souls immortality It is true But are they of her destruction Is not either of them equally unattainable to our senses What can then determine him rather to the belief of one than of the other since both are equally unknown to him CHAP. VIII Some places of Ecclesiastes Irreligious men make use of to prove the mortality of the soul explained NOthing surprises more than to see the Irreligious make use of a Book written against Irreligion The Ecclesiastes supposes every where existence of God and the creation of man He condemns the vanity of his desires reproaches him with ignorance in the works of God draws a picture of the chief abuses of all conditions threatens all sinners with the last judgement and exhorts them to repent before death may overtake them It is easie to see that all this is grounded upon immortality If the soul does not out-live the body it is needless to perswade to actions of piety which should go unrewarded and to deter us from crimes by the image of a judgement to come which had nothing real in it Certainly the design of Solomon being to lead us to God through the duties of a sincere piety this Book is directly opposite to the error of the destruction of the soul the belief of her mortality being the foundation of all Religion But had he established it in any place with what probability could we make use of another to destroy it Unless we should impute to the Wise man a shameful contradiction and accuse him to pull down before-hand what he intended to build after The scope of the last Chapter is to advise men to serve God from their Youth and not put off their conversion to the last years of their life wherein repentance is so suspicious And having metaphorically described the dissolution of the body in these words Ere the wheel be broken at the Cistern he breaks off his metaphors and saies plainly Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it 12.6 These words make out clearly the immortality of the soul If our spirit subsists not after the dissolution of the body how can it return to God Can a spirit which is annihilated return to his maker And this seems to be inforced by the comparison he makes of it to the dust For the dust our body is made of subsists really after the dissolution of the whole Nay this dust is immortal no creature being able to annihilate it and matter remaining incorruptible to any natural power Therefore the dust of our body subsisting even after our death returning to the earth as it was who doubts but our spirit returning to God who gave it subsists after the separation There is not the least colour to attribute any other sense to the Wise man And we are naturally led to it by the justness of the comparison between these two parts of our selves The spirit shall return unto God who gave it as the dust shall return to the earth as it was 'T is the Wise-mans proposition But the dust subsists even after the separation and returns really to the earth Therefore the spirit returning to God who gave it subsists really also Nor is it an amazing thing that our soul should be immortal since the dust and earth she animates is so too And as death is not the annihilation of bodies but their separation from souls and their dissolution into elements so it is not the annihilation of the soul but its separation from the body and reunion to God as her source Indeed after so precise an assertion of the immortality of the soul any ingenious adversary will confess that if some obscure place occurs it is a rule of common sense to reduce it to the perspicuity of these words But what must one say if that very place the Irreligious usurps against immortality should suppose it so plainly that it is meer nonsense out of that supposition The Wise-man saies that having considered those places where Judges sit he had seen wickedness in them and impiety in their judgements vers 16 17. But that their verdicts shall be reviewed and reformed When God shall judge the righteous and the wicked for there is a time for every purpose and for every work that it cannot be understood but of the last judgement and consequently supposes before-hand the immortality of the soul He adds vers 18 19. that he has said in his heart concerning the sons of men that God might manifest them and that they might see that they themselves are beasts 'T is upon that account in the Wise-mans opinion that as one dies so dies the other Yea they have all one breath so that a man has no preeminence upon a beast for all is but vanity And that they may be convinced of it all go to one place all are of the dust and turn to dust again This is so strong a prejudice for stupid and carnal men as it inclines them to believe that their condition is perfectly the same with that of beasts Who knoweth the spirit of man that goes upward and the spirit of the beast that goes downward to the earth 'T is almost the same manner of speaking as that which expresses so perspicuously the immortality of the soul and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it Which is the Tame as if he had said in that deep ignorance of all things men are involved there is not so much as one who knowes that which no body should be a stranger to being the foundation of all Religion that rational souls are immortal and that of the beasts is not It appears therefore clearer than light it self that the Wiseman proposes not this truth as doubtful but as undoubtedly granted Which is an extraordinary manner of speaking When to exaggerate some points men are engaged to know one doubts whether they do know others which are more common Is there an ignorance may one say equal to that of the Popish people in many places They think it lawful to keep another mans goods as long as the Law does not call them to an account they blame no Oaths but perjury Nay who of them knowes whether there is three persons in God and two Natures in Christ 'T is just the same trope the Wise-man spoke in He is not uncertain whether the soul returns to God whence she came since he professes it expresly at the end of his Book but he doubts whether amongst the men of his time any had light enough to discover this truth in the midst of so much darkness If speaking thus he seems to doubt of the souls immortality he must have doubted also of the corruptibility of the souls of beasts his expression reaching equally to both Who knoweth the spirit of man that goes upward and the spirit of beasts that go downward He must then mean this Who knowes whether the spirit of man subsists after death as it is usually believed
