understanding conceives spiritual Objects is not confin'd to singular and present things Reflects upon it self Corrects the errors of the sense Does not suffer from the excellence of the Object Is vigorous in its operations when the body is decay'd which proves it to be an immaterial faculty An answer to objections against the Souls spiritual Nature That the first notices of things are conveyed through the senses does not argue it to be a material faculty That it depends on the temper of the Body in its superior operations is no prejudice to its spiritual Nature HAving dispatch'd the consideration of the prime fundamental Truth that there is a most Wise and Powerful Creator of all things I shall next discourse of the Immortality of the humane Soul and the Eternal recompences in the future State In treating of the Souls Immortality I shall not insist on nice and subtile Speculations that evaporate and leave nothing substantial for conviction or practice but consider those proofs that may induce the mind to assent and work upon the will to make its choice of objects with respect to their endless consequences hereafter And first it must be premised that Immortality is not an inseparable perfection of its nature for 't is capable of annihilation What ever had a beginning may have an end God only hath immortality in an absolute sense and communicates it according to his pleasure The perpetual existence of Souls is a priviledge that depends on his sustaining vertue without which they would relapse into a state of not Being His Will is the measure of their duration I shall therefore consider such things as strongly argue that God will not withdraw his conservative influence that is necessary to their Immortality The Arguments are of two sorts Natural and Moral The first prove that God has made the Soul incapable of Death by any Internal Causes of perishing from its Nature and in that declares not obscurely that he will ever preserve it The second sort are drawn from the Divine Attributes the visible Oeconomy of Providence in the government of the World that are infallible and will produce a sufficient conviction in minds equally inclin'd 1. The Soul is incapable of Death by any Internal Causes of perishing in its Nature The dissolution of things proceeds from the corruptible principles of which they are compounded and the separable parts of which they consist and into which they are resolved Therefore all mixt and material Beings are subject to dissolution But the humane Soul is a spiritual substance simple without any disagreeing qualities as heat and cold moisture and driness the seeds of corruption The essences of things are best discover'd by their peculiar operations that argue a real distinction between them and from whence arise the different notions whereby they are conceived The soul of a Brute performs the same vital acts as the soul of a Plant yet 't is visibly of a more elevated nature because it performs the functions of the sensitive life that are proper to it The rational Soul performs the same sensitive acts as the soul of Brutes but that it is of a higher order of substances appears by its peculiar objects and immediate operations upon them The two principal faculties of the humane Soul are the Understanding and the Will and the Actions flowing from them exceed the power of the most refined matter however modified and transcend any Principle that is only endowed with the powers of sense and imagination confin'd to matter To proceed orderly I will first consider the Mind with respect to the quality of its objects and manner how it is conversant about them 1. The conception of things purely spiritual God Angels separate Souls the Analogies the differences and various respects of things argue it to be of a spiritual nature For 't is and evident principle there must be an Analogy between the Faculty and the Object A material Glass cannot represent a Spirit it has no receptivity to take into it an object without figure colour and diversity of parts the affections of matter A spiritual object can only be apprehended by a spiritual operation and that can only be produced by a spiritual Power The being of things is the root of their working Now rarifie matter to the highest fineness reduce it to imperceptible Atoms 't is as truly Matter as a gross Body For lightness and tenuity are as proper Attributes of matter as weight and density though less sensible If a Beast could apprehend what discourse is it were rational The Soul therefore that understands the Spirituality of things is Spiritual otherwise it should act extra sphaeram The intellectual eye alone sees him that is Invisible understands the reasons of Truth and Justice looks beyond the bright Hills of Time into the Spiritual Eternal World so that 't is evident there is an affinity and likeness in Nature between them 2. Material faculties are confin'd to the narrow compass of singular and present things but the Mind abstracts from all individuals their pure Nature and forms their Universal Species The Eye can only see a colour'd object before it the Mind contemplates the nature of Colours It ascends above all the distinctions of Time recollects what is past foresees what is to come no interval of space or time can hinder its sight Besides the swift flight of the thoughts over Sea and Land the soaring of the Mind in a moment above the Stars as if its essence were all vigour and activity prove that 't is not a material Power 3. Sense only acts in a direct way without reflecting upon its self or its own operations 'T is true there is an experimental perception included in vital and sensible acts but 't is far below proper reflection The Eye doth not see the action by which it sees nor the imagination reflect on it self for that being conversant only about representations transmitted through the senses cannot frame an Image of it self and gaze upon it there being no such resemblance conveyed by the mediation of the outward organs But the rational Soul not only contemplates an object but reflects on its own contemplation and retir'd from all commerce with External things views it self its qualities and state and by this gives testimony of its Spiritual and immortal Nature 4. The Mind rectifies the false reports of the Senses and forms the Judgment of things not according to their impressions but by such rational evidence of which they are not capable When the Object is too distant or the Medium unfit or the Organs distemper'd the Senses are deceived The Stars of the brightest magnitude seem to be trembling sparks of light but the Understanding considers that the representations of things are imperfect and less distinct proportionably to their distance and conceives of their magnitude accordingly A straight Oar appears crooked in the Water but Reason observes the error in the refractions when the Image passes through a double medium of
unequal clearness Sweet things taste bitter to one in a Feaver but the mind knows that the bitterness is not in the things but in the viciated Palat. Moreover how many things are collected by Reason that transcend the power of fancy to conceive nay are repugnant to its conception What corporeal Image can represent the immensity of the Heavens as the Mind by convincing arguments apprehends it The Antipodes walk erect upon the Earth yet the Fancy cannot conceive them but with their Heads downward Now if the Mind were of the same nature with the corporeal Faculties their judgment would be uniform 5. The Senses suffer to a great degree by the excessive vehemence of their Objects Too bright a light blinds the Eye Too strong a sound deafs the Ear. But the Soul receives vigor and perfection from the excellence and sublimity of its object and when most intent in contemplation and concenter'd in its self becomes as it were all Mind so that the operations of it as sensitive are suspended feels the purest delights far above the perception of the lower faculties Now from whence is the distemper of the Senses in their exercise but from matter as well that of the Object as the Organ And from whence the not suffering of the Mind but from the impressing the forms of Objects separated from all matter and consequently in an immaterial faculty for there is of necessity a convenience and proportion as between a Being and the manner of its operations so between that and the subject wherein it works This strongly argues the Soul to be immaterial in that 't is impassible from matter even when it is most conversant in it For it refines it from corporeal accidents to a kind of spirituality proportioned to its nature And from hence proceeds the unbounded capacity of the Soul in its conceptions partly because the forms of things inconsistent in their natures are so purified by the Mind as they have an objective existence without enmity or contrariety partly because in the workings of the Mind one act does not require a different manner from another but the same reaches to all that is intelligible in the same order 6. The Senses are subject to languishing and decay and begin to die before Death But the Soul many times in the weakness of Age is most lively and vigorously productive The intellectual Off-spring carries no marks of the decays of the Body In the approaches of Death when the corporeal faculties are relaxt and very faintly perform their functions the workings of the Soul are often rais'd above the usual pitch of its activity And this is a pregnant probability that 't is of a spiritual Nature and that when the Body which is here its Prison rather than Mansion falls to the Earth 't is not opprest by its ruines but set free and injoys the truest liberty This made Heraclitus say that the Soul goes out of the Body as Lightning from a Cloud because it 's never more clear in its conceptions than when freed from matter And what Lucretius excellently expresses in his Verses is true in another sense than he intended Cedit item retro de Terra quod fuit ante In Terram sed quod missum est ex Aetheris oris Id rursus Coeli fulgentia Templa receptant What sprung from Earth falls to its native place What Heav'n inspir'd releast from the weak tye Of flesh ascends above the shining Sky Before I proceed I will briefly consider the Objections of some who secretly favour the part of impiety 1. 'T is objected That the Soul in its intellectual operations depends on the Phantasms and those are drawn from the representations of things conveyed through the senses But it will appear this does not enervate the force of the Arguments for its spiritual nature For this dependence is only objective not instrumental of the Souls perception The first images of things are introduc'd by the mediation of the senses and by their presence for nothing else is requisit the mind is excited and draws a Picture resembling or if it please not resembling them and so operates alone and compleats its own work Of this we have a clear experiment in the conceptions which the mind forms of things so different from the first notices of them by the Senses The first apprehensions of the Deity are from the visible effects of his Power but the Idea in which the understanding contemplates him is fram'd by removing all imperfections that are in the Creatures and consequently that he is not corporeal For whatsoever is so is liable to corruption that is absolutely repugnant to the perfection of his nature Now the common Sense and Fancy only powerful to work in Matter cannot truely express an immaterial Being Indeed as Painters by their Colours represent invisible things as Darkness the Winds the Internal affections of the heart so that by the representations the thoughts are awakn'd of such objects so the fancy may with the like Art shadow forth Spiritual Beings by the most resembling forms taken from sensible things Thus it imagins the Angels under the likeness of young Men with Wings to express their vigor and velocity But the Mind by its internal light conceives them in another manner by a Spiritual form that exceeds the utmost efficacy of the corporeal Organs so that 't is evident the Soul as intellectual in its singular and most proper operations is not assisted by the ministry of the Senses 2. 'T is objected that the Soul in its superiour operations depends on the convenient temper of the Body The thoughts are clear and orderly when the Brain is compos'd On the contrary when the predominancy of any humour distempers it the Mind feels its infirmities And from hence it seems to be of a corporeal nature depending on the Body in its being as in its working But this if duly consider'd will raise no just prejudice against its Spiritual Immortal Nature For 1. The sympathy of things is no convincing Argument that they are of the same Nature There may be so strict a union of Beings of different natures that they must necessarily be subject to impressions from one another Can any Reasons demonstrate that a Spiritual substance endowed with the powers of understanding and will cannot be united in a vital composition to a Body as the Vegetative Soul is in Plants and the Sensitive in Beasts There is no implicite repugnance in this that proves it impossible Now if such a complex Being were in Nature how would that spiritual Soul act in that Body that in its first union with it excepting some universal Principles is a rasa tabula as a white Paper without the notices of things written in it Certainly in no other imaginable manner than as Man's Soul does now Indeed if Man as compounded of Soul and Body were a sensitive Animal and only rational as partaking of the Universal Intellect bent to individuals for a time and retiring at Death to
