communion If in things which are plainly and confessedly possible in themselves we are not to engage the infinite power of God without a just cause nor to think God almighty obliged to make good our groundless and extravagant phansies much less are we to destroy the nature of things and swallow down and maintain real and manifest contradictions and make that which would be one of the greatest wonders of the world supposing that it were possible to be done ordinarily and every where and every day a thousand times without any other proof than our bare phansying so as they do who maintain the doctrine of Transsubstantiation in all the School-niceties of it against Scripture and reason against the principles of nature and philosophy against the attestation of sense and the judgment of antiquity and against the experience of all mankind and do all this rather than admit of a figurative expression in the words of the Institution In favour of this monstrous tenent the Romanists object to us the incomprehensibility of the mysteries of faith and hence think that they may elude all those unanswerable difficulties which this new doctrine is charged with and that there is argument enough to satisfie their doubts in that misapplyed saying the effect it may be of rapture and indiscreet devotion Ideo credo quia est impossibile But the great disparity which is between them is easily obvious to any one who will give himself leave to consider things calmly and fairly and not suffer himself to be imposed upon by a pretense of an authority absolutely to be obeyed and submitted to as well in doctrine as in matters and decrees of discipline without the least scruple and hesitation As 1. That there is the highest reason in the world to believe the mysteries of faith tho' they transcend our utmost capacity because they are expresly and clearly revealed in the writings of the new Testament It is the greatest security of our faith imaginable that God has said it and therefore let the thing revealed seem never so unlikely and harsh to my understanding I have as much reason to believe it as any thing which happens ordinarily every day and presents it self to my senses nay more for there is a possibility that a particular person may be deceived sometimes not to say all mankind even in a matter of sense but there is an utter impossibility that God should be deceived in any proposition he has thought fit to reveal But this they will not pretend to say for their Transsubstantiation that there is the same evidence of Scripture for it or indeed that they have any evidence at all as many of their own party have confessed and for want of which they have recourse to the authority of the Church Besides their greatest stress for the proof of it wholly lyes upon a gross and unnatural sense of words which are capable of a far easier and more agreeable interpretation especially when the other words used by our B. Saviour in the blessing and consecration of the wine are most certainly and undeniably figurative 2. These articles are essential to the Christian faith the doctrine of it cannot be entire without them and besides they were explicitely believed and assented to as to the matter of them from the first ages of Christanity tho' there were some disputes raised about the terms by which they were expressed and a latitude used in the explication of them and the disbelief or denial of them was justly branded with the odious name of heresie in general Councils and the dissenters anathematized and thrust out of the communion of the Church and the true doctrine of the Christian religion as delivered by Christ and his Apostles secured and established against the corruptions and innovations in after-times by publick Creeds universally received Whereas this is a meer novel doctrine first brought into the Church the better to establish the gross errors and superstitions relating both to the opinions and practises of Image-worship and advancing by degrees in times of horrible ignorance and corruption of manners till it came first to be decreed and established an article of faith by the Assessors of the Lateran Council besides it does no way serve or promote the interests of Christianity but does very much prejudice it and expose it I am sure to the contempt of the enemies of it both Turks and Jews who choose rather to continue in their infidelity than submit to it upon their first disbelieving their very senses 3. There is a vast difference between them in respect of their subject-manner Things relating to God are above the level of our understanding most of our little knowledge being derived from sense which cannot reach those objects that are altogether abstracted from it whereas this falls under the examination of our senses and reason they are things we every day converse with things we may safely pretend to judge of as being every way proportionable to our faculties 4. These articles of faith involve in them no true and real contradiction as the doctrine of Transsubstantiation does The Christian religion proposes nothing to our belief but what is possible and therefore credible as has been proved by several learned men of our Church against the heterodoxies and blasphemies of the Socinians nothing which contradicts or thwarts the common and established notions of nature I say the doctrine of it as it is contained in the Scripture and according to the ancient tradition of the Catholick Church and the explications of the first oecumenical Councils to both which tradition and authority next to the sacred Scripture which is the rule of faith we ought to have regard even in controversies of faith and not as it is perplext and entangled by the bold niceties of the School-men who have corrupted the truth and simplicity of the Christian religion by the mixtures of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle So that we do not limit the divine power or deny it to be infinite as the bigotted Romanists pretend because we reject this figment of Transsubstantiation as a false absurd and contradictory doctrine besides the other above-mentioned exceptions which no sophistry or cavil can honestly and truly put by or justly satisfie which they ought to prove to be in the number of things possible All which we believe from the nature of this attribute as we are obliged that God can do 2. The second proposition is this that nothing can hinder the effects of God's power if once he has willed and determined the same And of this truth both of nature and religion the very Heathen had a fixt belief and apprehension viz. that all opposition made against God was vain and ineffectual and that though some according to the fictions of their Poets were so foolish as well as impious to make a war upon the Gods and attempted to pluck Jupiter out of his throne yet they always came by the worst and were cast down from their hopes and
