Sermons preached

3. The Certainty of both these, Life and Death, Hell and Heaven, as the Fruits of Good and Evil.

(1.) Reason showeth it certainly, that there is Eternal Life and Death, or a State of Torment and Bliss after this Life. All Men are persuaded that there is a God, and very few have doubted but that he is a Rewarder of Virtue, and and a Punisher of Vice. Now neither the one nor the other is fully accomplished in this World, even in the Judgment of those that have no great knowledge of the Nature of Sin, nor what Punishment is competent thereto. Therefore there must be after the sojourning in the Body, a time in which retributive Justice shall be executed, and Punishments and Rewards that here are dispensed so disproportionably, even to what natural Reason would expect from the Hand of God, shall most equally be dispensed to Persons. If any say, Virtue is a Reward to it self, as in some sense it is, yet the full Reward lieth in another World, and the main Encouragements must be fetched from thence. There is an opposite Principle against it in the Heart, which must always be curbed and suppressed, and it meeteth with many Temptations from the Reproaches and Oppositions of those who like not this sort of Life. The sensual and ungodly will use all Ways and Means to brand the Holy and Heavenly, as an humorous Sort of Men; and if their Hands be tied by the restraint of Laws and Government, so that we are not exposed to Sufferings by their Violence, yet we cannot but expect slanderous Abuses from ⟨p. 333⟩them. Now the Case being so, the Motives must be sufficient to resist all the Temptations of this Life, to keep us in the Love and Obedience of God to the end, which the bare Sense of our Duty would hardly do in the midst of so many Temptations. We are in an estate of Imperfection, and Sense is very strong in us all, and the Sufferings of the Obedient are very great, that if we had not an eye to the Recompense of the Reward, we could not so well deny our selves. Let every Man consult his own Soul, what would support him when all the World is against him, and he is hooted at by the Clamours of the wicked Rabble, and pursued with sharp Laws, and exposed to great difficulties and hardships: if he had no Life to live but this, what would he do?