globular or round Figure Just as if a massy piece of Lead when melted and form'd into Bullets was in a nearer capacity to think meditate debate and act like a Soul But I appeal to the common sense of Mankind whether that Philosopher has a right to call any Legendary Tale into question who can believe that little balls of Matter by being briskly moved can come to have Understanding Will and Judgment Surely they ought to doubt of nothing who can be perswaded that small Bodies round or of any other shape should by justling and moving one against another be endued with Reason and Wisdom and a Talent to dispute concerning the Nature of their own Beings to raise Questions whether they are Matter or Spirit bodily or incorporeal Substances And not only yield to or resist the impressions of Objects present to them according to the acknowledged Laws of Motion but also reflect on the times long since past and meditate on those which are to come nay stretch out their consideration to infinite Space and eternal Duration But as the Epicureans would rid us of our Difficulties by assigning the Figure of the Parts which compound a corporeal Mind so the Stoicks would make the thing intelligible by describing the kind or sort of Motion which causes Matter to think Now it 's their Doctrine that the Soul is Fire and consequently that it performs its Office by such motion as is in Fire But this is strange Fire which gives us Understanding and yet no Light whereby we may any whit more easily conceive in what manner it is possible for Matter to think For who can shew so much as the shadow of an Argument to move a sober Man to conclude That there should be Reasoning Powers and Faculties any more in a Fire of Coles than in a lump of cold Clay or that a Log of Wood should get sense and understanding by being put into a Flame If Materialists will make their Senses to which they so often appeal the Judges they must confess That the Natural Effect of Fire is to separate and rend the Parts of Bodies asunder which action can bear no faint resemblance to the Thoughts Deliberations and Judgments of the Soul nor to that freedom of Will with which it either sets its Faculties on work or stops them These are some of the gross and nauseous Absurdities which unhappy licentious persons are forced to cram down who yet are so nice and squeamish as not to yield their Assent to any Truths of Religion for which there is not Mathematical Proof or Demonstration Aristotle a man of most profound Judgment and penetrating Thoughts who was of opinion that every thing under the Sun was compounded of the four Elements observing that the Faculties and Operations of human Souls were so remotely distant from all the Phoenomena or Appearances of Bodies was compelled to believe that there was a fifth Essence or Element of which only Souls were formed To remember the past to consider the present and provide for the future to encrease our own Knowledge and to improve others and such like all the products of a thinking faculty were things in the Opinion of this great Philosopher not possible to be accounted for by the Affections and Modes and Qualities of matter 3. The Soul and Body will appear distinct Substances from the difference every where supposed in Holy Scripture between them To shew which I begin with the Creation of Man And God said Let us make man in our image after our likeness But man is not like God in respect of his Body because God hath no body Besides the body in its nature is divisible and corruptible but God without change or decay is eternally the same a Being for ever infinitely perfect The similitude therefore between God and Man must be with relation to the Soul which is a Spirit as God is a Spirit The distinction between Soul and Body may also be observed from the manner wherein God created Man And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul His Body was made of the Earth but his Soul which gave life to it came immediately from God The Soul therefore was not created of the same Substance nor together with the Body but of one better and more Divine as the Scripture shews For of the brute Creatures void of Reason it says That the Water brought forth some and the Earth others but of Man that God breathed into him the breath of Life Manifesting thereby that he had an Intellectual and Rational Nature more noble than that of Brutes and near of kin to the Divine Beings above Accordingly also Solomon pronounceth that at the hour of death The spirit of man goeth upward and that the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth In which Author the wisest of men if his Authority may be of any weight there is another Passage that demonstrates the Soul and Body to be distinct Substances and puts the matter beyond a possibility of a contradiction Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it The Soul of the dead remain uncorrupted For God lends men the Spirit and 't is his Image But the Body we have of the Earth and we all being dissolved into it shall be dust but Heaven shall receive the Spirit In pursuance of our Argument it may here be proper to observe how difficult it will be for them who maintain that the Soul is only a mode accident or quality of the Body to give a rational account of Christ's words in our Text Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul c. According to these Philosophers other men may kill the Body but are not able to hurt the Accidents and Qualities of the Body which they