as younger Brothers The Egyptians and the Ethiopians claimed that honour and declared that they came immediately from the womb of the earth And the Athenians took the proud title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Chaldaeans and Egyptians carried their Dispute to the very height The first as refer Diodorus and Tully who laugh at both said that when Alexander the Great over-run Asia they had already applied themselves to the study of the Stars just four hundred seventy thousand years And not reckoning their years by the reign of their Kings but divers periods some of six thousand others of six hundred the least of sixty years they made up their account The Egyptians wanted no number to outvie them They found in their Archives that since they had the name of Egyptians the Stars had already compleated four times their great revolution that is returned to the same state where they were when they began to move which includes an incredible number of years Being as proud of Astrology as the Caldaeans they boasted to have kept the Ephemerides of an infinite number of years and the lives of their Kings all that time An Author of theirs relates three branches of them One of Gods the other of Heroes the third of men who reigned an infinite number of ages Nay they were so thirsty of antiquity as to say that Vulcan their first King reigned innumerable ages But the Annals of his reign were lost The Sun succeeded to him as being his Son and reigned six hundred thousand six hundred seventy four years May it not be askt whether the brain of them that made such reckoning or of them that believed them was well settled and yet this is the ground of the belief of the Irreligious Those Dreams are all the shelter they can find if they go to prove the authority of the world by way of authority They agree therefore with Christians in that they believe incomprehensible things But with this difference that we believe only upon the authority of God who has revealed them We are perswaded that his power goes farther than our apprehension And that he includes within and works without himself greater wonders than we are able to conceive And as it is alwaies rational to trust him who is infinitely wise so reason it self forces us to believe things beyond reason This impotency of conceiving the works of God is the only thing can make us happy What sort of God is this that can be included in the narrow minds of men Certainly an object of this nature is a slender ground of felicity And our hopes being inseparable from our faith his incomprehensibility is the greatest comfort of our souls This Irreligious will admit of nothing but what his senses or his experience make plain to him When therefore they believe any thing they neither see nor apprehend their belief is not grounded upon the certainty or evidence but the interest they have in things It is not the object that determines and fixes their belief but their heart and inclinarions They believe that such a thing is after such a manner because they know it and are satisfied but because they would have it so Nay they carry so far that abuse of their reason that when they cannot avoid to believe things morally incredible they had rather believe them incredible by their gross absurdity than any divine grandure that lies in them These are the miserable shifts of the Irreligious But if they could stay there and feed themselves with the imaginations of their hearts without any danger we had nothing to say to them All wise men would only think them out of their wits and so far 't is well 't is no worse But to believe impertinencies and Chimera's with that danger that if they mistake they shall fall into an eternal state of misery 't is a fury a passion an extravagancy that wants a name and can scarce be imagined CHAP. V. Abuse the Irreligious makes against the Immortality of the soul of the conformity between man and beast IT is not intended here to prove the immortality of the soul but only to shew how false and inconsistent are the principles of Irreligion There is a vast conformity between man and beast in their senses in the multiplication of their kinds their self-preservation their passions their distempers their death c. From the mortality of the souls of beasts the Irreligious concludes that of the soul of man and thinks in that to judge according to the natural impression that form in his mind so many qualities which being common to both make a sort of prejuge against man To evince how false is that ratiocination it may suffice to prove that it is no less against than for him He concludes from that conformity that as these of beasts so our souls die Why not that theirs are immortal as well as ours The conformity being equal to both sides it must not be more partial to one than to the other According to all appearances saies the Irreligious Man Beast are altogether alike in the necessity of dying and in all the consequences of death But the whole beast dies body and soul therefore the whole man dies so also