Gentleman now of late well known to the World who had married his Neice interpos'd so violently in his behalf that even his Merits and known Loyalty cou'd not procure his Expulsion This kindness of his Relations who were engaged on the other side was so well resented by him that afterwards in the Reign of K. James II. he was extremely pleas'd when upon the Alteration of Affairs in England he had an opportunity offer'd to him of requiting the Obligation to one of the Parties and indeed almost of paying the Debt in kind And here you must excuse a very short Digression if I acquaint you that this was not the single Instance of his Life wherein herdiscover'd his fix'd Principle That no difference of judgment or opinion ought to hinder the mutual Offices of Friendship Charity and Benevolence much less the Exercise of the most indispensable Duty in the World that of Gratitude For 't is well known to many now living that in the time of the most exalted Loyalty when men's outward Profession of Fidelity was not so much the Test of their Zeal as the Earnest of their Preferment he ingag'd so far for his Friend not in espousing his Tenet which perhaps was erroneous but in procuring his safety that he upon that Account lost a Bishoprick which had been often promis'd to him and which seem'd in reality to have been otherwise design'd for him But to return to our Authour's Life After the Restoration of K. Charles II. he had so great a Reliance on his Friend Dr. Sheldon Archbishop of Canterbury that though he was unanimously nam'd if not actually chosen Principal of Jesus College in Oxford he declin'd the offer of that creditable Post out of a Prospect I believe of greater Advantage by his Stay at London His Preferments at last were the Deanry of Chichester and the Precentorship of that Church a Prebend of Westminster a Rectory a Sine-Cure with another additional Dignity It is easie to be perceiv'd therefore that he never made himself liable to the Censures of those that blame Pluralities but it ought further to be known for the prevention of other objections that he was not willing to have accepted two Dignities seemingly incompatible in one Church if he had not obtain'd a Promise from K. Ch. II. of annexing the Precentorship perpetually to the Deanry of Chichester The small Revenues that belong to the Deanry of that ancient Cathedral recommended this Design to his Care and the meeting of the two separate Interests in one Person was the most probable Method of accomplishing it The Advances made in this Affair the Licence under the Privy Seal the Consent of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Opinion of very Eminent Council therein are now in my hands And tho' indeed the Design was always pursued with Earnestness and Vigour by our Authour yet so it hapned that through others negligence it not only as Church-work usually proceded slowly but by reason of some Difficulties arising between a warm Bishop of that See and Dr. Stradling then Dean thereof was then wholly discontinued and is now rather to be desir'd than expected I am well assur'd That during his Life the Rights of that Church were well defended the Revenues of it improv'd And the Fabrick beautified and repair'd and this is the rather probable because when his great Adversary had brought up to Court a Charge against him it fix'd no other Crime upon him in that Station than his too great Negligence and Remissness in promoting the Interest of the Crown in the Choice of Parliament men for Chichester The good Prelate Dr. Carleton a man possibly of no ill Principles but much heat was angry that men that agreed with him in opinion were not likewise of the same Frame and Temper and equally violent in executing their Designs The Pulse of our Authour it seems did not beat so high nor did his Blood circulate so quick nor was he by the bent of his Nature so much fitted for a popular and tumultuary Canvass and therefore the want of Passions was by the zealous Bishop easily misinterpreted Lukewarmness and the Observance of Decency in his Applications to the Electors seem'd to inferr an indifference in the Choice I shall not be much concern'd to refute this Accusation because after our Authour 's ingenuous and manly answer to it a great Minister of State was pleas'd to assure him in a Letter that His Majesty was satisfied that he was both able and willing to promote the King's Service with as much Zeal as his Accuser and with much more Sincerity Discretion and Success In the Year MDCLXVI he was married to Margaret Daughter of Sir William Salter in the Chappel of Richking House in Buckingham-shire the Seat of her Father He behav'd himself always to his Wife who brought him a very large Fortune not onely with Kindness but with all imaginable Indulgence and was happy as in the Enjoyment of her for XV. Years so in his numerous Issue by her some of which are yet living but I shall not enlarge on this Head as thinking the World not much concern'd in the particular and exact Knowledge of the small Occurrences of a private Family What I have farther to add is That our Authour after a long Disease at last died at Westminster on the XVIII Day of April in the Year MDCLXXXVIII and in the Year of his Age LXVII and was buried in the Abby there much desired and lamented by many but especially by those few that had the happiness of his near and intimate Conversation Having thus given you the Memoirs