and when he pleases directs them quite contrary to their Intentions for the way of Man saith the Prophet is not in himself it is not in Man that walketh to direct his steps Jer. 10.23 It is the Man that walks and acts but it is God alone that leads his Way and directs his Actions to what End he pleases ALL which it is necessary we should believe in order to our being truly religious For while we look upon God as a Foreiner to the World that hath altogether retired himself from the Affairs of it and abandoned it to the Disposal of blind Chance or Necessity he must stand for a Cypher in our Esteem and signifie no more to us than the Emperor of the World in the Moon who for all we know may be a glorious and puissant Prince but is so far removed from us and our Affairs that he can do us neither good nor hurt And if God intermeddle not with those Goods and Evils which happen here below what doth he signifie to us who live apart from him in another World from which he is wholly retired and withdrawn But if we firmly believe that there is nothing befalls us whether it be in the Course of Nature or by Chance or Design but by his Order and Direction we must lay aside our Reason and Humanity if for every Good we want or do receive we do not apply our selves to him with humble and submissive thankfull and ingenuous Minds and if under every Evil that we feel or fear we do not resign up our Wills and lift up our Eyes to him as to the sole Arbitrator of our Fate For where should we pay our Thanks or whence should we expect our Supplies and Deliverances but to him who is the Fountain of all Good and from him who is the supreme Moderator of all Events Who is there in Heaven or Earth whom we are so much concerned to please and so much obliged to acknowledge and submit to so much engaged to trust to and rely on as him who hath all our Fortunes in his Hands and the absolute Disposal of every thing in which we are or may or can be any way interested or concerned So that the Belief of Gods over-ruling Providence hath every Link of our Duty fastened to it in a strong and rational Concatenation and if it be loosened from this Principle the whole Chain must necessarily fall in sunder V. and Lastly To oblige us to be truly religious it is also necessary we should believe that God is the Supreme Governor of the rational World which is a distinct Branch of Providence from the former For all things whatsoever are subject to Gods Order and Disposal but in strictness of Speech 't is only rational Beings that are subject to his Government For Government supposes Laws and Laws Rewards and Punishments of which rational Beings alone are capable they alone having the power to deliberate and upon Deliberation to choose what is good and refuse what is Evil without which no Being can deserve either to be rewarded or punished So that the Government of God in strictness of Speech respects only the rational World consisting of Angels and Men. As for the Government of Angels 't is impossible we should understand any more of it than what God hath revealed because tho they converse with us and our Affairs yet we do not converse with them our Spiritual Nature by which we are near allied to them being shut up in Matter which like a Wall of Partition divides us from them and hinders us from looking over into their World and from seeing their Nature and Operations and surveying their Polity and Government Indeed so far as we understand their Natures we may easily understand the Laws by which God Governs them because we know Gods Laws are always adapted to the Natures of things and consequently since we know that they are rational Creatures we may conclude from thence that whatsoever is fit and decorous for rational Creatures as such they stand obliged to by the Law of their Natures But since there are particular Powers and Properties in their Natures which we understand not 't is impossible we should understand all the particular Laws by which they are Governed Only thus much in general we know that the whole Order of Angelical Beings were from the first Moment of their Creation subjected to Laws fitted to their Nature by which natural Laws they stood obliged to obey their Creator in all his positive Commands and Institutions and that these Laws whatsoever they were both natural and positive were established in Rewards and Punishments by which if they continued obedient they were to continue for ever in their most blissful Ranks and Stations but if they rebelled were immediately to be banished thence into everlasting Wretchedness and Misery that a certain Order of these Angelical Beings excited either by their Pride or Envy or sensual Affection did under their Head or Chieftain revolt from God by transgressing some natural or positive Law for which they were expelled the high Territories of Happiness and driven into these lower Parts of the World where under the Prince of their Rebellion they have ever since waged War against God and Man that in this state of War they are under the Restraint of Gods almighty Power who sets Bounds to their Power and Malice which it cannot pass and determins it to what Ends and Purposes he pleases employing it sometimes to try and chasten good Men sometimes to execute his Wrath upon the Children of Disobedience and sometimes again letting it loose merely to