that being far off from him they are out of his reach and beyond the Danger of his Thunderbolts and that he is too far removed from them either to succour them when they want his Aid or to punish them when they deserve his Displeasure which must needs extinguish both their Hope and Fear which are the Master-Springs of their Religion And tho we should believe him to be present with us yet unless we also believe that he hath a full Inspection into all our Actions and Affairs we shall have no Regard to him For if he sees not into our Affairs how can he succour and relieve us And if he cannot relieve us to what end should we hope in him depend upon him or pray to him And unless he hath a perfect Insight into all our Actions how should he reward or punish us and if he cannot reward us what should encourage if he cannot punish us what should terrifie us to our Duty to him But if we look upon him as a Being that is always with us and where ever we are surrounds us wirh his boundless Presence that includes and penetrates every part of our Substance sees into our inmost Thoughts and Purposes and ransacks every Corner of our Souls with his allseeing Eye and hath a through and perfect Prospect of all our Affairs and Concerns we cannot without infinite Force to our Reason forbear fearing and reverencing serving and adoring him IV. To fasten the Obligations of Religion upon us it is also necessary that we believe that God continually orders and disposes of all things that he is the Spring of all the Motions of this great Machine of the World that sets every Wheel and Cause agoing and by his all-commanding Influence maintains directs and over-rules their Motions and that there is nothing happens in the World whether by Nature or Chance or Design but by his Ordination and Disposal that even those natural Causes which are necessarily determined to such particular Courses and Effects are influenced and conducted by him and that whensoever they stray from their Courses suspend or precipitate their Motions or move counter to their natural Tendencies it is by his Order and Direction that 't is he who drives and guides the heavenly Bodies impresses the Degrees and chalks out the Paths of their Motions and by his own Almighty Hand turns round those stupendous Wheels in a perpetual Revolution For so the Scripture tells us that he makes his Sun to shine upon the good and bad Mat. 5.45 that it is at his Beck and Command that those vast Bodies of Light exhale the Vapours of the Earth and Sea and dissolve them down again in Hail and Rain and Snow For so we are told that 't is he who covers the Heavens with Clouds and prepares the Rain for the Earth that sends forth his Commandment unto the Earth and giveth Snow like Wool and scattereth the hoar Frost like Ashes and casteth forth his Ice like Morsels and sendeth forth his Word and melteth them and causes the Wind to blow and the Waters flow Psalm 147.8 15 16 17 18. that the Fire and Hail and Snow and Vapours and stormy Winds do fulfil his Word Psalm 148.8 And in a word that 't is by his Order and Influence that the Earth sends up its Sap into the Seeds and Roots of Herbs and Corn and Plants and causes them to spring and grow and that all Animals do propagate their Kind and still replenish the Store-houses of Nature for so we are told that he cloaths the Grass of the Field and arrays the Lillies in all their glory Mat. 2.28 29 30. and that he causes the Grass to grow for the Cattel and Herb for the use of Man that he may bring forth Food out of the Earth Psal. 104.14 AND then as for fortuitous and casual Events which depend upon Accidental and irregular Causes as a Mans being hit with an Arrow let fly at random or brained with a Stone falling from the Top of an House we must believe that they are all ordered directed and over-ruled by God so as that to him there is nothing casual or contingent and tho there are many things happen of which there was no Necessity in their immediate Causes yet do they as necessarily depend upon the Will and Power of the first Cause of all as the Rising and Setting of the Sun and Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea So that how fortuitous soever these things may be in respect of the Design and natural Tendency of second Causes yet none of them ever happen besides the Purpose and Intention of God who foresees and designs them before they come to pass and directs and levels them to his own most wise and holy Ends and Purposes For so the Arrow which the Soldier let fly at Random was levelled by God at Ahabs Breast so that his Death was Chance in respect of the Soldier who shot the Arrow but Design in God who directed it and accordingly Prov. 16.33 we are told that the Lot is cast into the Lap but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. And so in the Case of Chance-Medley when a Man accidentally kills another without any Design or Intention tho it be mere Accident in him 't is Council and Design in God who as the Scripture expresses it delivers the Man he slays into his Hand Exod. 21.13 And then Lastly As for those Events which happen by the Design of free and rational Agents it is necessary we should believe that they are all over-ruled by God too that whatever befalls us in this World whether it be by the good or ill Design of Men or Angels is for good and just and holy Ends either permitted or determined by the sovereign Disposer of all Events so that without his wise Permission or Determination neither Angels nor Men nor Devils can do us either good or hurt that every good thing we receive from them only passes to us through their Hands from God and that they are only the Channels and Conveyances