ashamed as afraid to do an unworthy action To all which add that by the advantage of our Prayers we are inabled to become a publick Blessing and every private man a Benefactor to the whole World than which thing what can be either greater in it self or more acceptable to a great and generous mind Consequently what can a brave and publick-spirited man employ his time in with more delight than in that which whatsoever his Fortunes and external condition be will make him a Blessing not only to his Friends and Neighbourhood but to the Country and Times he lives in that even Kings and Princes are really beholden to him Nor is it necessary that much time be taken up herein to serve all these great ends nor much less is it my intention to commend affectedly long Prayers a little time and a great deal of heartiness best doth the business of Religion and that little so employed will make all the rest pass away the more sweetly and comfortably And then for reading and medltating upon the Holy Scripture the Psalmist hath told us that the good and blessed mans delight is in the Law of God and that therein he meditates day and night And surely any man may be able to entertain a few moments in it If curiosity sway with us there are as admirable things in the Holy Scriptures as the mind of man can desire if we affect History we have there the antientest and most faithful Monuments in the World those without which all mankind had continued in their Nonage and Childhood to this day as being so far from able to give an account of the beginning of the World and original of things that they could not have looked backward many Ages but they would have been utterly bewildered in Mists and Fables as absurd as the wildest Fictions of Poets Besides without this Record all the wonderful Methods of Divine Providence which are the assurance and comfort of the present Age and the obligation to Vertue and Foundation of Piety and Religion had been buried in oblivion If we seek after Knowledge either natural moral or prudential where is there such another Treasury of it to be found where we have not only the Relations and Observations of the wisest men in all Ages past but the discoveries of the Divine Majesty the depths of infinite Wisdom that knows the true reason of things laid open If we are pleased with the foreknowledge of things to come as what man of Soul can chuse but desire to see beyond the Curtain then all the Presages Prognosticks and Divinations all the most rational inductions of the wisest men are but silly surmises and idle dreams to the Predictions of the Holy Prophets which give us light to the Worlds end and a view of another World and have both assured their own credit and warranted our belief of what is yet to come by the well-known accomplishment of their former Predictions If we would improve our selves in Vertue what suren Rule can we have than the express Declarations of God himself Who can prescribe to him what shall please him or prescribe to us better than he that made us and knows what is fit for us to do And what more full plain compendious and higher Institution of Religion can there be than the Holy Scripture This brings God near to us and us near to him here you know his mind you see his nature and hear him speak here you may stand as it were upon an Isthmus or Promontory and take a view of both Worlds this is the light of our Eyes the Rule of our Faith the Law of our Conscience and the Foundation of all our Hopes All this together sure cannot chuse but make the reading of the Scripture become a very serious and yet a very delightful employment And now upon the whole matter what think you Dear Phil. may not a Gentleman entertain himself and his time without the relief of Drinking and Gaming Phil. What think I say you Why I think worse of my self than ever I did I do not wonder now at what you said when we first came together viz. That you could always find employment for your Time but I wonder at my own folly for I plainly see now that no man can have time to be a burden upon him that hath come honestly by it I mean that hath not stollen it from nobler Entertainments to bestow it upon a Debauch Sebast But yet this is not all neither I perceive I have satisfied you both of the pleasantness of some lighter but innocent Exercises which I named in the first place and also of the great importance of Prayer and reading the Scripture which I last spoke of yet as on the one hand I would not have a man employ all his vacant hours on the former so neither on the other hand do I think he is bound to exhaust them wholly upon the latter No Phil our Bodies are compounded of various humors our Souls consist of several faculties God is a good and benign Being and consults the good and comfort of all the Powers he hath created Besides all the forementioned therefore and those which I have supposed without naming them particularly there is a way of entertaining our selves called Study and Meditation Study I say in general not confined to any Subject but only directed to the general end of improving our selves and the time God hath given us in the World For why should we abject our selves that have rational souls an active vigorous Intellectual Spirit in us Is not this able to employ it self our time and our bodily Spirits too Is not our mind