made And what Proof can be given of the Truth of a Body greater than this If they had pretended that after his Resurrection his Body was presâ—nt but after the manner of a Spirit i. e. after an invisible impalpable unintelligible manner the World would have despised their Testimony and there had been no need to have said more for rejecting it than that if Body and Spirit be to be known asunder it must be by the different Properties and therefore to confound them is to confound our knowledge of them 2. It was necessary that there should be such Witnesses who would attest what they saw which his Enemies and Murderers would not have done if he had appeared to them Can we imagine that the High Priests and Elders and his other implacable Enemies who had Blasphemously attributed his other Miracles to the Power of the Devil would immediately have been convinced upon the sight of his Body after the Resurrection No doubt by the same Reason they would have concluded it to have been an Apparition of the Devil 3. There must be some Proof of the Honesty and Sincerity of Mankind allow'd and the Apostles gave the greatest that ever Men did by their Self-denial Unanimity Courage Patience Constancy and Perseverance They almost all laid down their Laws to attest this Truth and all underwent great Persecutions for it when the Discovery of the least Fraud would not only have set them at ease but gained them a plentiful Reward And therefore Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise his Son from the Dead 2. We must consider this with Respect to the general Resurrection of the Dead What Reason can we have to think that incredible when God hath already given such an Evidence of the Possibility of the thing by the Resurrection of Christ He that can raise up one Body can raise the rest since the difficulty lies not in the number of Bodies but in the Nature of the thing Some have ridiculously question'd whether the Surface of the Earth would be large enough to hold all the Bodies of Mankind upon it at the Day of Resurrection But an ingenious Person hath demonstrated the Folly of such an Imagination And it cannot be thought a needless Exercise of Divine Power when it is in order to the general Judgment and the Resurrection of Christ was intended as a Pledge and Assurance to the World not only of that day to come but that Christ is appointed to be the Judge Because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness by that Man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all Men in that he hath raised him from the Dead What remains then but for us to think it our greatest Concernment to live as becomes those that believe we must not only die but be raised from the Dead by the mighty Power of God and that in order to our appearing before the Judgment Seat of Christ that we may receive according to to things done in the Body whether good or bad What manner of Persons ought we then to be in all boly Conversation and Godliness What fruit had ye then saith St. Paul in those things whereof ye are now ashamed As though the bare Reflection of a Man 's own Conscience were enough to make him sensible of the Folly of Sin But what then is it to consider That those things which will not bear a severe Reflection at home shall be laid open before the Judgment Seat of Christ We are now to palliate and disguise and conceal our Follies and Weaknesses here as much as we can from our selves as well as others we would fain keep upon good Terms with our selves and use too many Arts to blind and deceive our own Consciences But alas How vain and foolish a thing is it for us to deceive our selves to our own Destruction If the Judge at the great Day would judge just as we do it would be the best Argument in the World â—or deceiving our selves But he will judge the World in Righteousness Not according to the vain Opinions Men have of themselves not according to the rash Censures or indiscreet Flatteries of others who cannot be able to judge of us as we may do of our selves And this is a Matter of the greatest Importance to us since God is pleased to leave it so much to our own Judgment That if we judge our selves we shall not be judged Let us not therefore do it carelessly partially and ineffectually but deal faitâ—fully and sincerely with our selves searching for our most secret and beloved Sins and proceed against them in such a manner as we shall wish we had done when we appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ. Think with your selves then how shall we then abhor those Sins of the Body which will expose both Soul and Body to the eternal Vengeance of God How shall we be ashamed to have yielded so much and so easily to the Inclinations of it against the Convictions of Reason the Checks of Conscience and the plain Commands of Scripture And therefore the thoughts of that day should have the most powerful Influence on us to keep our Bodies in