of the overflowing Streams of his infinite Bounty and that when ever we suffer any ill from them they are but the Rods in Gods Hand wherewith he chastens and corrects us that he hath the over-ruling Disposal of all the Ills which they inflict upon us and can render their Stings a Sovereign Balm and their ranckest Poyson Medicinal to us so that their Malice being in Gods Disposal can effect nothing but what he will have it and if it doth us hurt 't is his Executioner but if he pleases it shall do us good and like Leaches applied by a skilfull Physician shall draw away our Disease while it is sucking our Blood For so God made the Malice of Joseph's Brethren the means of his Advancement in Egypt and by the Covetousness of Judas and Cruelty of the Jews advanced the holy Jesus to his own right Hand and executed his Purpose to redeem Mankind Thus God over-rules the Actions of Men
its place and fixes and determins it thereunto Again How came the Sun for whether it be the Earth that moves about the Sun or the Sun about the Earth is all one to our Enquiry how came this Sun I say which hath no Reason to govern it self by to be determined to such a useful Course of Motion what makes this vast and mighty Body move round the Earth in twenty four hours in finishing which spacious Circle of Motion it must fly far swifter than a Bullet from a Canons Mouth and yet through so many Ages each twenty four hours it hath constantly performed it without being so much as one Minute faster or slower whereby it makes those just and regular Returns of Day and Night to both the Hemispheres so that neither the one nor the other is either too much heated by his Presence or too long benighted by his Absence because as soon as the one hath been sufficiently warmed and cherished with his Rays he immediately retires from it into the other and by so doing he gives the active Animals leave to rest the over-heated Air to cool and the Gasping Earth to repair its fainting Vertues which a continued Heat would soon exhaust and extinguish Thus by returning Day and Night to both Parts of the Earth once in twenty four Hours he preserves both their Heat and Moisture upon which all Generation depends in a due and regular Temper so that neither their radical Moisture is consumed by the parching Droughts of the Day nor their vital Heat extinguished by the cool Moistures of the Night but the one still allays and tempers the other by their quick and alternate Revolutions How then came the Sun that understands no utility and designs no End to be determined to this Course of Motion which above all others is so admirably useful and advantageous to this World we live in Again What is the Reason that since he thus equally moves round the Earth he doth not always move in the same Circle but runs out every Day into a different Circle almost a whole Degree farther northward or southward and this so constantly and so precisely that in six thousand succeeding Revolutions he hath never varied so much as one Minute from his Course either one way or the other and by these his stated Ex-currencies towards the North and South he makes the Seasons of the Year gives a Summer and a Winter a Spring and a Fall to all Parts of the Earth without which the Earth would long ere this have been utterly useless and all its Fruits and for want of them its Animals too would have for ever perished For some Parts of it would have been scorched with everlasting Heat other bound up with everlasting Frost here it would have been all a Sandy there all an Icy Desert and so both Vegetation and Generation would every where have utterly ceast either for want of Moisture or for want of Heat How came the Sun then which hath neithr Sense nor Reason of his own to guide him to be directed into such a commodious Course of annual Motion whenas in that vast Space he moves in he might as well have run ten thousand other Courses of Motion He might have moved all the Year round the Earths Equator but if he had done so all the middle Tracts of Earth both Northward and Southward would soon have been scorched up with his continual Presence and all the remoter Parts both ways would quickly have died with Cold through his perpetual Absence or he might have run his annual Course on one side only of the Earths Equator and made his circular Excursions to or beyond the Pole but if he had done so he must have left a great Part of the opposite Hemisphere exposed to everlasting Night and Cold whereas in the annual Course of Motion he now performs he sheds forth his Light and Heat and Influence over all the World and by turns gives every Part its yearly Seasons which is a plain Evidence that all his Motions are conducted by a wise and over-ruling Mind which among so many Courses of Motion that lie before him in the boundless Space he moves in hath determined him to that which for Perpetuity is much the best and most commodious AND the same is to be said of the Motions of the Moon which Nature hath designed for a vicarious Light to the Sun to supply his Absence and perform his Office in this lower World For what makes this senseless and irrational Planet that moves without any Intention of its own wander by turns Northward and Southward some Degrees beyond the Sun And what makes it move Northward when the Sun is Southward and again South-ward when the Sun is North-ward whereas in that immense Space wherein it swims it hath room enough to run a thousand other Courses of Motion none of which could have been so advantageous to us as this For by moving North-ward when the Sun is South-ward and so è contra it moderates the Cold and Darkness of the winter Nights and by passing beyond the Tropicks