large enough to embrace the whole World Can we not bring upon the Theater of our imagination all the occurrences of time past as well as present Must we needs only pore upon the things just before our eyes Must our understandings lye fallow and barren unless they be continually stirred up by our senses Are our souls only given us for Salt to keep the Body sweet or servilely to cater for our inferiour powers and not rather to subdue and govern them Why should not we remember we are men and improve our best Talent sharpen the sense of our minds and enlarge and greaten our Spirits What hinders but that a man may converse with himself and never have better Company than when he is most solitary How can a man want Company that hath an Angelical Nature within him or need diversion that hath the whole World before him to contemplate What should discourage or hinder men from this course is it the pains and difficulty Nothing in the World is pleasanter when a man is once used to it Is it for fear we should exhaust our selves and like the Spider spin out our own Bowels in our Web There can be no danger of that an Immortal Soul never wears out and if the Body goes by the worst so long as the Spirit is bettered there is no loss
Agent and then there is no danger of an after-reckoning with him Sebast Ah Biophilus I am heartily sorry to find so unworthy a notion of God still to find any room in your thoughts though it were but in suspicion only It is very certain indeed that if he be only a necessary Agent then all fear of a Judgment is discharged and as certain that all Religion can then be nothing else but a groundless Superstition at the best For then God must needs be a very tame Deity which men may play withal and abuse at pleasure as the Frogs did by their wooden King in the Fable But then in the Name of Goodness what need is there of any God at all if a necessary Agent will serve the turn Why can we not as well suppose the World to be eternal as make such a contemptible Being as a necessary Agent is to be eternal only to give beginning to the World Or rather why if we attribute one Perfection i e. Eternity to him why not all the rest which seem to be inseparable from it For as much as it is not imaginable how the first Cause should be the meanest of all and he that gave those other perfections to other things should be destitute of them himself Or how can we believe that such a fettered impotent unthinking and unwise Being should make a World in that beauty and perfection which this World consists of Or at least how is it possible that a natural or necessary Agent which is like a Gally-slave chained down to his Bench and confined to his Task and Subject should make a World with such curiosity and diversity of things yet with that exquisite order and harmony which we observe in Nature Do you think that the frame of things could not possibly have been any otherwise than they are Can you phansie that nothing could have been better nor worse than it is now If you see any footsteps of wisdom or choice any possibility that any thing should have been otherwise than it is you forgo your necessary Agent Do you not see great and manifest instances of design and contrivance in the order of things viz. one thing fitted to another and one subordinate to another and all together conspiring to some publick end and use Now sure a necessary Agent could not guide things so because it hath no ends or designs of its own Again if God be a necessary Agent I would fain be resolved how it comes to pass that we are not so too I think you granted me even now that we chuse our own way propound ends to our selves and voluntarily pursue them when we could if we pleased as freely chuse and act contrary and this we justly glory in as the perfection of our Nature Now how to conceive that I should be a free Agent and that he who made me so should be a necessary one that is that the effect should be more excellent than the cause neither I nor as I suspect any body else can understand But I need not in this place industriously set my self to confute this odd conceit of Gods being only a necessary Agent because in my third Branch I shall fundamentally undermine it and as I think leave neither colour nor pretence for it and therefore with your leave I now hasten to that Bioph. Go on then in Gods Name Sebast My third and last Point for the proof of a Judgment to come is this God doth actually exercise such a Providence in and over the World for the present as gives great assurance that he will judge it hereafter For these are as it were the two several ends of the same chain a Providence here and a Judgment hereafter They do naturally and mutually draw on each other If there be a Judgment to come there must be a provident Eye over the World for the present in order to it that is God must so mind the World that he perfectly understand how things go how men carry themselves what there is amiss amongst them what requires punishment and what deserves a reward otherwise he cannot be said to judge forasmuch as without this it might rather be said there is a day of Execution coming than a day of Judgment And on the other side if there be a Providence in this World and it be true that God observes how men carry themselves towards him it must speak his intention to reward and punish