the Enemies Harbour with his blessed Motions and Importunities and never gives over the Pursuit of them till he hath either actually recovered or left them past all Hopes of Redemption And when he sees that they are utterly lost by their own Madness and Folly and that it is in vain to follow them any farther he casts a sorrowful Look upon them and like a grieved Friend after the utmost strugglings and extream Efforts of his affronted Goodness unwillingly leaves them to their own sad Fate and gives them up as it were with the Tears in his Eyes And can you think this blessed Spirit would be so industrious as he is in his Ministry for Souls that he would take such infinite Pains to save them be so extreamly urgent and solicitous for their Welface if He did not know them to be a sort of Beings of an inestimable Worth and Value O blessed God what are not our Souls worth that are worth all the Pains thy blessed Spirit takes to save and make them happy That not only thou thought'st worth all those vast Thoughts and Counsels which thou hast spent upon them that not only thy Son thought worth all those vast Condescentions he stooped to to put those Thoughts in Execution but thy blessed Spirit also thinks worth all that unwearied Pains and Endeavour all that incessant Care and Importunity which he employs about them to save and rescue them from Sin and Misery Doubtless those Beings must needs be exceeding precious for whose Safety and Welfare all the blessed Trinity are so unspeakably concerned 4. Let us consider the vast Price which the Holy Angels put upon Souls For tho they are the Crown and Top of all the Creation of God and do by their essential Perfections border nearest upon him yet such is their Opinion of the Souls of Men that they think it no Disparagement to converse with and minister to them but from the beginning of the World till now have been always ready to maintain a close Intercourse and intimate Correspondence with them and so far forth as they are permitted by the Laws of their invisible World they are continually attending to stretch forth a helping Hand to them in all their Needs and Necessities Tho they are the most Illustrious Courtiers of Heaven yet they disdain not to be the Life-Guards of Souls to pitch their Tents round about them as the Psalmist expresses it Psal 34.8 And interpose between them and their Danger to prompt them to and assist them in their Duties to strengthen them against or to remove their Temptations to comfort them in their Sorrows and chase away from them those malignant Spirits that are always about them watching all Opportunities to seduce and destroy them Hence Heb. 1.14 They are said to be ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be Heirs of Salvation And how much they are concerned for the Safety and Welfare of these precious Beings they are charged with is evident by that Passage Luke 15.16 There is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one Sinner that repenteth So Considerable are the Lives of Souls to the Angels of God that though they are always entertained with the most ravishing Pleasures yet Heaven it self cannot divert them from being over joyed at the Repentance of a Perishing Soul and celebrating its Recovery with a new Festival And when-ever the happy News is brought them that such a dying Soul is revived they not only attend to it in the midst of all their Joys and Triumphs but upon the hearing of it they shout for Joy and fill the Heavens with a new Acclamation And when-ever such a Penitent Soul hath bidden adieu to the Body those blessed Spirits stand ready to receive and guard it through those Legions of malignant Spirits that do always infest these lower Tracts of Air and to conduct it safe to those happy Abodes where it is to lodge till the Resurrection for it is said of Lazarus's Soul Luke 16.22 That it was carried by Angels into Abraham 's Bosom All which is a clear Demonstration of the vast Esteem which those blessed Angels have of Souls For can it be thought that such noble Beings who have a God and themselves to converse with and have so immediate a Prospect both of his Beauty and their own to exercise their Faculties and employ their Contemplation would be so ready and willing as they are to atttend upon Souls and minister to their Safety and Happyness if they had not a mighty Value and Estimation of them Surely if these immortal Spirits within us were not unspeakably dear and precious those Angelical Beings who have always the most sublime and enravishing Objects before them to employ and entertain their Faculties would never have thought it worth the while to stickle so zealously in their Affairs and concern themselves so much about them And thus our Saviour himself argues Mat. 18.10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels do behold the Face of my Father which is in Heaven that is do not undervalue any Soul for how mean or little soever some of them may appear to you they are under the Guardianship of those blessed Angels that are the Courtiers of God and do always attend upon his Majestick Presence 5. And Lastly Let us consider the vast Price which the Devils themselves do put upon Souls for ever since those malignant Spirits through their own Pride and Ambition revolted from God and conspired to make War with heaven and revenge their Expulsion thence the constant Drift of all their Designs and Actions hath been to seduce and ruine them being conscious that of all the Beings that are within the reach of their Power there are none so dear to God as these and that by seducing from him these his most precious Creatures they shall do him the greatest spight and most effectually revenge upon him their own Damnation For doubtless were there any Beings below the Moon more dear to God than these they would bend their Force and Malice against them and not make these as they do the only Centers of their mischievous Activity Had they any nobler Game to fly at their ambitious Malice would disdain to stoop to the Quarry of Souls but because of all others These are the noblest and best worth the ruining therefore do these malignant Spirits turn all their Artillery upon them and level all their fiery Darts against them And how ambitious they are of seducing our Souls and training them on to Perdition is evident by the infinite Wiles and Snares and Stratagems they contrive against them by their unwearied Diligence to watch all Opportunities against them to surprize them where they are careless and assault them where they are weakest and cheat them with disguised Suggestions to inspect their Humours and apply themselves to their Interest and nick their Tempers with convenient Temptations And
Act of Charity to Mankind For still you find him either instructing the Ignorant or reproving the Erroneous or comforting the Dejected or feeding the Hungry or curing the Sick and Diseased From Morning to Night he was constantly engaged in one good Action or other and the whole Race of his Life like that of the Sun was spent in enlivening or inlightning the World So endearing was his Behaviour that he obliged his very Enemies and when he had won them treated them with all the Tenderness and Affection of a most loving Father towards his dearest Children From all he conversed with he extorted Respect and Veneration and none were able to resist the Charms of his victorious Love but those whose Hearts were harder than the nether Milstone But that I may convince you of the infinite Goodness and Tenderness of his Nature I will give you but that one Instance Luke 19.41 And when he was come near he beheld the City and wept over it which as you will see afterwards was occasioned by the Fore-sight of its approaching Ruin and Destruction and yet at the same time he foresaw the Cruelties which those barbarous Villains were about to practise upon him how they would scourge his Body with knotty Whips and nail his Hands and Feet to the Cross and thrust a Spear into his Heart he saw how they would triumph over his Misery mock at his Calamity and dance to the Musick of his dying Grones And now one would have thought such a Prospect as this would have for ever enraged his Soul against them and made him rejoyce to see that sweeping Destruction that was coming upon them but such was the incomparable Sweetness of his Temper that while he foresaw them plotting his Ruin he could not but sigh over theirs and while he beheld their Malice all reeking in his Blood and sporting it self with his Torments and Agonies yet at the Sense of their approaching Destruction his very Bowels earned and his Heart melted with Commiseration and he could not forbear weeping to think that those cursed Instruments of all his Miseries must e're long be so wretched and miserable themselves earnestly wishing that they who so greedily thirsted for his Blood had known in that their day the things which belong to their Peace And though one would have thought the barbarous Entertainment he met with here upon Earth would have for ever quenched all his Affection to Mankind yet still it lives and in despite of all the Affronts and Outrages he endured burns as vigorously in his Breast as ever So unconquerable was his Love to his Subjects that all the bloody Cruelties they practised upon him when they chased him out of the World were never able to alienate his Heart and Affections from them but after all their Cruelties he still retained his Fatherly Bowels towards them and when he could endure their Torments no longer breathed out his loving Soul in an earnest Prayer for their Pardon Father forgive them for they know not what they do And now that he is in Heaven among Angels and glorified Spirits where he cannot but remember how unkindly we treated him when he was upon Earth and perhaps doth still bear upon his glorified Body those very Wounds which he received from our Hands which one would think were sufficient to incense him against us for ever yet his Heart is the same towards us full of all those kind and tender Resentments that first brought him down from Heaven and render'd his Conversation among us so full of Sweetness and Endearments And now being so infinitely kind as he is why should we be disheartned from serving him Methinks the Sense of his Love to us if there were no other Argument in the World should be sufficient to bind us to his Service for ever For O my Soul how can I do too much for so kind a Friend How can I be too submissive to so good a Master That is so infinitely tender of all his Servants and loves them a thousand times more than they love themselves Sure if we had any Spark of Ingenuity in us the Sense of his matchless Kindness towards us would be sufficient to turn all our Duty to him into Recreation to make us thirst after his Service and catch at all Opportunities of expressing our Loyalty and Obedience to him We should embrace his Commands as Preferments to us and wear them as the greatest Favours and think our selves more honoured in being the Servants of Jesus Christ than in being made mighty Kings and Potentates 2. Consider as he is full of Grace in Respect of his own Personal Disposition so he is also in Respect of his Laws in which as I have already shewed you he requires nothing of us but what is for our Good nothing but what tends to the Perfection of our Natures and the Consummation of our Happiness All that our Saviour requires at our Hands is only that we should act according to the Laws of a Reasonable Nature and constantly pursue the great End of our Creation which can never be obtained by us unless we regulate our Actions by those wise and excellent Rules which he hath prescribed us and which he hath prescribed us upon no other Inducement but only to oblige us to be happy For as to any Advantage that will accrue to him from our Actions 't is altogether indifferent to him whether we obey him or no for he was always infinitely happy within himself and would have always been so though we had never had a Being so that his Felicity depends not upon us and were it not that the super abundant Goodness of his Nature doth for ever incline him to make us happy as well as himself he would never have concerned himself about us but would have let us alone to do as we list and abandoned us to the Fate of our own Actions He therefore being infinitely happy within himself can have no self-Ends to serve upon his Creatures because within the Circle of his own divine Being he hath all that he needs and all that he desires but being infinitely good as he is infinitely happy we are sure that our Good must be the only End of his intermedling with our Actions and his giving Laws to direct them And if we consult the particular Laws which he hath given us we shall find they all of them most naturally tend to perfect and rectifie our disordered Natures to exalt and spiritualize our Affections and inspire us with all those divine Dispositions that are requisite to qualify us for the Happiness of the World to come And now methinks if we had any Sense of our own Interest this Consideration should mightily encourage us to Obedience to think that while we are serving our blessed Master we are serving our selves to the best Purposes and that his Service and our Interest are so combined and united that by the same Actions we may gratify him and do our selves the greatest Kindness in