But the very self same argument may be thus as probably inverted Beasts and man are are alike in their death But man dies in his body and not in his soul therefore Beasts do so too and their souls are immortal Either of these conclusions must be equal to the Irreligious since professing to believe but what he knowes he knowes and can know the mortality of the souls of Beasts no better than their immortality But Christians saies he acknowledge the whole Beast dies Which answer is the more absurd because he must not argue from what we believe but only from what falls under his senses and experience and what he must thence rationally conclude But he sees only in a Beast the death of the body His eyes can go no further and concludes from that internal equality any thing for their soul Or leaving the answer in its full latitude 't is in vain he makes use of our authority concerning the destruction of the souls of beasts since we do it by reasons which establish the immortality of ours But supposing with them and all the world besides the mortality of the souls of Beasts all that can be concluded from their conformity with man can only fall upon that wherein they are alike There is in man that which is rational and that which is animal Man is born preserves himself by nourishment and his kind by generation He is subject to the distempers of his body the passions of his heart the disorders of the Elements and the necessity of dying All this is common to him and the smallest Beasts Nay many of them out-do him in the perfection of his senses Their light is more piercing their hearing quicker their smelling more refined But all this is still animal All
with them as to make use of neither nay as to lay aside all the proofs History Philosophy and Nature affords and only stick to their doubts and uncertainties I say doubts and uncertainties for if they have no demonstration for Christian Religion they have none against it The most learned in the mysteries of Irreligion have not yet demonstrated the Eternity of the World the Mortality of the Soul the Impossibility of a Judgment and of an eternally happy or unhappy Life All that they have done is to elude and evade the Arguments brought to assert them all which summ'd up amounts at most to a probable doubt but can never reach to a full and real perswasion But the nature of doubt being to be equal on both sides they must give us leave to doubt of the Dogmes of Irreligion as of things that may be false Nor can they complain we require too much of them when we desire them to assent That it may be there is God it may be our Soul is immortal it may be the World had a beginning and must have an end it may be there is a Life to come The Authority of so many Nations that ador'd God for five thousand years and Christ near two thousand is enough to counterballance their reasons and make the question at least dubious and uncertain and is so far from doing them any wrong that their condition cannot be more advantageous than to suppose their doubts and look upon them as principles that must end the difference CHAP II. That in things that are doubtful 't is an infallible Rule of Prudence To close with that Party where there is nothing to lose and much to gain Application of that Rule to Christianity SElf-interest is the part man is most tender of all external considerations may move but that only can perswade and determine him to any thing and since the time sin brought him to take himself for his ultimate end he loves nothing but himself or if he loves any thing besides 't is still for himself and the advantages he hopes from it The greater they are and the nearer they come to him the more he is affected with them Thus tho friends riches and all other external advantages sway extreamly with him yet their influence comes short of that which his liberty health life reputation and generally all those wherein his happiness is concern'd have upon him So that if such advantage is set before his eyes as not only concerns him for a while or for a part of himself but embraces whatsoever his body and soul can compass through the space of his eternity there is no doubt he will earnestly run to it If in things of less importance as are his friends his liberty or his life he seems so concern'd what must not be expected from him when he is sensible that from what is propos'd to him depends his eternal happiness or misery Upon that principle which no man can deny that has not divested nature it is easie to raise another In the choice of Opinions the truth and falshood whereof cannot be certainly known that Party is to be preferr'd wherein you venture nothing if it be false and win much if it be true and that rejected wherein nothing is to be got if it be true and the loss irreparable if it should prove false There is no wise man but assents to this maxim Thus men order their undertakings and not trusting the event of things or their own measures which often miscarry they work upon that which is more certain to them Thus of two Remedies that are to be try'd that is never apply'd which must kill the Patient if it does not cure him but rather that which if it restores him not to his first strength will at least prove harmless Thus there is no Merchant but would engage in a Commerce which if successful there is much to be got if not nothing to be lost and he that should leave such a bargain for another which if attended with all imaginable prosperity there is nothing to be got and if not there is an inconceivable loss to be suffer'd would be lookt upon as bewitcht and befool'd Now let Christianity and Irreligion be try'd by this Rule since both are a sort of Commerce which every body is to measure by the risque he runs or the reward he hopes Laying aside all the particular reasons that