which are the Boundaries of the Sun it in some measure supplies his Absence by enlightning those long and tedious Nights in which the Regions towards the Poles are buried which is a plain Instance of the singular Care of Providence that no Parts of the Earth should be left altogether destitute of the necessary Comforts of the heavenly Light and Warmth Again How came the Air which hath no Design in it self to place it self so commodiously as it hath done between the Earth and the Heavens Why is there not a wide vacuity between Or if some Body must needs intervene why was it not Fire or Water as well as Air which of all other Bodies is the most commodious For had it been a void Space there could have been no Intercourse between Heaven and Earth or had it been filled with Fire or Water it would have consumed or drowned the Earth and all things belonging to it but as for the Air which is a thin soft fluid and transparent Body it is of all others the most proper Vehicle of the Celestial Influences For what other Body is there that through such a stupendous Distance could have conveyed down to us the Light and Heat of the Sun with such an ineffable Swiftness or what other Element could have been so proper for Animals to move and breath in Since therefore this Space between the Earth and Heavens might have been supplied with other Bodies but with none so fit as Air which yet is no way conscious of its own Fitness and so cannot be supposed to choose this Space for it self it is a plain Evidence that there was a wise Mind without it that chose this Habitation for it AND now we are come down to this terrestrial Globe which consists of Earth and Water let us briefly consider the admirable Use of both and of all things appertaining to them How came the senseless Water
nothing in him but what his own Reason perfectly approves no Inclination in his Will or Nature but what is exactly agreeable to the fairest Ideas of his own Mind And since it is for his own Goodness-sake that he loves himself as he doth we may be sure that there is nothing without him can be so dear to him as that in us which is the Image of his Goodness Every like we say loves its like and the righteous Lord saith the Psalmist loveth Righteousness Psal. 11.7 i. e. being righteous himself he loves Righteousness in others by an invincible sympathy of Nature His greatest Heaven and Delight is in his own most righteous Nature and next to that in righteous Souls that imitate and resemble him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath not a more grateful Habitation upon Earth than in a pure and vertuous Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Apollo that Mimick of God by his Pythian Oracle i. e. I rejoyce as much in pious Souls as in my own Heaven Which is much what the same with that gracious Declaration that God himself makes by the Prophet Isaiah 57.15 thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity whose Name is Holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones Since therefore moral Duties are all but so many Copies and Exemplifications of Gods Nature this is a sufficient Reason why he should prefer them before all the Positives of Religion III. GOD principally requires moral Goodness because 't is by the Practice of this that we advance to our own natural Happiness For the natural Happiness of reasonable Creatures consists in being entirely governed by right Reason i. e. in having our Minds perfectly informed what it is that right Reason requires of us and our Wills and Affections reduced to an entire Conformity thereunto And this is the Perfection of moral Goodness which consists in behaving our selves towards God and our selves and all the World as right Reason advises or as it becomes rational Creatures placed in our Circumstances and Relations And when by practising all that true Piety and Vertue which moral Goodness implies we are perfectly accomplished in our Behaviour towards God our selves and all the World so as to render to each without any Reserve or Reluctancy what is fit and due in the Judgment of right Reason we are arrived to the most happy State that a reasonable Nature can aspire to 'T is true in this Life we cannot be perfectly happy and that not only because we live in wretched Bodies that are continually liable to Pain and Sickness but also because we are imperfect our selves and have none to converse with but imperfect Creatures But were we once stript of these natural and moral Imperfections wheresoever we lived we should necessarily be happy Were I to live all alone without this painful Body I should necessarily be in a great measure happy while I followed right Reason tho I lived in the darkest Nook of the Creation For there I should still contemplate God and while I did so my mind would be always ravish'd with his Beauty and Perfections there I should most ardently love him and while I did so I should sympathise and share with him in his Happiness there I should still adore and praise him and while I did so I should feel my self continually drawn up to him and wrapt into a real Injoyment of him there I should be imitating his Perfections and while I did so I should enjoy an unspeakable Self-satisfaction perceiving how every Moment I grew a more Divine and Godlike Creature there I should intirely resign up my self to his heavenly Will and Disposal and while I did so I should be perpetually exulting under a joyous Assurance of his Love and Favour in a word there I should firmly depend upon his Truth and Goodness and while I did so I should be always triumphing in a sure and certain Hope of a happy Being for ever Thus were I shut up all alone in an unbodied State