Some Arabians are commonly supposed to have been the first amongst Christians who asserted the Soul's mortality: but it was certainly a member of that monstrous System, which came very early from the School of Valentine; because I find it very distinctly refuted by Irenæus, who has an excellent Chapter under this title-Resurrectio nobis promissa ad spiritus naturaliter immortales referri non debet, sed ad corpora ex se mortalia. Lib. v. c. 7.

VOL. III.

T

DIS

DISSERTATION III.

A

COMMENTARY

ON REV. XIV. 13.

In which the Nature of Death is farther considered.

THE power of Sin is too manifest from the universal corruption of the world; and the dominion of Death is the certain and visible effect of it.

These two articles made a great figure in the Religion of Heathenism; the ground of which (so far as it can be separated from Tradition) was little more than an experimental knowledge of Sin and Death.

In the primitive temptation, when the Devil moved us to eat of the forbidden fruit, he pronounced a knowledge of good and evil as a consequence of the act of disobedience.

As

1

As he was a Liar who made this promise, it is little to be wondered at, that one half of it hath fallen short. The knowledge of good (whether virtue or felicity be understood by it) is hidden from us: and the knowledge of evil, that is, of the evil of sin, and the evil of punishment, is all that is now left to us. Nothing is more common than for great Liars to make great promises; because a promise, which is never to be made good, costs nothing. The Devil therefore, who has ends to serve upon us, is never wanting in promises; but whoever takes his word will find himself miserably disappointed in the end. By his performance in this first instance we may judge of him in every other: for though he can transform himself into all shapes, he will never be able to speak the truth under any one of them. To counteract the illusions of this evil Spirit, the New Testament brings with it a voice from heaven, assuring us that the Dead are blessed". Our first parents were persuaded by the voice of Satan, that an act of disobedience would turn a Man into a God; this voice informs us, that faith and obedience will turn death itself into a

Blessing. Which two declarations differ as Truth and Error generally do. The former is flattering and plausible, and finds immediate credit: the latter appears strange and contradictory, and cannot be assented to, till many prejudices are overcome, many difficulties removed, and a deliberate enquiry patiently submitted to. Errors are as cheap and as thriving as weeds in the field; but Truth is the fruit of labour and self-denial. The different value of each is sure to be determined by their issues; but folly hath no patience, and therefore takes things according to their first appearance.

The blessedness of the dead is one of the Christian Paradoxes, which cannot be cleared up and justified without a patient investigation: for it must be granted, that Death, in its own nature, is not a blessing but a curse. When the Creator surveyed the works of his own hands, he pronounced them all to be good; and it is declared, upon another occasion, that for his pleasure they are, and were created. Rev. iv. Therefore it is not his pleasure that they should be destroyed.

But

Death is the destruction of man, the most excellent of the visible works of God; which destruction is as strong an evidence of the

divine displeasure, as the creation of man was

an instance of divine goodness.

I think any

person must be sensible of this, who compares an healthy living body with a dead corpse; in which the eyes, that were formed for seeing, are grown dim and sunk into the head; the hands and feet, that were made for action, are become stiff and motionless; the ear, wonderously framed to judge of sounds, now insensible of every impression; the heart, which never rested since it was created, now cold and silent as a mass of clay; the blood, which used to flow through the veins, and spread life and warmth to every part, now congealed and frozen up to the fountainhead; the head, the seat of sense and understanding, now ready to be filled with earth. and worms. Let any person contemplate such a shocking spectacle as this, and He will be in little danger of error when He comes to argue and conclude upon it.

Hence death, in itself, can be considered only as an evil; indeed the greatest of temporal evils: all the lesser evils of pain and diseases lead to this, as the waters of springs and rivers fall at length into the sea.

Death is also a curse upon the mind as well as the body; it keeps men in a state of fear