evince the truth and excellency of Christianity let this suffice that it is certain that following it if it proves true there is eternal happiness to be expected and nothing is ventur'd if it proves false Whereas the contrary is to be said of Irreligion The first part of this Assertion is so notorious and so palpable that it seems needless to prove it So that there remains but the second to be made out that supposing Christianity proves false we venture nothing at all CHAP. III. That supposing Christianity proves false we venture nothing at all ALL the loss Christianity exposes us to is that of the inordinate pleasures and sensualities of this life which he that has been made a Disciple of Christ at his Baptism has promis'd to renounce The Irreligious man can find no other risque but this and all he can say is that a Christian is oblig'd by his condition to deny himself and forsake the World the Flesh and the Devil But to unvail and cure this mistake let us compare as exactly as we can the Irreligious man and the Christian both in their deaths and in their lives and it will easily be seen who of them ventures most There is no other time wherein they may be compar'd for after their death both in the opinion of the Irreligious are annihilated and besides that two annihilated beings cannot be compar'd the non-being putting them in the same rank it were impossible to judge of the difference of their lives by a state which makes them equal after their death If then we look upon an Irreligious man and a Christian when they are a-dying we shall find them both so even concerning pleasures or riches and generally all that has past that the one cannot claim the least advantage over the other I suppose that each of them liv'd a whole Age with that difference that the first enjoy'd without any interruption and to the highest degree all the pleasures a long and happy life can afford and the second was depriv'd of all the delights the Law he observes prohibit to its Votaries Nay which is more I suppose that he barr'd himself even from those that are permitted and studied nothing all his life but to hate and mortifie himself Yet after all it must be said that how vast a difference soever be seen between them whilst they live they are perfectly even when they dye The pleasures of the Irreligious and the sufferings of the Christian are equally gone The voluptuous life of the first does not make him more happy nor to have liv'd in
torments a hundred years renders the second more miserable the happiness or misery of the Soul consisting in what she resents now and not in what she resented before If remembrance contributes any thing to our present happiness or misery the Irreligious are certainly most miserable Death is his misery and the happiness of the Christian It ends the pleasures of the first and the sufferings of the second It is the comfort of them that pine away their lives in torment and the despair of them that live jollily The remembrance of an happy state makes us to be in a most grievous punishment and the absence of those delights we us'd our selves to so galls us that it were better never to enjoy or never to forsake them What then upon this supposition can a Christian lose that the Irreligious does not It cannot be said he has lost all the pleasures his Religion forbid him to enjoy since 't is evident this loss is common to both in that state we consider them Or to speak more properly the Irreligious is the only loser since the other cannot lose those pretended advantages he never possest However death ravishes from the first all the vain felicity of his life The Annihilation which he is ready to fall into deprives him of the least sentiment of it he is not nearer to happiness then the Christian since both being suppos'd to be annihilated they lose equally all the consequences of being as pleasures happiness and misery This is the greatest evil that can attend a Christian supposing that his Religion should prove false to lose as much as the Irreligious does But the Irreligious stands not upon so good terms for what course soever things may take if his opinion misleads him not he wins nothing and if he comes to be deceiv'd his loss must needs be infinite It is evident that he gets nothing for the future since he expects to be annihilated which destroying his soul is the ruine of the hopes he could have entertain'd But if he chances to mistake in the Ideas of things he has fram'd to himself if he finds when his body is dead that his soul cannot dye but falls into the hands of the living God if there is after this life an eternal happiness of which he is for ever depriv'd and a place of unspeakable torments to which he is condemn'd who can apprehend the greatness of the loss he sustains and express his madness to engage in a party the lamentable end whereof is so evident And that which sets off better the disadvantage of Irreligion is that the greatest happiness an Irreligious man can hope for in this belief is to come to that point a Christian looks upon as his greatest infelicity What is it that a Christian fears most but that after this life there should be no reward of his sufferings no God no Spirits no Heaven nor himself And yet this is the grand reward impiety can expect it is brought so low as to receive as a reward what a Christian looks on as a punishment he must wish for nothing after his death but a general Annihilation and the mouth of the deep shut up upon him for if he chances when he goes out of the World to find either God or himself 't is impossible to immagine a more miserable Creature CHAP. IV. The Irreligious Man and the Christian compar'd in their lives HEre lies the strength of the Irreligious and it seems hard to convince him that he risques more then a Christian A