That a Company of dead Atoms which cannot move unless they are moved can ever be capable of framing Syllogisms in Mood and Figure and disputing pro and con whether they are Atoms or no That such inert and sluggish Bodies should by their impetuous jostling together awaken one another out of their sensless Passiveness and make each other hear and feel their mutual Knocking 's and Jostlings and then from this sense into which they have thus awakened one another and which they are as incapable of as a Musical Instrument is of hearing its own Sounds or taking pleasure in the harmonious Aires that are played upon it should proceed and consult together to make wise Laws and contrive the best Models of Government to investigate the Natures of Things and deduce from them the several Systems of Arts and Sciences in a word how is it possible that a Company of fluid Motes and Particles of Matter should ever be so artificially complicated and twisted one with another as to form an Vnderstanding that can lift up its Eyes and look beyond all this sensible World into that of immaterial Beings and conceive abstracted Notions of things which can never be Objects to any material Senses such as a pure Point Equality and Proportion Symmetry and Asymmetry of Magnitudes the Rise and Propagation of Dimensions infinite Divisibilty and the like Notions that never were in Matter nor consequently could ever be extracted out of it That can correct the Errors of all our material Perceptions and demonstrate Things to be vastly different from what they apprehend and report them can prove the Sun for instance to be one hundred and sixty times bigger than the Earth when to our Eye and Imagination it appears no bigger than a Bushel that can lodge within it self all that Mass of sensible Things which taketh up so much Room without it and when it hath piled them up upon one another in vast and most prodigious Numbers is still as capacious of more as when it was altogether empty in a word that can grasp the Vniverse with a Thought and comprehend the whole Latitude of Heaven and Earth within its own indivisible Center how sensless is it to imagine that such Noble Operations as these can be performed by a meer Complex of dead Atoms and sensless Particles of Matter And if they cannot as doubtless they cannot then from hence it will necessarily follow that the Soul of Man is an immaterial Thing Furthermore we see that tho the Soul takes in Objects of all sizes yet when once they are in they are not as Bodies in a material Place in which the Greater take up more Room than the Less For the Thought of a Mile or ten thousand Miles doth no more fill or stretch a Soul than that of a Foot or an Inch or a Mathematical Point and whereas all Matter hath its Parts and those extended one without another into Length and Breadth and Thickness and so is measurable by Inches Yards or solid Measures there is no such Thing as measurable Extension in any thing belonging to the Soul For in Cogitation which is the Essence of a Soul there is neither Length nor Breadth nor Thickness nor is it possible to have any Conceit of Foot of Thought or a Yard of Reason a Pound of Wisdom or a Quart of Virtue And if what belongs to a Soul be immaterial it will necessarily follow that the Soul it self is immaterial too and as such capable of Immortality For immaterial Natures being pure and simple having neither contrary Qualities nor divisible Parts in them as material Things have can have no Principles of Alteration and Corruption in them and being devoid of these they must needs be capable of living and subsisting for ever What Noble Beings therefore are the Souls of Men which together with those vast capacities of Vnderstanding of Moral Perfection of Joy and Pleasure are naturally capable of Immortality and consequently of improving in Knowledge in Goodness and in Joy and Pleasure unto all Eternity And therefore certainly a Soul must needs be a most precious thing that can thus out-live all sublunary Beings and subsist forever in so sublime a state of Glory and Beatitude Having thus shewn you the invaluable Worth of the Soul in Respect of its own natural Capacities I proceed 2. To shew you of what vast Esteem it is in the Judgment of all those who we must needs suppose to best understand the Worth of it and that is the whole World of Spirits For to be sure Spirits must best understand the Excellency of Spirits because they have a clearer In-sight into each others Natures and a more immediate Prospect of the Virtue Power and Excellency of each others Faculties For as for us whilst we are in this imbodied state and do understand by corporeal Organs we generally judge of the Worth and Excellency of Things by the Impression they make upon our Senses and as these are more or less gratified and affected with them we set a higher or lower Value upon them Since therefore Spirits are a sort of Beings that cannot touch or affect our Bodily Senses it is impossible we should be competent Judges of the true Worth and Value of them and therefore in this matter we ought to be guided by the Judgment of Spirits who must needs be supposed to have a more intimate Acquaintance with one anothers Natures And if we will be guided by these we shall find the whole World of Spirits even from the highest to the lowest unanimously rating the Souls of Men at an inestimable Price and Value And to make this appear I shall shew you the vast Price there is set upon them 1. By God the Father 2. By God the Son 3. By God the Holy Ghost 4. By the Holy Angels 5. By the Devils 1. Let us consider the vast Price which God the Father hath set upon Souls For when he intended to form these Noble Beings and transmit them into terrestrial Bodies that so being compounded with a sensitive Nature they might clasp the Spiritual and Animal Worlds together he being sensible of the vast Hazards and infinite Snares they would be exposed too was so deeply concerned for their Preservation that he thought nothing too dear to save and secure them And fore-seeing their Fall from that terrestrial Happiness which he originally designed them notwithstanding the liberal Care he had taken to preserve them in the State of Innocence he designed to remove the Scene of their Happiness from Earth to Heaven being resolved if possible to repair the Loss of a terrestrial with a calestial Paradise For which end instead of the Covenant of Innocence the Blessings whereof by their Sin they had forever forfeited he introduces the Covenant of Repentance that so by the help of this Plank after their general Ship-wrack they might be preserved and to safe to the Shoar of a happy Eternity And that by this Covenant he might the more effectually recover
if after all their Labout Craft and Contrivance they can but seise the Game they hunt for the Blood of a Soul is so rich a Draught that they think it a sufficient Recompence for all their painful and mischievous Devices for St. Peter tells us that they go about like roaring Lions seeking whom they may devour And to be sure those malignant Spirits would never be so impertinently mischievous as to spend their time in catching Flies and did they not know our Souls to be noble Preys they would never go so far about as they do nor take so much Care and Pains to Catch and Insnare them So that from their unwearied Diligence to seduce and ruin us we may most certainly conclude either that they are very foolish Devils or that our Souls are very precious Beings but howsoever their Diligence to destroy them is a plain Argument that they esteem them precious it being by no means to be supposed that such Wise and Intelligent Beings as they are would so much concern themselves as they do about things which they had little or no Esteem for And thus you see at what a vast Rate our Souls are valued by the whole World of Spirits how from the highest to the lowest those best and wisest Judges of the just Worth of Souls do all unanimously concur in a great and high Estimation So that whether we value them by their own natural Capacities or by the Estimation of those who are best able to judge of their Worth and Excellency we have abundant Reason to conclude them most precious and inestimable Beings And now I shall concude this Argument with some Inferences 1. From hence I infer by what it is that we ought to value our selves and estimate the Dignity of our own Natures viz. by our rational and immortal Souls those excellent Beings that are so invaluable in themselves and so highly esteemed by the best and wisest Judges 'T is this intelligent and immortal Nature within us that is the Crown and Flower of our Beings 't is by this that we are exalted above the Level of meer Animals by this that we are allyed to Angels and do border upon God himself And he that values himself by any thing but his Soul and those things which are its proper Graces and Ornaments begins at the wrong End of himself forgets his Jewels and estimates his Estate by his Lumber And yet good God what foolish Measures do the Geneerality of Men take of themselves Were we not forced by too many woful Experiments it would be hard to imagine that any Creature that believes a rational and immortal Soul to be a Part of its Nature should be so ridiculous as to value it self by the little trifling Advantages of a well-coloured Skin a suit of fine Cloaths a Puff of popular Applause or a few Baggs of white and red Earth and yet God help us these are the only things almost by which we value and difference our selves from others You are a much better Man than your Neighbout he alas is a poor contemptible Wretch a little creeping despicblae Thing not worthy to be looked upon or taken notice of by such a one as you Why in the Name of God what is the Matter Where is this mighty Difference between you and him Hath not he a Soul as well as you a Soul that is capable to live as long and to be as happy as yours Yes yes 't is true indeed but notwithstanding God be thanked you are another-guess Man than he for you have a much handsomer Body your Apparel is much more fine and fashionable you live in a more splendid Equipage and have a larger Purse to maintain it and your Name forsooth is more in Vogue and makes a far greater Noise in the World And is this all the Difference between your mighty selves and your pitiful Neighbours Alas poor Men A few Days more will put an End to this and when your rich Attires are reduced to a Winding-sheet and all your vast Possessions to six Foot of Earth what will become of all those little Trifles by which you value your selves Where will be the Beauty or Wealth the Port or Garb which you are now so proud of Alas Now that lovely Body looks as pale and ghastly that losty Soul is left as bare as poor and naked as your despised Neighbours Should you now meet his wandering Ghost in the wide World of Spirits what would you have to boast of more than he now your Beauty is withered your Wealth vanished and all your outward Pomp and Splendor shrouded in the Horrors of a silent Grave Now you will have nothing distinguish you from the most Contemptible unless you have wiser and better Souls and by so much as you were more respected for your Beauty and Wealth your Garb and Equipage in this World by so much will you be more despised for your Pride and Insolence your Covetousness and Sensuality in the other Let us therfore learn to value our selves by that which will abide by us by our immortal Souls and by those heavenly Graces which do adorn and accomplish them by our Humility and Devotion by our Charity and Meekness by our Temperance and Justice all which are such Preheminences as will survive our Funerals and distinguish us from base and abject Souls for ever But for a rational and immortal Creature to prize it self by any such temporary Advantages is altogether as vain and ridiculous as it was for the Emperor Nero to value himself for being an excellent Fidler 2ly From hence also I infer how much we are obliged to live up to the Dignity of our Natures Should a stranger to Mankind be admitted into this busy Stage of humane Affairs to survey our Actions and the paultry Designs we drive at certainly he would hardly imagine that we believed out selves to be such a noble sort and strain of Beings as we are If you saw a Man seriously imploying himself in some sordid and beggarly Drudgery could you imagine that he believed himself to be the Son of a King and the Heir of a Crown And when it is so apparent that the main of our Design is to prog for our Flesh and make a comfortable Provision for a few Years Ease and Luxury who would think that we believed our selves to be immortal Spirits that must live for ever in an inconceivable Happiness or Misery When we consider the high Rank which we hold in the Creation the vast Capacities which there are in our Natures and the noble Ends which we were made and designed for are we not ashamed to think how poorly we prostitute our selves and vilify our own Faculties by the sordid Drudgeries wherein we exercise and imploy'em When we think what a Reputation we have throughout all the World of Spirits what a vast Rate we are valued at by God and Angels and Devils are we not confounded to think how we under-value our selves by those low and
