeed go so far that the pleasures wherein they swim and wherewith they almost totally subvert their reason remove in a manner such sentiments out of their minds so as sometimes to make a mockery thereof But 't is as when Criminals give themselves to debaucheries in the Prison For when the fumes of wine are a little exhal'd and they begin to think of their crimes with a setled consideration they fret and are excruciated with the horror of Gibbets and Wheels which are preparing for them But if it happen to them to be always drunk which yet is rarely so yet they are in their sleep tormented with horrible visions and affrighting dreams The second thing observable is that the honester part of mankind are they which feel those Terrors least by reason that a good conscience which hath knowledge of the Goodness of God and his inclination to Mercy assures and reposes it self in the same and notwithstanding such good men abhor that doctrine from the bottom of their hearts that removes all fear of the Deity out of the Mind of Man In so much that they which are least disquieted with these Troubles are the men that esteem them to have their foundations in Nature and to be grounded upon Truth On the contrary they which believe them vain and groundless are the most severely assaulted with them without being able to be released from them In which on the one side shines the Goodness of God towards them that love him sincerely and fear him awfully and on the other side his Justice upon them that disesteem him What man was ever more outragious against God then Caligula or who ever so audaciously contemned his Vengeance And for all that when so ever it thundred as if the Deity had spoke to him from Heaven he hid himself under his Bed as if he intended to make a Buckler of it against the Tempest Whereas in the midst of the Darkness in which the Pagans liv'd Socrates maintained his mind in that same tranquillity at his Death wherein he had pass'd the whole course of his days But there is one thing highly worthy consideration which is that the stings of Conscience are never so sensible and so quick as when men approach near Death or behold themselves in some eminent danger that menaces them And whence should it be so but onely that by the instinct of Nature they presage and anticipate with their fear the misery that attends the Wicked after this Life Misery I say which is so much the more horrible in the apprehensions they have of it by reason that they know not what it is and because all men have a perswasion that their souls are immortal For if Death did extinguish the Soul with the Body and so rescued both the one and the other from the Divine Vengeance and the jurisdiction of Fortune at the same time there would be nothing at all to justifie those fears in reason In case I say those terrors were not natural in us there would be no person but would free himself from them with this consideration There was a time when we were not in Being and one day we shall exist no more which was the consolation of Epicurus But on the contrary then is the time that those Alarms are redoubled and the tempests increase
induce an intire belief of this important verity and which hinder that this tradition is not worn out as so many others have been which had less firm rooting in our Minds All men have been alike perswaded that there is a God and very few have doubted that he is a Rewarder of Virtue and Punisher of Vice Now neither the compensation of the one nor the Penalty of the other is always fully administred in this World even in the judgement of those who have had no great knowledge of the Nature of Sin nor what punishment is competent thereunto And this is the observation from whence they inferr'd that there must be some other time then that of our sojourning in the Body in which that retributive justice should be executed Whence the Opinion of the Souls immortallity ingrafted on the stock of the perswasion of such a Deity hath fix'd its roots so deep that it hath been impossible ever to be eradicated And we have above demonstrated that it must either be acknowledged that those two Propertys must be in God or that he is necessarily ignorant that they are in him But there is hardly sound any one yet that has suppress'd Nature in himself to such a degree Wherefore there must be an other time then that of our abiding in the Body which is appointed to render recompenses and punishments to Souls since they are here dispensed so disproportionately to Vice and Virtue I know well that Pomponatius who under the pretense of defending the Immortality of the Soul hath fought against it and making profession to be a Peripatetick hath embraced the sentiments of Epicurus in this particular answers that although the soul of man should be mortal yet it would have recompense enough for the exercise of Virtue in the possession of Virtue it self Since it is a thing so excellent in its own Nature that it is contented with it self as the Stoicks speak and that all remuneration which it receives besides is either superfluous or not necessary unto it But supposing this to be true of Virtue that they which practice it are sufficiently recompensed by injoying it yet it would not be equally true of Vice that they which addict