heresies and also to raise our selves to the imitation of our head to be conformable to him For this very Text of Scripture that Christ came downe the Lord from heaven hath given occasion to a great number of lying spirits to conclude that the Lord had no true naturall body that he had no true flesh but that he brought his body downe from heaven and that hee passed as through a pipe through the Virgin Mary Because say they if Adam and Christ be opposed together and that Adam brings his body from the earth then Christ brings his from heaven It followes therefore that they are not one kind of body and by consequent there must be a kind of celestiall body appointed for Christ because it must be directly opposite to Adams Now there is no consequence or sense in this For the Apostle opposeth not Christ unto Adam in regard of the substance of his flesh but in respect of the difference of his qualities The quality that Adam put upon his flesh was death and sicknesse misery and deformity but Christ hath put upon it another kind of quality another robe another garment and vestment of immortality of grace and perfection and beauty and strength and all kind of abilities another kind of quality Therefore hee saith not another substance of flesh for Christ came of David and David came of Adam they were all one flesh but because the one was the fountain of death and the other the fountaine of life they must needs work contrary effects Therefore according to the effects that they work the Apostle proceeds that the one works to basenesse and misery the other to glory to excellency to comfort and beauty But these heretiques will pretend a great number of places of Scripture and a great many arguments whereby they doe as the Apostle saith deceive 2 Pet. 2 14. and draw aside unstable people and make them at their wits end when they are not able to resolve the places they alledge As first they say this that the Lord Iesus did deny his Mother therefore he had no true flesh And they prove it out of St. Matthew 12. when hee was teaching the people they came and told him that his Mother and his brethren were without Mat. 12.47 48 49. desiring to speak with him and hee answers them who is my mother c. therefore say they Christ denies his mother This is false Christ no where denyed his mother But that place shewes that he had more care of the businesse he had in hand hee had more care of his Fathers commission of the Kingdome of the preaching of the Gospell of forgivenesse of sinnes of curing diseases and to doe the rest of the works of our redemption therefore he must not neglect them and be distracted from them to goe to inferiour things so that his mother must give way to those things he doth not deny his mother but onely prefers the practice of the other things Againe they say Christ cannot be adored if hee have true flesh or else he can be but halfe adored But now whole Christ must be adored therefore he had no true flesh For if we adore that which is flesh it is a creature and so it is idolatry for whatsoever is given to the creature that way is Idolatry Therefore Christs body was not created but was a super coelestiall thing above the order of mankinde Answ It is true the flesh of Christ was framed and wrought above the order of mankinde and yet so as that still it was true flesh And although wee ought to adore whole Christ yet in the adoring of Christ we doe it to the person Wee use not to disjoyne his natures but wee adore that God that was pleased to take upon him man we adore that blessed person in the Trinity that for our sake and for our salvation came downe from heaven and was incarnate by the holy Ghost in the womb of Mary It is that person we adore So that wee goe not about with the heretique Nestorius to make a division of the natures but we adore whole Christ God and man not man alone but God not God alone but man Many other shifts and sophismes they have but these are the chiefest and indeed they are scarce worth repeating but we must labour to furnish our selves because we know not what kinde of miscreant heresies are like to grow now in the latter end of the world Now the conformity follows in these words 3. Part. The conformity As the earthly is so are they that are earthly and as is the heavenly so are they that are heavenly It must needs be that as the principles are so the things that are made and framed of them must be All things in nature are a resemblance of their originall and it cannot possibly be that they should much swerve from them For every effect is in his cause a thing can draw no other inclination then that that is drawne from its cause Therefore as the earthly man is so must the earthly be As Adam for I will not meddle with other interpretations of the Fathers because they are not pertinent to this place therefore ruleth all in this present life hee makes all his followers earthly and mortall so Christ rules all in the blessed life to come and makes all things contrary that is immortall and glorious and powerfull For in Adam all the world is ruled according to the censure of God upon sinne as God doomed sinne Earth thou art Gen. 3.19 and to earth thou shalt returne which was the sentence upon Adam and upon all his posterity So we see daily this sentence fulfilled upon us and upon ours upon all our progenitors and successors It failes upon none and those that shall be changed at the latter day it shall be unto them as a kind of death for dust thou art and to dust thou shalt returne it is the common voice of God upon nature Therefore in this life wee must looke to be as Adam was to have no other inheritance then hee hath left us In the life which is to come wee shall have an inheritance from the Lord of heaven It is true by the grace of the Gospell and by the faith we have in Christ Iesus we have something more then Adam gave unto us but of that we are not put into possession to inherit untill the Lord shall appeare from heaven For when Christ our life shall appeare then wee also shall appeare with him in glorie Colos 3.4 Colos 3.4 As is the earthly so are they that are earthly Not in respect of their manners as some of the Fathers by way of digression have noted upon this place and St. Chrysostom assents unto it and St. Augustine also yeelds to it but to insist upon the strict tearmes for we can goe no further nor we cannot make any better sense of it that wee are like Adam in all things in this life In our birth In
in his third Booke of the Trinity he saith The Apostle did not feare to confirme the certainty of his salvation by swearing for saith he by the confidence that I have in Christ Iesus I dye daily Among the Greekes none doubted of it but those that were simple and unlearned Therefore I say this was an oath and so the strongest confirmation that can be 2 The thing he sweares by Esay 45.23 But how doth Saint Paul sweare by that which is not God It is not lawfull to sweare by any thing but the name of God as the Lord saith Every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confesse me and sweare by my name Heb. 6.13 It is true that when God sweares having no greater to sweare by he sweares by himselfe and when man sweares he must alway sweare by a greater For that is the end of an oath to protest an unknowne truth by the presence and countenance of a greater person then himselfe and one which cannot lye Therefore it is unlawfull for a Christian to sweare by any name but the name of God and that not often much lesse alway or in frivolous causes for this our Lord Christ condemnes when hee saith sweare not at all Math 5.34 that is not often nor out of passion But as an oath is a speciall service of God so it is to be taken upon speciall occasions but now we are bound to sweare by no name but the name of God and reioycing in Christ is not Christ himselfe Wherefore then doth the Apostle sweare by his reioycing in Christ We must understand that to sweare by any immediate fruit of the spirit of God by any thing that flowes immediately from God to us it is all one as to sweare by the name of God it selfe This is so individuall and inseparable a thing the comfort namely and the joy of Christ hath brought into the world that it is as inseparable from the spirit as the shadow from the body Therefore as a man may sweare by the shadow that there is a body and swearing the one he intimates the other and concludes the other so the Apostle here he sweares by this fruit of the holy Ghost which is ioy and peace even the peace of God which passeth all understanding which he found in his heart by the meanes of Christ Iesus who maketh our ioy to be full who is the fountaine of ioy swearing by this he sweares by the chiefe iewell of salvation which is the penny that Christ had given him as an earnest as a pawne and gage of his love Out of this that he saith Our reioycing observe I beseech you the wondrous temper of a Christian how he is composed of strange extreame contraries of death and life of sorrow and joy of peace and war There is nothing in the world that can be imagined so contrary as be the severall parts of a Christian mans constitution Upon this ground the holy Apostle goeth 2 Cor 4. 2 Cor. 4.8 c. where he makes the definition of a Christian after the same manner Saith he we are indeed oppressed and persecuted but yet not crushed altogether we are as men dead and yet behold we live poore and yet making many rich as having nothing and yet we possesse all things This is that marvellous mixture that God hath appointed his children to come to that they should be conformable to the sufferings of Christ and so be in death and yet that they should revive againe by the spirit of God and so no man be lesse in death being alway in life and having the certaine pledge and pawne of life eternall As for the men of this world the sonnes of flesh and bloud when they thinke themselves most lively then are they most deepely in death every thing worketh against them the stormes of Gods wrath attend them and worke upon their consciences at some time or other such fearefull deaths as out of which they can make no evasion or escape But with the children of God it is contrary when they are in the middest of death they are in the height of life 2 Cor. 4.16 As the Apostle saith Although our outward man dye daily and is corrupted yet the inward man is renewed and revived by the spirit of Christ So in all the passages of their life where death seemes to have the greatest sway and predominancie even there is life abundantly over death and the roote of life shall at length eate out the fruit of death And although death make a flourish for a time upon the Saints of God yet because there is a root of life it shall still grow and bud and bring forth at length that death may be swallowed up into victory 1 Cor. 15.54 In all things the children of God have full contentment in this life although they be in the middest of death This is the great miracle that God doth in the world Every holy man is a wonder every good man is a miracle like the children of Israel Exod. 14.22 that walked through the deepe where there was never way knowne before like the three children in the furnace Dan. 3.25 that walked in the middest of the fire as if they had beene in a pleasant Medow like the Israelites and all their cattell that passed over Iordan Acts 16.25 like Paul and Sylas singing at midnight in chaines and fetters in prison A miraculous spectacle to God and men which drawes the eyes of Angâ—â—s to the contemplation of it For in sicknesse a Christian is full of the saving health of God In persecution he is full of quiet and contentment of the holy Ghost In prison he is full of Psalmes and spirituall Songs as were Paul and Sylas When he is bound in shackles he is free and expedite and loose As the Apostle saith in another place though I be bound 2 Tim. 2.9 yet the word of God is not bound the Gospell of Christ is not bound In all things he is a breathing miracle of the power of God that sounds unto us as so many silver Trumpets the omnipotencie of God that makes such a correspondence and proportion betweene life and death that makes death and life dwell together in one body and yet hee will evacuate death by the power of life that life may surmount and death may be put under that at the last death may be debased and life may be advanced And in that he saith Our reioycing or your reioycing For it is not materiall whether way it is read for it is a common ioy If I reade it yours I have it if mine you have it for it is a common ioy in our common Saviour This is that which all of us confesse when we make our prayers to God we call him our Father and we call the Saviour of the world our Saviour and so we may call the spirit our comforter because this common veyne of joy it flowes and runnes
that is in so great a variety and difference from the body that is here present as the difference is great betweene heaven and earth betweene the stars that are in heaven and the stones that lie upon the earth And so is it in the resurrection So as the particular differences are between the heavenly bodies one star differeth from another in glory they have not all one magnitude they are not all of one brightnesse but according to their severall magnitudâ—s so is their shining brightnesse So the Lord shall make the admirable difference not onely betweene the present bodies that we have here and the bodies which shall be raised but likewise between the bodies themselves that although all shall be full yet all shall not have a like measure but every one shall receive according to their capacitie So now to come to that part of the Text. You see the substance is thus much Hee tels us there shall be some rare qualities which God shall poure upon this flesh which it could never attaine to in this life for that it is still pestered with the contrary It shall have honour it shall have strength it shall have nimblenesse and subtlety and all this shall be tyed with a golden band of incorruption which is that that makes all sweet and full For to have good things and to fall from them is as good as never to have them but this incorruption is the glorious tye of all the rest the crowne of all the rest that the strength there shall be without corruption their beauty shall be incorrupt their agility and subtlety of body shall be incorrupt all these things shall be for ever they shall be preserved by the perpetuall influence of Gods mercy and love upon the creature This is the height and depth of this Text. As if the Apostle had said You wonder in your selves to consider the great difference that shall be between the bodies that are raised and the bodies which you have now in this life I will shew you plainly how it shall be All the difference ariseth from certaine qualities for the substance there is nothing different or contrary in it but in the quality is all the difference and contrariety and I will shew you it by such qualities as are most contrary one to another For what is more contrary then corruption and incorruption what is more contrary then honour and dishonour what is more contrary then weaknesse and power what is more contrary then naturall and spirituall and behold God shall so turne the termes of this present state in that blessed world that whereas now here is nothing but a masse of corruption then there shall be a glorious peece of incorruption whereas now it is compassed about with shame and deformity in death and in sicknesse in consumption and in misery then there shall be a vessell of honour that shall be every way shining and glorious in the sight of God that whereas now this body is subject to weaknesse all the strongest lives in the world being full of great weaknesse then it shall be a mirrour of strength it shall have an arme able to break a bow of steele that whereas now it is a lumpish creature then it shall be swift as a soaring eagle and like unto an Angell of God for we shall be equall to the Angels of God in heaven So then Division into two parts 1. A description 2. A condition first we have here a Description of the state present in a metaphoricall word the promise of the state to come in another metaphor like unto it And then we have the condition and severall manner how these shall be In the first two particulars 1. The state present 2. The state in the life to come Concerning the first for the state of the body present the Apostle saith It is sowne The metaphor for the life to come is in this that he saith It is raised up again It is sown in corruption it is raised again in incorruption Each of these estates differenced by foure essentials and their contraries And then for the essentiall parts of difference he makes them foure wherein the body is sowne and there are foure contraries wherein it is raised For the first the body is sowne in rottennesse It is sowne in corruption For the second it is sowne in deformity and ugly vision that this corruption cannot lie hid for then it were more tolerable but it must come unto the eye of the world a mans friends must looke upon him and see the gastly countenance in the dead corps This the Apostle calls dishonour there is nothing in the world more dishonourable that is there is nothing in the world more hatefull to look upon then the dead body of a man Thirdly he saith It is sown in weaknesse that is in such a miserable feeblenesse and desolation and so deprived of all strength and power that it is left as a trampling stock for men and beasts And lastly he saith It is sowne a naturall body that is nothing but a meer elementary thing nothing else to the sense of flesh and bloud and to looke on These are the wofull parts of this body that wee have in this present life But on the contrary God shall invest it in stead of corruption with incorruption with impassibility with immortality and in stead of weaknesse it shall have strength and so of the rest These are the branches of the Text of these briefly and in order as it shall please God to give assistance And first for the two metaphors that be used 1 Part. Metaphor of the present life Chrysost It is sowne It is a good observation of St. Chrysostom that the holy Apostle is so confident in the matter that he useth the termes interchangeably between the sowing of the corne and the burying of the dead body For saith he when he speaks of the sowing of the corne he useth the phrase which properly belongs to the burying of the dead and when hee speaks of the burying of the dead he useth that maner of speech which belongeth unto the corn To teach us that as there is nothing that could have been spoken more fitly nor no comparison could have been more naturall then this which he taketh from corne so likewise that there is nothing more sure and certaine then that the one shall come to passe as truely as we daily see the other For when he speaks of the corn which is cast into the ground he saith It is not quickned except it die To die belongs properly to that which hath life which hath a sensible life although there be a kind of death to in other things but yet this word is used most properly to signifie the life of man when it passeth from the body And againe when he saith It is quickned to be quickned most properly belongs to the highest life the life of man So to die and to be quickned againe
