weighing this place alone For so far hath the misapprehended Doctrine of Predestination and Certaintie of their own Estate in Salvation misswaded some as they have not been affraid to affirm That the Angels are in some sort inferiour to themselves because They minister to them as they are Heires of Salvation Ministers they are indeed yet not to us but to God or Christ though for our good So is every Magistrate so is every Pastor in his place yet God forbid that inferiours should hence collect That their Magistrates and Pastors should be Inferiour to all them for whose good they are Ministers 3. The next Point to be examined is the Extent of this our High Priests Exaltation about the Bounds or limits whereof the Controversies are more then any difficulties in the Rule of Faith do minister but not so many as men of rash or audacious understandings make and the most of them prosecuted with greater vehemencie of contention then the spirit of sobrietie which should be in every good Christian will approve The Questions of more profitable Use are generally Two The First concerns the Logical Subject of Christs Exaltation comprehended in this Title of Sitting at the Right-hand of God and the like And the Issue is this Whether Christ be exalted only as he is the Son of David or as he is the Son of God or according to both his natures as well Divine as humane The second Quaerie is about the Extent or Limits of the Exaltation of his humane Nature The one Question as Logicians speak is about the Extent or limit of the Subject The other about the Extent or limit of the Attribute That Christ was exalted according to his Humane Nature or as he was the Son of David all Christians agree But that he should be exalted as God or according to his Divine Nature which is absolutely Infinite may well seem impossible for the matter and for the Phrase very harsh Howbeit this is avouched by many Orthodoxal and worthy Divines And if Christ be as most Protestants avouch our Mediator Secundum utr amque naturam according to Both Natures why may he not be said to be Exalted according to Both Natures Yet a Difference there is which will disjoynt this Consequence For to be a Mediator betwixt two doth not necessarily include any Defect or inequalitie in the partie mediating in respect of the parties between whom he is a Mediator Whereas to be Exalted doth necessarily include or presuppose some Lower degree from which he is Exalted to an higher And if Christ according to his Divine Nature be alwayes equal to God the Father he was and is and shall be Absolutely Infinite And Absolute Infinitie cannot admit of any Degrees specially of Exaltation This necessarily argues that Christs Divine Nature could in it self receive no Degree of Diminution or Exaltation If then according to his Divine Nature he was exalted this Exaltation was not by any Real Addition of Dignitie to his Nature but only quoad nos in respect of us And it is perhaps one thing to say that Christ was Exalted according to his Divine Nature Another to say That Christ was Exalted as he was the Son of God However thus much we are bound to believe and thus much we may safely say That Christ as God was exalted in the same Sense and manner that he was Humbled as God Now that the Son of God who was as truly God as God the Father truly equal to God the Father did truly humble himself unto death even to the death of the Cross was in the first Chapter of our Eighth Book deduced out of the second to the Philippians Nor did he humble himself only according to his Humane Nature for he humbled himself not only by his life and death here on earth but by taking the Humane Nature in which he was humbled The Humane Nature could not be humbled by being united to his Divine Nature but rather Exalted So that the first and Prime Subject of his humiliation was if not his Divine Nature yet his Divine Person The Person of the Son of God was humbled by his Incarnation or Conception by his Birth by his Life by his Death and Passion And for every degree of his humiliation there is a correspondent degree of his Exaltation by his Resurrection by his Ascension into heaven and by his Sitting at the Right-hand of God the Father In what Sense our Apostle saith He was humbled according to his Divine Person hath been discussed at large before The sum was this If he that thought it no robberie to be equal with God had been at any time pleased to have assumed a body or created substance into the unitie of his Infinite Person such Glorie and honour was unto that his bodie or created substance due as exceeds the Glorie and honour of all other bodies or created substances infinitely more then any creature can possibly exceed another And yet we know that the Son of God who was from Eternitie equal to his Father did in the Fulnesse of Time assume into the unitie of his Divine Person a Bodie and Soul subject to all the infirmites sin only excepted that humane nature is capable of And by assuming such a bodie and by exposing it to all the miseries of mortalitie the Son of God was truly said to be humbled and the Degrees of his humiliation were as many and large as are the Degrees by which his immortal glorified Bodie doth exceed his mortal Bodie as many and large as are the Degrees of Honour and Excellencie betwixt that Royal Priesthood which now he exerciseth and the Form of a Servant wherein he appeared So that not only the Humane Nature of the Son of God but the Son of God in his Humane Nature is truly exalted according to all the Degrees of his former Humiliation But is this all that we are bound to believe or may safely acknowledge concerning the Exaltation of Christ both as he was the Son of God and as he was the Son of David 4. If this were all then his Exaltation as the Son of God should meerly consist in the Abdication or putting off the Form of a Servant It could not include or presuppose any positive Ground of any new and Real Attribute but only a Relation to his former humiliation Some good Divines as well Ancient as modern suppose that albeit man had never sinned yet should the Son of God have been incarnate that is have taken our nature upon him yet our nature not humbled or obnoxious to death but alwaies clothed with glorie and immortalitie For Illustration or Example sake Suppose the Son of God had taken an humane bodie altogether as glorious as now it is from the very first moment of its assumption into the unitie of his Divine Glorious Person Could the assumption of such a bodie how glorious soever or how perpetual soever its glorie had been have added any least degree of Exaltation unto the Son of
that this conversion is rightly called Transubstantiation So that in fine the unitie whereof the children of that Church do so much brag is not an unity of faith or belief but an unity of faction or conspiracy for their own gain such as may be between the Jews the Turks the Heathens and the Arian hereticks which denied the Divinity of Christ to rob or spoil the Orthodoxal or true Catholick Christians 13. Most men have often read All almost have often heard of a Twofold Resurrection The one from death in sin unto newness of life The other from bodily death unto glory and immortality The second Resurrection is the End of our whole life here on earth the first Resurrection from death in sin to newness of life is the mean most necessary for attaining this joyful and happy End Now as the second Resurrection from bodily death unto glory is the End of the first Resurrection from sin to newness of life So is the first Resurrection the End of the blessed Sacrament or solemn commemoration of Christs death till he come to Judgment And although the Omnipotent Power of God by which all things were created of nothing be the most prime and powerful Cause of the second Resurrection yet of our Resurrection unto that Glory and Immortality whereof Christ is now possest Christ as man is not only the Idaeal or Exemplarie but the immediate Efficient or working Cause also Howbeit the power of his Efficiency or working as man be derived from the Omnipotent Power of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily But unto the real participation of this All-powerful Influence from Christs humanity by which the dead shall be quickned by which these mortal bodies shall be cloathed with glory and immortality the bodily or local presence of Christ is not required by the Romish Church It doth not hold it necessary that all or any body which shall be quickened or raised to Glorie shall first swallow Christs Body or be touched by it Of Angelical ministerie or service for gathering the dispersed reliques of mens bodies which have been dissolved by death some use there shall be in the last day as some Romanists with divers Antients think but no use at all of any Mass-Priest to make Christs Body to be locally present unto all that shall be quickened by it There shall be no need then of Transubstantiating Sacramental bread into Christs Body or wine into his bloud for giving life unto those that have been long dead or for effecting that change which shall be wrought in the living Now if by the meer virtual presence of Christs Body and Blood the men which have been long dead shall be restored to perfect life immortalitie shall not the souls of all which receive him in the Sacrament by Faith and true repentance be raised to Newness of life by the same virtual presence without any local touch of His Body but only by that sweet Influence which daily issueth from this Sun of righteousness now placed at the Right hand of God as in its proper Sphere This manner of Christs presence of his real presence in the Sacrament to wit by powerful Influence from his Humanitie our Church did never deny nor doth God the Father or Christ the Son deny this Real Influence of life unto any that hunger and thirst after it in the Sacrament CHAP. XIV 1 COR. 15. 