{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sayes Aristotle But the soul only comes from abroad from a Divine principle for so saith the Scripture God breathed into Adam the spirit of life and that which in operation does not communicate with the body shall have no part in its corruption Thus far they were right but when they descended to particulars they fell into error That the rewards of vertue were to be hereafter that they were sure of that the soul was to survive the calamities of this world and the death of the body that they were sure of and upon this account they did bravely and vertuously and yet they that thought best amongst them believed that the souls departed should be reinvested with other bodies according to the dispositions and capacities of this life Thus Orpheus who sang well should transmigrate into a Swan and the soul of Thamyris who had as good a voice as he should wander till it were confined to the body of a Nightingal Ajax to a Lion Agamemnon to an Eagle Tyrant princes into wolvs and Hawks the lascivious into Asses and Goats the Drunkards into Swine the Crafty Statesmen into bees and pismires and Thersites to an Ape This fancy of theirs prevailed much amongst the common people and the uninstructed amongst the Jews for when Christ appeared so glorious in miracle Herod presently fancied him to be the soul of Iohn the Baptist in another body and the common people said he was Elias or Ieremias or one of the old Prophets And true it is that although God was pleased in all times to communicate to mankind notices of the other world sufficient to encourage vertues and to contest against the rencontres of the world yet he was ever sparing in telling the secrets of it and when St. Paul had his rapture into Heaven he saw fine things and heard strange words but they were {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} words that he could not speak and secrets that he could not understand and secrets that he could not communicate For as a man staring upon the broad eye of the Sun at his noon of Solstice feels his heat and dwells in light and loses the sight of his eyes and perceives nothing distinctly but the Organ is confounded and the faculty amazed with too big a beauty So was S. Paul in his extasy he saw that he could see nothing to be told below and he perceived the glories were too big for flesh and blood and that the beauties of separate souls were not to be understood by the soul in Conjunction and therefore after all the fine things that he saw we only know what we knew before viz. that the soul can live when the body is dead that it can subsist without the body that there are very great glories reserved for them that serve God that they who die in Christ shall live with him that the body is a prison and the soul is in fetters while we are alive and that when the body dies the soul springs and leaps from her prison and enters into the first liberty of the sons of God Now much of this did rely upon the same argument upon which the wise Gentiles of old concluded the immortality of the soul even because we are here very miserable and very poor we are sick and we are afflicted we do well and are disgraced we speak well and we are derided we tell truths and few believe us but the proud are exalted and the wicked are delivered and evil men reign over us and the covetous snatch our little bundles of money from us and the Fiscus gathers our rents and every where the wisest and the best men are oppressed but therefore because it is thus and thus it is not well we hope for some great good thing hereafter For if in this life only we had hope then we Christians all we to whom persecution is allotted for our portion we who must be patient under the Crosse and receive injuries and say nothing but prayers we certainly were of all men the most miserable Well then in this life we see plainly that our portion is not here we have hopes but not here only we shall goe into another place where we shall have more hopes our faith shall have more evidence it shall be of things seen afar off and our hopes shall be of more certainty and perspicuity and next to possession we shall have very much good and be very sure of much more Here then are three propositions to be considered 1. The Servants of God in this world are very miserable were it not for their hopes of what is to come hereafter 2. Though this be a place of hopes yet we have not our hopes only here If in this life only we had hopes saith the Apostle meaning that in another life also we have hopes not only metonymically taking hopes for the things we hope for but properly and for the acts objects and causes of hope In the state of separation the godly shall have the vast joyes of a certain intuitive hope according to their several proportions and capacities 3. The consummation and perfection of their felicity when all their miseries shall be changed into glories is in the world to come after the resurrection of the dead which is the main thing which S. Paul here intends 1. The servants of God in this life are calamitous and afflicted they must live under the Crosse He that will be my Disciple let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me said our Glorious Lord and Master