Secondly, 2: Tis pernicious to the Atheist himself. If he fear no future punishment, he can never expect any future reward: All his hopes must be confined to a Swinish and despicable manner of life, without any imaginations of so much as a dram of reserved happiness. He is in a worse condition than the filliest animal, which hath something to please it in its life: Whereas an Atheist can have nothing here to give him a full content, no more than any other man in the World, and can have less satisfaction hereafter. He deposeth the noble end of his own being, which was to serve a God and have a satisfaction in him, to seek a God and be rewarded by him: And he that departs from his end, recedes from his own nature. All the content any Creature finds, is in performing its end, moving according to its natural instinct: As it is a joy to the Sun to run its race: *In the same manner it is a satisfaction to every other Creature, and its delight to observe the Law of its Creation. What content can any man have that runs from his end, opposeth his own nature, denies a God by whom and for whom he was Created, whose Image he bears, which is the Glory of his nature; and sinks into the very, dregs of brutishness? How elegantly is it described by Bildad, *his own Counsel shall cast him down, terrors shall make him afraid on every side, destruction shall be ready at his side, the first born of Death shall devour his strength, his confidence shall be rooted ⟨p. 41⟩out, and it shall bring him to the King of Terrors: Brimstone shall be scattered upon his Habitation, he shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the World; they that come after him shall be astonished at his day, as they that went before were affrighted: and this is the place of him that knows not God. *If there be a future reckoning, (as his own Conscience cannot but sometimes inform him of) his condition is desperate, and his misery dreadful and unavoidable: Tis not righteous a Hell should entertain any else, if it refuse him.
Secondly, 2: Tis pernicious to the Atheist himself. If he fear no future punishment, he can never expect any future reward: All his hopes must be confined to a Swinish and despicable manner of life, without any imaginations of so much as a dram of reserved hapiness. He is in a worse condition than the filliest animal, which hath something to please it in its life: Whereas an Atheist can have nothing here to give him a full content, no more than any other man in the World, and can have less satisfaction hereafter. He deposeth the noble end of his own being, which was to serve a God and have a satisfaction in him, to seek a God and be rewarded by him: And he that departs from his end, recedes from his own nature. All the content any Creature finds, is in performing its end, moveing according to its natural instinct: As it is a joy to the Sun to run its race: *In the same manner it is a satisfaction to every other Creature, and its delight to observe the Law of its Creation. What content can any man have that runs from his end, opposeth his own nature, denies a God by whom and for whom he was Created, whose Image he bears, which is the Glory of his nature; and sinks into the very, dregs of bruitishness? How elegantly is it described by Bildad, *his own Counsel shall cast him down, terrors shall make him afraid on every side, destruction shall be ready at his side, the first born of Death shall devour his strength, his confidence shall be rooted ⟨p. 41⟩out, and it shall bring him to the King of Terrors: Brimstone shall be scattered upon his Habitation, he shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the World; they that come after him shall be astonished at his day, as they that went before were affrighted: and this is the place of him that knows not God. *If there be a future reckoning, (as his own Conscience cannot but sometimes inform him of) his condition is desperate, and his misery dreadful and unavoidable: Tis not righteous a Hell should entertain any else, if it refuse him.
- *Psal. 19.5.
- *Job. 18.7.8. &c. to the end.
- *Ver. 21,