its first Being as Averroes fancied there would be no cause of such a Sympathy but the Soul as intellectual is an informing not assisting form And it is an evident proof of the Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator by this strict and sensible union to make the Soul vigilant and active to provide for the convenience and comfort of the Body in the present state and that notwithstanding such a discord in Nature there should be such a concord in inclinations 2. Though the mental operations of the Soul are hindred by the ill habit of the Body yet the mind suffers no hurt but still retains its intellectual power without impairing A skilful Musitian does not lose his Art that plays on an harp when the strings are false though the Musick is not so harmonious as when 't is justly tuned The visive faculty is not weakned when the Air by a collection of gross vapours is so thick that the eye cannot distinctly perceive distant objects When by the heats of Wine or a Disease the Spirits are inflam'd and made fierce and unruly and the Images in the Fancy are put into confusion the mind cannot regularly govern and use them When the fumes are evaporated the Brain is restor'd to its temper and fitness for intellectual operations but the mind is not cur'd that was not hurt by those Distempers Briefly the Deniers of the Souls Immortality resemble in their arguings some who oppos'd the Divinity of our Saviour For as Apollinaris and Eunomius from Christ's sleeping so profoundly in a storm instead of concluding that he was a real Man falsly inferr'd that he was not God Because sleep is not the satisfaction of a Divine appetite the Deity is incapable of it But they consider'd not his more than humane Power in rebuking the Winds and the Sea with that Empire that was felt and obeyed by those insensible creatures so those whose interest inclines them to believe that Man is entirely mortal alledg that he acts as a sensitive Creature for he is so but consider not that he has also more noble faculties to understand objects purely spiritual and God himself the most perfect in that order which no material principle though of the most subtile and finest contexture can reach unto Besides the more 't is disengaged from Matter and retir'd from the senses the more capable it is to perform its most exalted operations and consequently by an absolute separation 't is so far from perishing that it ascends to its perfection For the manner how it acts in the separate state 't is to no purpose to search being most secret and 't will be to no purpose to find as being of no influence to excite us to the constant and diligent performance of our duty 'T is therefore a fruitless curiosity to inquire after it But to imagine that because the Soul in the present state cannot understand clearly without the convenient disposition of the Body therefore it cannot act at all without it is as absur'd as to fancy because a man confin'd to a Chamber cannot see the objects without but through the Windows therefore he cannot see at all but through such a Medium and that when he is out of the Chamber he has totally lost his sight CHAP. IX The acts of the Will consider'd It s choice of things distastful to Sense and sometimes destructive to the Body argue it to be a spiritual principle The difference between Man and Brutes amplified The Spiritual operations of the Soul may be perform'd by it self in a separate state This is a strong proof God will continue it The Platonick argumeut that man unites the two orders of Natures intelligent and sensible Immortal and perishing 2. THe acts of the Will that imperial faculty prove it to be of a higher order of substance than the sensitive Soul The Brutes are acted by pure necessity their powers are moved and determined by the external application of objects 'T is visible that all kinds of sensitive Creatures in all times are carried in the same manner by the potent sway of Nature towards things sutable to their corporeal faculties But the rational Will is a principle of free election that controuls the lower appetite by restraining from the most pleasant and powerful allurements and choosing sometimes the most distastful things to sense Now from whence arises this contention If the rational Will be not of a higher nature than the sensual appetite why does it not consent with its inclinations How comes the Soul to mortifie the most vehement desires of the body a part so near in Nature so dear by Affection and so apt to resent an injury And since 't is most evident that sensitive Creatures always with the utmost of their force defend their Beings from whence is it that the rational Soul in some cases against the strongest recoile and reluctance of Nature exposes the body to Death If it depended on the body for subsistence it would use all means to preserve it Upon the sight of contrary motions in an engine we conclude they are caused by diverse springs and can such opposite desires in Man proceed from the same principle If the rational Soul be not of a sublimer order than the sensitive it follows that Men are Beasts and Beasts are Men. Now 't is as impossible to be what they are not as not to be what they are But do the Beasts reverence a Divine Power and at stated times perform acts of solemn Worship Is Conscience the immediate rule of their Actions will Lectures of temperance chastity justice arrest them in the eager pursute of sensual satisfactions Do they feel remorse in doing ill and pleasure in doing well Do they exercise the Mind in the search of Truth have they desires of a sublime intellectual good that the low sensual part cannot partake of have they a capacity of such an immense Blessedness that no finite Object in its qualities and duration can satisfy Ask the Beasts and they will tell you Their actions declare the contrary But the humane Soul has awful apprehensions of the Deity distinguishes of things by their agreement or disconformity to his Laws It s best and quickest Pleasures and most piercing wounding Troubles are from Moral Causes What colour what taste has Vertue yet the purified Soul is inflam'd by the views of its most amiable thô not sensible beauty and delighted in its sweetness How often is it so ravish'd in contemplation of God the great Object of the rational Powers as to lose the desire and memory of all carnal things What stronger Argument and clearer Proof can there be of its affinity with God than that Divine things are most sutable to it for if the rational Soul were of the same order with the sensitive as it could not possibly conceive any being more excellent than what is corporeal so it could only relish gross things wherein Sense is conversant The Sum of what has been discourst of
and in true comparison infinitely excells all the allurements of Sin 2. 'T is true that as natural actions that are necessary to preserve the Species or the Individuals are mixt with sensible pleasures as an attractive to the performance of them so there is joyn'd to actions of Vertue that are more excellent a present complacency of a superiour Order to all carnal pleasures But 't is a frigid conceit that this is the entire reward For first besides the inward satisfaction that naturally results from the practice of Vertue there is an excellent Good that is properly the reward of the supream Governor of the World We have an Example of this in humane Justice which is an image of the divine For those who have been eminently serviceable to the State besides the joyful sense arising from the performance of Heroick Actions for the Good of their Country are rewarded by the Prince with great Honours and Benefits 2. This inward Joy is not here felt by all Holy Persons In this militant state after vigorous resistance of carnal Lusts they may change their Enemies and be assaulted with violent Fears and instead of a sweet calm and serenity fall into darkness and confusion The Soul and Body in the present conjunction mutually sympathize As two things that are unisons if one be touch't and moves the other untouch't yet moves and trembles The ‖ cause is from the Vibrations the sound makes in the Air and impresses on solid Bodies moving them according to the harmonious proportion between them Thus the Soul and the Body are two strings temper'd to such a correspondence that if one be moved the other resents by an impression from it If the Body be Sanguin or Cholerick or Melancholy the Soul by a strange consent feels the motion of the humors and is altered with their alterations Now some of excellent vertue are opprest with Melancholy Others are under strong pains that disturb the free operations of the mind that it cannot without Supernatural strengih delightfully contemplate what is a just matter of content The Stoical Doctrine that a wise Man rejoyces as well in torments as in the midst of pleasures that 't is not in the power of any external evil to draw a sigh or tear from him that he is sufficient in himself for happiness is a Philosophical Romance of that severe sect an excess unpracticable without Cordials of a higher nature than are compounded by the faint thoughts of having done what is agreable to Reason All their Maxims are weak supports of such triumphant Language 'T is true in a Body disorder'd and broken with Diseases and Pains the mind may be erect and compos'd but 't is by vertue of Divine Comforts from the present sense of Gods favour and the joyful hopes of eternal felicity in his presence hereafter 3. Those who suffer the loss of all that is precious and dear in the World and with a chearful confidence submit to death that singly consider'd is very terrible to nature but attended with torments is doubly terrible and all to advance the Glory of God cannot enjoy the satisfaction of mind that proceeds from the review of worthy actions if their being is determined with their life Now that love to God exprest in the hardest and noblest service should finally destroy a Man is not conceivable To render this Argument more sensible let us consider the vast multitude of the Martyrs in the first times of Christianity more easie to be admir'd than numbred It would be a History to describe the instruments of their cruel sufferings invented by the fierce wit of their persecutors the various torturs to destroy Life with a slow death such as were never before inflicted on the guiltiest Malefactours All which they willingly endured with an invariable serenity of countenance the sign and effect of their inward peace Nay with triumphant expressions of Joy Now to what original shall we attribute this fortitude of Spirit were such numbers of all conditions ages sects induc'd by rash counsel by frenzy of passion by a desire of vain-glory or any like cause to part with all that is precious and amiable in the World for Swords and Fire and Crosses and Wheels and Racks to torment and destroy their Bodies No humane Reasons neither the Vertue nor Vice of Nature Generosity nor Obstinacy could possibly give such strength under such Torments This was so evident that many Heathen Spectators were convinc'd of the Divine Power miraculously supporting them and became Proselytes of Christianity and with admirable chearfulness offered themselves to the same punishments Now this is an extrinsick testimony incomparably more weighty than from a bare affirmation in words or a meer consent of judgment that there is an unseen state infinitely better and more durable than what is present the hopes of which made them esteem the parting with all sensible things measur'd by time not to have the shadow of a loss And this was not a meer naked view of a future blessedness but joyned with an impression of that sweetness and strength that consolation and force of Spirit that it was manifest Heaven descended to them before they ascended to Heaven From hence they were fearless of those who could only kill the Body but not touch the Soul As the breaking a Christal in pieces cannot injure the light that penetrated and filled it but releases it from that confinement So the most violent Death was in their esteem not hurtful to the Soul but the means to give it entrance into a happy immortality Now is it in any degree credible that when no other principle was sufficient to produce such courage in thousands so tender and fearful by nature that the Divine hand did not support them invisible in operation but most clearly discovered in the effects And can it be imagined that God would encourage them to lose the most valuable of all natural things life it self and to their great cost of pains and misery if there were not an estate wherein he would reward their heroick love of himself with a good that unspeakably transcends what ever is desirable here below 2. Though Vice in respect of its turpitude be the truest dishonour of Man and be attended with regret as contrary to his Reason yet there is a further punishment naturally due to it Malefactors besides the infamy that cleaves to their crimes and the secret twinges of Conscience feel the rigour of civil Justice And if no Physical evil be inflicted as the just consequent of Vice the viciously inclin'd would despise the moral evil that is essential to it as an imaginary punishment And when the remembrance of Sin disturbs their rest they would presently by pleasant diversions call off their thoughts from sad objects 2. Supposing no other punishment but what is the immediate effect of Sin the most vicious and guilty would many times suffer the least punishment For the secret Worm of Conscience is most sensible when vice is
less than Death that for ever deprives of all that is valuable and pleasant in this natural life is an equal punishment to it What temporal Sufferings can expiate sin against God For besides the transcendent excellence of his Nature infinitely rais'd above all other beings there are united in him in an incomparable degree all the Rights that are inherent in our Parents Princes or Country for benefits received from them And may he not then justly deprive ungracious Rebels for ever of the comforts of his reviving Presence 3. The necessity of Eternal Recompences to excite a constant fear in Men of offending God makes the Justice of them visible For as it has been proved before whiles they are cloathed with flesh and blood the disposition inclining from within and the temptation urging from without if the punishment of sin were not far more terrible than the pleasures of it are alluring there would be no effectual restraint upon the riots of the carnal appetite Now if civil Justice for the preservation of society wisely decrees such penalties for offences as are requisite to maintain the honour of Laws that are founded in equity either by preventing or by repairing the the injury done to them Is it not most righteous that the Supreme Lord of the World should secure obedience to his most holy Laws by annexing such penalties as are necessary to induce a reverence of them in his Subjects and to execute the sentence in full severity upon presumptuous Transgressors without this the Divine Government would be dissolved 4. Eternal Life and Eternal Death are set before Men to encourage them to obedience and deter them from Sin so that none dies but for wilful impenitence And can there be the least aspersion of unjust rigour cast on God's proceedings in Judgment If it be said 't is so contrary to the most inviolable inclinations of Nature that no Man can choose his own destruction to that a full answer may be given 'T is true Man cannot devest Reason and Sense so as to choose directly and intentionally Eternal Misery but vertually and by consequence he does For the deliberate choice of Sin as pleasant or profitable though damnable in the issue is by just interpretation a choosing of the punishment that attends it And to make it clear that sinners are in love with perishing let us consider 1. The inestimable reward of Obedience they refuse 'T is a felicity worth as much as the enjoyment of God himself and as durable as Eternity Now what is put in the Ballance against Heaven Only this World that passes away with the lusts thereof And it argues a violent propension in the will to carnal things when the little fleeting pleasures of Sense how empty how vanishing outweigh in the competition the substantial everlasting Blessedness of the Spirit And what a vile contempt is it of the Perfections of God that such base things such trifling Temptations should be chosen before him Were it not visibly true Reason would deny the possibility of it 'T is as if the Wife of a Prince should prefer in her affections before him a diseased deformed Slave Or as if