themselves thereunto are punished enough by doing so For the Impious possessing very frequently so great contentments of Life that the most part of Good men which have lived in all Ages have been scandaliz'd thereat can it reasonably be thought that there is satisfaction enough in this Philosophical speculation that in as much as Vice is the greatest of all Evils it is therefore a sufficient penalty to their Crimes Nature teaches us and the practice of all Nations confirms it that Vice being a Moral Evil that is such as consists in a thing which is of it self dishonest and meriting blame the punishment thereof ought to be in suffering a Physical Evil that is such as consists in the feeling of something which is contrary to nature and painful to it And there was never yet such a Law-giver heard of that established a constitution to punish a man for Robbery by causing him to commit adultery It is so natural to men to esteem not onely that the Punition of Vice consists in Pain but that it is congruous to the natural order of things that whosoever commits Evil in the First manner should be repaid Evil in the Second that they number Nemesis amongst the Virtues which denotes the indignation that we are inflamed with in beholding Good arrive to those that are Evil and on the other side Evil betide them that have otherwise deserved Whence because they believed it proper to the Deity to maintain the orders of nature and to correct the irregularities and deviations that happen therein they have sometimes been carried so far as to doubt that there was a God in as much as they observed according to their apprehension the Just and Pious evilly entreated and the Wicked passing their days in ease and delectation as ample as their wishes Every one knows the verses of Claudian in reference hereunto touching the life and death of Ruffinus and Antiquitie furnishes us with store of other the like testimonies Yea it hath befallen even the Prophets themselves to exclaim upon this occasion Does God in Heaven see what 's done here below Does he observe events and govern Fate For lo Vngodly men like Palm-trees grow And Righteous languish in forlorn estate Either therefore there is a strange Irregularity in Nature or being crimes escape with impunity in this world contrary to what they deserve there must of necessity be vengeance reserved for them in that which is to come Now concerning Virtue although it be natively embellish'd with many beauties incentive of our Love yet so it is that it cannot be it self the price and recompence which appertains to it For what is Virtue but the fair habits of our minds and particularly the good actions which proceed from them And what is a recompense but that which is given in consideration of such good actions and which consequently ought to come other where then from themselves In truth there is not less natural correspondence between Virtue in which Moral Goodness consists and Physical Goodness which is placed in the injoyment and preception of what we naturally desire then there is between there contraries And the discontentment which we conceive in beholding them which take pleasure in Virtue to suffer remarkable calamities in their Lives do's not appear less reasonable to us then the displeasure which we apprehend at the Prosperity of the wicked Which disorder when it happens in the nature of things that good men become miserable do's not less perplex the belief we have of Providence nor less incite us then the other to doubt of the existence of the Deity Witness that complaint of Ovid upon the death of Tibullus Cum rapiant mala sata Bonos ignoscite fasso Sollicitor nullos esse putare Deos. And although the Inclinations which induce Providence to compensate Virtue are not of the same nature with those that oblige it to the punishment of Vice because the inducements to this Latter are sounded on his Justice the rectitude of which ought to be exact and rigorous whereas the former arise from pure Goodness or Mercy yet the notions which we have of the Deity not permitting us to have a less good opinion of his goodness and Mercy then of his Justice the scandal is equal to us in both the one and the other defect Thus you see the same Prophet after his hesitancy at the belief of Providence by reason of the Prosperity of the Wicked immediately after complains that his integrity and his innocence were unprofitable unto him seeing they did not repreive him from the Evils which he continually endured And he professes that this thought gave him so much inquietude and trouble and the inequality of things seemed to him so preposterous and scandalous that he could not well reassure himselfe
