THE Contrary Hypothesis laid down with an Account how far it agrees or disagrees with the Philosophy of Epicurus Lucretius Hobs c. The Method of the following Discourse Page 1. CHAP. II. The Immortality of the Soul proved by Scripture Page 12. CHAP. III. The Immortality of the Soul proved by such Arguments as are drawn from the Light of Natural Reason and the common Sense and Experience of Mankind The First Argument from the Powers and Faculties wherewith the Soul is endued Page 25. CHAP. IV. The Second Argument from the many gross and dangerous Absurdities wherewith the contrary Opinion is attended Page 49. CHAP. V. Some Subservient Considerations for the further Establishment of the Doctrine of the Soul's Immortality p. 67. CHAP. VI. The Testimony of the Ancient Philosophers produced for a further Confirmation of this great Truth p. 79. CHAP. VII Our Author's Objections considered and answered p. 93. CHAP. VIII Of Materiality or Immateriality as they are ascribed to the Soul p. 103. CHAP. IX Directions to such as are in suspence as to the Immortality of the Soul shewing how they may arrive at a certainty in that matter p. 109. CHAP. X. Directions to such as believe the Immortality of the Soul shewing how they ought to improve so important a Doctrine p. 131. The Conclusion p. 161. THE Immortality of the SOUL ASSERTED c. CHAP. I. The contrary Hypothesis laid down with an Account how far it agrees or disagrees with the Philosophy of Epicurus Lucretius Hobs c. The Method of the following Discourse THE Principles of sound Philosophy well tried and digested do greatly improve Humane Understandings the Reasoning Faculty is cultivated and advanced by Exercise by accustoming our selves to think we learn in time to think better and to more purpose and every Truth which we meet with and really make our own prepares us for the discovery of some further Truth which is annexed to it and depends upon it And as our Knowledge increaseth so will also the sense of our Ignorance Hence it is easy to discern the Reasons why amongst so many Pretenders there are so few that deserve the name of Philosophers Some take the knowledge of Words Terms of Art and commonly received Forms of Expression for the knowledge of Things and these they swallow without chewing and upon all occasions bring up again as raw as they took them in and play with them as Boys do with Bubbles till Wise men laugh at them Others there are near a-kin to the former who suck in Opinions as the wild Asses do the Wind without distinguishing the wholsome from that which is corrupt Others can go no further than they are led by the Nose These are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a slavish Nature and he that can so far get the Ascendent over them as to insinuate himself into their esteem which is no hard matter to do may command their Understandings because they themselves never knew how to use them Others have Imaginations so little used to government that they cannot six their thoughts upon a serious enquiry after Truth but they quickly give them the slip and go to play with Impertinencies Some are so dull that they cannot apprehend any thing that lies out of the common Road and is not plain and obvious Others are so sloathful that they grow weary before they have half accomplish'd their search And others so foolishly conceited that they think it below them to alter their present Sentiments But the great hinderance of useful Knowledge is an in-bred radicated Enmity in Corrupt Nature against those Truths which have a nearer tendency to the reformation of ill Manners and the exercise of serious Religion Hinc origo mali And the Age in which we live affords many unhappy Instances of the Predominancy of this Corruption which makes a Learned Gentleman thus to reflect upon it viz. That we are fallen into an Age declining from God in which many are fond of those things which lead us farthest from him and seem most to secure us against him and the Rabble of Atheistical Epicurean Notions which have been so often routed and have fled before the World are now faced about and afresh recruited to assault this present Generation Sir Ch. Wolseley's Unreasonableness of Atheism pag. 37. A like Complaint we have in a late Judicious Philosopher who speaking of the Excellency of the Platonick Doctrine because it draws off our Minds from perishing Transitory things to the contemplation of more noble Intellectual Beings further adds Quâ quidem in re infinitum propè momentum est c. i. e. which is a matter of infinite moment for we are overwhelmed with a Rout of Philosophers who contend that nothing but Bodies can be understood Du Hamel de consens Vet. Nov. Philos Praefat. The like you may find in