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death_n body_n see_v soul_n 14,522 5 5.2397 4 true
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A75693 An argument proving, that according to the covenant of eternal life revealed in the Scriptures, man may be translated from hence into that eternal life, without passing through death altho the humane nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated till he had passed through death. Asgill, John, 1659-1738. 1700 (1700) Wing A3926; ESTC R208477 45,123 107

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Characters of them which remain with him God is able out of these Stones to raise up Children unto Abraham And in this he resembles himself to a Potter who takes no care to preserve his broken Pots for any other use of them because having the Moulds by him he can make several Vessels of the same Figure out of one Earth as well as another And tho all the Vessels of the same Mould are not the same in identity of Matter yet being the same in Form they are the same to all uses intents and purposes And hence tho the Dead shall not arise with the same identity of Matter with which they died yet being in the same Form they will not know themselves from themselves being the same to all uses intents and purposes But in this God is so curious an Artist that he keeps a several Character in Heaven for every Figure of Man on Earth by which as the Apostle saith every Seed shall receive its own Body Whereas we like Fac-simile Mechanicks make one Mould serve for a thousand Figures But then as God in the Resurrection is not bound up to use the same Matter neither is he obliged to use a different Matter Whenever the Body to be raised doth remain so intire from Corruption that the form of it is not spoiled God uses that form again as it is without composing any other Matter Thus he did with the Body of Christ according to that Promise Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Grave nor suffer thy holy One to see Corruption And thus Christ did with the Bodies he raised in the days of his Flesh All which I instance still to shew the Insignificancy of Death one way or other in order to Eternal Life and that the Death of Man works no change in him To make this still more plain consider when and where the Predestination of God is executed upon Man Christ said Rejoice in this that your Names are written in the Book of Life Which he would not have commanded Man upon Earth if the knowledg of it which seems to be the top of Man's Ambition were not attainable here Now this being part of the secret Will of God as his own Memorandums of what he intends to do it can't be shewn to Man by Inspection But when God comes to execute this secret Will then it becomes part of his revealed Will which belongs to Man Secret things belong to God but things revealed to us and to our Children And the time of the Execution of this Decree being the instance of our Faith in Christ As many as were ordained to Eternal Life believed We may by this be as sure that our Names are written in the Book of Life as if we had wrote it with our own hands And that this instant of Faith is the time of the execution of this Decree appears by what Christ said to the Thief on the Cross This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise From whence some think themselves obliged to believe a separate Existence of the Soul from the Body by Death For say they something of this Man did immediately go into Paradise and we see his Body remains here Ergo his Soul went Whereas Christ did not speak this of the Person but the State of the Man Christ and he were both under the same State before they were executed which was the Law of Death And that very day they both exchanged this State into the State of Life Christ by his own Death and the Man by Faith in him tho the Person of Christ went one way and his another So from the words of David Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Grave there was a Conception raised of the separate Existence of the Soul For think we the Body of David is in the Grave Ergo his Soul is gone to Heaven by it self But Peter evinced this Doctrine as erroneous by shewing that David spoke prophetically of the Resurrection of Christ in which the word Soul comprehends his whole human Life which did die and rise together And that it is translated Soul is an Anglicism not understood in other Languages which have no other word for Soul but the same which is for Life As 't is usual for some peculiar Countries to have an odd Name for a common thing which is not vulgarly known in any other parts of the same Kingdom See how Man's Life came to him at first God first formed the Figure of Man's Body in common Earth from whence Men also form Figures of one another Then to this Figure God added Life by breathing it into him from himself whereby this inanimate Body became a living one But in this Composition the Spirit is so perfectly mixed with and diffused through the whole Body that we can't now say which is Spirit nor which is Earth but the whole is one intire living Creature As in levened Dough we can't say which is the Leven nor which is the Dough. But God who first infused this Life can extract it out again and leave the Body as it was before this Life was thus put into it And this form of Death God chose for Man Dust thou art and unto Dust shalt thou return God unmakes Man just as he made him He takes him to pieces like a jointed Tool he draws in his Breath to himself and leaves the Lump to the Elements of which it was at first composed which by degrees loses its very Form and takes its place again in common with other Matter And thus the Spirit returns to God that gave it for the remainder of the Spirit is with him But in this return the Spirit of Man maintains no self-existence having surrender'd it self into the Ocean of Life from whence it first flowed When Rivers return into the Sea they are no more Rivers but lose their Name and Property being merged in the Ocean of their original Fountain And yet God doth retain in his Memory the particular Characters or Ideas of every instance of Life which he doth so extract from whence in the day of the restitution of all things every Body shall have its own Spirit and every Spirit it s own Body But to return to my Argument whence I have a little digressed to descant upon this Opinion of the self-existence of the Soul If this Man that was crucified with Christ did immediately become in the same state with him how comes it that he lies still in the Grave while Christ is ascended into the Heavens To this I say that tho this Man's first Faith did thus qualify him for a change of State yet he had not proceeded far enough in this Faith to qualify himself for an immediate Tanslation of his Person but this he must expect with the rest of them who have died in the same Faith with him and who will not now attain that Perfection till after the Resurrection for there 's no Work in the Grave Man is as safe upon his first Faith in
