XVIII.

Hell. Thofe indeed who depart this Life in SERM, a middle State, charged only with fome light Offences, which they nominate venial, i. e. pardonable Sins, or elfe obnoxious to fome temporal Penalty for groffer Sins, which yet have been forgiven them by the Power of the Church, as to their eternal Guilt or Pain; These, I fay, they remit for a certain Time to be purified in a middle Place invented by themselves, and well known by the Name of Purgatory: Where they doom them to Torments not inferior to thofe of the Damned except in Duration, and where they confine them till freed and delivered by the Prayers of the Church. But even these, as foon as delivered, they immediately mount to the highest Heavens: To thofe very Heavens where they fend the Souls of thofe who depart without any need of Purgation at all; and where both together (those I mean who paffed through Purgatory, and those who came the easier Way) enjoy the utmost Degree of Blifs in the Prefence of God, that mere Souls without their Bodies are capable of: There being no Difference, as they reprefent, between the State they are in at prefent, and what they shall be in after the Day of folemn Judg

3

SERM. Judgment, than what the Re-union of their Bodies to their Souls fhall then occafion.

XVIII.

This, though a fhort, is as fair and as plain, a Representation of what the Church of Rome advances with Relation to the Subject now before us, as I can poffibly give you. What End they ferve by it, or what other peculiar Doctrine of theirs it tends to support, I shall take Occafion to mention in the Sequel. But first I must tell you that this is a Notion which the Scriptures and Primitive Fathers of the Church know nothing of: It being the conftant Doctrine both of one and the other, that neither Good nor Bad are perfectly happy or miserable at present; neither of them now in the Place or State they shall be in hereafter; but that the Place and Condition of each of them, after the Refurrection and Day of Judgment shall be paft, will be very different from what it was, or is, or fhall be at any time before.

So that to discourse fatisfactorily and regularly upon the State of departed or feparate Souls, you fee, I have a double Talk to perform; viz. firft to remove the falfe Notions concerning the State, which the Mifreprefentations of the Church of Rome first introduced; but which are ftill retained by many

3

who

XVIII.

who like a Doctrine never the better for SERM being theirs; and then to proceed to lay down the true and primary Notion of the fame State, as it is delivered to us in Holy Scripture, and by the ancienteft Writers and Fathers of the Church. My Business therefore is

I. FIRST negatively, to disprove that the Souls of the Deceased are at present either in Heaven, or Hell; or in that perfect Degree of Happiness or Mifery, which they are to be in hereafter. And then

II. In the SECOND Place, pofitively to declare (I mean as far as the Scriptures enable us) in what Place and Condition they are.

I. The FIRST of thefe Heads I believe is more than I fhall be able to compass in one Difcourfe. To this therefore I propose to confine myself wholly at prefent; and to introduce me to it have chose those Words of the inspired Author to the Hebrews which I have read for my Text. And how proper a

Text this is to lead me to the Doctrine I would defend, a fhort Review of the Context will fhew. In the Clofe of the Chapter immediately foregoing, the Holy Penman exhorts

his

SER M. his Hebrews not to fhrink back from the

XVIII. Profeffion of their Faith, because they had

not a prefent Recompence for their Sufferings

and Pains; but to endure with Patience,
which was neceffary to entitle them to the
promised Reward, and to which he encou-
rages them by affuring them that He that
fhall come,
will come in a little while, and will
not tarry, Heb. xi. 37. i. e. The Meffiah,
or Jefus Chrift, who is to come again in the
End of the World to confer Rewards on all
that wait for him with Faith and Patience,
shall most affuredly come at the appointed
Time, when all things are prepared, and be-
yond which Time he shall not stay. But left
the Hebrews fhould think even this too long
to wait; he proceeds in this Chapter, whence
I have taken my Text, to animate them from
the Examples of the Reverend Patriarchs and
Fathers of old, who had fuffered much in
Times long paft, and yet were still content to
wait for that Promife, which Chriftians, as
born in the laft Age of the World, might hope
foon to obtain. With this View he calls to
their Memories the heroick Tranfactions of
·Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, of Abraham and
Sarah, of Ifaac and Jacob, of fofeph and
Mofes, of Rabab, and of many others, whom

be

XVIII.

he wanted Time to enlarge on, fuch as Gideon, SERM. and Barak, and Samfon, and Jephtha, fuch as David alfo and Samuel, and the rest of the Prophets All of them Names venerable for their Antiquity, and renowned for their Faith; who yet, notwithstanding all they did and all they fuffered, ftill waited, even then, when the Penman wrote, for their final Reward: They had not received the Promise made to their Sufferings and Faith, but expected till the Number of the Chofen and Elect of God fhould be fulfilled under both Difpenfations, when all together (and not any one before another) should have their Happiness rendered perfect and complete. For so faith my Text, Thefe all having obtained a good Report through Faith; i. e. the Scriptures bearing Witness that by Virtue of their Faith, they were all acceptable to God, they did not however receive the Promife, the Rewards enfured to them were not yet conferred upon them, God having provided fome better thing for us that were born under the New Teftament, i. e. doing us Honour, by keeping them in a State of Expectation and Delay, till we and all that are still to be born, fhall be ready to enter into, and enjoy, the Promifes with them: That fo even they, who first finished