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invisible things of another world, which the more familiar they are to us, the better able we shall be to apprehend and believe them.

But then, by our fervent and hearty prayers, we shall also obtain the assistance of God, without the concurrence of whose grace we can do no good thing, and much less effectually believe the rewards and punishments of another life, which is the root and principle of all true piety and virtue. For to the forming of a firm belief of this doctrine in our minds, there is required a very severe and impartial consideration of the proofs and evidences upon which it is founded; and considering how vain and roving our thoughts are, how apt to fly off from any serious argument, and especially from this of another world, which is so offensive to our vicious appetites and affections, what likelihood is there that we should ever fix our minds to such a thorough examination of the proofs of another world, as is necessary to beget in us a lively belief of it, unless God, who alone can command our thoughts, cooperates with us, and animates our faint endeavours with his grace and assistance; unless he, by suggesting the evidences of the future state to us, and by urging and repeating them, imprints them on our minds with all their natural force and efficacy: in a word, unless by following our flying thoughts with these his holy inspirations, and importuning them with, and almost forcing them upon them, he at last prevails with them to stay and look back, and consider, and seriously to ponder the weight and force of them, it is very improbable they should ever abide long enough upon our minds to settle into a firm and efficacious belief. Let us therefore earnestly implore the aid and as

sistance of God, and beseech him frequently to inspire our minds with the arguments of a future life, and to urge, and repeat, and set them home upon our thoughts, till by a due consideration of them we have extracted all their force and evidence, and digested it into a lively and active belief; and if to the use of all the above-named means you do but add this of prayer and supplication, you may depend upon it, that he who hath promised to open unto all that knock, and to be found of all that seek him, will never deny you any grace or assistance that is necessary to produce in you the fundamental principle of religion, viz. an effectual belief of the rewards and punishments of another world.

To conclude this argument therefore, since this belief is so absolutely necessary to subject our minds to the obligations of religion, let us endeavour, as much as in us lies, to found it in our reason, by convincing our minds of the truth and force of the evidences upon which it is proposed. For while we believe upon trust, and we know not why, our faith must needs be very weak and infirm, and, like a tree without root in the midst of a storm, be unable to outstand any blast of temptation. For the temptations of sin are such goods and evils as are evident to our senses, which do most certainly assure us that there are such things in the world as pleasure and profit, reproach and persecution; and therefore, unless when we are tempted our faith can confront the evidence of sense with the evidence of reason, and produce good proof of those future goods and evils which it puts in the balance against these present temptations, it will hardly be able to withstand them. For what likelihood is there that the things

which we believe without proof and evidence should have comparably that force and influence upon us, as the things which we know, and feel, and experience? So that when we come to oppose a heaven and a hell, of whose reality and existence we have no evidence, to pleasures or profits, reproaches or persecutions, which strike immediately on our senses, it is easy to prognosticate which will be most prevalent.

But if our belief of the future rewards and punishments be founded on such evidence as satisfies our reason, what temptation in the world is there that can prevail against it; what good is there that can outbid heaven, or what evil that can vie terrors with hell? For we see by experience that the objects of our faith, when it is grounded upon satisfactory evidence, do as much influence our minds as the objects of sense they who never saw the Indies, unless it were in a map, and so can hardly believe that there are such countries, are yet as much affected with the rich merchandises they abound with, as those who have been there, and as ready to venture their estates and persons thither, through the danger of the sea, in hope of a prosperous return. If therefore we believe that there is such a state as heaven, with as full satisfaction of mind as we do that there is such a place as the Indies, doubtless our faith would affect us as much as our eyes, and we should be as forward to go to heaven, and venture through all dangers and difficulties thither, as if we had been there already, and had seen with our own eyes all the glories and delights it flows and abounds with. So that the evidence of our faith, if it be clear and satisfactory, will as much affect our minds as the

evidence of our sense; and heaven and hell will as vigorously influence our hope and fear, if with a full satisfaction of mind we believe them, as if we had seen and felt them. Conceive then that you had spent but one hour in heaven, surveying with your own eyes the glories of that place, the triumphs and exaltations of its blessed inhabitants, and the rapturous joys and delights wherewith it entertains them; conceive that after this you had been sent for another hour in hell, and had there been spectators of the horrors and agonies of the damned, or their torture, and rage, and dire convulsions of soul, caused by desperate and remediless misery: in a word, conceive that after all you had been dismissed into this world again to choose your own fate, and determine yourselves to that happy or this miserable portion for ever; think now what your mind and resolution would be; whether you would not be willing to lose any thing rather than heaven, or to endure any thing rather than hell; whether any good or evil sin can tempt you withal would be able to out-tempt the rewards and punishments of eternity. Doubtless no; the remembrance you would have of the infinite joys and intolerable miseries you saw in that other world would prove an invincible antidote against all temptation. Now what your sense of the other world would be, if you had seen it, that will your belief of it be, when it is founded upon clear and satisfactory evidence; it will be an infallible counter-charm against the most bewitching temptations; it will render the greatest goods dreadful to us that beckon us to hell, and the greatest evils desirable that drive us towards heaven. For faith, saith the apostle, is the substance of things hoped

for, and the evidence of things not seen, Heb. xi. 1. that is, it renders its invisible objects as real and evident to us, as our sense doth visible ones; and when heaven and hell are become as evident to our faith as sensible things are to our senses, what good or evil is there in the world that can out-tempt them? For what good is there so good as heaven, or what evil so bad as hell? So that if our belief of the future rewards and punishments be but founded on such evidence as gives a full satisfaction to our minds, it will draw our souls to God like an invincible loadstone, in despite of all the oppositions of temptations from without, and of all the counterstrivings of a corrupt nature from within; and there is nothing in the world will be able to withstand it; no good or evil that sin can promise or threaten, that will have the power to resist its almighty persuasions; but it will force its own way through all oppositions, and, like an overflowing torrent, bear down all our carnal considerations before it.

Wherefore, if ever we mean to disengage ourselves from the slavery of sin, and entirely to devote ourselves to God and his service, let us in the use of the above-named means endeavour to establish our minds in a firm and well-grounded belief of the other world; that so our faith, being built upon a sure foundation of reason, may be able to outstand all the waves of temptation, and to chase all those goods and evils before it that stand in the way of our return to God; and when by our faith we have so far overcome the world, as to submit and resign ourselves to God in despite of all its temptations, we shall find our belief of the other world every day grow and improve upon our hands, till at last it

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