SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES XII. 7. 67
do believers to Christ : Acts vii, 59, ' Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' If the soul did perish with the bodj, why should we commit it to Christ?
[4.] The Holy Spirit is given to form and prepare us for this estate, therefore by consequence to assure us of it : 2 Cor. v. 5, ' Now he that liath wrought us for this self-same thing is God, who hath also given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.'
(1.) Look to the graces of the Spirit. We are made partakers of the divine nature to draw us off from the world to heaven : 2 Peter i. 4, ' Whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.' Now will God fit the soul for such a blessed estate when this life is ended ; and shall we never enjoy it ? If we consider the soul not only as being an inward principle of life and sense, but also of reason, it proveth the immortality of it, much more as sanctified and ennobled by grace : Eom. viii. 10, ' The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of right- eousness.' Believers have a life wrought in them by the Spirit, which is the pledge and beginning of eternal life ; for they are sanctified and purified, and fit to be brought into the sight and presence of God. The apostle doth not draw his argument there from the immortality of the soul, for that is common to good and bad ; the wicked liave a soul that will survive the body, but little to their comfort ; their immortality is not an happy immortality ; but he taketh his argument from the new life wrought in us by the Spirit, which is the beginning and earnest of a blessed immortality : the new life is an eternal principle of happiness.
(2.) Look to the comforts of the Spirit, from the love of God and the hopes of glory : 1 Peter i. 8, ' Whom having not seen, ye love ; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice witli joy unspeak- able and full of glory ; ' Eom. v. 2, ' And rejoice in hope of the glory of God.' Now is it a fancy that holy men rejoice in ? Look, as the ' terrors of a wounded conscience are the foretastes of hell-torments, called somewhere the pains of hell, so the comforts of the Spirit are the first-fruits of heavenly joys, to set us a-longing for more : Rom. viii. 23, ' And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.' Now by all these things let us rouse up a drowsy faith, and triumph over that carnal atheism and unbelief that worketh in our hearts. Is the whole scripture false, and the christian religion a well-devised fable, our Eedeemer an impos- tor, and the covenant of God a dream, and the comforts of the Spirit fanatical illusions ? And were they all deceived that embraced the christian religion, that took such pains in subduing the flesh, so freely hazarded their interests, and life itself, on the promises of Christ and the hopes of another world ? Are the wisest men the world ever saw fools, and the ordinances of Christ a customary superstition, and these rejoicings and foretastes of the children of God a mere deceit and im- posture ? Surely it cannot be. Therefore this is true, that the soul dieth not with the body, but is in that estate into which God dispos- eth it.
6S SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES XII. 7.
IL By the light of reason.
First, I shall urge such arguments as the scripture directeth us to.
1. From the nature of the soul. It is a spirit, and such a principle of life as hath light in it : John i. 4, ' In him was life, and the life was the light of men/ The soul of man differeth from the soul of a beast, for that hath only life and sense in it ; but this hath light, and there- fore was designed to more noble and glorious ends than merely to quicken and enliven the body. The soul of the beast is murtal, because it is created only to serve the body, and knoweth nothing, desireth nothing, delighteth in nothing but what belongeth to the pleasure and welfare of the body ; but now the soul of man apprehendeth things past, pre- sent, and to come, is capable of tongues, arts, and sciences, and things abstract from bodily sense ; it can discourse about God, angels, and all kind of spiritual beings, about eternity and immortalit}^ and propound and debate questions and doubts concerning the world to come. The beasts look only to their food and the propagation of their kind ; they know nothing, and can conceive nothing, of man's affairs; but now man's soul is not only capable of being ennobled and improved by moral virtues, and such things as fit us for human society, but is capable also of conformity to God, by being made holy and upright, and of com- munion with him in holy duties and acts of grace : 1 John i. 3, ' And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.' The beasts desire not the company of men, as we do of God and of the blessed spirits. In short, there is a greater affinity between the souls of men and angels than between the souls of beasts and men : Ps. viii. 5, ' Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.' Well, then, can it be imagined the souls of men, furnished with such capacities of understanding, are nothing but a little puff of air, that is dissipated in dying, or a little vital heat, that is extinguished with the corj)oreal matter, or only the vigour of the blood ? That soul that can so much soar aloft above the interests and concernments of the body, and take such a marvellous delight and contentment in spiritual things as the view of all manner of truths, must that follow the state of the body ? Shall that creature that cometh so near the angels die like the beasts ? or rather, become like the angels of God that always behold his face ? Yea, that creature that draweth so near to God in the majesty of his person and the abilities of his mind, that was created after God's own image, and for the worship and service and enjoyment of God, shall he die as the beasts that perish ? It cannot be imagined.