of Dr. Stradling's Life his Birth Fortune Manners and Death I shall proceed to draw from thence and from the other Accidents of his Life which would hardly bear a distinct Relation apart the true and full Idea and Character of our Authour He was a Man then of a free sweet and condescending Temper and withall of a deep and piercing Wit so that his Conversation not only procur'd him the Love but rais'd the Admiration of his Acquaintance He was not open to many Visitants but had the unusual happiness of being respected by Men of a different Humour Party and Temper from each other and who hardly agreed in any one thing but the Esteem of him And indeed as he was a Man of strict Morals and yet of an easie and agreeable Disposition he gain'd a respect of the more rigid and moroso part of Mankind and gave in the mean-while a liberty of access to those that allow'd themselves a greater latitude in Conversation His Learning was by no means superficial and yet his general Correspondence with Gentlemen of all sorts had made it easie to him and to his Company and though it was not always in sight yet was it ever ready not so much to amuse Ignorance as to refute Impertinence It will appear by the use he made of Foreign Authours in his Works that he travell'd not with the same Design as young
seen in the latter's time Even that bloudy Butcher Bonner who shew'd no mercy to any Protestant found his share in hers He was only put under a little restraint but such a mild one as differed very little from liberty and ended his days in peace I am sure that the design of this day was no good argument of the good nature of that Religion which the Designers profest no more than a standing Inquisition is Many who are persecuted abroad for their Religion run to us for shelter and protection But we send out none hence to complain of our like usage toward them Some indeed are so confident as to deny there is any such thing though many of us see it done abroad and whole shoals of suffering people daily flocking hither do themselves tell us so and should they not their very wants and miseries would lowdly proclaim it But that which seems strangest to us is to hear some of our brethren or at least such as pretend to be of the same Religion with us talk so much of that Egyptian slavery they have been rescued from I think there are no footsteps of any Bricks or Lime kills yet remaining amongst us Nor do I believe that we were ever such severe Task-masters to any of them as they were to us All when it was our chance to be under them Their little finger then was heavier upon us than all our loins ever were to them Those very people who now cry out so much on former Persecution may remember if they please That there was a time when themselves were the Persecutors and we the Sufferers The only difference between them and us is this That what they did was against Law and what we did was by it In a word Our answer to both these sorts of men is this That as we never had any hand in the business of this Day so neither in that of the 30th of January Now if the innocent Doctrine of our Church and our constant practice suitable thereunto will not sufficiently plead for us we have then no other Apology left us but that of St. Paul in the like case With us it is a very small thing that we should be judged of you or of man's judgment He that judgeth us and you too is the Lord who will one day make manifest the counsels of the heart and then shall every man have praise of God In the mean time let us keep to our Rule Doe all indeed to the glory of God but doe it in such a way as Himself will have it done by We are to look to our way God will take care of his own concerns 'T is high presumption in us to goe about to teach Him how He should be obey'd If we will serve Him acceptably Let us doe it according to His own will and prescription Then shall we doe Him service indeed and when our great Master shall come and find us so doing He will then to our unspeakable comfort say unto us Well done ye good and faithfull servants enter ye into the joy of your Lord Which he bring us unto c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON ON 1 COR. XV. 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable THAT all men have an apprehension of another Life which Tully calls Saeculorum quoddam augurium futurorum A kind of presage of a future world is hereby evident That they so infinitely desire and labour to extend their memory beyond the limits of this to make their fame outlast their persons to survive themselves in their Issue or in an Inscription and that sometimes engraven on the very houses of corruption their Sepulchres fancying a remainder of Life even in the abodes of death or which is yet stranger to perpetuate their fame by their very infamy So dreadfull a thing to Man is the very thought of Annihilation And by how much stronger men's apprehensions have been of another Life by so much has their contempt of this been the greater This made some Heathens so prodigal of a Life which in their opinion should return And as it made them valiant so has it in all Ages made Christians more It brought them cheerfully out into the Field and these more cheerfully to the Stake And indeed as the meditation of death is a good remedy against the fear of it to those who look beyond it so if it bound up men's thoughts and shut up their prospect within the grave if it be considered as