too little to Matter And here I durst advance a Maxim which will seem a very great Paradox Namely That altho' according to the confus'd Notion we have of these things Death be more capable of humbling us than Life yet according to the distinct Notion and in the reallity of the Thing it self Life is a more humbling and debasing Object than Death Death humbles the Grand Seignior the Prince the Monarch but Life humbles the Man which is more than all that Death snatches from us the props and supports of our Vanity but Life in the Debasement to which it pulls us down suspends in us most of the Sense of our true Grandeur Death brings the Body down into the Grave but Life as it were calls down our Soul from Heaven Death puts a Period to our secular Commerce with Men but Life suspends that natural Commerce we ought to have with God and which our Heart perceives to be the End for which it was made The Pursuivants of Death are Darkness Worms and Putrefaction whereof we are not sensible Life is totally made up of Weakness Baseness Infirmities Disgraces of which we are sensible Wherefore we are certainly prejudic'd and mistaken when we terrify our selves with the Ideas of Desertion Necessity Solitude Destruction which are not really included in the Image of Death but herein indeed we do not mistake when we dread the Judgment of God which accompanies Death for certainly this cannot but seem terrible to a Conscience that feels it self laden with the Weight of a multitude of Sins and pray where is there a Man that finds not himself in this Condition if he reflect but never so little upon his past Life This Moment truly is dreadful upon which we conceive all Eternity to depend but 't is certain that even in this the Heart of Man suggests to it self many Cheats and Illusions It fancies the Moment of Death to be the Price of Eternal Life And considers not that 't is not this Instant but its whole Life which God requires that this moment hath nothing more pleasing to God than any other and that its whole Importance consists simply in this That it is the concluding Moment of Life And Lastly That 't is not this Moment that contracts and covenants with the Divine Justice but all the Time we past in our Impenitence The Sentiments therefore of our Immortality our Perfections and our End will harmonize and agree together admirably well and with the other Sentiments and Inclinations of Nature and the Principles of Religion which God has given us for our Consolation against all the seeming Frightfulness and Horrour of this King of Terrors CHAP. VIII Where we continue to shew what Effect the Sentiment of our Immortality can work upon our Heart CErtainly the Idea of our Immortality can never be too present to our Mind for our Comfort and Consolation amidst this eternal Circle of those sad and dismal Objects which compass us about and those publick and private Calamities which the Severity of God has vary'd so many ways to give Occasion to the sweet Variety of His Deliverances and Consolations After all what signifies it that we are infirm and mortal in our Bodies This State cannot last long Why should we embarass and perplex our selves with Cares and Sollicitude for the short Futurity of this transient Life Have we not another Futurity in View which very well deserves the principal Care and Occupation of our Heart and Mind What need we value the Menaces and Threats of the World What can it do to us It may indeed crush our Body into Atomes but cannot destroy us What if the Frame of the World perish Nature decline and shake the Elements corrupt and decay what if our Body be converted into Dust Worms or Vapour what if it descend again into the Womb of its Mother Earth or be dispers'd into the fluid Air the Ruines of the World will not crush and destroy our Soul nor dissolve that Divine Principle which is in its own Nature uncapable of a Dissolution We think the Body which cloaths us is Our-self This is a mistake this Clay is not Our-self nor ever will be God indeed will re-establish and raise it in Honour to serve for a Tabernacle of that Spirit which was its original Guest and Inhabitant but this Union will not be with the same Submission and Dependance The Soul will not then follow the Condition of the Body but the Body will be adjusted as far as is possible to the State and Nature of the Soul and as the Soul was once debased even to the mean Condition of the Body so as to fly God and bend its Inclinations to Earthly Things the Body will now be desirous to elevate it self to the State of the Soul so as to decline and quit all Earthly Cares and to betake it self to a joyful Celebration of the Glory of God in the Heavenly Choir Certainly 't is not to be wonder'd That the Gospel administers more Comfort to us I will not say than Humane Wisdom has ever done but yet much more than the Law as Divine as it was This is because it clearly reveals to us Life and Immortality which are the only Objects that are capable of