one should choose the food of Beasts Hay Acorns or Carrion before the provisions of a Royal Table This is no Hyperbole no Exaggregation but the reality infinitely exceeds all Figures And is it not perfectly reasonable that sinners should inherit their own option 2. This rejecting of Eternal Life by sinners is peremptory against the best and often renewed means to induce them to accept of it They are allured by the sweetest Mercies urged by the strongest terrours to forsake their beloved lusts and be happy And till the riches of goodness and forbearance are dispised they are not past hopes For though the sentence of the Law be decisive upon the first act of sin yet 't is not irrevocable but upon impenitence in it But when sin has such an absolute Empire in the Will that no obligations no invitations can prevail with it 't is manifest that obstinacy is an ingredient in the refusal of Heaven And is it not most just that an obstinate aversation from God should be punish'd with an everlasting exclusion from his Glory This will clearly vindicate Divine Justice and render sinners excuseless in the day of accounts God will overcome when he judges and every mouth be stopt This will be a fiery addition to their misery and feed the never dying Worm For by reflecting upon what they have irrecoverably lost and what they must for ever suffer and that by their own wretched choice the awakened Conscience turns the most cruel fiend against it self In Hell there is weeping and gnashing of Teeth Extreme Misery and extreme Fury Despair and Rage are the true Characters of Damnation CHAP. XIII What influence the Doctrine of the future state should have upon our practice It must regulate our esteem of present things And reconcile our affections to any condition here so far as it may be an advantage to prepare us for the better World The chiefest care is due to the immortal part The just value of Time and how it should be improved 'T is the best Wisdom to govern our whole course of life here with regard to Eternity that expects us I Will now briefly shew what influence this principle of Natural Religion should have on our practice T is not a matter of pure speculation but infinitely concerns all For whatever inequality there is between Men with respect to temporal Accidents in the present state yet there is no difference with regard to things future Their Souls are equally immortal and capable of the same blessedness and liable to the same misery It is most necessary therefore to reflect upon what so nearly touches us If the eternal state hereafter were not an infallible Truth but only a probable opinion and the Arguments for and against it were so equal that the Understanding remained in suspence yet the importance is so vast either to enjoy for ever the clear vision of God or to be cast into an everlasting Hell that Prudence requires all possible diligence in what-ever is necessary to obtain the one and escape the other But this Doctrine is not meerly within the terms of Probability but is clear by irrefutable evidence And if those prophane Miscreants who endeavour by frigid Railleries to expose the serious care of Salvation to scorn and by trifling Arguments would fain weaken their assent to this great Truth had not lost the humane property of blushing they would be covered with Confusion whilst they contradict not only what the wisest and best Men have unanswerably proved but what their very opposition confirms For the doubting of the Soul's Immortality is a strong Argument that 't is immortal Because only a spiritual being and therefore not liable to dissolution and death is capable of reflecting whether it shall continue for ever It does not require subtilty of wit or strength of Reason to draw
where I can only live happily On the contrary a plain flowry carpet Way is bad that leads me from it Now since the present life conveys us to another Poverty or Riches Sickness or Health splendor of Name or Obscurity an high or a low Condition become good or evil to us and accordingly are eligible as they prepare us for our last and blessed End or divert us from it If the clearness of this principle be obscur'd we shall stumble every step and wander from the way of life But duly considered it makes us judg of things as they are not as they appear This unravels the doubts of the intangled Mind corrects the mistakes of the erring Eye levels the greatest Difficulties clears all the Objections against Providence and makes an afflicted state not only tolerable but so far amiable as it promotes our supream Happiness Let us consider the two Worlds the visible wherein we are and the invisible to which we are going and impartially compare what is proper to the one and the other The present and the future the sensible and divine the apparent and real the transitory and perpetual happiness And what reference these two Worlds have to Man the one serves him only as a Passage the other is his ever blessed Country Therefore what-ever the present state has of sweet or bitter whatever is desir'd or fear'd as it passes with Time should little move us Who is there unless disorder'd in his Mind that when the Sun is present in its full lustre before his eyes rejoyces to have or is sorry that he has not a Candle that he may see more clearly And this Life to Eternity is not so much as a spark of Light to the Sun and accordingly the Prosperity or Adversity of it should not transport us to an excess of Joy or Sorrow but with an equal temper of Mind and calm Affections we should receive the dispensations of Providence 3. How just is it that the Soul should have the preeminence in all respects above the Body The one is the fading off-spring of the Earth the other of an heavenly extraction and incorruptible nature When Pherecides the Assyrian first taught among the Grecians the doctrine of the Souls Immortality his discourse so prevail'd on Pythagoras of Samos that it chang'd him from an Athleta into a Philosopher He that before wholly attended upon his Body to make it excel in strength or agility that he might contend victoriously in the Olympick Games then made it his business to improve and advance his Soul in Knowledg and Vertue And if the glimmering appearances of this great Truth were so powerful upon him how much more should the clear and certain discoveries of it be operative to make us chiefly regard the interest of our immortal part The state of Nature requires that Reason should have the supremacy in Man and Sense should obey but if the lower part tyrannises over the superiour and that which was so offensive to Solomon to see Servants on horseback and Princes walking on foot be verified in a more ignoble sense 't is the greatest degeneracy and vilification of the humane nature Now the predominant Object discovers what is the ruling faculty If sensual things have the superior esteem and love Sense reigns And what a contumely is it to Man when the Understanding that was made to contemplate Objects of a spiritual sublime nature is principally exercised for the acquiring of earthly things and the Affections that are capable of enjoying heavenly delights run with a full stream in the channels of Concupiscence As if the reasonable Soul were not for higher ends than to be the slave of the Body to be imployed to digest the confused Chaos of Meats and Drinks wherewith 't is fill'd to give it a quicker perception of its pleasures keep it from corruption for a time If sensual Wretches could obtain what the unclean Spirits desir'd of our Saviour when dispossest of the man in the Gospel they would request in their last hour when they are ready to be cast out of the Body permission to enter into the Swine and wallow in mire and filthiness This is an indignity equally dishonourable and pernicious As 't was said of Caligula Nec Servum meliorem nec deteriorem Dominum while a Subject none more obedient but when advanc'd to the Throne he became the Reproach of the Empire and Plague of the World So while the Body obeys the sanctity and sovereignty of the Mind 't is an useful Instrument but if it usurp the Government the Spirit is deprest in the most ignominious Captivity and Man becomes like the Beasts that perish Briefly the common fountains of Temptation are Pleasure and Pain that affect the outward senses and ' til the Soul has an establish'd dominion over the Body 't is continually expos'd to ruin by fleshly lusts that war against it The proper business of Man is to purifie his Spirit from all Pollutions to adorn it with all Graces in order to its everlasting Communion with the Father of Spirits And though in this state of union with flesh he cannot be always contemplative nor exercised in the highest and noblest work but must relax his intense thoughts by refreshing intermissions yet all that is allowed the Body must be only to make it more ready disposed for the service of the Mind But alas the Soul that should be incomparably dearest to us in respect of its preciousness and danger is neglected as the only despicable or safe thing belonging to us Of the twenty four hours in the day how much is wasted on the Body how little is given to the Soul as if all the time were lost that is spent on it when 't is truly gain'd What an unequal division is this Can there be imagin'd a more hurtful and monstrous profuseness and covetousness in the same persons If the Body be shaken with Diseases what are they not willing to do or patiently to suffer to recover lost Health Long and rigorous Diets to overcome some obstinate Humours Potions distasteful to the Palat and painful to the Stomack Sweatings Bleeding the Knife and the Fire to cut off the gangreen'd part and sear the vessels and many more sharp Remedies 't is counted prudence to suffer to preserve the life of the Body And can that be preserved always No. All this is done not to escape but to delay Death for a time If we are so sollicitous that the mortal Body may dye a little later shall we not be more diligent and careful that the immortal Soul may not die for ever 4. This should make us set a just value upon time and consecrate it to those things that are preparatory for the future state of blessedness Indeed the present Life though spun out to the utmost date how short and vain is it But as 't is the price of Eternity and our wel-being hereafter depends upon it 't is above all esteem precious When
Popilius by order of the Roman Senate required Antiochus to withdraw his Army from the King of Egypt and he desired time to deliberate upon it the Roman drew a Circle with his Wand about him and said In hoc stans delibera give a present Answer before you move out Thus Eternity whose proper Emblem is a Circle a Figure without end presents to us Life and Death that after a short time expects all men and here we must make our choice And shall a mortal coldness possess us in an affair of such importance We cannot so fast repair the ruines of the Body but that every day Death makes nearer approaches and takes away some spoils that cannot be recovered and will shortly force the Soul to leave its habitation and shall we not secure a retreat for it in the Sanctuary of Life and Immortality Can any make a Covenant with Death Is it to be overcome by the strength of the young or appeased by the tears and supplications of the old 'T is equally invincible and inexorable The greenest Age is ripe for dying the Fruit that does not fall is pluck'd and gathered Every one is under the same sentence and so far equally disposed to dye None can assure himself the continuance of a day and shall we be desperately careless of our main Concernment shall we waste this unvaluable Treasure in idleness or actions worse than idleness shall we spend it to purchase transient vanities The gaining the whole World is not worth the expence of this light of Life 'T was given us for more excellent ends to work out our own Salvation to secure our everlasting Interest How should we redeem every hour and live for Heaven This is our chief and indispensible affair and the neglect of it for a day is of infinite hazard Our season is short our omission irreparable If we could clip the wings of Time and stop its flight there might be some pretence for delay but the Sun drives on apace we cannot bid it stand still one hour Our diligence in improving Time should be equal to its swift motion We should speedily draw from it what 's necessary as from a rapid Torrent that will quickly be dryed up 'T was a wise Answer to one that ask'd why the Lacedemonians were so slow in passing Capital Judgments why so many Examinations taken so many Defences permitted to the Accused and after Conviction Sentence such a space of time before Execution The reason of it is because an errour in that case is incorrigible They might kill the Living but could not revive the Dead Now since after Death is inflicted on the guilty Soul 't is lost for ever how should it stop Men in the voluntary and precipitate Condemnation of themselves by the wilful rejecting of the Grace that is offered to them upon their present acceptance To draw to an end it follows from what has been discours'd that 't is the most necessary and highest point of Wisdom to conduct our Lives with a respect to the Tribunal above that will pass a righteous and unchangeable Sentence upon Men for all the good and evil done here The Consequence is so manifest and palpable that nothing but perfect Madness can deny If there be a spark of Reason a grain of Faith the Mind must assent to it For if Prudence consist in the choice and use of means to procure the Good we want and in preventing the Evil we justly fear certainly according as the Good is more noble and difficult or the Evil more dangerous and destructive the more eminent is the Wisdom in obtaining our end Now what is the chief Good to which all our desires should turn and our endeavours aspire What are Crowns Scepters Robes of State splendor of Jewels Treasures or whatever the Earth has in any kind or degrees of good They are only the little entertainments of the Body the viler part of Man But the perfect and perpetual Fruition of God is the Blessedness of the Soul and infinitely excels the other And proportionably 't is not the loss of temporal things that is the greatest Evil but the losing Heaven and the immortal Soul is above all degrees of valuation Now 't is strange to amazement that those who profess to believe these things should live in a constant opposition to their belief How vigorously do they prosecute their secular designs they build Estates and make Provisions tanquam semper victuri as if they were eternal Inhabitants here But how remiss and cold are they in order to Heaven and to escape the Wrath to come Libertines are uniform and regular according to their Principles they are Infidels and live as Infidels there 's no contradiction between their thoughts and actions The remembrance of Death rather inflames than checks their Appetites to sinful pleasures as the sprinkling Water does not quench the Fire but makes it more fierce They know they shall continue here but a short time and resolve to make the best of it for carnal purposes But infinite numbers of those who in title are Citizens of another World and declare their belief of a future state yet are as careless to prepare for it as if the great Judgment and the dreadful Eternity that follows were Romantick Fables They are Believers in their minds and Infidels in their lives From whence comes this monstrous Composition of two Extreams so contrary and difficult to be united as the Sun and Darkness or Fire and Water in their actual forms For Men to believe there is a Heaven and to be in love with the Earth to believe an everlasting Hell shall be the reward of Sin and yet to go on in Sin O the sottish Folly of Men What enticing Sorcery perverts them 'T is because that temporal things are sensible and present and eternal things are spiritual and future But how graceless and irrational is this Has not the Soul perceptive faculties as well as the Body are not its objects transcendently more excellent Is not its union with them more intimate and ravishing Must the sensual Appetites be heard before Reason and the Soul be unnaturally set below the respects of the Body If the most splendid temptations of the flesh are but dross to the happiness of the Spirit is it not true Wisdom to distinguish and despise them in the comparison For this end God has plac'd us in the World that with equal Judgement we may ballance things and preferring the great and solid Good before a vain appearance our choice may be unconstrain'd and his mercy take its rise to reward us And how foolish is it to neglect eternal things because they are future Is it not a common complaint that Life is short that it flies away in a breath and if Death be so near can Eternity be so distant Besides do Men want an understanding to foresee things to come In their Projects for this World how quick-sighted and provident are they to discover all probable