Ludovic Viv. de Veritat Fidei lib. 1. pag. 145. The Knowledge of Atheists saith Van Helmont wholly depends on a Brutal Beginning and they are unapt to understand those things which do exceed sense for that is the cause why they exclude themselves from the Intelligible World pag. 348. And I find that the late Ingenious E. of Rochester came at last to the same Apprehension viz. that That absurd and foolish Philosophy which the World so much admired propagated by the late Mr. Hobs and others had undone him and many more See his Funeral Sermon pag. 26. How far these Observations are pertinent to the matter in hand you shall see more by and by For my part I desire not to make any man's Opinions seem worse than they are much less to charge Atheism or Infidelity upon a Gentleman who in appearance disowns them You shall therefore hear him speak for himself The Opinion which he undertakes to maintain is this viz. That the Humane Soul is a material Spirit generated growing and falling with the Body and rising again with it at the sound of the voice of the Archangel and the Trump of God pag. 1. Hereupon he endeavours to persuade us that the Soul is nothing else but the inflamed glowing Particles of the Blood called Spirits which are says he the Active Principle of Life Motion Sense and Understanding in Man and Beast pag. 10. And hence he infers That the Soul cannot subsist act or suffer any thing in a state of Separation from the Body but that by Death the man's Faculty of thinking is certainly destroyed pag. 2 3 14 15. And yet he owns the Article of the Resurrection and the last Judgment appointed of God for the distributing of Recompences according to the behaviour which men have used in passing through the Trials and Temptations of this World pag. 6. You have here such a medly of Epicurean Dreams and Christian Doctrines mixt together as is not commonly to be met with The one part of his Hypothesis is below the common Reason and Sentiments of Mankind the other above the reach of the greatest Philosophers without the help of
too Begin when you please I hope I shall not be unprovided for you But till then I am not obliged to incumber my Defence of the Soul's Immortality with needless Controversies 4. Though it should be granted That the Souls of Brutes are both Material and Mortal we are still sure that the Humane Soul is much more excellent than they as appears by those Operations in us which are not descernible in them I think it is ill done of those Philosophers who debase or deny the Sensitive Faculties of Beasts and make them meer Machines and I deny not that there is something in them which looks like Reason But what then These higher Operations of the Souls of Men which have a more immediate and direct reference to Immortality are such as we see no appearance of in the Inferior Creatures They know not God they love him not they have no apprehensions of a Future State no sense of Moral Good or Evil as Man hath and this is enough to distinguish us from them and to shew that our Natures are made for higher Ends than theirs as the Poet speaking of Religion says Seperat haec nos A Grege Brutorum And therefore to argue from the Mortality of the Souls of Brutes against the Immortality of the Souls of Men is every way to beg the Question 5. And thus again you carry the Controversy into the dark as the manner of such Philosophers is and plead Uncertainties against those things which are Certain not knowing the premises while you will needs hold the Conclusion and so abuse your Reason and lose the Truth and your Labour both together This method may indeed serve the ends of perverse Wranglers but is not the way to make any man wiser There is a great deal observable both in the Souls of Men and Brutes which the best Philosophers do not comprehend Must we therefore deny what 's plain because we are not agreed about more remote Difficulties This is the way to introduce Scepticism and unthankfully to reject what God hath made known to us because he hath not laid open all the rest The words of Tertullian in his Treatise de Animâ are very remarkable in the present Case Quis enim revelabit quod Deus texit unde sciscitandum est praestat per Deum nescire quia non revelaverit quam per hominem scire quia ipse praesumpserit pag. mihi 342. Your Masters have not yet satisfied the Learned World in any Account they have given of Sensitive perception and Appetite by reducing them to the Laws of Matter and Motion You must lay your Foundation better before you build so much upon it But Cicero and Laertius tell us That the Epicureans abandoned Logick and so do their Abettors If supposing would serve instead of proving there would be no great difference between an Ideot and