LECTURE XVI.

CREED.

Articles XI. XII. Part I. The Resurrection of the Body, and the Life everlasting.

THE resurrection of the body and life everlasting being the consequences of the preceding article, the forgiveness of sins, our belief of that comfortable truth leads us naturally to believe these also. And as they complete the whole of what we are concerned to know; so here the profession of our faith happily concludes, having brought us to the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls*.

But, though this part of our Creed expresses only two things; yet it implies two more: and so comprehends the four following particulars:

I. That the souls of all men continue after death. II. That their bodies shall at the last day be raised up, and re-united to them.

III. That both souls and bodies of good persons shall enjoy everlasting happiness.

IV. That those of the wicked shall undergo everlasting punishment.

1 Peter i. 9.

I. That the souls of all men continue after death. We are every one of us capable of perceiving and thinking, judging and resolving, loving and hating, hoping and fearing, rejoicing and grieving. That part of us, which doth these things, we call the mind or soul. Now plainly this is not the body. Neither our limbs, nor our trunk, nor even our head, is what understands, and reasons, and wills, and likes or dislikes: but something that hath its abode within the head, and is unseen. A little consideration will make any of you sensible of this. Then further: our bodies increase, from an unconceivable smallness, to a very large bulk, and waste away again; and are changing, each part of them, more or less, every day. Our souls, we know, continue all the while the same. Our limbs may be cut off one after another, and perish yet the soul not be impaired by it in the least. All feeling and motion may be lost almost throughout the body, as in the case of an universal palsy yet the soul have lost nothing. And though some diseases do indeed disorder the mind: there is no appearance, that any have a tendency to destroy it. On the contrary, the greatest disorders of the understanding are often accompanied with firm health and strength of body: and the most fatal distempers of the body are attended, to the very moment of death, with all possible vigour and liveliness of understanding. Since therefore these two are plainly different things; though we knew no further, there would be no reason to conclude, that one of the dies, because the other doth. But since we do know further, that it can survive so many changes of the other; this alone affords a fair probability,

In quo igitur loco est (mens)? Credo equidem in capite et cur eredam, adferre possum. Cic. Tusc. Disp. l. i. c. 29.

that it may survive the great change of death. Indeed, whatever is once in being, we are to suppose continues in being, till the contrary appears. Now the body, we perceive, becomes at death insensible, and corrupts. But to imagine the same thing of the soul, in which we perceive no change at that time, would be almost as groundless, as if having frequently heard the music of an organ, but never seen the person that played on it, we should suppose him dead, on finding the instrument incapable of playing any more. For the body is an instrument adapted to the soul. The latter is our proper self: the former is but something joined to us for a time. And though, during that time, the connection is very close; yet nothing hinders, but we may be as well after the separation of our soul from our present body, as we were before, if not better.

Then consider further: when the body dies, only the present composition and frame of it is dissolved, and falls in pieces: not the least single particle, of all that make it up, returns to nothing; nor can do, unless God, who gave it being, thinks fit to take that being away. Now we have no reason to imagine the soul made up of parts, though the body is. On the contrary, so far as the acutest reasoners are able to judge, what perceives and wills must be one uncompounded substance. And not being compounded, it cannot be dissolved, and therefore probably cannot die *.

God indeed may put an end to it, when he pleases. But since he hath made it of a nature to last for ever, we cannot well conceive, that he will destroy it after so short a space, as that of this life: especially considering, that he hath planted in our breasts an

* See Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 29.

earnest desire of immortality, and a horror at the thought of ceasing to be. It is true, we dread also the death of our bodies, and yet we own they must die: but then we believe, that they were not at first intended to die: and that they shall live again wonderfully improved. God hath in no case given us natural dispositions and hopes, which he purposed at the same time to disappoint: much less, when they are such, that the wisest and best men feel the most of them, and are made still wiser and better by them.

Besides, there are plainly in our souls capacities for vastly higher improvements, both in knowledge and goodness, than any one arrives at in this life. The best inclined, and most industrious, undeniably have not near time enough to become what they could be. And is it likely, that beings qualified for doing so much, should have so little opportunity for it and sink into nothing, without ever attaining their proper maturity and perfection? But further: not to urge, that happiness here is very unequally divided between persons equally entitled to it; which yet is hard to reconcile with God's impartial bounty: it hath been already observed, in speaking of the judgment to come, that though, in general, the course of things in this world doth bear witness to God's love of virtue, and hatred of sin; yet, in multitudes of particular cases, nothing of this kind appears. Not only good persons often undergo, in common with others, the largest shares of evil in life; and bad persons enjoy, in common with others, the highest degrees of prosperity in it: but the former are frequently sufferers, and sometimes even to death, for the very sake of their duty; and the latter gain every sort of worldly advantages by the very means of their wickedness. Yet evidently there is a difference be

tween right behaviour and wrong: and God must see this difference: and his will must be, that mankind should observe it: and accordingly we feel ourselves inwardly bound so to do. Now is it possible, that a being of perfect justice and holiness, of infinite wisdom and power, should have ordered things so, that obeying him and our own consciences should ever make us miserable, and disobeying them prove beneficial to us, on the whole? We cannot surely imagine, that he will permit any one such case to happen.

And therefore since in this world such cases do happen; this world is not our final state; but another will come after it, in which every one shall be recompensed according to his works. Without this belief, religion and virtue would often want sufficient motives: with it they never can; and therefore this belief is true.

Strongly as these arguments prove the doctrine of a life after death; yet it receives a considerable addition of strength from the universal agreement of all mankind in it, with but few exceptions, from the very beginning. Of the earliest ages indeed we have only short accounts: yet enough to judge, what their notions of this point were. What could they be indeed, when they knew, that Abel, with whom God declared himself pleased, was murdered by his brother for that very reason. Surely his brother's hatred did not do him more harm, than God's love of him did him good. That would be thinking lowly indeed of the Almighty. And therefore, since plainly he had not the benefit of his piety here, there must be another place in which he received it. Again, when Enoch walked with God, and was not, for God took him*: could this peculiar favour be only de