are pleased to call the Soul And yet it is most certain that men only can destroy the Accidents and Qualities in Bodies but cannot destroy their Substance which after all force used to it will still subsist in other forms and shapes Insomuch as they quite invert our Saviour's Doctrine it following manifestly from their Assertions that men have only power to kill the Soul that is to destroy the Modes and Accidents in the Body but can do no injury to the Body or Substance it self In one Instance more give me leave to shew how repugnant these wild Opinions are to the Christian Religion And it shall be in the Promise of our Lord to the Penitent Malefactor who was crucified with him to day shalt thou be with me in paradise which in their sense must be thus While the Body of this Sincere Penitent was on the Cross or in the Grave the Modifications and Qualities of his Body were to attend our Saviour into Paradise But I think only to
and the reproch of their Holy Profession Of this sort of ill men about the beginning of the last Century Italy produced a plentiful Crop who valuing themselves more upon the Reputation of their Philosophy than Religion taught openly that the Soul did perish with the body so that it seemed necessary to have their wicked opinions condemned by a Council But notwithstanding these vain glorions persons by venting such strange Notions hoped to have been accounted the only Masters of Sense and Reason yet by the judicious and strong Confutations of the worthy Men who answer'd their Writings it does appear that they were as weak Philosophers as bad Christians But as those who bid defiance to God and ridicule Religion bear no proportion to the Bulk of Mankind so 't is no wonder some such should be found For when Men abuse the liberty God has given them over themselves and by continual Debauchery weaken and corrupt their Faculties it may so come to pass that they shall hardly form a true Judgment of any thing Indeed a Mind enfeebled and clouded with the steams of brutish Lust is no more able to contemplate the Glorious Nature of God or to be affected with pure and intellectual Pleasures than a Body brought into the World without Eyes and Hands is capable to do the ordinary Works of Life For Men may make themselves Monsters as well as be born so but then by the Example of a few such Monsters we ought not to suffer either our Faith to be shaken or our Manners to be perverted Before I part with this Head I would observe where Piety and Virtue and Wisdom have thriven most in the Conversation of Men and the greater good they have done to the World so much the more firmly they have been perswaded that their Souls should subsist after they had left their Bodies and on the contrary that there hardly ever were found any much diposed to scoff at Providence and deny a Future State who had not been infamous Livers A Heathen Philosopher hath spoke of this Point with so much Wisdom and Piety that I think it will be no loss of time here to present you with what he hath said If Conscience awaken in a bad Man a sense of his evil Deeds which tortures his Mind and puts him in fear of Punishment in Hell his only remedy is to fly to Non-entity or Not-being so he cures one Evil with another supporting his Wickedness by the Destruction of his Soul He gives Sentence of himself that after Death he shall be nothing to fly the Penalties of Future Judgment For a wicked Man will not have his Soul immortal that he may not subsist to suffer punishment He anticipates his Judge by declaring it is sit that a wicked Soul should be re-reduced to nothing But as through want of Counsel he was drawn to Sin so through Ignorance of the measure of Things he passes wrong Judgment on himself For the Judges of Spirits departed framing their Sentence according to the Rules of Truth do not judge it meet the Soul should be annihilated 2. My next Argument shall be taken from the fears Men have of Punishment after this Life for their Sins Sin troubles the Minds of Men in such instances as the Law takes no notice of and in such which notwithstanding they are punishable by Law yet were acted too-secretly to be detected and then also when the Offenders having fled their Country were out of reach of the Secular Judge Such Persons likewise have been perplext with the remembrance of their Wickedness whose height and power made them strong enough to break through the Laws and trample on them in which several Cases there was nothing but the Natural Suggestions of Conscience to terrify them Now whence can all this inward Trouble proceed but from an invincible perswasion that after Death will come Judgment If any doubt this we may appeal to disconsolate Sinners themselves who often finding no ease in the business of their Calling in the Conversation of their Friends nor in the change of Company or Place have been driven to seek for relief of another kind and to apply themselves to proper Persons unto whom they may unburden their Souls and confess their secret Offences hoping by their devout Prayers and ghostly Assistance to procure some remedy for their distressed Minds I may add That so insupportable have been the Horrors of a wounded Conscience that men have disclosed their capital Crimes to the Magistrate when they well knew it was his duty to punish such Criminals with Death And the reason why they exposed themselves voluntarily to Temporal Death was to escape Divine Vengeance in another World which they of all things dreaded They did