inglorious Ends which we pursue and aim at O good God that thou should'st give me a Soul of an immortal Nature a Soul that is big enough for all the Joys which thy everlasting Heaven is composed of and I be such a Wretch to my self such a Traytor to the Dignity of my own Nature as to give up my self and all my Faculties to the Pursuit of such vain and wretched Trifles That I who am akin to Angels should make my self a Muck-worm and chuse Nebuchadnezzar's fate to leave Crowns and Scepters and live among the salvage Herds of the Wilderness That having such a great and noble Nature I should content my self to live like a Beast and aim no higher than if I had been born only to eat and drink and sleep and wake for thirty or forty Years together and then retire into a silent Grave and be insensible for ever Wherefore in the Name of God let us at last remember what we are and what we are born to Let us consider that we have Faculties that are capable of exerting themselves for ever in the most inravishing Contemplation and Love of the eternal Fountain of Truth and Goodness of Copying and Transcribing his most adorable Perfections his Wisdom Goodness Purity and Justice from whence the infinite Happiness of his Nature derives and thereby of glorifying us into living Images of God and rendring us like him both in Beauty and Happiness in a word that we have Faculties to converse with Angels and with blessed Spirits to bear a part in the eternal Confort of their Joys and Praises and to relish all those unknown Delights of which their everlasting Heaven doth consist And having such great and noble Powers in us is it not a burning shame that they should be always condemned to an endless Pursuit of Shadows and Impertinencies Let us therefore rouse up our selves and shake off this sordid and degenerate Temper that sinks and depresses us and makes us act so infinitely unbecoming the Dignity of our immortal Natures And since we are descended from and designed for the Heavenly Family let us learn to demean our selves upon Earth as becomes the Natives of Heaven Let us disdain all base and sordid all low and unworthy Ends of Action as Things beneath our illustrious Rank and Station in the World of Beings and live in a continual Tendency towards and Preparation for that Heavenly State which is the proper Orb and Sphere of our Natures 3ly From hence also I infer how much they undervalue themselves that sell their Souls for the Trifles of this World For since we know before-hand that the Wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all Unrighteousness and Ungodliness of Men and he hath plainly assured us that our Souls must smart for ever for our Sins it necessarily follows that whenever we knowingly suffer our selves to be inticed into Sin we make a wilful Forfeiture of our Souls He that knows that such a Draught however sweetned and made palatable is yet compounded with the Juice of deadly Nightshade and notwithstanding that will have the poisonous Draught is wilfully bent to Murder and Destroy himself And when we see that the Pleasure of our Sin draws after it the Ruin of our Souls and yet will Sin notwithstanding we do in effect stake our Souls against it and with our Eyes open make this desperate Bargain that upon Condition we may injoy such a sinful Pleasure we will willingly surrender up our immortal Spirits to the Pains of an endless and intolerable Damnation And if so O blessed God how do the Generality of Men depreciate and undervalue themselves For how often do we see Men in their little Frauds and Cozenages sell their Souls for a Penny gain in their lascivious and intemperate Humours barter their Souls for a Moments Mirth or Pleasure in their ambitious Projects and Designs part with their Souls for a Blast of vulgar Breath and popular Noise For in every Temptation to Sin the Dewil cheapens our immortal Souls bids so much Pleasure or so much Profit for them and in every Compliance with the Temptation we take his Offer and strike the fatal Bargain So that if we will Sin we had need Sin for something since we must pay so dearly for it But alas there is no Proffer the Devil can make us that is a tolerable Price for the Blood of our Souls though he should offer us the whole World for it our Saviour assures us that he would bid us infinitely to our Loss and if so what wretehed Sales do we make of our Souls when we Sin for Trifles lie and cheat to get a Penny consent to a wicked Motion for a Pleasure that will wither while we are smelling to it and expire in the very Injoyment For so much we value our Souls at and do in effect declare that in our Esteem these precious Beings which God and Angels set so high a Price on are worth no more than what that Profit or Pleasure for which we Sin amounts to O good God! What cheap and worthless Things then are our Souls in our Esteem who sell and barter them every Day for such mean and worthless Trifles How do we part with our Gold for Dross and exchange our Jewels for Pebbles What sordid Thoughts what wretched vile Opinions have we of our selves that are so ready upon all Occasions to sell our selves for nought or which is next to nought for the sorry Proffers of every base and infamous Lust O would to God we would at last make but a just Estimate of our selves and thereupon resolve as it is most reasonable we should never to comply with any sinful Motion till we can get more by it than our Souls are worth and then I am sure we should be for ever Deaf to all the Proffers which the Devil or World can make us 4ly And lastly From hence also I infer how much we are obliged above all things to take Care of our Souls For since they are Beings of such vast Capacities in themselves and of such an high Estimation in the World of Spirits methinks we should all be convinced that to take leave of their Welfare and prevent their everlasting Miscarriage is the highest Concern and Interest of a Man And yet God forgive us if we consult the common Practice of Mankind we shall find that there is scarce any thing in which we have any Interest at all that is more slighted and disregarded by us Our Body is the Darling that hath our Hearts and takes up all our Care and Thoughts and to entertain its Appetite and accommodate it with Pleasures and Conveniencies there is no Expence either of Labour or Time grudged or thought much of but as for the Soul that precious and immortal Thing which will be living and perceiving unspeakable Pleasures or Pains when this Body is dead and insensible that is overlooked as a Thing not worthy our serious Notice or Regard And though we cannot
and Owls do from the Light of the Day and rather chuse to banish it self into eternal Darkness and Despair than be shut up for ever in a Heaven so infinitely repugnant to its Nature And certainly to be thus excommunicated from the supreme Happiness of our Natures and be forced to live in everlasting Exile from God and blessed Spirits and wander about like wretched Vagabonds that are chased and driven from all Hopes of Contentment will be unspeakable Damage to our Souls 2ly The Soul of Man is liable to the most dreadful Punishment and Correction of the Father of Spirits There is no Doubt but spiritual Agents can strike as immediately upon Spirits as bodily Agents can upon Bodies and though we who are Spectators only of corporeal Action cannot discern the Manner how one Spirit acts upon another net there is no Reason to Doubt of the thing and if there be such a mutual Communication of Action between them there is no Doubt but they can mutually make each other feel each others Pleasures and Displeasures and if so then it is only to suppose that the less powerful Spirits are subject to the violent Impression of the more powerful ones and consequently that all finite Spirits are liable to the Lash of an infinite one for why should it be more difficult for the Father of our Spirits to correct our Spirits than it is for the Parents of our Flesh to correct our Flesh For though our Souls are no more impressible with material Stripes than Sun-beams are with the blows of a Hammer yet are they liable to horrid and dismal Thoughts and to be as much pained and aggrieved by them as our Bodies are by the most exquisite Torments So that if God be displeased with us he can imprint his Wrath upon our Minds in black and ghastly Thoughts and cause it perpetually to drop like burning Sulphur upon our Souls He cannot only abandon us to the furious Reflections of our own natural Consciences which as I shall shew you by and by will be hereafter extreamly painful and vexatious but he can also infuse supernatural Horrors into us and pour in such Swarms of terrible Thoughts upon us as will give us no Rest but sting us perpetually Day and Night with inexpressible Anguish And of this you have a woful Example in that miserable Wretch Francis Spira who upon that fearful Breach he made in his Conscience by a cowardly Renouncing of his Religion was without any Symptoms of a bodily Melancholy immediately seised with such an inexpressible Agony of Mind as amazed his Physicians astonished his Friends and struck Terror into all that conversed with him For he was so near to the Condition of a damned Ghost that he verily believed Hell it self was more tolerable than those invisible Lashes that were continually laid upon his Soul and therefore wished he were in Hell and would gladly have dispatched himself thither in hope to find Sanctuary there from those vengeful Thoughts which continually preyed upon his Soul And if in this World our Soul is so liable to the Rod of the Father of Spirits we may be sure it will be so in the other too where God if he pleases can render it an eternal Hell to it self by pouring continually into it fresh Floods of horrible Thoughts which being thrust on by an Almighty Power and perpetually urged and repeated on the Mind must necessarily create in it not only exquisite but uninterrupted Torment And it being in his Power thus to lash our Souls to be sure when once he is implacably incensed against them as he will be hereafter if we do not appease him he will let loose his Power upon them and make them feel his wrathful Resentments in those dire and frightful Thoughts with which he will Sting and Scourge them for ever And if the Soul carry into Eternity with it those provoking Lusts which do here incense God's Displeasure against it it will there have no Shelter from the Storm of his Vengeance which like a Shower of Fire and Brimstone will be continually pouring down upon it For while it continues in this Shop of Vanities it hath a great Variety of Objects to divert those dismal Thoughts which God many times infuses into it but in the other World all these diverting Objects will be removed and then every dismal Thought which God lets loose will seise and fasten upon it and like Prometheus's Vultures prey on its wretched Heart for ever 3ly The Soul of Man is liable to the Fury and Violence of Devils and other malignant Spirits For when ever the Souls of Men do leave their Bodies they doubtless flock with the Birds of their own Feather and consort themselves with such separate Spirits as are of their own Genius and Temper for besides that Likeness doth naturally congregate Beings and cause them to associate with their own Kind good and bad Spirits are by the eternal Laws of the other World distributed in two separate Nations and there live apart from one another having no other Communication or Intercourse but what is between two hostile Countries that are continually designing and attempting one against another So that when wicked Souls do leave this terrestrial Abode and pass into Eternity they are presently incorporated by the Laws of that invisible World into the Nation of wicked Spirits and confined for ever to their most wretched Society and Converse and then how miserable must their Condition be who are damned to such a hellish Neighbourhood and are allowed no other Company but Devils and devilish Spirits For since as I have already shewed you Spirits can as well act upon one another as Bodies what can be expected when such malignant Spirits meet but that they should be continually snarling among themselves and baiting and worrying one another When Wrath and Envy Malice and Ill-nature are the common Genius that inspires and acts the whole Society what can their Conversation be but a continual Intercourse of mutual Mischiefs and Vexations especially considering how they have here laid the Foundations of an eternal Quarrel against one another For there the Companions in Sin will meet who by their ill Counsels wicked Insinuations and bad Examples did mutually contribute to each others Ruin and when these shall meet in that woful State how will the tormenting Sense of those irreparable Injuries they have done each other incite them to exercise their hellish Fury upon and play the Devils with one another And when a Company of waspish Spirits so implacably incensed against one another shall meet and like so many Scorpions Snakes and Adders be shut up together in the infernal Dens how is it possible they should forbear hissing at and stinging and spitting Venom in one anothers Faces But then besides the mutual Plagues which those incensed and furious Spirits must needs be supposed to inflict upon one another they will be also nakedly exposed to the powerful Malice of the Devils those fierce Executioners of
solicited to Evil they have the Advantage of preingaging our Affections to them before we arrive to the Use of our Reason for in our tender years these are the only Goods that we can relish they are these that do feed clothe and furnish us in hand with whatsoever our natural Appetites do gape for that are the sole Entertainment of our childish Fanices and the only Objects our yet unfledg'd Thoughts and Desires can reach at and our Youth being thus intirely inured to them by that time we are grown up to the Age of Reason and the Capacities of Virtue and Religion we have generally contracted such an excessive Inclination towards them and are so strongly biass'd with the Love of them that whensoever they beckon to us we are ready to follow them through all the forbidden Tracts that lead to everlasting Ruin For our Natures being thus vitiated the Temptations without us have a strong Party within us a Party of traytorous Inclinations which upon every Summons solicites us to yield and surrender up our Virtue and Innocence and no sooner can any Temptation from without give the Alarm but presently our own Lusts are up raising a Mutiny within us and with the Heats of our corrupted Fancy do many times so disorder our Understanding that it cannot rally up its Considerations against them For before ever our Understanding could be Furnished with Considerations our Hearts were prepossessed with such an excessive degree of ambitious covetous and luxurious Inclinations that when afterwards the Pleasures Profits and Honours without begin to hold forth their grateful Lures to us and to tempt us away to Fraud or Treachery to Vanity or Licentiousness those depraved Inclinations have gotten such Head within us that they prove most commonly too strong for all our Consideration and with their impetuous Current carry us away and drive us headlong down towards eternal Ruin and unless we put forth all the strength of our Reason and Resolution and the Grace of God also come in to our Aid it will be impossible for us to stem such a furious Tide when it is driven by the Wind of an outward Temptation When therefore our own Inclinations do so vigorously conspire with the Temptations without to thrust us on into Sin and Perdition how we can be insensible of the eminent danger we are in of Miscarrying for ever But 5ly We are liable also