hereafter in proportion to such observation for otherwise that Providence would be fruitless and to no purpose it would be a meer matter of vain curiosity and a needless trouble to the Divine Majesty as the Epicureans objected But now that God doth exercise such a Providence in this World as from whence we may reasonably presage a Judgment to come I think will abundantly appear by these three things 1. There hath been such a thing as we call Prophecy or Prediction of things before they came to pass which cannot be without a Providence 2. There have been Miracles which could not be without the Divine interposition 3. There are frequent though not altogether miraculous instances in all Ages of a Divine presence in and influence upon the affairs of the World 1. First I ground the assertion of a Providence in this present World upon the Prophecies and Predictions of things before-hand which have been verified by real effects in their respective times and seasons It is evident that whosoever is able certainly to foretel things before they are must see through all the Series of Causes which produce such events especially if he define also the precise time and other circumstances of the accomplishment but above all whoseover shall declare before-hand not only what shall come to pass according to the course of natural and necessary Causes but also such things as are casual and contingent or subject to the choice and indifferency of free and voluntary Agents must have a mighty reach with him and make a very curious and accurate inspection into the Conjunctions and Conspiracy of all things as well as into their particular Natures Tendencies and Inclinations for as every Effect must have its Causes before it can be so the prediction of such effect must depend upon a certain knowledge of those respective causes which are pregnant of it therefore if there ever have been such a thing as Prophecy there is a Providence Now for the matter of fact or that there have been certain and punctual predictions of things long before they came to pass is the constant belief of all Nations and he that denies it must give the lye to the greatest and best part of Mankind You may remember that Tully pursues this Argument in his Books De Divinatione and he there gives too many and too remarkable instances of it to be denied or eluded but I shall chuse to set before you only two passages out of the holy Scripture to this purpose For though I perceive you
sufficient indication of Divine administration And of this kind there are so many which offer themselves to an observant mind that to seek flaws and go about to make specious objections against some few of them will be rather an Argument of resolved unwillingness to believe than of any just grounds of Infidelity For like as in a great Cable made up of several smaller cords if perchance some of the threds should flaw or break yet the remainder will be able to bear the stress of whatsoever use it shall be put to Now under this Head I reckon in the first place as very observable that there is scarcely any great thing ever brought about in the World which God may not be seen to have an hand in and that may be collected generally from the inadequateness of the visible means to most notable productions As when great preparations are defeated or laid aside and mean and inconsiderable ones do the business This is that which Solomon observed long ago That the battle is not to the strong nor the race to the swift nor bread to men of understanding And we cannot want an Example of it nearer hand when we remember the Restauration of his now Majesty For it pleased God to deal in that particular as he did by Gideons Army when he dismissed the greatest part of the Forces and did his business with a few and those very unlikely for such an Atchievement But more admirable than this is the preservation of the holy Scripture in all Ages both from total abolition by the flames of Persecution and from corruption by the capricious phancies of such men as would neither sincerely believe it nor absolutely reject it Such also is the preservation of the Christian Religion when all the wit and all the power of the World combined together against it and such was the success of the Apostles in propagating that Religion and planting the Christian Church when a few Fisher-men leavened the World with a Doctrine quite against the grain of it and naked Truth prevailed against Authority Art and Interest in conjunction Hitherto also I reduce the maintenance of Magistracy and Civil Government and I look upon it as a standing evidence of a Providence that the strong bands of wicked and refractory men should stand in awe of a single man like themselves only because he is invested with Authority This if it be duly considered is very strange and can be resolved into nothing but a Providence Nor is it less strange that considering the great numbers of evil men their secrecy and closeness their cunning and falshood their envy and necessity their activity and selfishness they should be able to do no more hurt in the World than they do Why do they not assasinate whom they please Or what is the reason that they do not forswear men out of their lives and fortunes and act whatsoever their revenge or covetousness or lust shall prompt them to And no account can