that he would only forbear one Common Tree for it seems to be no more till it became otherwise by his eating of it Withal telling him that if he did eat of it his Life should go for it Not that God thought his Life satisfaction but it was all the Satisfaction God could have of him it was rather a Resentment of the Affront than any Satisfaction for it By which God shew'd that if Man had had more than his Life to give God would have had it of him And therefore to signify the height of this Resentment God raises Man from the Dead to demand further Satisfaction of him Death is a commitment to the Prison of the Grave till the Judgment of the great Day and then the grand Habeas Corpus will issue to the Earth and to the Sea to give up their Dead to remove the Bodies with the cause of their Commitment And as these Causes shall appear they shall either be released or else sentenced to the common Goal of Hell there to remain until Satisfaction Such was the Resentment of despised Love and yet this was a Resentment without Malice For as God maintained his Resentment under all his Love so he maintained his Love under all his Resentment For his Love being a Love of Kindness flowing from the generosity of his own Nature could not be diminished by any Art of Man And yet his Honour being concerned to maintain the Truth of his Word he could not falsify that to gratify his own Affection And thus he bore the Passion of his own Law till he had found out a Salvo for his Honour by that Son of Man who gave him Satisfaction all at once by the dignity of his Person Personal Satisfactions by the Laws of Honour are esteemed sufficient or not sufficient according to the equality or inequality between the Persons who give and take the Affront Therefore God to vindicate his Honour thus affronted was oblig'd to find out a Person for that purpose equal to himself who was affronted The invention of which is called the manifold Wisdom of God The Invention it self being the highest Expression of the deepest Love And the Execution of this Invention in the Death of Christ being the deepest Resentment of the highest Affront Which Death of Christ did nevertheless surmount all the Demands made upon him For as much as his Person was superiour in dignity to the Human Nature so much the Satisfaction by his Death surmounted the Offence of Man And thus I say this Law being fulfilled and over satisfied by Christ in his Death was and is taken away so that there was no such Law in being against him after his Resurrection He was made under the Law by his Birth but he did not arise under it having taken it away by his Death And having thus taken away the Law by his Death the Life regained by him in his Resurrection was by Conquest He met with no quarter from God nor Man God would not save him from Death tho he ask'd him and therefore he rescued himself from it He pray'd to be preserv'd from Death before it came upon him but he craved no Aid against the Power of it towards his Resurrection Destroy this Body and I will raise it in three days Die he knew he must but rise he knew he could And the reason of his Resurrection was because Death could hold him no longer For it was not possible that he should be held any longer of it And this he did not in contradiction to the Will of God For God having executed the Law upon him by his Death he did not oppose him in his Resurrection And therefore tho he could not come down from the Cross because the Will of God was then against him yet he could arise from the dead because the Will of God did not then oppose him And so God leaving him to himself he conquered Death By which according to all the Laws of Conquest the Law of Death is taken away For by the Laws of Conquest the Laws of the conquered are ipso facto taken away by the very Conquest and all Records and Writings that remain of them are of no more force than waste Paper The Law of Death as I have said remains in words and will remain for ever but it had no more force against Christ after his Resurrection than if it had never been made And from hence the Title of Christ to Eternal Life is become absolute By absolute I mean discharged from all Tenure or Condition and consequently from all Forfeiture And this is the Title of Conquerors who hold of none but themselves because they receive their Right from none but their Arms. And is in opposition to the first Title of Life delivered to Adam which was held by Tenure as being received from God and being so held it became forfeited to him of whom it was held according to the Laws of Tenure But Christ receiving his Life in his Resurrection from none but himself I lay down my Life of my self and I take it up again it is now his own without Tenure and therefore is absolute and cannot be forfeited And as his Title to Life is thus become absolute by Conquest So the duration of it is become Eternal by being annexed to the Person of the Godhead A Man may have an absolute Title and yet that Title may be but for a time Life is called Temporal or Eternal according to the Persons or Things to which it is annexed or united The Life of Vegetables and Animals is called a Temporal Life because it is annexed to things which have a Temporal Duration And thus according to our Laws whatever is annexed to the Person of a Man is adjudged to have continuance during his Life So that if Land be convey'd to a Man indefinitely without naming any time how long he shall hold it he has without more saying an Estate for Life because his Estate is annexed to his Person which is said to have continuance for his Life And hence the Life of Christ regained by the Conquest of his Resurrection being annexed to the Person of his Godhead which is eternal doth thereby become Eternal Life for the Life of God and Eternal Life are synonymous Terms And thus Christ ever since his Resurrection did and doth stand seized of an absolute and indefezible Estate of Eternal Life without any Tenure or Condition or other matter or thing to change or determine it for ever And I had reason thus to assert the Title of Christ at large Because this is the Title by and under which I am going to affirm my Argument and to claim Eternal Life for my self and all the World Had Christ thus become Man and died and rose again all voluntarily to try an Experiment he had only saved his own Life and left all the World to shift for themselves But this would have been Knight-Errantry in tempting God against which he hath sufficiently declared himself And