a Philosopher Obj. 2. But Thinking Arguing c. which you ascribe to the Soul belong to the whole Compositum or contexture of Soul and Body which is the efficient proper cause of them pag. 2 4. Answ According to your own Hypothesis each part of the Compositum is not alike concerned in these Acts but especially the Animal Spirits and the Brain which you suppose to be a materia cogitativa but these are not the whole Compositum so that you must first reconcile your Philosophy to it self and then answer what I have said against the Capacity of these Material Corruptible Spirits for the production of such Acts before this Objection be at all valuable They very use which the Soul now makes of Corporeal Organs and Instruments plainly evinces That it doth exert some Action wherein they assist it not for it supposeth an operation upon them antecedent to any operation by them When therefore the Soul makes use of a bodily Organ its Action upon it must needs at last be without the ministry of any Organ unless you multiply to it Body upon Body in infinitum as a Reverend Author observes Blessedness of the Righteous pag. 205. Nullam vim virtutem aut aptitudinem ad ipsum intelligendi aut volendi actum purum formalem in se à spiritibus aut à sensu animus recipit Quomodo enim inferius vilius passivum virtutem activam nobilem Naturae superiori praestantiori activae communicare potest Method Theol. part 1.162 Obj. 3. Matter and Motion may do much as appears by a Musical Organ in the hand of a good Artist page 2. Answ The Instrument is not conscious of the Harmony produced by it as the Soul is of its own Acts and therefore your Similitude is far from running upon all four Obj. 4. Matter has a self-moving Power for if it be reduced to a fine Powder part of it will rise up into the Air like a thin Cloud pag. 7. 13. Answ The Air is a fluid body in which those little Particles are moved as Sticks or Straws are in the Water according to its motion and not by a self-moving Power of their own Though as our Author not observing how he almost confutes himself tells you in the very next words that they are apt to be moved with every little breath I believe indeed they are very susceptible of impressions from without but have no self-moving power within them If the Dust in the Streets fly into you Eyes will you therefore say it has a self-moving power stop it but close up in a Bottle where Wind and Air cannot disturb it and I will be bound for its good behaviour As for the nature of Fire you have light and heat as well as motion to give an account of which I fancy will put you hard to it Neither know you whence the Wind comes nor whither it goes nor what it is that puts it in motion and so we are not at all edified by your Assertion concerning it Obj. 5. The Spirit of the Egyptian whom David found at Ziklag in the field famished came to him again after they had given him Fruit and Water pag. 11. Answ No wonder that his Material Animal Spirits were refresh'd by suitable Nourishment but that proves not that he had no nobler Principle in him Neither do I deny that these Spirits are the immediate Instruments of the Soul 's Operations in its state of union with the Body But this is only ad modum not ad formam actus and therefore to say the Soul cannot subsist nor act in a state of Separation from them is an Argument à Bactdo ad Angulum And yet it is no wonder if it leave the Body when these Spirits are no longer fit to be a vinculum of vital union between them Obj. 6. It cannot be conceived how the separate Soul should think without the Brain see without an Eye c. Answ The Infant in the Womb hath no conception of these Actions which it shall perform when it is come into the World and grown up to maturity The Cases are much alike To conclude Except
unequal Tenuity and that Snow is white though when the Eye is affected with bilious Humours in the Jaundice it seems yellow and that the Heads of our Antipodes are as erect as our own whatever our imagination obstinately suggests to the contrary Now if the Mind was of the same nature with the corporeal Faculties their Judgment would be uniform Therefore how much soever Matter and Motion may be concerned in these erroneous Impressions which are made upon our Senses and Imaginations it must needs be some nobler Principle in us which supplies these defects and corrects the Errors which proceed from them Can Matter and Motion make such gross mistakes and rectify them when it has done This is to act above it self to do and undo and is altogether unconceivable and incredible to those who will not be imposed upon by an empty sound of words If you cannot explain the manner of Sensation it self by meer Matter and Motion how will you solve