36 c. But some will say How are the dead raised up and With what body do they come Thou Fool That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die c. That this Argument drawn from Seed sown is a Concludent Proof of the Resurrection of The Bodie THe Questions are Two First How the dead shall be raised The second With what bodies shall they come forth The former imports thus much How is it possible that the Dead shall be raised Or it being admitted that it is possible for the dead in some sort or manner to arise to life the next branch of the same Question is in what particular manner they shall de Facto arise as whether by Gods Creative Power by which he made all things of nothing or by his Conservative Power by which he preserveth all things that are in their proper Being or advanceth them to an higher estate or better Tenure of Being The second Question or Quaerie is With what kind of bodies shall the dead arise Whether with the self same bodies wherein they died Or if not every way the same what alteration or change shall be wrought in them Unto Both these Questions our Apostle vouchsafeth but this one Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die But this Answer may seem in the first place to break the Rule of Christian Charity For many of these Corinthians though in this point of the Resurrection erroneous and ignorant were yet Christian though weak brethren and the Law is general he that shall say unto his brother THOU FOOL shall be guilty of Hell fire Matth. 5. 22. The Rule indeed is General if this or the like opprobrious speech be hatched out of malice leavened wrath or invetered hatred But this sentence they do not incur out of whose mouthes these or the like speeches issue by way of just reproof or instruction as from a Master to his Scholers or from a Lord to his Servants in points wherein they err and are to be corrected or instructed by him In these cases or upon these occasions their censure passeth rather upon the folly then upon the persons of them whom they so chastise correct or seek to instruct And it is not altogether impertinent which some have noted upon that place That our Apostles censure doth not aim at any particular or determinate person but it is indefinitely directed to all those which seriously make the former questions either concerning the Possibilitie of mens arising from the dead or the particular Manner how this Resurrection should be wrought or with what bodies they should come forth But many such as will confess his reason or Argument to be free from breach of Christian Charitie or good manners will question the Logical strength or pertinence of it The strength or efficacy of it is questionable upon These points As first How the dayly experiment of seed-corn which first dies and is quickned again can inferr the Fundamental conclusion by our Apostle intended to wit the Resurrection of mens bodies which have been dead and rotten for many hundred years and their Reliques dispersed into so many several Elements or places that if the seed-corn which men sow were but dispersed into half so many places the husband-man should in vain expect an increase or his seed again Secondly admitting this yearly experiment of the seed dying and reviving were of force sufficient to inforce our belief of the former conclusion that the bodies of men dead may be raised to life again yet the
indeed would directly follow He that is able to make men live again that have been dead for a thousand years is also able to quicken the corn in the next month which died the last month This kind of Argument would be as clear as if you should say That he that is able to make ready payment of a thousand pounds may soon and easily pay an hundred But you would take it as an impertinent or indiscreet allegation to say I know this man is able to pay you an hundred pounds therefore I would perswade you to take his bond for a thousand But our Apostles Argument in this place may seem less probable and it is at least to appearance but Thus God dayly raiseth up corn within a year after it is sowen Ergo he shall raise up Adams body which was consumed to dust five thousand years ago 6. To frame the Apostles Argument which is an Argument of Proportion aright you must take his Principles or grounds into your consideration Now he first supposeth and takes it as all good Christians ought to do for granted that God doth give that body unto every seed with which it ariseth or cometh out of the ground The increase of things sown or planted is not in his Language or Philosophie the meer Effect or gift of Nature For even Nature her self or whatsoever she hath to bestow is the gift of God That which Philosophers call Nature is in true Divinity nothing else but The Law which God hath set to things natural or subject to change or motion Now he which made this Law whether for guiding bodies sublunary or celestial can dispense with it at his pleasure He sometimes inhibits the ordinary course of the Law of Nature by substraction as it were of his Royal Assent or by suspending the concurrence of his Operative Power And sometimes again he advanceth the state of things natural by creating or making a New Law unto the manner of their Being or of their Operations that is he changeth their Qualities though not their Natures or Essences Thus much presupposed or premised our Apostles Inference is as firm and strong as it is Emphatical Stulte Tu quod Seminas O Fool that which THOU sowest is not quickened except it die c. The force or Emphasis may be gathered thus If God doth give a body unto that seed which thou sowest for thine own use and benefit much more will the same God give a body to The Seed which He Himself doth sow much more will he quicken it after it hath been dead seeing the End why he sowes it is not thy temporal benefit or commodity but His Own immortal glory When God did enact that severe Law from which death natural takes its original Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return the Intent or purport of that Law was not that man by returning to dust should utterly or finally perish and be for ever as if he never had been What then was the intent or purport of this Law That mans body should be committed unto the earth as seed is committed to the ground that as the corn which springs out of the earth returns to earth again and is still raised up with advantage and increase unto the Sower So the bodies of men after that by the first mans folly they became corruptible and certain to suffer corruption whether in the earth in the air or in the Sea might be raised again but not to corruption that God may receive the seed which is sown with increase of Glory to himself this increase of Glorie being rooted in the increase of their happiness by whose immortalitie he is immediately glorified Thus much of the former difficulty to wit how our Apostles Instance or experiment in the work of nature doth infer his intended Conclusion to wit the future Resurrection from the dead And from the Solution of this Former the Second may easily be assoyled 7. The second Difficulty was How this Instance or Experiment of the Corn dying and being quickened again can fit or parallel the Resurrection of the body seeing the Corn which is quickened or springeth up is not The same body which was sown Whereas it is a Point of our Belief that the same numerical bodies which die and return to dust or are resolved into ashes or into the Elements of which they consist shall be raised up at the last day For if The Body raised