such a self-detroying sinner, who hath turned away himself from God and happiness.1 And without a renewed mind, it is morally and naturally impossible that he should be happy. He that would not use the mercy that would have saved him in the day of mercy, cannot require another life of mercy and trial, when this is lost and cast away; nor can require the further helps of grace, Sect. 29. If sin as sin have all the malignity and demerit before proved; much more the aggravated sins of many, and, most of all, a life of wickedness, which is spent in enmity against God and godliness; and in a course of sensuality and rebellion with the obstinate, impenitent; rejecting of all the counsel, calls, and mercies, which would reclaim the sinner; and this to the last breath.m It hath before been manifested, that all wilful sin hath this malignity in it; that, in effect, it denieth that there is a God, or pulleth him down as much as in the sinner lieth, and it setteth up the devil in his stead, and calleth him God, or maketh God to be such a one as the devil is; and, also, maketh an idol of the sinner himself: for it denieth God's power, wisdom, goodness, propriety, sovereignty, and love; his truth, and holiness, and justice; and maketh him, on the contrary, impotent, unwise, bad, envious, unholy, false, unjust, and one that hath no authority to rule us; with much more the like. But a life of enmity, rebellion, and final impenitency, which is the case of all that perish, much more deserveth whatever human nature can undergo. Sect. 30. He that consenteth not to God's government is a rebel, and deserveth accordingly; and he that consenteth to it, consenteth to his laws, and, consequently, to the penalty threatened; and therefore if he break them he suffereth by his own consent, and therefore cannot complain of wrong. All that understand God's government and laws, and consent to them, are not only under the obligation of governing power, but also of their own consent; and it is justly supposed, that 1 Nam quis Peccandi finem posuit sibi, quando recepit. Erectum semel attrita de fronte ruborem ? m Quisnam hominum est quem tu contentum videris uno In omni injuria permultum interest, utrum perturbatione aliquâ animi quæ plerumque brevis est, an consultè fiat : leviora enim sunt ea, quæ repentino aliquo motu accidunt, quàm ea quæ præmeditata et præparata in feruntur.-Cic. 3.Offic they consented on good and rational grounds, not knowing where they could be better; on hopes of the benefits of the government and the reward, they necessarily consented to the penalties. Sect. 31. He that never consenteth to the law, and yet is under the obligation of it, hath life and death, the blessing and the curse, felicity and misery, set before him in the law: felicity is annexed to obedience, and misery to disobedience; and the lawgiver telleth us, that accordingly he will judge and execute; and he offereth every man his choice. He, therefore, that after this doth choose the sin to which misery is annexed, doth choose the misery, and refuse the happiness; and, therefore, it is no wrong to cast him into misery, though everlasting; as long as he hath nothing but what he chose, and loseth nothing but what he rejected, and that with wilful obstinacy to the very last." A sinner, in this case, hath nothing but blasphemy to say against the justice of his Maker: for what can he say? He cannot say that his Maker had not authority to make this law, for his authority was absolute. He cannot say that it was too cruel, hard, and unjust a law; for it was made but to deter him, and such as he, from such sin, to which he had no greater temptations than the toyish vanities of a fleshly life. And he himself hath declared by the event, that the law was not terrible enough to deter him. If it would not serve against so small and poor a bait, he himself doth justify the terribleness of it by his contempt. God saith, 'I threaten hell to thee, to keep thee from sin;' the sinner saith, by his life and practice, 'The threatening of hell is not enough to keep me from sin.' And shall the same man say, when execution cometh, it is too great? No sinner shall suffer any thing but what he chose himself, in the causes of it. If he say, 'I did not believe that God was in good earnest, and would do as he said;' this is but to blaspheme, and say, I took God for a liar, and deceiver, and a bad, and unwise, and impotent Governor.' If he say, 'I did not know that sin, even final impenitency in an ungodly life, deserved so ill,' common reason, and all the world, will rise up against him; and the light of nature will show him to his face, that all the forty points of malignity were in sin, which I mentioned before; and therefore that the law of nature had a sufficient promulgation." n Volenti non fit injuria. Neque euim civitas in seditione beata esse potest, nec in discordia dominorum domus: quo minus animus à seipso dissidens, secumque discordans, gustare partem ullam liliquidæ voluptatis, et beræ test.-Torquatus Epicur. in Cic. de Fin. 1. 1. p. 86. po. • It is an odd fiction of Cicero's, that men for sin shall be turned into women Having thus showed what punishment God may inflict without the least imputation of injustice, let us next inquire of reason what he will inflict. Sect. 32. When it is at God's choice whether he will annihilate a sinner, or let him live in misery, reason telleth us, that the latter is more suitable to the ends of government; because the living offender will not only be still a spectacle in the eyes of others, as a man hanged up in chains, but will also confess his folly and sin, and his conscience will justify his judge, and so God's justice will be more glorious and useful to its ends. That which is not, is not seen nor heard; the annihilated are out of sight; and the mind of man is apt to think of a state of annihilation, as that which is a state of rest, or ease, and feeleth no harm, and so is not terrible enough, as shall be further said anon. The living sufferer, therefore, is rationally the fittest monument of God's justice. Sect. 33. It must reasonably be expected, that a soul, which is made apt to perpetual duration, should perpetually endure; and that the soul enduring, the misery also should endure, seeing it was due by the law of nature, as is proved. Perpetual duration is necessary to no creature, their beings being but contingent, and dependent on the will of God; but perpetual duration of a dependent being is certain, when the first being doth declare his will that it shall be so and the natural way by which God declareth his will concerning