ultima rerum linea that beyond which there remains nothing not as a passage to another Life but an utter close of this it cannot but fill their Souls with the greatest horror and amazement Now nothing can well remove this but the Doctrine of Christianity and 't is the great scope and design of it to doe so It represents death to us not as an annihilation but a change not as a ruine but a dissolution not as a bare privation of this life but a door to another So that when we dye now we leave nothing behind us but our mortality part with nothing but our corruption nor are we so much buried in our graves as laid up they being but so many beds from whence we are to be rouzed when Christ who raised himself shall raise us up he who is the Head draw us after Him who are the members without which blessed hope we should still remain in the chambers of death the pit should not only swallow us up but shut her mouth upon us our graves should devour our hopes with our selves and we should not so much dye as in St. John's expression be slain with death But now since Christ hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel now that he has not only discovered but imparted it to us the face of things is quite changed That which we dreaded before we now expect what was once a threat is now become a promise our greatest hope is in that which was our greatest fear If death affright us as natural men it comforts us as Christians If we be its Prisoners we are the Prophet Zachary's prisoners of hope It does but the office of a gentle Gaoler only unlock our Prison door to let us out thence into everlasting Mansions Of all Articles then of the Creed there is none more comfortable than that of the Resurrection to good Christians nor any so important even to their tranquility in this life whose miseries are so great and whose satisfactions so thin and empty that without hope of some release from them they should be more condemn'd to live than to dye Their life it self would even kill them They should sink under the perpetual apprehension of a future nothing hate life and still fear death that is not enjoy themselves here and be afraid of losing themselves for ever hereafter Upon which score 't is that
thereof and yet all this still dull and flat till he quickens it with an active Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he wrought in Christ when he raised him up from the dead An act proper to God the Father who is entitled to it ver 33. and by St. Paul too Gal. 1. 1. Yet so as that he has communicated this Power to his own Son Joh. 10. 17 18. and 5. 21 26. As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickneth them even so the Son quickneth whom he will who had a Power to lay down his life and to take it again to dissolve the Temple of his Body and in three days to raise it up so that Christ here did as much rise as was raised up and this the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Luke imports a Verb of an active signification implying a Power in himself to rise and in that respect a certain argument of his being the co-essential and con-substantial Son of God as the Apostle concludes him hence to be Rom. 1. 4. in spight of all those his adversaries who by denying him this Power prove themselves worse enemies to him than the Jews were who robb'd him of his Life whereas these of his Divinity also as far as in them lyes III. The principal and sole Agent then in this great Work was God the Father and the Son And such an Agent was necessary since the task was so difficult the knot which Death had tied being so hard required no less than a God to unloose it Now by Death here is meant not only a seperation of Soul and Body though that be the most natural import of the word but all those sad things that preceded as so many Prologues to his last Tragedy styled Propassiones All those ingredients in the bitter cup he drank of Such as were Christ's natural apprehensions of the terrors of Death the curse of the Law the load of our Sins upon him and a lively sense of God's wrath due to those Sins which put him into an Agony and made him sweat great drops of bloud and to close up all the bitter pangs of that cruel death he underwent to satisfie God's Justice All which are compar'd here to the Pangs of a Woman in travail from which God at last freed him by raising him up to a life uncapable of pain or sorrow making him forget his former Sufferings as a Woman does her Pains when delivered of her Child Joh. 16. 21. This is implied in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But because to loose the Pains seems a hard expression and unloosing properly denoting the untying of some knot and so supposing some chain or cord wherewith Christ was bound and which God dissolved which the following word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems to make good some conceive it better to interpret the word Pains by Bonds as the Syriack does calling them Funes Sepulchri those adamantina mortis vincula in the Poet And the rather because the Psalmist promiscuously useth these words Psal. 116. 