And we see this Prophetic precept for it is both a Prophecy and a Commandment and therefore shall be obeyed whether we will or no but I say we see it verified by the experience of every day For here the violent oppress the meek and they that are charitable shall receive injuries The Apostles who preach'd Christ crucified were themselves persecuted and put to violent deaths and Christianity it selfe for three hundred years was the publick hatred and yet then it was that men loved God best and suffered more for him then they did most good and least of evill In this world men thrive by villany and lying and deceiving is accounted just and to be rich is to be wise and tyranny is honourable and though little thefts and petty mischiefs are interrupted by the laws yet if a mischief become publick and great acted by Princes and effected by armies and robberies be done by whole fleets it is vertue and it is glory it fills the mouths of fools that wonder and imployes the pens of witty men that eat the bread of flattery How many thousand bottles of tears and how many millions of sighs does God every day record while the oppressed and the poor pray unto him worship him speak great things of his holy Name study to please him beg for helps that they may become gracious in his eyes and are so and yet never
heard Moses and the Prophets now hear one from the dead whose life and death would each of them make an excellent Sermon if this dead man had a good interpreter for he being dead yet speaketh and calleth upon us to live well and to live quickly to watch perpetually and to work assiduously for we shall descend into the same shadows of death Linquenda tellus et domus et placens Vxor atque harum quas colis arborum Te praeter in visas Cupressos Nulla brevem Dominum sequetur Thou must leave thy rich land and thy well built house and thy pleasing wife and of all the trees of thy Orchard or thy wood nothing shall attend thee to thy grave but oak for thy Coffin and Cypress for thy funeral It shall not then be inquired how long thou hast liv'd but how well None below will be concerned whither thou wert rich or poor but all the spirits of light and darkness shall be busie in the scrutiny of thy life for the good Angels would fain carry thy soul to Christ and if they do the Devils will follow and accuse thee there and when thou appearest before the righteous judge what will become of thee unless Christ be thy advocate and God be merciful and appeased and the Angels be thy guards and a holy conscience be thy comfort There will to every one of us come a time when we shall with great passion and great interest inquire how have I spent my days how have I laid out my money how have I imployed my time how have I served God and how repented me of my sins and upon our answers to these questions depends a happy or an unhappy Eternitie and blessed is he who concerning these things takes care in time and of this care I may with much confidence and comfort propound to you the example of this good man whose reliques lie before you Sir George Dalston of Dalston in Cumberland a worthy man belov'd of his Country useful to his friends friendly to all men careful of his religion and a true servant of God He was descended of an Antient and a worthy house in Cumberland and he adorned his family and extraction with a more worthy comportment for to be of a worthy family and to bring to it no stock of our proper vertue is to be upbraided by our family and a worthy Father can be no honour to his Son when it shall be said behold the difference this crab descended from a goodly apple-tree but he who beautifies the eschutcheon of his Ancestors by worthy atchievements by learning or by wisdome by valour and by great imployments by a holy life and an useful converlation that man is the parent of his own fame and a new beginner of an Antient family for as conversation is a perpetual creation so is the progression of a family in a line of worthy descendants a dayly beginning of its honour and a new stabiliment He was bred in learning in which Cambridge was his tiring room and the Court of Queen Elizabeth was his stage in which he first represented the part of a hopeful young man but there he stayed not his friends not being desirous that the levities of youth should be fermented by the liberties of a rich and splendid Court caused him to lie in the restraints and to grow ripe in the sobrieties of a Country life and a married state In which as I am informed he behaved himself with so great worthiness thiness and gave such probation of his love of justice popular regards of his Countries good and abilities to serve them that for almost 40. years together his Country chose him for their Knight to serve in all the intervening parliaments Magistratus indicatorium imployment shews the man he was a leading man in Parliaments prevailing there by the great reputation of his justice and integrity and yet he was not unpleasant and hated at Court for he had well understood that the true interest of Courts and Parliaments were one and that they are like the humours of the body if you increase one beyond its limit that destroys all the rest and it self at last and when they look upon themselves as enemies and that hot and cold