to fall into a sinful State and from thence into Eternal Misery from the unwearied Diligence and great Subtilty of the Devil to make Use of and apply these Temptations to us For that the Devil doth commonly as an assistant Genius to the Corruption of our Natures excite and provoke Men to Wickedness is very evident from Scripture where he is said to work in the Children of Disobedience Eph. 2.2 To fill the Heart of Ananias to lie to the Holy Ghost Acts 5.3 And to take away the Word out of Mens hearts lest they should believe and be saved Luke 8.12 All which Expressions do plainly imply that the Devil is a constant Agent in the Sins of Men. And being a Spiritual Agent he must needs be supposed to have a nearer Access to the Soul than any material Cause whatsoever For tho he be totally debarr'd from all kind of Intercouse with the immediate Operations of the reasonable Soul and can no more look into the Thoughts than we can into the Bowels of the Earth yet he can easily get into the Fancy which stands next to that mysterious Chamber that is open to no Eye but Gods and make what use he pleases of the infinite Images and Phantasms that are in it and dispose and order and distinguish them into the Pictures of what Objects he pleases just as the Painter doth his numerous Cojours that lie confusedly before him in their several Shells and continue and repeat those Pictures and Representations as long and as oft as he pleases And then considering what the natural Use of the Fancy is both to the Vnderstanding and Will how it prompts the one with matter of Invention and supplies it with Variety of Objects to work on and draws forth and excites the other to chuse or reject those Objects it presents according as they are pleasing or displeasing we must needs suppose that the Devil hath a vast Advantage of insinuating his black Suggestions into the Soul by having such free Access into the Fancy And accordingly he is said to put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ John 13.2 But then he being not only a spiritual but also an intellectual Agent of a vast and capacious Understanding by Nature and particularly improved in the black Art of temping by a long Experience of its Wiles and Stratagems having been a Tempter almost ever since he hath been an Angel he must needs be supposed to be wonderfully expert and fagacious in it that after having had five Thousand years experience of the Methods of seducing Souls to increase and perfect his natural Subtilty he must by this be fully instructed when and how to apply himself to every Age and Constitution For this hath been his sole Business wherein he hath been infinitely intent and active ever since he became a Devil and if from a Man then much more from a Devil of one Business Good Lord deliver me from a Devil that for five Thousand Years hath been continually making Experiments of Temptation and drawing them into Rules to direct and order his mischievous Practice on the Souls of Men. But besides as the Devil is of a spiritual and ingelligent Nature so he hath a vast Number of his black Angels continually roving about the World to seduce and captivate us into Sin and Ruin And tho these malignant Spirits have no ligament of natural Love between them to tie and oblige them to one another yet by that perfect Hatred which they all bear to God and Men they are united together in an inviolable League and go hand in hand with one another in pursuance of their desperate Design to involve our wretched Souls in the same eternal Ruin with themselves which renders their Force so much the more formidable And when we have so many spiritual subtil and Powerful Adversaries combining against and continually wandring to and fro like roaring Lyons to devour us we cannot but apprehend our Danger exceeding great especially considering the infinite Temptations from without that this World affords the great Variety of sensual Goods and Evils which they have to object to our carnalized Minds For these mischievious Spirits having so great Insight into our Tempers and so great a Choice of Objects to suggest to our Fancies can never be at a Loss how they may nick us with a convenient Temptation and that which gives their Temptations a vast Advantage over us is that we know not how to distinguish them from the Motions of our own Hearts For could we see the Devil at our Elbows or hear him whispering at our
to plunge our selves into all those endless Miseries which the loss of our Souls implies What then remains but that being seriously affected with the Sense of our Danger we presently awake out of our Security and with the deepest Concern for our immortal Souls cry out with St. Peter's Auditors Men and Brethren what shall we do to be saved Verisly when I reflect upon the strange Unconcernedness of Men about their future Condition I am tempted to think either that they do not believe that they have an immortal Soul in them or that if they do they believe it is impossible it should for ever miscarry For how is it conceivable that Men who in other matters are so solicitous when their Interest is at Stake and exposed to the least Hazard should believe that they have Souls in Danger of perishing for ever and yet take no more Care or Regard of them but like the forgetful Mother who when her House was on Fire to save her Goods forgot her Child lay out all their thoughts upon the little Concerns of this frail and mortal Life and in the mean time forget their precious Souls and leave them perishing in the Flames of Perdition O stupid Creature what art thou made of that canst consider that thou hast an immortal Soul surrounded with so many Dangers of being lost for ever and yet be no more concerned for its Preservation Methinks if thou hadst any Sense in thee having a Prospect of such endless Miseries before thee the remotest Possibility of falling into them should be enough to startle and awake thee but when thou art so near the Brink of those Miseries and hast so many Causes round about thee shoving thee forward and thrusting thee headlong down into them and yet be no more concerned at it is such a Prodigy of sensless Stupidity as Heaven and Earth may justly be astonished at 'T is true if the Danger thou art in were such as is impossible to be evaded it would then be the wisest Course thou couldst take to concern thy self as little as may be about it but rather to live merrily whilst thou mayst and not antedate thy Misery by thinking of the dismal Futurity But God be praised this is not our Case though our Condition be dangerous yet it is far from desperate for if we will use our honest Endeavour and vigorously exert the Faculties of our Nature we not only may but shall escape There are indeed a great many Causes of our Danger a great many Enemies concurring to our Ruin but none of these are able to effect it unless we our selves joyn hands in the fatal Conspiracy If we will be but faithful Friends to our selves and true to our own eternal Interest it will be beyond the power of all those Causes together to do us any material Injury For blessed be the good God those that are for us are far greater and mightier than those that are against us against us we have the World the Flesh and the Devil the weakest of which is I confess a dangerous and puissant Enemy but for us we have God and Angels and our own Reason assisted with the most invincible Motives with vast and glorious Promises that stand beckoning to us with Crowns of Immortality in their Hands to call us off from the Pursuit of our Lusts to the Practice of Virtue and Religion with direful Threatnings that are continually Alarming and warning us of the dreadful Consequents of our Sins and sundry other such mighty I had almost said Almighty Motives as if we would seriously attend to would certainly render our Souls impregnable against all the Temptations of Vice And besides our Reason thus Armed and Accountered we have on our side the Holy Angels of God who are always ready to prompt us to and assist us in our Duty and to second us in all our spiritual Combats against the Enemies of our Souls And besides all these we have with us the Almighty Spirit of God who upon our sincere Desires and honest Endeavours is engaged to aid us and co-operate with us in working out our Salvation whose Grace is abundantly sufficient for us to strengthen us in our Weakness to support us under our greatest Difficulties and carry us on victoriously through the most violent Temptations And being back't with such mighty Auxiliaries how is it possible that we should miscarry unless we are resolved to betray our selves and give fire to the fatal Trains of our Enemies and if we are so bent there is no Remedy for our Obstinacy and it is just and fit we should be left to the dismal and pitiless Effect of our own Folly and Madness For if when we see our sleves in so much danger and it is yet in our Power to escape if we please we will notwithstanding precipitate our selves into Ruin all the World must agree upon an impartial Inquisition for the Blood of our Souls that we murdered our selves that God is just and that his hands are clean from any stain of our Blood and that our own Ruin is wholly owing to our own invincible Obstinacy III. I proceed now to the Third Proposition That our renouncing of Christ and his Religion will most certainly infer the loss of our Souls For as I have shewed you these Words are urged by our Saviour as a Motive to deter his Disciples from forsaking him as is plain from Ver. 24 25. which necessarily supposes that upon their forsaking him this Loss would most certainly and inevitably follow In the Prosecution therefore of this Argument I shall endeavour these two things 1. To shew you what that forsaking of Christ is which infers this Loss 2. Upon what Accounts our thus forsaking him infers it 1. What that forsaking of Christ is which infers this Loss To which I answer there is a Four-Fold Forsaking of Christ which the Scripture takes notice of as capital and damnable to the Souls of Men. 1. When we forsake him by a total Apostacy 2ly When we cowardly renounce the Profession of his Doctrine or any Part of it notwithstanding we still believe and are convinced of the Truth of it 3. When by obstinate Heresy we either add to or subtract from the Faith of Christ 4ly When by any wilful Course of Disobedience we do vertually renounce the Authority of his Laws 1. We lose and forfeit our Souls when we forsake Christ by a total Apostacy from him When after we have been Baptized into his Name and thereby have made a visible Profession of our believing his Doctrines and obeying his Laws we turn Runagadoes and cast off our Belief of the one and disown our Obligation to the other we do most justly incur the Loss and Forfeiture of our Souls For so strong and cogent is the Evidence of Christianity that it is not to be supposed that any professed Christian can be either innocently or excusably seduced into a Disbelief of it For Religion being a Matter of the vastest Moment and Concern
IOHANNES SCOTT S. T. P. Printed for S. Manship at the Ship near the Royal Exchange THE Christian Life Wheren is shew'd I. The Worth and Excellency of the Soul II. The Divinity and Incarnation of our Saviour III. The Authority of the Holy Scripture IV. A Dissuasive from Apostacy VOL. V. and Last By JOHN SCOTT D. D. late Rector of St. Giles's in the Fields The Second Edition LONDON Printed for S. Manship and R. Wilkin and are to be Sold by W. Davis at the Black Bull in Cornhill and I. Bonwick at the Hat and Star in St. Paul's Church-yard 1700. To the Honourable SUSANNA NOEL Mother to the Right Honourable Baptist Earl of Gainsborough THis last Volume of the Works of my Dear Deceased Friend the Reverend Dr. Scott is humbly and gratefully Dedicated by Her Honours Most obliged and most Devoted Servant Humphrey Zouch The CONTENTS Discourse I. Of the Worth and Excellency of the Soul THe Connexion and Explication of the Text p. 1 2. The inestimable price and value of the Soul of Man in respect of its own natural Capacities represented under 4 Heads viz. Its Capacity of Vnderstanding p. 4 5. Of Moral Perfection p. 6 7. Of Pleasure and Delight p. 8 9 10. Of Immortality p. 11 to p. 15. Of what Esteem the Soul is in the Judgment of those who know the best worth of it viz. the whole world of Spirits p. 15. to p. 25. Four Inferences from hence p. 26. to p. 34. What is meant by losing ones Soul explain'd p. 34. The Soul liable to a sevenfold Damage in the other World p. 35. to p. 50. Seven Causes of the Danger we are in of incurring this Damage p. 51. to p. 69. Men may forsake Christ and thereby lose their Souls 4 ways By a total Apostacy p. 70 71. By renouncing the profession of his Doctrine p. 72. By obstinate Heresie p. 73. By a willful Course of Disobedience of which there are three degrees the first proceeds from a willful ignorance of Christs Laws the 2d from a willful Inconsideration of our Obligation to them the 3d. from an Obstinacy in Sin against Knowledge and Consideration p. 74. to 80. Four Reasons why our forsaking of Christ infers this fearful loss of our Souls p. 81. to p. 90. That God if he be so Determin'd may without any injury either to his Justice or Goodness detain lost Souls in the bondage of Hell for ever prov'd in 6 Propositions p. 91. to 101. That God is actually determin'd so to do demonstrated by 3 Arguments p. 102. to p. 108. A Comparison between the gain of the VVorld and the loss of a Mans Soul in 6 Particulars whereby it is shewn of which side the Advantage lies p. 109. to p. 128. Discourse II. Of the Divinity and Incarnation of our Saviour A General Explication of this Term The Word P. 130. A full account of it in 4 Propositions shewing that it was derived from the Theology of the Jews and Gentiles 131. to 135. That we ought to fetch the Sense of it from that ancient Theology p. 136 137. That in that Theology it signifies a vital and divine Subsistence p. 138 to 139. And that our Saviour to whom it is applied in the New Testament is that vital and divine Subsistence p. 140 141 142. To be the Word of God denotes 4 Things to be generated of the Mind of the Father To be the perfect Image of that Mind To be the Interpreter of the Fathers Mind and to be the Executor of it and in these is founded the Reason of our Saviours being call'd The Word p. 143. to 153. VVhat we are to understand by the Words being made Flesh p. 153 154. Five Inferences from this Doctrine p. 155 166. VVhat is meant by the Word 's dwelling among us explain'd p. 167. to 174. His dwelling among us full of Grace explain'd in five particulars p. 175. to 190. His dwelling among us full of Truth explained in general 191. to 198. Four Instances of his dwelling among us full of Truth in Contradistinction to that obscure typical way of his Tabernacling among the Jews p. 199. to p. 229. Four Inferences the first from his dwelling among us p. 229 to 234. The 2d from his dwelling among us full of Grace and that 1. in respect of his own Personal Disposition p. 235. to 238. 