as God hath made him which knew not sinne to be sinne for us that is he hath made him a sacrifice for sinne and hee was accounted a sinner as he was made sinne for us so this is the effect of this account and imputation of our sins upon him it shall be the imputation of his righteousnesse upon us as the holy Apostle saith 2 Cor. 6. He was made sin for us which knew no sin that we might be made the righteousnesse of God Now after this he hath shewed us the enemies he begins to shew us the use of all this he drawes to a conclusion and he saith God hath given us victory Thanks be to God that hath given us victory through Christ Iesus our Lord. As if hee should say if we had indeed the remnants of sin in us still wee were foolish to make any insultation over death for death would triumph over us for as long as sinne remaines death must needs ensue and as long as the law is put upon us to curbe and contradict us sin will be but now God be thanked that hath given us victory through Iesus Christ our Lord For he hath destroyed the one and hee hath fulfilled the other he hath destroyed the one by his gracious conversation and he hath fulfilled the law he hath appeased the wrath of God that now there remaines no more enemy but the field is cleare and we are masters of the field for ever Therefore God be thanked which hath given us victory through Iesus Christ our Lord. Wherein wee are to consider First the gift that is given It is victory Division of the Text into 5. parts an absolute and compleat victory over these fierce enemies Secondly whence this victory comes from God God hath given us victory It is from the whole Trinity Thirdly the manner how it comes by way of gift not by way of merit blessed be God that hath given us the victory Fourthly the meanes through whom it comes through Christ Thanks be to God that hath given us victory through Christ Iesus our Lord. It is by the arme of Christ Fiftly the end and use of all Thanks be to God For the blessings of God require thankfulnesse therefore the Apostle gives glory to him that glorifieth us he gives conquest to him that is a conquerour for us Thanks be to God that hath given us victory through Iesus Christ The sting of death is sinne the strength of sinne is the Law This former part of the Text describes the Adversaries extinct and vanquished that which hee speaks of a sting is diversly translated by Interpreters some call it morsum the biting comparing it to a serpent that poysoneth and infecteth and killeth by biting so sinne was represented to us in the garden by the serpent that gave the apple unto Eve Some take it for the sting of a waspe the Hebrew word Kota in Hosea 13. Hosea 13.14 signifieth that which is sharp as a stelletto a thing that makes a present impression and by the puncture it pierceth into the inward parts and brings sudden death So by divers Translators it is thus read I will be a plague unto thee oh death and I will be thy destruction oh hell Many and sundry wayes it is translated but it is sufficient for us to take that which the last and best translation affords and so we call it the sting because indeed death was never nor it could not be sharp unto us except it come to be armed with sinne nor there is no calamity in the world no misery that a man suffers but he suffers it willingly if he have a cleare conscience it being the onely rule of peace and quiet to be free from the cause and from deserving that thing that is imputed and cast upon a man But when miseries come not onely tedious of themselves but they come armed with the condignity of sinne that they have a certaine correspondence in commutative justice that he that hath done evill must suffer evill Now it becomes of all calamities the extreamest and most miserable Therefore it is said here The sting of death is sinne as though death it self were nothing unwelcome and harsh to the flesh of man but that it is inflicted for sin and as the wages of sin But here a man may very well make a stand and aske how can this be how should sin be the sting of death seeing it is rather contrary death is the sting of sinne for which is first was not sinne before death saith St. Austin in his 7. Tom. in his 3. S. Aug. Tom. 7. lib. 3. d◠peceat remiss Booke De peccatis remissione peccatorum saith he we sinne not because wee die it is no sinne to die because it is the fulfilling of the judgement of God upon sinne We sinne not in dying but we die for sinning for from that comes our death therefore seeing sinne was the cause of death and that death is a thing of nothing a thing that followes afte◠sinne it seemes therefore that sinne being first and sin being the cause of death it followes that it must use death as a sting unto it and not on the contrary that it should be a sting unto death But for this there is no great matter in the phrase for as St. Austin Aug. and the rest of Divines accord with him the Apostle calls sinne the sting of death not that death made it but that death is made with it and it is made by it so it is called the sting of death that is a deadly sting that brings death with it As a cup of poyson we call it a cup of death not as though death made the cup but because death is with it that he that takes that cup shall die with it So the tree of life and the tree of knowledge the meaning is not as though life were made by the tree or that knowledge were made by the tree but because the fruit of that tree would have brought life and would have brought the knowledge of good and evill This therefore is the meaning of the Apostles words that sinne by the just permission of God and by the deputation that God gave unto sathan to execute judgement upon sinners it comes upon every man armed and it is armed with death the most desperate weapon that can be that destroyes the very nature of man and brings him to his very foundation to a matter of nothing This is that sting that must prick us all at length as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Therefore let us learne while wee are now in this world to prepare our selves for this sting that we doe not kick against the pricks as our Lord saith Acts 9. Acts 9.5 Saul Saul why persecutest thou me it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks Let us therefore never grumble against the necessity of sicknesse disease and miseries for alas these are nothing in comparison of death we
us that are the children of Abraham although wee must study holinesse Heb. 12.14 without which no man shall see God and we must abhor all the works of darknesse and come into the light yet we are so fraile in this flesh that we cannot doe the one nor the other But miserable wretches we have two lawes the law of our members and the law of God and so we must conclude with the Apostle Rom. 7.25 I serve the law of God in my minde and spirit but the law of sinne with my members and yet hee concludes in this place thankes bee to God that gives us victory in Christ Iesus our Lord. To conculde this point It is the faith that a man holds in God the faith he hath in Christ that makes us Conquerers and gives us the victory It was this that armed the thiefe upon the Crosse when hee had done nothing all his life time but plaied the thiefe and robbed and oppressed and played his tragicall part in the world yet hee shewed himselfe to have one mite of faith in the end of his life and for that he was accepted And Christ saith unto him Luke 23.43 This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise That whereas the Pharisees and Priests and Scribes thought Christ to be justly executed and put to death yet notwithstanding hee put his faith in him and beleeved that hee was a King and that he had a great portion of glory reserved for him and that hee was able to communicate it to his followers therefore he desires to partake of that glory Luke 23.42 Lord remember me when thou commest into thy kingdome Now I come to the last point of the precedent verse Thanks be to God since wee have the victory in Christ Iesus our Lord that is since wee have both received the fulnesse of the conquest imparted to us and also the first fruits of the Spirit by which we are able to overcome though not fully to overcome yet to overcome by the power of his victory and to be accounted conquerers though we bee but cowards Thanks be to God for this great gift and mercy of imputation The holy Apostle saith Theodoret Theodoret. hath concluded all his discourse with a necessary line with thanksgiving and praise to God For indeed as wee are bound to thanke God for every thing that wee receive so much more for the chiefe and principall things that wee take from his hands There is no thing so gracious as this to be victors to bee borne to be Conquerers and to be conquerers over such enemies too as have conquered all the world this many thousand yeares together that in sight that there was nothing that domineered nor nothing got the victory but death and sinne and hell and to conquer these miscreants that had over-run all the world this is the hand of God which is to be rejoyced in and if there bee any blessing for us to blesse our soules in it is this that we are conquerers in Christ saith St. Austin Aug. For saith hee If I must thanke God for every petty benefit what greater reason can I have then to give thanks for chiefe and maine benefits The grace of God in Iesus Christ our Lord is that which gives us this victory Thanke God saith St. Bernard thanke not thy selfe St. Bern. thank not Saints thanke not Angels thanke not preparatory works thanke not foreseene merits thanke nothing else but let the praise rest wholly and totally in God It is he that did all therefore to him be given all praise and glory for ever and ever FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15. ult Therefore beloved brethren be stedfast and unmoveable abounding in the worke of the Lord alway because you know your labour is not in vaine in the Lord. WEE are come now to the conclusion of this Chapter which followes most naturally as Chrysostome saith Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast c. It is a true conclusion when a man hath fully proved the premises hee that concludes a thing before he hath argued well and proved the matter he discourseth of hee is either a foole or a falsarie for it must needs argue it is a lie when a man will ground upon uncertaine grounds It argueth also weaknesse in him when hee thinks hee hath perswaded without sufficient ground for there is no wise man will be perswaded without due confirmation and demonstration of those things that are argued Therefore now the Apostle comes in as an excellent Oratour to conclude not upon poore grounds nor upon weak evidences but upon strong perswasion and demonstration saith Tertullian Tertul. Hee useth all the strength of the holy Ghost to perswade to this powerfull article of the Resurrection his meaning is with all the power of the holy Ghost that he was capable of for else the power of the holy Ghost is as infinite as God himselfe is infinite But now when the Apostle had driven this doctrine home when he had so beat it into them as that there was no scruple left to any gainsayer or contradictor when he had shewed the cause of the Resurrection when he had shewed the maner of it when he had shewed the absurdities that would follow the contrary doctrine if men did doubt of it when hee had shewed the effects and consequents of it of that glorious incorruption and immortality when hee had proved it by force of holy Scriptures Oh death I will be thy death oh hell I will be thy destruction When he had set downe all these firme and maine presidents it is time for him now to bring in his conclusion He is a foolish builder that will set up the roofe of his house before the walls be built and he is an idle discourser that will offer to bring a thing into his Auditory upon any triviall reason but the Spirit of God teacheth us first to settle the understandings to perswade the minds of men by strong and puissant arguments and then to draw forth conclusions for hee must first move a mans senses and understanding and then draw his will for the will is alway plyable to the conclusion but the understanding is attentive to the demonstration All this while the Apostle had held the understanding giving demonstrative causes and such reasons as no man could contradict him in Now that being done he closeth with the will and that is easily brought if he can perswade the understanding therefore he saith Therefore my beloved brethren that is seeing these things are thus seeing I have told you the will of God in this point that Christ is risen himselfe and that he is risen so palpably that he was seene of more than five hundred brethren at once and that he is the Head of the body and that therefore all the members must be raised up at one time to come with their Head and be joyned unto him Seeing that
intercepted by death Austin And Nebridius S. Austins great friend was not baptised till he was old and S. Austin himselfe was not baptised till his mans estate This errour God confuted by the death of Valentinian and other great spirits which although they were perswaded of the truth of religion yet they put off God and would not take his time but have a time of their owne choosing and therefore God gave them no time as Ambrose saith of the Emperour he wanted not the grace of baptisme because he had the faith of baptisme He yeelded his consent unto the truth and although he went away unbaptised yet he was truely baptised as one who in his heart yeelded to the faith and promises of Christ And if we should take it thus this is the sence of S. Paul in these words what shall they doe that are baptised for dead that is when they are ready to die and goe out of the world if there be no resurrection his argument followes that that which they did so late they would not doe it at all that which they did by constraint putting it off to the last time of their life they would not doe it at all except it were for the hope of the resurrection so that if there be no resurrection there is a maine frustration and a meere delusion of these men that suffer themselves so farre to be overgone with deadly sicknesse as that they looke every houre for death and yet then they take upon them the baptisme of life as a certaine pawne and pledge of the common resurrection This sounds somewhat like a truth but yet it is likely that the Apostle would have condemned this as well as the other being as ridiculous because this is injurious to God and to the Sacrament and pernicious to mens owne soules to tempt God whether he will give them a time of their owne choosing to put off the Sacrament that should be imbraced upon all opportunities to refuse it when God offers it which we should take thankfully and chearefully No doubt but the Apostle would have confuted this errour as the former and not have suffered the Corinthians to have beene so tardy in a point of salvation Wherefore I take this opinion not to be according to the Apostles minde for as I sayd that opinion is most probable and most agreeable to S. Pauls meaning that proves the strongest but this proves nothing that because a man that is driven to it in extremity at the time of his death to doe an action that therefore that action should bee of force that may be done in amazement and feare or by the instigation of others a man it may be is not lead to it by his owne will so much as by the perswasion of another and there is no reason that a man should ground upon such a weake stay to inferre such a strong conclusion The third opinion What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead that is for the forgivenesse of sins which are dead workes For so indeed the Lord seems to signifie when he saith God is not the God of the dead but of the living and also the Apostle when he saith ye were dead in sinnes and trespasses It is true our Saviour Christ includes in that speech both them that were dead naturally and them that were dead spiritually For in one place he saith God is not the God of the dead but of the living speaking of naturall death In another place let the dead bury their dead speaking of them that were dead spiritually and so we may apply it that those that are baptised for dead that is for remission of sinnes wherein the body and soule are dead and for the quickening and reviving of them by spirituall grace But this is too farre off for the Apostles meaning is not here to speake of a thing that is common that being common to all beleevers to be baptised for the remission of sinnes but he speakes of some peculiar baptisme that was not common to all in generall but belonged to some in particular Besides the Apostle speakes not here of the spirituall resurrection but of the corporall he speakes not of the rising from sinne to grace although it be true that they that are baptised are baptised for the remission of sinnes yet it is not proper here for the Apostle speaks of the resurrection of the flesh the spirituall is allegoricall which is from the death of sinne to the life of grace by repentance Therefore that proves nothing and is not likely to be S. Pauls minde for he purposed not to spend his time in trifles but to bring the validity of his arguments directly to conclude the cause Another opinion there is that hath many great and substantiall followers They that are baptised for the dead that is that are baptised into the death of Christ Iesus to be planted with him into the similitude of his death And this hath Chrysostome Theodoret Aquinas Calvin and many other great Divines for the Authors and followers of it And that you may see that it hath some similitude of reason in it looke in Rom. 6.4.5 Rom. 6.4.5 Doe you not know saith the Apostle that they that are baptised into Christ are baptised into his death therefore we are buried together with him in baptisme It is true that every man that makes profession of the faith of Christs baptisme among the rest of the articles that he professeth he must beleeve in Christ that was dead and buried that he was crucified and that he descended into hell and that he rose againe the third day c. And he professeth also that he is ready to dye for Christ when he shall be called to it and till that time come that he will dye spiritually in his heart and in his will to worldly affections which he knowes that Christ never had in him or had any liking to them but utterly abhorred them Therefore this being the symbol and badge of our profession it seemes from hence that every man that is baptised may be said to be baptised for dead that is for a dead Christ in whom he trusts which was dead but now is alive and behold he is alive for evermore Apoc. 1.18 He is baptised for dead that is to the world and the flesh that he may live for ever unto God Chrysostome proves this by an argument that hee thinkes fit and convenient for the purpose for saith he whether of the two is easier to raise the body from death or to raise the soule from sinne no doubt saith hee it is an easier matter to raise the dead body from the grave than to raise a soule that is dead in sinnes and trespasses to newnesse of life And behold saith he in the Romans the Apostle proves the one by the other that although we thinke it easier yet he intimates that that which we thinke to be easier is harder and that which seems more hard