be given of this but the powerful restraint of Providence Moreover there are remarkable Examples in all Ages of evil men dogged by their own guilt and tortured by their own Consciences whenas no body else either accused or hurt them and on the other side as frequent instances of vertuous men who have been very comfortable under great difficulties and whose spirits have been born up with an admirable bravery under such pressures as would ordinarily crush and sink other men and this although the persons thus carrying themselves were otherwise of no remarkable strength or courage Neither of which passages can be resolved into any other Causes than the mighty influence of a Providence Nay further it is very observable how strangely sometimes secret sins are brought to light especially such as Murder and Treachery and where all Arts and advantages were made use of for concealment such persons becoming their own accusers when no body else could do it for them and not unusually their own Executioners too Above all these there are some instances of vengeance befalling very flagitious men so signally and with such pat and significant circumstances that without any uncharitableness we may be led by the suffering to the sin as in the famous case of Adonibezek Judg. 1. 7. whose barbarous usage of threescore and ten Kings cutting off their Thumbs and great Toes and making them like Dogs gather their meat under his Table was repaid upon himself in the same severity Of kind to which are those pannick fears and shiverings that oftentimes attend blood-guilty men as long as they live and though they may have escaped revenge from the hand of men yet this as a Cain's mark set upon them by the hand of God indelebly sticks by them and follows them to their Graves It is needless to say any thing more on this subject forasmuch as every man that doth not wilfully shut his eyes may collect instances to this purpose both from the Government of the World in general and from his own Fortunes in particular For besides the quiet serenity and comfortableness in token of the Divine favour which usually attends a vertuous course of life and the anxiety torment and uneasiness which as frequently in testimony of the Divine dislike attends a wicked and flagitious one it is not a very unusual nor to be sure an unpleasant sight to behold the former crowned with signal success and worldly prosperity and the latter punished with shame and beggery and this sometimes shall happen in such circumstances when there is nothing to which this different success can be imputed but meerly Divine Providence forasmuch as the latter shall otherwise be more cunning for the World and every whit as industrious and frugal as the former but Divine Providence only makes the discrimination whilst the one is under the blessing of Heaven and the other is apparently blasted and cursed And now what think you Biophilus upon the whole matter have I not acquitted my self in all the three things I propounded And now laying all these things together is not here sufficient evidence to determine a prudent man in the case and to satisfie him that there is a Providence in this World and consequently that there will be a Judgment hereafter Bioph. I cannot tell Sebast I confess you have said many very considerable things and some of them beyond what I could have expected in the case But I have one main Objection which especially touches the last Branch of your Argument and which if it stick by you all you have said will signifie nothing but if you come clearly off from it I shall not know what to think of the business It is this in short I do not see any such setled and constant method in the management of the affairs of this World as must necessarily argue a Providence for in particular notwithstanding all you have said it cannot be denied that very often the best of men are opprest and born down by ill Fortune
this Why should not the testimony of the holy Scripture satisfie you For in the first place if there be a God which you have acknowledged you cannot but think it reasonable that if he intend to judge the World he should give some intimation of it to the sons of men before-hand since they must needs be so highly concerned in the knowledge of it and then in the next place the Scripture cannot be denied to be as express and full in this particular as it is possible for words to make it There God declares and consirms it innumerable times and the more to awaken men to the consideration of it and preparation for it he is said to have appointed a set time for it he hath foretold who shall be the Judge with what pomp and retinue he shall come attended what measures he shall proceed by and what shall be the circumstances of that great solemnity Bioph. Excuse me there Sebastian I am not to be born down by authority but convinced by reason if you will do any good upon me you must deal with me as a Philosopher not a bigotted person Sebast By your favour Sir it is not to impose upon you to give you Divine authority for proof If indeed I should urge you only with the Opinions of men you might complain I did you wrong for in such a case your denial would have as much authority as their assertion but I hope God may be believed upon his own word especially in a business of this nature which depends so much upon