(1st.) How addicted soever men are to any outward thing, yet to preserve life, they will deny themselves : Job. ii. 4, ' Skin for skin, and all that a man liatli will he give for his life.' It was a truth, though it came out of the devil's mouth. Nothing is so dear to a man as his own life ; men will spend all tliat they have u])on the physician to recover their health, Luice viii. 43. Yea, they will hazard the members of their own body, cut off a leg or an arm, for preserving life ; and shall not we part with a lust to get life ? Who would sell his precious life at such a cheap rate, as the pleasing of a vain and wanton humour ?
(2d.) But this life, which is not a matter of sense, but of faith, is not likely to be much vahied.
Answer. There is some inclination in the heart of man to eternal life ; nature gropeth and feeleth about for an eternal good, and an eternal good in the enjoyment of God, (Acts. xvii. 27), as blind men
VeR. 13.] SEIiMONS UrON ROMANS VIII. 85
do in the dark. Though man by nature lieth in gross ignorance of the true God, as our lord and happiness ; yet the sense of an immortaUty is not altogether a stranger to nature. Such a conceit hath been rooted in the minds of all nations and religions, not only Greeks and Romans, but barbarians, and people least civilized ; they have thought so, and been solicitous of a life after this life. Herodotus telleth us that the ancient Goths thought their souls perished not, but went to Zamblaxis, the captain of their colony, or founder of their nation ; and Diodorus Siculus, of the Egyptians, that their parents and f liends when they died, went to some eternal habitation. Modern heathens, when they are asked about eternal life, and judgment to come, — as to judgment to come, they know it not ; but this thing they know, that the condition of men and beasts is different : but wliat their condition after this life is, they cannot tell ; whether they live above or below the earth, but that they subsist and have a being, is their firm persuasion ; and there- fore ar6 wont to assign to the dead part of the goods which they possessed ; if they lose anything, they think some of their friends in another world have taken it to supply their wants there. The Chinese are fully persuaded of a state of happiness and torment after this world. Acosta telleth us, in Peru they were wont to kill some of their slaves, to attend the dead in the world to come ; and so Mexico, and other places. It is enough for us that it is an inbred notion or tradition, received from hand to hand by their ancestors ; such a conception is not a stranger to human nature ; and the nearer any lived to the first original of mankind, the more clear and pressing hath been the opinion iiereof ; lapse of time, which ordinarily decayeth all things, hath not been able to deface it out of the minds of men ; who though they have been gradually depraved and degenerated, according to the distance by which they have been removed from their first originals, yet they could never wholly blot out the sense of an immortal condition after this life ; nor could any solid and undubitable reasons be brought against it, to convince it of falsity. Well then, this persuasion being spread through the universe, and with extreme forwardness received by all nations, has borne up against all encounters of time, and constantly maintained itself in the midst of so many revolutions of human affairs, even among them with whom other truths are lost, and who in a great degree have for- gotten humanity itself. Certainly this motive hath its use, for the reducing of man to God, especially of those who have been bred in the bosom of the church.
(2.) The argument is of great force in regard of our fears. We desire life, but guilt maketh us fear death. Sin impresseth this torment upon the consciences even of those who little know what sin meaneth : Rom. i. 32, ' They know the judgment of God, and that those who commit such things as they do, are worthy of death.' Natural con- science looketh upon sin as mortal and baneful, and knows not how to be delivered from this fear. Nature owneth a distinction between good and evil ; and for evil, feareth a punishment ; because of those natural sentiments which we have of God, as a holy and just God. Therefore now this tender of life is made to them that not only desire happiness, but are in bondage through fear of death, and by the christian doctrine involved in the curse of the law, and obnoxious to the flames of hell.
Sfi SERMONS UPON ROMANS VIH. [SlSU. XX.
Therefore for sinners to hear of life, must needs be an inviting motive. MorLify sin, and it shall not hurt you ; you shall live. The sting of sin, which so t)rments you, shall be plucked out : Ezek. xviii. 13, ' Repent, and iniquity shall not be your ruin.' We are all sinners ; but how shall we do that sin may not be baneful to us ? Deal gently with it, and it stingetli you to the death ; deal severely with it, and it shall do you no harm When we are dead to sin, we shall not die by sin ; you have deserved death ; but life is offered, if you will use God's healing methods to get rid of so great a mischief.