and had none but God to converse with by behaving my self towards him as right Reason directs me I should always enjoy him and in that Injoyment should be always Happy And if while I thus behaved my self towards God I took care at the same time to demean my self towards my self with that exact Prudence and Temperance and Fortitude and Humility which right Reason requires I should hereby create another Heaven within me a Heaven of calm Thoughts quiet and uniform Desires serene and placid Affections which would be so many everflowing Springs of Pleasure Tranquillity and Contentment within me But if while I thus enjoyed God and my self by behaving my self as right Reason directs I might be admitted to live and converse among perfect Spirits and to demean my self towards them with that exact Charity and Justice and Peaceableness and Modesty which right Reason requires the Wit of man could not conceive a true Pleasure beyond what I should now enjoy For now I should be possest of every thing my utmost Wishes could propose of a good God a Godlike joyful and contented Soul a peaceable kind and righteous Neighbourhood and so all above within and without me would be a pure and perfect Heaven And indeed when I have thrown off this Body and am stript into a naked Ghost the only or at least the greatest goods my Nature will be capable of enjoying are God my self and blessed Spirits and these are no otherwise injoyable but only by Acts of Piety and Vertue without which there is no good thing beyond the Grave that a Soul can tast or relish So that if when I go to seek my Fortune in the World of Spirits God should thus bespeak me O man now thou art leaving all these Injoyments of Sence consult with thy self what will do thee good and thou shalt have whatsoever thou wilt ask to carry with thee into that spiritual State I am sure the utmost I should crave would be this Lord give me a heart inflamed with Love and winged with Duty to thee that thereby I may but enjoy thee give me a sober and a temperate mind that thereby I may but enjoy my self give me a kind a peaceable and a righteous Temper that thereby I may but enjoy the sweet Society of blessed Spirits O give me but these blessed things and thou hast crowned all my wishes and to Eternity I will never crave any other Favour for my self but only this that I may continue a pious and a vertuous Soul for ever for while I continue so I am sure I shall enjoy all spiritual Good and be as happy as Heaven can make me So that the main Happiness you see of Humane Nature consists in the Perfection of moral Goodness and it being so it is no wonder that the good God who above all things desires the
because they must not only out-tempt them but which is the much harder task of the two they must out-tempt the Reluctances of our Degenerate nature and yet for future Goods and Evils to out-tempt present ones is not so easie a matter neither especially if those future ones are invisible and out of the Ken of our sense which is the case here For Futurity lessens all Objects to the Mind even as distance doth to the Eye and makes things appear to us much smaller than they are in their own natures So that the futurity of the Rewards and Punishments of the other life are a mighty disadvantage to 'em when they stand in competition with present Goods and Evils because the later appear to us in their full Proportion and Magnitude with all their tempting circumstances about 'em whereas the former exhibit to us a dim and confused Landskip of things afar off of things which we never saw nor felt and which by reason of their distance imprint very dark Idea's on our minds And as their Futurity lessens their appearance and renders it confused and indistinct so their Invisibility weakens their force and influence on our minds which no Objects can so nearly affect as those that strike upon our Senses So that unless by an immense magnitude they compensate for being future and insensible it is impossible they should prevail with such minds as ours against present and sensible Goods and Evils Wherefore to render our belief of a future State effectual to reduce us to God and our Duty it 's absolutely necessary we should believe the Rewards and Punishments of it to be infinitely greater than all the Goods and Evils that can tempt us to Sin and that not only because our natures are extreamly averse to that which these Rewards and Punishments tempt us to but because the Goods and Evils which tempt us the contrary way have the prevailing Advantages of being present and sensible IV. And lastly IT is necessary we should believe that there is no other way for us to acquire these Rewards or avoid these Punishments but by submitting to the Obligations of Religion For to be throughly convinced and persuaded of the immense Rewards and Punishments of the other life is by no means sufficient to reduce us unto God so long as we do but Dream of any possible way to obtain those Rewards and avoid those Punishments without submitting to Him to which above all imaginable ways our corrupt nature hath the greatest Antipathy So that though we were never so much convinc'd of the absolute necessity of escaping Hell and purchasing Heaven yet if at the same time we have a prospect of any other way or means of effecting it to be sure we shall shun this this most ungrateful one of forsaking our Sins and returning to God And if listing our selves into Godly Parties or putting on a demure and sanctified countenance if being moped dejected or unsociable if whining or fasting or long prayers or an affected Gurb or rigid observance of holy Times if consuming our lives in a barefooted Pilgrimage or wearing a hair