The second sort have both light, experience, and desire, and therefore will easily believe. The third sort are they whose necessities are great, and yet conjunct with hope of some success. Though bare interest should command no man's understanding, because a thing may be desirable, which is neither certain nor possible; yet I must needs say, that reason and self-love should make any man, that is not resolved in wickedness, exceedingly glad to hear of any hopes, much more of certainty, of a life of angelical happiness and joy, to be possessed when this is ended. And, therefore, the inquiry should be exceedingly, willingly, and studiously endeavoured. I shall conclude this point with a few serious questions to those that deny a future life of retribution. ° Quest. 1. Whether he that taketh a man to be but an ingenious kind of beast, can take it ill to be esteemed as a beast? May I not expect that he should live like a beast, who thinketh that he shall die like a beast? Is such a man fit to be trusted any further in human converse, than his present fleshly interest obligeth him? May I not justly suppose that he liveth in the practice of fornication, adultery, lying, perjury, hypocrisy, murder, treachery, theft, deceit, or any other villany, as often as his interest tells him he should do it. What is a sufficient or likely motive to restrain that man, or make him just, who believes not any life after this? It seemeth to me a wrong to him in his own profession, to call him an honest man. 2. If you think yourselves but ingenious beasts, why should you not be content to be used as beasts? A beast is not capable of true propriety, right or wrong; he that can master him, doth him no wrong, if he work him, or fleece him, or take away his life. Why may not they that can master you, use you like pack-horses, or slaves, and beat you, and take away your lives? p 3. Would you be only yourselves of this mind, or would you have all others of it? If yourselves only, why envy you the truth, as you suppose, to others? If all others, what security shall kings have of their lives, or subjects of their lives or • Animarum originem manare de cœlo, inter rectè philosophantes indubitatæ constat esse sententiæ. Et animæ dum corpore utitur hæc est perfecta sapientia, ut unde orta sit, de quo fonte venerit, recognoscat.-Macrob. sup. Somn. Scip. 1. 1. c. 9. P Maximum argumentum est, naturam ipsam de immortalitate animorum tacitum judicare, quod omnibus curæ sunt, et maximè quidem, quæ post mortem futura sunt.-Cic. Tusc. Qu. 1. 1. p. 220. liberties? What trust can you put in wife, or child, or servant, or any man that you converse with? Will you not quickly feel the effects of their opinions? Had you not rather that the enemy who would murder you, the thief who would rob you, the liar that would deceive you, did believe a judgment and life of retribution, than not? 4. If there be no life after this, what business have you for your reason, and all your noble faculties, and time, that is worthy of a man, or that is not like children's games or puppet-plays? What have you to do in the world, that hath any weight in the trial, any content or comfort in the review, or will give solid comfort to a dying man? Were it not better to lie down and sleep out our days, than waste them all in dreaming-waking? O, what a silly worm were man! what should he find to do with his understanding! Take off the poise of his ultimate end, and all his rational motions must stand still, and only the brutish motion must go on, and reason must drudge in the captivity of its service. But these questions, and more such, I put more home in my book, called 'A Saint, or a Brute.' If conscience tell you, that you can put no trust in your friend, your wife, your servant, or your neighbour; if they believe that there is no life but this surely the same conscience may tell you, that then the thing is true, and that the God of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, hath better means enough than deceits and lies to rule the world by. epicure saith, in Cicero “Quis enim potest, cum Hear what the conscience of the Academ.' (quest. 1. 4. p. (mihi) 44.) existimet à Deo se curari, non et dies, et noctes, divinum numen horrere," &c. It is true of the guilty; but what greater joy to the upright, godly, faithful soul. CHAP. XV. Of the Intrinsic Evil of Sin, and of the Perpetual Punishment due to the Sinner, by the undoubted Law of Nature. SECT. 1. It seemed good to the most wise Creator, to give man, with reason, a liberty of will, by which he is a kind a Platonici dicunt, Beatum esse hominem fruentem Deo; non sicut corpore, vel seipso fruitur animus, aut sicut amicus amico; sed sicut Luce Oculus.-August. de Civ. Dei. of first cause of its own determination in comparative moral acts; though he hold the power in full dependence upon God, and perform each act as an act in genere by the influx of his Maker, and do all under his perfect government. And these great principles in his nature, his power, his reason, and his free, self-determining will, are the image of God, in which, as man, he was created, which advanced by the perfections of fortitude, wisdom, and moral goodness, are also in holiness the image of God's perfections. " When a man deliberateth whether he shall do this sin or not, as lie or murder, he cannot act in general without God, but that he chooseth this act rather than another, may be without any more of God than his giving and maintaining his freechoosing power, and his universal influx before mentioned, and his setting him among such objects as he acteth upon. Neither do those objects, nor any physical, efficient motion of God, or any creature besides himself, determine his will effectually to choose the evil and refuse the good. It is not true, that nothing undetermined can determine itself to act; this is