[4.] The duties which God requireth of us show it. Man is obliged to divers duties which are difficult and displeasing to the flesh, and which we should never perform without a serious belief of the soul's immortality ; such as these, to forsake the sinful pleasures of the world, to mortify and tame the flesh, diligently to exercise ourselves to godli- ness, to suffer the loss of all outward comforts, yea, of life itself. All these are commanded ; the mortification and keeping down the body. Col. iii. 5 ; diligence in the heavenly life, Phil. iii. 13, 14 ; fortitude and patience under the greatest trials, as Moses is propounded for an example, Heb. xi. 24-26 ; not to faint in the greatest tribulations, 2 Cor. iv. 16-18 ; yea, to expose life itself, Luke xiv. 26. Now would God, who is so loving to mankind, bind us to displease the flesh, and enjoin us so many duties which are harsh and troublesome, yea, some of them hurtful and detrimental to the body, if he had not provided some better thing for us ? Would he, all whose precepts are for our good, and who hath made self-love so great an help to our duty, be so hard to us, but that he knoweth how to recompense this diligence and self-denial ? He saith, ' Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on,' Mat. vi. 25 ; but he saith, ' Keep the soul with all diligence,' Deut. iv. 9. Would he be so earnest in pressing us to look after the soul, and strengthening and adorning the inward man, if the soul were to perish with the body ? Surely, if all depended upon the body, the body should be more cared for ; but it is quite otherwise. Scripture and reason show the body is only to be cared for in subordination to the soul, and that our chiefest work should be to furnish our souls with knowledge and grace. And they are the worthiest men who do most busy themselves about divine and heavenly things ; whereas they are the basest who care so much for the body, and make a business of those things which they should do only by the by. Certainly if there were an end of us when the body faileth, we should abhor nothing so much as death, desire nothing so much as the good of the body ; nothing would be so dear to us, but we would part with it to keep off the death of the body, for then there would be an end of us. Death would be the chiefest evil we could suffer, and that which would deprive us of all other good ; nothing should be feared and abhorred like death, and we should lie, forswear, or do anything to avoid it. But this principle would not only destroy all generous actions, but introduce all dishonesty and sin into the world ; for as we should never venture our lives upon any reason and inducement, though never so just, so we should stick at no evil to preserve life, and the conveniencies which belong thereunto.
[5.] The desires wrought in us by the Spirit of God, to see and enjoy God, argue the immortality of the soul : Eom. 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 adop- tion, to wit, the redemption of our bodies ; ' 2 Cor. v. 2, ' For in this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house which
76 SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES XII. 7.
is from heaven.' We prove another life, not only by the inclhiation, instinct, and disposition of nature towards happiness in general ; the universal desire of all mankind is to be everlastingly happy, this proveth it ; for this desire being universal and natural, is not frustrate ; nature doth nothing in vain: but the desires and groans of the sancti- fied do much more prove it, for they do more forcibly direct and carry our hearts to a certain scope and end ; and they are excited by the Holy Spirit, for he imprinteth a firm persuasion of this happiness, and stirreth up these desires after it ; and that in our sober and severest moods, when we are solemnly conversing with God in his holy worship, in the word, prayer, meditation, and the Lord's supper, and all other holy duties, then he most raiseth these affections towards heavenly things ; and also he leaveth this heavenly relish upon our hearts at other times, as the reward of our eminent obedience to God ; and the more serious and holy any are, the more do they feel of this. Now these desires being of God's own infusing, they will not be disappointed ; therefore those who make the hopes of the world to come their happi- ness, desire, and joy, will one day be partakers of the blessedness of it ; their groaning, seeking, and longing, will not be in vain, for God will give the satisfaction where he giveth the desire.
Use 1. Is terror to the wicked and ungodly. Your souls die not with the body, but must enter into endless torments. The body per- isheth, but the immortal substance will for ever subsist in a slate of woe or weal. Now how brutishly and much beneath a man do they live who wholly give up themselves to carnal pleasures and worldly pursuits, that live as if their souls did die with their bodies, and they should never hear of them more ! They make no provision for their everlasting estate. Three evils I charge upon these men —