Shirt or whipping our Bodies or spending our Estates in Masses and Indulgencies if being made free of a holy Confraternity or visiting Altars and Shrines or numbering Prayers like Faggots by a Tally of Beads if these or any of these will but secure us of Heaven and from going to Hell we shall think 'em a thousand times more tolerable and easie than to submit our wills to God in all the instances of true Piety and Vertue in the doing of which we must strangle the corrupt inclinations of our nature tear our beloved Lusts from our hearts rack off our earthy affections from their Lees and refine and spiritualize 'em into a divine Zeal and Love and Devotion than which there is nothing in the World more irksom to a degenerate nature So that 'till we are reduc'd to an utter despair of reaping the Rewards and escaping the Punishments of the other Life by any other means than this of submitting our selves to the Obligations of Religion our faith will be altogether ineffectual SECT II. What Evidence there is to induce us to believe these future Rewards and Punishments THAT there are future Rewards and Punishments is a Doctrine universally assented to by all Ages and Nations and Religions and there is scarce any first Principle in Phisosophy in which Mankind are more generally agreed Thus among the Heathen Poets Divines and Philosophers there is an unanimous acknowledgment of these future States although their descriptions of 'em are generally nothing but the dreams of an extravagant fancy For so as Josephus observes speaking of the Essenes Doctrine concerning the future State of the blessed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. they teach as all the Greek Nations also do that for good Souls there are blessed Seats prepared beyond the Ocean in a Region that is always free from Rain and Snow and excessive heats being perpetually fanned with gentle breeses from the Ocean which description he hath translated almost verbatim out of the 4th Book of Homers Vlyssea where he brings in Proteus thus bespeaking Menelaus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. The Gods shall send thee to the Fields of Elysium which lie on the utmost parts of the Earth where thou shalt live secure and happy there being neither Rain nor Snow nor Winter but the blessed Inhabitants are perpetually refresh'd with the gentle breathing of cool Zephyrs from the Ocean Plato tells us of an antient Law concerning Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. which was always and is still in force among the Gods that those who lived just and holy lives should after their death go into the Isles of the blessed where they should enjoy all manner of happiness without the least intermixture of misery but that those who lived here unjustly and ungodly should be sent into that Prison of just punishment which is called Hell Plat. Gorg. p. 312. Thus also Tully Tuscul. lib. 1. permanere animos arbitramur consensu nationum omnium i. e. We believe as all Nations do that the Souls of Men do survive their Bodies and to name no more Seneca Epist 117. tells us Cum de animarum aeternitate disserimus non leve momentum apud nos habet consensus omnium aut Timentium Inferos aut Colentium i. e. when we discourse of the Eternity of Souls the general consent of all Men either fearing or worshipping the Hellish powers is of very great moment And indeed this belief of the future states being so generally imprinted on Mens minds is a very probable argument of the reality of them it being hardly conceivable how the Reason of all mankind should have so unanimously consented in it had it not been extreamly agreeable to the make and frame of our minds and we cannot suppose any false proposition to be agreeable to the frame of our mind without reflecting dishonourably upon the truth of him
disbelieve them For there are a world of things which men do neither deny nor affirm believe nor disbelieve that is about which they never concern their thoughts nor trouble their heads one way or t'other And thus it is here there are many who pretend to believe another World but if you ask them why they can give no reason nor did they ever enquire whether there be any to be given so that it is plain whatever they imagine they do not believe it for to believe without understanding is as perfect nonsense as to understand without evidence or believe without faith So that that which they call faith is only not disbelieving whether there be another World or no they never troubled their heads to enquire and so having no evidence pro or con their understanding doth neither affirm nor deny believe nor disbelieve but negligently leaves the matter in suspence and uncertainty The natural means of faith therefore you see is a due enquiry into the evidence of the truth and reality of the things we believe and therefore if we would indeed believe that there is a future World of Rewards and Punishments we must seriously consider the reasons and evidences that prove and assert it and urge them close to our understandings 'till they have forced and extorted from them a rational and well-grounded assent which if we do laying aside all partiality and prejudice there is no doubt but they will be found weighty enough to turn the Scale against all Objections to the contrary especially if IV. And lastly You add to all these means fervent and hearty Prayer For Prayer in it self is a very proper and useful means to beget and confirm in us the belief of the other World because it is an abstraction of the mind from those sensitive and material objects which stand like hills and mountains between us and the invisible World and intercept our Prospect of it For whenever