display his own almighty Power in its Defeat and Overthrow in which State they are reserved as Prisoners at large to the Judgment of the great Day whereby together with wicked men they shall be sentenced and confined to everlasting Flames and Darkness that the good Angels in reward of their constant Obedience are continued and fixed in a most blissful Condition in which they enjoy the constant Smiles of God and the unspeakable Pleasure of being entirely resigned to his Will who upon all Occasions sends them to and fro the World as the great Messengers and Ministers of his Providence to Minister to the Recovery of recoverable Sinners and to pour out the Vials of his Wrath upon the obstinate and unreclaimable to assist protect and comfort good Men while they live and when they depart from hence to conduct their Spirits through the aery Territories of the wicked Angels into those blissful Mansions that are prepared to receive them till the Resurrection at which time their Part will be to summon and gather both the good and bad before the Tribunal of Christ to receive their final Sentence to everlasting Weal or Wo. THIS is the main of what we know concerning Gods Government of Angels the sincere Belief of which will be of vast Advantage to us in the whole Course of our Religion For since there is such a mighty Colony of evil
that framed it And indeed this notion of a future state is such as hath been generally imbraced by those Persons who are least capable of deducing it by a Logical dependence of one thing upon another and therefore since it hath no dependency in their minds on any other antecedent notion how could it have been so generally entertain'd did not the common dictate of Nature or Reason acting alike in all Men move 'em to conspire in it though they knew not one anothers minds For it hath been believed with a kind of repugnancy to sense which discovers all things round about it to be mortal and which upon that account would have been too apt to have seduced ruder minds into a disbelief of any other state had not some more powerful impression on their Souls forcibly urg'd 'em to believe it BUT because this Argument drawn from universal consent is liable to some little exception I shall not insist upon it but indeavour to prove the reality of this future state of Rewards and Punishments from these Topicks First From the Wisdom of God's Government Secondly From the Justice of his Providence Thirdly From the natural capacity of our Souls to survive our Bodies and to enjoy future Rewards and suffer future Punishments Fourthly From the natural expectance we have of future Rewards and dread of future Punishments Fifthly From the excellent frame and structure of humane Nature Sixthly From the Testimony of the Christian Religion I. FROM the Wisdom of God's Government That Mankind is under the Government of God is evident from that Law which he hath imprinted on our nature by which our actions are distinguish'd into Good and Evil Virtuous and Vitious of which sufficient proof hath been given Ch. 1. and since God hath given a Law to our natures there is no doubt to be made but he hath taken sufficient care to inforce the observance of it by Rewards and Punishments otherwise his Government over us would be very insecure and precarious For that Law giver doth only Petition his Subjects to obey who doth not promise such rewards and denounce such penalties as are sufficient to oblige 'em thereunto BUT now there is no Reward can be sufcient to oblige us to obey which doth not abundantly compensate any loss or evil we may sustain by our obedience no punishment sufficient to deter us from disobeying that doth not far surmount all the Benefits and Pleasures which we can hope to reap from our Disobedience but unless there be a future state the Law of Nature can propose no such Rewards and Punishments to us For if we have nothing to dread or hope for beyond the Grave our present interest is all our concern and in reason we ought to judg things to be Good or Evil according as they promote or obstruct our temporal happiness Now though it is certain that in the general there is a natural good accrewing to us from all vertuous actions as on the contrary a natural evil from all vitious ones and it is ordinarily more conducive to our temporal Interest to obey than to disobey the Law of our natures yet there are a world of instances wherein Vice may be more advantageous to us than Vertue abstracting from the Rewards and Punishments of another life It is ordinarily better for me to be an honest Man than a Knave it is more for my Reputation and usually for my Profit too and it is more for the publick good in which my own is involved but yet in several circumstances it may be better for me with respect only to this World to be a Knave than an honest Man For whensoever I can cheat so secretly and securely as not to fall under the publique lash nor impair my reputation and I can gain more by the Cheat than I shall lose in the damage of the Publique it will be doubtless more advantageous for me as to my worldly interest to cheat than to be honest and how often such fair opportunities of cozenage do occur no Man can be insensible that hath but the least insight into the affairs of this World So that if there were no future Rewards and Punishments this great Law of