Order of the March attend Bring up the Troops and punish all delay How could they propound such ends and devise means proper to obtain them 'T is evident from their constant and regular actings that an Understanding above man's who often fails in his designs signs imprest their unerring instincts and directs their motions CHAP. III. The Body of Man form'd with perfect design for Beauty and Usefulness A short description of its parts The fabrick of the Eye and Hand admirably discovers the Wisdom of the Maker The erect stature of the Body fitted for the rational Soul Man by speech is fitted for society How the affections are discovered in the Countenance The distinction of Persons by the face how necessary The reasonable Soul the image of a wise and voluntary Agent I Will now briefly consider Man with respect to both the parts of his compounded nature wherein are very clear evidences of a wise Maker The Body is the most artificial of all perishing things in the World 'T is justly called the store-house of proportions 'T is equally impossible to add any thing but what is superfluous or to take a-away any thing but what is necessary How many internal parts diverse in their qualities and figures are dispos'd with that providence that all operate according to their proper Natures and not one can be I do not say better but tolerably in any other place as well for its special as the common benefit All are so justly ordered with that mutual dependence as to their being and operations that none can be without the whole nor the whole without it So that if with attentive Eye we consider this it might seem that in making the Body the design was only respecting convenience and profit But if we turn our thoughts from that which is within this unparallel'd Piece and regard the various forms and structure of the outward parts the graceful order that adorns them we might imagine that the Maker only designed its regular visible beauty As Phavorinus comparing the Writings of two famous Orators observed that if one word be taken from a sentence of Plato you spoil'd the elegance if from Lycias the sense So the taking away the least considerable part from the Body spoils its comliness or usefulness Two great Philosophers have left excellent Discourses of the parts of the Body justly esteemed among their most noble works Galen after an exquisit observation of the Symetry of this Fabrick challeng'd the Epicureans to find but one of all the numerous parts that compose it the least Vein or Fibre that was not serviceable for its proper end or might be better if chang'd in its form temperature or place and he would embrace their opinion that Chance was the Authour of it And for this reason he says that by describing the use of the parts he compos'd a true Hymn in praise of the wise Maker What knowledg is requisit to describe all that is wonderful in it the contempering the differing humours in just weight and measure the inviolable correspondence establisht between all the parts for the performance of natural vital and animal operations To touch upon a few things The Stomach that by an unknown virtue prepares the nourishment the Heart and Liver the two Seas of blood the one more gross the other more refin'd and spirituous the Veins and Arteries their inseparable companions that diffuse themselves into innumerable rivolets and convey the blood and spirit of Life the Nerves the secret channels that from the Brain derive the spirits of sense and motion the Muscles that give it various motions the fleshy parts of different substance and quality according to their various Offices the Membrans in that diversity some finer some thicker weav'd according to the quality of the part they cover the inward fat that preserves the warm Bowels from drying up the Marrow wherewith the instruments of motion are oiled and made nimble and expedite the Bones that support the building of such different forms proportions qualities and so fitly joyn'd these are a full conviction that a Divine Mind contriv'd it a Divine Hand made and fashion'd it I will more particularly consider the curious fabrick of the Eye and Hand The Eye is a work of such incomparable Artifice that who ever understands it hath a sufficient proof of his Skill that form'd it This is most evident by dissecting it and representing the parts separate one from another and after reuniting them and thereby discovering the Causes of the whole Composure and of the Offices proper to every part That that may be understood without seeing it is that there is no member in the whole Body compos'd of more parts nor more different nor ordered with more exact wisdom between themselves in one frame Their situation is so regular and necessary that if any of them be never so little displac't the Eye is no more an Eye It includes three Humours that are transparant and of different thickness the one resembling Water the other Glass the other Chrystal and from them borrow their names to vary the place the distance the less or greater thickness the figure that is peculiar to each of them would render the Eye altogether useless for seeing for the refractions of the light that enters through the pupil would be disordered and the rays not be united in a point to paint in the Retina the images of visible objects which is the last disposition from whence the act of seeing follows Several tunicles involve it one of which is perforated as much as the little Circle in the middle that is called the pupil to give open passage to the images flowing from their objects The Muscles by their agency raise or cast down turn or fix it The Nerves fasten'd to the Brain convey a supply of spirits for the sight and transmit the representation of all visible objects without confusion to the internal senses If we consider the Hand by the most exact rule of proportion 't is evident that its substance and shape are most conducive to beauty and service If the Fingers were not divided and separately moveable but joyn'd together with one continued skin how uncomely how unuseful would it be Of an hundred effects ninety would be lost All that require variety of motion subtilty of art or strength could not be perform'd But the Fingers being disjoyn'd 't is fit to do whatever the mind designs or necessity requires It works intirely or in parts it brandishes a Sword or manages a Pen strikes on the Anvil with a Hammer or uses a delicate File rows in the Water or touches a Lute T is fit for all things adapting it self to the greatest and least all which advantages the Philosopher expresses with admirable brevity In divisione manus componendi facultas est in Compositione dividendi non esset Suppose the Fingers were of equal length and bigness great inconveniencies would follow And in this the Divine Wisdom is eminent
that what at first sight seems to be of no consequence yet is absolutely necessary not only for all the regular but for most works of the Hand If the Fingers were extended to the same measure it were able to do nothing but what the four longest can And how uncomely would such a figur'd hand appear when that beauty is lost that springs from variety in things alike Besides how unprofitable a part were the Hand if the Fingers had within one intire bone not flexible to grasp as occasion requires Or if a fleshy substance only how weak and unapt for service what strength or firmness for labour even the Nails are not superfluous besides their gracefulness they give force and sense to the points of the Fingers If one be lost the feeling in that extream part is very much lessen'd that is so necessary for the discerning of things To these I shall add two other considerations that discover perfect wisdom in the framing the humane Body 1. It s structure is very different from that of Brutes whereby 't is a fit instrument of the rational Soul The Brutes being meerly terrestrial Animals are perpetually groveling and poring downwards seeking no more than their food They have no commerce with the Heavens but so far as it serves them for the Earth as being only born for their Bellies But in Man the posture of his Body interprets that of his Soul The stature is streight and rais'd expressive of his dominion over the Creatures made for his use The Head is over all the less noble parts and the Eyes so plac't that the mind may look out at those windows to discover the World in its various parts to contemplate the Heavens its native Seat and be instructed and excited to admire and love the divine Maker 2. If we consider Man complexly as joyn'd with society to which he is naturally inclin'd he is so form'd as to give or receive assistance for his preservation and comfort The Tongue his peculiar glory the interpreter of the Thoughts and reconciler of the Affections maintains this happy commerce Besides the Face makes known our inward motions to others Love hatred desire dislike joy greif confidence dispair courage cowardice admiration contempt pride modesty cruelty compassion and all the rest of the Affections are discover'd by their proper Aspects By a sudden change of the countenance are manifested the deepest sorrow the highest joy As the face of the Heavens vail'd with Clouds by the breaking forth of the Sun is presently cleard up And which is above the imitation of Art different affections are represented in a more or less expressive appearance according to their stronger or remisser degrees Timanthes the famous Painter wisely drew a vail over Agamemnons Face present at the sacrifice of his innocent Daughter despairing to express and accord his several Passions the tenderness of a Father with the Majesty of a King and the generosity of the Leader of an Army This way of discovery has a more universal use then words The ministry of the Tongue is only useful to those that understand our Language but the Face though silent speaks to the Eye The Countenance is a Crystal wherein the thoughts and affections otherwise invisible appear and is a natural sign known to all For this manner of expression is not by the common agreement of Men as Signs absolutely free or mixt but from the institution of Nature that always chuses what is most proper to its end being guided by a superiour directour according to the rules of perfect Wisdom Moreover the innumerable different characters in the Faces of Men to discern every one is the counsel of most wise Providence for the universal benefit of the World For take away this distinction and all the bands of Laws of Commerce of Friendship are dissolv'd If we could not by singular inseparable lineaments distinguish the innocent from the guilty a Brother from a Stranger the worthy from the unworthy all truth in Judgments sincerity in Relations distinction of Merits security in Trade would be destroyed In short humane societies cannot be preserved without union and distinction the one prevents division the other confusion Union is maintain'd by speech and other signs of the inward dispositions of the Heart distinction is caus'd by the variety of countenances And 't is considerable that so few parts composing it and in so small a compass and always in the same situation yet there is such a diversity of figures as of faces in the World Seneca propounds this as a spectacle worthy of admiration though the Stoical pride falsely esteem'd greatness of mind would scarce admire Miracles And as the frame of Mans Body so much more the rational Soul his eminent prerogative above all sensible beings discovers the Deity The superior faculties the Understanding and Will whereby he makes a judgment and choice of things in order to his happiness declare it to be the living image and glory of a most Wise and voluntary Agent The admirable composition of two things so disproportion'd a spiritual and material substance in the humane nature is an argument of his omnipotent skil who united them in a manner inconceiveable to us But the nature qualities and operations of the Soul shall be more distinctly considered afterwards And by this short account of some parts of the World we may sufficiently discover the perfections of the Maker We must pluck out our Eyes and exstinguish common sense not to see infinite Wisdom Power and Goodness shining in them the proper marks of the Deity CHAP. IV. The vanity of Epicurus's Opinion of the Worlds original discover'd from the visible order in all the parts of it Chance produces no regular effects The constant natural course of things in the world proves that 't is not framed nor conducted by uncertain Chance The World was not caused by the necessity of nature In the search of Causes the mind cannot rest till it comes to the first Second Causes are sustain'd and directed in all their workings by the first The Creator though invisible in his Essence is visible in his effects BEfore I proceed to the other Head of Arguments I will briefly show the vanity of those Opinions that attribute the production of the World to Chance or to the sole necessity of Nature 'T was the extravagant fancy of Democritus and Epicurus after him that the original of the World was from the fortuitous encountring of Atoms that were in perpetual motion in an immense space till at last a sufficient number met in such a conjunction as form'd it in this order 'T is strange to amazement how so wilde an Opinion never to be reconciled with Reason could finde entertainment Yet he left a numerous School many followers tenacious of his Doctrine the heirs of his Frenzy 'T is very easie to shew the vanity of this conceit that supposes all and proves nothing That these particles of matter should thus meet together 't