up were not the self same that died the Body which died should not be parttaker either of pain or joy everlasting but another Bodie should be tormented or glorified instead of the Body which died Every man should not receive reward or punishment according to that which he had done in the body or at least this reward or punishment should not be received in the same Body in whhic he had done ill or well Aquinas a Great School-man in his time labours to assoyl the proposed Difficultie by framing the Apostles Argument Thus. If Nature can repair that which dies Idem Specie that is If Nature can make it to be of the same Kind it was though not the same numerical body it was as he that sows Wheat reaps Wheat not Rie or Barley though not the self same grains of Wheat which he sows Then The God of nature and Creator of all things shall raise up the bodies of men which are his seed and proper husbandry the very self same which they were not the self same for kind or specifical Unity but the same Individuals Of all the bodies which have died not one shall miscarry not so much as a hair of any mans head or any least part of his body shall finally perish But though all this be True yet is it Impertinent it fals not within the compass of our Apostles Inference in this place who neither affirms nor denies nor took it so much as into his consideration whether the Corn which springs up be the same Individual Nature or substance which did putrifie and die in the ground The utmost Circumference of his considerations or thoughts extends no further then thus That the Body which God doth give to every seed is not for qualitie the same which was sown for it was sown Bare Corn without blade husk or ear and loseth that corpulencie or quantitie which it had But it springs not up bare Corn. The new life which it gets in the womb of the earth is cloathed with a fresh body capable of nourishment and growth of both which it was uncapable whilst it was severed from the ear wherein it grew or after the stalk was cut down And This Change or alteration in the Corn sown and springing up doth well fit the Change or alteration which shall be wrought in our Bodies at the Resurrection or last day Our bodies by death become more uncapable of nourishment then the corn severed from the ear or cut down for they are utterly deprived of life of sense of
motion in all the Interim between the day of their dissolution and the last day By the Resurrection they shall not only recover life sense and motion but the life which they get shall be indowed with Immortalitie the bodies shall be clothed with Glory This change of our mortal bodies into immortal is much greater then the most plentifull increase which any seed doth yield One seed or grain may in some soils bring forth thirty in others sixtie in others a hundred but immortality added to the life of the body is an increase in respect of this mortal life which now we lead inexpressible by any number The life of Methuselah is not comparable to it albeit the years which he lived on earth were multiplied by the dayes contained in them and both multiplied again by all the minutes and scruples conteined in the dayes and years which he lived And yet after this increase of life our bodies shall be the same they were for nature and essence but not the same for qualities or capacities whether of joyes or pains In these respects they shall differ far more then any corn growing doth from the seed from which it springs And this difference of qualities between the bodies which die and shall be raised again was all that our Apostle sought or intended to illustrate or set forth by that similitude which he useth Thou sowest not the corn which shall be that is not the same corn for quantitie for qualitie for vigour of life nor shall mens bodies be raised again to such a life only as they formerly had or to such a corruptible estate as that wherein death did apprehend them but to a life truly immortal 8. The second question proposed by the Corinthian Naturalist was with what bodies shall the dead come forth or appear And the direct Answer to this Question is included in the former similitude so much insisted on before as that it needs not to be repeated here the Effect of it is This That they shall come forth with bodies much more excellent then those with which they descended into the grave And of this general Answer included in the similitude of the Corn or Seed sown all the Exemplifications following unto verse 45. are native Branches 39. All flesh is not the same flesh but there is one kind of flesh of men another flesh of beasts another of fishes and another of birds 40. There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial but the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another 41. There is one glory of the Sun another of the Moon and another glory of the Stars for one Star differeth from another in glory 42. So also is the resurrection of the dead it is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption 43. It is sown in dishonor it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power 44. It is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body c. Thus much of the Positive Force of our Apostles Argument drawn from the similitude of the Corn which by the Law of Nature must die before it be quickned and receive increase 9. But of this similitude it is no native branch or part whether the corn which dies being sown do rise again the next year for vital substance or life the same which it was whilst it was contained in the blade or ear the year before certainly it is not the same for Corpulencie for matter or quantitie But whether the seeds of life or spirit of corn do not remain the same by continuation though in divers bodies or matter our Apostle disputes not nor do I dispute This is a curiositie which cannot be determined in the Pulpit without appeal unto the Schools The vital spirit or essence of the Corn may be so far the same in the corn which is sown and which is reaped that if we should for disputation sake suppose or imagine what some have dogmatically affirmed to wit That the corn sown were endowed with sense or feeling were capable of pleasure or pain the pleasure which it formerly enjoyed might be renewed increased or multiplied with increase or multiplication of its bodily substance so might the pain which it had felt before it was sown be renewed and increased after it were quickned again if any sort of corn were appointed as some men are to torture and punishment Now albeit we must believe that mens bodies after the Resurrection shall be the very same for substance which they were before death yet are we not bound to believe that they shall be any further the same then that every man which died in his sins may in his bodie feel an infinite increase of those miseries which he had deserved and in some sort felt whilst he lived on earth Or that every man at the last day may reap an infinite increase of those joyes and comforts of which in this life he had some tasts or pledges whilst he sowed unto the spirit For as the Apostle elsewhere speaks he that soweth unto the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption a full crop of all the miseries incident to mortalitie but miseries more then mortal miseries everlasting and never dying And he that in this life soweth unto the spirit shall at the Resurrection of the spirit reap life but a life immortal without end without annoyance or interruption of joy Again they extend the former similitude too far which from it would gather that as there is a natural force or previal disposition in the corn sown by which as by a secondary cause or instrumental mean it is quickned and increased So there be natural seeds of life in the putrified reliques of mens bodies or remnants of the matter dissolved out of which life immortal shall so spring as the blade doth out of the seed which is sown only by the sustentative or operative power of God by which all things are supported or enabled to produce their natural effects For although it be true that the works which we ascribe to nature are wrought by God or by continuation of the same power by which they were first created and set a working yet the Resurrection of mens bodies shall not be wrought by the mere continuation of This Power There must be more then a conservation of their matter more then an usual co-operation with the Elements out of which they are raised there must be even a new creation of their bodies yet not a Creation of them out of nothing but out of the scattered fragments of their matter such a creation as the works of the fifth and sixth day were when God commanded the sea or water to bring forth fishes in their kind and the earth to bring forth trees or plants in their kinde These were not effects of nature or of that power only by which the Sea and earth were from