Christian who sticks religiously to his Law must deny and offer himself a continual violence he must set a Watch upon all his senses to hinder them from betraying his heart he must forgive his Enemies oppose his own desires and confine his passions to the severe limits of a Divine Law Whereas the Irreligious lets his heart his senses his passions run their full carreer he checks none of his desires and enjoys a felicity free from remorse for the present and not disturb'd by the terrors of the time to come And when we inforce this Maxim of prudence that in a doubtful case the surest way must always be our choice he opposes that other to it that the certain is always to be prefer'd to the uncertain and the pleasures of this life being certain and the recompence of the next uncertain it is a folly not to cleave to present things out of fear of imaginary or at least of uncertain punishment This is the Stumbling-block of the Irreligious and the most specious pretence of impiety which may be so remov'd as to shew it shocks the very principles of natural reason 1st The supposition is alter'd and Christianity and Irreligion being both suppos'd as doubtful opinions neither of which can be demonstrated how can they go under the notions of certainty or uncertainty 2ly Assurance being the natural effect of that which is certain as hope of that which is uncertain it must be said in their own opinion that we have a full and entire assurance of the goods of this life since they are real and certain and only hope for those of the other since they are expected and uncertain And so the question is this whether it be always wisely done to prefer those goods that we are sure we cannot miss to those we have only a probable ground to hope how vast a difference soever may be found between them The falshood of this supposition is obvious and might be a sufficient answer But because it is not altogether exact that the question may be stated in its natural terms let us see what is wanting to to the certainty of the goods of this world and what must be defalk'd from the uncertainty of those of the next First The longest life in its full extent seldom reaches above 80 years nor consequently the pleasures that attend it Since he loses them and ceases to be happy who ceases to live 2ly All our life is not capable of that happiness Old-age and Infancy must be excluded nature must be endowed with a vigor Old-age has lost and Infancy has not yet attain'd and so in comparing the goods of this life to those of the next we must only reckon the time between these two ages Staying upon these terms the question is this whether a Wise man ought to prefer forty or fifty years of constant pleasures to an eternity of happiness which tho uncertain yet wants no rational grounds to be expected 3ly Health and Riches are absolutely necessary to enjoy that happiness which results from the possession of the creatures Nay this necessity is so absolute that when separated they cannot make the Irreligious happy Take from him his health and he will be a walking disease he will languish and consume himself away Restore him his health and rob him of his riches he will be a Beggar brought to the greatest want What tast can the delights of this life have for poor and sickly people They that
those resemblances exaggerated with the greatest care extend not to the rational which is his grand difference And so all that can be inferred hence is that he dies in all that is beastly in him in his body in his sensitive life in all the faculties and operations that depend from corporeal Organs But what is all this to the destruction of his soul which depends upon those Organs neither in his being nor his operations Who can hear without indignation this manner of arguing Man is like beast in that which is common to both Therefore in all that is peculiar to him Beasts die in their bodies in that sensitive life which constitute the beast so does man therefore he dies in that rational intellectual life which is proper to him Man dies in his body therefore in his soul The Sun shines not when it is Ecclipsed therefore he shines not at all CHAP. VI. Conformity between Man and Beast THe conformity between man and beast is threefold the first natural and necessary the second shameful the third laborious The first is the consequence of an animal life Man and beast agree in eating drinking sleeping c. And although this state be imperfect as supposing many wants yet there is neither shame nor pain for man He does in that nothing against his reason which is one part of his nature and it is agreeable to the body which is the other This conformity is inseparable from man in this world Nor is the state of innocence it self free from it The second is the consequence and punishment of sin It consists in the reign of our passions over us the disorders of body and senses which rebell against the law of the mind and in all the share lust claims in the propagation of nature This state is natural to beasts and shameful to man because he is a stranger to it 'T is a shame for him that passions should command when reason must give laws that he should not master his own senses that he should covet what is not his own and love what he is convinced he should not nay sometimes that which he would not love Man is naturally no less stranger to the third than to the second So many labours incident to his life so many sufferings and distempers that end but with him cannot naturally fall upon an innocent creature He must have been guilty to be afflicted Nor can the Irreligious instance the sufferings of beasts who are innocent after their manner Why must man the most excellent creature upon earth who was to command beasts be twice more miserable than they First in the multitude and diversity of