it would be greater folly to believe that the natural course of things should be the same this Year as in former times than to assert that a Gamester should to day throw the Dice in the same order and with the same points uppermost as he did yesterday 'T is evident therefore that the Epicurean Doctrine having not the least shadow of Reason had never been receiv'd with applause but as 't is joyn'd with impiety 2. Some attribute the rise and course of things in the World to the sole necessity of Nature To this it may be replied 1. 'T is true there is an evident connexion of Causes and Effects in the Celestial and Elementary World whereby times and seasons are continued and the succession of mutable things is preserv'd so that Nature always consuming remains intire Though all vegetive and sensitive beings dye yet the species are immortal For the living are brought forth to succeed in the place of the dead But the inquiring mind cannot rest here for 't is impossible to conceive a train of Effects one caused by another without ascending to the first Efficient that is not an Effect For nothing can act before it exists The order of Causes requires that we ascend to the Supream which derives being and vertue to all the intermediate Thus Nature produces things from seminal Causes that depend on things already in being The Seed of Flowers and Trees suppose the Fruits of the Earth before growing but the first Tree could not be so produc'd To fancy an infinite succession of Causes depending one upon another without arriving to a first can only fall into the thoughts of a disordered mind How came this Horse that Lion in Nature 'T is by generation from another and that from another and so infinitely How came this Man into the World 'T is because he was begotten by such a Father and he by another and so infinitely Thus Atheism that rejects one truly Infinite Cause is obliged to admit an Infinity in all things an Incomprehensibility in all things 'T is therefore evident the efficient principles in Nature are from the sole power of the first and independent cause They could not proceed from themselves and that a most wise and powerfull Being is the original of all things is as evident Is it conceivable that the insensible Mass that is called Matter should have had an eternal being without original whereas there is not the least imaginable repugnance in the Attributes of the first and highest Being in whom all those Perfections concur which as proper to the Deity are form'd in the mind in the idea of it as his spiritual Nature Eternity Immensity Wisdom Omnipotence c. of which 't is equally true that no one either absolutely or relatively considered involve a contradiction that make it impossible for the Supream Being to possess it Is it not perfectly inconsistent to attribute to Matter the lowest and most contemptible of all Beings the highest and most noble Perfection an Independent Existence One may assert it in words but not seriously without the utter deserting of Reason Man incomparably excels this Matter he understands it and that understands not him yet he has a derived being in time 'T is therefore necessary that that should have some cause of its being But supposing the self subsistence of Matter from Eternity could the World full of innumerable Forms spring by an Impetus from a dead formless Principle T is equally impossible that a blind Cause casual or fatal should give being and order to the Universe Besides all subordinate Causes are sustained in their Beings and Powers by fresh influences from the first and directed in their operations To attribute the manifold Effects in the World to Second Causes working in a blind manner without an Universal Intellectual Mover that disposes tempers and governs them is as unreasonable as to attribute humane Works to the common Instruments of Art without the direction of the Understanding that uses them The Hand or Pencil has not skill to do any thing but as it obeys the Mind that gives it the impression of Art and regulates its Motion The Earth knows not the various Fruits that spring from it nor the Sea its living Productions And the Sun though a more specious is not a more intelligent and artificial Agent Nature under another name is the ordinary Power of God that by its intimate concourse with Second-Causes produces and supports things And 't is one of the considerable Wonders of his Providence that the stream of perishing things always emptying is always full there being a supply from the Fountains of continual Productions of what is lost in the dead Sea so that the World is always the same and always new And from what hath been argued we may judge how unreasonable it is to doubt whether there be a Principle in Nature of excellent Wisdome because not seen in his own Essence for if Reason compel us to acknowledg that the works of Art wrought by manual Instruments proceed from an unseen mind that directed their motions according to the idea framd in it self we ought more strongly to conclude there is a Divine Mind though invisible to mortal eyes that contriv'd at first and with knowledg performs all the works of Nature To deny the Existence of a Being not subjected to our outward Senses is equally of no force in both the instances By the same Reason St. Austin confounds the Atheist objecting that he could not see the Deity To whom he propounds this question That since his Body was only visible and not his Soul why should it not be buried And upon the reply That the quickning presence of the Soul was evident in the actions of Life perform'd by the Body he truly infers if a vital principle imperceptible in its self is discover'd by vital actions the Deity though by the perfection of his Nature undiscernable to our senses is clearly seen by the light of his effects And those who are wilfully blind if God should by any new sensible effects make a discovery of himself yet would remain inconvincible For the arguments of his presence from extraordinary effects are liable to the same exceptions pretended against the ordinary CHAP. V. The beginning of the World proved from the uninterrupted tradition of it through all ages The invention of Arts and bringing them to perfection an argument of the Worlds beginning The weakness of that fancy that the World is in a perpetual Circulation from Infancy to Youth and to full Age and a decrepit state and back again so that Arts are lost and recovered in that change The consent of Nations a clear Argument that there is a God The impressions of Nature are infallible That the most Men are practical Atheists that some doubt and deny God in words is of no force to disprove his Existence There are no absolute Atheists Nature in extremities has an irresistible force and compels the most obdurate to
Theater of his Magnificence that by the ministry of the senses he might have perception of the external part and by his reason discover what is most worthy to be known the admirable order that distinguishes and unites so many and such different natures and guides all their motions that 't is clear they depend upon one principle without knowing it and conspire to one end without willing it How should this raise his mind in the just praises of the Maker The true causes why the Creator is not duly acknowledged and honour'd for his Works are either Ignorance or a guilty neglect and inobservance of them 1. Ignorance in the composure of the World and of the several beings in it A Philosopher askt by one What advantage the instructions of Philosophy would be to his Son replied If no other yet that when he is a spectatour in the Theatre one Stone shall not sit upon another An ignorant person encompast with all the varieties of Nature wherein omniscient skill appears is insensible as a Stone carv'd into the shape of a Man Nay the most learned Professors know little more than the several kinds of things and the causes and manner of some particular effects How often are they forc't to take refuge in occult qualities when prest with difficulties or only assign universal causes of things and sometimes the same for operations extreamly contrary How many mysteries of Nature are still vaild and hid in those deep recesses where we can go only in the dark How much remains undiscover'd that is truly wonderful in the Works of God They are the Objects of the Eye and Mind but what is visible to the Eye is least worthy of admiration From hence the value of the Works and the Glory of the Author is much lessen'd Besides the rational pleasure of the mind is lost by not discerning the wise order that is infallibly observ'd in universal Nature 'T is not the viewing a musical Instrument the variety of the parts and of the strings in their size and length that produces delight but hearing the harmonious and pleasant diversity of their sounds contemper'd by the proportion of numbers Thus 't is not the sight of the meer outward frame of things but the understanding the intellectual Musick that springs from the just Laws of Nature whereby they are perfectly tuned and the conspiring harmony of so many mixt parts without the least harsh discord that ravishes the Soul with true pleasure 2. The inobservance of Man is another cause why the great Creatour is not magnified for all his Works If we did consider the least even one of those unius puncti animalia a Flea or Mite we should find what is admirable in that scarce-visible Atom of matter But the novelty not the excellence of things draws our thoughts The greatest works in Nature that are not Miracles only because common and usual are past by with a careless Eye Their continual presence is not moving but lessens our regard and attention The Naturalist observ'd it to be one of the solemn follies of Men to value Medicines not for their Virtue but the Country where they grow the Climate from whence they come if they have a Barbarous name they are reputed to have a mysterious efficacy and those Plants are neglected as unprofitable that are natives of their own Soil The rarity is esteem'd more than the merit of things 'T is a greater wonder to give light to the Sun than to restore it to the blind yet its daily presence does not affect us If a Chymist should extract a Liquor of such an extraordinary virtue that by pouring a few drops of it on the dust a Body should be form'd animated and move would any one be induc'd to believe it without the testimony of his own eyes and would it not be a surprising wonder Yet innumerable living Creatures spring from the Dust by the falling of Rain and few think it worthy of observation The raising a dead Body to life would astonish us but we are unaffected that every day so many living Men are born Yet if we consider things aright the secret forming a Body in the Womb is an equal Prodigy of Power and as truely marvellous as the restoring the vital congruities to a carcass that prepare it for the reception of the Soul What more deservs serious reflection than that from the same indistinct Seed so many and such various parts in their substance figure and qualities should proceed hard and dry for the Bones liquid for the humours moist and soft for the flesh tenacious for the Nerves perforated for the Arteries and Veins hot for the Liver and Heart cold for the Brain transparent for the Eyes How should it raise our wonder that that matter which in it self is simple and equal in Gods hand is capable of such admirable Art But the constant sight of living productions causes our neglect and deprives him of his just Honour Thus that from almost an invisible Seed weak and tender should spring a great Tree of that strength as to resist the fury of the Winds what miraculous virtue is requisit The inlightned observing Mind ascends from Nature to God whose instrument it is and with deliberate admiration praises Him for his excellent Works 2. The most humble fear is a necessary Duty from Man to the Majesty and Power of the Creatour A barren admiration of his omnipotent Art in his Works is not sufficient but it must be joyned with awful respects of his Excellent Greatness He has the right and to him is due the reverence and homage of universal King With what solemnity and composedness of Spirit should we approach the Divine Presence What a jealous watch ought to be plac'd over our Hearts in all our addresses to Him lest by carelesness and inadvertency we should disparage his Excellencies To think of Him without reverence is a profanation The Lord is a great God and a great King above all Gods and from hence the necessary consequence is O come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker What ever is Glorious is in Him in the most excellent degrees of Perfection The World with the innumerable variety of Creatures is but a drop compar'd to his Transcendent Greatness And what part is Man of that drop as nothing Time is but a point of his Eternity Dominion but a shadow of his Soveraignty 'T is the most natural duty of Man to walk humbly with his God and to fear above all things to displease Him The whole Creation even the insensible part and that seems least subject to a Rule and Law and least conducted by Reason obey his Will What is more light and rash than the Winds yet they do not breath but by his Command What is more fierce and impetuous than the Sea yet it does not transgress his Order When it threatens to over-run the whole Earth the weak Sand stops its foaming