those Phaenomena which transcend the power both of Sense and Imagination What is that in Man which will not form its judgment of things according to the rude Votes of the Senses but consults some clearer Principle within it self Speak to the purpose or not at all 6thly The Soul has a Power of restraining and controlling the inordinate Efforts of the material Animal Spirits which argues that it is a Substance distinct from them The frequent Conflicts between Reason and the sensitive Appetite fully prove that there is in Man a Power superior to that of Matter and Motion The material Animal Spirits are much concerned in the disorders of Passion and Concupiscence But what is that Regent Predominant Principle which condemns and checks these unruly Motions of the bruitish Appetite and chuseth sometimes the most distastful things to Sense yea and can give the Body to be burned for high and weighty Reasons notwithstanding all the Recoils and Tumults of the Material Animal Spirits and useth the Body as its Instrument to serve its own Will and Pleasure What can this be but the Rational Intellectual Spirit which is capable of subsisting without the Body or else would never so consent to its Destruction But on the other hand when the Soul of a Man is so immers'd in Sensuality that it lets loose the Reins to Lust and Appetite and forgets its own Dignity and Prerogative we justly say the Beast rules and not the Man And I believe it will prove at last that the Soul must be accountable to its Maker for such mismanagement and so gross a neglect of its Duty To conclude this Argument If both the Sensitive and Intellectual Powers arise from no higher a Spring than Matter and Motion How come these Material Spirits so to struggle one with another and one part of them side with Reason the other fight against it If you think all this is nothing else but the striving of the ambitious Particles of Matter for superiority and pre-eminence you may think so still for me I am not at leasure to fight with Shadows 7thly There is in the Soul a natural apprehension of its own Immortality and by this God rules the World who needs not will not rule it in a way of deceit The belief of the Souls capacity of subsisting in a state of Separation from the Body is so apt to insinuate it self into the minds of Men and hath been so generally received and entertain'd in the World that it may justly be reckoned amongst the Notitiae Communes or natural Notions which are imprinted upon the minds of Men by the Author of Nature 'T is a Notion which hath endured the Test of all Ages and still prevailed Good Men believe and rejoyce in it Bad Men cannot shake off the fears of it Those that are of contrary Factions Opinions and Interests in other respects are yet agreed in this That the Soul is Immortal The illiterate Vulgar who are guided by the more simple Dictates of Nature have more deep impressions of this great truth than some of the Learned themselves who by their laborious trifling have disputed themselves into greater Ignorance and raised Devils which they have not the Wit or Honesty to lay again Not only the Civilized Greeks and Romans but the Barbarous Scythians Indians c. have believed it And what Salmasius says upon another account de Comâ is as applicable to the matter in hand Quanto magis Barbari tanto felicius faciliusque Naturam Ducem sequi putantur Eam detorquent aut ab eâ magis recedunt politiores Gentes The most Eminent of the Philosophers who have taken pains to cultivate their Understandings and to rescue them from the mistakes which Education Example or Inconsiderateness had betrayed them to have still seen Reason to stand up for this great Truth except a few self-conceited Epicureâ—ns who have been the scorn and by-word of all the rest and the Sadducees whom the Jewish Writers reckon among them Cicero observes that there is in the minds of Men Quasi saeculorum quoddam augurium futurorum Tusc Qu. lib. 1.331 A kind of presage of a future World Moreover these Persons who have endeavoured to run down the Notion of the Soul's Immortality have not been able to avoid the force of it in their own Breasts nor to secure themselves from the fear of what might befal them in a State of Separation from the Body finding something within themselves which bore witness to the Truth in despight of their stupid Opposition And what Seneca saith of Atheists may be applied to these Men viz. That though in the day-time and in company they may with some shew of confidence deny the Immortality of the Soul yet in the Night when they are alone sibi dubitant they are full of doubts about it The Giant Epicurus of whom Lucretius saith He was the first man who durst fight against Heaven Lib. 1. de Natura