3. The snares of Death compassed me round about and the pains of Hell gat hold upon me Both of them signifie no more but the power of death those Shackles and Manacles which the Angel of the Covenant struck off from himself and then from us which could no more hold him than the withy bands could Sampson herein a Type of Christ being but as Flax and Tow to him who was the Power of God and though he might suffer himself to be entangled yet could not possibly be holden of them And that 1. In respect of the Truth of God's Word viz. those many Predictions and Types of Christ's Resurrection which else must have been voided The Predictions are many and clear relating to this point That of Esay 53. 8. That Christ should be taken from his prison That of Hosea 6. 2. After two days will he revive us and in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight see Esay 26. 19. But most expresly that of the Prophet David Psal. 16. 10 11. That his flesh should rest in hope and that God would not suffer his Holy One to see Corruption which Prophecy could not be apply'd to David himself as St. Peter here in the Verses immediately following tells his Auditors because he did see Corruption but only to Christ who did not and who did rise the third day according to the Scriptures Luk. 18. 33. As for those Types too which shadow forth Christ's Resurrection they are many and exactly representative of it As Adam's awaking from sleep a Type of the second Adam's from death Sarah's conceiving when old Isaac's being sacrificed and yet living Gen. 22. 12. An express figure of Christ's Resurrection Heb. 11. 14 17 Joseph's being taken out of the Pit and lifted up out of the Dungeon as Jeremy was too and Daniel out of the Den of the Lions Dan. 6. 23. And more clearly by Christ's own application Jonah's being taken out of the belly of the Whale Mat. 12. 40. All which Types would be meer shadows without their substance and insignificant Types if they had wanted their Anti-types and should not exactly have answer'd them which they could not doe if Christ could have been holden by the pains or cords of death 2. Not possible by reason of that indissoluble tye of Christ's Personal Union so strait that Christ's Body even in the Grave was inseparably united to the Deity which drew it to it For although Death could dissolve his Natural yet not his Personal Union and therefore necessary it was that his Body and Soul should be re-united that so he might become a perfect Man which could not be without his rising 3. Not possible in respect of God's immutable Decree so determining it which being still of force nothing could render ineffectual God had anointed his Son from all Eternity as to be a Prophet and a Priest so a King to accomplish the work of Man's Redemption none of which Offices could be fully executed but upon supposition of his rising from the dead 1. The preaching of the Gospel was to follow that Luk. 24. 47. 2. As was also the preaching of Repentance and Remission of sins through his bloud the Expiation whereof as well as our Justification the not imputing our Sins to us was an effect of his Resurrection Rom. 4. 25. Who was delivered for our Offences and raised again for our Justification God having declared by raising his Son from the dead that he had accepted of his Death as of a sufficient ransome for our Sins For if Christ had remained still under the power of Death his satisfaction could not have been perfect neither could he have applied the Vertue thereof to us And in like manner was Christ's Resurrection our Justification For Christ being our true pledge after he had satisfied for us by his Death returning unto Life gives us a clear Evidence and affords us a
their wrecks And to this purpose like another Aeolus he lets fly his boisterous Winds his Seminary Priests and Jesuits Alas He is the principal Author of our disturbances These but the Instruments who like so many Puppets dance by the motion of his hand 'T is no marvel if these his sworn Vassals his Janizaries in continual pay should advance the Interest and fight for the Cause of their great Lord and General wherein themselves are so much concern'd Nor do they boggle at any thing that may promote it be it never so impious while the good of the Catholick Cause as the Pharisaical Gold did their Altar shall sanctifie all their lewdest practices 'T is no marvel I say that such men should doe any thing who are members of such a Church whose tender mercies are cruelty whose piety butchery religion faction devotion sedition zeal fire and martyrs traytors Surely such Cannibals as daily devour their God will make no bones to swallow up whole States or which is worse to blow them up This was their attempt this day and this is still their design no doubt 'T is no Fable this but a History Habemus confitentes reos What need we any farther Witnesses than the Parties themselves All Garnet's tricks and equivocations at last fail'd him when being put to it he could not deny but that he had a head and hand in it confessing withall that his principal motive to this villany was an Excommunication thundred out against Queen Elizabeth by Pius Q. and Sixtus V. which sticking still on King James as not repealed but rather confirmed by their Successors obliged him in Conscience to attempt the Murther of his Sovereign in obedience to the Pope his greater Lord. This Bill was produc'd in the indictment of the said Garnet and gave occasion to the Oath of Supremacy So that the matter of fact being as clear as the confessions of the Contrivers and Instruments themselves could make it all the subtlety of Papists can never disprove or disguise it Here is no shift no starting-hole left them The Mine was contrived at Rome though 't was to be sprung here