especially "to convict those who have lived ungodly, of all the impious deeds, which they have impiously committed, and of all the hard, irreligious fpeeches, which ungodly finners have spoken against him h.'

How we shall be brought, though subject to death, to ftand up at the future judgment; and what will be the particular confequences of it; I shall have occafion to confider more largely hereafter.

In the mean time, " bleffed be the God and Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift, who, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope unto the hope of life-by the refurrection of Jefus Chrift from the dead." Amen.

h Jude, ver. 14, 15,

£ Pet, i. 3.

Q 4

SER

SERMON XXII.

2 TIM. i, 10.

Who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light, through the Gofpel.

N my laft Difcourfe I reprefented to you,

I in how a

in how clear a light the Gospel of Chrift had placed the doctrine of a future ftate; and what evident proofs it gave to the world of the certainty of a future retribution,

But the doctrine of retribution in a future ftate, however clearly proved, was yet attended with certain difficulties, which mere

་་་་་

reafon

XXII. reafon could never refolve; and which therefore called for the aid and affiftance of fome farther discovery than could poffibly be obtained on the principles of nature. That men fhould be accountable in another ftate for the things they had done in this, reasou allowed to be fit and right; but then the difficulty in the eye of reafon was, how they could be brought into that state to render the account required. Mankind are mortal; deftined to perish by the stroke of death before the judgment comes. By this intervening deftruction the fcene is in all appearance clofed; and judgment entirely excluded. For though it be acknowledged that our fouls furvive; yet, thefe alone cannot in equity be anfwerable for our actions. For our actions are not the actions of pure fpirits or fouls; but the actions of men; that is, of fouls and bodies united. And therefore it follows, that, in order to be restored to the integrity of our nature, and put in a condition to answer for ourselves; our fouls fhould again be united to our bodies, and the fame individuals recalled to life. But of

fuch

fuch a restoration or refurrection to life nature afforded no examples. For what is there in the whole compafs of beings that yields a fimilitude of duft and afhes rifing up again into regular bodies, and to a state of perpetual immortality ?" According then to the conclufions of nature, mankind, it fhould feem, muft for ever continue under the power of death, without any hope of being delivered from it. And their continuance in that state muft neceffarily cut them off from all connections with the concerns of futurity.

On this view of things, death, you fee, stands as a perpetual bar to judgment; and throws fuch difficulties in the way of future rewards and punishments, as render the exertion of them void and impracticable. But as death had originally no place in nature, if you fuppofe it again removed; or, which is the fame thing, fuppofe that our bodies fhould hereafter be rescued from the power of the grave; and raised up again to a state

* Bp. SHERLOCK, vol. I. difc. vi. p. 205.

of