experiences of people who amidst aches and mutilations and losses of their limbs have preserved the whole strength of their Minds intire till death it must needs be that this Tabernacle lodgeth something else that is of a more durable temper Whence it is easie to conclude that since it is not a Body it must be an immaterial substance and consequently incorruptible For being of a spiritual nature it cannot be assailed by external things which offend us nor suffer from any accident that befalls it from without and holding nothing of the matter of the Elements or their contrary qualities which naturally encounter one another to their mutual destruction it involves not in it self any seed of corruption which seems to attend every thing that is composed of them I shall add moreover what ha's been above demonstrated that there is so great a difference between Vice and Virtue that he that do's not acknowledge the same is unworthy the name of a man Which how is it possible for us to acknowledge if the Faculties of our Minds be not different from those of Brutes since they have no understanding at all of it For it is certain that we argue from the disproportion of effects to the difference of causes and from the diversity of actions to that of the Faculties which produce them and lastly from the difference of Faculties to that of the essence it self of the things in which those faculties reside If therefore Brutes have no knowledge of Good and Evil as every one sees they have not and if we perceive an infinite distance between them as reason informs us and our conscience acquiesces therein and the consentment of Nations hath declared in all the World it follows that there is an infinite disproportion between our Faculties and theirs and consequently that the like distance is found between the essence of their Souls and that of ours And I appeal to reason whether being the perfection of a Man consists in the knowledge of the most excellent objects and in the exercise of Virtue and the perfection of a good Horse lyes in the strength of his Limbs and in the agility of his motions whether I say it be not abundantly evident that the excellence of the one lyes in his Body and the excellence of the other in some thing wherewith the body hath scarce any communication or commerce Whence it necessarily follows that their natures differ wholly and absolutely in regard of reason which alone is capable of conferring that perfection on man as weighty things differ from light by the massive solidity of their matter in which gravity is seated and as the circular Figure is discriminated from the rest by the roundness of its circumference equally distant from the centre Of which the luctation and combate of reason against the corporeal appetites which even Aristotle and other Philosophers have plainly acknowledged affords a testimony satisfactorily manifest For since there is no shadow of such reluctance in Brutes who follow their sensuality without any rule or check and that the same is sound in the most dissolute men in whom conscience cannot be absolutely extinguish'd it follows that it must have its original from something which is naturally destitute of that sensuality and consequently which is also not corporeal Because it is manifest that those appetites which are called sensitive and are common to us with Brutes have their seat and root in the Body and depend on that Soul by which we have resemblance with them in asmuch as we are Animals Wherefore whether there be in man two distinct Souls one Sensitive as it is called by which we are Animals and the other Reasonable by which we are men or whether there be but one onely which is indued with different faculties whereby we are provided to perform all the Functions appertaining to those two respects it is clear that that sensitive faculty is not displayed but in the Body being so linked to it as never to be separable from it and that on the contrary the other is not seated in the body since it is designed to check our appetites which it performs oftentimes with very great violence and power And this is so true and so universally received saving by the Epicureans who think they have won the Palme for noble inventions in Philosophy because they have degraded themselves to the rank of Brutes that the most excellent persons have been so far from believing the Soul to perish with the Body that on the contrary not being able to conjecture how after the dissipation of the Body they could ever be reunited and render the whole man immortal they have affirmed that the Soul in which the Understanding resides is really the man and that the Body is not but as the receptacle and prison But by the grace of God we shall see hereafter that man was created for immortality as well in reference to his body as to his Soul and that being fallen from this prerogative by sin he hath been restored thereunto by the Divine clemency and mercy Seeing it is so therefore that the Soul of man subsists after separation from the Body and consequently is of an incorruptible substance it follows of necessity that there is somthing to be hoped and feared from the Deity and that though his Providence were not so cleerly intelligible in the world here yet at least his justice is to be dreaded in that which is to come For what will become of the soul after Death Will she act or will she be buried in eternal sleep Certainly she is of a nature so active vigilant and averse from idleness that it is with regret that she allows the body its necessary intervals of refreshment Even as plung'd and immur'd as she is in it when that is at rest she is not surpris'd with sleep but is ever imploy'd on some kind of speculations how unprofitable and extravagant soever they be Like as a Musitian that is affected to the exercise of his Art chooses rather to