Righteousness would not have force enough universally to oblige us because there are a world of instances wherein we might gain more good and eschew more evil by doing unrighteously than all its present Rewards and Punishments do amount to And the same may be said of all other laws of Nature which without the great motives of future happiness and misery can no longer induce Men to obey 'em than it is for their temporal interest to do so For suppose I can secretly stab or poison a Man whom I hate or dread or from whose death I may reap any considerable advantage what should restrain me from it If you say the Law of Nature pray what Reward doth the Law of Nature propose that is sufficient to compensate for the disatisfaction of my Revenge or for the danger I run in suffering my Enemy to live or what punishment doth the Law of Nature denounce that can ballance the advantage of a thousand or perhaps ten thousand pounds a year that may accrew to me by his death IF you say the Law of Nature proposes to me the reward of a quiet and satisfied Mind and denounces the punishment of a guilty and amazed Conscience I easily answer that this peace and horror which is consequent to the forbearance or commission of sin arises from the hope and dread of future Rewards and Punishments which being taken away to sin or not sin will be indifferent as to any peace or horror that can follow upon it and when this restraint is taken off what consideration will there be left that is sufficient to withhold me from the bloody fact when ever I have an opportunity to act it securely and am furiously spurred on to it by my own Revenge and Covetousness So that if there be no Rewards and Punishments in another life to inforce the commands of the Law of Nature it 's certain that there are no such annex'd to it in this as are universally sufficient to oblige us to observe ' em For as for the Goods and Evils of this life they are ordinarily distributed among Men with so little respect and discrimination as not only to occasion but to justifie that famous observation of the Wise Man that all things happen alike to all Either therefore there are other Goods to be hoped for and other Evils to be feared or there are a world of cases wherein God hath not sufficiently provided to secure our obedience to the Law of our Nature and to imagine that God should give a Law to his Creatures and take no care to secure the Authority of it is a most sensless Blasphemy of the Wisdom of his Government for this would be to expose his own Authority to contempt and to cast his Laws at the feet of his Creatures to be spurned
yet still they pursue 'em and ever and anon break in upon 'em and scare and terrifie 'em and because their minds are so haunted with these importunate terrours of the World to come they are affraid to look inwards but are fain to live abroad in their own defence as not daring to trust themselves alone with themselves all which are plain Presages of a future Judgment and Vengeance that awaits wicked Souls after this life For if this dread of future Punishment be natural to us as its sticking so closely and universally to humane Nature plainly argues it is it must be imprest on us by the great Author of Nature and for him to impress a Passion on us which hath no real Object would be to impose a Cheat upon our Natures and abuse our minds with a false Alarm So that either we must suppose that God hath implanted in our Natures a â—â—ead of that which is not which is a dishonourable reflection on his Truth and Veracity or that there is really a future Punishment answerable to that dread AND as the dread of future Punishment is natural to us when we do ill so the desire and expectance of future Reward is no less natural to us when we do well For I dare boldly say there never was any vertuous Man of whatsoever Nation or Religion or sect of Philosophers whose mind hath not been winged with earnest hopes and desires of a future happiness and there is none that ever yet either denied or despair'd of it but only such as have first debauched the very Principles of their Nature For such it 's evident were the Sadduces and Epicureans sects of Men that had drowned all that was humane in 'em in sensuality and voluptuousness and are branded upon Record for their shameful Indulgence to their own brutish Genius and such are no Standards of humane Nature but ought rather to be look'd upon as Monsters of Men. And therefore as we do not judg of the natural Figures and proportions of humane Bodies by monstrous and mishapen births so neither ought we to judg of what is natural or unnatural to Men by those brutes in humane shape who by submitting their Reason to their passions and Appetites have disfigur'd their Natures and distorted it into an unnatural Position But if we would know what is humane and natural to us we must take our measures from those who live most conformably to the Laws of a Rational Nature and these are they whom we call Pious and Virtuous who are therefore to be look'd upon as the true Standards of humane Nature by whom we may best judg of what is natural and unnatural to us and if we judg by these we shall most certainly find that Virtue and the hopes of Immortality are so nearly allied that like Hippocrates Twins they live and die together For though while Men live a brutish and sensual