we in jeopardy and danger every day and every houre are an exposition of the former Wherein he translates the argument from the common passion of the Church to his owne personall sufferings and those that were the first and principall in persecutions and troubles and he concludes that they were mad men that would undergoe such misery except they hoped for something unlesse they had a certaine hope of reward and recompence in those bodies in which they suffered For it is the body that suffers here the soule cannot be martyred but the body Therefore the Apostle saith Every man shall receive in their bodies according as they have done in their bodies 2 Cor. 5.10 whether it be good or evill Now for a man to undertake such great hazard and danger to be alway in jeopardy to be every houre in perill it is as bad as to be utterly consumed A man were better to be utterly dispatched than to be alway hanging in suspence for men to be still in anxiety to leade their lives in extremity and trouble to have nothing to comfort them here nor to have any expectation in the world to come of the common resurrection there were no madnesse comparable to this But because in these things we must not be presumptuous but must take them as the spirit of God hath suggested and dictated them to other men therefore I will not build certainly upon this sence although I thinke it to be the most true and naturall consequent that can be But we will consider also what the spirit of God hath spoken otherwise This gift of interpretation is not acknowledged nor understood among simple men although it be the greatest gift of all other For a man cannot tell what to build on he cannot tell what to thinke he knowes not what to say or what to conclude on If he ground upon a false interpretation Ierome in Gal. 1. as Saint Ierome saith upon Galath 1. upon these words I mervaile that you are gone to another Gospell saith he what makes this another Gospell false glosses and interpretations by giving a false sence of the Scriptures that which in it selfe is the pure Gospell of Christ may be made the Gospell of man nay that which is worse the Gospell of the divell so Saint Ierome Chrysost And Saint Chrysostome discoursing upon the same argument saith he If Christ himselfe shall not interpret the word which is obscure and darke in it selfe I shall neither gather the doctrine nor settle the conclusion so that the gift of interpretation is of all others the chiefe and prime foundation of divinity Therefore observing the great variety of the ancient Fathers in the Church of God I must of necessity abandon all kinde of darke and obscure speech and all that savours of affected language or eloquence yea and speake plainely as Saint Austin saith It is a farre better thing that the Grammarian or that the Criticke should reprehend us then that the people should not understand us In the divers sences of this Text I touched some others remaine which I will conclude as briefly as I can and then come to the other argument taken from his particular Why doe we thus Why doe we live in danger and jeopardie every houre What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead The first opinion was that the Text is to be understood according to the letter to be baptised for dead men This opinion is followed by many great and learned men and by Musculus which I wonder at for he was a most rare instrument of light to the Church of God throughout all the Scriptures and yet he thinkes this to be a good and a true construction That as Christ Iesus commended the fact of the unrighteous and unjust Steward although he did not commend the fact yet his wisedome is commended so the Apostles purpose is to shew that though it were a vaine thing for them to baptise the dead in the person of the quicke to baptise them by a proxey yet it argued that which the Apostle would inferre that they had a hope of the resurrection or else they would never have done it But because this hath beene condemned by the Fathers as hereticall and foolish therefore I wave that opinion as not being the Apostles meaning A second opinion was concerning those that did put off their baptisme till their death as the fashion was in the first 4 or 500. yeares after Christ The third what shall they doe that are baptised for the dead that is that are baptised into a dead Christ This is followed by a great number of worthy Divines Chrysostome Theophilact Oecumenius Theodoret and Calvine Another opinion What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead that is from the dead so the word signifieth sometimes and so Luther Luther saith that in the primitive times they baptised their children in the Church yards where the dead bodies were buried and were wont to stand upon the grave of the dead man and say This man shall rise againe I beleeve it and I take the Sacrament upon it and here I am baptised If wee could finde such a custome in the Church this were a cleare evidence but there is no history that makes this appeare unto us Notwithstanding if there had beene such a custome as that it being something superstitious it could not greatly inferre the argument and there is no reason to thinke they should be baptised upon the graves of the dead seeing the custome seemed to be contrary to baptise them in their Baptisteria or Fonts which were in little houses neere their Churches in which there was no burying of the dead for divers hundred yeares after Christ that is not till the Fonts were brought into the Churches till when they buried in the Church yards and in the Cloysters below Yet notwithstanding this might be true in some places as in the Church of Asia and in the parts upon the Euxine sea where they never baptised any but at the time of Easter and Whitsuntide and then they baptised them upon the graves of the dead to assure them that the dead that were contained in those graves and turned to dust should rise againe which they would now verifie by taking the Sacrament of baptisme upon it Therefore I give this interpretation the authority it deserves and take it as a true glosse on the Text but yet it is not the fulnesse of the great things the Apostle here intended The next opinion was they that are baptised for the dead that is dead to the world civilly dead that betake themselves to the study of mortification and will not live in those pleasures and delights which the world accounts the onely life Those kinde of pleasures and epicurious delights which worldly men take to be the life of life the Saints of God detest and abhorre them and in baptisme they doe renounce them the pompes and vanities of the wicked world and make
to spend that time with Whores or in Tavernes and Alehouses and places of pleasure but rather betake himselfe to his study and private meditations to sorrow and anguish he would spend his time so as might savour something of a Philosopher This the children of God have ever done When Hezekias was told by the Prophet 2 King 20.1 Set thy house in order for thou shalt dye we see what was his course He turned his face to the wall and wept and prayed to God and desired him to remember the faithfulnesse of his heart he poures out his soule before the Lord. Here is the true disposition of a gratious man It is also the act of a reasonable man for reason teacheth men this although they be not illuminated nor have grace from above But then you will say how followes the argument of the Apostle where he saith Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye Be not deceived c. The reason followeth thus because these men to whom the Apostle speakes had a certaine knowledge of the Resurrection they knew there was a better life and although the Philosopher knew it not yet he knew that there was a greater meanes to make men at peace with God by a moderate life rather than by an excessive course and yet the Apostles argument is true For suppose there were no Resurrection for the good or for the bad but that all should dye in a brutish manner as the beasts doe then it were true this would follow Let us eate and drink for to morrow we shall dye That is let us have some thing in this life before we goe for we shall have nothing after let us take the pleasures and benefits of this life while it lasteth The last thing to be noted out of this poynt is this that it hath beene alway a received and common tenent of the world that all men must dye And though this rabblement were brutish and damnable in uttering these speeches to make so bad a use of the shortnesse of their life which they should have imployed to better purposes and have redeemed the time death so fast comming on yet this bruit company were better than another generation that are in the world who perswade themselves that they are immortall There are a sort of wicked men whose hornes are growne great the mighty pushers of the world that imagine they shall never dye and upon confidence that they are immortall they will doe what they list in the world not by eating and drinking for they might be tolerated in these things but they take away the meate and drinke from the poore children of God they take away their meanes and their liberties take away their good name yea they take away their lives and all upon a confidence of remaining here for ever that no death nor no change can assayle them These are the great Gyants of the world that trouble us farre worse than the Epicures doe even our mighty neighbours our bloudy malicious adversaries our greedy enemies who will shew the latitude of their power in avenging themselves that by their sinfull doings and wicked practises fill the world with clamours with indignation and blasphemy and make men doubt whether there be a God or no in the world These are they that upon pretence of immortality that they shall never be shaken they confound all things Churches Temples Widdowes houses whatsoever comes within their fangs they lay hold on and greedily apprehend it to the overthrow of the condition of Gods people in the world and onely live by the bloud of other men These are they that build their houses in sacriledge Amos 2.6 that sell the poore for old shooes these are they that grinde the faces of Gods people Esay 3.15 that ioyne house to house and land to land and like unsatiable beasts are still feeding on the bloud Esay 5.8 It were well if they would onely say Let us eate and drinke but they must eate and drinke the bloud of Gods people and feed upon the living Temples of the holy Ghost A strange wofull thing yet thus do al our gripple miscreant Vsurers our great biting Extortioners that in stead of doing justice in their place thinke that God hath set them up that they might pull all men downe and tread upon their neckes and that they might make their advantage of the havocke of the Church of God These are worse than the company here mentioned for they doe nothing but eate and drinke and are harmelesse in comparison of these beasts of the forrest that destroy all that is before them and the steppes of their feet must be upon the necks of Gods people this plague the Church is worse troubled with then with the Epicures themselves I should now come to the Antidote which the Apostle gives but the time is upon expiration Be not deceived and afterwards to the speech the Apostle citeth out of the Poet for the proofe of his exhortation Evill words corrupt good manners Be not deceived As if he should have said The Antidote although their words are faire and plausible to flesh and bloud yet they will meerely deceive you and there is no man that by his will would be deceived There is nothing that grieves a man more than to see himselfe deceived though it be but in a trifle if it be but in a Iigg or common Iergan if it be but in one of his riddles or doubtfull speeches a man thinkes himselfe greatly disparaged if he finde himselfe deceived But especially if it be in a matter of moment if it concerne him much then it grieves and vexeth him extreamely that either his wits should not serve him to finde out the fallacie or that by his foolishnesse and too much credulity he should give himselfe to be made a prey to his enemies and adversaries to catch him There is nothing that a wise man delights in more than to apprehend the truth and there is nothing for which hee is more sorry than to be deluded with lies and errour For as truth is the light of the soule so errour is the death of the soule the depravation of all sence and understanding It is a damnable meere nothing Errour being taken from a word that signifieth going out of the way As we know a traveller that goeth a long way that he knoweth not there is nothing more troublesome to him than when he findes himselfe out of his way and to goe backe againe and recover his former tract it may be it is neither easie nor possible and to go forward the further he goeth the grosser errours he runs into Much more beloved is it in poynt of religion To erre in humane things it is a smaller matter and is soone corrected but to erre in divine matters that concerne the soules health it is a fearfull by-sliding a wofull outwaying it brings a man to downefals and to precipices of soule and body both together It
make them wither there shall be no griefe of heart no discontent of minde to make an alteration in the outward man there shall be nothing to make a change because God shall crowne them in heaven with incorruption And lastly the Lord shall give them another quality which shall be the rarest of all the rest And that is a strange agility and nimblenesse of body that they shall be able to move upward or downward as it shall please them While we are here in this life we have heavy bodies a man must walke upon his owne foundation hee must have the scaffold of the earth under him But if hee presume any further and offer to go any higher with Daedalus and with Icarus he shall be cast into the sea hee exposeth himselfe unto danger and his waxen wings will be fired by the beames of the Sunne But then at that day though our bodies in all things substantiall shall be like these and shall still bee true bodies yet the glory of them shall be so great and the strength and power that the spirit shall have over this flesh shall be so absolute as to command it which way it pleaseth When we move now either we go forward or backward or side-wayes or else downward but upward we cannot but then the Lord shall give us ability to move upward too And this is that the Apostle saith we shall be taken we shall bee snatched up to meete the Lord in the clouds 1. Thes 4.17 there shall bee such a mightie power and prevalencie in the spirit of man to rule and command the body The Lord hath given us instances of it in some things in the Gospell Mat. 14 26.29 Our Lord himselfe walked upon the water and not onely he himselfe but he gave Peter power to walke with him And this was a signe of that he meanes to do at the day of the Resurrection As their bodies then walked and were sustained by the power of God in the ayre and was able to make that which is fluent and soft and yeelding in it selfe to make it a sollid pavement like unto the stones to walke upon the same power shall also worke in our bodies that agilitie which is in the Eagle So the Prophet speaks yea our Lord compares us where he saith Where the body is Mat. 24.28 thither will the Eagles resort which is meant not onely of a spirituall flight by faith but also of the bodies assumption And this our Lord confirmed by the Ascention of his owne body Iob. 14.2 for he went before to prepare a place for us that beleeve in him Now we know that his body ascended to heaven it had the power to move upward as well as any other way We have examples of it also in Henoch and Elias which were both translated Elias carried in a fierie Car to heaven 2. King 2.11 And all this with eternitie and immortalitie that there shall not any thing of it passe away there shall be no expectation of death there shall be no feare of change This is the greatest thing of all when God shall give fulnesse of glory to have also full security For whatsoever glory men have in this world so long as they know that there is a worme â—hat can gnaw it or that it is possible for them to be outed this glory is nothing because it is glory that may be no glory Such is the state of these worldly things that there is nothing so great but it is subject to be brought from that greatnesse But the Lord shall give this glory for ever and ever as himselfe is he that is eternall in himselfe he is eternall to all those that he shall make his followers and companions in that blessed kingdome For they also shall receive that part of eternitie as farre as they are capable It is this safetie and securitie that makes this blessing amiable and for that the Lord hath given us an example for securitie in Scripture where for forty yeares together in the wildernesse the Lord so provided that there was no mans cloaths that were rent or worne not so much as the soale of his shoe impaired by that long and tedious travell We see also they had securitie of food continually it never ceased to follow them but in convenient time was still administred to them Therefore it follows that God that can do these things for garments for these ragges that we weare upon our bodies he meanes much more to do it to the bodies themselves As Christ saith Is not the body better then rayment Mat. 6.25 then garments Seeing therefore that he did it unto garments that are of farre lesse worth will hee not do it unto the bodies themselves He that kept their garments 40. yeares without wearing and yet what weares so soone as a garment he was able to have done it for eternity if it had pleased him But God gave them that for an instance to shew that these things belong in a higher nature and degree and measure to the setting forth of the lifâ—â—ternall and were to foreshew and to be an earnest of that infinite glory which God hath reposed for them that wait for the comming of his Sonne Which the Lord worke for us all c. 1 COR. 15.39 All flesh is not the same flesh but there is one flesh of man there is another flesh of beasts another of fishes and another of fowls THere is nothing more plain and easie then the sence of these words they are knowne to every man by experience And yet it is very hard to finde out the intent and reason why they were uttered Divers men have diversly commented upon them For some think as Tertullian Tertull. others that follow him that the Apostle speaks not as he seemeth to do of the flesh of beasts and of the flesh of men and of fishes and birds but by an allegorie comprehends some other thing concerning the diversitie and degrees of men And so he interprets The flesh of men that is of holy and just and good men There is one flesh of men that is of holy men for they are properly to be called men A man so farre forth as he is unholy so farre forth he comes short of a man and those are onely truly and really men that be good And then by the flesh of beasts he saith the Apostle meanes the flesh of beastly heathen men the flesh of Ethnicks of those that do not beleeve in God those that do not beleeve in Christ the Saviour of the world He saith such are beasts for they differ not world He saith such are beasts for they differ not from beasts neither in their sence nor in their conversation Then for the third there is another flesh of fishes he saith by fishes are meant those that are baptised and regenerate by water the fishes of our Lord Iesus Christ Mat. 4.19 whereof he said to his disciples I will make