great hand may be justly preferr'd before a richer from a less estimable donor Now if we consider that the glorious God in comparison of whom the greatest Kings are but vain shadows of Majesty has made a World full of so many and so excellent Creatures for our refreshment that our being on Earth may not be tedious in the short space of our journey to Heaven will it not overcome us with an excess of wonder and affection and cause us to break forth What is Man that thou art mindful of him and the son of Man that thon visitest him Thou madest him a little lower than the Angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands thou hast put all things under his feet And as our most ardent Love so intire Obedience is due to the Creator both in active service for his Glory and an absolute resignation to his Will The strongest title to acquire Dominion according to the Law of Nature is that of the Cause to the Effect The Mind cannot rebel against the light of this Principle 'T is most just therefore we should imploy all our powers even from the early rise of Reason to the setting point of Life wholly in his service from whom we received them 'T is an excellent representation of St. Austin If a Sculptor after his fashioning a piece of Marble in a humane Figure could inspire it with Life and Sense and give it Motion and Understanding and Speech can it be imagin'd but the first act of it would be to prostrate it self at the feet of the Maker in subjection and thankfulness and to offer what ever it is and can do as homage to him The Almighty Hand of God form'd our Bodies He breathed into us the Spirit of Life and should not the power of Love constrain us to live wholly according to his Will methinks nothing should be pleasing to us but as we make it tributary to Him If we only regard Him as our Creatour that one quality should for ever engage us to fidelity in his service zeal for his Interest Obedience to his Laws and an inviolable respect for his Honour And this duty binds us the more strongly because as God made the World for Mans profit so he made Man for his own Glory And what the Loadstone is to the Steel or the sensible good to the appetite the same attractive is the end to the intelligent Nature And the higher the end is and the more the mind is fitted to understand its excellence the more powerfully it should excite the faculties in pursuit of it according to their uttermost capacity Now what horrid unthankfulness is it to be insensible of the infinite Debt we owe to God what disloyalty to pervert his Favours to slight his Commands and cross the end of our Creation The serious consideration that God has given us such a noble Nature capable to know love and enjoy Him and that we have so little improved our faculties for these excellent ends should put us in two contrary excesses of Spirit the one of joy for his unspeakable Goodness the other of confusion for our most unworthy neglect of it Our duty and our disobedience have the same measure The Goodness and Bounty of our great Benefactor regulates the one and the other The more we have received from Him the more we are ingaged to Him and the more we are ingaged the more guilty and worthy of punishment will our neglect be Among Men an ungrateful perfidious person is an object of horror and favours abused become motives of hatred To employ our faculties rational or sensitive to the disservice of our Maker is the same kind of villany though of incomparably greater guilt both in respect of the object and degree as if a Traitor should turn the very same Weapons against his Prince that he received from him for his defence To turn his benefits into occasions of sin and by the same things to dishonour him by which we should glorifie Him is extreme perversness In this unthankful Man imitates the Earth from whence he was taken for that makes use of the heat of the Sun to send up Vapours that obscure the Beams of Light he communicates to it This is to despise the Divine Majesty Power Wisdom Goodness that are united and so eminently appear in his Works and will provoke his severe Vengeance Let us therefore every day revive the sense of our obligations and by intense thoughts kindle the affections of Love and Reverence of praise and thankfulness that in them as flames ascending from an Altar we may offer our selves a holy living Sacrifice which is our reasonable service Our All is due to him what ever we are what ever we have our Bodies our Souls our Time and Eternity And an humble resignation to his Will in all things is the essential duty of his Creatures 'T is true that upon the account of his Wisdom and Power it becomes us with the most respectful submission to yeild our selves to his pleasure Authority and Dignity naturally result from their union in a person Therefore 't is Supreme in him who possesses them in their greatest excellence When God himself speaks to Job of his transcendent Majesty and of his right to dispose of Men according to his Will he produces his Works as the conspicuous testimonies of his great Power and exquisite Wisdom But the reason of our submission will be more convincing if we remember that God has an absolute unalienable propriety in us and all that we enjoy for our being and comforts are the liberal gifts of his hand If therefore he shall please to take away any of his Favours even Life it self though not to exchange it for a life infinitely better it would be the most unnatural rebellion to to resist the dispositions of his Providence the most vile unthankfulness to be stormy and passionate or to consent to any secret murmuring and discontent in the Heart as if our own were taken from us either unseasonably or unjustly And though our troubles immediately proceed from second natural Causes yet according to right Reason we must esteem them but as instruments of his invisible Hand and govern'd by his Counsel in order to such effects and in the time he pleases It is our duty even in the saddest circumstances with an entire readiness of mind and conformity of desires to say to our Maker Thy will be done 4. Truth and Reliance on God is our duty and priviledge Every being has a necessary dependance on Him for its subsistence but Man of all the visible Creatures is only capable of affiance in Him by reflecting upon his own Impotence and by considering the Perfections of the Creator that render him the proper object of trust 'T is is incommunicable honour of the Deity to be acknowledged and regarded as the Supporter of all things To put confidence in our selves in the advantages of
is this that by considering the different operations of Man and of Brutes we may clearly discern the different powers of acting wherewith the rational Soul is endowed in the one and the sensitive in the other The Soul in Beasts performs no operations independent on the Body that serves it either as an instrument or matter of their production such are the use of the Senses Nutrition Generation all the internal work and the preparing the Phantasms without which they would be far less serviceable to Man 'T is not strange therefore that it perishes with the Body there being no reason for its duration in a separate state since 't is fit only to act by the ministry of the Body But the Soul of Man besides the operations that proceed from it as the form of the body it animates such are all common to man with Plants and Animals understands discourses reflects on it self that are acts proper to its nature and included in its true conception whereby 't is distinguished from that of Brutes Indeed the exercise of sensitive operations depends so absolutely on its union with the body that they cannot be perform'd nor conceived as possible without its presence and the use of corporeal organs But the more excellent operations that proceed from the higher faculties wherewith 't is indowed not as the form of a material Being but as a spiritual substance such as subsist for ever without any communion with Bodies so entirely belong to it by the condition of Nature that for their production 't is sufficient of it self The Understanding and Will are Angelical Powers and to know and will and to be variously moved with pleasure or greif according to the qualities of objects sutable or disagreeing are proper to those Natures that have no alliance with Bodies It follows therefore the Soul in its separate state may contemplate and delightfully injoy intellectual objects or torment it self with reflection on things contrary to its will Nay it understands more clearly and is affected more strongly than before For these operations during its conjunction are not common to the Body but produc'd by it in the quality of a mind and are then most vigorous and expedite most noble and worthy of it when the Soul withdraws from all sensible things into it self and is most rais'd above the manner of working that is proper and proportion'd to the body And from hence 't is reasonable to conclude that it survives the Body not losing with it the most noble faculty the mind that is peculiar to it nor the necessary instrument of using it For as the universal Providence of God supports the lower rank of Creatures in their natural Life so long as their faculties are qualified for actions proper to that life we may strongly argue that his conservative Influence will not be withdrawn from the humane Soul that is apt and capable in its own nature to exist and act in a separate state In short the understanding and elective powers declare its descent from the Father of Spirits whose image is ingraven in its nature not as in brittle glass but an incorruptible Diamond I shall add to the natural arguments an observation of the Platonists that of all other Philosophers approach nearest the truth in their discourses of God and the Soul of the Majesty of the one and the excellence of the other They observe that the unity of the World is so closely combin'd in all its parts the several beings that compose it that between the superiour and inferiour species there are middle Natures wherein they meet that no vacuum may interpose in the series of things This is evident by considering that between inanimate bodies and living insensible and sensible there are some beings that partake of the extremes and link them together that the order of things not being interrupted the mind by continual easie degrees may ascend from the lowest to the highest in perfection And from this just and harmonious proportion that is proper to essences the intelligible beauty and musick of the World arises that is so pleasing to the considering mind Now what band is there to joyn the two ranks of Beings intelligent and sensible but Man that partakes of Sense common with the Beasts and Understanding to the Angels For this reason they give him the mysterious name of Horizon the ending and union of the two Hemispheres the superiour and inferiour the two orders of Natures immortal and that shall perish CHAP. X. The moral Arguments for the Souls Immortality The restless desire of the Soul to an intellectual eternal happiness argues it survives the Body The lower order of Creatures obtain their perfection here It reflects upon Nature if the more noble fails of its end That wicked Men would choose annihilation is no proof against Mans natural desires of Immortality The necessity of a future state of recompences for moral actions proves the Soul to be immortal The wisdom of God as Governor of the World requires there be Rewards and Punishments annext to his Laws Eternal Rewards are only powerful to make men obedient to them in this corrupt state Humane Laws are no sufficient security of Vertue and restraint from Vice 2. I Will now consider the moral Inducements to confirm our belief that God will preserve the Soul in its being and activity hereafter And of this we have sufficient evidence by internal light the natural notions of the Deity and by many visible testimonies in his Government of the World 1. The restless desire of the Soul to an intellectual and eternal Felicity not attainable here is a strong argument that 't is reserv'd to a future state The Understanding is inclin'd to the knowledge of Truth the Will to the fruition of Goodness and in what degrees soever we discover the one and enjoy the other in our present condition we are not content As one that is burnt up with such a Thirst that onely an Ocean can quench and has but a little stream to refresh him God is the only satisfying Object of the rational faculties and here our conceptions of him are so imperfect that we approach nearer the Truth by denying what is inconsistent with his Nature than in affirming the proper Perfections of it And the communications of his Love to us inflames the Soul with new desires of fuller enjoyment This desire of Happiness is essential to Man as Man Now 't is universally acknowledged that Nature is not a vain Principle it produces no superfluous inclinations in any sort of Creatures much less in Man and in that which is most proper to him and in order to the raising him to his Perfection The natural motion of a Stone has a center where to rest Plants arrive to their full growth and beauty the Beasts have present satisfaction and are happy Animals But Man in whom the two lower lives and the Intellectual are united is here only in his way to happiness his best endeavours are but
first springing up and has tender roots But when vicious habits are confirm'd the Conscience is past feeling the first resentments There are many instances of those who have made the foulest crimes so familiar as to lose the horror that naturally attends them And many that have been prosperous in their villanys dye without tormenting reflections on their guilt So that if there be no further punishments we must deny the Divine Providence of which Justice is an eminent part CHAP. XII Two Arguments more to prove future recompenses T is not possible for civil Justice to dispence rewards aud punishments according to the good and evil actions of Men. All Nations agree in the acknowledgment of a future state The innocent Conscience is supported under an unjust Sentence by looking to the superiour Tribunal The courage of Socrates in dying with the cause of it The guilty Conscience terrifies with the apprehension of judgment to come Tiberius his complaint to the Senate of his inward tortures An answer to the objection that we have not sensible evidence of what is enjoyed and what is sufferd in the next life Why sin a transient act is punished with eternal death 3. 