our mind is engaged in a serious and hearty prayer it dispels all earthly things before it and scatters them out of sight and having no Mists or Clouds in its way nothing but a fair and clear heaven above it thither it directs its Eyes and Thoughts and Desires without any lett or interruption Now the very withdrawing our minds from sensible things to converse with spiritual and invisible ones doth as I shewed before mightily dispose us to the belief of another World When therefore by frequent and hearty prayer our minds have been accustomed to retire from the objects of sense and to fix their thoughts and contemplations upon God they will be able to turn themselves with more ease and readiness to the invisible things of another World which the more familiar they are to us the better able we shall be to apprehend and believe them But then by our fervent and hearty prayers we shall also obtain the assistance of God without the concurrence of whose grace we can do no good thing and much less effectually believe the Rewards and Punishments of another life which is the root and principle of all true Piety and Virtue For to the forming a firm belief of this Doctrine in our minds there is required a very severe and impartial consideration of the Proofs and Evidences upon which it is founded and considering how vain and roving our thoughts are how apt to fly off from any serious argument and especially from this of another World which is so offensive to our vicious appetites and affections what likelihood is there that we should ever fix our mind to such a through examination of the Proofs of another World as is necessary to beget in us a lively belief of it unless God who alone can command our thoughts co-operates with us and animates our faint indeavours with his grace and assistance unless he by suggesting the evidences of the future state to us and by urging and repeating them imprints them on our minds with all their natural force and efficacy in a word unless by following our flying thoughts with these his holy inspirations and importuning them with and almost forcing them upon them he at last prevails with them to stay and look back and consider and seriously to ponder the weight and force of them it is very improbable they should ever abide long enough upon our minds to settle into a firm and efficacious belief Let us therefore earnestly implore the aid and assistance of God and beseech him frequently to inspire our minds with the Arguments of a future life and to urge and repeat and set them home upon our thoughts 'till by a due consideration of them we have extracted all their force and evidence and digested it into a lively and active belief and if to the use of all the abovenamed means you do but add this of Prayer and Supplication you may depend upon it that he who hath promised to open unto all that knock and to be found of all that seek him will never deny you any grace or assistance that is necessary to produce in you this fundamental Principle of Religion viz an effectual belief of the Rewards and Punishments of another world To conclude this Argument therefore since this belief is so absolutely necessary to subject our minds to the obligations of Religion let us endeavour as much as in us lies to found it in our reason by convincing our minds of the truth and force of those evidences upon which it is proposed For while we believe upon trust and we know not why our faith must needs be very weak and infirm and like a Tree without root in the midst of a storm be unable to outstand any blast of temptation For the temptations of sin are such goods and evils as are evident to our senses which do most certainly assure us that there are such things in the World as pleasure and profit reproach and persecution and therefore unless when we are tempted our faith can confront the evidence of Sense with the evidence of Reason and produce good proof of those future Goods and Evils which it puts in the ballance against these present temptations it will hardly be able to withstand ' em For what likelihood is there that the things which we believe without proof and evidence should have comparably that force and influence upon us as the things which we know and feel and experience So that when we come to oppose a Heaven and a Hell of whose reality and existence we have no evidence to pleasures or profits reproaches or persecutions which strike immediately on our senses it is easie to prognosticate which will be most prevalent BUT if our belief of the future Rewards and Punishments be founded on such evidence as satisfies our reason what temptation in the World is there that can prevail against it what good is there that can outbid Heaven or what evil that can vie terrours with Hell For we see by experience that the Objects of our faith when it is
grounded upon satisfactory evidence do as much influence our minds as the Objects of sense they who never saw the Indies unless it were in a Map and so can only believe that there are such Countries are yet as much affected with the rich Merchandize they abound with as those who have been there and as ready to venture their Estates and Persons thither through the danger of the Sea in hope of a prosperous return If therefore we believe that there is such a state as Heaven with as full satisfaction of mind as we do that there is such a place as the Indies doubtless our Faith would affect us as much as our Eyes and we should be as forward to go to Heaven and venture through all dangers and difficulties thither as if we had been there already and had seen with our own Eyes all the Glories and Delights it flows and abounds with So that the evidence of