trust that having confest their Sin and repented of it and made all the satisfaction they could to Civil Justice God would not enter into Judgement with them but out of his infinite Compassion forgive them and save their Souls alive Neither was the Course here taken to be imputed to Melancholy or Distraction since experience assures us many hereby have quieted their Minds and found comfort in Death Now if the fears of what shall become of us after Death were the Effects only of the false Principles which are owing to bad Education certainly they would not be so general nor so deeply rivetted in our Nature nor so terrible that Men should be willing to sacrifice their Lives to get rid of them 3. The third Argument I would urge for the Immortality of the Soul and that Men were not made only to live here is this That there is nothing in the World which fills the mind with satisfaction Men are always dissatisfied with their present Condition and endeavouring to make some Alteration in it and after the Alteration is made they do not continue any long time pleased but rather discover that they have only changed their old Grievances for new ones and are disturbed with a fresh set of Complaints Those who have the greatest opportunities to supply themselves with the various pleasures of Sense should if any were be easy in their Enjoyments and yet experience declares that what lately they with much eagerness desired does pall their Appetites and grow flat and insipid It is well known that Men who have had their Treasuries filled with Gold who have commanded Great and Victorious Armies and conquered and ruled over many Nations have after the large encrease of their Wealth their Power and their Glory upon little occasions been disturbed and discontented and fallen into such fits of Rage or Lust or Melancholy as are in no wise consistent with true Contentment of Mind And therefore they still post and press forward from one design to another but with the same dissatisfaction either trusting those who will deceive them or striving to remove that which will never leave them or vehemently coveting what they shall never obtain Now what reason can be given why worldly Goods
no torment touch them In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die and their departure is taken for misery and their going from us to be utter destruction but they are in peace For tho they be punisht in the sight of men yet is their hope full of immortality O desirable Immortalicy from the belief of which not any Evil can come no real Good can be lost but the worst of Miseries may be escaped and the chiefest of Goods obtained Thou puttest the Souls of the righteous in the Hands of God a place of the greatest Peace and greatest Safety where without fear of being disturbed or dipossessed they shall praise and glorify and magnify his Name for ever 2. Since our Spirit must return to God who gave it it does highly concern us to keep it always in a fit Condition to be given back unto him This is a great work if we consider what our Soul is or whither it is going 'T is our Soul which hath the Image of God imprest upon it and which is more valuable to us than the whole World and this Soul is going to receive a Sentence which will make it either infinitely Happy or Miserable from that God who is of purer Eyes than to behold evil and therefore if it take leave of the Body polluted with the Lusts of the Flesh he will abhor it If we have not banisht Envy and Wrath and Hatred and all Malicious Passions out of our Souls how shall we presume to surrender them into the Hands of God who is Love and when the Condition on which only he will now dwell in us and perfect his Love in us is that we love one another God is just and true and his Eyes behold the things that are equal therefore if we are false and perfidious and deceitful and oppress or over-reach our Neighbours he will command us workers of iniquity to depart from him It is an admirable Saying of the Pythagoreans That there is no place on Earth more acceptable to God than a pure Soul I am sure it is the Doctrine of St. John that every one that hopes to see God as he is must purify himself even as he is pure That is must endeavour to become like God in his Purity Justice Love and Mercy and other Perfections which are imitable by his reasonable Creatures May we then not only not give our selves up to commit acts of Uncleanness but not so much as harbour or cherish any impure Thoughts And may God in his infinite Mercy bestow on us such a measure of his Grace as may enable us to subdue our unruly Lusts and bring them under the government of our Reason and the Laws of our Holy Religion And may not the Horrors of a guilty Conscience seize upon us when the Terrours of Death shall approch us but our Merciful Lord at his coming may find us labouring in his Vineyard and say Well done good and faithful Servants come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the World FINIS ADVERTISEMENT Two Sermons of the Wisdom and Goodness of Provid ence Preach'd before the Queen at Whitehall August 17. and 24. 1690. on Prov. 3d. 6th A Sermon Preach'd at St. Andrews Holbourn June 28th 1691. on Gal. 6th 7th Of Religious Melancholly A Sermon Preach'd before the Queen at Whitehall March 6th 1691. on Psal 42. 