'T Is not possible for humane Justice to distribute recompence exactly according to the moral qualities of actions therefore we may rationally infer there will be a future Judgment This appears by consideriug 1. That many times those crimes are equally punisht here that are not of equal guilt because they proceed from different sources that lye so low as the strictest inquisition cannot discover And many specious actions done for corrupt ends and therefore without moral value are equally rewarded with those wherein is the deepest tincture of virtue The accounts of civil Justice are made by the most visible cause not by the secret and most operative and influential Therefore a superior Tribunal is necessary to which not only sensible actions but their most inward principles are open that will exactly judge of moral evils according to their aggravations and allays and of moral good according to the various degrees that are truly rewardable 2. No temporal benefits are the proper and compleat reward of obedience to God Not the proper for they are common to bad and good but the reward of Holiness must be peculiar to it that an eminent distinction be made between the obedient and rebellious to the Divine Laws otherwise it will not answer the ends of Government And they are not the compleat rewards of obedience For God rewards his Servants according to the infinite treasures of his Goodness The sensible World a Kingdom so vast so rich so delightful is enjoyed by his enemies We may therefore certainly infer he has reserved for his faithful Servants a more excellent felicity as becomes his glorious goodness 3. The extreamest temporal evils that can be inflicted here are not correspondent to the guilt of Sin Men can only torment and kill the Body the instrument and less guilty part but cannot immediately touch the Soul the principal cause by whose influence humane actions are vicious and justly punishable From hence it follows that supposing the Wicked should feel the utmost severity of Civil Laws yet there remains in another World a dreadful arrear of misery to be endured as their just and full recompence 4. In testimony of this Truth that the Souls of Men are immortal to Rewards and Punishments not only the wisest Men but all Nations have subscrib'd The darkest Pagans have acknowledged a Deity and a Providence and consequently a future Judgment Indeed this spark was almost drown'd in an Abyss of Fables for in explicating the process and Recompences of the last Judgment they mixt many absurd fictions with truth but in different manners they acknowledged the same thing that there remains another life and two contrary states according to our actions here Of this we have a perfect conviction from the immortal hopes in good Men and the endless fears in the wicked The directive understanding that tells Man his duty has a reflexive power and approves or condemns with respect to the Supreme Court where it shall give a full testimony Hence it is that Conscience so far as innocent makes an Apology against unjust Charges and sustains a Man under the most cruel Sentence being perswaded of a superiour Tribunal that will rectify the errors of Man's Judgement But when guilty terrifies the Offender with the flashes of Judgment to come though he may escape present sufferings Of this double power of Conscience I shall add some lively Examples Plato represents his admirable Socrates after an unjust Condemnation to Death in the Prison at Athens encompast with a noble circle of Philosophers discoursing of the Souls Immortality and that having finisht his Arguments for it he drank the Cup of Poison with an undisturbed Courage as one that did not lose but exchange this short and wretched life for a blessed and eternal For thus he argued That there are two ways of departing Souls leading to two contrary states of felicity and of misery Those who had defiled themselves with sensual Vices and given full scope to boundless lusts in their private conversation or who by frauds and violence had been injurious to the Common-wealth are drag'd to a place of torment and for ever excluded from the joyful presence of the blessed Society above But those who had preserv'd themselves upright and chaste and at the greatest distance possible from the contagion of the flesh and had during their union with humane bodies imitated the Divine Life by an easie and open way returned to God from whom they came And this was not the sense only of the more vertuous Heathens but even some of those who had done greatest force to the humane Nature yet could not so darken their Minds and corrupt their Wills but there remain'd in them stinging apprehensions of punishment hereafter Histories inform us of many Tyrants that encompast with the strongest Guards have been afrighted with the alarms of an accusing Conscience and seized on by inward terrors the forerunners of Hell and in the midst of their luxurious stupifying pleasures have been haunted with an evil Spirit that all the Musick in the World could not charm The persons executed by their commands were always in their view shewing their wounds reproaching their cruelty and citing them before the High and Everlasting Judg the righteous Avenger of innocent Blood How fain would they have kill'd them once more and deprived them of that life they had in their memories but that was beyond their power Of this we have an eminent instance in Tiberius who in a Letter to the Senate open'd the inward wounds of his Breast with such words of despair as might have moved pity in those who were under the continual fear of his Tyranny No punishment is so cruel as when the Offender and Executioner are the same Person Now that such Peace and Joy are the
effects of conscious integrity that such disquiets and fears arise from guilt is a convincing Argument that the Divine Providence is concern'd in the Good and Evil done here and consequently that the comforts of Holy Souls are the first fruits of eternal Happiness and the terrors of the Wicked are the gradual beginnings of sorrows that shall never end Before I finish this Discourse it will be requisit to answer two Objections that Infidels are ready to make 1. They argue against the reality of future recompences That they are invisible we have no testimony frō others who know the truth of them by experience As Alexanders Souldiers after his victories in the East refused to venture over the Ocean with him for the conquest of other Kingdoms beyond it alledging facile ista finguntur quia Oceanus navigari non potest The Seas were so vast and dangerous that no ship could pass through them Who ever returned that was there who has given Testimony from his own sight of such rich and pleasant Countries Nothing can be more easily feigned that it is than that of which there can be no proof that it is not And such is the Language of Infidelity Of all that undertook that endless Voyage to another World who ever came back through the immense ocean of the Air to bring us news of such a happy Paradise as to make us despise this World do they drink the Waters of forgetfulness so as to lose the memory of the Earth and its Inhabitants If there were a place of endless Torments of the millions of Souls that every day depart from hence would none return to give advice to his dear friends to prevent their misery Or when they have taken that last step is the precipice so steep that they cannot ascend hither Or does the Soul lose its wings that it cannot take so high a flight These are idle fancies And from hence they conclude that none ever return because they never come there but finally perish in the dissolution of the Body and are lost in the Abyss of nothing when they cease to live with us they are dead to themselves And consequently they judg it a foolish bargain to part with what is present and certain for an uncertain futurity Thus they make use of Reason for this end to perswade themselves that men are of the same nature with the Beasts without Reason To this I answer First though the evidence of the future state be not equal to that of sense as to clearness yet 't is so convincing even by natural light that upon far less Men form their Judgments and conduct their weightiest affairs in the World To recapitulate briefly what has been amplified before Is there not a God the Maker of the World is there no Counsel of Providence to govern it no Law of Righteousness for the distinction of Rewards Are there not moral Good and Evil Are Reason Vertue Grace names without truth like Chimaeras of no real kind the fancies of Nature deceived and deceiving it self Are they only wise among Men the only happy discoverers of that which is proper and best and the All of Man who most degenerate to brutishness shall we judg of the truth of Nature in any kind of beings by the Monsters in it What generation of Animals has any show of veneration of a Deity or a value for Justice either peace or remorse of Conscience or a natural desire of an intellectual happiness in life and an eternal after death Is there not even in the present state some experimental sense some impressions in the hearts of Men of the Powers of the World to come These things are discernable to all unprejudiced minds And can it be pretended that there is not a sufficient conviction that Men and Beasts do not equally perish 2. There is a vail drawn over the Eternal World for most wise Reasons If the Glory of Heaven were clear to Sense if the mouth of the bottomless-Pit were open before Mens eyes there would be no place for Faith and Obedience would not be the effect of choice but necessity and consequently there would be no visible descrimination made between the Holy and the Wicked The violent inclinations to sin would be stopt as to the act without an inward real change of the Heart If the Blasphemer or false Swearer were presently struck dumb if the Drunkard should never recover his understanding if the unclean wretch should immediatly be consumed by a hidden Fire or his sinning flesh putrifie and rot away if for every vice of the mind some disease that resembles it in the Body were speedily inflicted as a just punishment the World indeed would not be so full of all kinds of wickedness so contagious and of such incureable malignity But though in appearance it would be less vicious yet in truth and reality not more vertuous For such a kind of goodness or rather not guiltiness of the outward sinful act would proceed not from a Divine Principle a free Spirit of love to God and Holiness but from a low affection mere servile fear of Vengeance And love to Sin is consistent with such an abstinence from it As a Merchant that in a Tempest is forc'd to cast his Goods into the Sea not because he hates them for he throws his Heart after but to escape drowning Now that the real difference between the Godly and the Impious the Just and Unjust the sober and intemperate may appear God affords to men such evidence of future things that may satisfie an impartial considering person and be a sure defence against temptations that infect and inchant the careless mind and pervert the will to make a foolish choice of things next the senses for happiness Yet this evidence is not so clear but a corrupt heart may by a secret but effectual influence darken the understanding and make it averse from the belief of unseen things and strongly turn it from serious pondering those terrible truths that controul the carnal desires 3. How preposterous is this inference Departed Souls never return therefore they have no existence therefore we are but a breath of wind that only so long remains in being as it blows a shadow that is onely whiles it appears let our hours then that are but few be fill'd with pleasures let us enjoy the present regardless of hereafter that does not expect us Philosophy worthy of Brutes But prudence will conclude if the condition of Souls that go hence be immutable and in that place where they arrive they must be for ever it should be our cheifest care to direct them well if upon our entrance into the next World Eternity shuts the door upon us and the happiness and misery of it is not measur'd by time but the one excludes all fear the other all hope of Change 't is necessary to govern all our actions with a final respect to that state This is to discourse as a Man according to the Principles of
out the proper uses of this Doctrine as Gold from the Mines by digging into the bowels of the Earth but the Consequences are clear and sensible to all that will duly consider things If in the next World there are good things and evil things great as the possessing or losing an infinite Felicity and lasting as Eternity and distant from us no farther than Death is from Life that is then a Candle from being blown out that is exposed to all the winds 't is absolutely necessary to regulate our selves in the present state by a continual respect to the future As the Travellers in the Desart of Arabia that is all Sand movable by every blast so that no visible path remains to prevent their wandrings observe the Stars to direct them in their Journy to the place they intend Thus we must look not to the things that are seen but to things that are not seen eternal above to conduct us safely thorow this material mutable World to Felicity More particularly 1. This should regulate our Judgment of all temporal things Worldly happiness is but a Picture that seen by Sence the false light of the present time has an alluring appearance but if look'd on by Faith the true light of Eternity it is discovered to be a disfigur'd and unamiable confusion of spots This unbinds the Charm and discovers the vanity and illusion of what ever is admirable in the eyes of flesh Can any carry the least mark of Honour one farthing of their Treasures any shadow of their Beauty one drop of their Pleasure with them to another World As in the Night all Colours are the same the Crimson cannot be distinguish'd from Black nor Purple from Green when the light is withdrawn that gave them life they cease to be visible and are buried in the same indifferent obscurity So in the state after Death the most remarkable differences of this World are no more And is that worthy of our esteem that attends us for a little time and leaves us for ever Can that be our happiness that when we die and cease to be mortal ceases to be ours If Man did only live to die and there were an absolute end of him present things were more valuable in the quality of an earthly Felicity as being his All but if he dies to live in another World and all that in the language of the Earth full of Improprieties and moral Soloecisms we call ours must be left at the gates of Death the entrance of Eternity they cannot be the materials of our happiness Seneca contemplating the beauty and greatness of those Orbs of Light above cast down his Eyes to find out the Earth hardly visible at that distance and breaks forth in a Philosophical disdain Is it this to which the great designes and vast desires of Men are confin'd Is it for this there is such disturbance of Nations Wars and shedding of Blood O folly O fury of deceived Men to imagine great Kingdoms in the compass of an Atome to raise Armies to divide a point of Earth with their Swords 'T is just as if the Ants should conceive a Field to be several Kingdoms and fiercely contend to inlarge their borders and celebrate a Triumph in gaining a foot of earth as a new Province to their Empire And from hence he excites Men to ascend in their thoughts and take an intellectual possession of the material Heavens as most worthy of their minds But the Soul that raised by Faith looks beyond the Starry Heavens how much more justly is it fill'd with noble wonder at the Divine and truly great things in the Spiritual World and looks down on the lower Scene of things and all that has the name of felicity here as sordid and vile The foresight that within a little while this World shall be dissolv'd and time shall be no more makes it not seem to be in the Eyes of a Believer that great thing as 't is represented to the rest of Men. He looks upon those who shine in Pomp and flow in Pleasure and think themselves happy to be as a Beggar in a Dream that thinks himself rich in treasures for present things are only colour'd with the appearence of felicity and are as vanishing as the fictions of fancy While carnal Men will believe nothing but what they see feel and enjoy by their Senses and embrace meer shadows as solid felicity he considers them with compassion For 't is with them as with one that in the rage of a Fever laughs sings triumphs Tell him that he is not himself he thinks you are mad for saying so Tell him when his fiery spirits shall be wasted and that heat of Blood that makes him so lively and strong shall decline and cool he will be in extreme danger of Death he replies he was never in better health But who envies him that happiness which he seems to enjoy none but one that is a mad-man like him Nay a Father a Brother a Friend look on him with a mourning Eye and Heart For he is only happy in his own conceit and that conceit proceeds from his distraction Thus the power of Truth is victorious in sober men does not suffer them to be cheated with the false shew of good that respects the Body No credit is given to the appearance of Sense when Reason discerns the Deception and judges otherwise And thus the clear infallible light of Faith directs the Judgment of things present with respect to the eternal Interest of the Soul This makes a Believer prefer severe Wisdom before the sweetest Follies unpleasing Truth before all the dear Deceits of sensual Persons In short Faith removes the thick Curtain of sensible things that intercepted the Eye of the Mind and its first Effect is to shew the incomparable disproportion between what is present and what is future and this is as great as between the living of a few years and an incorruptible state between the wretched enjoyment of things that cannot satisfy the Senses and the enjoyment of a universal Good that can fill all the desires of the Soul as between a inch of Time and entire Eternity between Nothing mask'd with a false appearance and infinite Felicity 2. The consideration of the Souls immortality should reconcile our affection to all things that may befal us here so far as they are preparatory for our wel-being in the future state The original Principle from whence are derived all Rules for practice and of main influence upon our Comforts is that Man is created for a supernatural happiness hereafter and that present things are to be chosen or refused with respect to our obtaining of it For the means what-ever they are in their absolute nature yet consider'd as such in order to an end are qualified and become either good or evil as conducive to it or unprofitable and prejudicial A Way that is thorny or dirty or steep or stony is good if it leads me to my Country