satisfying such a Mind and Heart as ours and so have Divine Relations to our Nature But as this Objâ—ct affords us all imaginable Comfort under the sense of so many Miseries that continually surround us so it yields us whatsoever may elevate and truly raise us The Sentiment of our Immortality joyn'd with the Consideration of that Glory and Happiness which Religion promises elevates us more than the World more than the so much boasted Wisdom of Philosophers and even more than all those Vertues which have fallen within the Verge of Humane Knowledge Here we discover the Grandeur of the Passions the Grandeur of the Mind to whose Empire they are Subject and the Grandeur of Vertue which regulates the Mind I say we do in this View discover the Grandeur of the Passions and no Man need be offended at this Expression For tho' the Passions be in some sense great Infirmities yet may they truly be said to be ingrafted upon the natural Dignity and Excellency of Man Hatred Fury Anger which are such criminal Passions and by which we equally contradict the Rules both of Humanity and Christianity proceed if you observe from an Opinion of our proper Excellency ill-directed and accompanied with the Illusions of Self-love which makes us conceive an Excellency in our selves exclusively to those that have offended us as if our Enemies were not Men as well as we That this Sense of our natural Excellency is in all Men appears from hence That even those Persons who are least of all esteem'd in the Minds of Others do notwithstanding this esteem and value themselves and so receive a kind of Domestick Consolation at their publick Infamy and Disgrace from their own Conceit We don't here pretend to justify all
common to all His Revelations which he addresses to Men upon Earth this is to manifest Himself unto them cloathed with some of His Benefits that He may win their Heart by an Acknowledgment and Gratitude He was serv'd in the Old World under the Name of God who is and who is the Rewarder of them that call upon Him He was afterwards known under the Name of the God of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob. After that He gave His Law by declaring Himself the Lord who had brought this People out of the land of Egypt Afterwards a Prophet declares that the Time is come in the which Men will no longer say the Eternal is He who brought His People out of the Land of Egypt but the Eternal is He that hath brought up His People out of the Country of Babylon Lastly so soon as the time for Man's Redemption is accomplish'd God is no longer call'd by any other Name than the God of Mercy and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They therefore are very much mistaken who fancy 't is an Offence against God to love Him any otherwise than for the Love of Himself and His intrinsick Perfections and that there is no interested Motion in our Heart but what is Criminal In order to refute these Speculations we need but make reflection upon the Conduct of God who not only consents that we should love Him by the Motives of the Good which we find in the Possession of Him but also wills and proportions His Revelations to this Design and it may likewise be said that we glorify the Supream Good when we desire it ardently and feel no Repose or Joy but in Communion with it This grand Precept may be proposed to the Mortal Man to confound and baffle him by shewing him the Impossibility he lies under of fulfilling the Divine Law but 't is the Immortal Man alone that is capable of fulfilling this Duty 'T is not the dying Man that perceives himself under great Obligations to God but the Man that subsists to Eternity And 't is not in a heap of perishing Favours but in the Assemblage of incorruptible Goods that we find the Motives of such a Love and Gratitude as are worthy of God So also the Man of Nature consider'd as a Man that hath short and transitory Relations to other Men neither can nor ought to love others so much as himself Were we obliged to love an indifferent and unknown Person with the same degree of Affection that Children love their Parents certainly the whole World would be a Scene of Disorder and Confusion We ought to love our Children more than Persons that are indifferent to us now as it is the Love of our selves that makes this Inequality and this Variety of our Affections it follows that there is an Original Law of Nature which dictates that we should love our selves more than other Men. But the immortal Man hath other Views and Obligations all the divers kinds of Proximity and Relation which respect this Life disappear and vanish at the prospect of the Relations of that Eternal Society which we are to enjoy A Temporal Neighbour whom Nature points out to us is not so considerable as the Eternal Neighbour which Faith discovers in him But some persons love themselves to such an exorbitant Degree that 't is in no wise convenient they should be affected with the same Love if others as of themselves For pray tell