play on his Lute though half untuned and at the inconvenience of making false Musick and committing dissonances then to suffer his fingers to become torpid by continued disuse And the more excellent she is that is the more exercis'd in generous contemplations the more she hates repose even to the abandoning all care of her habitation though she otherwise loves and is a good companion unto it So that she would be clean diverted from the end to which Nature ha's designed her if she were condemned to a perpetuall sleep in eternal night What then will her occupations be at that time Will she frequent in Towns or will she resort to unhabited placs Neither of which is worthy of her nor sutable to her inclinations Whilst she is here by reason of the body confined to sensible things yet she quits her self from them oftentimes to busie her vivacity in the contemplation of those which are intellectual For whatsoever beauty the World hath
power then other men to conjoyn them actually and really together In which impossibility of amassing a supreme Good in the World of so many pieces and consolidating them so well together that their Union be never discompos'd who sees not the necessary despair there is of all humane power to obtain the same Which despair of obtaining cannot of consequence but cause the pursuit to be abandon'd So that as Nature hath given us the Desire to be happy Necessity will have bound us down to a perpetual despair of being so And the most excellent of all things in the world and for which all the rest seem to have been made shall never arrive to its end but shall appear as if it were purposely framed to be tormented continually with the dispair of never being able to reach it's injoyment In which respect that of Horace to a Miser will be as applicable to every man Tantalus a labris sitiens fugientia captat Flumina quid rides mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur I shall proceed yet something further The desires which men have are of two sorts Of which the first are conformable to Nature and do nothing at all encounter reason The second are extravagant and repugnant thereunto As if a man should desire to be all spirit and to have no Body at all this were an extravagance to which right reason cannot assent For t is to desire not onely a thing which will not but likewise which cannot be being involved in a manifest contradiction in as much as a man cannot be a man without having a body nor have a body and be all spirit together And if he should desire to be metamorphis'd into the nature of those simple Intelligences which we commonly called Angels and are not destinated to be conjoyned to Bodies his wish would not be less absurd Because in case he should become such a simple and immaterial Intelligence he were no longer the same person but should in effect desire the abolition of his own being for that in transmutations wherein the form it self of the thing as they speak perishes the thing perishes also Whence it would concern him as little to be an Angel as to be a Dog and to desire one as the other It is not from such desires as these that we are to deduce arguments to shew what is the nature of man and of his Soul because they which make them deviate from the rules of Nature The other sort of wishes which are suggested by her and are not thwarted or checked by reason which I say do not destroy the form of our being but ennoble and advance it are they which ought to be taken for manifest indices either of what we naturally are or at least of what we ought to be For whence should those desires happen to us if they be not inspir'd by Nature And to what end should they have been placed in us if that of which we received of them never intended to give us the satisfaction and injoyment they aim at Admitting it were possible for us to compass all those things which are necessary to make up the supream Good of Aristotle and that we were in full possession thereof besides that natural desire of the supreme Good which might seem to be contented in the injoyment there would be left another not less vehement or less inrooted in us which is that of the perpetuity of such felicity without any alteration or interruption whatsoever Now when we should with all imaginable care have cemented the parts together that compose it when we should have nailed linked and invested them so that there would be nothing but death able to dissolve the junctures yet it would last but for our Life our Life could not last to the end of an Age. And then what would become of those desires of injoying the same for millions of years even to perpetuity But some may here arrest my course and demand whether experience shows not that it is impossible to obtain a beatitude durable for ever For who is he that is exempted from Death Wherefore since wise persons do not onely not consult about things absolutely impossible but do not so much as desire them or if they happen to let a wish escape from them by some suddain impetus of nature they presently bring the discourse of reason to repress it it follows necessarily that such desire of a perpetual felicity is out of the limits of reason and by consequence ought to be check'd by it rather then cherish'd and encouraged For death which