rerum was himself as fearful as any man of those things which he denied were to be feared viz. Death and the Deity As Cicero observes de Natur. Deor. Lib. 1. and so you find him arguing in Laertius That Death is not a thing to be jested with Vid. Laert. in Epicur 297. Whence the Learned Dr. Stillingfleet observes How hard it is for an Epicurean to silence his Conscience after he has prostituted it for whatever there be in the Air there is says he an Elastical power in Conscience that will bear it self up notwithstanding the weight that is laid upon it Orig. Sacr. 365. And 't is very observable that our Author himself though pag. 15. he says positively That by Death the man's Faculty of thinking is certainly destroyed yet else where he speaks more dubiously pag. 3 11 12. The Minds of such Persons says my Lord Bacon are always wavering and unsatisfied never able to smother the in-bred consciousness of their Immortality so as not to have continual suggestions of fear and scruple Have you not heard of some such Persons
can never be reconciled to or explicated by the rigid Laws of Matter and Motion but all our Actions must either arise from the fortuitous dances and friskings of Atoms up and down the Brain and Nerves or else be necessitated by the irresistible impulse of some Superior Cause and so there is a fatal determination which sits upon the Wheels of these Corporeal Motions And thus Mr. Hobs will have it That our Volitions are necessitated by Superior or Natural Causes as much as any motion in a Clock or Watch and that it is unconceivable that any Act or mode of Act can be without a necessitating Efficient Cause Thus he also affirms a certain connexion betwixt all our Thoughts and a necessary Fate in all things If this be true we must no more say that the Will cannot be compelled but rather that it is always so and by consequence the man that kills another is no more blame-worthy than the Sword wherewith he kills him both their Motions being alike necessitated and the Dog acts philosophically when he bites the Stone but considers not the Hand that threw it Neither is it to any more purpose to persuade men to Virtue than it would be to make a Learned Discourse of Harmony to a Lute instead of putting it in Tune As you like these Consequences you shall have more of them at another opportunity If you say your Opinion is not so gross as that of Mr. Hobs's I answer it had ill hap to be so like it Your words are pag. 2. We see in a Musical Organ every Pipe has its proper sound and function and the same Breath acts them all and therein appears a great effect and power of Matter and Motion rightly fabricated and acted by the hand of Artists and what then may not God do with them and by them when he pleaseth So that if our Material Spirits be inordinate in their motions you are in a ready way to make God the Author of sin by your Philosophy It were much better to say with Cicero Sentit animus se moveri quod cum sentit illud únà sentit se vi suâ non alienâ moveri nec accidere posse ut ipse unquam à se deseratur Ex quo efficitur aeternitas c. Tusc Qu. lib. 1.341 so be it we overlook not the Universal concourse of the First Cause with his Creatures but in a way suitable to their Natures 3dly If the Hypothesis which I am writing against be true no man can rationally believe a Future State of Retribution You have heard already how Individuation and Personality are overthrown by it and by consequence there can be no just room for Rewards and Punishments hereafter because the Person when he died had not the same Soul that he had a month before and why should one Soul be punished for another's Crimes and that other go free Our Author indeed owns the Articles of the Resurrection and Future Judgment 't is likely to serve a turn but what he builds up with one hand he pulls down with the other He says That Soul and Body as they fall together so shall rise again together Whereupon Judgment Rewards and Punishments shall ensue according as men have behaved themselves in this present world pag. 6. But the difficulty returns upon him Why should that Soul which according to his Hypothesis was no better than a little Wheat-flower Malt or it may be some Cordial Julap or other a few days before the man died be judged and punished for all the Faults which were committed long since Will you say that all the rest are past by and that he is only accountable for the Sins of the last Week or ten Days of his Life This would be to turn the Solemnity of the Resurrection and Final Judgment into a meer piece of Pageantry Moreover the Doctrine of the Resurrection cannot be known but by Supernatural Revelation and therefore 't is an Article of meer Belief There is much in it