“Suppose a torch enclosed in a cell of earth, in the midst of ten thousand thousand torches that shine at large in a spacious amphitheatre. While it is enclosed, its beams strike only on the walls of its own cell, and it has no communion with those without. But let this cell fall down at once, and the torch that moment has full communion with all those ten thousands; it shines as freely as they do, and receives and gives assistance to all of them, and joins to add glory to that illustrious place.
“Or suppose a man born or brought up in a dark prison, in the midst of a fair and populous city. He lives there in a close confinement; perhaps he enjoys only the twinkling light of a lamp, with thick air and much ignorance; though he has some distant hints and reports of the surrounding city and its affairs, yet he sees and knows nothing immediately but what is done in his own prison, till in some happy minute the walls fall down; then he finds himself at once in a large and populous town, encompassed with a thousand blessings. With surprise he beholds the king in all his glory, and holds converse with the sprightly inhabitants. He can speak their language, and finds his nature suited to such communion. He breathes free air, stands in the open light; he shakes himself, and exults in his own liberty.”
The gentle spirit of Watts trembled before hell; he expressed his belief in eternal punishment in the strongest and most unequivocal terms, not because he found it plainly in his understanding, but because he found it plainly declared in the New Testament, while yet, like other fathers in the Church, he expresses within himself a latent hope that God has some secret and mitigating decree, and that although we neither dare preach nor speculate upon it, bowing to the word, we yet may hope that Infinite Love will find out a way.[42]
Some readers will be surprised to find that among his proofs of a separate state, Watts does not hesitate, although very modestly, to avow some belief in Apparitions. It was the age of superstition and supernatural visitations. Joseph Addison indeed was aiming at a sweeping reform, and attempting to lay all the ghosts in the country. Watts says—
CONCERNING THE POSSIBILITY OF APPARITIONS.
“At the conclusion of this chapter I cannot help taking notice, though I shall but just mention it, that the multitude of narratives, which we have heard of in all ages, of the apparition of the spirits or ghosts of persons departed from this life, can hardly be all delusion and falsehood. Some of them have been affirmed to appear upon such great and important occasions as may be equal to such an unusual event; and several of these accounts have been attested by such witnesses of wisdom, and prudence, and sagacity, under no distempers of imagination, that they may justly demand a belief; and the effects of these apparitions, in the discovery of murders and things unknown, have been so considerable and useful, that a fair disputant should hardly venture to run directly counter to such a cloud of witnesses without some good assurance on the contrary side. He must be a shrewd philosopher indeed who, upon any other hypothesis, can give a tolerable account of all the narratives in Glanvil’s ‘Sadducisimus Triumphatus,’ or Baxter’s ‘World of Spirits and Apparitions,’ etc. Though I will grant some of these stories have but insufficient proof, yet if there be but one real apparition of a departed spirit, then the point is gained that there is a separate state.
“And, indeed, the Scripture itself seems to mention such sort of ghosts or appearances of souls departed (Matt. xiv. 26). When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water they ‘thought it had been a spirit.’ And (Luke xxiv. 37) after His resurrection they saw Him at once appearing in the midst of them, ‘and they supposed they had seen a spirit;’ and our Saviour doth not contradict their notion, but argues with them upon the supposition of the truth of it, ‘a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me to have.’ And, Acts xxiii. 8, 9, the word ‘spirit’ seems to signify ‘the apparition of a departed soul,’ where it is said, ‘The Sadducees say there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit;’ and, verse 9, ‘If a spirit or an angel hath spoken to this man,’ etc. A spirit here is plainly distinct from an angel; and what can it mean but an apparition of a human soul which has left the body?”
An acquaintance with the “World to Come” will take away even now from the reader any surprise at the popularity it once enjoyed during years when printed sermons were not very abundant, and when readers received without questioning the doctrines and statements of such books as bore the imprint of the names of eminent men. Many passages are fraught with a most pleasing eloquence, and, read by a serious mind, are well calculated to convey not only passing, but permanent impressions. Shall we take two or three?