6th These by the Right Reverend Father in God John Lord Bishop of Norwich Euseb praep Lib. XV. p. 810. * Sive anima sive ignis sit animus eum jurarem esse divinum Cic. Tusc quaest lib. 1. * Aristoteles longè omnibus Platonem semper excipio praestans ingenio diligentia cum quatuor illa genera Principiorum esset complexus e quibus omnia orirentur quintam quandam naturam censet esse è qua sit mens Cogitare euim providere discere docere invenire aliquid tam multa alia meminisse amare odisse cupere timere angi laetari haec similia corum in horum quatuor generum nullo inesse putat Cic. Tusc quaest lib. 1. * My dear Friend have not you and I concluded an hundred times that how much soever we strained our Understanding we could never concsive how from Insensible Corpuscles there could ever result any thing sensible without the intervention of any thing but what is Insensible and that with all their Atoms how small and how nimble soever they make them what motions and figures soever they give them and in what order mixture or disposition they range them yea and whatever industrious hand they assign them for Guidance they would never be able still supposing with them that they have no other properties or perfection than those recited to make us imagin how thence could result a Compound I say not that should be Reasoning like a man but that should be meerly Sensitive such as may be the vilest and most imperfect worm on earth How then dare they pretend that they will make it out how thence can result a thing Imagining a thing Reasoning and such an one as shall be the Imaginations and Ratiocinations themselves Mr. Bernier's Letter of Atoms and the mind of man p. ult Gen. c. 1. v. 26. C. 2. v. 7. * J. Philoponus de Mund. Creat p. 21. Eccl. 3. 21. Cap. 12. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phocylid Poem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Trismegist Luke c. 23. v. 43. * Josephus lib. 3. Philo de Mundi opisicio de somniis de praemiis Poenis Animasque praelio aut suppliciis peremptorum aeternas putant hinc Moriendi contemptus Haec de Judaeis Tacitus lib. 5. Hist Maimonid de fund Legis p. 47. Vide Manass Ben. Israel de resurrect Mort. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herodot in Euterp Diodor. Bibliothec. p 83. Dion Halicarn Rom. Antiq. p. 523. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strabo l. 4 p. 197. id l. 3. p 76. Caesar l. vi p. 118. Pompon Mela. lib. 2. c. 2. p. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diog. Laer. proeem Segm. 11. * II. ι ' Odys λ ' * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diog. l. 1. Segm. 24. Herod in Euterp 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pausan Pherecydes Syrus primus dixit animos hominum esse aeternos Cic. Tuscul l 1. Vide Menagii in Diog. Laert. li. 1. Seg. 116. Observationes * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Photii Biblioth Col. 1317. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristol l. 4. de gen animal * Omni autem in re consensio omnium gentium lex naturae putanda est Atque haec ita sentimus natura duce nulla ratione nulla doctrina Quod si omnium consensus naturae vox est omnesque qui ubique sunt consentiunt esse aliquid quod ad eos pertinent qui vita cesserint nobis quoque idem existimandum est Sic permanere animos arbitramur consensu nationum omnium Tusc qu. lib. 1. * Cum de animarum aeternitate disserimus non leve momentum apud nos habet consensus hominum aut timentium inferos aut colentium utor hac publica persuasione Epist 117. Nihil aliud intercidet quam corpus fragilitatis caducae morbis obnoxium casibus expositum proscriptionibus objectum Animus vero divina origine haustus cui nec senectus ulla nec mors onerosi corporis vinculis exsolutus ad sedes suas cognata sidera recurret Suasoriar p. 129. * Obtinuisse non minus de incorporalitate animae quam de immortalitate sententiam Macrob in som Scipio l. 1. c. 14. * Ut condones mihi peccata mea Statuas mihi immunitalem ab inferno Custodi me ò adjutor meus in hac futura vita peculiariter in die resurrectionis Muhammedan Prec p. 18. p. 399. Vide Hottinger Hist Orient p. 254. * Anima imbuta hisce perfectionibus cum discesserit à corpore experietur in semet ipsa voluptatem maximum laetitiam immensam efficieturque anima illa tanquam Angelus ex Angelis Propinquis Deo Propositae Sapientiae Arabum Philosoph p. 75. * Joh Mendoza de Regno Chinae l 2. 6. Trigautius de Christ expedit apud sinas p. 102. Linschoten Voyag p. 39. Varenius de divers Gent. Religion p. 255 269. Lerius Navigat c. 16. Osorii Hist l. iv Benzo Hist Nov. orb p. 29. Harriot Virgin Tavernier Persian Trav p. 165. Ind. Trav p 167. Jos Acosta lib. 5. c. 7. Rauwolf's Trav. p. 240. * Esse quandam vim in natura humana qua caetera animantium genera destituantur ut neminem sensu rationis nitentem praeter Pomponatium asseclas dubitare arbitror Postellus de orbis Concord p. 114. O Italia etiam ea hominum monstra alis qui non satis habent esse impii nisi etiam virus suum omnibus coeteris propinent cum hac pernicie in Aulas principum penetrent Idem ib. * Concil Lateran Sessio 8. 19. Decemb. An. 1513. * Quid enim est tam falsum tamque abhorrens à vero ut non ad id probandum argumenta excogitari queant Neque quicquam est tam absurdum quin dicendo probabile fieri neque tam verum exploratum quin dicendo in dubium vocari aut etiam coargui queat Muretus in Arist Eth. p. 150. Hieroc in carm Pythag p. 165. Quintus Calaber lib. 14. p. 678. Arrian in Epict. l. 1. c. 9 p 109. C. 2. 23 24. C. 3. 1 2 3 4. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. Iambic 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hieroc in Carm. Pythag. p. 25.