his pains which come from the infimite number of his wants Secondly The quicker and more galling sentiments of his pains Beasts are afflicted with no evil but the present Man fears besides and foresees the future He who is condemned to die dies a thousand times before his execution He feels infamy which outvies any grief And by the help of memory is galled at the privation of a state the happiness whereof he knowes most exactly and desires most earnestly Beasts are incapable of any of those pains and nothing but a cause stranger to mans nature such as is sin could have subjected him to them Sin alone could let into the world wars distempers and death And God could not punish the pride of man with greater justice than to make him so like beasts in sensible things as they seem even to obscure the immortality of his nature CHAP. VII The difference between Man and Beast THe chief difference between Man and Beast is reason which comprehends memory of things that are past and foresight of those that are to come Hence arises speech which is not only proper to man but a general means to communicate thoughts covering them with such sounds that men applied their notions to Speech is divided into all sorts of Languages nor is there any Nation but makes use of it to keep up civil society Hence arise also Sciences Arts Commerce Societies and Kingdoms The second is liberty an indifference of doing and not doing what he pleases Whereas beasts are determined in all their actions by a predominant instinct they cannot resist Hence arise Laws to secure private men and promote publick interest which are grounded only upon liberty there being no room for them in a nature determined to the same thing Hence also arise vertues which result from the good use of liberty and obedience to the Laws Nay man is discernable by his vices The love of Glory and the desire of Commanding distinguishes us from beasts though our condition be not a jot the better for it since all desires not overswayed by reason render us more miserable and misery is never an argument to raise our selves above any other Now the question is whether besides so many palpable differences there is not yet some other invisible that distinguishes man in his duration August 1st To consider the thing it self it is already very possible that amongst so many external differences there is some internal unknown to us There is great probability that souls so contrary in all things are so too in their duration and in their essence How could man do things so far beyond the reach and capacity of beasts were not his nature nobler and perfecter than theirs This supposition is very probable 2ly If we survey attentively all the advantages of man above beasts they do all imply a natural tendency to immortality The nature of the soul is spiritual This appears from her thoughts which represent to her spiritual objects and from general ideas from private images of things But if the being of the soul be spiritual it is also immortal Since a being totally independent from matter is subject to no alteration 3ly If we examine reason which is the character of the soul it is bound within no compass of time By the help of memory and foresight nothing is future or past to man Memory recalls precedent ages foresight sets before our eyes events that are to come Reason enacts laws to order matters of men if 't were possible for ever Books shall teach posterity as long as men live Dying people intend by their last will to dispose to all future ages of the goods that are in their power There is no man but desires eternal life and happiness None but fears infamy after his death Nay those very men wish for immortality who desire their souls to be immortal Are not these prejudices strong enough to move any man We have a clear notion of immortality Our mind foresees our heart wishes for every body aspires to it It is therefore at least to be concluded in the number of possible things And the contrary opinion cannot be received unless it brings along with it an evidence equal to that of having seen a soul annihilated which never happened and never shall Our eyes saies the Irreligious are not witnesses of the
and that of beasts perishes with the body But is it a thing wise Solomon could doubt of Are men naturally inclined to believe souls of beasts immortal Could he ballance a moment to which he was to ascribe immortality mans or beast CHAP. IX A short Analysis of the Book of Ecclesiastes THere is no conduct more liable to illusions than to pick up some places favourable to ones opinion without reflecting upon many others directly opposite to it Thus the Irreligious makes use of some places in the Ecclesiastes which seem agreeable to his fancies and leaves an hundred other which say the quite contrary This artifice is easily overthrown by this answer either admit or deny them all since all have the same authority He alledges Solomon exhorts us to live pleasantly that he declares he saw nothing more advantageous under the Sun and that it was the happiness God had granted him as if no other was to be expected He understands all those places of riot and sensual pleasures thus attributing to the wisest of Kings to excite his Readers to debauchery and all that can irritate the sinfullest passions Certainly one must needs have a strangely low idea of things to conceive no other joy but that which is carnal and imagine Solomon exhorts us to fall into excess he confesses himself to have been guilty of But one must needs be very blind who does not see that he relates them only to condem them and lay open their folly and emptiness To discern then what the Wise-man allowes from the liberties the Irreligious claims as if they were consequences of his doctrine it seemed worth the while to end this