all the Benefits which God for his Deaths sake bestows upon us by believing only in his death But even This benefit of our Iustification we receive more immediately by our Belief of his Resurrection from the dead This is the doctrine of our Apostle even in that place wherein he handles the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone or by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness Ex Professe as Rom. 4. 23 24. Now it was not written for his sake to wit Abrahams alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we beleive on him that raised up Iesus from the dead And he gives the Reason why our Belief of this Article should be imputed unto us in the next words Seeing he was delivered to death for our offences and raised again for our Justification Howbeit even This Belief of His Resurrection is a Grace or Blessing of God which Christ did merit by His Death yet a Grace conveihed unto us by the vertue of His Resurrection or by Christ himself by his Resurrection exalted unto glory in his human nature We were Justified by his Death in as much as The Pardon for our sins was by it purchased and the hand writing or obligation against us cancelled If Christ then had only dyed for us and not risen again we might by Belief in his Death have escaped the Second Death or everlasting pains of hell We should notwithstanding as our Apostle here supposeth have been detained perpetual prisoners in the grave Our bodily or corporal being should have been utterly consumed by the first Death without hope of recovery or restitution And so far as the first Death had dominion over men so far had these Corinthians remained in their sins So long as the first Death remains unconquered sin remains Now if Christ had not been raised from the dead the first Death or death of the body had remained unconquered Belief in Christs death could not utterly have freed them from all the wages of sin For death of the body is in us part of the wages of sin and it was to Christ part of the burden of our sin But in as much as Christ is risen from the dead and raised to an immortal life over which bodily death hath no Rule or dominion but must be put in absolute subjection to Him all that truly believe such a Resurrection are justified not only from the eternal guilt of sin nor only freed from everlasting death but are made heirs by adoption unto a life over which death shall have no power So then by Christs Death we are freed from the everlasting Curse by his Resurrection we are made free Denisons of the heavenly Jerusalem heirs by promise of an everlasting and most blessed life And thus far all that are partakers of the Word and Sacraments are said to be justified by his Resurrection that is they are bound to believe that as He died for their Sins to redeem them from the second death so he rose again for their further Justification to free them from the death of the bodie He therefore rose from the dead that we by believing this Article might receive the Adoption of the Sons of God But yet there is a further degree of Justification that is an Actual Absolution from the Reign or Dominion of sin in our Bodies which is never obtained without some measure of Faith or Sanctifying Grace inherent albeit the true use and end of such Grace and Faith inherent be to sue out the Pardon for our sins in particular not by our works or merits which are none but meerly and solely by the Free-Grace and Favour of God in Christ True it is that even This Gift of Faith by which we must sue out our Pardon in particular and supplicate for the Adoption of the Sons of God was purchased by Christs death nor may we sue for it under any other Stile or Form then propter merita Christi for the merits of Christ Yet after this plea made we may not expect to receive this blessing otherwise then per Jesum Christum through or by Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead This Grace this Faith and whatsoever other blessing of God which Christ by his death hath merited for us whatsoever is any way conducent to our full and final Redemption descends immediately from the Son of God exalted in his human nature as from its proper Fountain He was consecrated by his death and his Consecration was accomplished by his Resurrection to be an inexhaustible fountain of life and salvation to all that truly believe in his death and Resurrection from the dead Thus we are fallen into the Affirmative Inference If Christ be risen from the dead then such as die in Christ shall be raised from death to immortal Glory The same Almighty Power by which Christ was raised unto glorie shall be manifested even in these our mortal bodies But now is Christ risen from the dead and is become the first fruits of them that slept 9. The Inference or implication is That seeing Christ whose mortalitie was clearly testified by his death was raised up to an endless and immortal life Therefore such as die in Christ whatsoever in the mean time become of their bodies shall be raised up to the like life against which death shall never be able to make any attempt or approach For as the Apostle saith Rom. 11. 16. If the first fruit be holy the lump is also holy and if the root be holy so are the branches But we are to remember that there were Two sorts of First fruits appointed by the Law the One of the first corn that was reaped being ground and made up into loaves which were offered at the feast of Pentecost And unto this sort of First fruits the Apostle Rom. 11. 16. hath Reference The other was the offering of green corn when it first begun to bud or ear And unto this sort of First fruits our Apostle here in the twentieth verse hath Reference Christ then is the root and we are the branches he is the First fruits and we are the after-crop and harvest Now as the offering of the First fruits that is of the green corn was the hallowing of the whole crop So the Resurrection of Christ from the grave was the hallowing or consecration of these our mortal bodies unto that glory and immortalitie which shall be at the finall Resurrection If God did accept the offering of the First fruits it was a pledge unto his people that he would extraordinarily bless the after-crop with large increase his people might with confidence expect a joyfull harvest To manifest the meaning or fulfilling of this Type or legal Ceremonie in our Saviour He was raised up from the dead upon that very day in the morning wherein the first fruits of green corn were by the priests of the Law offered unto God His resurrection as was said before was the accomplishment of his
wrath malice blasphemie silthy communication out of your mouth Lie not one to another seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds All of us have put off the old man by profession and Solemn Vow at our Baptism and a double Wo or Curse shall befal us unless we put him off in practise and resolution and labour to put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him The particular Limbs of this New man are set forth unto us by our Apostle verse 13 14. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And above all these things put on Charity which is the bond of perfectnesse The particular Duties required of men and women according to their several conditions or states of life as of Wives to Husbands and of Husbands to Wives as of Children to Parents and of Parents to Children of Servants to Masters and of Masters to Servants are set down by the same Apostle in the verses following unto the end of the Chapter Now we must be altogether as certain that we do truely sincerely and constantly perform these duties which are by our Apostle in this place required whether as General to all Christians or such as concern particular estates of life as we are of This general That whosoever doth truly mortifie the deeds of the body and perform the other duties here required shall be undoubted partaker of the Resurrection unto Glory before we can be certain certitudine fidei by certaintie of faith of our salvation or Resurrection unto glory in particular 12. Doth any amongst us upon the examination required before the receiving of the Sacrament find himself extreamly negligent or generally defective in performance of these duties Let not such a one take his negligence past as any sign or undoubted mark of reprobation yet would I withall advise him not to approach the Lords Table without a wedding garment without a sincere and hearty sorrow for his negligences past without a sincere hearty desire of doing better hereafter If consciousness of former negligence in these duties or of practises contrary unto them be seasoned with sorrow and hearty desire of amendment the point whereon I would advise such a man for the present to pitch his faith shall not be his own Election nor the Certaintie of his present and future estate in Grace or Real and infallible Interest in Christ his Resurrection But upon that Character or description of our Saviour given by the Evangelical Prophet Esay 42. 