Life their future hopes are usually drowned in their present Enjoyments yet when once they recover out of this unnatural state and begin to live like reasonable beings immediately they feel great desires and expectations of a future happiness springing up in their minds and so arising higher and higher proportionably as they advance in virtue and goodness which is a plain evidence that these hopes and desires are natural to us and interwoven with the frame and constitution of our Souls But now how can it consist with the goodness of God to implant such desires and hopes in our Natures and then withhold from 'em that which is the only Object that can sute and satisfie ' em For as a great Divine of our own hath well observed Other Beings we see have no natural desire in vain the good God having so ordered things that there are Objects in Nature apportioned to all their natural Appetites but if there be no future state of happiness reserved for good Men We are by a natural Principle most strongly inclined to that which we can never attain to as if God had purposely framed us with such inclinations that so we might be perpetually tormented between those two Passions Desire and Despair an earnest propension after a future Happiness and an utter incapacity of enjoying it as if Nature it self whereby all other things are disposed to their perfection did serve only in Man to make him miserable and which is more considerable as if Virtue which is the perfection of Nature did only serve to contribute to our infelicity by raising in us such desires and expectations as without a future Happiness must be for ever disappointed But if this Desire and Expectation be natural to us as it evidently is it must be implanted there by the God of Nature with whose truth and goodness it can never consist to inspire us with such Desires and Hopes as he knows have no Object in the nature of things and so can never be fulfilled and accomplish'd V. FROM the excellent frame and constitution of humane Nature it 's also evident that there is a future state of Reward and Punishment For whoever shall impartially consider the frame of our Natures will easily discern that we are made for much greater purposes than to enjoy this World and that our faculties are as much too big for these sensitive fruitions as the Channel of the Ocean is for the streams of a little River For the highest happiness we can frame an Idea of is the enjoyment of God by contemplation and love and imitation of his Perfections as I have proved at large Part. 1. c. 3. which doth as far excel all Worldly happiness as the Enjoyments of a Prince do the pleasures of a Fly and yet it is evident that our minds are framed with a natural capacity of enjoying this supream Beatitude i. e. of contemplating and loving and imitating God For as for the Being and Existence of God all things round about us preach and proclaim it and which way soever we turn our Eyes we behold the footsteps of his Power and Wisdom and being endowed with a reasoning faculty we can easily ascend to the infinite Perfections of his Nature by those borrowed Perfections we behold in his Creatures which are so many lively Comments and Paraphrases upon him and so far forth as they are Perfefections must necessarily meet and concenter in him and then such is the frame of our natures that from the contemplation of the Beauty and Perfection of any Being we naturally proceed to admire and love it so that unless our wills be violently prejudiced against the Perfections of God our contemplation must necessarily kindle our love of 'em and then those Perfections which we love and admire in another we are naturally ambitious to transcribe into our selves so that being once inflamed with the love of God that will be continually prompting us to imitate him and that will by degrees mould us into a fair and glorious resemblance of him Thus God hath implanted in the very frame of our Nature
proposed by God to perswade us to cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and to perfect holiness in the fear of God 2. Cor. 7.1 So also the Doctrine of our future Punishment is levell'd against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men Rom. 1.18 And as for those Doctrines which concern the Transactions of our Saviour they are all proposed to us as Arguments to perswade us to Piety and Vertue For 't was for this cause that Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 't was for this purpose that he bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live to Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.24 't was for this end that he rose from the dead that thereby he might prevail with us to walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 and 't is for this end that he intercedes for us at the right hand of God that thereby he might encourage us to come to God by him Heb. 7.2 and in a word for this cause he hath told us he will come to Judgment to reward every man according to his works that thereby he might stir us up to Sobriety and Vigilance and to all holy conversation and Godliness Mat. 24.42 compared with 2 Pet. 3. verse 11. Thus you see all the Doctrines of Religion are only so many Topics of divine Perswasion whereby God addresses himself to our Hope and Fear and every other Affection in us that is capable of