happens universally without priviledge to any renders not the injoyment of a perpetual Good more impossible to all men then the weaknes of our minds the inclination which we have naturally to vice and the infinite multitude of inevitable miseries attending humane condition renders impossible the possession of the Happiness which Aristotle describes and terminates within the duration of our Lives And nevertheless none ever condemned that desire in man of his felicity none ever accounted it but both natural and reasonable Moreover it is manifest that all the World desires Immortality and the things which we have already deduced demonstrate the same Yet there never was any person that attain'd it Must it therefore be concluded that the desire of it is absurd and besides the rules of reason and Nature Epicurus himself did not account it so who amidst the gripings of the Stone and upon the very confines of death comforts himself with the immortal glory which his Philosophical contemplations had acquired and should preserve for him to perpetuity Cicero professeth Death is terrible to them who leave nothing of themselves after departure out of this life but not to those whose praises cannot dye Alexander esteemed Achilles happy in that he had Homer to celebrate his Virtues and high atchievments of Armes being his memory would remain consecrated to eternity in the Poem of the Iliads And himself made profession that he did not at all fear death because he beliv'd his victories would render him immortal And not so much but Ennius the Poet presag'd he should live for ever in the mouthes and memories of men by means of his Verses Ovid and Horace promise themselves nothing less from their Works then that they shall continue their names throughout all successions of time speaking of them as trophies erected to exempt them from the Power of the Fatal Sisters Such as cannot hope the same from their works or great exploits expect at least to survive in their children and would be very effectually comforted against death if they could be assured that by help of their Pictures or Front of their Houses their posterity should retain the remembrance of their countenances from age to age Therefore as the impossibility of obtaining from this Life the supreme Good described by Aristotle do's not hinder but that man was framed by nature to possess it and as the impossibility of obtaining immortality do's as
would seem to carry something of inhumanity of which it is incongruous that he should propose himself an example God who is so good hath so many other means in his hand to lead men to Virtue would never willingly employ any thereunto for which he might be accus'd of barbarousness and cruelty especially seeing it is an accident so frequent that in a Town of a thousand families there do's not pass one day in the year in which it do's not happen 'T is true for certain great and important considerations Kings are excused if they sometimes commit some act of injustice or violence But this must be very rarely done and onely when the safety of the State is concern'd Yet Lucretia could not contain from crying out upon the death of Iphigenia who was sacrific'd for the safety of all Greece Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum But that there should dye five or six times as many Children in the Cradle as attain to mans estate seems an irregularity which not onely an Epicurean but the most devout and pious amongst the Philosophers cannot but judge unsupportable Above all other considerations the Fear which the thought of death begets naturally in all men deserves our animadversion For how couragious so ever any may endevour to appear 't is as Aristotle calls it the most terrible of all terrors And as one hath observed if Julius Câ—sar who was magnanimity it self said that the most unexpected death was the sweetest and most desirable which testifies that he resented some dread when he thought of it what may we think of the horrors which other men have of it And this Fear does not arise onely from the apprehension that a man shall exist no more but it hath something of I know not what other violence and bitterness For otherwise nature and reason being two things which accord very well together if death were purely natural reason would finde something in that consideration wherewith to be comforted and gently drink off that Cup. But experience shews that the consolations taken from the necessity of Nature and the example of so many other deaths are too weak and of too little efficacy when the business is to strengthen a soul that trembles at the presence of death Which if there have been some that were generously resolv'd to undergo they have been very few in number and almost none in comparison of so many men yea Nations to whom the alarms of death have been terrible and hideous For I do not put in the rank of such as resolve generously against it those Caitifs that tye the rope to their own necks and drink to their companions upon the Ladder For this is so far from true generosity conjoyn'd with the discourse of reason that it is meer stupidness and more then bestial brutality And it is diligently to be observed that they who believe not that their Soul is immortal comfort themselves