must fight the prevailing part is abated in the conflict and the vanquish'd part is destroyed but when they look upon themselves as varieties serving the differing aspects and necessities of the same body they are for the allay of each others exorbitances and excesses and by keeping their own measures they preserve the man this the good man well understood for so he comported himself that he was loud in Parliaments and valued at Court he was respected in very many Parliaments and was worthily regarded by the worthy Kings which without an Orator commends a man Gravissimi principis judicium in minoribus etiam rebus consequi pulchrum est said Rliny To be approved though but in lesser matters by the judgement of a wise Prince is a great ornament to the man For as King Theodoric in Cassiodore said Nequen dignus est à quopiam redargui qui nostro judicio meretur absolvi No man ought to reprove him whom the King commends But I need no artifices to represent him worthy his arguments of probation were within in the magazines of a good heart and represented themselves by worthy actions For God was pleased to invest him with a marvailous sweet Nature which is certainly to be reckoned as one half of the grace of God because a good nature being the reliques and remains of that ship wrack which Adam made is the proper and immediate disposition to holiness as the corruption of Adam was to disobedience and peevish Councels A good nature will not upbraid the more imperfect persons will not deride the ignorant will not reproach the erring man will not smite sinners on the face will not despise the penitent A good Nature is apt to forgive injuries to pitty the miserable to rescue the oppressed to make every ones condition as tolerable as he can and so would he For as when good Nature is heightned by the grace of God that which was natural becomes now spiritual so these actions which proceeded from an excellent nature and were pleasing and useful to men when they derive from a new principle of grace they become pleasant in the eyes of God then obedience to laws is duty to God justice is righteousness bounty becomes graciousness and alms is charity And indeed this is a grace in which this good man was very remarkable being very frequent and much in alms tender hearted to the poor open handed to relieve their needs the bellies of the poor did bless him he filled them with food and gladness and I have heard that he was so regular so constant so free in this duty that in these late unhappy wars being in a garison and neer the suffering some rude accidents the beggars made themselves his guard and rescued him
up and down in white Revel. 3. 4 5. 14. 13. that is as candidates of the resurrection to immortality And this allegory of the Garden of Eden and Paradise was so heartily pursued by the Jews to represent the state of separation that the Essens describe that state by the circumstances and ornaments of a blessed garden {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a region that is not troubled with clouds or shours or storms or blasts {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} but a place which is perpetually refreshed with delicious breaths This was it which the Heathens did dream concerning the Elysian fields for all the notices {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} concerning the regions of separate souls came into Greece from the Barbarians sayes Diodorus Siculus and Tertullian observes although we call that Paradise which is a place appointed to receive the souls of the Saints and that this is separated from the notices of the world by a wall of fire a portion of the torrid zone which he supposes to be meant by the flaming sword of the Angel placed at the gates of Paradise yet sayes he the Elysian fields have already possessed the faith and opinions of men All comes from the same fountain the doctrine of the old Synagogue confirmed by the words of Christ and the commentaries of the Apostles viz. that after death before the day of judgment there is a Paradise for Gods servants a region of rest of comfort and holy expectations And therefore it is remarkable that these words of the Psalmist Nerapias me in medio dierum meorum Psal. 102. v. 25. Snatch me not away in the midst of my dayes in the Hebrew it is Ne facias me ascendere Make me not to ascend or to goe upwards meaning to the supernatural regions of separate souls who after death are in their beginnings of exaltation For to them that die in the Lord death is a preferment it is a part of their great good fortune for death hath not only lost the sting but it brings a coronet in his hand which shall invest and adorne the heads of Saints till that day comes in which the Crown of righteousness shall be brought forth to give them the investiture of an everlasting Kingdome But that I may make up this proposition usefull and clear I am to adde some things by way of supplement 1. This place of separation was called Paradise by the Jews and by Christ and after Christs ascension by S. Iohn because it signifies a place of pleasure and rest and therefore by the same analogy the word may be still used in all the periods of the world though the circumstances or though the state of things be changed