subjection to our Minds and to subdue the irregular Appetites that come from them For these Bodies of ours now are not so much Companions as Traitors to our Souls holding a Correspondence with their greatest Enemies suggesting Counsels which tend to their Destruction and the Temptations which arise from them are so many and so bewitching that without a constant Care our Bodies may prove the ruin of our Souls And those who have the greatest Command over them have enough to do to keep under the Passions that arise from them which may grow troublesome when they cannot Govern and like discontented Persons be very uneasie when they are not gratified to their own Desire It is therefore a great satisfaction to the Minds of good Men to think there is a Day of Resurrection coming when their Bodies shall no longer be an â—ncumbrance or a Temptation to their Minds they shall neither hinder their Happiness nor draw them from it Thus all the dark Temptations and cloudy Vapours and disturbing Passions which arise from our Bodies now shall be scattered and dispersed and there shall be nothing but Purity Serenity and Clearness in that State For Then the righteous shall shine forth like the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father when the glorious Light within shall break through the Passages of the Body and cause as great a Splendour in it as the Sun it self would have within so narrow a Compass Thus it is said of our Saviour upon his Transfiguration That his â—ace did shine as the Sâ—â— and yet his Body then had the same Qualities that our's have now But after the Resurrection the glorified Bodies shall be so purified and refined by a Divine Spirit and
they have not the Heart and Courage to examine them whether they be reasonable or not but rather choose to return to their former Opiates than undergo the trouble of an effectual Cure by a hearty Repentance and coming to themselves as the prodigal Son in the Parable did when his Hardship had brought him to Consideration We do not know what had become of him if he had been wise and frugal in his Pleasures if he had taken care of a good Stock and a plentifull Subsistence but he first came to be pinched with want before he was awakened to repent But we have in Scripture a more remarkable Instance of the stupifying Nature of sensual Pleasures and that was in David after his Sins of Adultery and Murther It is a wonder how a Man of such a tender Conscience in other things should continue so long under the Guilt of these Enormities without being awakened to Repentance Did he not know these to be great Sins And did not his Conscience charge him with the Guilt of them How came he then to need a Prophet to be sent to him and to deal so plainly with him as to tell him Thou art the Man But this is a plain Evidence how much the Pleasures of Sin are apt to stupifie Men's Consciences so far that unless God by his Grace be pleased to awaken them thoroughly they never come to a sincere and hearty Repentance David saw nothing more as to the Guilt of his Sins when he penn'd his 51st Psalm than his own Reason and Natural Conscience might inform him before but he had quite another Sense of his Sins then his Heart was broken and his Soul wounded under the Apprehension of God's Displeasure and this makes him pray so earnestly and so importunately to God for the Pardon of his Sins And if it were thus in the case of a Man otherwise after God's own heart i. e. afraid of offending him and carefull to please him what may we imagine it to be in those who in the time of Youth walk in the way of their hearts and in the sight of their eyes i. e. allowing themselves in all sensual Inclinations and pursuing carnal Delights so far till they have lost all Sense of God and another World and such as these nothing but the powerfull Influences of Divine Grace can awaken and recover 3. The third Reason is A General Presumption upon God's Mercy The first thing which Sinners in the Heat of their Youth and Pursuit of their Lusts aim at is to think as little as may be of what they are doing or what will be the Consequence of their Actions For every thought of themselves is very uneasie to them and every thought of God is much more so therefore they drive away all such Thoughts by one Means or other by Sleep Diversion Company and such publick Entertainments as rather heighten and inflame their Vices than correct them If all this will not do but there will be some melancholy Hours wherein Conscience begins to rouze it self and to awaken the Sinner to some Sense of his Folly then he is ready to hearken with Pleasure to any Raileries against Religion and Morality and admires the Wit of any one who dares say a bold and sharp thing against the Wisdom of all Ages and of the best Men in them And one or two such Sayings without Proof are cried up as far beyond the best Rules of Morality or the Evidence of natural and revealed Religion Any