and publick Magiftrate of the world, he is concerned to countenance and encourage the one, and to discountenance and difcourage the other. Now, the providences of God being in a great measure promifcuously administered in this world, fo that no man can make any certain judgment of God's love and hatred towards perfons by what befals them in this world, it being the lot of good men many times to fuffer and be afflicted, and of wicked men to live in a flourishing and profperous condition; I fay, things being thus, it is very agreeable to these notions which we have of the divine holiness and justice, to believe that there will a time come, when this wife and juft Governor of the world will make a wide and visible difference between the righteous and the wicked; fo that though, for a while, the juftice of God may be clouded, yet there will a time come when it fhall be clearly manifefted, and every eye fee it, and bear witness to it; when judgment fhall break forth as the light, and righteousness as the noon-day. It is poffible that fin, for a while, may go unpunished, nay, tri umph and profper; and that virtue and innocence may not only be unrewarded, but oppressed, and despised, and perfecuted. And this may be reconcileable enough to the wisdom of God's providence, and the juftice of it, fuppofing the immortality of the foul, and another ftate after this life, wherein all things fhall be fet ftrait, and every man fhall receive according to his works: but unless this be fuppofed, it is impoffible to folve the juftice of God's providence. Who will believe that the affairs of the world are administered by him who loves righteoufnefs, and hates all the workers of iniquity, who will not let the leaft fervice that is done to him pafs unrewarded, nor on the other hand acquit the guilty, and let fin go unpunifhed, which are the properties of juftice; I fay, who will believe this, that looks into the courfe of the world, and fees with how little difference and diftinction of good and bad, the affairs of it are managed? that fees virtue discountenanced and defpifed, poor and deftitute, afflicted and tormented; when wickedness is many times exalted to high places, and makes a great noife and ruffle in the world? He that confiders what a hazard many times

good

good men run, how, for goodnefs fake, they venture, and many times quit all the contentments and enjoyments of this life, and fubmit to the greatest fufferings and calamities that human nature is capable of; while, in the mean time, profperity is poured into the lap of the wicked, and heaven feems to look pleasantly upon thofe that deal treacherously, and to be filent whilft the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than himfelf; he that confiders this, and can, without fuppofing another life after this, pretend to vindicate the juftice of these things, must be as blind as the fortune that governs them. Would not this be a perpetual ftain and blemish upon the divine providence, that Abel who offered up a better facrifice than Cain, and had this teftimony, that he pleafed God; yet after all this, fhould have no other reward for it, but to be flain by his brother, who had offended God by a flight and contemp. tuous offering? If there were no reward to be expected. after this life, would not this have been a fad example. to the world, to fee one of the firft men that ferved God acceptably, thus rewarded? What a pitiful encouragement would it be to men to be good, to fee: profane Efau bleft with the dew of heaven, and fatness of the earth; and to hear good old Jacob in the end and conclufion of his days, to complain, few and evil have the days of my pilgrimage been? If this had been the end of Efau and Jacob, it would puzzle all the wit and reafon of mankind to wipe off this reproach from the providence of God, and vindicate the juftice of it. And therefore I do not wonder, that the greatest wits among the Heathen philofophers, were fo much puzzled with this objection againft the providence of God; if the wife, and juft, and good God do adminifter the affairs of the world, and be concerned in the good or bad actions of men, cur bonis male & malis bene?" How "comes it to pafs, that good men many times are mi

ferable, and bad men fo happy in the world?" And they had no other way to wipe off this objection, but by referring these things to another world, wherein the temporal fufferings of good men fhould be eternally rewarded, and the short and tranfient happiness of wicked

men

men should be rendered infignificant, and drowned in an eternity of mifery.