above the reach of Natural Reason and therefore I ask What must the poor Heathens do who know not that God has revealed any such thing Are they obliged to believe and prepare for a Future State or no If you say they are not they themselves will contradict you and so will the Scripture too which makes them inexcusable for their neglects Rom. 1.20 and that they could not be if there lay not upon them an obligation to the contrary Duties If you say they are so obliged you will be ill set to prove it according to your Hypothesis For if the Soul die with the Body and the Resurrection cannot be proved by Natural Reason how shall they believe without Objective Evidence 'T is true they commonly assert a Future State of Retribution and ground their belief of it upon the Immortality of the Soul which if your Opinion be admitted is an unsound Foundation Whence it appears that Natural Light taught them better things than you have learnt from Supernatural and it together And whatever uncertain hints may be found in any of their Writings as to the Resurrection derived perhaps by Tradition from the Jews or inserted afterwards by the pious Frauds as they call them of some well-meaning Christians we are sure they speak solidly and distinctly concerning the Soul's Immortality 4thly Our Author's Hypothesis makes such a sudden descent from the Angelical Spirits to meer matter and motion denying all the active Natures that are between as is absurd and not to be endured Such Jumps as these are not usual in Nature which is wont to act by due and orderly Gradations and not to take precipitous leaps from one extream to another He would not be thought to deny that there are Immaterial Intelligent Angelical Spirits pag. 6 15. And how unreasonable is it to suppose that there are no other Spirits or active Natures inferior to the Angels and differing in their several kinds and degrees of Perfection and Virtue from each other answerable to the several Operations whereunto they are designed by the Author of Nature But that all the great and wonderful Phanemena which we daily behold must be reduced to and solved by the supposed power of Matter and Motion How much doth the Wisdom of God shine forth in that admirable variety which is observable in the visible Corporeal World And are not spiritual or active Natures as noble as Bodies Why then should there not be a proportionable variety in the Spiritual Invisible World Especially when we observe such Vistigia or Images of the higher Natures in those that are lower Thus there is something in Plants like Sense and in Bruits like Reason and in Men there is somewhat which resembles the Deity Must we therefore say that God and the Creature are all one Or must we confound the inferior Orders of Creatures with those that are Superior and deny those active Natures which animate the visible World and distinguish one Species of Creatures from another While
suitably to it Ibid. Therefore that you may not destroy your own Souls and contribute so much to the ruin of others even while you profess to believe the Immortality of the Soul take these following Directions Direct 1. If you believe that the Soul is Immortal let it be your great care to secure your Eternal Interest If there was no more than a bare probability that the Souls of Men must be for ever either happy or miserable it would yet be a point of the highest Wisdom to take the safest side and to prepare for Eternity as much as possible But when there is so full evidence both Natural and Supernatural as puts the case beyond probability and makes it certain it must needs be the most stupendious folly to neglect the Interest of our Souls which are daily hasting to their Eternal State If the Soul be Immortal says Socrates we had need to take care of it and the danger is dreadful if we neglect it Phaedo 167. And here let me ask you Do you not know that the Life of Man is short and uncertain That the deceitful pleasures of the Flesh will soon be at an end and that the more delightful your accommodations are here below the more unwilling 't is likely you will be to leave them Haec sunt quae faciunt invitos mori And can you chuse but fear what will follow after Death Do you not know that the time of this present Life is given us to prepare for another And what are you in pursuit of that can justify so stupid a neglect of your greatest concerns or that will make amends for the loss of your Immortal Souls Have you not sometimes thoughts of repenting hereafter Why in so thinking you implicitly own the Necessity of Repentance and is it not the height of madness to delay the doing of that which must be done or you are undone and lost for ever In a word Are you not doing violence to your