2. Of his Laws p. 238. 239. 3. Of the Gracious Pardon which he hath procured for us and promised to us p. 240 241. 4. Of the abundant assistance he is ready to vouchsafe us p. 242 243. And 5 Of the glorious Recompence he hath promised to and prepared for us p. 244 245 The 3d From his dwelling among us full of Truth p. 246. to 249. The 4th From all these laid together He dwelt among us full of Grace and Truth p. 250 to 256. The Glory of the Word which the Apostles beheld consisted in 4 Things 1. A visible splendor and brightness which encompass'd him at his Baptism and Transfiguration p. 258 259. 2. Those great and stupendous Miracles which he wrought p. 260 261 262. 3. The surpassing Excellency and Divinity of his Doctrine p. 263 264. 4. The incomparable Sanctity and Purity of his Life p. 265 266 267. This Expression The Glory as of the Only-begotten Son explain'd p. 268 269 That the Glory of Christ in the Tabernacle of our Natures was such as became the Only-Begotten Son of the Father prov'd in the several particulars wherein it consists P. 270. to 279. Four Inferences from this fourfold glory of the Word which the Apostles saw p. 280. to the end Dis III. Of the Authority of the Holy Scriptures THe fulness of the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith and Manners prov'd in 3 Propositions 1. That the Holy Spirit inspir'd the Writers of them with all that is necessary to eternal Life p. 301. 2 That they preach'd to the World all those necessaries which they were taught p. 302. 3. That all these necessary Truths which they preached are comprehended in the Scriptures p. 303. to p. 316. The clearness of the Scripture prov'd 1 From express Testimony of Scripture p. 317. to p. 321. 2. From the avowed design of writing it p. 322 323. 3. From the frequent Commands God lays upon us to read it p. 324 325. 4. From the Obligation that lies upon us under pain of Damnation to believe and receive all those necessaries to Salvation contained in it p. 326. Four Considerations in answer to those of the Church of Rome who tell us that though all things are not revealed clearly in the Scriptures yet we have sufficient reason to believe them since God has left us to the Conduct of an infallible Church p. 327. to the end Dis IV. Of the Obligation of the People to read the Scriptures THat the People are obliged to search and read the Scriptures prov'd 1. From the Obligation the Jews were under to read and search the Scriptures of the Old Test p. 343
Power yet unless we had Vnderstanding to guide and manage it it would be altogether insignificant For Blind Power acts at Random and if we had the Force of a Whirl-wind yet without a Mind to stear and manage it it would be an equal Chance whether we did well or ill with it So that unless there were some Vnderstanding either within or without us to conduct our active Powers and determine them to our Good we were as good be altogether without them because while they act by Chance it is at least an equal Lay whether they will injure or advantage us Since therefore Vnderstanding is the Rule and Measure of all our other Powers it necessarily follows that it self is the greatest and noblest of them all What an excellent Being therefore must a Soul be in which this great and Sovereign Power resides a Power that can collect into it self such prodigious Numbers of simple Apprehensions and by comparing one with the other can connect them into true Propositions and upon each of these can run such long and curious Descants of Discourse till it hath drawn out all their Consequents into a Chain of wise and coherent Notions and sorted these into such various Systems of useful Arts and Sciences That can discern the Harmonious Contextures of Truths with Truths the secret Links and Junctures of coherent Notions trace up Effects to their Causes and sift the remotest Consequents to their natural Principles That can cast abroad its sharp-sighted Thoughts over the whole Extent of Beings and like the Sun with it s out-stretched Rays reach the remotest Objects That can in the Twinkling of an Eye expatiate through all the Vniverse and keep Correspondence with both Worlds can prick out the Paths of the Heavenly Bodies and measure the Circles of their Motion span the whole Surface of the Earth and dive into its Capacious Womb and there discover the numerous Offsprings with which it is continually teeming That can sail into the World of Spirits by the never-varying Compass of its Reason and discover those invisible Regions of Happiness and Misery which are altogether out of our sight whilest we stand upon this hither Shore In a word That can ascend from Cause to Cause to God who is the Cause of all and with its Eagle-Eyes can gaze upon that glorious Sun and dive into the infinite Abyss of his divine Perfections What an excellent Being therefore is that Soul that is endowed with such a vast Capacity of Vnderstanding and with its piercing Eye can reach such an immense Compass of Beings and travail through so vast an Horizon of Truth Doubtless if humane Souls had no other Capacity to value themselves by but only this this were enough to give them Preheminence over all inferiour Beings and render them the most glorious Part of all this sublunary World 2. The Soul of Man is of vast Worth in Respect of its Capacity of Moral Perfection For by the Exercise of those human Virtues which are proper to it in this state of Conjunction with the Body it is capable of raising it self to the Perfection of those Angelical Natures which of all Creatures do most nearly approach and resemble the great Creator and Fountain of all Perfection For by keeping a due Restraint upon its bodily Appetites and thereby gradually weaning it self from the Pleasures of the Body it may by degrees be educated and trained up to lead the Life and relish the Joys of naked and immortal Spirits it may be contempered to an incorporeal State so as to be able to enjoy it self without eating and drinking and live most happily upon the Fare of Angels upon Wisdom and Holiness and Love and Contemplation And then by governing its own Will and Affections by the Laws of Reason and Religion it may by degrees improve it self so far in all these Moral Endowments which are the proper Graces of every reasonable Nature as to be at last as perfectly wise and reasonable in its own Choices and Refusals in its Love and Hatred in its Desires and Delights as the Angels themselves are For though it cannot be expected that in this imperfect state a Soul should arrive to such a Pitch as this yet even now it may be growing up and aspiring to it which if it doth as I shall shew you by and by when this is expired it hath another Life to live which being antecedently prepared for by those spiritual Improvements it hath made here will furnish it with Opportunities of improving infinitely faster than here it did or possibly could For in that Life it shall not only be freed from those many Incumbrances which do here retard it in its spiritual Progress nor shall it only be associated with a World of pure and blessed Spirits whose holy Example and wise Converse will doubtless wonderfully edifie and improve it but be also admitted into a more intimate Acquaintance with God who is the Author and Pattern of all Perfection the sight of whose ravishing Beauty will inflame it with a most ardent Love to him and excite it to a most vigorous Imitation of him All which considered it is not to be imagined how much the state of Heaven will immediately improve those happy Souls that are prepared and disposed for it But then considering that Moral Perfection is as infinite as the Nature of God in which there is an Infinity of Holiness and Justice and Goodness within this boundless Subject there will be Room enough for Souls to make farther and farther Improvements in even to Eternity And then when they shall still be growing on so fast and yet be still forever improving to what a transcendent Height of Glory and Perfection will they at last arrive For tho no finite Soul can ever arrive to an infinite Perfection yet still it may be growing on to it because there will still be possible Degrees of it beyond its present Attainments and when it is arrived to the farthest imaginable Degree yet still it will be capable of farther and so farther and farther to all Eternity And if so O blessed God of what a Capacious Nature hast thou made these Souls of ours which tho they will doubtless improve in Goodness as fast in the other Life as is possible for them with all the Advantages of a Heavenly State yet will never attain to an utmost Period but still be growing perfecter and perfecter for ever 3. The Soul of Man is of vast Worth in Respect of its immense Capacities of Pleasure and Delight For its Capacity of Pleasure must necessarily be as large and extensive as its Capacity of Vnderstanding and of Moral Perfection because the proper Pleasure of a Soul results from its own Knowledge and Goodness from its farther Discoveries of Truth and farther Proficiency in inward Rectitude and Virtue and consequently as it Improves farther and farther in Vnderstanding and in Moral Perfection it must still gather more and more Fuel to feed and encrease its own Joy and
them he designed to grant it to them in such a Way and upon such a wise and weighty Consideration as might at once affect them with the greatest sense of his Love and the deepest A we of his Severity that so whilst by the former he allured by the later he might terrify to Repentance To which end he determined not to grant it to them upon any other Consideration than that of anothers suffering for them and undergoing the Punishment of their Sin in their stead that so whilst he shewed his Love to them in admitting another to suffer for them he might express his Hatred to their Sin in not Pardoning it without anothers suffering And that he might manifest this his Love to them and this his Hatred to their Sin in the highest Degree as he admitted another to suffer for us so he resolved to accept no meaner Suffering than that of his own beloved Son And that this his suffering might be the more effectual he proposed to send him down to us into this lower World cloathed in our Natures that so he might not only the more familiarly instruct us by his Doctrine and Example but the more exactly personate us in undergoing the Punishment of our Sin and upon his undertaking to undergo it the most Merciful Father agreed to this Covenant of Mercy by which he obliged himself to receive us into his Favour upon our unfeigned Repentance and impower'd his Son to govern us according to the Tenour of it that is to Crown us with the Rewards of it if we Repented and inflict on us the Punishments of it if we went on in our Impenitence And that there might be nothing wanting to render this Government of his Son successful and us obedient to it he also agreed upon this his Mighty undertaking to substitute to him the Holy Ghost to be the supreme Minister of his Government that so by the Agency of this vicarious Power he might bow and incline the Hearts of Men to submit unto him and comply with the Terms of this Merciful Covenant in which their everlasting Welfare is so abundantly provided for This is the mighty Project which for the sake of the Souls of Men the Father of Spirits hath contrived and upon which he hath acted and proceeded even from their first Fall to this very Moment And by this he hath most plainly expressed the high and great Veneration that he hath of them for doubtless had they not been exceeding precious in his Eyes he would never have thought it worth the while to project and act such mighty Things to redeem and save them He would rather have left them to their own Fate and not have concerned himself about them or not have concerned himself to that Degree as to make them the Subjects of such a vast Design For all wise Agents measure their Designs by the Worth and Value of the Things they aim at and do never lay great Projects for the sake of little Trifles and unless God had a mighty Value for the Souls of Men his making such vast Preparations to save them would be like that foolish Emperors raising a numerous Army only to go and gather Cockle-shells 2. Let us consider the vast Price which God the Son hath set upon Souls For it is plain he valued them at that mighty Rate as that for their sakes he willingly undertook to execute this vast Design of his Father and that to save these precious Beings he thought it would be very well worth his while to come down from Heaven and vail his Divinity in our Natures to put on the Form of a Servant and make himself of no Reputation to live a Miserable Life and die a painful and accursed Death And can we think he would ever have laid down so vast a Price as his Glory and Happiness his Life and Blood amounts to for Things of a mean and inconsiderable Value Had he so low an Esteem of his Father's Bosom and his own Heavenly Glory as to part with them for Trifles Such slight Apprehensions of Shame and Sorrow Pain and Misery as to cast himself into them for the sake of Beings he had little or no Esteem of Could any thing but what is inestimable countervail to that Glory he parted with