discourse by a short analysis of Ecclesiastes The sense of every particular place being to be understood by the design and spirit of the whole Book which chances to be the same as of this Discourse The general aim Solomon proposes to himself is to withdraw mans heart from the love of the world the enjoyment of creatures and his eagerness for riches and transitory things to the end that he may love fear and serve God alone 'T is the conclusion he draws from the arguments he has spread through the whole book Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man For God shall bring every word into judgement with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil c. 12.13 14. The only ground he insists upon to perswade them is that the world and all its attendance is vanity abuse darkness and misery for them that seek to be happy by it Thus he begins his discourse exclaiming vanity of vanities all is vanity Then he gives an exact account of all these vanities He describes exaggerates and carries them so far as to render every one sensible of his own misery He prescribes particular remedies for each of them And because his book is directed to great sinners he seems to compound with them and to hinder them from fixing their love in the creatures he allows them a moderate and lawful use of them All these vanities may be reduced to twenty three some are drawn from the imperfection of creatures in themselves others from the ill use men make of them The first is that all things under the Sun are tansitory and subject to alteration that all is obscure and hard to be apprehended that there is nothing new and the most glorious things are buried in oblivion as soon as they are gone c. 1. v. 2 11. That there are arguments to mortifie our inclination to present things our curiosity for new discoveries and above the thirst of Glory and Fame so natural to all men Vanity in learning which requires so constant and so hard a labour 16 18. Vanity in the pleasures of this life magnificence of buildings and great number and variety of attendants c. 2. v. 1 11. Vanity in the sublimest knowledge since it procures no advantage to the learned above the ignorant both dying and being equally forgotten after their death 12.17 Vanity in the hardships men undergo night and day to heap up riches not knowing whom they gather them for That it is better to enjoy the fruit of his labours than heap up still and starve ones self to inrich an unworthy heir That this baseness of soul is one of the greatest punishments of God 16 18 26. Vanity in the changes and and cares of men who are obliged to vary them at every moment That how great and satisfying soever be the works of God yet mans heart wishing still for an eternal and immutable God can find no rest in them So that the best way is to use them moderately still expecting greater things c. 3. v. 1 15. Vanity in the injust sentences of judges which the great Judge will disannul 16 17. Vanity in that notorious equality between man and beast in life death and corruption so as to incline stupid man to doubt of their own souls immortality 18 22. Vanity in calumnies innocent people suffer and the envy to which they are exposed who excel in any faculty c. 9. v. 1 16. Vanity in a mans continual toils who heaps up still though he has no heir and intends to have none 7 12. Vanity in the revolution of states wherein from the lowest rank one is often raised to the throne 13 16. Vanity in the quick decay of the greatest fortunes after so many pains to be setled in them 12 19. Vanity in the greatest riches the owner whereof is snatcht away before he can enjoy them that to judge that man by his own principles having put his happiness in them he must be accounted most unhappy That a Child dying as soon as he is born it is not so much to be pitied c. 6.18 Vanity in the pompous funerals of the impious and those false commendations spent upon them in funeral Sermons Vanity in the multitude of objects which are so uncertain as men know not very often which is most useful to them c. 7.1 18. Vanity in the long life of the impious and precipitate end of the just 16 21. Vanity in women whose manners in Solomon's time were so corrupted that he could find none good 28 30. Vanity in the prosperity of the impious and persecutions of the just Whence the Wiseman takes occasion to commend them who enjoy uprightly the plenty God has given them 14 15. Vanity in the laborious search into the secrets of nature 16 17. Vanity in the deep ignorance we are of our state towards God and of the great confidence of the impious because good and evil falls equally upon the just and unjust c. 9.1 22. Vanity in that fortune and hazard have a greater share in riches than merit Vanity in that the best counsels either are not hearkned to or pass unrewarded 13 18. Vanity in the unequal distribution of charges and honours by the cheats put upon Princes c. 10.1 2 5.
The Wise man having ended the tenth Chapter with some moral maxims takes up all the eleventh to commend distribution of alms both to the covetous and prodigal Till at last he concludes his Book by exhorting men to return to God before old age should overtake them as if he said to them If so many abuses and vanities cannot unloose you from the world let at last the consideration of old age which being so near will not permit you to enjoy it a long while perswade you to renounce those goods willingly which you must infallibly forsake This is the conclusion of all his arguments the consequence he draws from the conduct of the world he represented all a long in his Book and the end of all is that there is no solid happiness here but that it must be found in God Hence it appears that Solomon enumerates those many vanities only to breed in us a distaste of the world He