own Consciences all this while and putting away far from you that which most nearly concerns you Be persuaded therefore at length with a manly Resolution to lay aside every weight and the Sins that do so easily beset you and run with Patience the Race that is set before you And if you be so resolved you may proceed as follows 1st Labour to understand what it is that must make your Souls happy if ever they be so You may know by the acts of your Understandings and Wills as before described what Felicity and Perfection your Souls are fundamentally capacitated for Nothing but the highest Truth and the chiefest Good can satisfy them You may divert them for a while with variety of lower Objects but they quickly grow weary and run from one thing to another which may shew you that they are not yet got to their Centre You may charm them with the Delights of Sense and Appetite and some more refined Speculations too and yet you do but degrade them all the while and so they will tell you if you take them apart and freely converse with them Suffer them to act according to their nobler Tendencies and you will soon find them conversing with the World of Spirits to which they are so nearly allyed and reaching forth towards Immortality as a thing suitable to their Nature and design'd for them by its Author They will be looking to their great Original and he will meet them with the Attractive Influences of his Grace This is the way to ennoble them indeed This is something worthy the Nature of a Man These are delights which you may justify while the sordid pleasures of the Flesh leave a sting behind ' em The Life which I am exhorting you to hath something in it not only manly and rational but also Divine viz. To exercise your selves in contemplating and admiring the Perfections of the Deity till correspondent impressions be wrought upon your own Spirits transforming them into the same image from glory to glory 2 Cor. 3.18 And when once you have learnt to relish these spiritual intellectual Pleasures you will look down with a generous disdain upon those Husks which you were once fond of You will scorn those empty Notions which before you were in love with and have a clear testimony of your Immortality within your selves You will detest being so prophane as to sell your Birth-right for a morsel of unsatisfying transitory Pleasures You will then be fully convinced that true Holiness which consists in separating our selves from that which is common and unclean that we may be devoted to the Love and Service of God is perfective of Humane Nature and essentially necessary to its Happiness and that it is a perfect contradiction for an unholy Soul to be truly blessed because nothing but knowing and delighting in God can make us so and in these consists our Holiness And what is there that can justly offend you in such a Life as this Can you be better or more honourably employed Do not even the worst of men when they come to die wish they had thus lived and the best bewail that they have fallen so much short Lord pardon mine Omissions said Bishop Usher Can you be too diligent and serious in the Service of him who hath done all the good that ever was done for you and must do all that ever shall be done to make you happy He needs not you The loss is your own if you turn your backs upon him Consider how much patience he hath already exercised towards you O do not slight the offers of his Mercy and Grace and then think to complain of him as unmerciful in destroying you Thus did that wicked and slothful servant Matth. 25.24 I know indeed that the carnal mind is enmity against God and prejudiced against these things which lead towards him but I know also that this is the disease of Corrupt Nature which where-ever it is must be cur'd or the Party is ruin'd for ever Neither is it sitting still and complaining that will cure it much less pleading it as an excuse against our Duty A willingness to be healed is in this Case a great step towards it But I proceed 2dly Humble your selves for the gross neglects you have hitherto been guilty of What have you done since you came into the World that 's worthy the Nature and Capacities of a man Have you not been making provision for the flesh to fulfil the Lusts thereof while the Immortal Spirit has been almost starved for want of its proper Food viz. Knowledge and Vertue Nascitur enim ex prudentiâ sapere ex temperantiâ sobrium esse pietate Deum colere Hae sunt cibi animae propiè quae idonea est ad sugendum c. Philo Judaeus 127. Is it a light matter that you have debased so noble a Nature all this while and at once sacrilegiously robbed God of that Honour which was due to him from the Rational Creature and unnaturally set your Souls to