fonable Natures, but only to know that which is most worthy to be known, and to chufe and love that which is most worthy to be chofen and loved? When therefore our Underftandings is become fo clear and vigorous, as to reafon aright, and penetrate into the Natures of things; and our Wills and Affections are perfectly compliant and harmonious with it; and all these are in Conjunction with God, the Fountain of all Truth and Goodness; we are then arrived to the heavenly State of reasonable Natures. And therefore all that is pofitively affirmed of the heavenly Happiness in the Gofpel, is only this; that it confifts in our feeing God, and loving and resembling him, and being for ever affociated with those bleed Spirits, that fee and love and resemble him as well as We. And this doubtlefs is fuch a Felicity, as no mortal Language can exprefs: For how will my Understanding triumph, when it is once emerged out of all the Mifts and Clouds, with which it is here furrounded, into the clear Heaven of Vifion, where it fhall have a free and uninterrupted Profpect throughout the whole Horizon of Truth; when God and Heaven, and all the Myfteries of the other World fhall be always prefent to my ravished Thoughts? How hail and found, how light and expedite will my Soul be, when it is difentangled from all those unreasonable Paffions, which here do clog and disease her? When all her jarring Faculties fhall be reduced into a perfect Harmony, what a Heaven of Content and Peace will there fpring up within her own Bofom? And when she is thus contempered to the divine Perfection, and infpired throughout with a God-like Nature, in what Raptures of Love and Ecftacies of Joys will she converse

with God and blessed Spirits? This doubtless, if there were no more, is enough to make the heavenly State unfpeakably happy and blessed: And this together with a perfect Freedom from Pains and Mifery, and Death, is all of Heaven that God hath made known to us in his Gospel: Here we are told that we fhall be made perfect, that we fhall fee as we are feen, and know as we are known, and behold him, that is invifible, Face to Face: For yet it doth not appear what we shall be, says St. John, but we know that when he shall appear, we fhall be like him, for we fball fee him as he is, 1 Epift. iii. 2. There may be, and doubtless are, fundry additional Felicities to these; but in these it is apparent the main of Heaven doth confift, because these are all that God hath plainly revealed, and made known to us.

II. The next Thing propofed was to fhew, what the Temper and Difpofition of wicked Souls will be in the future State. And this may be eafily gathered, by confidering wherein a wicked Temper confifts; For doubtless with the fame Temper of Mind that we are of in this World, we shall go into the other: For merely by going into the other World, Men cannot be altered as to their main State, though they may be perfected as to thofe good Difpofitions that were here begun; fo that he that is wicked here will be wicked there too, and that fame Difpofition of Mind that we carry with us to our Graves, we shall retain with us in Eternity. If therefore we would know what the Temper of a wicked Soul will be in the future State, our beft Way will be to enquire, what it is that we call a wicked Temper here? Because it will be the fame here, and hereafter. Now a wicked Temper confifts of two Things;

First, of Senfuality, and Secondly, of Devilishness. By Senfuality, I mean an immoderate Propenfion of the Soul to the Pleafures of the Body; fuch an headStrong Propenfion, as wholly diverts the Soul from all her nobler Delights to the Brutish Pleasures of Intemperance, and Wantonness, and Gluttony; together with those other Lufts that are fubfervient to them; fuch asFraud and Covetoufnefs, andAmbition, and the like: By Devilishness, I mean thofe fpiritual Wickednesses which do not fo much depend upon the Body as the former, but are more immediately centered in the Soul; fuch as Pride, and Malice, and Wrath and Envy, and Hatred, and Revenge, &c. which are the Sins of the Devil, by which thofe once glorious and blessed Spirits were transformed into Fiends and Furies. Thefe the venomous Ingredients of which a wicked Temper is compofed. If you enquire therefore what the Temper of a wicked Soul will be in the future State; I answer, it will be the fame there that it is here; that is, it will be fenfual and devilish. As for the latter, there can be no doubt of it; for Devilishness being immediately fubjected in the Soul, cannot be fuppofed to be separated from her by her Separation from the Body; and may as well abide in naked and feparated Spirits, as it doth in the Apostate Angels. And as for Senfuality, though it cannot be fuppofed that a Soul should retain the Appetites of the Body, after it is separated from it; yet having wholly abandon'd itself to corporeal Pleasures while it was in the Body, it may, and doubtlefs will, retain a vehement Hankering after a Re-union with it; which is the only Senfuality that a Separated Soul is capable of. For when the comes into the World of Spirits, her former accustoming

her

herself unto the Pleasures of the Body will have fo debauched and vitiated her Appetite, that She will be incapable of relishing any other Pleasures, but n what are carnal and fenfual; which because She cannot enjoy but in the Body, She must needs retain an earnest and vehement Longing to be re-united to it. For having never had any former Experience of the Pleasures of Spirits, when she comes into the other World, fhe will find herself miferably deftitute of all that can be pleafant and delightful to her; and because she knows, that the only Pleasures the can relish are such as are not to be enjoyed, but in Conjunction with the Body, therefore all her Appetites and Longings muft needs unite into one outragious Defire of being embody'd again, that so she may repeat these fenfual Pleasures, and act over the brutish Scene a-new. Which poffibly may be the Reafon, why such sensual Souls have appeared so often in Church-yards, and Charnel-houses, Union with the Body being that which these wandring Ghosts have the most eager Affections to, and that they are moft loth to be feparated from; which makes them perpetually hover about, and linger after their dear Confort, the Body; the Impoflibility of their Reunion with it not being able to cure them of their impotent Defires, but ftill they would fain be alive again. Virgil,

İterumque ad tarda reverti

Corpora: quæ lucis miferis tam dira Cupido?

And this, I doubt not, was one great Reafon of thofe extraordinary Abftinencies, and bodily Severities that were impofed by the Primitive Church; that U

by

by this means they might gently wean the Soul from the Pleasures of the Body, and teach it before-band, to live upon the Delights of Separated Spirits; that fo it might drop into Eternity with Eafe and Willingness, like ripe Fruit from the Tree; and that when it was arrived into the other World, it might not have its Appetite fo vitiated with these fenfual Delights, as to be incapable of relishing thofe fpiritual Ones, and fo be endlefly tormented with a fruitlefs Defire of returning to the Body again. This therefore from the whole is plain and apparent, that the Temper of wicked Souls in the other World, will be much the fame as it is in this; that is, fenfual and devilish, made up of Rage and Spite, and Malice, together with a vehement Longing after the deferted Body, in which they enjoyed the only Pleasures they were capable of.

And having thus fhew'd you, what are the Felicities of the future State; and what the Temper of wicked Souls will be in the future State; I now proceed,

III. To fhew you, how contrary fuch a Temper and Difpofition must be unto fuch Felicities. And indeed Senfuality and Devilishness are the only Indif pofitions for Heaven; but fuch Indifpofitions they are, that if upon an impoffible Suppofition a Soul could be admitted with them into the Habitations of the Blessed, She would not be able to relish one Pleafure there, among all the Delights with which the beatifick State abounds: There would none be found that would please her distemper'd Palate, which, like a feverish Tongue, must difrelish and naufeate the fweeteft Liquor, by Reafon of its overflowing Gall. And hence the Apoftle exhorting his Christian Coloffians, to be thankful unto God for