3. and experienced upon Record by the Evangelist St. Matthew Matth. 12. 20. That he quencheth not smoaking flax that he will not shake the bruised Reed Remember that as the Second Resurrection unto glorie must be wrought by vertue of Christs Resurrection from the dead so the first Resurrection from the dead works of sin unto newness of life must be wrought by the participation of his Body which was given and of his Blood which was shed for us Remember that by his death and passion he became not only the Ransom but the Soveraign Medicine for all our sins A Medicine for our sins of wilfulness and commission to make us more wary not to offend A Medicine for our sins of negligence and omission to make us more diligent in the works of pietie And the time and place appointed for the receiving of the body and blood of Christ is the time and place appointed by Him for our cure Heal us then O Lord and we shall be healed Thou O Lord who hast abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel Enliven and enlighten our hearts by thy Spirit and in them thus enlightned kindle a love of doing thy Will bring good intentions to good desires and good desires to firm resolutions and confirm our Resolutions with constancie and perseverance in thy service Amen ALmighty God which hast given thine only Son to die for our Sins and to rise again for our Justification mercifully grant that we both follow the example of his patience and be made partakers of his Resurrection through the same Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Almighty God give us Grace so to cast away the works of Darknesse and put on the Armour of light now in the Time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humilitie that at the last day when he shall come again in his Glorious Majestie to judge both the Quick and the Dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holie Ghost now and ever Amen The End of the fourth Section SECTION V. Of the Article of Everlasting life A Transition of the Publishers VVE are now by the Good hand of God upon the Work arrived at The fifth Section A very Considerable Part of this Eleventh Book The Subject matter of this Section according to what was cut out by the Method proposed in the oft mentioned Ninth Chapter is The Final Doom Award or Sentence of Life and Death which The King of Glorie our most worthy Judge Eternal shall respectively pronounce and pass upon all at that Dreadful and yet Ioyful Day of Iudgment when he shall deal and distribute Palms and Prizes Crowns and a Kingdom to the little or in Comparison the less Flock or Sheep set at his Right hand for whom such good things were prepared from the Foundation of the world But utter Extermination to the goats on the Left hand whom he will send accursed into Everlasting Prisons there to be tormented in that fire which was first prepared not for them but for their Tempter and tormentors the Divel and his Angels I confess our Great Author closes not with the Point of Everlasting life till he come to the Twentieth Chapter But I thought my self bound here to insert the Three next Chapters viz. the 17 18 and 19 for these reasons following 1. Because they be Three and the First Three of Thirteen Excellent and most Elaborate Tracts all in order composed upon The sixth Chapter to the Romans and pity it was to sever them from the Other with which they so well consort and sure 2. If I had left out These Three I should not onely have done prejudice to the Author and his work but to the Reader and his Content or benefit who will find that these Three Chapters are as comely and as useful Introductions to his Rich Discourses about the Domus Aeternitatis the two several long Homes of all mankind as any Propylaea or Areae can possibly be to any two Houses of this Worlds Building 3. The Doctrine delivered in these Three Next Chapters is so promotive and incentive of Christian Pietie and some of it so Homogeneal to the ensuing Tracts that they could not be more fitly placed then before the Discourses about the Final Award or Sentence 4.
the world and the flesh had been greater than the meer natural man had any the just Lord would not punish them more severely than he doth the heathen or meer natural men for suffering themselves to be vanquished by his enemies They which deny any grace or talent to be always given in baptisme or affirm this Talent to be given onely to some few which are of the number of the Elect either do not understand or do not call to minde what baptisme is Now Baptisme on our part is an Astipulation or promise 1 Peter 3. ver 21. And it is no lesse on Gods part It is a mutual Covenant or Astipulation between God and us And in every Covenant or Astipulation there is Ratio dati et accepti somewhat given and and somewhat taken The giving is properly on Gods part the taking on ours For in true and proper terms we cannot give any thing to God because all we have even we our selves are his by double right by right of creation and redemption Yet it is his pleasure that we in baptisme should sincerely and heartily surrender that unto him which is his own even our selves our souls and bodies And he upon this surrender or vow if it be sincerely made doth give to us that which was not ours even his only son with all the benefits of his death and passion All of us put him on in baptism though not all in the same degree and we may rest assured that God would never presse us in baptisme to fight under the banner of his Son unless he were ready to furnish us with strength with weapons and skill to fight his battails So we will as our Apostle exhorts us yeeld our members unto his service he will teach our hands to War and our fingers to fight and every facultie of our body and soul to do their part 6. The Abstract or Briefe of our Apostles discourse in this chapter is to stir up that Gift of God in these Romans which they had received in baptism or which is all one to animate or incourage them to imploy that talent which God in that Sacrament had concredited unto them unto his glory And this his Exhortation is grounded upon their Profession of dying to sin which they had made in baptisme or upon the assurance of Gods spirit in the sacred War so we will take heart and courage to undertake the fight There is not one branch of this Exhortation from the second verse of this chap. to this one and twentieth but is rooted in one of these two considerations or joyntly in both That all of us in baptisme are dead to sin in that sense which we have shewed before that is by solemn vow or by Professing our death unto it our Apostle infers ver 3. and not onely dead but buried And both this Death and Burial unto sin was solemnly professed not by Word or Vow only but by matter of fact or visible Ceremony then usuall in Baptisme for every one that was baptized seeing all that were baptized were of good years and strength of body to undergo this Ceremony were ter demersi in aquis their whole bodies were plunged thrice in the water to represent their vowed death and buriall unto sin This Ternal demersion of their Bodies as some collect was not only to represent The Holy and blessed Trinitie of the Divine Persons in whose names they were baptized but withall to represent the three several dayes wherein Christ lay buried in the grave Therefore saith the Apostle we are buried with him by Baptisme unto death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newnesse of life ver 4. 