It is generally supposed that this had a proper Name and in the Old Testament was called Abrahams bosome that is the region where Abraham Isaac and Iacob did dwell till the comming of Christ But I suppose my selfe to have great reason to dissent from this common opinion for this word of Abrahams bosome being but once used in both the Testaments and then particularly applied to the person of Lazarus must needs signifie the eminence and priviledge of joy that Lazarus had for all that were in the blessed state of separation were not in Abrahams bosome but only the best and the most excellent persons but they were {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} with Abraham and the analogy of the phrase to the manner of the Jewish feastings where the best guest did lye in the bosome of the Master that is had the best place makes it most reasonable to believe that Abrahams bosome does not signifie the general state of separation even of the blessed but the choicest place in that state a greater degree of blessedness But because he is the father of the faithful therefore to be with Abraham or to sit down with Abraham in the time of the old Testament did signifie the same thing as to be in Paradise but to be in Abrahams bosome signifies a great eminence of place and comfort which is indulged to the most excellent and the most afflicted 2. Although the state of separation may now also and is by S. Iohn called Paradise because the Allegory still holds perfectly as signifying comfort and holy pleasures yet the spirits of good men are not said to be with Abrahams but to be with Christ and as being with Abraham was the specification of the more general word of Paradise in the old Testament so being with Christ is the specification of it in the New So S. Stephen prayed Lord Iesus receive my spirit and S. Paul said I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which expression S. Polycarp also used in his Epistle to the Philippians {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} they are in the place that is due to them they are with the Lord that is in the hands in the custody of the Lord Jesus as appears in the words of S. Steven and S. Paul So S. Ierome Scimus Nepotianum nostrum esse cum Christo sanctorum mixtum choris we know that our Nepotian is with Christ mingled in the quires of Saints Upon this account and it is not at all unreasonable the Church hath conjectur'd that the state of separate souls since the glorification of our Lord is much better'd and advanc'd and their comforts greater because as before Christs coming the expectation of the Saints that slept was fixed upon the revelation of the Messias in his first coming so now it is upon his second coming unto judgment and in his glory This improvement of their condition is well intimated by their being said to be under the Altar that is under the protection of Christ under the powers and benefits of his Priesthood by which he makes continuall intercession both for them and us This place some of the old Doctors understood too literally and from hence they believed that the souls of departed saints were under their material Altars which fancy produced that fond decree of the Councel of Eliberis Can. 3. 4. that wax lights should not by day be burnt in coemeteries inquietandi enim spiritus sanctorum non sunt left the spirits of Saints should by the light of the diurnal tapers be disquieted This reason though it be trifling and impertinent yet it declares their opinion that they supposed the souls to be neer their reliques which were placed under the altars But better then this their state is described by S. Iohn in these words therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him night and day in his Temple and he that sits upon the throne shall dwell among them with which general words as being modest bounds to our inquiries enough to tell us it is rarely well but enough also to chastise all curious
questions let us remain content and labour with faith and patience with hope and charity to be made worthy to partake of those comforts after which when we have long inquired when at last we come to try what they are we shall finde them much better and much otherwise then we imagine 3. I am to admonish this also that although our Blessed Saviour is in the Creed said to descend {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} into hell so we render it yet this does not at all prejudice his other words this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise for the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} signifies indefinitely the state of separation whether blessed or accursed it means only the invisible place or the region of darkness whither who so descends shall be no no more seen For as among the Heathens the Elysian fields and Tartara are both {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} so amongst the Jews and Christians Paradisus and Gehenna are the distinct states of Hades Of the first we have a plain testimony in Diphilus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} In Hades there are two wayes one for just men and another for the impious Of the second we have the testimony of Iosephus who speaking of the Sadduces says {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} they take away or deny the rewards and punishments respectively which are in Hades or in the state of separation so that if Christs soul was in Paradise he was in Hades In vain therefore does S. Augustine torment himself to tell how Christ could be in both places at once when it is no harder then to tell how a man may be in England and at London at the same time 4. It is observable that in the mentions of Paradise by S. Iohn he twice speaks of the tree of life but never of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because this was the Symbol of secular knowledge of prudence and skill of doing things of this world which we can naturally use we may smel and taste them but not feed upon them that is these are no part of our enjoyment and if we be given up to the study of such notices and be immerged in the things of this world we cannot attend to the studies of religion and of the Divine service But these cares and secular divertisements shall cease when our souls are placed in Paradise there shall be no care taken for raising portions for our children nor to provide bread for our tables no cunning contrivances to be safe from the crafty snares of an enemy no amazement at losses no fear of slanderings or of the gripes of Publicans but we shall feed on the tree of life love of God and longings for the comming of Christ We are then all spirit and our imployment shall be symbolical that is spiritual and holy and pleasant I have now made it as evident as questions of this Nature will bear that in the state of separation the spirits of good men shall be blessed and happy souls they have an antepast or taste of their reward but their great reward it self their crown of righteousness shall not be yet that shall not be until the day of judgement and this was the third proposition I undertook to prove the consummation and perfection of the Saints felicity shall be at the resurrection of the dead {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} at his coming so S. Iohn expresses the time that we may not then be ashamed For now we are the sons of Gods but it does not yet appear what we shall be But we know that when he shall appear we shall be like unto him and see him as he is 1 Iohn 2. 28. 1 Iohn 3. 4. At his glorious appearing we also shall appear glorious we shall see him as he is but till then this beatific vision shall not be at all but for the interval the case is otherwise Tertullian affirms puniri et foveri animam interim in inferis sub expectatione utriusque judicii in quadam usurpatione et candida ejus lib. de anima e. lib. adv. Marcion the souls are punished or refreshed in their regions expecting the day of their judgement and several sentences habitacula illa animarum promptuaria nominavit scriptura saith S. Ambrose de bono mortis cap. 10. The Scripture calls these habitations the promptuaries or repositories of souls There is comfort but not the full reward a certain expectation supported with excellent intervals of joy Refrigerium so the Latins call it a refreshment Donec consummatio rerum resurrectionem omnium plenitudine mercedis expungat tune apparitura coelesti promissione saith Tertullian until the consummation of all things points out the resurrection by the fulness of reward and the appearing of the heavenly promise So the Author of the questions ad Orthodoxos quaest. 75. Immediately after death presently there is a separation of the just from the unjust for they are born by Angels {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} into the places they have deserved and they are in those places {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} kept unto the day of resurrection and retribution But what do they in the mean time How is it with them {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sayes Nazianzen orat funebr Caesar fratris They rejoyce and are delighted in a wonderful joy They see Angels and Archangels they converse with them and see our B. Saviour Iesus in his glorified humanity so Iustin Martyr ubi suprà But in these great joys they look forgreater They are now In Paradiso but they long that the body and soul may be in heaven together but this is the glory of the day of judgement the fruit of the resurrection And this whole affair is agreeable to reason the analogy of the whole dispensation as it is generally and particularly described in Scripture For when the greatest effect of the Divine power the mightiest promise the hardest thing to Christan faith that impossible thing to Gentile Philosophy the expectation of the whole world the New Creation when that shall come to pass viz. that the souls shall be reinvested with their bodies when the ashes of dissolved bones shall stand up a new and living frame to suppose that then there shall be nothing done in order to Eternity but to publish the salvation of Saints of which they were possessed before is to make a great solemnity for nothing to do great things for no great end and therefore it is not reasonable to suppose it For if it were a good argument of the Apostle that the Patriarks and Saints of the old Testament received not the promises signified by Canaan and the land of promise because God had provided