Life and Immortality Revealed in the Gospel 2
Back to SERMONS Samuel Davies
No, my friends, this is not at all probable, even to a superficial inquirer; and to one that thinks deeply, and consults right reason and the sacred Scriptures, this appears utterly impossible!
Therefore, take warning in time! Methinks this consideration might have some weight, even with epicures and sensualists, who consider themselves as mere animals, and make it their only concern to provide for and gratify the flesh! Unless you are holy now, unless you now deny yourselves of your guilty pleasures, not only your soul—that neglected, disregarded trifle—must perish; but your body, your dear body, your only care, must be eternally wretched too; your body must be hungry, thirsty, pained, tortured, hideously deformed, a mere system of pain and loathsomeness!
But if you now keep your bodies pure and serve God with them, and with your hearts too—they will bloom forever in the charms of celestial beauty; they will flourish in immortal youth and vigor! they will forever be the receptacles of the most exquisite sensations of pleasure! And will you not deny yourselves the sordid pleasures of a few years, for the sake of those of a blessed immortality?
But let me give you a view of immortality of a more noble kind, the proper immortality of the soul. And here, what an extensive and illustrious prospect opens before us!
Look a little way backward, and your sight is lost in the darkness of non-existence. A few years ago—you were nothing. But at the creative fiat of the Almighty, that little spark of being, the soul, was struck out of nothing; and now it warms your breast, and animates the machine of flesh. But shall this glimmering divine spark ever be extinguished! No! it will survive the ruins of the universe, and blaze out into immortality! The duration of your souls will run on from its first commencement, in parallel lines with the existence of the Deity. What an inheritance is this entailed upon the child of dust, the creature of yesterday!
Here let us pause, make a stand, and take a survey of this majestic prospect! This body must soon moulder into dust, but the soul will live unhurt, untouched, amid all the dissolving struggles and convulsions of animal nature.
"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat!" 2 Peter 3:10-12. But this soul shall live secure of existence in the universal desolation, "Unhurt amidst the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds!" And now, when the present system of things is dissolved, and time shall be no more—then eternity, boundless eternity, follows; and on this, the soul enters as on its proper duration.
Now look forward as far as you will, your eyes meet with no obstruction, with nothing but the immensity of the prospect: in that, indeed, it is lost, as extending infinitely beyond its aspect.
What is eternity? To help your conception, come, attempt this arithmetic of infinites, and exhaust the power of numbers: let millions of millions of ages begin the vast computation; multiply these by the stars of heaven; then by the particles of dust in this huge globe of earth; then by the drops of water in all the vast oceans, rivers, lakes, and springs that are spread over the globe; then by all the thoughts that have risen in so quick a succession in the minds of men and angels, from their first creation to this day.
Make this computation, and then look forward through this long line of duration—and contemplate your future selves. Still you see yourselves in existence; still the same persons; still endowed with the same consciousness, and the same capacities for happiness or misery, but vastly enlarged; as much superior to the present as the capacities of an adult to those of a new-born infant, or an embryo in the womb. Still will you bloom in immortal youth, and are as far from an end as in the first moment of our existence. O sirs, methinks it may startle us to view our future selves so changed, so improved, removed into such different regions, associated with such strange unacquainted beings, and fixed in such different circumstances of glory—or terror; of happiness—or misery.
Men of great projects and optimistic hopes are apt to sit and pause, and take an imaginary survey of what they will do, and what they will be in the progress of life. But then DEATH, like an apparition, starts up before them, and threatens to cut them off in the midst of their pursuits. But in eternity—no death threatens to extinguish your being or snap the thread of your existence; but it runs on in one continued everlasting tenor. What a vast inheritance is eternity—which is inalienably entailed upon every child of Adam! What importance, what value, does this consideration give to that neglected thing—the soul! What an astounding being is it!
Immortality! What emphasis, what grandeur in the sound! Immortality is so vast an attribute, that it adds a kind of infinity to anything to which it is annexed, however insignificant in other respects: and on the other hand, the lack of eternity would degrade the most exalted being into a trifle. The highest angel, if the creature of a day, or of a thousand years—what would he be? A fading flower, a vanishing vapor, a flying shadow! When his day or his thousand years are past—he is then as truly nothing as if he had never been. It is little matter what becomes of him while in this present world: let him stand or fall, let him be happy or miserable—it is all the same in a little time; he is gone, and there is no more of him, no traces of him left!
But an immortal being—a creature that shall never, never, never cease to be, that shall expand his capacities of action, of pleasure, or pain, through an everlasting duration! What an astonishing, important being is this! And is my soul, this little spark of reason in my breast, is that such a being? I tremble at myself! I revere my own dignity, and am struck with a kind of pleasing horror to view what I must be! And is there anything so worthy of the care of such a being, as the happiness, the everlasting happiness, of my immortal part? What is it to me, who am formed for an endless duration, what I enjoy, or what I must suffer in this vanishing earthly state? Seventy or eighty years bear not the least imaginable proportion to the duration of such a being; they are too inconsiderable a point to be seen! They are mere ciphers in the computation! They do not bear as much proportion as the small dust that will not turn the balance—to this vast globe of earth, and all the vaster globes that roll in their orbits through the immense space of the universe.
And what shall become of me through this eternal duration? This, and this alone, is the grand concern of an immortal being! And in comparison with this—it does not deserve one thought what becomes of me while in this vanishing phantom of a world.
For consider, your immortality will not be a state of insensibility, without pleasure or pain; you will not drone out a useless, inactive existence, in an eternal stupor, or a dead sleep. But your souls will be active as long as they exist; and as I have repeatedly observed, still retain all their capacities; nay, their capacities will perpetually enlarge with an eternal growth. You will either advance from glory to glory in heaven—or plunge from depth to depth in hell.
