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,PREFACE.
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.
If
this volume shall find
any considerable acceptance among
christians,
there
are several more discourses,
on
the
same themes,
lying by
me,
which may,
in
time, be communicated
to
the
world.
The
treatise, which
is
set
as'
an
introduction to
this book,
was
printed
several years ago, 'without
the
author's name,
and
therein
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
de-
stroy
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
body,
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 re-
ligion
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 therefore
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,
1
have
added
several
para-
graphs and
pages, to defend
the
same
doctrine, and the last
section con-
tains 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 main-
tain and propagate faith and
holiness.
Amen.
Note,
Where these
discourses shall be used, as a
religious service,
in
private
families on
Lord's-day evenings, each
of them
will afford a
division
near the middle,
lest
the
service be
made
too
long
and
tiresome.
1739.
T3