Sceptical Disputes are sufficient Demonstrations to them and the most unreasonable Cavils against Religion are embraced because against the thing they hate and even a Jest against the Day of Judgment shall signifie more with them than the strongest Arguments in the World to prove it The true Reason is they love their Vices and hate every thing which makes them uneasie to them and nothing doth more so than the thoughts of a Judgment to come But suppose after all the terrible and frequent Expressions of Scripture concerning the Day of Judgment joyned with the Reasonableness of the thing do make such Impression on their Minds that they cannot wholly shake off the Fears and Apprehensions of it then their last Endeavour is to mitigate and lessen them from a General Presumption of God's Mercifull Nature and therefore they are willing to suppose that however God to keep the World in awe hath threatned them with the dreadfull Severities of the Great Day yet as a tender Father who threatens his disobedient Son in order to reclaim him with no less than disinheriting him for ever yet when it comes to Execution he may relent not from his Son's Deserts but his own Compassion so they hope or believe or are willing to do so that God at the Great Day will not proceed according to the Rigour which he hath threatned to use And to comfort themselves in these hopes they find out all possible Extenuations of their Sins If we say they had been created purely intellectual Beings free from this load of Flesh and the Inclinations which are natural to it then it had been more reasonable to have called us to a strict Account for every Action of our Lives for then every Inclination to Evil must have come from our Minds but now our Bodies corrupt and draw them aside and the Inclinations to Evil grow faster than our Reason which should check and restrain them And when those Inclinations are strongest Men have not that Judgment which is necessary to the Government of unruly Passions So that the very Frame of humane Nature seems to plead for Sins committed in the Heat and Violence of Youth Besides such is the Strictness and Purity of the Law of God and so great the Weakness and Disability the Ignorance and Inadvertency of Mankind that if God will make no Allowance for humane Frailty who can stand before his Tribunal And if any Allowance be made for Sins of Infirmity there are so many Abatements to be made for Sins committed through sudden Passion through Mistake through the unavoidable Impotency of humane Nature in this degenerate Condition that the Severity of that Day is not much to be feared This is the utmost of the Sinner's Plea against the Severity of the Day of Judgment But to shew how faulty it is I shall offer these Considerations 1. That God will certainly Judge the World in Righteousness and therefore none shall have Cause to complain of the Harshness or Severity of his Proceedings For this Righteousness is not the Rigour of Justice but that Equity which hath a Regard to the Circumstances of Actions and the Abatement and Extenuation of Faults which arise from them 2. None shall suffer at that Day but for their wilfull Impenitency and obstinate Continuance in Sin For this is not only agreeable to the Mercifull Nature of God to forgive repenting Sinners but it is one of the great Designs of the Gospel to assure Mankind of it by the
Difficulty still increaseth and therefore it is time to come to the Resolution of it and that will be by shewing that the Difference between the carnal and spiritual Mind lies in these three Things 1. In the deliberate Judgment and Choice 2. In the prevailing Interest 3. In the constant Rule and Measure of Actions 1. In the deliberate Judgment and Choice For the main difference as to the carnal and spiritual Mind lies in the different End which is aimed at by them Where the chief End is the pleasing our selves and the enjoying of any thing as our Happiness under the Supream Good whatever Thoughts and Intentions we may at some times have to repent of our Sins and turn our Souls from the Love of Sin to the Love of God as long as we continue pursuing a wrong End we have too great Reason to conclude our Minds to be yet carnal and sold under sin For while the Apostle represents himself so he tells us he had his Conscience thoroughly awakened with the Sense of his Sins even of those which the World is least apt to be sensible of inward and secret Sins he was not only convinced of the Excellency and Purity of the Law but had some Pleasure and Satisfaction in it he had some hearty desires to be rid of his beloved Sins but yet they were too hard for him he sighed and lamented under his deplorable Condition but till the Grace of God came to set him free he was in a miserable and hopeless State But how is it that the Grace of God thus refines and purifies the Minds of Men so as of Carnal to make them Spiritual when the same Passions and