and that Misery he indured Or can you think those Souls of little Worth which the Son of God thought worth his dying for No certainly if we knew nothing of our Souls but this that the Son of God thought them a good Purchase at the dear Price of his Bliss his Glory and his Blood yet from thence we have infinite Reason to conclude them most precious and inestimable Beings it being impossible that he who doth so perfectly understand the Worth and Value of Things should ever be so over-seen as to pay so vast a Sum for slight and cheap Commodities 3. Let us consider the vast Price which God the Holy Ghost hath set upon Souls For 't is for their sakes that he doth so Industriously operate in the Kingdom of our Saviour that he takes so much Pains in it as he doth and hath alway done ever since it was first erected to drive on that blessed Design of making the Souls of Men the native Subjects of it happy It is upon their Account that he hath made so many Revelations of God's Will to the World and confirmed them by so many Miracles that so he might extricate those precious Beings out of those Labyrinths of Error in which they had involved and lost themselves and direct them into the way to true Happiness And it is for their good that he still continues shedding forth his Heavenly Influences upon them that he still inspires them with so many good Thoughts importunes them with such urgent Motives presses upon them with such earnest Struglings and vigorous Efforts not only of his preventing but of his assisting Grace too that if possible he may awaken them into a Sense of their Danger and excite and quicken them to pursue the Methods of their own Safety and Happiness So infinitely jealous is this blessed Spirit lest these precious Beings should Miscarry that tho one would think them sufficiently safe-guarded in their Voyage through this dangerous Sea under the Convoy of their own Reason yet he dares not trust them to themselves but bears them Company all along and keeps a watchful Eye over them and when any Rock is nigh he warns them of it and when they are beset with evil Spirits those mischievous Pirates that lie in wait to Captivate and Inslave them he presently comes into their Assistance and unless they are resolved to betray themselves always brings them off victoriously Nay tho they many times not only yield to these Piratical Spirits but joyn their Forces with them to resist and beat off their merciful Friend and Deliverer yet he doth not therefore presently abandon them but being infinitely concerned for their Rescue follows them even to the Mouth of
but be sensible how much it is diseased in all its Faculties how much its Vnderstanding is overloaded with Error and Ignorance its Will festered with unreasonable Malice and Obstinacy and its Conscience oppressed with Loads of Guilt sufficient to sink it to the nethermost Hell yet we seem for the Generality to be no more concerned at it than if its Ruin or Recovery were equally indifferent to us We can set it perishing before our Eyes without any Remorse or Compassion we can pass Day after Day wihtout making the least Offer or Attempt to recover it without offering up a Prayer for it or entertaining a serious Thought what will become of it for ever O insensible Creatures that we are thus to neglect and abandon the most precious Part of our selves The Part that makes us Men and by which alone we are capable of being happy or miserable for ever Let me therefore beseech and conjure you even by all that is sacred and serious by every thing that is dear and precious to you by your best Hopes and the most important Concern of your everlasting Fate to take pity upon your perishing Souls to consider the amazing Dangers whereunto you have exposed them and to consult the Means of their Recovery to prick and affect your Hearts with the Sense and Consideration of their impending Ruin till you have forced them to cry out what shall we do to be saved to bath their Wounds with the Tears of Repentance and to pour into them that most sovereign Balm of a serious Purpose and Resolution of Amendment to pray earnestly for them and keep a continual Guard about them and to strive vigorously with those sinful Inclinations that threaten to sink and ruin them And if we will be but content to undergo these necessary Cares and Pains to secure them we shall be sure when they leave these Bodies to reap the Fruits of all in the Possession of an unspeakably happy and glorious Eternity II. I proceed now to the Second Proposition contained in these Words that our precious Souls may be lost And this our Saviour here plainly supposes If he gain the whole World and lose his own Soul The Greek Word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies to receive a Mulct or to suffer Damage and therefore it is here opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he shall gain So that the Word doth not denote the absolute Loss or Extinction of the Soul but its undergoing some dreadful Mulct or suffering some irreparable Damage For as Hierocles hath observed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Immortal Substances cannot so die as to lose their Being but so as to lose their Well-being they may And accordingly our Saviour himself calls the Punishment of the Wicked in Hell Fire destroying them Mat. x. 28. Fear not them which kill the Body but fear him which is able destroy both Soul and Body in Hell Where by destroying he doth not mean putting a final End to their Being but putting them into an irrecoverable State of Ill-being for in this State of Destruction they still continue to act to weep and wail and gnash their Teeth as Christ elsewhere tells us Mat. xiii 42. which Actions plainly suppose their Continuance in Being though in a most wretched and deplorable Ill-being So that by the Loss of the Soul here is not meant the Destruction of its Being but its being exposed to an irreparable Damage in the other World And to prove that in this Sense a Soul may be lost I shall endeavour these two Things First To shew you what Damages the Soul is liable to in the other World Secondly Upon what Accounts it is liable to and in Danger of them I. What Damages the Soul is liable to in the other World To which I answer that there is a seven-fold Damage whereunto the Soul of Man may be exposed hereafter 1st It is liable to be deprived of the highest Happiness it is capable of 2ly It is liable to the most dreadful Punishment and Correction of the Father of Spirits 3ly It is liable to the Fury and Violence of Devils and other malignant Spirits 4. It is liable to be confined to the most dismal and uncomfortable Abodes 5ly It is liable to the perpetual Vexations of its own cross wild and furious Passions 6ly It is liable to the intolerable Anguish of its own guilty Conscience 7ly It is liable to indure all these dismal Things for ever 1st The Soul of Man is liable to be deprived of the highest Happiness it is capable of The highest Happiness that a Soul is capable of is to enjoy God that is to know and love and resemble him and to be admitted into the noble Society of those pure and blessed Spirits that do thus enjoy him of all which Happiness a Soul may be for ever deprived by its own vicious and depraved Temper For besides that by such a Temper it may provoke the just and holy God who hath the Disposal of the fate of Souls to deprive it of and banish it from this Happiness for ever it may thereby also utterly incapacitate it self from ever enjoying it it may promote and raise that Temper to such a Degree of Averfation and Antipathy to God and canker it into such an inveterate Enmity to all the Perfections of his Nature as that at last it may be utterly incapable of any such beatifical Knowledge of them as can any ways incline it to love and imitate him For the Apostle tells us that the carnal Mind is empty to God Rom. viii 7. From whence it is evident that in every Degree of Sin there is a Degree of Aversation to God which Aversation may be improved into such an implacable Malice against him as that our Knowledge of him instead of endearing him to us or ingaging us to imitate him may only avert us from provoke and irritate us against him and by presenting to us those immense Perfections for which he deserves our dearest Love and deepest Adoration may only fill our Minds with the greater Rage and more invincible Horror And when the Soul is arrived to such a Degree of Malignity against God it is as impossible for it to injoy him as to be recreated with Torment or delighted with the Objects of its own Antipathies And for the same Reason also it must be incapable of enjoying the Society of blessed Spirits because it hath acquired a Temper that is infinitely repugnant to their Heavenly Genius so that if such a prejudiced Soul should when it is arrived into Eternity find the Gates of Heaven open to receive it it would doubtless be so offended at every thing that is Heavenly so startled at the Sight of God and the Displays of his hated Perfections and seized with such a Horror against those god-like Beings that dwell there and are perpetually contemplating and adoring loving and imitating him that it would fly away of its own Accord from that blissful Habitation as Bats
Gods righteous Vengeance who as we now find by Experience have Power to suggest black and horrid Thoughts and to torture our our Souls with such dreadful Imaginations as are far more sharp and exquisite than any bodily Torment And if now they have such Power over us when God thinks fit to let them loose what will they have hereafter when these our wretched Spirits shall be wholly abandoned to their Mercy and they shall have a free Scope to exercise their Fury upon us and glut their hungry Malice with our Vexations and Torments It seems at least a mighty probable Notion that that horrid Agony of our Saviour in the Garden which caused him to shriek and grone and sweat as it were great Drops of Blood was only the Effect of those preternatural Terrors which the Devils with whom he was then in Combat impressed upon his innocent Mind And if they had so much Power over his pure and mighty Soul that was so strongly guarded with the most perfect and unspotted Virtues what will they have over ours when God hath abandoned us to them and throws us as Preys into their Mouths with what an hellish Rage will they fly upon our guilty and timorous Souls in which there is so much Tinder for their injected Sparks of Horror to take Fire on When therefore our guilty Spirits shall not only be liable to the Scourge of God but Devils and damned Ghosts too shall have their full Swing at them doubtless the Hell within them will be far more intollerable than any Hell of Fire and Brimstone without them 4ly The Soul of Man is also liable to be confined to the most dismal and uncomfortable Abodes What or where the Abode of wicked Spirits is till the Morn of the Resurrection is no where expresly determined in the Holy Scripture but since wheresoever they are they are doubtless under the Power and Dominion of the Devil who as the Scripture assures us is Prince of the Power of the Air it is highly probable that their present Residence is in these lower Regions of the World that either being chased by those infernal Powers under whose Tyranny they are they are continually hurrying about in these inferiour Tracts of Air or which perhaps is more probable that they are imprisoned by those invisible Ministers of the divine Justice within the dark Abysses and under-ground Vaults of the Earth and not permitted but upon special Occasions to come abroad into this upper Region of Light and Liberty But wheresoever they are it is doubtless in some such horrid and dismal Prison as is fit only to receive such vile and desperate Malefactors and secure them till the great Assizes when they shall be brought forth to receive their Tryal and final Judgment And then being united to their Bodies and thereby made liable to corporeal Torments the Scripture expresly affirms that they shall be shut up in everlasting Flames and be tormented for ever in a Lake of Fire and Brimstone for then the Lord himself shall come in Flames of Fire to render Vengance to all those that obeyed not his Gospel and having with those raging Flames set every Part of this lower World on Fire he will re-ascend with all his Train to the celestial Mansions and leave the Wicked weltring for ever in this burning Vault below for it is plain that the everlasting Fire to which he will then Sentence them is the Conflagration of the World which after the Just are raised and caught up in the Clouds above the Reach of its aspiring Flames shall break forth on every side and turn all this Atmosphere into a Furnace of inquenchable Fire and therein shall those wicked Miscreants that would not be reclaimed be condemned to live for ever For the Judgment being ended the Judg and all his Retinue shall return and leave them in the midst of a burning World surrounded with Smoak and Fire Darkness and Confusion and wrapt in fierce and merciless Flames which shall stick close to and pierce through and through their Bodies and for ever prey upon but never consume them And what an intolerable Mulct this is I leave every Mans natural Sense to judge 5ly The Soul of Man is also liable to the perpetual Vexations of its own cross wild and furious Passions We have sufficient Experience in this Life how vexatious our cross and excessive Passions are for when our Passions are divided and contrary Objects have raised contrary Desires and Appetites in us how do they rend and distract our Souls and cause perpetual Mutinies and Tumults within us But by Reason of those many sensual Gratifications with which we now make a shift to stop the Mouths of those Daughters of the Horse-Leech when they cry out give give we cannot be so sensible of the Trouble and Vexation of them unless we now subdue and mortifie them we we shall be forced to carry them into Eternity along with us For by being separated from their Bodies the Souls of Men are never separated from their prevailing Tempers but in their separated State are for the main of the same Disposition as they were here and do retain the same Passions and Appetites 'T is true they cannot be supposed to retain their bodily Appetites after they have thrown off their Bodies but when they have wholly accustomed themselves in this Life to fleshly Pleasures and have never Experienced spiritual ones it is impossible but that in the other they should be tormented with an outragious Desire of being imbodied again that so being incapable of relishing any other they may repeat those fleshly Pleasures which heretofore they were accustomed to and act over the bruitish Scene anew And this vehement Hankering of these earnalized Souls to return into their Bodily State is perhaps the only Sensuality that a separate Soul is capable of but it is such a Sensuality as must necessarily render such Souls extremely miserable for in that State it will be like the Hunger of a Starving Man that is Immured between two dead Walls that is it will be a fierce Desire without Hope of Satisfaction a corroding Hunger sharpened with Despair of Food than which there is nothing more intolerably grievous and tormenting For how will it vex the wretched Spirit to look back from the Shores of Eternity into this corporeal World and to ruminate thus with it self O miserable Creature that I am here am I cast away for ever upon a strange and desolate Shore where I must Famish for want of Food pine away a long Eternity and wander to and fro for ever tormented with restless Rage and hungry unsatisfied Desires where is not one Pleasure that I can relish not an Object that I can taste any sweetness in We is me yonder are all my Joys and Comforts all that is dear and precious to me O that I might go back again and be once more restored to the Injoyment of them but alas between me and them there runs an impassible Gulph