7. The meaning of the former Ceremony was and so of Baptisme to this day is That as Christ did leave the burthen of our sins and put off the form of a servant which for our sakes he undertook in the grave so we by baptisme and buriall into his death should put off the old man or body of sin and be raised unto newness of life and become partakers of his Resurrection unto glory This raising unto newnesse of life by the Sacrament of Baptisme was represented by the safe Ascension of their Bodies out of the water in the which they had been thrice plunged And of our Resurrection unto glory we receive the pledge or earnest when we receive the Grace of Regeneration that is the Grace which enables us to walk in newnesse of life And this is called the First Resurrection without which no man shall be partaker of the second unto Glory Now that all such as are truly buried with him by baptisme into death that is all such as observe and perform their vow made in baptisme shall undoubtedly be partakers of his Resurrection unto Glory the Apostle inferres ver 5. For if we have been planted together in the likenesse of his death we shall be also in the likenesse of his Resurrection and vers the sixth Knowing this that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin For he that is dead is free from sin ver 7. that is He that is dead to sin in this life is freed from the life or reign of sin For it is observable that he doth not say if we have been planted together in his death but if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death It is not required that we should die the death of the body as Christ did but to die as Isaac did in the similitude and figure of his death that is we should die to sin or crucifie that sin in us for which Christ was crucified And as it is not required that we should die the death of the body in baptisme so is it not to be expected that we should forthwith be raised unto that glory whereunto he rose but to be raised unto A similitude or likeness of it that is unto newness of life which is the First Resurrection And of this Resurrection we shall not fail to be actual partakers by vertue of baptisme if we be rightly implanted into the similitude of his death for so the Apostles words are If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection But what is it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 planted together or with whom are we planted we Gentiles together with the Jews So some conjecture But the more ancient and better exposition is that we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Christ planted together with Him yet not so planted together with him as one tree is planted together by another Arbor inter or juxta Arbores each having its several root But as Christ was planted by his death and burial and consecrated to be the root of life So we likewise should be planted by Baptisme in Him to die
God It could not There had been indeed an Exaltation of the bodie so assumed but none of the Nature or Person assuming it How then is the Son of God said now to be Exalted by his bodily Ascension into Heaven or by his Sitting at the Right-hand of the Father in our Nature wherein he was formerly humbled Take the Resolution plainely thus God the Father had remained as glorious as now he is although he had never created the world For the creation gave much even all they had to things created it gave nothing unto God who was in Being infinite yet if God had created nothing the Attribute of Creator could have had no real Ground it had been no real Attribute In like manner Suppose the Son of God had never condescended to take our nature upon him he had remained as Glorious in his Nature and Person as now he is yet not glorified for or by this Title or Attribute of Incarnation Or suppose he had not humbled himself unto death by taking the Form of a Servant upon him he had remained as glorious in his Nature and Person and in the Attribute of Incarnation as now he is but without these glorious Attributes of being our Lord and Redeemer and of being the Fountain of Grace and Salvation unto us All these are Real Attributes and suppose a Real Ground or foundation and that was his humbling himself unto death even unto the death of the Cross Nor are these Attributes only Real but more Glorious both in respect of God the Father who was pleased to give his Only Son for us and in respect of God the Son who was pleased to pay our ransome by his humiliation then the Attribute of Creation is The Son of God then not the Son of David only hath been Exalted since his death to be our Lord by a new and Real Title by the Title of Redemption and Salvation This is the Sum of our Apostles Inference concerning our Saviours Exaltation Phil. 2. 11. That every tongue should confesse that Jesus Christ is The Lord unto the Glorie of God the Father To shut up this Point Though Christ Jesus be both our High-Priest and Lord not only as he is the Son of David but as he is the only begotten Son of God and so begotten from all Eternitie yet was he neither begotten a Priest nor Lord from all Eternitie but made a Priest and made a Lord in time The Word of the Oath saith the Apostle Heb. 7. 28. which was since the Law maketh the Son a Priest who was consecrated for evermore And in the very same Charter wherein this Word of the Oath or uncontrollable Fiat for making the Eternal Word an Everlasting Priest is contained this Peculiar Title of Lord is first inferred For so that 110 th Psalm begins Jehovah said to my Lord Sit thou at my right hand untill I make thine Enemies thy foot-stool Not that Adonai importeth lesse Honour or Majestie then Jehovah doth as the Jews and Arians ignorantly and impiously collect but with purpose to notifie that this Title of Lord or Adonai was to become as peculiar to Jehovah the Son of God as the Title of Cohen or Priest But this Title of Lord as peculiar to Christ will require and doth well deserve a peculiar discourse and the place allotted it is in the beginning of the second Section 5. Now for Use or Application These insuing Meditations and Considerations offer themselves What branch of sorrow of bodily affliction or anguish of soul or Spirit can we imagin incident to any degree condition or sort of men to any son of man at any time unto which the waters of Comfort may not plentifully be derived from this inexhaustible Fountain of Comfort comprised in This Article of Christs Sitting at the Right-hand of God the Father Almighty No man can be of so low dejected or forlorn estate for means or friends re or spe either by birth or by misfortune but may raise his heart with this Consideration that it is no servitude or beggerie but freedom or riches to be truly entitled A Servant to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings to whom Angels and Principalities as Saint Peter speaks even those Angels and Principalities to whom not Kings and Monarchs but even Kingdoms and Monarchies are Pupils are subject and his fellow servants Or in case any poor dejected soul should be surprized with distrust or jealousie lest his Lord in such infinite height of Exaltation and distance should not from heaven take notice of him thrown down to earth let him to his comfort consider That the Son of God and Lord of Glorie to the end he might assure us that he was not a Lord more Great in himself then Gracious and loving unto us was pleased for a long time to become a Servant before he would be made a Lord and a Servant subject to multitudes of publick despights disgraces and contempts from which ordinarie servants or men of forlorn hopes are freed If he willingly became such a Servant for thee to whom he owed nothing wilt not thou resolve to make a vertue of necessitie by patient bearing thy meannesse or misfortunes for his sake to whom even Kings owe themselves their Scepters and all their worldly glorie But though it be a contemplation full of comfort to have him for our Supreme Lord and Protector who sometimes was a Servant cruelly oppressed by the greatest Powers on earth without any power of man to defend or protect him yet the sweet streams of joy and comfort flow more plentifully to all sorts and conditions of men from the Attribute of his Royal Priesthood To be a Priest implies as much as to be a Mediator or Intercessor for averting Gods wrath or an Advocate for procuring his Favours and blessings * And what could Comfort her self wish more for her children suppose she had been our mother then to have Him for our perpetual Advocate and Intercessor at the Right-hand of God who is equal to God in Glorie in Power and Immortalitie and yet was sometimes more then equal unto us in all manner of anguish of grievances and afflictions that either our nature state or casual condition of life can be charged with * Albeit he knew no sin yet never was the heart of any the most grievovs sinner no not whilest it melted with penitent tears and sorrow for misdoings past so deeply touched with the fellow-feeling of his brothers miseries of such miseries as were the proper effects or fruits of sin as the heart of this our High-Priest was touched with every mans miserie and affliction that presented himself with prayers unto him his heart was as fit a Receptacle for others sorrows of all sorts as the eye is of colours Who was weak and he was not weak who was grieved and he burned not who was afflicted and he not tormented 6. There be Two more special and remarkable Maxims of our Apostles for our comfort The One Heb.