the determination of his will for who can tell Gods mind better than himself Who knows the mind of man but the spirit of a man which is in him And who can pretend to declare what God will do unless he be pleased to reveal his intentions But if he declare he will judge the World we may be sure it shall be done Bioph. I but that is the Question Sebastian how shall I be assured that God hath any such intentions or hath made any such declaration Sebast That which we call by the name of holy Scripture is nothing else but a collection of such declarations of the mind of the Divine Majesty as he hath thought fit from time to time to make to the sons of men And those Books which are so called have been reverenced by wise men in all Ages upon that account as such all imaginable care hath been taken to preserve them from corruption or depravation and several of the best of men have exposed their lives rather than consent to the destruction of them Now why should you call in question the Authority of these Books which you cannot do without impeaching the wisdom of the most able and the sincerity of the most honest of men and upon the same terms you derogate from the Faith of all mankind and must if you will be impartial abrogate the credit of all the old Records in the World For as much as besides all other considerations these Sacred Records I mean the Books of the Old and New Testament do bear an irrefragable testimony to each other and as a pair of Indentures justifie one another Which you will easily be convinced of if you consider that these two Volumes were written in several very remote Ages and consequently by persons that could hold no correspondence one with another and were in the custody of those that were of such contrary interests and opinions that it was impossible they either would or could conspire together to put a cheat upon the World in them Now if notwithstanding these two Books in the circumstances aforesaid shall verifie one another so as that whatsoever the Old Testament promises the New Testament performs what the one foretold the other represents the accomplishment of what ground is or can there be to suspect the truth of them For if several Witnesses and those of several Countries and of contrary interests such as never saw the faces of one another before and therefore neither would nor could combine together and contrive their story and especially being examined apart too shall notwithstanding jump in the same matter of fact and circumstances also there is no man so humorsome and abounding in his own sense but will allow their evidence to be good and substantial then much more is there very good ground to believe these Books which have all these advantages and several other which I will not insist upon Bioph. These are pretty things which you say but this is not that kind of proof I expected from you if this be all the satisfaction you can give me I am where I was Sebast No Biophilus this is not all I have to say but I thought fit to remonstrate to you the sufficiency of this kind of proof in it self which men of your way are apt to make so slight of and thence to convince you that those men that take up with this alone are not such soft and credulous people as you are wont to represent them But what if I had no other proof but this I do not find that you are able to reply any thing to it it is an easier thing to hough at an Argument than to answer it Besides if this way of probation were far less considerable than it is yet you know that any evidence will serve against none and the meanest Arguments will carry a cause when there is nothing to be said on the other side If you could but pretend to prove on your part that there were no such thing as a Judgment to come you had then some reason to be strict in your demands of proof from me of what I assert but in a true balance the least grain or moment in the world will cast the scale when there is nothing against it Now since you know well enough you can offer no kind of proof of an assertion contrary to this we have before us nothing in the earth but over-wise doubts grave suspicions and perhaps it may not be so I appeal to your impartial reason whether it be not more fit to suspect at least that it is so where there is some proof of it than to suspect it is not so where no Argument is given for the negative nay indeed where none can be given Negatives you know are hard to prove in general but especially in such a case as this is For he that undertakes to prove such a Negative hath but one of these two ways to do it viz. either he must affirm that he hath surveyed the whole state of Nature and seen all the Causes that are in working and then must assert de facto that there is no such thing upon the Loom as that he denies and also that he perfectly understands the whole mind and will of God and that he intends no such thing or else he must demonstrate by reason that it is plainly impossible and a flat contradiction that any such thing should be either of