from death are phrases and termes that properly belong to the life of man yet the Apostle useth it here in speaking of the corne to which it belongs not properly and significantly And now when he comes to speak of the burying of the bodies he useth a phrase which is proper to the corne and saith It is sowne and It is raised up that is it is brought forth in that variety as the corn is cloathed with And the reason St. Chrysostom saith is this Because we are as sure of the one as of the other and also to shew the fitnesse of the comparing of these things There is no comparison that could have been so fit therefore he interchangeth the phrases of the one to the other to shew that it comes all to one It is sowne The body of man hath two kinds of sowings in this world One is when he is sowne into the esse into the being of a man and that is in the wombe of his mother as St. Chrysostom saith in which sense it is said that such and such descended from the seed of Abraham and from the seed of such progenitors Another sowing is this which the Apostle speaks of here which is in the wombe of that great mother the Earth which is the common mother and universall nurse of all mankind Now of the first St. Paul speaks not here although it be true indeed that some Interpreters have turned it that way For it is certaine that the prime principles of men are laid in corruption and the first sation or sowing is a concealed and secret matter a shamefull action and sometimes a dishonest thing but the Apostle hath no intention to speak of that for he speaks here by way of allusion and saith So is it in the resurrection of the dead Therefore I cannot follow those extravagancies but apply it to the Resurrection It is certaine the Apostle meanes of that sowing of God when he sows the body in the ground Earth to earth ashes to ashes as St. Chrysostom saith Chrysost that is the best sowing by far For the first is a sowing to misery and weaknesse to live in troubles and crosses and affliction in this world even as Iob saith Job 14.1 Man that is borne of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery but this sowing of God of his children in the grave of which this Text as also this Chapter must be understood it is a sowing not to a life of misery but to a state of glory There shall be no trouble after that but a quiet and perfect rest and renovation when the fulnesse of time shall appeare So then It is sowne Hee useth this word upon purpose to take from us the feare of death the feare and trouble of that great monster and bugg of the world For as much as to die is a hopefull thing as the sowing of the seed is a hopefull action Sowing is a word of confidence and expectation as we see 1 Cor. 9. 1 Cor. 9.10 11. that he that sowes may sow in hope and he that reaps may reap in hope and he that ears may eare in hope All these are words of hope words that are very full of contentment to the minde for by that meanes there is a certaine expectation of gaine and advantage It is sowne That is when a man dies he is full of hope there is a blessed hope that waits and attends upon him As Iob saith the just man the good man hath hope in his death and the faithfull with faithfull Abraham they hope against hope that when desperation assailes him then he is strongest in his hope to God It is sowne Therefore is is not cast away it is not brought to nothing it is not destroyed but it is sowne it is laid up in a faithfull hand it is laid up as a depositum and not onely so but it is put forth to Interest and hath a great Income againe It is sowne And it is sowne in a due place in the field of God in Gods acre as in many places in Germany the Church-yards are called Gods acre It is not cast into the water it is not cast into the fire to be burned nor to the thorns and weeds to choak it it is not left to be picked by the fowls of heaven but it is sowne in that place where God hath purposed it shall repose and rest Yea it is given upon tale and the earth shall restore and give up her dead she shall surrender every body which God hath committed unto her It is sowne with the diligent hand of the great husbandman the Lord Almighty he that casts his seed with judgement and laies it up with knowledge and great wisdome Ioh. 15. Joh. 15.1 saith Christ I am the Vine and my Father is the Husbandman The Lord therefore takes this seed and he so layes it up where it may bring the most profit and rise with the richest advantage It is sown in the bosome of the great mother the earth which is fruitfull and abounds in plenty which receives the first and later raine Deut 11.14 and sets the vallies thick with corne Psal 65.14 that it makes men rejoyce and sing In such a place is this semination this sowing it is sowne by the hand of God it is sowne in the expectation of hope profit This word the Apostle useth to allure us to familiarity with that which of necessity we must undergoe Men must forgoe this tabernacle but it is grievous to them to think of it they are perplexed and distressed when such melancholy thoughts come in their heads Let us shake hands therefore with that to the which we must needs bow at the last And let us conceive the goodnesse of God which follows us even unto our death and opens a gate of hope and makes us prisoners of hope and gives passage to the performance of those blessed promises wherein we are instructed and whereto we are called by the lure of the glorious Gospell So much for that metaphor Now the other for the body to come 2. The metaphor for the life to come Chrysost it is very significant It is raised up Saith St. Chrysostom the Apostle doth not say it grows up of it self but it is raised up as being done by another so indeed our redemption it is not wrought by any thing that is inherent in us but it is an externall action that comes from God it is the hand of God that works on us and raiseth us up It is raised therefore by the power of him that raised Christ from the dead Rom. 8.11 It is raised by him that raised for us a horne of salvation in the house of his servant David Luke 1.69 John 11.17 It is raised as Lazarus was raised after he had been foure daies in the grave It is raised as a house is raised from the foundation It is raised as the Temple
away from him yea and his dearest beloved shall stop their noses at him This should teach us to humble our selves in this disconsolation Vse and to adde this to all the honors we have in the world if we have any or doe yet looke for any This dishonour of death is a cooling card that should make a man moderate in all his proceedings It should make him fearfull in all his doings It should make him understand that he ought not to be puffed up with conceits and pretences of honour but to qualifie himselfe with this comparing his dishonour which the Lord will lay upon sinfull flesh There is nothing so honourable but it shall be covered with shame and dishonour at the hour of death when we shall depart this world It is sowne in dishonour Well! although it be thus yet the Lord hath a help for this againe it shall be raised after another manner It shall be raised in honour in great glory As disgrace and dishonour is the worst of punishments so honour and grace and glory againe is the best of preferments There is nothing so sweet unto us as that to be above others to be beloved of others to be admired of others and to be served of others this is that sweet breath of life and that sweet contentment that shall fill us with marrow and fatnesse And this God purposeth to poure upon these dishonourable bodies that die so beastly and deformed that they are trampled on by the feet of beasts if they lie abroad and if it be in the Church where wee usually bury the poorest and basest of men tread upon them I say the Lord shall raise it at that day in such honour that it shall be like the stars of heaven it shall be like the Sunne in glory it shall be like the Angels of God it shall be like the Sonne of God Phil. 3.21 for he shall change these vile bodies and make them like his glorious body according to his mighty power whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3.21 Now by the contrary dishonour we may see that the honour of the Saints shall consist 1. In a goodly stature 2. In a perfect beauty 3. In a gracious fragrancie In the stature of the body there shall be no uncomelinesse there shall be no crookednesse there shall be nothing wanting that can be required as we use to say of images that are drawne in waxe that they are compleat so likewise God shall so paint his image in the bodies of his Saints when they shall rise that it is not possible to find it so in any thing but in the Exemplar in the master-piece the body of Christ there is nothing else that shall be more glorious As in those happy Countries where the leaves are alwaies greene and the earth is alway budding and bringing forth so the bodies of Gods Saints as St. Austin saith shall have that greennesse and vigorousnesse of incorruption possesse them totally St. Augustine And lastly that it shall be of a gracious fragrancy it is certaine that that also may be opposed to the stench of these carkasses The dead body is dishonoured in nothing more then by a caryon-like smell for thereby it differs nothing from a beast nay it is far worse then a beast for there is nothing so putrifies as the body of a man there is nothing brings forth such ugly things as that For out of the brain comes scorpions and snakes and out of the flesh toads and serpents which is not usuall among the beasts For some of them bring forth bees and some wasps but of Ages and Eumines and divers others it is reported that scorpions and snakes came out of their heads after they were dead and wreathed about their faces And we know by wofull experience of late time of divers gentlemen that were troubled with such a wofull thing that they had wormes in their braines and in their entrailes I say therefore answerable to this as the miserie is great to which the body of man is subject greater then other creatures because he is the onely sinner so at that day God shall make an aboundant recompence by pouring upon it the spring of beauty and sweetnesse and fragrancie that they shall be as a garden of spices in the nostrills of God and of his Saints Every Saint shall also be as a glasse to each other and every one shall see his fellowes beauty and they shall reflect one upon another in the joy and gladnesse of the Holy Ghost to see the wonderous work which God hath wrought upon this piece of frailty And even as Iacob was as the smell of a field when he came near his Father Behold saith Isaack I smell the smell of my sonne as the smell of a field Gen. 27.27 which the Lord hath blessed There being nothing more delightfull to the sense then a blooming field of new corne and of sweet grasse and flowers that rise out of the earth And therefore the holy man compares his sonne to a field which the Lord hath blessed Much more shall these be fragrant fields the Lord blessing them with infinite variety of goodnesse and of grace and sweetnesse that the field of God shall be more pleasant then the fields and gardens of men and then all the paradises in this world And as the head of this company is described Cant. 1. Cant. 1.3 4. Draw me and I will run after thee in the odour of thine anointments noting unto us the sweetnesse that is incorporated in the body of Christ And as we reade also of St. Paul Acts 19.12 that by the blessing of God he had napkins and handkerchiefs brought from his body that were of such sweetnesse that they were able to cure diseases so also we may understand what shall be the variety there from the sweetnesse that is now in the body arising from the mixture of the bloud in the veines which makes a perfect sympathy and harmony The Lord at that day shall make all things much more abundant As the Church also is described by the sweetnesse of her cloathes in the Canticles Cant. 1.14 My Spouse saith Christ is as a garden of myrrh or of spices and her breasts are like the clusters of grapes and like the fruit of Engedi So every man and woman shall be although here they be sickly and subject to never so many infirmities and diseases in this life yet the Lord shall so alter the bodies of those that serve him here in that blessed estate there that they shall be sure to finde a singular proportion of beauty of strength and of fragrancie that all the just shall be termed the field and paradise which God hath blessed FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.43 It is sowne in weaknesse it is raised in power It is sown a naturall body it is raised a spirituall body There is a naturall body and there is
the least relish of it when his eyes waxe dim when he can retaine nothing in his stomack but he casts it up againe when hee can hardly speak a word nor know his best friends but all the organs of life and sense are drowned in death This is that poore weaknesse which the Apostle speaks of It is sown in weaknesse When he is casheerd and deprived of all sense of all power and motion and nothing remaines but a base and desperate imbecility and such a kind of infirmity as that there is no hope in flesh and bloud that ever there shall be made any recovery This is the state of all men Vse And it must teach us beloved to weepe over our weaknesse to think of it in the degrees and parts of it The Lord hath given us many prognosticants of it every sicknesse and every qualme and every distresse of conscience and whatsoever troubleth us in this world they be nothing but so many Kalenders of that great weaknesse that once shall come and make an end of us And therefore as it is said Man hath not one death alone but a number of deaths and that which takes him away is called the last death for he hath many before that This is the state of sowing the body But now behold the promise of the great God! he will raise it up in power the weaker it is sown the stronger it shall rise and this weaknesse that we have it is no argument of discomfort nor a mean to make us distrust but it is a surer tye to binde God to performance and a sure evidence of our deliverance that as our weaknesse is great so our strength shall be much more infinite which shall be wrought by the mighty power of God whereby he is able to subdue all things to himselfe It is raised againe in power or in strength For it is raised by him that is the strong God by him that is El Eli Elohim the God of strength of might and of majesty By that God that loves to make his strength seen in our weaknesse and to make his glory perfect in our infirmity by that God that delights to work in contraries and to bring fire and water out of the same principle that God hath undertaken to raise up this weak body Therefore the Apostle saith It is raised speaking in the present tense as of a thing done not in the future tense It shall be To bring us acquainted with the truth before it be done and to make us assured of it as if it were performed already We are as sure indeed to be raised to that glorious strength which God hath promised as if the deed were done for it is in the counsell of the great God in which those things that hee hath promised be as if they were already performed because he is true that hath promised and because he is able to keep his promise he is able to keep his word for it is his onely prerogative to keep his word and his promise for ever And this is that wondrous comfort that he hath given unto us that if it were possible for the body to have more weaknesse then it hath if it were possible to be debased worse by infirmity then it is yet then we had a stronger argument to prove the strength to come to which the body shall be restored For the weaknesse which we have and carry about us the greater it is the stronger proofe it makes for Gods infinite mercy in the deliverance of us For as we see by experience that vessels and barrells of gunpowder laid up in vaults and cells the more waight is laid upon them the greater pyles and masse of building there is over them the more furiously and strongly they break forth at the touch and traine of the least fire So likewise it is certain that the bodies that are turned into powder to dust these powder-bodies of ours for at last they must all all come to pulverell to dust powder these bodies the more weight is upon them the more earth the more difficulty and the greater weaknesse they have whereby they are compassed and surrounded it makes way for the more strength to burst out when the fire of God shall light and touch upon it when there shall be a re-union of the spirit a deduction of the soule when that fire shall light upon it that comes from heaven then they shall rise in a glorious strength for the more they have beene held downe by weaknesse the more they shall be rescued and ransomed and restored to a greater vigour It is raised in power and strength and in a strength that is answerable to the weaknesse that where the weakness is the greatest there the strength shall transcend in greatnesse And what is this strength It is reduced by the Fathers into foure particulars First St. Austin and St. Chrysostom and generally all the Fathers think Aug. Chrysost that the strength that shall be most eminent in the body when it riseth shall be in the power of motion which because I have before spoken of I will but now touch it As the top of the flame that is in a dry reed it runs upon the reed and you know when such platts of ground are on fire they set all a fire about them so the body of man it shall be able to flye to run and to move as swiftly as the flame doth upon the top of any combustible matter And as the Sun and the Stars and the Angels and spirits of men doe never sleepe and yet are still in motion and are never weary of their motion so the body that shall be raised and fitted againe unto the soule shall be without labour and pain without weaknesse and wearinesse and shall never faile nor faint but shall be able to hold out in an everlasting motion as the Sunne and the Stars doe in the firmament In which sense as Luther Luther saith they shall be able to goe ten thousand furlongs in the twinkling of an eye I name that as a matter of recreation because his spirit was wondrous cheerfull and merry in the Notes that he gives tending to that purpose The second thing wherein this strength shall consist shall be in the efficacy and power of their working So that those that be the weakest things in the world now that one devill if he were permitted were able to wrythe the necks of ten thousand people about then at that day God shall give them that strength of body that they shall be able to encounter a whole legion of devils which shall then have no power over the bodies of men as now they have nor shall not be able to possesse them and to rule them at their pleasure nor to make monsters of them but the body of one Saint shall put to flight and fright a whole legion of sathans complices And this mighty power whereby they work that I may a little still proceed
harmelesse humour although when it is too extreame and violent it is full of sinne yet it is construed to a good sense that they desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is best of all that is to say not to be dissolved after the fashion of the common death as S. Paul did but to have a kinde of light mutation and change and so to be translated unto glory You see in 2 Cor. 5.4 2 Cor. 5.4 where the Apostle tells us We would not be spoiled of this body that is we would not die but supervestiri wee would have a garment or vestment of glory and immortality to be put upon this body without death As if hee should say we would have corruption to enter into incorruption and we would be made capable of heaven with these bodies unchanged by death To that the Apostle answers in these words No saith he these things are contrary naturall and spirituall and it is impossible for a naturall body to be capable of spirituall qualities or a spirituall body of naturall qualities we must needs leave off the one before we can take the other we must lay downe the rags of this flesh before we can take the garment or vestment of glory and eternity in that blessed life that followes And although we have a great desire to goe unto life without death yet wee must mortifie that desire for it is as vaine as nurses wishes As nurses that wish the most eminent and excellent things to their children so we delight our selves in this imagination But the Apostle tells us that wee must take things in order for that God hath made all things in order First we are to taste of the naturals and then to be made partakers of the spirituals so we cannot be borne into this world but by nature and we cannot be borne into our spirituall possession at the first but first we must have a kinde of naturall life and by the grace of God that prepares us unto the life spirituall So God hath appointed and ordained every thing to goe by succession that all things should not be done at once but every thing in its time For saith he that which is spirituall is not first but that which is naturall and then that which is spirituall And to this purpose hee brings in the two great fountaines and seminaries of mankinde the one for the life of nature the other for the life of grace a man and a man both of them being men but yet being diversly qualified and both leaving their qualities to those that be their followers For saith the Apostle the causers of all this great difference of naturall and spirituall be the two Adams the one was meerely naturall and was no more but a man The other although he were naturall yet he was spirituall too he was both God and man The one wrought unto death the other wrought unto life the one was bent and inclined to sinne the other was full of all grace the one left an inheritance of misery the other left great demeanes of glory to all those that are his followers Now as these causes bee contrary in themselves there being as much difference betweene them as there is betweene East and West so wee must imagine the effects to be different too For if the one did work to hell and damnation the other wrought to heaven a glorious redemption and salvation for all Gods people and if the wickednesse of the one were derivable upon his posterity in the flesh much more the goodnesse and righteousnesse of the other is derived unto them that are true beleevers and followers of him The first man was of the earth earthly the second man was the Lord from heaven And as they be so be their disciples as is he that is earthly so are they that are earthly and as was the heavenly so are they that are heavenly They are to follow their masters cue and to be of the same condition as their Chieftaine and Soveraigne The carnall man dies in Adam the spirituall lives in Christ even to life everlasting This is the substance of the words read unto you Now to proceed in order of the Text. First Division into 3. parts 1. The order of the PropositioÌ„ 2. The comparison betweene the 2. Adams 3. The conformity of their members we are to consider the verity and truth of the order of this proposition how the Apostle intends that that which is spirituall is not first but that which is naturall For it seemes that the best things should be first and spirituall things being best therefore it seemes they should be first yea it seems to be a disparagement unto things spirituall and heavenly to come in time after things naturall But the Apostle saith no God hath appointed it so and hee gives no further reason as St. Chrysostom observes that they may give themselves content in this that it is Gods will it shall be so that is a reason sufficient they need seek no further Secondly we are to consider the comparison betweene the two heads and roots and fountaines of mankinde the first man and the latter man and they are compared in foure things The first is in respect of their order and succession the first and the last or the first and the second The second is in respect of the place of their nativity whence they come the first from the earth the second from heaven The third is in the quantity of their difference and excellencie the first came as a servant the second came as a Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And though the word servant be not noted in the Text yet it is to be understood by this that he saith The Lord himselfe Therefore the first came not as a Lord but as a servant but the second came as a Lord in all points yea as the Lord himselfe from heaven Then lastly for their qualities the one is earthly the other is heavenly The third part of the Text is the conformity of the members that belong to these heads with their heads For as there are two great foundations of mankinde so likewise they have members answerable to them Those that be of Adam that is naturall men they be as their father is such as the earthly is so they are that are earthly and those that be of Christs retinue they be such as their Master is too For as is the heavenly so are they also that are heavenly which is not meant of the manners and condition of men here in this world for the Apostle meddles not with that in all this Chapter but it is spoken of the bodies that shall be raised at that day thâ—t as all men be earthly by nature the best Saints of God here are in an earthly condition and must be dissolved into earth and as we have that by means of the first Adam from whence wee descend so from the second Adam wee have a hope and shall