any good Christian that will but raise his thoughts above the earth by this or the like Experiment of nature Albeit this bodily Sun which we dayly see were much further distant from the earth then now it is yet could we easily conceive it to be of force and efficacie enough to enlighten the earth whereon we dwell and those coelestial Spheres which are or might be as farre above it as it is above the Center And in the greatest distance we can imagin it is or might be distant from the earth it would give life and vigour to things vegetable or capable of vital heat It were a silly Argument to infer that because the hottest fire on earth cannot impart his heat to bodies 10 miles distant from it therefore the Sun cannot communicate vital heat and Comfort to vegetables more then ten-hundred-thousand miles distant from it This Inference notwithstanding is not so foolish in Philosophie as This following is in Divinitie The Sun cannot quicken trees or herbs which have lost their root and sap Ergo the Sun of righteousnes or Christs Humane Nature in which the Godhead dwelleth Bodily cannot quicken the dead or raise up our mortal bodies to immortalitie The only sure Anchor of all our hopes for a joyfull Resurrection unto the life of Glorie is the Mystical Union which must be wrought here on earth betwixt Christs Humane Nature glorified and our mortal or dissoluble nature The Divine Nature indeed is the Prime Fountain of Life to all but though inexhaustible in it self yet a fountain whereof we cannot drink save as it is derived unto us through the Humane Nature of Christ 11. Although it be most true which Tertullian in the 17 Chapter of his Apologie hath observed That even those Heathens which adored Jupiter Capitolinus and multiplied their Gods according to the number of the places wherein they worshiped them when they were throughly stung with any grievous affliction or calamitie were wont to lift up their eyes and hands not to the Roman Capitol but to heaven it self as knowing that by instinct of nature to be the seat or throne of Divine Majestie And the Hill from whence came their help Yet notwithstanding the truth of this Observation and the profitable use which that Father there makes of it it was an extraordinary Favour of God unto the Israelites that they were permitted and instructed to worship God in his Sanctuarie and to present their devotions towards the Ark of the Covenant or the Mercy-seat before which they might adore him in such manner and sort as they might not in any other place or before any other creature They knew much better then the heathen that Gods Throne of Majestie was in heaven and yet were to tender their devotions unto him as extraordinarily present in his Temple or Sanctuarie here on earth For as our bodily sight doth scatter or dazle without some sensible Object to gather and terminate it So our cogitations though of heaven and heavenly things do float or vanish without some determinate and comprehensible Object whereon to fasten them Now albeit the Temple of Jerusalem wherein Gods People only were to worship were long since demolished yet the Sanctuarie wherein they were to worship God is rather translated or advanced from earth to heaven then destroyed For it was Gods Presence that made the Temple and That is more extraordinary in Christs Body which the Jewes destroyed but which he raised again in three dayes then ever it had been in Solomons Temple in the Glorie of whose goodly structure and manifestation of Gods Glorie in it the true Israelites did much rejoyce and the later Iewes too much boast and glorie But this Prerogative we have in respect of the ancientest and truest Israelites that since the vail of the Temple was rent we may at all times reflecting upon that modell the Scripture hath imprinted in our mindes look within the vail and behold the Ark or Mercy-seat and use the most holy Sanctuarie or inner place made with hands as a Perspective Glasse or instrument for surveying the heavenly Sanctuarie which God hath pitched and not man This hope have we saith S t Paul Heb. 6. 19. as an anchor of the soul both sure and stedfast and which entreth into that within the vail whither the fore-runner is for us entred even Jesus made an high Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek He is gone before us into the Sanctuarie to make perpetual intercession who before had made an everlasting attonement for us here on earth He is now become to us the Temple of God the Ark of the Covenant the Propitiatorie or Mercie-seat the fulfilling of all things and unto him now placed in his Sanctuarie at the Right-hand of God we are not only to direct our Cogitations or devotions but to transmit our affections to the Divine Nature by him The Son of God after he had suffered in Our flesh and made a full sufficient satisfaction for all our sins did in our nature rise again did in our nature ascend into heaven and in our nature sitteth at the Right-hand of God not only to gather our scatered contemplations and broken notions of the Godhead but withall to draw and unite our affections unto him which otherwise would flagg droop or miscarry if we should direct them to heaven at large or to the incomprehensible Majestie of the Godhead without a known Advocate or Intercessor to present them and to return their effects or issues Hence saith our Apostle Colos 3. 1. If ye be risen with Christ that is if you sted fastly believe that Christ who was the Son of God and as incomprehensible for his Divine Nature as God the Father to whom he was equal did dye in your flesh and comprehensible nature and in the same nature did rise againe from the dead then seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the Right-hand of God Set or settle or fasten your affections on things above not on things on the earth And as we are to settle our dearest affections on him so are we to direct our prayers unto him in his heavenly Sanctuarie 12. That we may direct our prayers unto the Blessed Trinitie according to the Rule of Faith which is the first Degree of praying in Faith take for the present these short Directions The First and Fundamental Object of Belief as Christian is the acknowledgement of the Blessed Trinitie And by this Belief we acknowledge such a Distinction of Persons or Parties between God the Father God the Son and God the Holy-Ghost that God the Father doth Personally and in proprietie of Person exact Satisfaction for all the offences committed against the God-head or Blessed Trinitie and that the Son of God doth by like Personal Proprietie undertake to make Satisfaction and Reconciliation for us He it is that doth avert the wrath of God from us and inhibit the proceedings of Divine Justice against us We are then in the First
to the Jews which had answer'd him rightly that the Messias was to be the Son of David is unanswerable and most satisfactorie If the expected Messias were not to be the Son of God and truly God the supreme Lord as well of the dead as of the living why did David in spirit call him Lord before he was the Son of David It is a point to be observed that the Iews in our Saviours time did not or could not deny that this Psalm was literally meant of their expected Messias albeit the later Iews seek to wrest it but most ridiculously some to Ezekiah some to Abraham But that the word Adonai is of no lesse value or importance then Iehovah but only imports Iehovah or God incarnate or the Messias his Exaltation to be Lord or King may be evinced against the Iew for that the same sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving which One Psalmist solemnly offers unto Iehovah Another Psalmist or perhaps the same doth alike solemnly offer up to Adonai or to the expected Messias in another Psalm As Psal 57. which is a Prophetical Song of David and containes the Exaltation of his God and Lord Exalt thy self O God above the heaven and let thy glory be upon all the earth ver 5 11. This Prophecie was then punctually fulfilled and Davids prayer or request signed by the mouth of God when our Saviour after his Resurrection said All power is given to me in heaven and in earth go therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holie Ghost Mat. 28. 18. Unto this Iehovah or God whose Exaltation he foresaw and heartily prayed for and unto whom he had directed his prayers ver 1. He offers the Sacrifice of praise ver 9. under the title of Adonai I will praise or confesse thee among the people O Lord I will sing unto thee among the Nations The verie self-same sacrifice David offers unto the same God under the title of Iehovah Psal 108. 1 2 3 4 5. O God mine heart is prepared so is my tongue I will sing and give praise Awake Viol and Harp I will awake early I will praise thee O Lord among the people I will sing unto thee among the Nations For thy mercie is great above the heavens and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds Exalt thy self O God above the heavens and let thy glorie be upon all the earth which last words were twice repeated in the 57. Psam 2. These Fundamental Points of Faith are clear from this collation of Scripture First That Adonai or Lord was the known Title of the Messias whom the Jews expected in our Saviours time and this was the reason that the Pharisces had not a word to answer or rejoyn unto our Saviour when he avouched that the Messias was to be The Son of God because David in Spirit called him Adonai Lord Matth. 