but to deny God's natural image on the will of man. The will cannot determine itself without the conduct of an intellect, and without an object in esse cognito, or without divine sustenance and universal influx; but it can determine itself to the moral species, which is but the mode of action to this, rather than that in the comparative proposal, without any pre-determining efficient, for such none of the former are. And God having made such a self-determining creature, took delight to govern him according to his nature, by the sapiential, moral means of laws. Of what he doth more to cause good than evil, and other such incident questions, I must now put them off, to a fitter place." Sect. 2. God planted in man's mind a natural inclination to truth and goodness and to his own felicity, and an aversion Ad hoc anima conjuncta corpori est, ut fruatur scientiis et virtutibus: si autem cum fervore magno se invenerit, benignè recipietur à suo creatore; sin autem secus, relegabitur ad inferna.-Plat. in Tim. Animus rectè solus liber, nec dominationi cujusquam parens, neque obediens cupiditati. Rectè invictus, cujus etiamsi corpus constringatur, animo tamen vincula injici nulla possunt.-Cic. 3, de Finib. Deus animum ut Dominum et imperantem obedienti præfecit corpori.- Cic. de Univers. • Casta placent superis; purâ cum mente venite, to falsehood, and to evil, and to his own misery and hurt, that these, lying deeper than his liberty of choice, might be a pondus to his motions, and help him more easily and steadfastly to obey, and adhere to and prosecute his proposed happiness and end. Sect. 3. Accordingly, God formed his holy law with a perfect fitness to these faculties and inclinations, furnishing it wholly with truth and goodness, and fitting all things in it to the benefit of man, as is proved before. Sect. 4. This law had a sufficient promulgation, being legible on the face of the whole creation, within our view, and especially on the nature of man himself, from whence his duty did result. Sect. 5. And God was pleased to make as legible, the most rational, powerful motives to love and obedience, that can be imagined by man; that no tempter might possibly bid the ten thousandth part so much for our love and obedience as he had bid, and assured us of himself. Sect. 6. From all this, it is most evident that God made us not sinners, though he made us men; but that man, being defectible, abused his liberty, and turned from God, and brought corruption and misery upon himself.t Sect. 7. He that will understand God's justice aright, must 'consider of these forty intrinsic evils that are in sin, which nature itself declareth. 1. In its formal nature, it is the violation of a perfect, righteous law. 2. It is a contempt or denial of God's governing authority over us. 3. It is the usurping of the government of ourselves, which we denied to God. 4. It is a denial or contempt of the wisdom of God, as if he had erred in the making of his laws, and knew not so well what is just and meet and good for us, as we ourselves, and were not wise enough to govern a lump of animated clay." 5. It is an exalting our folly into the throne of the divine wisdom, as if we had more wisdom than he that made us, and knew better what is just and meet, and what is fit or good for ourselves, and could correct God's laws, and make ourselves a better rule. * Animi morbi perniciosiores, pluresque quam corporis.—Cic. 3. Tuscul. "The Athenians punished not only the total violation of a law, but even of a clause or part of a law. 6. It is a denial or contempt of the goodness of God, as if he had ensnared us by his law, and envied our happiness, and forbade us that which would do us good, and put us upon that which will do us hurt, and so would seduce us into calamity, and were an enemy to our welfare. 7. It is a preferring our naughtiness before his goodness, as if we could do better in regulating ourselves than God, and I could make a better choice for ourselves than his laws have made; and as if our wills were fitter than God's to be the rule of good and evil.* 8. It is a denial or contempt of his holiness and purity, which is as contrary to sin as health to sickness; as if by our deeds we would persuade the world, that God is as Satan, a lover of sin, and an enemy to himself and holiness. 9. It is a denial or contempt of God's propriety, as if we were not his own, and he had not power to dispose of us as he list; or it is a robbing him of the use and service of that which is absolutely his own. 10. It is a claiming of propriety in ourselves, as if we were at our own disposal, and might do with ourselves and our faculties as we list. 11. It is a belying or contempt of the great and gracious promises of God, and of the wonderful mercy which he manifesteth in them, by which he doth bind and allure us to obedience, as if he did not mean as he speaketh, or would not make good his word to the obedient. 12. It is a falsifying or contempt of his dreadful threatenings, as if he did not intend any execution of them, but made them only as a deceitful terror to frighten men from sin, for want of better means. 13. It is a denial or contempt of the dreadful, future judgment of God, as if he would never call men to any account, nor judge them according to his laws. 14. It is a denying the veracity of God, as if he were a liar and deceiver, and did not intend the things which he speaketh; as if his precepts were but a false pretension, and he were, indeed, indifferent what he did, and were not to be believed in his predictions, promises, or threats. 15. It is a contempt of all the mercies, even of this life, * Piso (in Cic. de Fin. 1. 5. p. 203.) saith of the Epicureans, Quin etiam ipsi voluptuarii diverticula quærant, et virtutes habeant in ore totos dies,&c., which showeth that virtue was commended even by the voluptuous. |