hee was come there hee teacheth and converseth with the people hee goes not about his work upon the sudden The newes comes he is dead and buried Let him lie in his grave a long time that the glory of God may the more appeare Let him lie the first second and third day and the Lord comes not Upon the fourth day when all men gave him for stinking and desperate and that there was no hope of any good to bee done upon him then the Lord comes to work When Martha his sister had given over all hope and told Christ shee knew that hee should rise againe at the resurrection but for any other rising she never dreamed of or imagined that Well then when all things seemed to be senslesse and against reason and possibility then the power of God began to work And because Lazarus was so strongly held by death foure dayes therefore the stronger was the hand of God upon him in raysing him from death That the strength of death might be encountred and overcome and countermanded by the higher strength and arme of the Almighty it now gave way and made a passage to the arme of the Lord to work a mighty deliverance So still the misery of the child of God works for good and all things work for the best to those that love God Rom. 8.28 Therefore as we have borne the image of the earthly so we shall beare the image of the heavenly This is a great incouragement to us to beare Vse Wee are impatient we cannot endure any thing but we see that wee must beare and if wee looke for the image of the heavenly we must be content to beare the image of the earthly We must be content to be sick we must be content to be poore to be persecuted to be every way miserable and wretched We must be content to be tempted by the tempting devill and oft times to be foiled by him and to bee overcome in sinne and shamefull actions and courses We must be content with the Christian agony and the bloody sweat that Christ had in the garden at his passion We must beare these things it is the image of the earthly It is the condition of the other life the bearing of the heavenly And except wee have the one we cannot have the other except we beare the image of the earthly we shall not beare the image of the heavenly But here it may be objected that Infants have not this image Yes reason tells us they doe For in their death in their sicknesse in their distractions and strange convulsions to which they are subject they beare the image of the earthly although not in so great a measure as men of groweth doe yet they have for their tender yeares a fearefull yoake laid upon them which is mortality and all the wayes that tend to death To conclude this first point the proposition Let us mingle the one with the other and beare both If thou bee troubled in this world in any sort inwardly or outwardly If thou be troubled in conscience for sinne if thou bee troubled with enemies art thou troubled in thy fortunes in thy state in the world art thou troubled with sicknesse of body remember it is nothing but thine owne image Thus thou art made wilt thou deny thine owne face wilt thou deny thy owne name wilt thou not take that which thou art borne unto art thou ashamed of thine inheritance it is that which thy Father hath left thee therefore beare it And withall to comfort thy selfe beare it with this hope and lively assurance that thou shalt beare a better image one day The galley-slaves that serve the Turks in their galleys if they could but think that at seven yeares end some Christian would come and deliver them they would be the better affected and would cheare their mindes especially if they could be assured of it If Iacob serve the churle Laban seven yeares Gen. 29. if he think he shall have Rachell at the end of it hee thinks it but like unto seven dayes and with patience he comforts himselfe in the Lord and staies his leisure and is content that God shall use him unto his hand as it pleaseth him This is the true constitution of a pure mind therefore let us sweeten these outward worldly miseries with the expectation of future joy and the promises which God hath made to us in his holy Word There is no griefe so great but if wee tie heaven unto the end of it it is light As the Apostle saith This short moment any affliction Rom. 8.18 is not worthy of the glory that shall bee revealed Let us put them together and the one will bee swallowed up in the other For as we have borne the image of the earthly so shall wee beare the image of the heavenly Oh! when shall that blessed day appeare So must the Christian man aspire and hunger and thirst after the righteousnesse of God and after his blessed kingdome Wee mourne saith the Apostle as long as we are from Christ in this body we would faine see the consummation of the promise Why then there is no meanes but one that is by incessant prayer by continuall clamours to call upon God to crie unto him for it The cries and clamours of Gods Saints must bring Christ from heaven againe unto earth to make up the fulnesse of the promise which he hath condescēded unto in his holy Word This must be the use we must make of this doctrine That as wee are patiently to endure the image of the earthly man to endure the misery that sinne hath contracted and brought upon us that we also be faithfull and hopefull to cry and to call unto God for the sweet things that are reposed and laid up for us in the glory of the Gospel So much for the Proposition Now for the explanation in verse 50. Verse 50. This I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdome of heaven neither can corruption inherit incorruption In these words the Apostle doth prevent those questionings and objections that simple men might make against this doctrine They might say that he taught in the cloudes that hee spake so as that they knew not what hee meant What doe you meane by the image of the earthly and the image of the heavenly we have heard of no such words we know no such matter For this the Apostle tells them that hee speaks out of the phrase of Scripture hee speaks it out of Genesis For hee had said before that Adam was made a living soule and that Christ was made a quickening spirit and so following the course of the creation he saith there was an image which at the first was heavenly but it was defaced by mans fault and so it became earthly and by consequence all of Adams blood were like their progenitor they all tooke part of the inheritance although it were against their will and they bore the image of
notwithstanding they shall not die nor be put into their graves for that change shall be unto them instead of our death And doe not think your selves so much the worse that God favours you the lesse or that he favours them more because they goe not to their graves as you doe For the Lord makes you by patience subject to his holy will hee gives you that patience that for his sake you can be content to be deposed to lay downe your earthly Tabernacles And you must not vexe and grive at them for they are never the better for it For their change is to them as a death although it be not with the same obsequies and in the same outward shews yet in effect it shall be the same Therefore that wee are done to dust and that they never see dust this is no disparagement to us nor no great comfort to them for it shall be all one in effect the Lord imbalmes the memory of his Saints and he preserves their dust and tels the sands of their dust and hee keeps them in perpetuall record so that whatsoever hee poures out hereafter upon another generation it shall not be a prejudice to those that are now dead For the Lord goes down with those that sleepe to the grave hee descends with them and preserves them and keeps them he numbers their haires he numbers the members and parts of their bodies And this is that mysterie which the Apostle speaks of here Behold I shew you a mysterie It is a great mysterie that any man should live and not see death yet the Apostle tells us that there shall be millions of men that shall live and yet they shall have no death many that shall have a mortall and corrupt and sinfull life as we have and yet they shall not have any death It is a great mysterie that all the Saints should not come to life eternall by the same meanes that is by way of putrefaction and of resurrection and yet there are millions that shall not come to life that way but by another way of change and mutation Behold I tell you a mysterie we shall not all die but we shall all be changed This is the summe of the words Division into 1 The time 2 The manner and meanes Now the Apostle expresseth and explaineth himselfe farther by telling the cause and the means how this shall be done for hee saith this shall be done as concerning the time immediately in an instant in the twinckling of an eye And as concerning the manner and the meanes of it by the vertue of the last trump The trump that shall blow And so the substance of it is this The Lord shall sound forth his Trumpet which shall have a power to change the bodies that as at the first hee spake the word Let this be made Gen. 1. and it was made Let there be light and there was light so there shall be another power in the voice for the renewing and re-creating of things as there was a power in the voice then to create and make the world so there shall in the re-creating and re making of the world that shall make a change of all things And as in the beginning things that were dark before were made light Let there be light and there was light of that which was dark before and that which was confused before was made orderly and distinct which is the greatest extremities that can be light and darknesse order and confusion so likewise there shall be a mighty voice of God in that sounding silver Trumpet that shall then blow to change the bodies of men from dark to light some bodies and shall change their thoughts from confusion and disorder to bee regular and orderly The trumpet is the voice of God the operation of the Almighty which as it wrought a strange change in the Creation so it shall worke a stranger in the recreation and renovation of the world These are the parts and parcels of the Text. Now to proceed in order as it shall please God to give assistance The first thing to bee considered is that the Church of God in respect of this mystery which the Apostle speaks of hath been drawne to diverse readings and expositions of this Text. For they could not see how it should be true that the Apostle saith All shall bee changed because they thought it onely belonged to the godly But it is certaine that the ungodly shall be changed too for their bodies that are now corrupt shall be then uncorrupt But how to sustaine misery and torment that they had better not to bee than to bee in such a case All the paines of hell shall not so work upon them to dead them not to consume them but they shall bee able to consist in the middest of torment Now the least care and trouble in the world kills a mans heart and works him off but then God shall so change the bodies of the reprobates that they shall bee able to indure whatsoever torment shall bee laid upon them But because those men understood not this they thought the change was to bee taken in a good sense to belong onely to the godly Therefore they reade it two severall wayes differing from ours For our reading is this which is so in the Originall according to the Greek copy Wee shall not all die but wee shall all bee changed And so it agrees properly with that which went before For he gives an answer to a question that might be made Why doe you say that corruption shall not enter into incorruption nor flesh and blood into the kingdome of heaven shall not they bee corrupt flesh that shall live at the comming of Christ to judgement To this the Apostle saith Indeed they shall not die but instead of that death they shall have a change So that this is an inference upon the former and an answer for the removall of an objection Now as I said diverse partes of the Church reade it two other wayes The first is this Wee shall all certainely die but wee shall not all be changed For they were carefull still to appropriate and bring the change unto Gods people and inheritance as though it belonged not to the wicked Another Reading is this Wee shall all rise againe but wee shall not all bee changed so that still they make the negative upon the change because they understood not how this thing might bee conceived to belong to the good and bad which is the change of the bodies Now indeed in their severall senses they be all true For the first that saith wee shall not all sleepe It is true of the common masse of mankind but not of every particular body and of every particular age For I told you before that the Lord shall exempt a whole world from the common death which wee suffer Therefore it is not true in the particulars that we shall all sleâ—pe For there shall be many thousands of men
matter of this mystery follows We shall not all die but we shall all be changed The power and strength of death working unequally upon mankinde it seemes a great wonder and a mysterie indeed how that some should be happier than their fellowes to be exempted from this common law which is a Statute law Heb. 9 27. and It is appointed for all men once to die And how then are these become so happy to escape the common doome inflicted for the sin of Adam upon all mankinde surely to our common sense they are the happiest of all men even those that shall live in those dayes For we love our flesh so well that wee are loath to commit it to the ground wee are loath that dust should goe to dust and ashes to ashes but still wee would continue and be the last men upon the earth And this great ambition we have so truely and so radically in us that a man would give all that he had in this world not to be taken away till the world be taken away It is the greatest comfort of a mans life to be snatched and hurried away when the universality goes away It is a great comfort to have abundance of company in misery But for this the holy Ghost hath taught us Vse to settle our selves in patience the Lord hath appointed our severall times They are never a whit the more happy because they shall not die nor we never the more unhappy because wee shall die for life and death are all one to them that are planted in the Lord Iesus Christ For it is he that is our advantage he is our hope in death that wee shall attaine unto everlasting life And whether we shall come unto it by the way of resting and rottennesse in the grave or by a sudden and extemporarie change and mutation it ought to seeme all one unto us It is true if God should vouchsafe us that blessing to stand the last men upon the earth and to be the last generation it were a thing very plausible and that which we should desire but we ought not too much to settle upon it for the Lord hath made it a mysterie It is a mysterie when any man dies It is a mysterie in the generall and in the particular it is a mysterie when God calls any man unto him and wee must not wish contrary to the will of God but be content with that portion that he hath destinated unto us Our first parents because they were the authors of sin and transgression Adam and Eve the Lord hath given them the longest time of rotting they lie longest in their graves and they dwell in the pavillions and habitations of death the longest because they were the first authors of wrong to us In the later end of the world the Lord will incline in mercie because he hath been long in judgement in the judgement of death he will incline in the latter generations of the world and give them a taste of his mercy All things grow lesse by continuance and use as a raging plague and pestilence when it comes first into a Citie it takes away a number of people three or foure thousand in a weeke afterward the Lord allayes that rage and abates the disease that there are not so many this week as there were the week before nor so many the next week as there were this So in this common calamity as the world growes in yeares nearer the end of her time so her children that is the people of God which lie in their graves they have lesse time to lie The first authors of sinne when Gods anger was fierce and vehement they are condemned to lie longer in the dust to inhabit and dwell there At the last the plague of God shall begin to slacken and to abate it selfe and the anger of God shall be mitigated and mollified so that those that live in the last age they shall have the least time of sleeping in the dust But in these things we ought to make no difference for the patience that God indues his children with makes up this whether a man sleepe a thousand yeares or five thousand it is all one because God seasons their death with a meditation of the Resurrection and in the meane time inricheth the soule with the beatificall vision with the presence of his Majesty and with that joy that cannot be comprehended in the heart of man We shall not all sleepe Observe againe the Apostle speaks in the first person Wee he saith We shall not all sleepe and yet hee is asleep aswell as other men how then doth he say We shall not all sleep His meaning is to take upon him the person of the Church of God in generall and especially that part of the Church that shall survive when Christ shall come For St. Paul is done to dust as wee shall be and there is no difference in that part that went to the grave There is no difference but onely this that he sleeps in the Lord hee sleeps a glorious compasse and yet he saith We shall not al sleep Vnderstand that he speaks still of the â—ommon state of the Church and for that part of the Church which hee brings the argument for For now he brings his argument to answer an accusation or conclusion which might be made against his doctrine Some might aske him What shall become of those that shall be living at the comming of Christ Oh saith he I am of them although I die before that time yet I am of that number For the members of Christ are not distinguished by time but are all one Abel might have said Wee and Adam might have said Wee of the last end of the world This teacheth us how great the communion of Saints is that it is not broken by the entercourse of yeares time but that it still continues We shall not all sleep The blessing of God runs on still with perpetuity and that which is true to one generation is firme to another and that which belongs to one is common to all This is that communion of Saints in the strength of which the Apostle uttered this phrase We shall not all sleep as he doth oft times in his other Epistles We shall not doe this and wee shall not doe that Although the Apostle be dead and rotten 15. hundred years agoe yet he saith We shall not all sleep But we shall all be changed Still We as if he were one of the men Here he teacheth us another lesson that the Apostle was a man that still looked for the day of judgement He saith We shall all be changed It may be I shall be one of the men I know not it may be the trumpet shall blow while I live for the Lord hath reserved the time onely to himselfe the day of judgement is knowne to no man Nay the son of man as hee is man knowes not when Christ shall come to judgement Therefoâ—e I prepare my selfe
