The World to Come: Discourses on the Joys or Sorrows of Death, Judgment and Eternity

Among all the solemn and important things which relate to religion, there is nothing that strikes the soul of man with so much awe and solemnity, as the scenes of death, and the dreadful or delightful consequents which attend it. Who can think of entering into that unknown region where spirits dwell, without the strongest impressions upon the mind arising from so strange a manner of existence 1 Who can take a survey of the resurrection of the millions of the dead, and of the tribunal of Christ, whence men and angels must receive their doom, without the most painful solicitude, ‘What will my sentence be?’ Who can meditate on the intense and unmingled pleasure or pain in the world to come, without the most pathetic emotions of soul, since each of us must be determined to one of these states, and they are both of everlasting duration?

These are the things that touch the springs of every passion in the most sensible manner, and raise our hopes and our fears to their supreme exercise. These are the subjects with which our blessed Saviour and his Apostles frequently entertained their hearers, in order to persuade them to hearken, and attend to the divine lessons which they published amongst them. These were some of the sharpest weapons of their holy warfare, which entered into the inmost vitals of mankind, and pierced their consciences -with the highest solicitude. — These have been the happy means to awaken thousands of sinners to flee from the wrath to come, and to allure and hasten them to enter into that glorious Tefuge that is set before them in the gospel.

It is for the same reason that I have selected a few discourses on these arguments out of my public ministry, to set them ‘before the eyes of the world in a more public manner, that if possible, some thoughtless creatures might be roused out of their sinful slumbers, and might awake into a spiritual and eternal life, through the concurring influences of the blessed Spirit.

I am not willing to disappoint my readers, and therefore I would

«r •yiii let them know before-hand, that they will find very little in this book to gratify their curiosity abort the many questions relating to the invisible world, and the things which God has not plainly revealed. Something of this kind, perhaps, may be found in two discourses of death and heaven, which I published long ago: but in the present discourses I have very much neglected such curidus enquiries. Noi will the ear that has an itch for controversy be much entertained here, for I have avoided matters of doubtful debate. Nor need the most zealous man of orthodoxy, fear to be led astray into new and dangerous sentiments, if he will but take the plainest and most evident dictates of Scripture, for his direction into all truth.

My only design has been to set the great and most momentous things of a future world in the most convincing and affecting light, and to enforce them upon the conscience with all the fervour that such subjects demand and require. And may our blessed Redeemer, who reigns Lord of the invisible world, pronounce these words with a divine power to the heart of every man, who shall either read or hear them.

The treatise which is set as an introduction to this book, * was printed many years ajo without the author’s name, and there, in a short preface, represented to the reader these few reasons of its writing and publication, viz.

The principles of atheism and infidelity have prevailed so far upon our age, as to break in upon the sacred fences of virtue and piety, and to destroy the noblest and most effectual springs of true and vital religion; I mean those which are contained in the blessed gospel. — The doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and the consequent states of heaven and hell, is a guard and motive of divine force; but it is renounced by the enemies of our holy Christianity: and should we give up the recompences of separate souls, while the deist denies the resurrection of the tody, I fear between both we should sadly enfeeble and expose the cause of virtue, and leave it too naked and defenceless. The Christian would have but one persuasive of this kind remaining, and the deist would have none at all.

It is necessary therefore to be upon our guard, and to establish every motive that we can derive either from reason or Scripture, to secure religion in the world. The doctrine of the state of separate spirits, and the commencement of rewards and punishments, immediately after death, is one of those sacred fences of virtue which we borrow from Scripture, and it is highly favoured by reason,and there-

* In the present edition, the treatise, or E.ssay, referred to here, is placed at the end of the volume. — Ed.

fore it may not be unseasonable to publish such arguments as may tend to the support of it.

In this second edition of this small treatise, I have added several paragraphs and pages to defend the same doctrine, and the last section contains an answer to various new objections which I had not met with, when I first began to write on this subject. I hope it is set upon such a firm foundation of many Scriptures, as cannot possibly be overturned, nor do I think it a very easy matter any way to evade the force of them. May the grace of God lead us on further into every truth that tends to maintain and propagate faith and holiness.

In the first of these discourses, I have endeavoured to prove, that ’ at the departure of the soul from the body by death, the rewards or punishments,’ i. e. the joys or sorrows ’ of the other world, are appointed to commence:’ and I hope I have given, from the evidence of Scripture, such arguments to support this doctrine, as that the faith of Christians may not be staggered and confounded by different opinions, or made to wait for these events, through all the many years that may arise between death and the resurrection.

I know nothing besides this, that is made r. matter of controversy; and I hope that the whole of these sermons, by the blessing of God, wil’ be made happily useful to Christians, to awaken and warn them against the danger of being seized by death in a state unprepared for the presence of God, and the happiness of heaven, and to raise the comforts and joys of many pious souls in the lively expectation of future blessedness.

The last discourses of this book, especially the ’ eternity of the punishments of hell,’ have been in latter and former years made a matter of dispute; and were I to pursue my enquiries into this doctrine, only by the aids of the light of nature and reason, I fear my natural tenderness might warp me aside from the rules and the demands of strict justice, and the wise and holy government of the great God. But as I confine myself almost entirely to the revelation of Scripture in all my searches into the things of revealed religion and Christianity, I am constrained to forget or to lay aside that softness and tenderness of animal nature which might lead me astray, and to follow the unerring dictates of the word of God.

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