more easily then others do with the consideration of the necessity of death and say that as the Generations which preceeded their Birth belonged nothing at all to them because they were not yet in being so they ought not to care for those which follow after their death in regard they shall be no longer and that Agamemnon is dead and Romulus and Patroclus and the Scipio's Qui multis quam tu meliores improbe rebus And I believe the greatest part of those that have shewn so high a courage in contemning death among the Pagans had not much consideration of their future condition As it is clear by Socrates who says in Plato that he knew not which was best to live or to dye and that it were a folly to redoubt a thing of which there is no certain knowledge whether it be desirable or to be feared Whereas they that think seriously of immortality find nothing in nature that encourages or comforts them A sure evidance that death hath something of terror in it which does not proceed from nature but from something else for they would at least have more ground of consolation then the others in the subsistence of the better part of their essence Now whence can that horror be but onely that death is the forerunner of divine vengeance and makes up a part of it already If hereupon they agree that it is a punishment for sin certainly since all other Philosophers have held it to be simply natural they cannot know it to be so by any other way then that divine revelation that hath inform'd us by what gate it entred into the World For none of the Ancients ever found out or could so much as divine in a dream what was the cause of it And so far were they from having it come into their minds that on the contrary some have believed that Death was rather a gift and gratification to us from the Deity then a punishment inflicted by his Justice Which opinion the innumerable miseries of humane life greatly concurr'd to render authentick the undergoing whereof being look'd upon as so dolorous that sometime the deliverance from them ha's been accounted the greatest good that could arrive Or if some few have not dared to affirm absolutely that death was a Good yet they maintain'd at least that it was no Evil since it rescues men from all calamities which they suffer To fear death said Socrates to his Judges is nothing else but to seem to be wise and not to be so For it is to pretend to know that which we do not know because none knows what death is nor whether it be not the greatest good that can befall a man To which Plutark refers that exhortation of an ancient Greek Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metuenda non est mors arumnarum exitus So also the greatest part of the reflections of Cicero upon this matter in the first of the Tusculane Questions fall into the Dilemma of Socrates To wit that if the soul be extinguish'd with the body and so the sense of all things be absolutely abolish'd death cannot really be an Evil because a man being thereby wholly depriv'd of existence and exempted from among the nature of things that which is not is equally incapable both of Evil and Good But if the soul survive the Body death is so far from being an evil that it ought rather to be accounted in the number of the greatest goods seeing it delivers from the evils of this present life and puts a man in possession of the contentments of a better upon which he does not omit to mention the converse with the Heroes wherein Socrates placed the greatest part of the hopes of his joy But the business is of higher importancy For though the Light of Nature should have taught men that death is an effect of the justice of God yet is it impossible as we shall see in due place for the same to discover to them the remedy thereof And I conceive that though the reason of man should have been able
how shall the goodness of God which we have abundantly shewn is the liberal rewarder of Virtue render to the body the free recompense of the service it hath done the Soul in the practise thereof and of the obedience which its natural appetites have yielded to reason unless it be raised again from the dust Certainly as we said above man is not onely the Soul he is the body also both which contribute respectively to Virtue of which man is capable Wherefore they ought both to be interested in the reward And that justice which is the avenger of sin and without which the Providence of God would be too narrow and defective how will that acquit its charge unless it equally punish the body with the soul Seing they are usually the affections of the body that debauch the mind and 't is the pleasure of the senses that prevents and misguids our reason But the punishment would not be equally proportioned and distributed to the Soul and Body if the soul were miserable to eternity and the body wholly exempted from it to exist no more And the condition of the body would be happy in comparison of that of the mind although the defect of both were equal Moreover the penalty encreasing proportionably to the dignity of him against whom the offense is committed for an outrage done to an inferior person is punisht otherwise then that which is committed against a Soverain Magistrate the justice of God being an infinite power an immense and