God Almighty to worke our incorruption to be not an incorruption to misery but to glorie and that he would so worke us to himselfe as that wee may be in a continuall fruition and possession of his sweet and gracious presence not to be molested and tormenled with the absence of God with the losse of heaven and the joyes thereof which the damned spirits thinke if they had but a moment to live and repent them againe they would regaine the things they have lost And they cry out damnation to themselves that they were so foolish to lose the time which might have been so imployed as that they might have been made masters of heaven and possessors thereof The dead shall rise incorruptible And we shall be changed That is wee all those that belong unto Christ Where we may observe the Apostle still useth the wee although the Apostle himselfe were not changed but after the manner of the common change by death But the Apostle doth this partly as I told you the last time because of the common communion of the Church of God whereas every man may say wee every man may take his neighbour with him we have all one head and we are all members of one body And chiefly the Apostle so speaks because he thought the day was neare approaching and he prepared himselfe every where He thought that the time and the day wherein hee wrote this wherein he spake this he thought that might have beene the last day and therefore that hee might have beene one of the number and therefore hee saith wee Now this change as I said before is commonly taken for the better but it is true also of the Reprobate After that manner of change wee speake of they shall be changed from a state mutable to immutability that which they are when they rise they are for ever They are not so now for they follow the change of nature they are subject to mutability and variety seaven years make a great alteration in a mans life and in the best life in the world more years makes a greater impression But the Lord shall then raise them to a setled state to a state of incorruption and whether they have glory or whether they have misery it shall be without change it shall be in a kind of eternity as the Lord himselfe is eternall I should now come to the Reason which includes all and to the sweet metaphor where the Apostle expresseth himselfe in these words We must put on But I must reserve it till the next time FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortall shall have put on immortality then shall be fulfilled the speech that is written Death is swallowed up into victory 5. Part. The Reason IN these words the Apostle renders a Reason of that former change mutation which shall befall the Saints of God For this whole doctrine of the Resurrection it must be so expounded of the Saints especially howbeit it may be also further extended even to the wicked and the reprobates For they shall have a kinde of change as being made from mortall immortall and from corrupt to be incorrupt although it shall be for their punishment and for their greater ignominie yet it shall be true immortality and a true incorruption that they shall receive But as Beza and the later and best Divines hold it is fittest for us to tye these things and to understand them of that sanctified company to whom the Lord hath promised and will also vouchsafe a glorious Resurrection They must therefore as it is said before be all changed and they must be changed presently upon the sound of the trumpet by the power of Almighty God of which things I will now make no repetition Now because it might be questioned what need wee be changed wee desire rather to goe to God In this body we desire super-vestiri to be over-clad rather with the glory of the Almighty then to be naked and to be stripped of this flesh that we have here We would goe to Christ but wee would not goe the same way to Christ that Christ came to us for he came to us by death but wee would goe to him still without death Therefore this the Apostle resolves us and teacheth us that which he said before in part That flesh and bloud shall not inherite the Kingdome of God that is corrupt flesh and bloud by reason of the corruption that is in it by reason of the tainture of sinne it is subject to change and mutability For it is impossible till it be reformed till it be cast into the earth and mouldered to dust and that it be prepared by the hand of God in the ground untill then it is uncapable of heaven So here hee saith in the affirmative Oportet it must needs be so it must needs be that this mortall must put on immortality and this corruption must put on incorruption So when hee hath given his resolution that such a thing must needs be then he lifts them up to the expectation of the time when this glorious change shall be made He tells them that it shall be and whensoever it shall come to passe as certainly it must be fulfilled then shall also be fulfilled that glorious saying in the Scriptures wherewith he confirmes himselfe and his authority and is not content to speake as an Apostle onely out of his owne Apostolicall power which he had received from Christ but hee also fetcheth some ground and help besides his testimony from the Prophets that were before him then saith hee shall be fulfilled that happy word that glorious word spoken of by Isay as the most and best Divines think or by Hosea as some others think And the word is this Death is swallowed up into victory that there is nothing left now in the tents of Christs holy Church but the voyce of triumphs and trophees over death and consequently over hell over sinne over sicknesse over all infirmities and discontent whatsoever For if Death be swallowed up in victory the rest are much more swallowed up For that is the greatest and the last enemie of all and if that be confounded the rest must needs perish with it There shall then be such a compleat victory as that looke whatsoever a man casts his eye on hee shall see nothing but victory and conquest and glory and life and righteousnesse and holinesse in stead of this wickednesse and misery and distemper and accidents whereto we are subject in this life Then shall be fulfilled So he notes unto us the goodly and glorious time in which the Saints shall have their full consummation and blisse Then then it shall be fulfilled which is now prophesied and promised It shall be made up then which is now but expected It shall then be fulfilled in all
is done as it is certaine it shall bee done for wee have Gods word and promise for it wee have the appetite of the matter which still calls and cries to God for a forme and we have the Lord ingaged by example and president and by the head and first fruits Christ Iesus the head when this is done Then shall bee fulfilled that which was spoken As if he should say I speake not these things to you of my selfe and out of my owne Apostolicall authority which I might stand upon but I speake them out of the writings of those men that were illuminated by the same Spirit from the writing of the holy Prophets Then shall be fulfilled that which was spoken or written That word that word of grace that word of promise that word which is able to make the dead revive and the word is this that Death is swallowed up into victory Where observe First who wrote this And then the substance of the words Concerning the first the Apostle defends his authority from ancient times to teach us what we are to doe in like cases But this is a common obvious point I will not insist upon it Concerning the Author Isay and Hosea are alledged for it some holding with the one some with the other Certainely it is in Isay in the true intimation according to the word Isay 25.8 Isay 25.8 where God promiseth the people a deliverance out of the Captivity of Babylon He saith God shall destroy death for ever he hath swallowed up death for ever or to victory for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 netsahh may signifie both entrance into length of time or else victory Because victory properly respects the time and that is true victory which is not to be dashed nor daunted with any time that is the most perfect victory that is not daunted in any time So in this respect the word time and victory is taken in the holy Tongue for the same and that which the Septuagint here translates the one the Apostle in the Text translates the other Although indeed the Apostle follow the Septuagint yet they have another translation besides which is God shall swallow up death for ever So the Prophet Isays words I take to be the best and the fittest Hos 13.14 The other in Hosea is in Hos 13.14 where the verse following after my Text is repeated expresly but the words of this verse of my Text is not there to bee found Therefore this I take to be the word of Isay Observe now what the word is that hee useth for it it is full of life it brings men from temporall things to the expectation of things eternall The Lord speakes to them of a great feast that they should make after their comming up out of the Land the Apostle takes it to set forth the eternall feast For it is to no purpose to have these temporall things and to bee swallowed up of death and hell The Apostle teacheth us therefore what construction wee should make of the blessings of God in this life to extend them in a high sense They are never sweet till then The bread that wee eat should make us mindefull of the bread of heaven that is of the glorious presence of God which shall for ever delight us And the honours and preferments that wee have here except they signifie to us those glorious and stately seates of glory hereafter they are rather plagues and punishments then blessings By death there in the Prophet is meant the generall Captivity but the Apostle takes it for the death of the body To victory is the terme and manner whereto it shall bee swallowed But I should be too troublesome to enter upon them now FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.54 Then shall bee fulfilled that word which is written Death is swallowed up into victory Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory WHat is so weak and againe what is so strong as a Christian man saith St. Ambrose Ambros Hee is exceedingly weake because hee is subject to any temptation and incomparably strong because hee can triumph over death it selfe which is the triumpher over all mankind For what can he feare that is fearelesse of death and what is able to insult over him that can insult over that which is the last of all terribles which is the dissolution of nature Thus the Lord hath tempered in the same vessell great infirmity and great valour that hee might shew his owne strength for in mans weaknesse is Gods strength consummate The Apostle therefore to prove those wonderfull things which hee had said before that this corruptible must put on the garment of incorruption this mortall must put on the weed of immortality he doth now as it were bring into the minds of the Corinthians the present spectacle hee lifts up their hearts to view it as a thing acted and done before their eyes As he saith to the Galathians Gal. 3.1 that Iesus Christ was crucified before their eyes whom they never saw crucified but hee was so lively described unto them by his Gospel that he saith they saw it acted and saw him really crucified and all the passages of his death and passion So now he would bring the hearts and minds of the Corinthians to such a kind of contemplation as to see the Lord God raising up the dead and to see the dead putting on their new garments their new coat of immortality and incorruption He represents all to the eye and when hee hath so done hee brings in a kinde of insultation a verse that they were wont to sing in victories and triumphs 1. Sam. 18.7 As in the triumph of David over Goliah the women sang Saul hath slaine his thousand but David his ten thousand so the Saints of God as St. Chrysostome saith Chrysost Dost thou see saith he what a generous spirit is in the holy Apostle how hee paints before the eyes of the people this most noble and divine indowment this garment of incorruption and immortality and behold how he himselfe is rapt And in that most heavenly and strange rapture as a man inspired from heaven he insults over death lying under his feet and treads upon the head of him that treads downe all things else and cries over him Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory This is the song of the Church and that song which the Saints of God desire with full contentment to sing and it is given to all them that are true hearted to the Lord to sing this song with a full resolution But when the time is come that it should be sung the weaknesse of our nature perhaps will not suffice to it For it is one thing for a man to bee valiant when he is in health and it is another thing when the fit and when the storme takes him then to appeare that which hee professed himselfe to be before
there are but few that can come in the houre of death to make this insultation But all should aspire for it and looke after it and should desire God to inable them to doe thus as St. Paul speaketh and as many Saints and Martyrs have in their martyrdome insulted over death with these words For this was often the motto in their mouthes Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory Division into five Parts Now that we may proceed in order First wee are to consider that which hee saith the word shall be fulfilled which was written And then where it is written And thirdly what it is that is written Death is swallowed up into victory And fourthly when this shall bee performed Then then when our bodies are changed and this corruptible hath put on incorruption 1. Cor. 15. and this mortall hath put on immortality then shall bee fulfilled this saying And lastly the use and ground of all that is to take heart and courage for these things are written for consolation A man that can take no comfort against death shall never have any comfort any time of his life if there were no joy in our death there could bee none in our life Therefore all this is to renew the spirits of Gods children and to make them undaunted when that great and common Adversary shall ceaze upon them The Insultation is in the 55. verse 1. Part. The fulfilling of the prophecy which is taken out of Hosea 13.14 Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory Of these parts briefly and in order as it shall please God to give assistance And first concerning the fulfilling of the Prophesie The holy Apostle would raise up the Saints of God to applaud and to take delight and to gratulate one another to see the fulfilling of Prophesies come to an end For all Prophesies must bee fulfilled Matth. 24 35. and though heaven and earth should passe away yet no jote and tittle of the Law and the Prophets can passe till all bee fulfilled and accomplished Now the Apostle brings to their minde those sweet prophesies of former time whereby he concludes the certainty of these things which he now delivers to them For there is no greater contentment to any man that is a true judicious Reader of the Scriptures then this to see that the things promised in the Gospel are not yesterday matters they bee no new things no late devises but they be almost as ancient as the world they are drawne out of the treasures of God in former ages by the holy Prophets that spake in former times what should come to passe in the fulnesse of time And as St. Pauls manner is still hee confirmes his doctrine by the precedent doctrine of the Prophets so here in this saith St. Chrysostome speaking many infinite incredible things it was needfull for him to set to a seale and to conclude all with the authority of some Author that had gone before And he tells them this is a word written It is a book-case it is no new thing which he saith but that which God had inspired before into the holy Prophet Isay and the Prophet Hosea and divers others concerning the same doctrine that he reveales unto them Therefore to conclude this point Vse We should learne by this example to confirme our faith to incourage our selves by the constancy of Gods word the constant truth which hath beene from age to age And that is it which must settle and stablish if there were any thing which swerved from the common custome or any thing that were new then wee might doubt whether it were from God or no. But because in all things it is so consonant to it selfe and God is the same God of the Old Testament and of the New it is a great confirmation to us to keepe us from doubting and from many scruples which Satan the enemy of mankind suggests unto us 2. Part. Whore this is written But where this word is written or who is the Authour of it as I said Divines doe diversly interpret Some thinke it is from Isay some thinke it is from Hosea and some that it is a writing from them both that it is two testimonies It is not unlikely that his purpose was to cite both the Prophets two of them together Matth. 18.16 that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word might bee established Therefore the first part of the sentence is taken out of Isay the second part out of Hosea That in Isay is Isay 25.8 Isay 25.8 you shall see there the Lord makes a banquet to his Church and the conclusion of that heavenly banquet is this God shall destroy death for ever hee shall swallow up death into victory as it is here spoken His meaning and purpose is there to speake of the deliverance from the captivity of Babylon but because there is no use in these temporall blessings except wee referre them to spirituall for these outward things be but as earnests of greater graces which God hath reposed for us in a better world therefore the argument followes As the common Tenent of the Scriptures hold still that from things present wee may argue things to come and from things temporall wee may prove to our selves the assurance of things spirituall So the deliverance out of the captivity of Babylon did signifie to them and was an assurance of the deliverance from hell of the deliverance from the bondage of destruction of the deliverance from the bondage of sin and the bondage of death Therefore the Apostle translates that according to the meaning of the Prophet which raiseth Gods people to understand that they had greater enemies to encounter with then Babylon And if God should have stayed his hand there and have given them a meere deliverance out of Babylons countrey they should be no better then men of a few dayes continuance For they must die after that deliverance and they had greater enemies then Babylon was from whom they must desire to bee delivered and whom they stood in feare of which would draw a more dangerous consequence then all their enemies else besides For Babylon could but inthrall their bodies and that but for a time but hell would destroy both body and soule for ever Therefore God saith hee would destroy death hee would destroy the death of the body and the death of the soule the first death and the second death and he would swallow both into victory That is the death of Christ should get the mastery of them that they should never need to feare them afterward they should bee so couched in silence that they should have no power nor strength remaining in them but they shall bee as though they had never beene they shall be so obliterate Now for the other place Hosea 13.14 Hosea 13.14 where the Prophet discourseth strangely after a wondrous and hidden manner For I think there was