Perswasion to excite us to comply with the eternal Obligations of Morality and there is no one Article in all our Religion that is matter of mere Speculation or that entertains our Minds with dry and empty Notions that have no Influence on our Wills and Affections For since the Design of Religion in General is to bind and fasten our Souls to God we may be sure that there is no Part of it but what doth in some measure contribute hereunto Since therefore 't is moral Goodness that God chiefly recommends to us by the Perswasions of Religion we may be sure that what his Arguments do chiefly perswade us to that his Commands do chiefly oblige us to II. FROM Scripture it is also evident that the main Drift and Scope of all the positive Duties of Religion is to improve and perfect men in moral Goodness We find the Jewish Religion exceedingly abounded with positive Precepts for such were all those sacred Rites and Solemnities of which the Bark and Outside of that Religion consisted of all which 't is true what the Psalmist saith of Sacrifices in particular thou desirest not Sacrifices thou delightest not in burnt Offerings Psal. 51.16 that is thou takest no delight in them upon the score of any internal Goodness that is in them but desirest them merely as they are instituted means and Instruments of Moral Goodness For so many of the Rites of the Mosaic Law were instituted in opposition to the Magical Vnclean and Idolatrous Rites of the Eastern Heathen As particularly that Prohibition of sowing their Fields with mingled Seed Lev. 19.19 in Opposition to that Magical Rite which the Heathens used as a Charm for Fructification So also that Command of sprinkling the Blood of their Sacrifices upon the Ground like Water and covering it with Dust in Opposition to that Idolatrous Rite of gathering the Blood into a Trench or Vessel and then sitting round it in a Circle whilst they imagined their gods to be licking it up And to name no more of this kind the Prohibition of seething a Kid in his Mothers Milk Exod. 23.19 was in Opposition to a Custom of the Ancient Heathen who at the Ingathering of their Fruits were wont to take a Kid and seeth it in the milk of its Dam and then in a Magical Procession to sprinkle all their Trees and Fields and Gardens with it thereby to render them more fruitful the following Year Besides all which you may find a World of other Instances in Maimonides More-Nevoch lib. 3. who tells us that the Knowledg of the Opinions and Customs of these Eastern Heathens was porta magna ad reddendas praeceptorum causas the great Rationale of the Mosaic Precepts and that multarum legum rationes causae mihi innotuerint ex cognitione fidei rituum Cultus Zabiorum i. e. that by being acquainted with the opinions and customs of those Eastern Heathens he understood the grounds and reasons of many of the Laws of Moses More-Nevoch lib. 3. cap. 29. So that tho these Precepts were not Moral yet were they set up as so many Fences by God to keep his People from stragling into those Heathen Immoralities AGAIN there are other Rites of their Religion which were instituted to shadow out the Holy Mysteries of the Gospel the great Design of which Mysteries was to invite and perswade men to comply with the eternal Laws of Morality Thus their Laws of Sacrifice were instituted to represent to them the great Transactions of their future Messias his Incarnation and immaculate Life his Death and Resurrection Ascension and Intercession at the right hand of God So also their Festival Laws and particularly their Laws of Jubilee were made to shadow out the Doctrines of our Redemption and eternal Life and their powring out Water in their Sacrifices and their Ritual Purgations from uncleanness were intended for obscure Intimations of the Effusion of the holy Spirit and the Doctrine of Remission of Sins all which Doctrines carry with them the most pregnant Invitations to Piety and Vertue Lastly THERE are other Rites of that Law which were appointed to instruct them in Moral Duties For God finding them not only a perverse but a dull and sottish People as those generally are that have been born and bred in Slavery apprehended that the most effectual way to instruct them would be by Signs and material Representations even as Parents do their Children by Pictures And accordingly in Isaiah 28.10 he tells us that he gave them line upon line and precept upon precept here a little and there a little with a stammering tongue i. e. he look'd upon them as Children and so condescended to their Weakness and spake to them in their own Dialect And this way of instructing them by outward and visible Signs being much in use in the Eastern Countries and more especially in Egypt whose manners they were infinitely fond of was of all others the most probable and taking And accordingly a great part of the Jewish Rites consisted of Hieroglyphics or visible Signs by which their minds were instructed in the Precepts of Morality Thus by Circumcision God signified to them the necessity of mortifying their unchast Desires by their Legal Washings he intimated to them their Obligation to cleanse themselves from all Impurities of Flesh and Spirit yea this as St. Barnabas in his Epistle tells us was the Intent of all that Difference of Meats in the Jewish Law which pronounced Swines flesh unclean to instruct them