Inclinations remain A Change there must be and that real and spiritual and therefore in our best Faculties viz. our Understandings and our Wills not by a Revelation of New Objects to the Mind nor by offering any Force upon the Will but by fixing the Judgment of the Mind and the Choice of the Will upon the best and most desirable Objects which is God himself as the Supreme Good The Turn of the Soul which makes one spiritually minded must not be only from gross and sensual Inclinations but from every other kind of Good which stands in Competition with the Supreme A truly spiritual Mind is one that is possessed with the Love of God above all and that values other things as they tend to the Enjoyment of Him God must be the only Center of his Hopes and Designs for in him alone his true Happiness consists As the Psalmist expresses it Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth I desire besides thee Whatever falls short of this may agree to a carnal Mind but a carnal Mind can never love God as he ought to be loved not with a Supreme transcendent Degree of Love which is alone proper and suitable to him All other kind of Love is beneath his Infinite Goodness and Perfections and to love him as we do his Creatures is to do him the greatest Dishonour for it levels their Perfections and supposes them to deserve the same Degree of Affection from us But there may be many spiritual Notions in Men's minds about God and Religion about mystical Unions and the Participations of Divine Love many seeming Spiritual Raptures and Ecstasies and yet there may not be this spiritual Mind For the Heats of Enthusiasm may seem to be very Spiritual but are of another kind they are Spiritual as they are the Effects of a great heating of the Spirits by the Force of a vehement Imagination which hath been often accompanied with as vehement an Inclination to sensual Pleasures which shews the plain Difference between an exalted Fancy and a spiritual Mind A Spiritual Mind is such a one as is not only throughly convinced of the Reality of Spiritual things but of their Excellency and Desirableness above any others that can be offer'd to our Choice It sees through all the glittering Vanities of this World and soars above the most tempting and bewitching Follies of Mankind here It frequently retires from the Noise and Confusion the Hurry and Vexation of Worldly Affairs that it may converse more freely with invisible Objects not meerly by way of Contemplation but by raising the Affections of the Soul towards them as the things which it hath chosen for its Happiness And this makes a wonderfull Alteration in the thoughts that these different Tempers have concerning the same things I do not deny but those who have carnal Minds may have some raised and spiritual Thoughts but they are too cold and speculative they may have noble and refined Speculations about the invisible World may be fully convinced that the things which are seen could not be what they are were it not for the things which are not seen and that the things which are not seen are of incomparably greater value than those which are so much more admired because they are seen But we must not conclude that because Men do really believe Spiritual things therefore they are spiritually minded for that were to suppose all to be Saints who are not Atheists but there must be such a due Preference in our Minds of that Invisible and Eternal State above all that is accounted great and desirable here as gives a just Denomination to one that he is spiritually minded i. e. that his Mind and Soul is fixed upon another World as his proper Happiness and other things are regarded and valued in subserviency to it 2. A Spiritual Mind is discerned by the Prevailing Interest For as long as we are made up of Flesh and Spirit there will and must be a Combat between them For the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would And yet the same Apostle soon after adds They that are Christ's have crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts the Meaning is that in some particular Instances and less remarkable Cases the Flesh may sometimes be too hard for the Spirit but in all notorious Instances of the Lusts of the Flesh which he reckons up and in the main Issue of all lesser Combats the Spirit will be too hard for the Flesh in those who are spiritually minded as the Flesh will be too hard for the Spirit at last in those who are carnally minded If we look on them in the time of the Combat it will be hard to judge which is most likely to prevail but those may have the better in some particular Skirmishes who may lose very much in the State of the War a good Man may be foiled by Surprise or under some disadvantage but he will recover himself and it may be gain Ground by his Falls and a bad Man may in some fits of Devotion seem so spiritually minded that one might be apt to think he were quite changed till he returns