therefore sent for you to audite them before-hand that so by your assistance I may either know my errours and repair whatsoever is amiss â—â—ilst yet I have a little time left me to do it in or if I have stated my matters rightly may appear with the better assurance at that Tribunal I have always found you faithful in your Doctrine and I do not doubt but you will be impartial in this application At this point I offered to go out and leave them private which he perceiving took me by one hand and the Minister by the other and then continued his discourse I will give you said he to the Minister the History of my life at least I will not conceal from you any main passage of it be it for me or against me that so you may pass a judgment upon my spiritual state and I desire you my dear Friend Sebastian to be present who have been privy to the most critical moments of it to the intent that you may witness against me before this Man of God if I falsifie in any thing This said he laid open the course of his life and amongst several other things which either I do not now so well remember or think not fit to repeat he delivered the substance of that whereof I have given you a large account before and then he conjured him in the Name of God to deal freely and plainly with him upon the whole matter The holy Man like a Jury in a manifest case without long deliberation quickly brought in a Verdict of comfort to him Which when Eulabes perceived with his eyes fixed upon him and a countenance somewhat cheared Well said he God be thanked if it be so as I hope it is for I rest assured Almighty Goodness despises not the meanest sincerity But I humbly and earnestly befeech you Sir give me also the Absolution of the Church that I may go out of the World under the comfort of so publick and authentick a Testimony Which when the Minister had solemnly performed he intreated him further to administer to him the Sacrament of the Lords Supper that so said he seeing as it were my Saviour crucified before my eyes and pouring out his Blood for sinners I may the more firmly believe the pardon of my own sins and upon the wings of Faith and affection raise my self towards Heaven This after the interposition of Prayers and Mediation and holy discourse was administred to him but Lord what an ecstasie of devotion was the good Man now in What tokens of humility affection thankfulness and intention of mind were then to be read in his countenance and deportment Most certainly Christ Jesus was present really though not carnally and his Soul fed it self most savourily upon him These things being done he dismissed the Minister for that time not without real expressions of his thankfulness to him for his pains and assistance nor without a liberal alms to be disposed at his discretion amongst the Poor earnestly intreating him to remember him constantly in the Prayers of the Church that thereby he might be holpen on his journey towards Heaven where he hoped shortly to arrive Some time after this when by some repose he had recovered a little strength his Family was called together to his Beds side with some others of his Friends and Relations all whom he most earnestly cautioned against loosness of life and profaneness of spirit assuring them in the words of a dying man of the great reality and infinite importance of Religion he charged them as they would answer it at that great Day which was certainly coming that they should not suffer themselves either to be debauched into carelesness and lukewarmness nor abused and cheated into phantastry and opinionativeness in Religion but persist in the good old way reverence their Minister keep to the Church and make the serving of God the greatest care and business of their lives Then he discoursed admirably to them of the vanity of the World the uncertainty of life the comforts of Religion and the joys of Heaven till his spirits began to be spent and his speech a little to falter At other times he retreated into himself and entertained converse with God by Prayers and holy Meditations in which what were the elevations of his Faith what the holy raptures of his Love what humble abjections of himself at the feet of Christ what resignations of himself to the will of God what pleading of the promises of the Gospel and recumbency upon the Intercession of his Saviour we could not be privy to further than as we saw his hands and eyes earnestly lift up to Heaven sometimes a stream of tears falling from his eyes and other times interchangeably a chearful smile sitting upon his countenance in which posture bodily strength being now exhausted he with a gentle sigh resigned up his Soul to God Thus I have given you the last passages of this good Man now no doubt in Heaven if I have not tired you with the relation though I confess I am not very apt to suspect that both because I have done it in compliance with your desire and besides I judge of other men by my self and because I am never weary of thinking or speaking of him therefore imagine other men may be of the same mind Phil. Ah! Sir so far from being weary of such kind of discourse that I could willingly have forgot all other things for it and been glad this Evening-Conference had continued till to morrow morning but I consider Devotion must not too much intrench upon Civility therefore I return you my hearty thanks for my good Entertainment and take my leave for this time Bioph. I thank you both for your good Company and your charitable offices towards my satisfaction and I do already assure you of this fruit of it that by your Conversation I have learnt that all Religion is not acting a part and