our Faith if it be clear and satisfactory will as much affect our minds as the evidence of our sense and Heaven and Hell will as vigorously influence our hope and fear if with a full satisfaction of mind we believe 'em as if we had seen and felt ' em Conceive then that you had spent but one hour in Heaven surveying with your own Eyes the glories of that Place the Triumphs and Exultations of its blessed Inhabitants and the rapturous Joys and delights wherewith it entertains 'em conceive that after this you had been sent for another hour into Hell and had there been spectators of the horrors and agonies of the damned of their torture and rage and dire convulsions of Soul caused by a desperate and remediless misery in a word conceive that after all you had been dismiss'd into this World again to choose your own fate and determine your selves to that happy or this miserable portion for ever think now what your mind and resolution would be whether you would not be willing to lose any thing rather than Heaven or to endure any thing rather than Hell whether any good or evil sin can tempt you withal would be able to out-tempt the Rewards and Punishments of Eternity Doubtless no the remembrance you would have of the infinite Joys and intolerable Miseries you saw in that other World would prove an invincible Antidote against all temptation Now what your sense of the other World would be if you had seen it that will your belief of it be when 't is founded upon clear and satisfactory evidence 't will be an infallible Counter-charm against the most bewitching temptations 't will render the greatest goods dreadful to us that becken us to Hell and the greatest evils desireable that drive us towards Heaven For Faith saith the Apostle is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11.1 that is it renders its invisible Objects as real and evident to us as our sense doth visible ones and when Heaven and Hell are become as evident to our faith as sensible things are to our senses what good or evil is there in all the World that can out-tempt ' em For what good is there so good as Heaven or what evil so bad as Hell So that if our belief of the future Rewards and Punishments be but founded on such evidence as gives a full satisfaction to our minds 't will draw our Souls to God like an invincible Loadstone in despight of all the oppositions of temptations from without and of all the counter-strivings of a corrupt nature from within and there is nothing in the World will be able to withstand it no good or evil that sin can promise or threaten that will have the power to resist its Almighty persuasions but 't will force its own way through all oppositions and like an overflowing Torrent bear down all our carnal considerations before it WHEREFORE if ever we mean to disingage our selves from the slavery of sin and entirely to devote our selves to God and his Service let us in the use of the above-named Means endeavour to establish our minds in a firm and well-grounded belief of the other World that so our faith being built upon a sure foundation of Reason may be able to outstand all the waves of temptation and to chase all those goods and evils before it that stand in the way of our return to God and when by our faith we have so far overcome the World as to submit and resign our selves to God in despight of all its temptations we shall find our belief of the other World every day grow and improve upon our hands 'till at last it commences into a certain assurance For 't is not so much mens reason as their lusts that do object against the reality of the future World they are loth to believe it because it disturbs 'em in their sinful enjoyments and so their will employs their reason to argue against it and when once their wills are engaged in the controversie a very slender probability will weigh more on that side than a clear Demonstration on the other When therefore our wills are taken off by a free resignation of 'em to God all that sinful prejudice which renders us now so averse to believe will vanish from our minds and then we shall see things as they are and the arguments of another World will appear to our minds with such a convincing evidence as will quickly dispel all our doubts and uncertainties and render our Faith equivalent to a clear Vision So that we shall pass through all the temptations of the World with the same constancy and resolution of Soul as if we walked in open view of Heaven and Hell and these mighty Objects which do so infinitely transcend all the Goods and Evils which sin can tempt us withal will have as victorious an influence on our lives as if they were present and did strike immediately on our senses And then how is it possible that any temptation whatsoever should be able to cope with or prevail against ' em For he who is fully persuaded of the reality of Heaven and Hell must be utterly abandoned of all his reason if he sin for any Goods sake that is less than Heaven or for any Evils sake that is less than Hell When therefore we are drawn to God by such invincible hopes and fears as the firm belief of the other World will suggest to us how is it possible that any temptation of sin should either dissuade us from coming to him or persuade us to forsake him Wherefore it concerns us to take all possible care to ground our faith well and improve and strengthen it that so in despight of all temptations it may influence our wills and govern our practice and safely conduct us through all the snares of this Life and at length bring us home to everlasting Happiness CHAP. VI. Of the necessity of having right Apprehensions of God in order to our being truly Religious IT is a Noble