unlimited dignity and authority how could the punishment of the body by being no more be proportional to the justice of God Or if the justice of God can be satisfied for the offense committed against it with the extinguishment of the body without revival to perpetuity why is not the soul also extinguisht with the body without remaining exposed to a continual and perpetual punishment Certainly it must either be that the body suffers with the soul eternally for satisfaction of the justice of God sutably to his infinite dignity or the soul must be extinguish'd together with the body But neither the justice of the God nor the nature of the soul suffers the same to perish or be abolish'd and therefore the body must be raised from death to partake of the same compensation with it Moreover of how great importance is it for consolation of our minds against the fear of death For death being naturally terrible to all men and the separation of the soul from the body full of bitterness and anguish what more effectual comfort can be received then to expect after a peaceable repose in the grave to be raised by the hand of God from it not to restore us the injoyment of this life that so we might dye over again but to live an eternal life in unexpressible contentment Besides what sweeter consolation in the loss of our friends which is oftentimes more grievous to us then death it self then the hope that they and we shall one day arise from the earth to dwell together in celestial glory Certainly he that represents to himself what joy friends receive here upon an unexpected meeting after divers years absence may in a manner conjecture with what gladness we shall resent the day of that happy resurrection Whence I conceive that excepting the assurance of pardon of sins which delivers the soul it self from the apprehensions of death eternal there is nothing so capable of inflaming the mind of man with love towards God as the hope of resurrection For next to deliverance from the death of the soul which consists in the sense of a remorse and eternal distress what can be more sweet then the deliverance from the death of the body which is to have no more sense nor motion nor life nor being And from the doctrine of the Resurrection however profane men gainsay it results an admiration of the Wisdom of God in reuniting things which nature had so straitly conjoin'd together For since death as we have shewn is not a natural thing but an accident superven'd contrary to the purpose of nature and the design of the first formation of man who in regard of the excellence of his soul ought to be an immortal creature though in reference to his body he was composed of the matter of the Elements what is there more sutable to Divine Wisdom then to reunite without injury either to his justice or his goodness what death had separated by a kind of violence For to repeat those words of of Phocylides it is not meet to dissolve the fair harmony of man And lastly though the power of God may be well understood other ways yet herein is one of the greatest and most admirable testimonies of it to wit that from the earth and the Sea and the entrals of birds and beasts shall be required the bodies of men and that their ashes which are dispers'd and confus'd amongst the Elements shall be recover'd and recollected with so much art that every one shall resume his own body without confusion or mixture Whence is it therefore that this doctrine gives offense and scandal to some Is it repugnant to the Wisdom of God We have prov'd it agreeable thereunto And it would argue defect of wisdom in God if he knew not to distinguish in this confusion of the Elements the places from whence to retake one day the reliques of our members Is it impossible to his power Surely no if we account the same infinite and it is verily infinite if it be divine To conclude doth it encounter reason There is none of us but would naturally desire the resurrection of his body if he esteemed it a thing possible Wherefore seeing God reveals to us both that he will and can do it what is to be doubted more but that reason consents in this desire with nature CHAP. VIII What understanding can be had of true Virtue without a particular Revelation HItherto we have shewn that in the things which relate directly to God and his service and the motives of true and sincere piety men have either been without a particular revelation or absolutely blind or so unresolv'd and wavering in what they knew thereof that they could not from thence render any true devotion to God nor receive any solid consolation to themselves Our next task should be to shew that they likewise needed a particular revelation for the knowledge of true Virtue which ought to be followed amongst men but my design will not permit me to deduce that point at length onely I am to desire the Reader to take notice of two things Indeed I will not question but that they have had far more knowledge of true vertue by the light of nature alone then they had of the requisites and concernments of true piety The excellent instructions of Philosophers commendable Laws of Republicks virtuous deeds of great personages and the universal consent of all Nations any thing civilis'd shew by the account they made of Virtue