at Westminster The Pope himself laid the Train which his Ministers by his order were to give fire to And how near were they to doe it and we to be undone There wanted but a little light Match to have sent up a Church and State into the air Nor did our Enemies make any doubt but that they should have seen us flying there and which was their charity that our Fall thence should have been as low as Hell However lest the Plot should possibly fail as through God's infinite mercy it did of its intended effect they had a Declaration ready to indict the Protestants of that Treason For the Brat would have been too foul for the Pope to father though himself very well knew it was his own natural issue and all the world besides And indeed the very shape and complexion of this Monster shews it not to be of an English Extraction Nothing but the Pope and the Devil could lay such a Cockatrice's Egg nor any but a Jesuite hatch it Let them take it between them and let it remain an eternal blot upon them and their religion guilty of a design than which nothing yet ever lookt more like Hell the darkness and the flames of it being all in it I need not display the horror of it the very prospect thereof being ghastly beyond all expression Let your thoughts supply the defect of my rhetorick and tell you whether such fruits as these be the fruits of the Spirit of God or of his true Prophets Surely their Vine is the Vine of Sodom their Grapes are Grapes of Gall and their clusters bitter And yet how many are there that can relish no other but what an Italian soil produceth though they be as mortal as those of the forbiddentree Without doubt our English palats have been strangely corrupted of late days that we should be so bewitch'd and intoxicated with the cup of Rome's abominations as to suck out the very lees and dreggs thereof with such delight and pleasure I know the troubles of our late Wars have given the Romish Emissaries opportunity of beguiling many who discontented with their sufferings at home and pincht with necessity or offended with the many Sects which the licentiousness of the War had begot or couzened with the pretences of antiquity vanity glory and splendor of the Romish Church and perhaps allured by those pleasing doctrines and opinions whereby their Casuists gratifie Sinners have revolted from us and do still revolt Much talk there is of the increase of Popery and if true 't is not much to be wonder'd at for a Plague is infectious and a Gangreen spreading and evil as well as good communicative But surely Papists need not bragg much of their gain when they consider how and whom they get They are such as we can spare them men that had no religion till they found them one and whose noreligion was better than what they have gotten who living like Atheists that they may seem at least to be of some religion pretend to be Papists and being cast out by us were fit for them to receive These be their prey These their spoils I envy them not such Proselytes who add nothing to the repute of any side but number nor do we lose any thing but what would shame us our Church being but the purer for having such dreggs purg'd out Ancient Rome had at first wanted men to inhabit it if Romulus had not opened an Asylum and modern Rome would not be so much replenished if there were not a Sanctuary there for such Converts Let me bespeak such as St. Paul did his Galatians O ye foolish People who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth That having known God as ye have done ye should turn again to weak and beggarly Elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage Lick up your vomit and forsake the truth of God to follow lies and Jewish fables For what is Popery but one great one what are its new doctrines but old heresies patch'd and trick'd up and only so old as to be rotten Look into its practices too whether that which Tacitus says of Rome heathenish be not as true of Rome apostate That all shameless and heinous enormities ran into it as into a common sewer Christian Rome now if I may give it that name is no more like what once it was than Jesuits are like Apostles And yet these be the men ye doat on and if you can get any one of their Tribe into your houses you can say to your selves as Micah did Judg. 17. 13. Now I know the Lord will doe me good because I have a Priest Such a Priest indeed as his was who like a Serpent cherisht in your bosome will sting you to death Let me apply the old Proverb 'T is ill going in Procession where the
their sight is that of all the parcels of time regard but the present and of all things but the face and appearance men that only mind earthly things of so low and base a spirit that their Souls are but as salt to them and of so brutish a temper that such a Transmigration as Pythagoras fansied a punishment to bad men would with them pass for a happiness and with the Devils they would make it their desire that they might be suffered hereafter to enter into Hogs Such men dare not openly deny an Immortality and yet they will not believe it or if they do 't is so faintly that their lives wholly confute their judgments 'T is strange to see how many there are that having nothing but frost in their veins and earth in their face do yet so much doat on that life which they have now scarce any part in whose faith reaches no farther than their senses and yet scarce retain they those senses whose frame should lift