that deprives me of all hope of returning For thus will the unhappy Soul torment it self with an outragious Longing for that which it can never hope to enjoy But then besides this Appetite of Sensuality which it will there be vexed with it will also carry along with it all that Envy and Malice that Wrath and Impatience Pride and Insolence which it here contracted which Black and Hellish Passions will prove perpetual Furies in its Bosom For in that wretched State it will not only have Objects always present to excite them but such Objects too as will excite them all at once to the most outragious Excesses For when all at once it shall see others advanced to the greatest Heights of Glory and Happiness and it self not only rejected but abandoned to endless Misery the Sense of this must necessarily irritate all its devilish Passions to the highest Extremities and cause its Pride to swell its Envy to burst and its Wrath to boil into a Diabolical Fury and what a continual Hell must this create in the Soul to be perpetually worried with so many black and rabid Passions to have all its inferiour Parts and Affections like those of the Monster Scylla whom the Poets talk of as so many Dogs continually barking and snarling at one another and yet remain unseparable as being Comparts of the same Substance 6ly The Soul of Man is also liable to the intolerable Anguish of its own guilty Conscience The Spirit of a Man says Solomon can bear his Infirmities but a wounded Spirit who can bear Intimating that of all the Passions which humane Nature is liable to there are none so grievous as that of a Mind awakened with a sense of Guilt And of the Truth of this we have some Experience even in this Life tho now we can make a shift either to divert our selves by our sensual Mirth and Jollities from listening to the Clamours of our guilty Minds or else to deceive our selves into a groundless Peace by indulgent and fallacious Principles but unless we expiate our Guilts here we shall carry them into Eternity with us where all those sensual Pleasures with which we now divert our selves from reflecting on our Actions will be removed and all those fallacious Principles with which we cheat and deceive our selves will be baffled by a woful Experience So that then our Soul will be nakedly exposed to the Lash of its own furious Thoughts and having nothing to guard or defend it self against the cutting Reflections of a guilty Conscience which being roused up and kept awake by the unintermitting sense of our Misery will be always clamouring upon us and continually torturing our wretched Minds with sharp and vexatious Reflections and besides whilst our Soul doth act by bodily Instruments and work in this Mire of Flesh it is impossible it should be so nimble and expedite in its Motions as it will be when it is a naked Spirit For then its Perceptions will be much clearer its Convictions more strong and evident and all its Reflections active as the Lightning and quick as the Wing of an Angel So that whereas now the sharpest Stings of our Conscience have an Intermixture of Fancy and Imagination in them being gross and material Powers do dull and rebate the Edge of them and render them less pungent and sensible when we are stripped out of our Flesh and sent naked into the other World we shall have no Clog about us to break or allay those sharp Reflections with which we shall be forced to lash our selves for ever And then our Conscience will cut to the quick and sting with a corroding Venom then will the Remembrance of those Guilts which brought our Miseries upon us rouze up such a Swarm of Horrors in our Minds as we shall be able neither to avoid nor indure For the Sense of our Misery will be every Moment suggesting those Guilts to our Minds that were the Cause of it and continually upbraiding us with those desperate Follies by which we ran our selves into it the Consideration of which will cause us to hate and curse our selves for ever and to discharge our Fury upon our own Heads which will make our Soul turn Devil to it self and force it to be its own Executioner For it being now conscious to it self that its Miseries are nothing else but the rueful and pitiless Deserts of its own Folly and Madness it will be continually meditating horrible Reflections and singing Satyrs on it self So that while it is wandring among wretched Ghosts through the dismal Shades below it will never cease lashing it self with its own sharp and stinging Thoughts till it hath chafed it self into a Fury and boiled up its self-condemning Rage into everlasting Madness 7ly And lastly The Soul of Man is also liable to endure all these dismal things for ever For that our Souls are naturally immaterial and immortal I have already proved so that if God in his infinite Justice shall think fit to sentence wicked Souls irrecoverably to all these above named Miseries they must by the Constitution of their own Natures live in and undergo them for ever And that he doth think to pronounce and execute such a Sentence upon them he himself hath assured us for so in Scripture he hath plainly declared that their Punishment shall be everlasting Mat. 25.7 These saith he speaking of the Wicked shall go away into everlasting Punishment and accordingly the Fire in and with which they are to be punished is called everlasting fire Mat. 25.41 and that that they shall subsist for ever in this Fire and be co-eternal with it is evident by those Passions and Actions that are attributed to them in it for Rev. 14.11 they are said to have no rest day nor night in it but to be in a continual unintermitting Fever that will necessary burn and scorch them and not allow them the least Intervals of Ease or Comfort And in Mat. 13.42 the bitter Anguish which they shall endure in this Fire is described by their weeping and wailing and gnashing their Teeth which Actions are plain Indications not only of their subsisting in this everlasting Fire but of the extream Horror and Anguish that they shall therein endure And indeed when God sentences any immortal Being to Misery its Misery must be supposed to continue as long as it lives and consequently to continue for ever since it is to subsist and live for ever And what a fearful Accession is this to all those above named Miseries If we were to endure the softest and most gentle Pain without any Interval for thirty forty or a hundred Years the Prospect of that which is to come would render that which is present so intolerable that we should quickly grow weary of our Lives and wish our selves in our Graves Lord what shall we then do when we come to languish out a long Eternity in the tormenting Agonies of damned Ghosts How will it imbitter every present Torment to us to
to the lowermost is the bottomless Pit and for all we know the very last Step we took brought us to the Brinks of the flaming Abyss and if it did one Step further will set us beyond all Hope of Recovery For in our sinful Progress we are wading forwards in a shelving Pool which the farther we go the deeper it is and so deeper and deeper till we come to the Bottom of it so that at every Step we are in Danger of going beyond our Depth and plunging our selves into in irrecoverable Ruin for we know not how soon we may be snatched away in our Iniquities and if it should so happen that after we have sinned this Moment we should die the next this will determine our everlasting Fate and sink us into eternal Misery Wherefore as we tender the safety of our precious Souls let us speedily forsake this dangerous Road in which Perdition way-lays and Hell gapes to devour us every step we go and return unto our Lord in whom our safety lyes As yet the Opportunity of Salvation is in our Hands but before to morrow Morning it may slip away from between our Fingers and vanish for ever and we that are this day wallowing in our Sins may before the next be roaring in Hell So that while we defer and put off our Repentance from day to day we do as it were cast Lots for our Souls and venture our everlasting Hopes upon a Contingency that is not in our Power to dispose of As yet the Gate of Mercy is open to us and our blessed Lord stands ready with his Arms out-stretched to welcome and receive us but for all we know if we enter not presently the Gate may be shut within a few Moments and then though we knock and cry till our hearts ake Lord Lord open to us we shall receive no other Answer but Depart from me I know you not O Good God how are we besotted then that rather than begin our Repentance to day we will wilfully run the Hazard of being eternally miserable before to morrow Morning For if this should be the Evening of our day of Tryal as for all we know it may our Life and Eternity depends upon what we are now doing and therefore one would think it should highly concern us wisely to manage this last stake the winning or losing whereof may prove our making or undoing In pity therefore to our pershing Souls let us return to our Saviour before it be too late before our Feet stumble on the dark Mountains and we fall down into everlasting Darkness And being returned and re-united to him let us have a Care we do not revolt again for if we draw back we cancel our Repentance and forfeit all its blesed Fruits and Benefits and unless we stedfastly persevere and hold out to the end all the Pains we have taken in our Christian Course will be for ever lost and the Remembrance of it will only administer to our future Misery For how will it vex us in the other World to consider the Labour it cost us to take Heaven by Storm How vigorously we strove to mount the Scaling Ladder through how many Difficulties we had forced our way to that height of Vertue and Religion we were arrived to and then when we are got as it were to the topmost Rounds and had laid our Hands upon the Battlements of Heaven just ready to leap in and take possession of all its Joys how basely we let go our Hold and so tumbled down from that stupendious height into the bottomless Abyss of endless Misery Doubtless this Consideration must necessarily sting our woful Souls hereafter and for ever inrage them against themselves Wherefore as we value the Safety of our precious Souls let us who by our wilful Rebellions have gone astray return and constantly adhere to our blessed Saviour Alas where can we be happier than in his Service who imposeth nothing on us but what contributes to our Welfare Where can we be safer than in his Arms and under his Protection who hath the Command and Disposal of all Events and to whom all Power is given in Heaven and Earth Where can we be placed more to our own Advantage than under his Guidance and Authority who never permits any to serve him for nought but hath engaged himself to recompence our Labour with a Crown of Glory that fades not away And is it not strange that after so many advantagious Invitations we should need to be scared to our Duty that after our blessed Master hath enjoyned us such a reasonable gnetle and infinitely beneficial Service he should be forced to terrify us into it with the Flames of Hell IV. I proceed now to the Fourth Proposition That when the Soul is lost 't is lost irrecoverably where the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Exchange is used in the same sense with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Price of Redemption denoting that when once a Man hath sold his Soul to Perdition it is unredeemable and that no Price will be accepted for its Ransom and Deliverance when a Man's Soul is in Hell under the wretched Bondage of a Damned Spirit how little soever he regards it now he would give all the World if it were in his power to be released again but if he had a thousand Worlds it will not do his bondage being such as will admit no Ransom For these Words of our Saviour seem to have been a common Proverb of the Age he lived in and that derived from those words of the Devil in Job All that a Man hath will he give for his Life that is when a Man is dying he would willingly part with all to redeem his Life but all will not do Which Proverb our Saviour adapts to his own Argument in which he proceeds from temporal to eternal Life If a Man would give so much for his temporal Life what would he not give for his eternal one But as our temporal Life is not to be redeemed so neither is our eternal one when once it is lost for when once our Soul is lost or abandoned to the State of the Damned it is lost for ever and there is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ransom that will be accepted of by God for its Redemption thence In the Prosecution of which Argument I shall endeavour these two things 1. To shew you that if God be so determined he may without any Injury either to his Justice or Goodness detain lost Souls in the Bondage of Hell for ever and absolutely refuse to accept any Ransom for them 2. That he is actually determined so to do 1. That if God be so determined he may without any Injury either to his Justice or Goodness detain lost Souls in the Bondage of Hell for ever without accepting any Ransom for them And this I doubt not will plainly appear upon the due Consideration of these following Propositions 1st That God being the
