1. These men do not believe that which scripture and reason showeth to be certainly true, and so do not show themselves either christians or men. The great design of scripture is to give them a pros])ect of another world, and to assure them of a life after death. And will you not receive God's testimony ? Are God's threatenings a vain scarecrow ; are the promises a golden dream ? Go and reason, if the soul abidetli not after it flitteth out of the body, it is either because it cannot be or act, or because God will not suffer it to be or act, or hath not clearly declared it shall be so, so that no certainty can be had thereof or hath declared or expressed himself to the contrary. Now none of these things are true.
[1.] Not the first. The nature of the soul is such that it showeth plainly that it can live without the body. A spirit can subsist by itself ; that which God hath fitted to endure for ever, he hath designed it to endure for ever. Now the soul as a spirit is fitted to live lor ever, and it can live without the body, for it is dvTOKLvrjro';, it doth of itself move itself. Is it the body that supports the soul, or the soul that supports the body ? Heathens have thought so upon this aigument, and will not you ? Cuin venerit ille dies, qui mixtum hoc divini Jmmcmique, secernat, corpus hie tihi inveni relinquam, ipse me diis redeam — When that day shall come, when the divine spirit shall be severed from the human body, I shall leave the body where I found it, and yield up my S2)ii'it to the gods.
SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES XII. 7. 77
[2.] Is it because God will not permit it to be, or act without tlie body ? Whence doth that appear ? To us christians he hath appointed a mediator to receive our souls.
[3.] Or is it because he hath doubtfully expressed his mind ? You are not sure there is no such life ; it is impossible you should know or prove the contrary. The question between the infidel and the christian is not whether there be a world to come ? but whether he can prove there is none ? You cannot prove the falsity of the christian hope by any sound argument that there is no heaven nor hell ; for aught you can say or know there are both, and it were best to take the surer side. In a lottery, men will venture some small matter. Some of the heatliens that disputed against it or doubted of it, yet acknowledged it to be a supposition conducing to virtue and goodness.
[4.] God hath not declared his mind to the contrary, but plainly told us that it is so. It is easy to presume that a thousand to one but it is so. Natural reason, consent of nations, fears of a guilty con- science, or presages of eternal punishment, the whole drift of the christian religion, the example of Christ, all prove it. Those wretches that outface religion accuse Christ of a lie, and the wisest men of the world of folly, their own consciences of imposing a cheat upon them to check their vain pleasures, and, in defiance of light within and without, smother all conceits of a world to come.
2. They do not consider these things, and weigh them, that they may come to understand what is their end and business here. Alas ! are we so near everlasting joy or misery, and yet neglect it ; yea, it may be, scorn and oppose those that make it their chiefest care and labour to prepare for it ? How long have you lived in the world, and scarce ever asked the question or thought seriously, What shall I do to be saved ? You are desirous to give full and ample satisfaction to your dying part, yea, have pampered it, and over-clogged it ; but your business is not to pamper the body, but to save your souls. Now you should show yourselves men : Isa. xlvi. 8, ' Remember this, and show yourselves men ; bring it again to mind, 0 ye transgressors ! ' Think aforehand, Wliat would poor deluded souls, that are in their everlast- ing estate, give if they might be trusted with a little time again, if God would but try them once more, that they might mend their past folly ? They have lost their souls for poor temporal trifles. But alas ! now, though we are daily drawing near to our long home, yet we little think of it ; we are almost come to our journey's end, and we never con- sider whither we are going.
3. They do not improve these things, nor live answerably, which is a further degree of brutishness : Ps. xlix. 12, ' Man being in honour, abideth not ; he is like the beasts that perish ; ' Jude 10, ' What they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt them- selves.' They are strangers to the heavenly mind, and wholly governed by carnal sense ; they live as if the soul did serve for no other use but to keep the body from stinking. Their principles have no influence upon their practice ; they talk of the immortality of the soul, yet spend all their care upon the body.