me of One should say to a Man I wish you were Ungrateful Blind Passionate Revengeful Proud Voluptuous Covetous that you might take more Pleasure and Enjoyment in the World would he not have Reason to think that either we dote or have a Mind to make him a very course Compliment and yet this would be to love our Neighbour as we love our selves If we would love our Neighbour as our selves we ought to love him with Relation to Eternity None but the immortal Man is in a Capacity of observing this Precept strictly and well Perhaps the Question may be ask'd whether when the Law enjoyns us to love our Neighbour as our selves it means that we should love by the Motives of that Love we bear to God or of that which we have for our selves I answer by distinguishing still betwixt Rational and Sensual Love when we love our Neighbour with a rational Love 't is certain that the Motives of this Love ought to proceed from the Love we have for God When we love our Neighbour with a Love of Sense or sensual Love the Motives of Love should proceed purely from the Affection we have for our selves Thus it may be reply'd that we ought to love him by both these Motives and the Law of the Decalogue seems to confirm us in this Opinion for it puts the Precept which refers to our Neighbour immediately after that which refers to God to teach us that the One depends upon the Other and that we are obliged to love our Neighbour with the same kind of Affection that we bear to God And on the other side it calls him whom it recommends to our Love by the Name of Neighbour to intimate to us that we are concern'd to love him because he is a Person that belongs to us Reason tells us That God being the supream and infinite Beauty is Amiable for his own Sake and that all things become so for the Love of him It therefore requires us to love Objects according as they stand related to God The Experience we have of our own Being accompany'd with Joy and Delight obliging us to love our selves in the first place Nature teaches us to love Persons according to the degree of Proximity and Relation which they have to Us. These two Laws are not opposite to each other the One as I may say is the Law of Reason the Other is the Law of Sense the one is the Instinct of the mortal and perishing Nature the other of the immortal and incorruptible Nature the one relates to the short and transient Society which we ought to have one among another the other to the Eternal Commerce and Friendship we ought to have in God CHAP. IV. Where we shew the Extent of the Natural Law by considering it in the Gospel and with Relation to the Immortal Man IF the Law of Moses were the Law of Nature accomodated to the Condition of the mortal Man and to the State of the Israelites in particular the Gospel is the Law of Nature accommodated to the State and Relations of the immortal Man This sufficiently appears from the different Genius and Conduct of the two Oeconomies Under the Oeconomy of the Law God seems to make no farther Manifestation of Himself than to break thro' Walls open the Abysses of the Earth inflame Mountains send down Fire from Heaven menace the Body with his Judgments or to execute the Arrests of his Justice upon the perishing Nature but under the new Dispensation of Grace we see Persons animated with the Spirit of
certain Circle of Persons with whom we have Society as that we cannot be Happy without all these things We have almost the very same Notions of Death as Children have when they fancy they shall be weary with abiding in the Grave and not dare to be alone in the Abyss of surrounding Darkness We terrify our selves with our own Phantomes and Chimaera's we make such a Confusion of our proper Perceptions with the Grave which is their Object that we are ready to imagine and resent that Horrour in the Sepulchre which is meerly a Creature of our own Fancy and exists no where else but in our own Soul We should not fear this pretended Solitude and apparent Privation which attend Death if substituting the distinct Ideas of Reason instead of the confused Perceptions of Nature we would consider that by Death we are not depriv'd either of the Subject or the Cause of those Delights which this World may have afforded us For the Subject is our Soul which still remains and the Cause is GOD who is immortal and immutable The reason why we regret and bemoan the loss of the Sky Earth Elements Society is because we invest these Things with those agreeable Sensations which they occasion'd not considering that we carry away with us the Colours Cloth Paint and Pencil which are necessary for drawing this admirable Picture and that if God fail us not we can nevâ—r want any thing Nor ought the Idea of Destruction which is included in Death to trouble us any more than this Idea of Solitude which we have been speaking of 'T is true Death seems to destroy Man several ways In his account it destroys the World it being certain that the Sun Moon Stars Air Earth Sea although