the use of any thing, is by the nature and usefulness of it, because he maketh all things wisely, and nothing in vain. Therefore, when he maketh the nature of an angel, or spiritual being, apt to perpetual duration, as being not mixed of separable principles, nor corruptible, he thereby declareth his will for its duration, because he gave it not that durable nature in vain. Two arguments, therefore, I now offer, to prove that man's soul is of perpetual duration : 1. Because it is such in its operations, and, therefore, in its essence, as the superior spirits are, which are so durable: for they are but intelligences and Atque ille qui rectè et honestè curriculum vivendi à natura datum confecerit, ad illud astrum, quocum aptus fuerit revertetur: qui autem immoderatè et intemperanter vixerit, eum secundus ortus in figuram muliebrem transferet, et si ne tum quidem finem vitiorum faciet, (as he is less likely,) gravius etiam jactabitur, et in suis moribus simillimas figuras pecudum et ferarum transferetur, Neque malorum terminum prius aspiciet, quàm illam sequi cæperit conversionem, quam habebat in se, &c.—eum ad primam et optimam conversionem pervenerit.—Cic. de Universit. p. (mihi) 358. free-agents; fitted to love God, and delight in him, and praise him; and so is man. 2. Because, as is fully proved before, it is made to be happy in another life and that proveth that it dieth not with the body: and that proveth that its nature is incorruptible: and that proveth that it shall be perpetual, unless any sin should forfeit its being, by way of penal deprivation; and that is improbable, both because God hath fitter ways of punishment, and intimateth in its corruptible nature, that this is not his intent, and because the state of future reward is like to be a confirmed state. Sect. 34. Experience telleth the world, that so great is the folly and obduracy of man, and the force of present, sensual allurements, that nothing less than a perpetual misery, worse than annihilation, is rationally sufficient to be the penalty of that law, which is the instrument of governing the world; and therefore it is certain, that so much is in the law, and so much shall be executed. Those thieves and murderers that have confirmed their infidelity, and overcome all the expectations of another world, will as boldly venture their lives to rob and kill, as if they were of little worth; yea, when they know that they must die, how desperately they go to the gallows, and how little they make of their lives. It is true, as was aforesaid, that nature abhorreth death; but we see among soldiers, that he that at first is timorous, when he hath been used awhile to kill men, or to see them killed by thousands, groweth senseless, almost regardless of his life, and will make, as it were, a jest of death; and when it is so ordinary a thing with men to kill birds, and fishes, and beasts, for their daily food and pleasure, why should they not easily bear their own, if they look for nothing after death? A beast loveth his life as well as we, and our death is no more painful than theirs, and we should have as much courage as a beast; especially, men that live a poor and miserable life on earth, would little fear that death which endeth it; and so human government itself would be in vain. He that would have an instrument to revenge him on his enemy, to kill his governor, or do any villany in the world, if it were not for fear of another world, might find enough among poor villains, that, by misery or melancholy, are weary of their lives: at least, as long as they run but a hazard, like a soldier in fight, and may possibly escape by craft, or flight, or friends, or strength, what wickedness will they not commit? What prince so just that hath not some rebellious subjects, or some enemy that seeks his life; what man so good that is not envied by some? Who hath money or an estate, which one or other doth not desire; and if there were nothing but death and annihilation to restrain men, what prince, what person, had any security of his life or estate? If a rogue once grow but sensual and idle, he will deliberately resolve, 'I will venture my life to live in pleasure, rather than live in certain toil and misery; a life short and sweet is better than a longer which is miserable, and must end at last.' We see, if once men be persuaded that they shall die like beasts, that they are not much troubled at it, because they think that when they have no being, they shall have no fear, nor care, nor grief, nor trouble, nor pain, nor want; and though right improved reason, which hath higher expectations, makes a greater matter of the loss of them, yet sensual men so brutify themselves, that they grow contented with the felicity of a brute, and are not much troubled that they have no more. Annihilation, therefore, certainly is a penalty utterly insufficient even to keep any common order in the world, as I proved before; and therefore it is certain, that the penalty inflicted hereafter will be greater than annihilation; and if so, it must contain, with the being of the creature, a suffering worse than the loss of being.P Sect. 35. The belief of a hell, or endless punishment, being that which, de facto, the restraint of the obedient part of the world, and that which proveth too weak with the disobedient part; it thence followeth, that a hell or endless punishment will be inflicted. The reasons I have given before, 1. Because that experience showeth that the threatening of hell is necessary in the law; The P Magna est peccandi illecebra spes impunitatis.-Cic. pro. Mil. light of nature taught men, that God would not accept the sacrifices of the wicked, much less admit them to his glory. Donis impii ne placare Deos audeant, Platonem audiant, qui vetat dubitare quâ sit mente futurus Deus, cum vir nemo bonus ab improbo se donari velit. Cic. de Leg. 1. 2. p. 244. The Epicurean confesseth, Quod si qui satis opibus hominum sibi contra conscientiam septi esse et muniti videntur, Deorum tamen numen horrent, easque ipsas solicitudines, quibus animi noctes diesque exeduntur, à Diis supplicii causa importare putant.-Cic. de Leg. 1. 1. p. 84. Nullum conscium peccatorum tuorum, magis timueris quam temetipsum: alium enim potes effugere, te autem nunquam. Nequitia ipsa est sui pœna.-Sen. 9 Peccati dolor et maximus et æternus est.-Cic. Att. 11. Itaque non ob ea solum incommoda quæ eveniunt improbis, fugiendam improbibatem putamus ; sed multo etiam magis, quod cujus in animo versatur, nunquam sinit eum respirare, nunquam quiescere; inquit Torquatus Epicureus in Cic. de Fin. 1. 1. p. 85. VOL. XXI. |