come His hopes are fixed elsewhere and the doctrine of faith assures him of the certainty and reality of his hopes and plentifully affords him good and well settled and unmoveable grounds upon which his expectation is founded But setting aside the proofs from the clear and full and uncontrollable revelations of Scripture concerning the different states and conditions of happiness and misery in the other world as having now to do with men who throw off all belief of the sacred writings of the Prophets and Apostles and reject their authority in order to their conviction I will only make use of arguments drawn from the principles of reason and of natural religion which they pretend to admit and embrace in proving that there are things to be hoped for and feared in another world that is that there are rewards and punishments to be distributed hereafter according to our good or ill behaviour in this life and that a full and positive and satisfactory proof of this is derivable from the nature of things and that such evidence is sufficient and cannot with any shew or pretense of reason be rejected I shall only by way of preliminary lay down this following proposition of the truth of which these men cannot but be fully sensible viz. that the belief of this natural truth so universally received that is in all ages and among all nations is very conducive to and has a mighty influence upon the well-being of the world It is indeed one of the grand bases and principles of all religion whether natural or prescribed by positive institution If all things were to end here and no exspectation of any thing future men would little care to be virtuous or religious for virtues or religions sake For tho' to live virtuously and religiously that is according to the law of nature and the law of God be agreeable to our rational faculties and creates a greater joy and serenity in the mind than what all earthly sensual and brutal pleasures enjoyed to their full height can afford and consequently does carry along with it its own reward yet it is justly to be feared that the satisfaction of having done ones duty would be judged meager and empty in respect of those gross delights of the senses and be lookt upon as the effect of melancholy and chagrin and it may be of mistake and folly and that religion would have but few votaries upon this noble and generous principle The only business then of life would be how to be rich and great strength would be the law of justice and right and title measured out by the longest sword Innocence would be no security against oppression and violence but rather their sport and prey Luxury would go hand in hand with ambition pleasures tho' never so unmanly and impure should be wanting to no sense the appetite should be sated with wine and lust and then raised again with charming incentives and provocatives Men would play the beasts more solemnly make the whole creation administer to their wantonness and riot and spend their whole time in the excesses of extravagant mirth and jollity Conscience alas and honesty would be accompted meer empty names corrupt interest and policy would raise themselves upon the ruines of religion and morality Deceit and evil arts should soon take place where there was no hope of prevailing by open force A mans own will were it never so unreasonable should be the onely rule of his life and the gratification of an irregular appetite should be the onely law of his mind Next the belief of this fundamental truth is the great and necessary support of government It is like the middle stone of an arch which sustains the whole building it keeps the world from falling into confusion and relapsing into its original chaos All government would quickly be at an end laws would not have sufficient strength to hold men in to their duty at least they would be like spiders webbs onely proper to entangle petty offenders who could not break through them They would no longer obey than they were forced they would be impatient of living under such restraints which as some of our modern Virtuosi pretend abridge them of their natural liberty and if so they were to be treated like wild beasts and pent up in dens and caves from doing mischief Every man would pretend to have a right to every thing and Mr. Hobbs's absurd and phantastic hypothesis about the state of nature would be really introduced into the world by innumerable instances and examples of cruelty and injustice to the shame of humane nature and utter overthrow of humane race Such continued clashings and fightings would be more fatal and pernicious than plagues hurricanes earthquakes and inundations and would quickly dispeople the earth of all its inhabitants It is the belief of another world which secures government preserves authority and gives strength to laws Fear and hope have a great influence upon our lives they are very imperious passions and shew their power sufficiently in all the great transactions of mankind which are done with reason and design They are natural to us and will never forsake us and their strength increaseth proportionably according to the nature and quality and degrees of those rewards and punishments on which they are fixt Now if these rewards and punishments were only temporary if after death there were nothing further to be feared or hoped for men would not value the utmost severity of law to gratifie a passion suppose lust or revenge they would willingly run the hazard of dying so as that they might either enjoy their extravagant phansies or ruine and dispatch their enemy death in it self being not so terrible the fear of which several passions can easily overcome but as it is a passage to eternity He who is grown so desperate as not to value his own life is easily master of another mans and nothing could deter such an one from acting the greatest villany imaginable But now if there be rewards and punishments after this life ended if these rewards and punishments be everlasting if these everlasting rewards and punishments be dispensed and proportioned according to the actions and behaviours of men here in this world if this be certain and if it be believed and exspected as certain the just and well grounded hope of future happiness will powerfully perswade and incite us to the practises of a virtuous and holy life and the fear and dreadful exspectation of future endless misery will as powerfully deter us from the commission of those wickednesses which render us justly obnoxious to such punishments For who would not be happy for ever if he either might or could who in his right wits and calm thoughts would be content to be miserable to eternal ages who would make it his choice to be damned if he might avoid it Now as to the proof of a future state from the principles of natural religion the certainty and evidence of it are