power of life and heat failes therefore a man dies Death is nothing but a privation and by consequent it is nothing at all As the Sunne when it is set there is darknesse which is a matter of nothing but the absence of the Sunne So death is nothing but the absence of life nothing but a cessation of the powers in man But because wee conceive it after another manner as a grievous enemie as a triumphant enemy over all the world therefore the Scripture condiscends to our capacity speaks in our language and makes it as an enemy Christ and it as two enemies encountring each other and the one foyling the other and so foyling it as that there is no reliques or remainders of the one left because of the great victory and conquest of the other The victory of Christ shall bee so absolute over death that there shall be no occasion of feare because there shall bee no steppe of death that shall have being in the world And this is marvellously set downe by a metaphor of swallowing that that monster which swallowes all the world of men that hath swallowed our forefathers that hath swallowed all The ages and generations before us what are they else but the morsels of death which hee hath swallowed to glut his stomack and all cannot serve but still he is craving For death and hell and the grave are unsatiable they are never satisfied although they have abundance of income and harvest dayly throwne into them The metaphor is taken from those kinde of ravenous beasts which vse not to chew but to swallow their prey and specially from fish from Whales and Crokodiles which altogether smallow and choake it up without any mincing the meat they receive So the meaning is that the death of Christ swallowes up the death of nature and the death of sinne the second death that they have no more power over us Hee shall swallow them as the Whale swallowed Ionas he shall swallow them that there shall bee no more sight of them to live and to bee and to have power hee shall swallow them as the red sea swallowed up the Egyptians he shall swallow them as the fiery furnace swallowes a little water that is cast into it a sprinkling of water It shall swallow them as the mysts and vapours are swallowed up by the beams of the Sun that there shall be no appearance of them afterward It shall swallow them as the dry gaping thirsty land swallowes a little showre of raine after a long drought It swallowes them up as the weaker metalls that are cast into the fiery furnace that are so spent and consumed as that there is no remainder nor footsteps left of them So is this similitude contrived that the devouring death shall bee swallowed in the death of Christ And whereto shall it be swallowed To Victory To victory This is the strange terme that there is nothing now in the Church of God but triumphs trophees and victorie there is nothing now but songs of deliverance there is nothing but well-springs of life to water every tree in the garden of God The most strange and compleat deliverance that can bee is to bee brought from all the points of slavery to all the points of liberty Such a victoâ—y is this which is spoken of here There shall bee nothing but victory where there was nothing before but captivity Where there was nothing but sicknesse and after sicknesse death and after death damnation by meanes of the sinne of Adam Now there shall be nothing else but life and joy and glory and victory And this is the happy estate and condition of the second comming of Christ and his presence and possession of his children at his comming So wee reade it and so the best Translations hold it to victory Some others reade it to contention So St. Ierom Tertullian St. Ambrose St. Ierom. Teâ—tull Ambros Aug. and St. Austin in many places reade it to contention For saith St. Ierom it is a kind of contestation a kind of law and pleading in the court of God betweene the death of Christ on the one party and the death of nature inflicted for sinne on the other party and they shall enter into plea the one against the other and the power of the death of Christ shall command and overwhelme the power of the death of nature and of the second death which is of sinne by reason of the justice and righteousnesse which is in Christ For thereupon it comes to passe that death is swallowed up into victory because the death of Christ hath answered the justice of his Father and hath satisfied the wrath which wee had contracted against us And by that reason hee shall cease the Commission of death which is out for us because of Adams sinne Rom. 6. last For the wages of sinne is death but because Christ was without sinne therefore hee had no cause or reason to die but onely for our sinnes and so God is satisfied by his death and is well-pleased in him to give us life because the actions that proceed from Christ are not humane actions but the actions of his person the actions of God and man and by consequent able to merit for an infinite company and to be applied to many worlds if there were any more then this that is to all believers to the end of the world that shall have participation in his blood They shall have as they have a promise forgivenesse of sinnes and sinne being removed and forgiven death hath no claime But there was no sin in Christ therefore death had no right to him nor shall have to those that are in him therefore death shall make a surcease and be no more but shall be utterly abandoned and swallowed up into victory This is that plea that the Lord Iesus in his death makes against death I will be death against death Because thou hast forfetted thy commission because thou wast appointed of God to lay hold upon sinners and thou hast laid hold on him that is not a sinner therefore thou shalt lose thy place and thou shalt bee cashiered thou shalt have no more right over sinners because the justice and righteousnesse of the Sonne of God is imputed unto them to ridde them from thy hands and from those dismall conclusions which otherwise they should have beene drowned in There is the contention on the one party Death of Nature The other party is the death of nature Death which is the great master of the world to this day he shall have another plea. Hee shall say For thy part I acknowledge I was mistaken I acknowledge I laid my hands amisse when I tooke thee for there was no sinne in thee But for all other men from the beginning of the world God gave me them as prisoners and made mee their executioner I have not done amisse in these therefore I may justly hold them that are given me by Divine providence by the
will of God It is true thou art alone the onely man that hath overcome mee by thy justice and righteousnesse But this justice and righteousnesse is in thy selfe Escape therefore with thine owne life goe with thine owne priviledge trouble me not and that which belongs unto mee enter not into my possession the Lord hath given mee these sinners as hee gave thee to be no sinner What is thy holinesse to them that are unholy what is thy righteousnesse to them that are ungodly and sinners what passage can there be betweene thee and them to bring them out of my hands Yes the plea is to contention as St. Ierom saith They shall contend who shall have their spoiles and the Lord shall answer that he came not as a private man and that his works were not done personally for himselfe but they were publique actions for the redemption of mankind Therefore whatsoever hee did hee communicates it to his followers whatsoever he did it was for his subjects and servants If he overcame death in his owne person he hath done it not so much for himselfe as for those that beleeve in him that they might partake of his victory and that they might rejoyce for his victory that hee hath had over the world the flesh and the devill So the contention as St. Ierom saith comes upon Christs side by all reason because he hath satisfied the justice of God the Father because hee was offered a sacrifice of a sweet smell which shall be ever in record before God because his suffering was of an infinite nature being the second Person in the Trinity and the actions are alway given to the subject and to the principall the actions of Christ are not attributed to his humane nature but to his person and so also his merits and although he suffered in his humane nature properly and not in his Divine yet the merit and the glory of that suffering reflexed upon the Divine nature For not onely the blood but the blood of God was spilt for the satisfaction of the wrath of God and for the reconciliation of the world Therefore the Lord Iesus shall answer again in the plea that whatsoever he did he did it for the good of all them that belong to him I had never tooke flesh but to make all flesh blessed by my Incarnation I had never entred within the verge and list of my mortall body but to make all their bodies immortall so great is the benefit that I avow to man-kind that not onely my friends but also my enemies have that benefit by mee to have their bodies immortall whatsoever I have done either by way of suffering by way of merit by my miracles by my death and passion by my Resurrection and ascension into heaven I have done it not to reside onely in my owne nature but to communicate it that it may reside in my followers for I have made all the world of beleevers to partake of it This shall be the contestation as St. Ierome saith as if the Lord should heare the just plea of Christ and also the unjust wrangling of the death of nature he shall heare the cause and judge the matter on the part of our blessed Saviour which hath deserved by his death and passion to open the booke and to unloose the seales and to make good the promises to indow himself and all his followers in eternall possessions in that holy and heavenly city which is the Mother of us all Death is swallowed up into victory Now it followes concerning the time when this must be expected then shall be fulfilled this saying for these things be in order to be discussed It is true these things are accomplished now in some degree but the full accomplishment shall be then when wee shall be consummate then when Christ shall be consummate Christ is never full till his body be full hee beares such love to his Church that he is said yet to have reliques of passion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 1.24 the reliques of the passions of Christ The glory that Christ possesseth and is capable of which he is advanced unto in the highest perfection by his incarnation which the Lord stands now in possession of and he shall have no more glory conferred upon him then hee hath and hath had for these sixteene hundred yeares been possessed of but for the infinite love that hee beares to his children to those that are of his body he is said then to be compleat not before when all his members shall be completed then death shall be swallowed up into victory Death was swallowed up in victory when Christ rose againe when hee brought the spoyles of the grave away with him when the Lord raised him and when many bodies of the Saints which slept were carryed up with him to his Kingdome where he hath them now in heaven to converse with him and keepe him company then the Lord gave a gage and pawne of this that now shall be fulfilled but because those were but a few and because the fulnesse of the Church is that which Christ delights in the Apostle refers us to the hope and expectation of that time when we shall get the garment of immortality when we shall have that new coat of incorruption then we shall see that fulfilled and clearly accomplished which was spoken in former time Death is swallowed up into victory Not onely in the person of Christ but in thine and mine and all that have interest in Christ Death is swallowed up into victory that great swallower of all things in the world that consumes not onely the fraile bodies of men but the mighty monuments of marble and the greatest things that are most unlikely to be dissolved shaken asunder in the world the very earth it self the foundations of which we see oft stand trēbling and cast the firme continent into the great sea as it hath hapned to divers parts of the world Now this great swallower which was the destroyer and consumer of all things before and that never could meet with his match now he himselfe shall be swallowed up into compleat victory Therefore this must be our desire as souldiers after the victory we follow a master which is a victorious Captaine that was never foyled by any enemy but wheresoever hee goes he carries the field before him And souldiers wee know what great glory and glee they have what noysing of trumpets what erecting of spirits when they once come to be masters of their enemies there is not such a glorious sight under heaven as a victorious army returning from the spoile The Lord would teach us by this what wee should doe to lift up our spirits to prepare us for the insultation over this grisly enemy which is the devourer of all the voice of victory must be glorious as it is said of Lepanto when newes came to Venice that the Christians had the victory over the Turkes for three dayes together there was
he had from God hee cast all men into the prison of death and he keepeth them there and will keep them there by the common calamity of sinne he keeps all mens bodies there to the time of the resurrection which the Lord shall cause in the fulnesse of time but therefore the Lord following the way of justice and not the way of power for God was able to take us from death otherwise by other meanes then by the death of Christ but then hee could not be just Now God would teach us that it is better to follow the way of justice then the way of power for every man can be powerfull the devils themselves have power but they have no justice therefore God then in justice would have the death of his Sonne satisfie the wrath of God and would have him to die for them that should have died that his death might be the life of many thousands that his death might be the destruction of the power of death which had a commission given for the time that at the last might have an end To conclude because I see the time past let us also learne to frame our selves to this high spirit of the Apostle to insult over death and then if wee can insult over death much more may wee insult over all the calamities of this life for what is so great a calamity as that why should poverty oppresse us why should infamy vexe us if sicknesse diseases and death it selfe cannot oppresse why should trouble of conscience for sinne oppresse us when the grand enemy himselfe is conquered and when we have a part of the conquest wee are souldiers to that great Captaine and hee communicates his victory unto us all Iohn 16. ult Aug. Be of good comfort saith Christ for I have overcome the world Saith St. Austin What dost thou meane by this Be of good comfort I have overcome the world What have we to doe to be of good comfort it belongs not to us be thou of good comfort it pertaines to thee what are we the better because thou hast overcome the world Yes saith hee oh death thou which hast been the devourer now thou art devoured thy self thou that hast swallowed up men now thou art swallowed up thy selfe by a more potent cause oh death he was wounded for me that made me and he that through his death hath swallowed up thee hee hath conquered thee for me therefore I rejoyce in him which is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone his victory is my victory therefore he saith Be of good comfort I have overcome the world And this the Lord hath taught us in many passages of his holy Booke that hee might prepare us once to this courage to this great valour For in this a man is seen more than in any thing else in the patient abiding of trouble and misery in the patient enduring of death in this present life All worldly passions are seperated as chaffe by the wind from the godly the wind blowes away the chaffe but so it cannot the good corn that falls still on the floore the chaffe is blowne away with every wind of temptation and persecution Let us therefore take notice of that singular comfort which God hath given us out of the Scripture which all resolves at last into this one point Oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory In Iosuah 10. Ioshuah 10.24 wee reade that Iosuah there the Prince and Captaine he brought out the five Kings that were closed in a Cave and a stone rolled to the mouth of it till hee should come back hee brings them forth and bade the Captaines tread upon the necks of the Kings and not feare for saith hee The Lord your God shall fight for you This was a figure of this glorious victory of the Sonne of God over death All the potentates of Hell are like to the five Kings of Canaan which oppresse all they meet as Adonibezek they thumb them hee cut off the thumbs and toes of men and set them under his Table as dogges The Lord signified this victory of Christ by the victory of Iosuah over those five Kings and Adonibezek that hee would give a spirituall conquest over death hell sinne and all the adversaries that could oppose him and he would tread upon the necks of all his opposers What is so base a part what is so base a thing as the foot of a man and what is so lofty a thing as the necke and yet the very foot of Gods children the basest part shall tread upon the necks of their enemies upon the necks of Kings themselves which are compassed and surrounded with jewels and ornaments yet they shall bee subjected to the basest parts even to the heeles of godly men so great is the comfort of Gods children And as it was done then in Iosuahs time so also the comfort remaines now So wee see again the Lord bids the people look back whē they were past the Red-sea look back upō the Egyptians and the People Miriam had a song Exod. 15.1 when they looked back saw the Egyptians floating above the water A strange thing but God would have it so because he would have his people to have Arms to have the Arms of the Egyptians to fight against Amalek It is said the people looked back and saw them those proud spirited people those braggadocioes which thought to have swallowed them up quick and followed them with their chariots and Army those which before could not bee resisted now the Lord brings them to a calme he so cooled the Nation that the least boy might insult over them Israel looked and saw them and tooke off their armour took off their rings and jewels and their costly apparrell and furnished themselves with it when they went into the wildernesse So shall the conquest of Gods children be over death although it have beene full of threatning full of terrour and blood before yet the Lord will bring it into the floud into the Red sea he will overwhelme it in the water of his Omnipotency and his children shall look back and shall see him and spoyle him that was the spoyler and destroy him that was the destroyer and they shall take his weapons from him and make use of them to their owne purposes and they shall say as the people might have said to the Egyptians Where is thy bragging that thou usedst before thou art inclosed now in thine owne net Where is thy sting oh death Oh hell where is thy victory The Lord shall turne the termes the Lord shall make the field to goe on his owne side and take away the conquest from the adverse party It hath beene an ancient Proverb That to pluck the beard of a dead Lion even for children themselves it is an easie matter a poore child that cannot indure the noise or the sight of a living Lion Chrysost as St. Chrysostome saith the boyes