them up above the Earth and their affections carry them wholly to it They are unwilling to leave the World though they see they cannot keep it in their weak and enfeebled bodies they carry strong desires to it being dead to every thing but to the pleasures thereof which yet they cannot now enjoy because they cannot taste and do then covet most when they are just leaving them Than which as there cannot be a greater folly so let us take heed how we imitate it learn to look off from these temporal things which are seen to those eternal which are not seen get such a perspective of faith as may draw Heaven nearer to us shew us those glories which Christ has prepared for us and already taken possession of in his own flesh that so ours may rest in hope and one day inherit His kingdom And now since Christ has given us an assurance of Immortality let us endeavour to lay the foundation of a happy one in this life to work it out even in this world this common shop of change work it out of that in which it is not out of riches by not trusting in and well using them out of the pleasures of this world by loathing and forsaking them out of the flesh by crucifying it with the lusts and affections thereof and out of the world it self by overcoming it Lastly and above all let us labour to secure this blessed Immortality which lies before us by such good works as may follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of Eternity Else we may be so eternal as to wish we were mortal wish against our interest that in this life only we had hope make our selves who now fear death to dread immortality too hope that there were no eternal joys and tremble at the thoughts even of that everlasting bliss which our ill lives should give us no just ground to hope for But if while we enjoy this life we make lasting provisions for the next by good works then do we truly hope in Christ and then the seeds of Vertue and Piety well cultivated here shall hereafter yield us the happy fruits of a glorious Immortality which he grant us who hath brought life and immortality to light through his Gospel Jesus Christ in us the hope of Glory To whom with the Father c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON ON ROM XII 1 I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service SAint Paul being from a Jew converted to a Christian hath taken great pains not only to prove the reasonableness of his doing so but that Judaism it self was to be Christned the legal Washings to be at last baptized That whole Oeconomy to be done away that it might be made complete and to be destroyed that it might be perfected And it was well that it was to be so For the Law could not justifie because its performances were but low its Promises but near and its strength weak The Law then could not justifie had it been observed but being broken it could condemn so that our Saviour to upbraid the Jews refers them not only to himself but to Moses in whom they did trust And indeed 't is as visible that the Jews did break their Law as that they did boast of it They were equally zealous in observing and industrious in transgressing it Instead of Religion they had brought themselves to be a Sect humorsome and peevish arrogant and censorious All the world was to be of their way and yet themselves not of it so that they were as I may so say Idolaters of the true God whose Circumcision was uncircumcised As if that fact of Moses when he brought the Law had been the Type of the future observance of it when at the time of bringing the Tables he brake them But not to upbraid the Jews with their failings let us see what use there is to be made of them while they perform the letter let us obey the meaning while their Sabbaths are lazy let ours be holy They wrote the Law on their Garments let us write them on our Hearts They boasted of it let us doe it While they sacrifice their Beasts let us offer up to God the more precious bloud of his own Lamb and with that bloud our selves For we Christians as well as the Jews have an Altar says St. Paul and are Priests too a royal Priesthood says St. Peter Aaron and his Successors offered up Bulls and Rams unreasonable Creatures that were first slain and then offered But we our Bodies and those such living Sacrifices as make up a reasonable Service No Calves here to be presented but those of our lips For a Lamb and a Dove meekness and innocence and for a Goat our Iusts must be sacrificed No death here but of inbred corruptions no slaughter but of the old man whose death enlivens our Sacrifice and so fits it for an Everliving God and makes it Holy and so becoming a Holy God And if we crown our Sacrifices with such flowers they must needs send forth a sweet and acceptable odour to God and pass with Him not only for a Sacrifice but which is more be heightned to a reasonable Service And this our Gratitude calls for and our Interest We owe it to God as to our Creator who made our Bodies and as to our Redeemer who hath purchased them We owe it to our selves too if we will be happy in the enjoyment of God who as He is not a God of the dead but of the living will have a living Body for a Sacrifice and not a Carkass And this in all respects is so reasonable that it may well be matter of wonder why our Apostle should spend so much passionate Rhetorick to persuade us to give up that unto God which 't is our highest advantage He should vouchsafe to accept But then