Page images
PDF
EPUB

have had no new revelation concerning it; but it is ten to one but when we die we shall find the state of affairs wholly differing from all our opinions here, and that no man or sect hath guessed any thing at all of it as it is. Here I intend not to dispute, but to persuade: and therefore in the general, if it be probable that they know or feel the benefits done to them, though but by a reflex revelation from God, or some under-communication from an Angel, or the stock of acquired notices here below, it may the rather endear us to our charities or duties to them respectively; since our virtues use not to live upon abstractions, and metaphysical perfections, or inducements, but then thrive when they have material arguments, such which are not too far from sense. However it be, it is certain they are not dead; and though we no more see the Souls of our dead friends than we did when they were alive, yet we have reason to believe them to know more things and better: And if our sleep be an image of death, we may also observe concerning it, that it is a state of life so separate from communications with the body, that it is one of the ways of Oracle and Prophecy by which the Soul best declares her immortality, and the nobleness of her actions and powers, if she could get free from the body, (as in the state of separation,) or a clear dominion over it, (as in the resurrection). To which also this consideration. may be added, that men a long time live the life of sense before they use their reason; and till they have furnished their head with experiments and notices of many things, they cannot at all discourse of any thing: but when they come to use their reason, all their knowledge is nothing but remembrance; and we know by

proportions, by similitudes and dissimilitudes, by relations and oppositions, by causes and effects, by comparing things with things; all which are nothing but operations of understanding upon the stock of former notices, of something we knew before, nothing but remembrances: all the heads of topics, which are the stock of all arguments and sciences in the world, are a certain demonstration of this; and he is the wisest man that remembers most, and joins those remembrances together to the best purposes of discourse. From whence it may not be improbably gathered, that in the state of separation, if there be any act of understanding, that is, if the understanding be alive, it must be relative to the notices it had in this world, and therefore the acts of it must be discourses upon all the parts and persons of their conversation and relation, excepting only such new revelations which may be communicated to it; concerning which we know nothing. But if by seeing Socrates I think upon Plato, and by seeing a picture I remember a Man, and by beholding two friends I remember my own and my friend's need, (and he is wisest that draws most lines from the same centre, and most discourses from the same notices), it cannot but be very probable to believe, since the separate Souls understand better, if they understand at all, that from the notices they carried from hence, and what they find there equal or unequal to those notices, they can better discover the things of their friends than we can here by our conjectures and craftiest imaginations: and yet many men here can guess shrewdly at the thoughts and designs of such men with whom they discourse, or of whom they have heard, or whose characters they

prudently have perceived. I have no other end in this discourse, but that we may be engaged to do our duty to our Dead; lest peradventure they should perceive our neglect, and be witnesses of our transient affections and forgetfulness. Dead persons have Religion passed upon them, and a solemn reverence: and if we think a Ghost beholds us, it may be we may have upon us the impressions likely to be made by love, and fear, and religion. However, we are sure that God sees us, and the world sees us: and if it be matter of duty towards our Dead, God will exact it; if it be matter of kindness, the world will: and as Religion is the band of that, so fame and reputation is the endearment of this.

It remains, that we who are alive should so live, and by the actions of Religion attend the coming of the day of the Lord, that we neither be surprised, nor leave our duties imperfect, nor our sins uncancelled, nor our persons unreconciled, nor God unappeased; but that when we descend to our graves we may rest in the bosom of the Lord, till the mansions be prepared where we shall sing and feast eternally. Amen.

TE DEUM LAUDAMUS.

PRINTED BY MESSRS. PARKER, CORN-MARKET, OXFORD.

« PreviousContinue »