inconveniencies afar off and lay the Scene to avoid them And is Reason only useful in the affairs of the Body and must Sense that cannot see an hands-breadth beyond the present be the guide of the Soul Well though the most powerful Reasons the most ardent Exhortations and stinging Reprehensions cannot prevail with the Sons of the Earth now to be apprehensive of the Evils that threaten them but they live in a blind manner regardless of the Soul yet in a little while Extremities will compel them to open their eyes When they are departing hence with one foot upon the brink of Time and the other lift up to enter Eternity how will they be astonish'd to see the distance between this World and the next which seem'd to them so wide to be but one step The present Life that in their imaginations would never end and the future that would never begin so intent were they for the provisions of the one and neglectful of the other behold the one is gone and the other come Time is at their back with all its vanities and Eternity before their faces with its great realities How are their thoughts and discourses changed in that terrible hour that will decide their states for ever they did foolishly for themselves but then speak wisely for the instruction of others How piercing and quick are their apprehensions then of Heaven and Hell which before were neglected as unworthy of regard or onely toucht the surface of their Souls what amazement what dejection of Spirit to find themselves in a sad unpreparedness for their great Account the remembrance that for the poor advantages of time they forfeited Eternal Glory and ventur'd on Eternal Misery cuts more sorely than the pangs of Death But suppose they harden their hearts to the last minute of life and are more stupid than the Beasts that tremble upon a precipice at the sight of extream danger yet a minute after Death O the heavy change when they shall feel themselves undone infinitely and irrecoverably What fierce and violent workings will be in the mind what a storm of passions rais'd But then Repentance will be with perfect sorrow without the least profit There are no returns to the possibility of mercy I will conclude this Discourse with a passage from the most humble and excellent St. Austin He bewails in his Confession his long bondage under Sin His carnal lusts adher'd as closely to him as the Ivy twines about the Oak that there can be no separation without eradicating it and plucking the Bark off the Tree He felt an inward continual Combat between the Flesh and Spirit He often shook the Chain wherewith he had voluntarily bound himself but had not the resolution to break it And thus for a time his Judgment abhor'd what his Affections were enclin'd to and he was neither victorious nor vanquish'd But when God was pleas'd by his omnipotent Grace to set him at liberty the last and most violent Assault of the Flesh and that which made his Conversion most difficult was this His Youthful Lusts presented themselves to his Imagination and as that impure Mistress did with chast Joseph shook the Garment of his Flesh and whisper'd Will you renounce us shall there be a divorce between you and your ancient Loves for ever shall not this or that desire of the Senses be contented for ever And what was that for ever it only signified the short remainder of his time after thirty three years which was then his Age. And this is the most effectual hinderance of the reclaiming of Sinners still They will not be induc'd to make an irrevokable unreserv'd dedication of themselves to God and firmly to resolve never to taste forbidden sweets more but always abhor the relish of them But if it be so hard and intolerable always to abstain from unlawful pleasures and much more to suffer pain in the short space the moments of this Life that it seems an Eternity to corrupt Nature what will it be in the true Eternity to be depriv'd of all Good and tormented with all Evils despairing of release or quenching one spark of that terrible Fire O that Men were wise to consider their latter end and the consequences of it their Mortality and Immortality FINIS THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. 1. pag. 1. ATheism is fearfull of publick discovery Three heads of Arguments to prove the Being of a God 1. The visible frame of the World and the numerous Natures in it exactly modelled for the good of the whole prove it to be the work of a most wise Agent The World considered in its several parts The Sun in its scituation motion and effects declare the Providence of the Creator The diurnal motion of the Sun from East to West is very beneficial to Nature The Annual course brings admirable advantage to it The gradual passing of the sensible World from the excess of Heat to the extremity of Cold an effect of Providence The constant Revolutions of the Day and Night and of the Seasons of the Year discovers that a wise Cause order them Chap. 2. pag. 19. The Air a fit medium to convey the Light and Influences of the Heavens of the lower World 'T is the repository of Vapours that are drawn up by the Sun and descend in fruitful showers The Winds of great benefit The separation of the Sea from the Land the effect of great Wisdom and Power That the Earth is not an equal Globe is both pleasant and useful The League of the Elements considered Excellent Wisdom visible in Plants and Fruits The shapes of Animals are answerable to their properties They regularly act to preserve themselves The Bees Swallows Ants directed by an excellent mind Chap. 3. pag. 34. The Body of Man form'd with perfect design for Beauty and Usefulness A short description of its parts The fabrick of the Eye and Hand admirably discovers the Wisdom of the Maker The erect stature of the Body fitted for the rational Soul Man by speech is fitted for Society How the Affections are discovered in the Countenance The distinction of Persons by the face how necessary The reasonable Soul the image of a wise and voluntary Agent Chap. 4. pag. 51. The vanity of Epicurus's Opinion of the Worlds original discovered from the visible order in all the parts of it Chance produces no regular effects The constant natural course of things in the World proves that 't is not framed nor conducted by uncertain Chance The World was not caused by the necessity of Nature In the search of Causes the mind cannot rest till it comes to the first Second Causes are sustain'd and directed in all their workings by the first The Creator though invisible in his Essence is visible in his effects Chap. 5. pag. 71. The beginning of the World proved from the uninterrupted Tradition of it through all Ages The Invention of Arts and bringing them to perfection an Argument of the Worlds beginning The weakness
of that Fancy that the World is in a perpetual Circulation from Infancy to Youth and to full Age and a decrepit state and back again so that Arts are lost and recovered in that change The consent of Nations a clear Argument that there is a God The impressions of Nature are infallible That the most Men are practical Atheists that some doubt and deny God in words is of no force to disprove his Existence There are no absolute Atheists Nature in extremities has an irresistible force and compels the most obdurate to acknowledg the Deity Chap. 6. Page 22. The belief of the Deity no Politick Invention The asserting that 't is necessary to preserve States in order is a strong proof of its truth No History intimates when this belief was introduc'd into the World The continuance of it argues that its rise was not from a Civil Decree Princes themselves are under the fears of the Deity The multitude of false Gods does not prejudice the natural notion of one true God Idolatry was not universal The Worship of the only true God is preserved where Idolatry is abolished Chap. 7. pag. 105. The duties of understanding Creatures to the Maker of all things Admiration of his glorious Perfections visible in them This is more particularly the duty of Man the World being made eminently for him The Causes why the Creator is not honour'd in his Works are Mens ignorance and inobservance Things new rather affect us than great An humble fear is a necessary respect from the Creature to the Divine Majesty and Power Love and Obedience in the highest degrees are due from men to God in the quality of Creator Trust and Reliance on God is our duty and priviledge Chap. 8. pag. 146. The Immortality of the Soul depends on the conservative influence of God Natural and Moral Arguments to prove that God will continue it for ever The Soul is incapable of perishing from any corruptible principles or separable parts It s spiritual nature is evident by the acts of its principal faculties The Understanding conceives spiritual objects is not confin'd to singular and present things Reflects upon it self Corrects the errors of the sense Does not suffer from the excellency of the object Is vigorous in its operations when the Body is decayed which proves it to be an immaterial faculty An Answer to Objections against the Souls spiritual nature That the first notices of things are conveyed through the senses does not argue it to be a material faculty That it depends on the temper of the Body in its superior operations is no prejudice to its spiritual nature Chap. 9. pag. 170. The Acts of the Will considered It s choice of things distastful to Sense and sometimes destructive to the Body argue it to be a spiritual principle The difference between Man and Brutes amplified The spiritual operations of the Soul may be performed by it self in a separate state This is a strong proof God will continue it The Platonick Argument that Man unites the two orders of Natures intelligent and sensible immortal and perishing Chap. 10. pag. 181. The moral Arguments for the Souls Immortality The restless desire of the Soul to an intellectual eternal happiness argues it survives the Body The lower order of Creatures obtain their perfection here It reflects upon Nature if the more noble fails of its end That wicked men would choose annihilation rather than eternal torments is no proof against Mans natural desire of Immortality The necessity of a future state of Recompences for moral actions proves the Soul to be immortal The Wisdom of God as Governour of the World requires there be Rewards and Punishments annext to his Laws Eternal Rewards are only powerful to make men obedient to them in this corrupt state Humane Laws are no sufficient security of Vertue and restraint from Vice Chap. 11. Page 198. The Justice of God an infallible Argument of future recompences The natural notion of God includes Justice in Perfection In this World sometimes Vertue and Vice are equally miserable Sometimes Vice is prosperous Sometimes good Men are in the worst condition The dreadful consequences of denying a future state Gods absolute Dominion over the Reasonable Creature is regulated by his Wisdom and limited by his Will The essential beauty of Holiness with the pleasure that naturally results from good actions and the native turpitude of Sin with the disturbance of the mind reflecting on it are not the compleat recompences that attend the Good and the Wicked Chap. 12. Page 223. Two Arguments more to prove future recompenses 'T is not possible for civil Justice to despense rewards and punishments according to the good and evil actions of Men. All Nations agree in the acknowledgment of a future state The innocent Conscience is supported under an unjust Sentence by looking to the superior Tribunal The courage of Socrates in dying with the cause of it The guilty Conscience terrifies with the apprehension of Judgment to come Tiberius his complaint to the Senate of his inward tortures An Answer to the Objection that we have not sensible evidence of what is enjoyed and what is suffered in the next life Why Sin a transient act is punished with Eternal Death Chap. 13. Page 257. What influence the Doctrine of the future state should have upon our practice It must regulate our esteem of present things And reconcile our affections to any condition here so far as it may be an advantage to prepare us for the better World The chiefest care is due to the Immortal part The just value of Time and how it should be improved 'T is the best Wisdom to govern our whole course of Life here with regard to Eternity that expects us FINIS There is lately Reprinted a Book entitled The Harmony of the Divine Attributes in the Contrivance and Accomplishment of Man's Redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ. Or Discourses wherein is shewed how the Wisdom Mercy Justice Holiness Power and Truth of God are glorified in that great and blessed Work By W. Bates D. D. Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pigeons over against the Royal-Exchange in Cornhil * Epicuri de Grege Porcum Hor. Chap. I. * Vitruv. praef lib. 6. Boet. * Obliquitatem ejus intellexisse est rerum fores aperuisse Plin. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Chap. II. * Ne sylvae quidem honidiorque naturae facies Medicinis caret sacra il a parente rerum omnium nusquam non remedia disponente homini ut Medicina fieret ipsa solitudo Plin. ‖ Est igitur id quo illa conficiuntur homine melius Id autem quid potius dixerimquam Deum Tull. de nat deor * His muniendo aculeis telisque armando remediis ut tuta salva sint Ita hoc quoque quod in iis odimus hominum causa excogitatum est Plin. l. 22. ‖ Quid est in his in quo non naturae ratio intelligentis appareat Tull. †Quis non