they be not absolutely Annihilated in themselves may yet be said to be annihilated in respect of him seeing that he cannot enjoy any longer Use of them Man is not annihilated in himself but in the Nature which he admires and which perishes as to him in the Society he has been us'd to and which ceases to be any longer in his Account in his Body the Instrument of his Pleasures which perishes and moulders away in the Dust of the Grave Let us see whether there be any thing Real in either of these Three kinds of Destruction First then external Things cannot be said to be annihilated both in themselves and in respect of thei Use for how do we know but the same Institution in kind may still remain and be in Force tho' the manner of it cease Indeed there is no great likelyhood of our having such kind of Sensations after Death as we had during our Life for 't is no longer necessary that these Sensations should be proportion'd to the Condition and Preservation of a Body which in respect of us ceases to subsist The design which the Author of Nature hath had of engaging us in the Preservation of this Body by the Pleasure which the Aliments excite in us being accomplish'd and come to its intended Period we easily conceive that there being no longer Pleasure to be excited in us by Aliments Tasting has no place after Death and is not a proper Faculty for the Enjoyment of the other World unless God affix it to other Objects for different Ends. But methinks Hearing and Seeing being not only design'd for the Preservation of the Body but also for the Search and Pursuit of all that may nourish the Admiration and Gratitude we bear to the Creatour we have no reason to believe that these Sensations are terminated by Death Indeed I own we shall not see by the Motion of the Optick Nerve but yet we may be said to see for all that For pray what has the shaking of the Optick Nerve common with the Perception of Light These things have no natural Relation to each other and if we see Light and visible Things by the occasion of the Optick Nerve mov'd after a certain manner nothing hinders but we may have the same Sensations by the occasion of the Aethereal Matter which us'd to agitate the Optick Nerve which may be said proportionably of Hearing But suppose we should not have these very Sensations what does that signify since we shall certainly have Others and those of a more noble and elevated Kind For as by losing the Body we shall not be depriv'd of any thing but what confin'd and degraded us we ought not to fear that our Soul will lose any thing of the Purity and Excellency of its Operations by disentangling it self from the Embraces of Matter 'T is neither our Duty nor Interest to meddle and spend our Conjectures about those things which God thought fit to conceal from our Knowledge but I believe 't would not be a piece of too great Boldness and Presumption to conjecture That as the Imbasement and Vileness of Man during this Life consists in having his Reason subjected to Sense so the Glory that will follow Death consists in a perfect submission of Sense to the Empire of Reason Indeed at present as the Soul is descended from Heaven to inhabit a Tabernacle of Clay it buisies not it self in enlarging its Views or extending its Lights but on the contrary 't is employ'd in â—â—cking and confining 'em that it may not diâ—dain to use them in preserving the Body But then as the Soul will take its flight from these lower Regions to its Heavenly Station where it will have no longer need to care for the Support and Preservation of the Body but its whole Business will be to glorify God 't will no longer bestir it self to limit and confine but to purify and enlarge its Knowledge in order to render it more worthy of God about whom it will be conversant The second Destruction we apprehend in Death is no less Imaginary for tho' we see the Links which ty'd us to Society dissolve and break yet we ought not for all that to think we shall be exempted from all manner of Friendly Obligations The Society of Spirits does very well countervail the Society of Bodies whatever weak and prejudic'd Nature may think of it And when we shall put off these Eyes and Ears which are design'd for our Commerce and Conversation with Men we solace our selves with this Lenitive That we shall undoubtedly acquire other ways of Sensation and Knowledge by vertue of another Institution proportion'd to our future Condition Lastly I grant that One who still lives in this World and is depriv'd of the Members of his Body is to be pitty'd But when a Man is transported into another World sees another Oeconomy of Objects what should he do with these Senses which have indeed some Relation to this present World but not to his glorify'd State The Mischief arises from hence That in the ordinary Idea we have of our selves we attribute too much to the Body and too little to the Soul whereas following the distinct Ideas of Things we cannot ascribe too much to a Spirit nor