the wofull calamity of our nature over which we must desire God to give us the victory and behold it followes in the Text But thanks be to God which hath given us victory through Iesus Christ our Lord. Which words I can but enter into of the gift or blessing which is vouchsafed victory Victory is alwayes welcome but especially when it is atchieved against a dangerous enemy The child of God is borne to be a Conquerour as St. Iohn saith 1 Iohn 5.4 1 Iohn 5.4 Every thing that is born of God overcommeth the world Every thing that is borne of God where the Fathers observe that the Apostle speaks in generall he speaks in the neuter gender to shew that there is no man that is so meane or so vile and base of whatsoever condition he be that he may rather be called a thing than a man yet that he hath the spirit of grace by that hee is able to encounter and overcome the world and this victory that wee have it is over such powerfull enemies as that except God had promised it except God should worke it all the power in heaven and earth could not attain unto it A man that is borne a Conquerour over his owne corruptions and over himselfe he is greater than ever was the greatest conquerour and it is better to be made in this kind a Victor over his owne passions than to be the universall Emperour of all the world Saith Seneca there are many men that have subdued Principalities Kingdomes Cities Townes and Countries and brought them under their owne masterie but there are few that have guided themselves but still there is a Tiger within them that disgraceth and obscureth their outward conquest by reason of the foule seethings and corruption in their owne flesh therefore for a man to get the victory and to overcome himselfe is to get the victory and to overcome all the world for man is a microcosme a little world as St. Austin saith thou maist obtaine the victory against thy selfe for thy selfe After a certaine wondrous manner God hath ordained a christian souldier a militant member of his Church to fight against himselfe for himselfe For hee that will lose his life saith Christ for my sake and the Gospels shall save it Hee that will lose his delights and his pleasures hee that will make warre with himselfe and will have no peace with his affections the Lord shall give him that peace that passeth all understanding and although hee kill his body with chastizing it yet it shall be saved in the day of the Lord St. Bern. saith St. Bernard The victory is thought and reputed in the world to be lost rather by flying than by dying for there are many men slaine in the field that are not accounted as cowards and fugitives or vanquished men because they died upon the place but when they quit the place when they fly and are not able to hold out in the field hee that remaines accounts himselfe the Victor because the rest are fled and vanished away So the spirituall victory in Christ it is lost by flying for we should rather die for God we should rather die in his zeale and for his glory and keep our standing than to yeeld and fly from the devill and our own corrupt affections and stoop to them then sathan gets the victory when wee cast away our weapons and play the loose scouts in the field There is no hope of victory in those actions Hee hath given us victory Over what hath he given us victory victory must be over some enemie I shewed you before the parties what they are now I am to shew you who they are that God hath given us the victory over over death over sinne over the law over death that there is not so much as a relique of it remaining there there is no hope that ever hee shall returne and make head againe that is a famous victory wherein the roots of future seditions are taken away and plucked up when there is nothing left for any hope of future rebellion When the Romanes had warred with the Carthagenians and oft times overcome them yet still within a while within 8. or 10. yeares or lesse they made head againe and stirred up new warres and so they had successive combustion And so in all the Nations of the world there are none that are so vanquished now but they may become conquerours hereafter The same thing that the Lord hath made an underling now may be the Head and Chieftaine in time to come But in this victory that we have over death it is without any hope or comfort on deaths part and without any feare of suffering on our part for it is so taken away as though it had never been and that which had the greatest triumph the mightiest trophees in the world unto which all Kings and Princes have bowed their heads and laid downe their scepters for all the goodly things in the world have been nothing else but the morsells of death I say this victorious enemie by the hand of Christ it shall be turned to a thing of nothing it shall have no name nor notion it shall be left without any hope of recovery It shall have no more strength to sting for the sting is gone The second enemy we shall have victory over is sin because the prince of this world sifted Christ to know whether hee were pure wheat or no and the Text saith he found nothing in him but he was as the finest flowre of wheat without all bran of corruption without all inclination to sinne being conceived and borne in perfect purity and living in the strength of that purity insomuch as hee defies all his adversaries hee challengeth them saying Who can accuse mee of sinne Because I say our blessed Saviour in all the parts of him had nothing but the light of purity in his eyes in his understanding in his tongue in his gesture in his words in his actions in his perseverance in all the parts of his doctrine in all the passages of his miracles there was nothing else but a fountaine and a world of purity therefore death incroaching by the malice and violence of sathan and the envy of the high priests upon him that had no sinne it lost all the power and government that it had before for taking away life from him that had no cause of death in him it follows therefore that it is justly exattorate and put out of place and hath lost his commission for ever for Christ overcame sinne by satisfying for it on his holy crosse and by his example in his holy life by giving a holy example to his Apostles and Disciples and all beleevers in the world Hee overcame sinne by drinking the cup of Gods wrath which by our sinnes was filled to him and he overcame sinne by his gracious example by the copie of his holy life and much more by his holy Spirit by which he diffuseth his grace
to thousands and millions in the world that beleeve in him that although there be sinne now in our mortall bodies yet it doth not raigne it commands us not to every thing it finds us not as the Centurions servants to goe when it saith goe but it is in many things broken and dissipated and the Lord hath beat sathan under our feet that is the usuall work of sathan sinne and foule impressions in your soules and understandings Thus the Lord hath given us victory over sinne in himselfe fully in us it is begun but for that wee shall have occasion afterwards to discourse The Lord himselfe being free from all sinne hee was therefore a Conquerour over that pestilent viper that poyson of our nature and he gave his people the infusion of his Spirit to guide them by the which Originall sinne is weakned the sire is abated and allayed the edge of sin is lessened The last is over the Law That still is the greatest enemy that still layes before us the judgments of God Doe this and live Doe that and be damned Follow this course and thou shalt be damned for ever If thou be a drunkard if thou be lustfull if thou be covetous and worldly if thou be revengefull and malicious the sentence of damnation is passed upon thee that is all the comfort wee have by the Law but Christ hath given us victory over this enemy which followes us at the heeles when wee doe amisse and still puts us into qualmes of conscience for our misdeeds and curbes and bridles us by the checks of conscience that if a man could but see the end of these foule actions as hee seeth the beginning he would never doe them because there is no equality between the short time of sinning and the eternity of punishment But against all this Christ hath given us victory for he hath fulfilled the law of God he hath stopped the crimination he he hath stayed all those slanders and all those accusations that the devill would make by the law or that those that have been curious observers of the law would make and those accusations that an evill conscience would make by the power of the Law of God which hath enlightened it He hath silenced all these in this life but the consummation of this we must understand is to come when this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortall shall put on immortality They are now gone before in the head they shall then follow in the body Saith St. Austin Aug. Whatsoever Christ hath done in his owne body it shall follow in our mortall bodies When hee shall change them 1 Cor. 15. and make them like unto his owne glorious body according to his mighty power whereby he is able to subdue all things to himselfe This is that goodly victory in the which the Lord hath interested us all To conclude and refer the rest till the next time I beseech you beloved in the Lord let us consider what part we have in this victory wee ought not to insult and triumph in a vaine presumption in blessings that pertaine not to us but if we think we have the victory let us labour to finde it and so enter into judgement with our owne soules who it is that overcommeth Apoc. 3. To him that overcommeth will I give to eate of the tree of life in the middest of the paradice of God to him that overcommeth will I give a white stone c. And what must he overcome He must overcome himself and all his passions he must overcome the feare of death the power of sinne and the terrours of the Law A fearfull encounter and a great troop of enemies is laid open the Lord strengthen poore David that he may be able to encounter with this mighty Goliah for it seemes that hell it selfe is open upon him when therefore we doe give our selves that liberty as to doe what our selves list against the good will and command of God let us not thinke to have any part in this victory we are rather as so many conquered slaves and vassals that lie at the command of death that whereas wee should tread Satan under our feet Satan tramples us under his and makes us the most base and vile creatures in the world Thou that hast enough in this world and yet canst not tell when thou hast enough but still art distracted with envious desires and makest thy self great by other mens falls that raisest thy owne fortunes by other mens ruines that usest any meanes good or bad by hooke or by crooke to advance thine owne estate to make thy selfe rich and settest thy selfe onely to the study of the Idoll Mammon what kinde of victory or what hope of conquest canst thou have in that great and mighty victory which wee pretend the Lord Iesus hath given us surely none There is no such gally-slave in the world as a man that is given and addicted to his wealth and riches in this present life for it pierceth men through with many sorrowes as the Apostle saith They that will be rich 1 Tim. 6. pierce themselves thorow with many sorrowes Behold the sting of death is the sting that pierceth them the sting of death is sinne and this sting it pierceth through the heart and stabbs the soule of every covetous man in the world that they cannot claime any part of that victory which God communicates to his children but they are foyled base creatures that are made for slaughter and destruction And so againe for them that live in their pleasures in their voluptuous and filthy courses that will grow old in adultery that will make no end of their filthinesse and uncleannesse but with greedinesse seeke when one prey is enjoyed how to obtaine another these that make their vessells that should be Temples of God the brothell-houses of the Devill that are no sooner tempted but they yeeld these comming Creatures how or with what face with what confidence can they lay claime to the victory that we have in God through Iesus Christ our Lord being nothing else but bruits and are given over yeelding themselves they have taken the marke of the beast and follow Satans direction and command as if Christ had no power to be their Chieftaine but the Prince of darknesse must rule The like may bee said of all these malicious prowling spirits that be in the world that take delight to sting their brethren to doe mischiefe without cause to sow the seeds of dissention that will wrangle out their lives to trouble others to bring upon them endlesse suits and questions that shall never be decided to vexe the world with begging or buying of new found offfices to make their hands full out of every thing sacred and prophane to play the very roaring Lions in their dennes that no man can tell how hee should live or keepe himselfe quiet with them That these Creatures I say should come and claime any part in this
a meere Idoll And S. Ierome S. Jerom. speaking of this argument Thanks be to God that hath given us victory through Iesus Christ our Lord. For saith hee who was there to doe it but God Who was there to encounter all these enemies but Christ alone His friends forsooke him his Disciples left him Isay 45. as the Prophet saith It was I and none else that stood in the battaile Therefore saith S. Ierome S Jerom. to him alone belongs all the praise of the victory And S. Austin S. Aug. most heavenly and graciously discourseth of this point When I consider the victory of a Christian saith he which is this that his chiefe and deadly enemy is swallowed up by Death and by what death was he swallowed up by the death of life That is a strange saying that Death should be swallowed up by the death of life Why should I doubt to say that of God which God hath not doubted to doe for mee God hath certainly performed this for me therefore I may speake and affirme this of him What is the matter therefore that the Apostle saith wee may insult thus over Death and give thanks to God for the victory because saith he that Life being dead did kill Death the fulnesse of life did swallow up the bitternesse of death and all death and miserie is dissolved and consumed in the body of the Lord Iesus So S. Chrysostome saith In this great warre saith he the trophee was planted by the hand of the Lord himselfe he set downe the standard he set downe the place and note and mark where the enemy was discomfited and left the field But after that was done he cast out garlands as after the battaile is won after the field is won the Emperours devised Crownes and Garlands for those that had beene Conquerors with them But the Lord finding none there but he himselfe hee calls the by-standers wee that had not sought a stroke yet he vouchsafed to cast unto us Crownes and Garlands and hath made us to communicate and participate of that noble and glorious victory which himselfe hath only attained But this point of Doctrine must bee brought home more familiarly for this is true to those that be men of judgement and understanding they make no doubt of it but I must make it plaine to babes and sucklings How is it possible therefore that the victory of Christ which hee got over sinne and over death that it should be ours seeing both personall actions be uncommunicable that which is done by one person is not communicated to another person because the act is confined in him that did the act And seeing also that the children of God as long as they live in this world that they cannot be called Conquerours of their temptations for they are conquered many times and hee that is the best man in the world though he sometime overcome yet he is many times overcome too Nay almost the least temptation although it wound not a man to the heart yet it drawes blood of him as S. Iohn saith If we denie and say that we have no sinne we deceive our selves If we say he speakes of himselfe and the rest of his fellow Apostles 1 Ioh. 1.8 If wee say that there is not sinne in us that there doth not sinne remaine in us we lie and the truth of God is not in us we deceive our selves And the Apostle saith That hee was a miserable man himselfe under captivity Rom. 7.19 23. and that good thing that I would doe that doe I not and that evill thing that I would not doe that I doe What a miserable kinde of conquest is this Can a man be said to be a Conquerour in this miserable state when he can doe nothing that he would doe and doth all things that he would not doe How can this be agreeable Besides we see in the examples of the Children of God that they have had no conquest but have beene foyled What conquest had David over his great and grievous temptations We shall see almost nothing that was offered to him but he fell in it When he comes to be a Iusticiarie which is the easiest matter in the world to doe Iustice yet hee failed in that and gave to a false servant halfe his Masters good And when it came to a matter of revenge he failed in that too when hee made that rash vow that he would cut off from Naball all that turned to the wall besides the foule fall that hee had afterwards so that what victory had this man what victory had Manasses that afterwards was saved by the miracle of mercie What victory had hee over those murtherous attempts and conceits that he had whereby hee put to death many thousands of Gods children What conquest had Salomon when he was brought from his high wisedome to that low ebb when hee was brought to serve whores and devils and Idols and yet hee was a Type of Christ and is a true Saint in heaven The Thief on the Crosse what conquest or victory had he nothing in the world except we account that victory to controll his fellow thief and to stand speake a word for Christ To conclude this point seeing there is calling at the eleventh houre and as long as a man hath life he hath hope to be called to the service of God and many are not called untill the last period of their life It seems therefore that a Christian hath no conquest in this life for he is carried to doe that which he would not do and he cannot do that which he would do for al the examples in the Scriptures carrie us in a contrary streame How then is it said we have the cōquest victory For the first I answer thus where it is said that all actions personall are incommunicable It is true except they be generall persons If the man be a private peculiar person the action rests in himselfe but if he be a selected uniuersall chosen person the Action doth not rest in himselfe but it extends it selfe to a great multitude even to all that belong to him Such an one is Christ his Actions are not personall to be limited to himselfe but by way of merit they are applied and extended to all the world of Beleevers Wee may understand this by those things that God hath given us by the comparisons he hath made unto us in the Scriptures as being figures and fore-runners of his blessed Sonne In 1 Sam. 17.8 9. 1 Sam. 17.8.9 looke there at that mighty president the fight betweene Goliah and David which figured unto us the fight betweene the devill and the world and all adverse powers on the one side and the Lord Iesus our Chieftaine on the other side Marke what the Captaine of the Philistines saith Why saith he should we joyne our selves in battaile the whole Army let there be one man chosen out on either part and let us have a