do not like and is disagreeable to our designs does not easily get admittance within us we demur upon it and raise difficulties and doubts and pretend that we cannot understand it when the true reason is it makes against us and therefore we will not And this is one great reason why the Atheists and Deists set themselves against the fundamental truths of religion and labour so much to confirm themselves in their infidelity by making use of their wit and the little reason that is left them to find out new difficulties and raise objections to justifie and defend themselves in their unbelief in opposition to the rational wise and just sentiments of good men whom they most absurdly represent under the nickname of Believers that is credulous For these men are fully convinced that their practises are altogether inconsistent with such professions that if they admit these truths they must quit their present course of life unless they could have the patience to live under the anguish of self-condemnation which would turn all their luscious enjoyments into gall and wormwood that if there be a God and that his power and justice are equally infinite he is to be feared and adored for who would dare to live in open defiance of his laws and blaspheme him daily who believes that he can punish him eternally for such defiance and blasphemy and that if there be a future state they must not then live like the beasts which perish and which are altogether unconcerned in it But the pleasures of the animal life have corrupted their minds they are immersed in sensuality they have given up themselves to be governed by their appetite to gratifie that is their only study and business it is death to them to think of a sober restrained and mortified kind of life it is not their interest they know as the case stands with them to believe that there is a heaven or an hell and therefore we need not wonder if they cry out that they see no force in this or that argument in which the whole world has hitherto acquiesced as just and satisfactory to convince their judgment Nothing will content them but Mathematical evidence and demonstration tho' it may very justly be feared that if the evidence they so foolishly call for were prejudicial to the end and purposes of life which they pursue they would deny even that too II. No other kind of evidence in the case of a future state can or ought to be exspected or demanded And the reason is because the subject-matter is not capable of it There are different ways of proving things agreeable to their respective natures both in Metaphysics Natural Philosophy Ethics and the like of the conclusions of which fairly deduced according to the laws of method there can be no just doubt every science being built upon certain general principles and rules taken up either from experience and observation or else drawn from the common notices and consent of mankind Often repeated trials and experiments which have succeeded well sufficiently convince us of the truth of several things which we will not pretend to demonstrate If a matter of fact in it self not unlikely much less impossible be confirmed by credible witnesses or by authentic records it would be a very strange piece of niceness in us to deny the truth of it and call for demonstration because we have all the assurance which relation and history can give us that it is so To perswade a man that it is his duty to be just and honest and sober and chast I am onely to make use of moral arguments To prove to him that he has a command over himself as to his actions I shew him the absurdities of the doctrine of fatal necessity and if he should persist and demand further satisfaction I can do no more than make an appeal to himself whether he does not find a power within him of acting or not acting as he pleaseth whether he does not deliberate with himself whether he had best do it or no and when after some demurs and debates he hath determined his will of his own accord which before was indifferent either to this or that whether he doth not consult about the means to bring about his design and upon a survey of several make choice of such as he judgeth most proper and effectual In these and the like cases we can have no Mathematical evidence and demonstration yet we cannot rationally doubt of the verity of their proofs tho' the evidence and assurance be onely moral yet it is such as will perswade any man who is free from unjust and irrational prejudice Besides upon this kind of assurance depends all the actions of our lives No man can demonstrate to another who has not been there that there are such countries as India Persia and Turkey or such great cities as Delhi Agra Ispahân and Constantinople and yet men send their estates thither tho' they have onely the reports of others for their assurance and the ability and integrity of the persons whom they employ and trust in the management of their rich trade That they are the sons of such and such persons they are onely assured by the testimony of others and chiefly of their Parents who have taken care of their education It would be idle monstrous and unnatural to deny to pay them the respect and reverence due to them both by the laws of God and nature upon a pretense that they have some scruples upon their minds whether they be their parents or no and that it cannot be made out demonstratively to them that they are so What other assurance have they that the deeds and conveyances whereby they hold their estates derived down to them from their ancestors at the sealing and delivering of which they were not present are not counterfeit and would they be contented to have them called in question upon such a phantastick supposition No one can demonstrate to himself out of Euclide and Archimedes that the house wherein he lyes will not fall upon his head and yet for all this bare possibility he sleeps securely and without any disturbance and will not lye in the open air Not to heap up more instances in a thing so common and every where to be met with All satisfaction concerning the certainty of a future state is offered that can be justly demanded We have the evidence of reason and the evidence of religion which is founded upon the belief of it the justice of God makes it necessary and the doctrine of providence and of the government of the world by the alwise and omnipotent Creator suppose it Things future are not triable by sense they are the objects of our hopes and of our fears and of our belief and of our exspectation and therefore cannot be proved to exist the same way as things which every day present themselves to our sight But how are these men assured that there is no future