Kindness When we see a Child slight his careful and indulgent Parents we are ready to account him an unnatural Monster when we see a Man neglect his Friend or disregard his Benefactor we presently call him base and ungrateful nay when we see one abuse a poor brute Creature that fawns upon him and expresses its Kindness to him we look upon it as an undoubted Sign of a very hard Heart and an ill Nature What Term then can we find in all the World of Words that is odious enough to express our Disaffection to our Blessed Redeemer to whom we are so infinitely obliged Base Disingenuous Ill-natured and Vngrateful are all too soft 't is something beyond Barbarous and Devilish For one would think that neither the most inhumane Canibal on Earth nor the blackest Devil in Hell could ever be guilty of so foul a Crime which hath something in it too monstrous for any Words to express Well therefore may the Heavens be astonished and the Earth tremble and all the Creation of God stand amazed at us to see how insentible we are of this most ravishing and endearing Love Well may we be amazed at our selves and wonder at our own Stupidity to think that the Son of God should be so kind as to come down from Heaven to visit us to leave the Habitation of his Glory and shroud his Divinity in mortal Flesh and make himself a miserable Wight meerly that he might make us happy and advance us to that Glory and Bliss which for our sakes he willingly abandoned and yet that we are no more touched and affected with it than with the most indifferent Thing in the World Blessed God what are we made of What kind of Souls do we carry about with us that no Kindness will oblige us no not the most endearing that ever was known or heard of Doubtless should any Man have shewn us but half this Kindness should a Friend but offer to die for us or a Prince to descend from his Throne and put himself into the State of a Beggar to inrich and advance us in the World we should have thought our selves bound to him as long as we lived and should we have thought any Services too much any Requitals too dear for him we should have been lookt upon as Monsters of Ingratitude as the Peproaches and Scandals of humane Nature and been hiss'd out of all Society for a Company of infamous Villains unworthy of the least Repsect or Favour from Mankind But for a Friend to die or a Prince to become a Beggar for our sakes alas what poor inconsiderable Things are they compared with the Condescentions of the Son of God who humbled himself much lower in becoming a Man than the most glorious Angel in Heaven could have done in assuming the Nature of a Worm And can we be so inhumane as not to be moved by such a Miracle of condescending Love Is it the less because it is the Lore of God or doth it less deserve our Requital What Excuse then can we make for our wretched Insensibility O ungrateful that we are with that Confidence can we shew our Heads among reasonable Beings after we have so barbarously slighted our best Friend and behaved our selves so disingenuously towards our greatest Benefactor How can we pretend to any thing that is modest or ingenuous tender or apprehensive in humant Nature when nothing will oblige us no not that astonishing Love that made the Son of God leave all his Glory and become a poor miserable Mortal for our sakes O blessed Jesus what do thy holy Angels think of us how do thy blessed Saints resent our Unkindness towards thee yea how justly will the Devils themselves reproach and upbraid our Baseness who had as they are were never so much Devils yet as to spurn the Love of a Redeemer coming down from Heaven to die and suffer for their sakes Wherefore as we would not be hiss'd at by all the reasonable World and become Spectacles of Horror to God and Angels and Devils let us endeavoun to affect our selves with the Love of our Redeemer and to inflame our own Souls with the Sense of his Kindness who hath done such mighty things to endear and oblige us 4. From hence I infer what monstrous Disingenuity it would be in us to think much of parting with any thing or doing any thing for the sake of Christ who for our sakes parted with his Father's Bosom and all those infinite Delights which he there enjoyed and united himself to our miserable Nature that he might make us good and happy for ever And now after all this with what Conscience or Modesty can we grudge to do any thing which he shall require at our hands Should he command me to descend into the lowest Form of Beings and to become the most wretched and contemptible of all Animals could I be such a Caitif as to deny him who descended much lower for the sake of me Should he remand me back into Non-entity and bid me cease to be for ever alas the Distance is nothing so great between me and nothing as 't was betwixt him and that humane Nature which he assumed for my sake Should he require me to die for him under all those lingering and exquisite Tortures which the blessed Martyrs suffered for his Name what Proportion were there between what he requires of me and what he hath done for me He only requires that I should pass through Death to Heaven for him but he came from Heaven to pass through Death for me so that for his sake I should only put off a wretched Garment of Flesh that I may be inrobed with Glory and Immortality but for my sake he put off his Robes of Glory and Majesty that he might wear my frail and mortal Flesh and therein reconcile me to God and make me everlastingly happy And when I may advance my self into an Equality with Angels by suffering the Agonies of a miserable Death for him shall I refuse or thing much of it when he who was equal with God in Glory and Happiness was so ready to be born a wretched miserable Man for me Should he require me to give my Substance to the Poor and leave my self destitute of all Supplies and Comforts could I deny so poor a Request to him who forsook a Heaven of Infinite Pleasures for my sake and exposed himself naked to the Mercy of a wretched wicked and ill-natured World from whom he could expect nothing but the most barbarous Contempt and Cruelty Sure one would thing 't were impossible for any reasonable Being to deny such poor such inconsider able Boons to such a great and deserving Benefactor and yet these are much more then what he ordinarily requires at our hands For that which he ordinarily requires of us is that we would forsake those Vices which are as injurious to us as they are hateful to him and which are therefore hateful to him because they are our Enemies and
if we could because we are able to do all through Christ who will strengthen us if we will but do what we can so that this methinks should be sufficient to encourage any reasonable Man in the World to undertake his Service to consider that he who is my Master will co-operate with me and proportion my Strength to the Work he enjoyns me that he will not stand still with his Arms in his Bosom and see me struggle in vain under an insupportable But then of Duties but that he will set too his own Shoulders and contribute his own Strength and enable me by degrees to undergo it with Ease and Alacrity so that though thro' the Weakness and Importency which I have voluntarily contracted my Duty is become too heavy for my Shoulders yet I will never be disheartened so long as I am sure it is not too heavy for my Saviour's for if I heartily endeavour I am confident I shall undergo it if it be in the Power of an Almighty Grace to enable me 5. And lastly He was full of Grace to us also in Respect of that glorious Recompence which he hath promised to us and prepared for us I confess were his Service all Work and no Wages there were some Reason to be disheartned but when he hath promised and so amply assured us that after we have spent a few Days or Years in his Service upon Earth he will receive us into the Participation of his own Joys where we shall commence as happy as it is possible for an everlasting Heaven to make us methinks we should kiss his Yoke and court his Service and think we can never do too much for such a bountiful Master who rewards all his Servants with such immortal Preferments For what is the Labour of a few Moments compared with that everlasting Rest and Pleasure wherein it shall shortly terminate And when once we are arrived to the Heavenly Canaan and have tasted those ravishing Delights with which it flows and abounds how light and inconsiderable will all these Difficulties in our Voyage appear to us which now do so startle and affright us How shall we wonder at our own Sloth and Faint-heartedness to think that ever we should be such wretched Cowards as to be afraid of any thing that hath Heaven at the End of it which is a Happiness so vast and unspeakable that the Hope of it is sufficient to turn Torments into Recreations How shall we be astonished at our selves to think that we could ever be such wretched Fools as to deliberate one Moment whether Heaven were preferable before all the Pleasures of Sin or whether it were more eligible to dwell with Harlots and Drunkards for a Moment and wallow in their beastly Pleasures than to enjoy the Society of God and Saints and Angels to all Eternity The Odds will then appear so vast and the Disproportion so unspeakable that we shall wonder how we could ever be so sensless as to make a Comparison between them Sure Sirs we do not believe that Heaven is the Recompence of Christ's Service for if we did methinks we should more heartily engage in it For could we stand thus deliberating upon the Shore whether we shall bid adieu to our Lusts take Leave of all their fulsom Pleasures and imbark our selves in the Service of our Saviour Could we stand pausing thus as we do whether we shall venture into those petty Storms that are like to attend us in our spiritual Voyage did we verily believe that a few Leagues Distance lies that blessed Shore where we shall be crowned as soon as we are landed with all the Joys than an everlasting Heaven means Certainly the Belief of this is sufficient to put Life and Courage into the most crest-fallen-crest-fallen-Soul in the World and to give her Spirit and Vigour enough to carry her triumphantly through all the weary Stages of her Duty So that considering how in all Respects our blessed Lord abounds in Grace and Goodness to us we have the greatest Encouragement imaginable to engage us to his Service 3dly He was full of Truth From whence I infer that the Christian Religion is a very plain and intelligible thing For this as I have shewed you at large is one of the great Notes of Distinction between Christ's tabernacling among the Jews and among Christians that whereas among the Jews he was full of obscure Types and mystical Representations among us Christians he is full of Truth that is he is plain and open and clear without any dark Reserves or Mysteries now he hath plainly revealed that which before he did so obscurely decypher now he hath unriddled all those mystical Types and turned them as it were inside outwards and given us their hidden Sense and Meaning in plain and naked Propositions and of these our holy Religion is composed So that those Doctrines which before were all Mystery whilst they lay obscurely couched under the Types and Figures of the Law are now brought forth from behind the Curtain into the open View of the World and presented barefac'd to our Understandings in the most plain and easy and familiar Senfe Not but that Christianity hath some Mysteries in it still whose Depths we are not able to fathom but 't is not because Christ hath not revealed them but because our Understandings are incapable of comprehending them such are the Doctrines of the Holy Trinity the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour and the Hypostatical Vnion of the Divine and Humane Nature in him Nor indeed is it much to be wonder'd at that we who with all our Wit and Reason are not able to explicate the Mysteries of a Mite or Flea of a Plant or a Stone or any of those innumerable things that are before us should not be able to understand such incomprehensible to order such infinite or define such ineffable things but though we cannot comprehend the Modes nor understand the strict Philosophy of them yet if we would but strip them out of their false Disguises into their original Plainness and Simplicity we might doubtless easily disintangle them from all Repugnancy and Contradiction which is sufficient to render them rationally credible they being contained in that excellent Religion whose Truth is demonstrated by such abundant Evidence But perhaps as God continued all the Doctrines of Christianity in a Mystery among the Jews and reserved the clear Revelation of them to the coming of the Messias so for the same Reason he hath still reserved the clear Discovery of those Doctrines which are still Mysteries to us Christians for the future State and then it may be we may as fully understand these as the believing Jews after the Coming of Christ did those other Doctrines of the Gospel which before were all Mysteries to them But God be praised whatsoever is necessary to make us good and happy is now so plainly discovered to us that we cannot be ignorant of it unless we wilfully shut our own Eyes We need not dive