playing the Hypocrite which I was apt to suspect heretofore for I see you are so really hearty and in earnest in it and yet men of greater sagacity than my self that I tell you truly I begin to think it becomes me seriously to consider of it Good night to you good Sebastian THE END The tioling humour of the age exposed Of good nature and complaisance Apologies for tipling baffled The real causes of tipling intimated and the mischiefs of it exaggerated Of Gaming and particularly of Chance-Games Want of business the occasion of Drinking and Gaming A Gentleman's Life as busie as other mens An estimate or account of the time and business of mans Life A Practical Demonstration of the littleness of our spare time Innocent and pleasant employments of Time Of Prayer and reading the Scriptures Of Study and Meditation the advantages and the difficulties of it Of friendly Conserence and the great benefits of it Drinking and Gaming are Levelling Practices The Pleasures of Discourse Discoursing an healthful Exercise Just occasions of Taciturnity or Reservedness sometimes in Conversation Of the use and abuse of Books and Reading Conversation improves a man more than Books and Study Discourse about religious matters recommended The importance of Religion Religion rests not in the mind only Religions Discourse as necessary in times of prosperity as of persecution Of Hypocritical Canting Common Discourse lawful Col. 4. 6. Of Disputes in Religion the vanity and mischiefs of them Religion the noblest Subject of Discourse Pleasantness of religious Conference Religious Discourse the most prudent Religious Communication Gentile About Prophane Discourse Of Drollery More Arguments for religious Conference Godly Discourse not Phanatical nor the Badge of any Sect. Godly Conference an effectual way to supplant Phanaticism what makes prophane men so bold in their assaults upon Religion Means to raise our Spirits to a fit temper for religious Communication Prudential advices about religious Conserence Of improvement of time A touch of Epicurean Doctrine Of the different prospects different men have of the other World Heroes that can despise Death Of News and News-mongers exposed Sebastian's strange News of a new-found-land An Allegoricai Description of the new Country Sebastian relates the grounds of the credibility of his Story Preparations for the Journey to Urania Philander transported with the contemplation of Heaven Christian Resolution The advantages of good company in the way to Heaven Scepticism displaying its humor and checkt by sober reason The Epicurean Creed The great consequence and general influence of the belief of a Judgment Scripture proof of a day of Judgment justified by reason It is just prudence to prepare for a day of Judgment thought the evidence were less than it is What kind of proof and what measure of evidence is to be expected in the Principles of Religion In order to the satisfaction of a mans judgment he must first come to indifferency It is greatly a mans interest that Religion should be true The moral demonstration of a judgment to come Mankind is of such a nature and endued with such powers as make it reasonable for him to expect Judgment The Soul of man proved to be immaterial The natural notions men have of God render it reasonable to expect that he will judge the World God not a necessary Agent There is an actual Providence in this World therefore there will be a Judgment in the next Prophecy a certain Argument of a Providence in the World Miracles necessarily argue a Providence More ordinary instances of Providence in the World A Vindication of Divine Providence in the obscarity of some of its Dispensations in this life A visible Providence over the Jews How it comes to pass that there is no greater difference in the last act of mens lives The wonderful comfort and advantages of being secured against a day of Judgment The different representations of Religion a great temptation to Seepticism A sure Religion Scrupulous and phantastical rules of preparation for the day of Judgment reproved Eulabes's History of his own Life and preparations for Judgment Eulabes his more special preparations for death towards the approaches of it
of our education and the imperious dictates of others what by the authority of unaccountable Tradition and publick Fame and what by the designs of Politicians it is an hard matter to know what else to believe Phil. Indeed Biophilus I am both sorry and ashamed to hear you talk at this rate And I do not wonder now that you were so desirous to decline this kind of discourse when we fell upon it I hope you take me for your Friend as well as your Neighbour and Sebastian here for a discreet and worthy Gentleman suffer your self to be perswaded by us to think and speak more soberly and becoming your self in these great matters or if you will not think like a Christian yet talk like a man for let me tell you you seem not only to reject Christianity but all Religion in general and upon those terms you will be as little fit for this world as for that which is to come For what a sad creature is a man of no Religion at all What State or Civil Government will be able to endure him whom no Oaths can oblige or fasten upon How can there be any Civil Society with him that hath no Faith that can neither trust nor be