Here, then, my fellow-immortals! Here pause and say to yourselves, "What is likely to become of me through this long eternity? Am I likely to be eternally happy—or eternally miserable?
What though you are now rich, honourable, healthy, merry, and mirthful! Alas! Earthly enjoyments are not proper food for an immortal soul. And besides, they are not immortal, as your souls are. If these earthly trifles are your only portion—then what will you do for happiness millions of ages hence, when all these are fled away like a vapour?
Are you provided with a happiness which will last as long as your souls will live to crave it? Have you a saving interest in God? Are you prepared for the fruition of the heavenly state? Do you delight in God above all? Have you a relish for the refined pleasures of true religion? Is God, the supreme good—the principle object of your desire? Do you now accustom yourselves to the service of God, the great employment of heaven? and are you preparing yourselves for the more exalted devotion of the church on high, by a serious attendance on the humbler forms of worship in the church on earth? Are you made pure in heart and life, that you may be prepared for the regions of untainted holiness, to breathe in that pure air, and live in that holy climate, so warm with the love of God, and so near the Sun of Righteousness?
Do not some of you know that this is not your prevailing character? And what then do you think will become of you without a speedy alteration in your temper and conduct?
Alas! must your immortality, the grand privilege of your nature, become your eternal curse? Have you convinced yourself that you will die like a brute? That is, that you will perish entirely, and your whole being be extinguished in death? But alas! Your atheistic principles may lull your consciences into a stupid repose for a little while—but they cannot annihilate you! Though you may livelike a beast—you cannot die like a beast! No, you must live—live to suffer righteous punishment, whether you now believe it or not.
As you did not come into being by your own consent—so neither can you go out of life you please. And will you not labour to make your immortality a blessing? Is there anything in this world that can be a temptation to you to forfeit such an immense blessing? Oh that you were wise! that you would consider this!
I shall now accommodate my subject to the present melancholy occasion, and endeavour to make a particular improvement of it. "It is appointed unto men once to die—but after this, the judgement!" Hebrews 9:27
Do you expect a pleasant eulogy of our deceased young friend? This is not my usual practice; and I omit it, not because I can see nothing amiable in mankind, nor because I would enviously deny them their just praises—but because I have things of much greater importance to engage your attention. The dead have received their just and unchangeable doom at a superior tribunal; and our eulogies or censures may be often misapplied. My business is with the living—not to flatter their vanity with compliments, but to awaken them to a sense of their own mortality, and to a preparation for it.
However, if you must have his eulogy—I will draw it to you in the most important and interesting light. Here was a youth in the bloom of life, in the prime of his strength, with a lively flow of health, who seemed as secure from the stroke of death as any of us; a youth that had escaped many dangers by sea and land; a youth launched into the world with, no doubt, the usual projects and expectations of a happy old age. But where is he now? Alas! In yonder grave lies the blooming, promising flower withered in the morning of life! There lies his mortal body, mouldering into dust—and feeding the worms!
Come to his grave, you young and mirthful ones, you lively and strong ones, you men of business and bustle; come and learn what you must shortly be—your own doom! Thus shall your limbs stiffen, your blood stagnate, your faces wear the pale and ghastly aspect of death, and your whole frame dissolve into dust and ashes!
Thus shall your all temporal purposes be broken off, all your schemes vanish like smoke, and all your hopes from this world perish. Death perpetually lurks in ambush for you—ready every moment to spring upon his prey!
"Oh that DEATH!" (said a gentleman of large estate, strong constitution, and cheerful temper,) "I do not like to think of death—he comes in and spoils all." So he does indeed! He spoils all your thoughtless mirth, all your foolish amusements, and all your great schemes. Methinks it befits you to prepare—for what you cannot avoid! Methinks, among your many schemes and projects, you should form one to prepare for eternity. You may make a poor shift to live without piety, but you can make none to die without it. You may ridicule the saint, but he really has the advantage of you.
"Well, after all," said a celebrated unbeliever, "these Christians are the happiest people upon earth." Indeed they are; and if you are wise, you will labour to be of their number.
But was our departed friend nothing but an animal, a mere machine of flesh and bones? Is the whole of him putrefying in yonder grave? No! I must draw his character farther. He was an immortal; and no sooner did he take his last breath—than his soul took wing, and made its flight into the eternal realm. There it now dwells. And what amazing scenes now present themselves to his view! What extraordinary, unknown beings does he now converse with!
There also, my friends, you and I must before long be. We too must be initiated into those grand mysteries of the invisible world, and mingle in this assembly of immortal beings. We must share with angels in their bliss and glory—or with devils in their agonies and terrors! And our eternal destiny shall be according to our present character. "The hour is coming, in which all who are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth; those who have done good—unto the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil—unto the resurrection of damnation!" John 5:28
And do you, sirs, make it your main concern to secure a happy immortality? Do you live as expectants of eternity? Or do you live as though this world were to be your eternal residence, and as if your bodies, not your souls, were immortal? Does your conscience approve of such conduct? Do you really think it is better for you, upon the whole, to remain fashionably wicked, or perhaps ringleaders in debauchery and infidelity, in a country overrun with all manner of vice? Is this better than to live a godly life—and die the death of the righteous? Which do you think you will approve of in the hour of death, that honest hour, when things will appear in a true light? And of which, will you be able to give the most comfortable account at the supreme tribunal? Brethren, form an impartial judgement upon this comparison, and let it guide your conduct. Behave as "strangers and pilgrims on earth, who have no continuing city here." Behave as expectants of eternity, as candidates for immortality; as "beholding Him who is invisible, and looking for a city which has foundations, eternal in the heavens." In that celestial city may we all meet at last, through Jesus Christ! Amen.
Back to SERMONS Samuel Davies