reckons amongst them all the pleasures of his life the magnificence of his buildings the sumptuosity of entertainments the greatness of his treasures the multitude of his attendants and generally all the diversions of a numerous and flourishing Court. He declares plainly that having considered the works of his hands all was but vanity misery vexation of mind and that there is under the Sun no solid and permanent happiness And thus when he saies at the end of the second Chapter and in some other places there is nothing better for man than that he should eat and drink it must be sure understood of the moderate enjoyment of the world otherwise Solomon should not be lookt upon as the wisest but maddest of men But let it be far from us to think so unworthily of him whom God had endowed with divine wisdom to permit an harmless innocent joy and a moderate use of riches equally distant from covetousness and prodigality is not to open a gap to all sorts of excesses Men have been differently towards riches There has been Saints who to give themselves wholly to the contemplation of heavenly things did entirely shake them off Upright men dispence them soberly Sinners pervert them into an ill use either squandring them shamefully or keeping them out of a base covetousness 'T is to them Solomon directs his discourse It was easier to him to keep famous debauches within the bounds of lawful pleasures than to perswade them they ought wholly to forsake them and pass from one extream to the other And to cure that baseness of souls which scarce allows some people a sober use of what they possess his best way was to incite the covetous to their moderate enjoyment 'T is true he makes use also of some other consideration to the same purpose Sometimes he takes occasion from the restless curiosity wherewith some men search into the secrets of nature to tell them that a quiet and commodious life is preferrable to that vanity Sometimes he proposes the necessity of dying incident to every body and of such influence upon some as it obscures in their mind the immortality of their soul Nothing being more powerful to stop the designs of an ambitious man than to let him understand he must die and has no advantage over the most despicaple beasts The smallest reflection upon those places will perswade any rational man Solomon cannot invite us to a sinful joy he condemns every where but rather to an innocent cheerfulness inseparable from a good conscience Or if in the sixth Chapter he thinks him unhappy who being left heir to a great estate cannot enjoy it he speaks still supposing that mans inward disposition who having set all his happiness in the goods of this life is by his death spoiled of them and expects no others in the next THE Third Discourse Application of the two precedent Discourses to the Irreligious CHAP. I. That the advantage being so great of the side of Christian Religion The Irreligious ought to rid himself of all sorts of prejudices and the more because the disorders of his life is the only source of his Irreligion IT is rationally expected that no Irreligious man will hereafter think Christianity false because all the articles of our faith are not to be demonstrated as problems of Geometry they will confess it has at least some degrees of probability Which being supposed this propsition must take with any man of sense that it being probable Christian Religion may be true and if so attended with eternal happiness or misery it concerns him to have it true by all means and give over all prejudices against it The Irreligious must then examine whether his love to Irreligion is the effect of the perswasion of his mind or of the corruption of his heart Whether the falshood or the severity of his maxims staggers him Falshood indeed is offensive to the mind but severity only to the heart and flesh and no man let him be never so little concerned for himself will reject Religion upon that account 'T would be the greatest paralogism in the world Thus Religion is severe it forbids sensual pleasures therefore it is false There may be pleasures so sinful as a Religion may be true and yet forbid them This search into his own heart is the more necessary because pleasures and passions which may be called the reasons of the heart are the firmest grounds of Irreligion It is worth our observation and is no small argument of its being false that none ever fell into it who sought for the truth with sincerity Study and sobriety never led any man to it It is not met withall in ones way There must be wandrings to find it out nor can it be so till after a laborious task to corrupt and deprave his understanding Nature cries there is a God and the world is the work of his hands There is no people so barbarous but has heard that voice As soon as we had the use of our reason the Church took care to teach us that our nature is depraved by sin that we are born children of wrath banish our heavenly country that we stand in need of a Saviour who cures our wounds reconciles us to God and opens to us the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ is that blessed redeemer and that there is no salvation out of his Church The Irreligious received those instructions from his infancy How came he to forget them so soon By that sad mischance did he engage in an opinion contrary to what he had learned at School and condemned by all the examples he saw both publick and domestick It is no hard matter to find out the cause of it Disorder and Libertinism brought him to it The crimes of his youth have been as so many degrees that led him to the bottom of the abiss Ill companies aded to the corruption of his heart infected and debauched him The habit of riot and excess got such holds on him as it became a kind of necessity Yet he had preserved