trusted What security can such a man give that he shall not disturb the State violate the person of his Prince falsifie his trust betray his friend cut his Neighbours throat if he be under the awe of no God the expectation of no rewards nor punishments in another world What security can there be I say in dealing with such a man what sincerity in his friendship what safety in his neighbourhood For all these depend upon the reverence of Religion which he that is wholly destitute of must needs become devotum caput a wolfes head the pest and vermine of humane society Do not therefore dear Biophilus at once both stifle your own Conscience and affront the common sense and reason of mankind Do not under the pretence of being more witty and sagacious than other men reason your self into brutality and whilst you grow over-wise in your own eyes be the most fatally mistaken and lost for ever Why should you abandon your self to desperation and leave your self without any refuge in adversity we are well and chearful here at present God be thanked but the time will come when God will stand us in stead when we shall have need of the retreats and comforts of Religion Above all things in the world leave not your self without hope in your latter end do as becometh a man of your parts and discretion suspect your own suspicions and let not the opinion you have that other men are under prejudices prejudice you against the arguments for believing Come deal ingenuously and open your breast propound the grounds of your suspicions the objections you have against Religion and though I cannot promise you that I will answer them all to your satisfaction yet I doubt not but here is one that will Bioph. Look you Gentlemen you put me into a great strait for if upon this invitation of yours I do not disclose my mind to you I shall seem disingenuous and you will think worse of me than perhaps I deserve and on the other side if I do discover my sentiments it is probable that my Creed will fall so many Articles short of yours that we shall break out into some heats and endanger the continuance of our neighbourly conversation However since it seems to be your desire I will be plain with you in confidence that as you are Gentlemen you will deal ingenuously with me and if you can do me no good you will do me no hurt my meaning is that if it should happen you do not convince my reason I hope you will not defame my person nor expose me to the insolencies of the Rabble who believe in gross and by whole Sale and throw dirt upon all that chew what they swallow Now in the first place that you may not think me a perfect Sceptick I declare to you that I acknowledge the Being of a God and that not only because the generality of mankind and even Epicurus himself owned so much but because it is not conceivable how the world should be without one for no wit or reason of man can evince to me how any thing should begin to be without some necessary and eternal Existent to begin the motion and to bring it into Being or which is the same thing in effect there can be no second Cause if there be no first But then beyond this you must pardon me for to deal sincerely with you I do not think that this God minds or troubles himself about the world after he hath made it Much less do I see any sufficient ground for that which Philander hath been talking so warmly about namely a world to come And for eternal life which men speak such great things of I profess I look upon it as a flat impossibility for as much as I see men die but see no foundation for a belief that there is any life or existence out of a body There are some other points of affinity with these that I withold my assent from but because you have challenged me to a rational debate therefore to give fair play and to put the business between us to an issue I will insist but upon one point and that shall be the same which we fell into by chance at our first coming together namely whether there be such a thing as a publick Tribunal or general Judgment where mens actions shall be reviewed and censured after this life Prove me but this one point sufficiently and plainly and I will grant you all the rest Sebast Now you shew your self a man and a shrewd one too though not a Christian For I must acknowledg that you have with great judgment pitcht upon the very Cardinal point of Religion and which if it be proved as I do not doubt but it shall be will infer all the rest but if it miscarry all falls with it The perswasion of a Judgment to come is the great awe upon mens Consciences the principal motive of virtue and piety the restraint and check upon vice and wickedness and indeed the sinew of Civil Government and bond of humane Society This both supposes the Being of a God which you grant and of a Providence also which you deny for if there were not a God it is evident there could be no Providence in this World nor Judgment in another and this if it be granted or proved necessarily draws after it rewards and punishments in the life to come for otherwise a Judgment would be but a matter of curiosity and a trouble to no purpose You have therefore in making choice of this for the critical or decisive point given great proof of your own sagacity and put the matter upon a right issue Bioph. Well prove it then Sebast What proof do you require of