We are converfant in the corporeal SERM. VI. World from our Infancy. Senfible Objects make fuch early, repeated, strong Impreffions, that it is sometimes difficult to let in, upon a Mind already immersed in Matter, one Thought concerning immaterial Beings, through an immoderate Fear of Superftition. For Men talk and write, as if that was the only Evil to be dreaded at present. We run into Sadducifm; and left we should suppose any Invisible Being immediately concerned, we affign vifible Causes, which are plainly unequal to the Effects produced. In order to remedy this, the Scripture has in Part drawn afide the Veil, and let us into the World of Spirits; undoubtedly the most excellent and powerful, and perhaps the most numerous, Part of the Creation. What is my Soul amidst fuch a Multitude of Spirits? No more than a Drop amidst the vaft Collection and Affemblage of Waters. It discovers to us the Being and Offices of Evil Spirits to excite our Caution; and the Reality and Employment of good Angels, to animate our Courage, and to raise our Ambition; for we Shall be as the good Angels of God. And every green Leaf fwarms with Inhabi

if

SERM. VI. tants undiscoverable by the naked Eye; if by the Help of Glaffes the Philofophers have discovered new Kingdoms, new Worlds of Beings within the old World; if the leaft Quantity of Water is peopled by Myriads of invisible, fenfible Creatures; it is no Enthusiasm to think, that the Spiritual World, however undiscover'd, may bear fome Proportion to the Senfible; and that when we are alone, we are so far from being in a forlorn Wild of dead, unconscious Matter, or furrounded only with Space, a lifelefs Void; that innumerable intellectual Beings may be hovering round us, Spectators of our Actions.

And when this Body, the material Curtain, that is drawn between Us and the invifible World of Spirits, is rent asunder; the Wicked may find a fudden Torrent of Light breaking in upon them; a Light more powerful, sharp, and piercing, than even those Pains, which diffolved the vital Union, and divorced the Soul from the Body. He may find himself under the Arrest and Cuftody of Evil Angels, to be thrust down into Places of Horror and Despair; as, what we learn from the Parable of Lazarus, the Good are conveyed, by a Guard of Angels, to Places of Light and Blifs.

Το

To enlarge our Conceptions let us fup- SERM. VI. pose, that, in a spacious Theatre where a thousand Lights are burning, one is inclosed in a little Cell of Earth, juft as our Spirit in the Body. While it is inclosed, it's Beams ftrike only on it's own narrow Prison, and it has no Communion with those without. But let this Cell be broken down, it has full Communion with all thofe thousands, and joins it's focial Beams with theirs. Thus it shall be when the Body is put off, and the Soul enlarged from it's Prifon. It fhall find itself among Millions of Spirits to which it was a Stranger whilft immersed in Flesh, itself a Kindred Spirit.

2dly, When any wicked Suggestion, into which we are led by no Difcourfe, without any foregoing Clue of thinking, without any preceeding Train of Ideas, arifes in our Minds, we know not how, or from what Quarter, by a fudden Impulse; let us reject it immediately with Abhorrence.

The Scripture never makes it an Excuse, or confiders it as an alleviating Circumftance, that we were feduced by a powerful Tempter; on the contrary, it makes it an Aggravation of the Crime, that we did not difmifs with Abhorrence a Suggestion, VOL. I.

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which

SERM. VI. which we might reafonably conclude, from the Nature and Tendency of the Thing, proceeded from an evil Spirit. Thus St. Peter rebukes Ananias feverely: Why bath Satan filled thine Heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost?

The Suggeftion may indeed arife from the grand Author of Evil, and fo far we are not culpable. But if we cherish and entertain it, we make it our own. The Offfpring might be originally his; but if we adopt it, it becomes our own legitimate Child. And when any good Thought fprings up, let us look upon it as a Beam of Light darting in upon our Minds from fome good Angel, or even from the Father of Lights. Let us improve, cultivate, and ripen it, till it breaks forth into correspondent Actions.

Laftly, Let us lay it to Heart what a Mifery it must be, to dwell for ever and ever with thofe accurfed Beings, our Tempters here, our Tormentors hereafter; in whom there reigns one genuine Blackness of Malice, without the leaft Beam of Benevolence fhed abroad in their Minds: as, on the other Hand, what a Happiness it must be, to have for ever our Converfation with thofe

glo

glorified and ennobled Spirits, the imme- SERM. VI. diate Attendants on the Throne of God; bright as the Sun, and numerous as the Stars; in a Place where no Malice, no Rancour, no Pain will find Admittance; but Love unallayed, and the Fullness of Bliss uninterrupted, will reign for ever and

ever.

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