So that if we believe the being of God, and the providence of God (which I do all along take for granted in this argument); there is no other way imaginable to folve the equity and juftice of God's providence, but upon this fuppofition, that there is another life after this. For to fay, that virtue is a fufficient and abundant reward for itself, though it have fome truth in it, if we fet afide thofe fufferings, and miferies, and calamities, which virtue is frequently attended with in this life; yet if these be taken in, it is but a very jejune and dry fpeculation. For confidering the ftrong propenfion and inclination of human nature to avoid thefe evils and inconveniencies, adftate of virtue attended with great sufferings, would be fo far from being a happiness, that it would be a real mifery; fo that the determination of the Apoftle, Cor. xv. 19. is according to nature, and the truth and reason of things, that, If in this life only we had hope, we were of all men moft miferable. For although it be true, that as things now ftand, and as the nature of man is framed, good men do find a strange kind of inward pleasure and fecret fatisfaction of mind in the discharge of their duty, and doing what is virtuous; yet every man that looks into himfelf, and confults his own breaft, will find that this delight and contentment fprings chiefly from the hopes which men conceive, that a holy and virtuous life fhall not be unrewarded and without thefe hopes, virtue is but a dead and empty name; and notwithstanding the reasonableness of virtuous actions, compared with the contrary of them, yet when virtue came to be incumbered with difficulties, and, to be attended with fuch fufferings and inconveniencies, as were grievous and intolerable to human nature, then it would appear unreasonable to chufe that for a happiness, which would rob a man of all the felicity of his life. For, though a man were never fo much in love with virtue for the native beauty and comeliness of it; yet it would ftrangely cool his affection to it, to confider that he fhould be undone by the match, that when he had it, he must go a begging with it, and be in danger

6

of

of death, for the fake of that which he had chofen for the felicity of his life. So that how devout foever the woman might be, yet I dare fay fhe was not over-wife and confiderate, who going about with a pitcher of water in one hand, and a pan of coals in the other, and being asked what she intended to do with them, anfwered: "That she intended with the one to burn up "heaven, and with the other to quench hell, that men might love God and virtue for their own fakes, "without hope of reward or fear of punishment."

And the confequence of this dry doctrine does fufficiently appear in the feet of theSadducees, which had its rife from this principle of Sadoc, the mafter of the fect, who, out of an indifcreet zeal to teach something above others, and indeed above the pitch of human nature, inculcated this doctrine upon his fcholars, that religion and virtue ought to be loved for themfelves, though there were no reward of virtue to be hoped, nor punishment of vice to be feared in another world; from which his difciples inferred, that it was not necessary to religion to believe a future ftate, and in process of time, peremptorily maintained that there was no life after this. For they did not only deny the refurrection of the body, but, as St. Paul tells us, they faid, that there was neither angels nor fpirit; that is, they denied that there was any thing of an immortal nature, that did remain after this life. And what the confequence of this was, we may fee in the character which Jofe phus gives of that fect; for he tells us, that the commonalty of the Jews were of the fect of the Pharifees, but most of the great and rich men were Sadducces; which plainly fhews that this dry fpeculation of loving religion and virtue for themselves, without any expectation of future rewards, did end in their giving over all ferious purfuit of religion; and because they hoped for nothing after this life, therefore, laying afide all other confiderations, they applied themselves to the prefent business of this life, and grafped as much of the prefent enjoyments of its power and riches, as they could by any means attain to.

And for a further evidence of this, that it is only or principally the hopes of a future happiness that bear

men

men up in the purfuit of virtue, that give them fo much comfort and fatisfaction in the profecution of it, and make men encounter the difficulties, and oppofitions, and perfecutions they meet withal in the ways of religion, with fo much undauntedness and courage; I fay, for the farther evidence of this, I fhall only offer this confideration, that according to the degree of this hope and affurance of another life, mens conftancy and courage in the ways of virtue and religion have been. Before Christ's coming into the world, and the bringing of life and immortality to light by the gospel, we do not find in all ages of the world, fo many inftances of patience and conftant fuffering for religion, as happened in the first age after Christ. God did not think fit to try the world fo much in this kind, till they were furnished with a principle which would bear them up under the greatest sufferings, which was nothing elfe but the full affurance which the gofpel gave the world of a blessed immortality after this life; the firm belief and perfuafion of which, made Chriftians dead to the world, and all the contentments and enjoyments of it, and by raising them above all the pleasures and terrors of fenfe, made them to defpife prefent things, in hopes of eternal life, which God that could not tye had promised. This was that which fet them above the fears of death, fo that they were not to be frighted out of their religion by the most exquifite torments, and all the most horrid and fearful fhapes that the malice of men and devils could dress up mifery and affliction in. Whereas under the old difpenfation of the law,before the revelation of the gofpel, when the promises of eternal life were not fo clear, and mens hopes of it more weak and faint, the exprefs encouragement to obedience was founded in the promises of temporal bleffings; God herein complying with the neceffity of human nature, which is not to be wrought upon to any great purpose, but by arguments of advantage.

The fum of this argument, which I have thus largely dilated upon, because I look upon it as one of the moft ftrong and convincing of the foul's immortality, is this; that the juftice of God's providence cannot fufficiently be vindicated, but upon the fuppofal of this principle of the foul's immortality: whereas, if this prinVOL. VIII.

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ciple