22. 45. The second That he that was Adonai or the Messias was likewise Jehovah truly God because David did not in spirit onely call him Lord but did in spirit worship him as his Lord and God with the best sacrifice that he could devise as appears from Psalm 57. 8. A great part of the Book of Psalms even all those passages if my observation fail me not without exception which mention the extraordinary manifestation of Gods glory or his exaltation as King run the same way and as it were pay Tribute unto the infinite Ocean of Gods mercy first manifested in our Saviours Exaltation to the right hand of God The more remarkable Passages are these Psal 97. ver 1. Jehovah reigneth let the earth rejoice let the multitude of the Isles be glad Whilest Jehovah was onely known in Jurie the multitude of the Isles or Nations had no special reason to be glad for Iudah was then his Sanctuary and Israel his dominion but after God had given our Saviour Christ the utmost parts of the earth for his possession that is after our Saviours Ascension into Heaven and the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples enabling them to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom unto all Nations the multitude of the Isles the whole Earth had reason to rejoyce Then was that fulfilled which followeth in that Psal ver 6. The Heavens declare his righteousness and all the people saw his Glory That this Psalm is literally meant of Christs Exaltation to be Lord of Lords and of his Inauguration to his everlasting Kingdom The Apostle St. Paul Heb. 1. 6. puts out of question amongst all Christians when he bringeth in his first begotten Son into the world he saith Let all the Angels of God worship him so the Psalmist had said in this 97. Psal ver 7. Confounded be all they that serve graven Images worship Him all ye Gods or as the Septuagint upon which our Apostle often Paraphrased Worship him all ye Angels of God The matter or subject of this Psalm is almost the same with Psal 2. Both of them contain Prophesies concerning the Declaration of Christ to be the Son of God And from this harmonie between this 97. and the second Psalm and from the common Prenotion or Rule of interpreting Scriptures known to the Learned or unpartially observant in those days the Apostle adds that Preface unto his Testimonie when he bringeth in his onely begotten Son into the World He supposeth that the Learned among his Countrie-men should or might have known that both these Prophecies were to be punctually fulfilled upon the Exaltation of the Messias or of those times wherein God should be manifested in the Flesh 3. Yet some conjecture that our Apostle Heb. 1. 6. hath reference rather to Deut. 32. ver 43. in the Greek Translation then unto the 97 Psalm in the Hebrew The words indeed in the Greek or Septuagint are the very same though in the Hebrew not the same by any Equivalencie of the literal sense At nec sic quidem malè There is a varietie of sense yet no discord but rather a full and perfect Consort between the Literal and Grammatical sense of the Hebrew and the mystical and real sense which the Greek or Septuagint in both places expresseth First The 97 Psalm as many others are is a Poetical descant upon Moses his divine Prophetical Song Deut. 32. And the 70 Interpreters whether out of some Prenotion or out of the admirable Concord between that song of Moses and the 97 Psalm or out of a divine Instinct wherewith as St. Augustine is of opinion they were impelled sometimes to intersert a more express meaning of the Holie Ghost then an ordinary Commentator could out of the Hebrew have observed whether this way or that way moved they have given the same Paraphrase upon Deut. 32. ver 43. which our Apostle hath made upon Psal 97. ver 7. which is no other then the Septuagint had made before but literally more consonant to the Hebrew then their Paraphrase upon Deut. 32. is But
be our High-Priest unless we suffer him whilst it is called to day to cleanse and purifie our Consciences If our heart condemn us not saith S. John 1. Joh. 3. 22. then have we confidence towards God To shut up all with that of the Prophet Malachi chap. 3. 2 3. which is fully Parallel to the former place of S. Paul Heb. 12. 12 13. He shall sit as a refiner and parifier of silver and he shall purifie the Sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness So then they must be Sons of Levi that is men consecrated unto the service of the Lord and even in this life as gold and silver though mingled with dross which hope to escape that last and Fiery Tryal And such as hope to be made Kings and Priestes unto our God for ever must in this life be careful and diligent to practise upon themselves daily presenting unto Him First The Sacrifices of God a troubled and broken spirit breathing out Prayers and sending forth Tears and then Their Bodies a Living Sacrifice holie and acceptable And Lastly The Sacrifice of Praise that is the calves or fruit of the lips withall not forgetting to do good and to communicate for with such sacrifices God is well pleased 19. The Use of all that is said in this whole third Section concerning Christs coming to Judgment is most flagrantly set down in Powerful and moving Expressions by S. Peter 2. Epist 3 Chap. And the short of his Three Inferences is this Beloved I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance knowing that there shall come in the last daies scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying where is the promise of his coming But the Lord is not slack concerning his promise but is long suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance And the day of the Lord will come as a Thief in the night Seeing then that all these things must be What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of God Seeing that ye look for these things be diligent that ye may be found of him in Peace without spot and blemish and account that the long suffering of the Lord is Salvation Ye therefore Seeing ye know all these Things before beware lest ye also being led away with the Error of the wicked fall from your own stedfastnesse But grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST To Him be Glorie both now and for ever AMEN S. Ambrose's Creed Lord Jesus We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge We therefore pray Thee help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood Make them to be Numbred with thy Saints in Glorie Everlasting SECTION IV. Of the Resurrection of the Dead OF The Five General Heades Proposed in the so oft mentioned ninth Chapter wee have after a sort dispatched The First Three The Fourth was The Parties to be judged viz. The Quick and the Dead Of Those that shall be found alive at the Coming of our Lord I shall say no more then This Till I come to the fift Head touching the Final Award The One Distinction shall stand with great Boldness and with joy lift up their heads that they being caught up in the Clouds may meet the Lord in the air and so be ever with the Lord. The Other Retchless and most wretched part of mankinde shall but all in vain cry to the Hills to fall upon them and to the Rocks to cover them from His eys to whom night and Hell are manifest Of those that sleep in the Dust The Dead in Christ shall rise first and having happily passed the Judgement of Discussion shall be amazed at the strangeness of their own salvation so far beyond all they looked for Then shall The Dead in Sin be raised also to receive the Dreadfull sentence of Our most worthie Iudge Eternal and to put on such immortalitie as shall onely make them Capable of The Wages of Sin which is eternall Death or Endless vivacitie unto Torments The proof of the Resurrection of Both these is our next Design CHAP. XIII 1. Cor. 15. 12 13. Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the Dead How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the Dead But if there be no resurrection of the Dead then is Christ not risen Job 19. vers 25. I know that My Redeemer Liveth and that he shall stand at the later day upon the earth And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh I shall see God Whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my Reines be consumed within mee Ezekiel 37. 4. O ye drie Bones hear the word of the Lord. Behold I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live c. John 5. 28. Marvel not at This for the hour is coming in which all that are in the Graves shall hear His voice And shall come forth They that have done Good to the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of Damnation John 9. 24. Martha said I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last Day Iesus said I am the resurrection and the life c. The Beleif of This Article of the Resurrection of High concernment malignantly oppugned by Satan and his agents needs and deserves our best Fortification The Heathen had implicit Notions of A Resurrection The Obstacle of impossibilitie removed by Proof of This Conclusion That though all things were annihilated yet God is able to retreive or recover The numerical same 1. SO Admirable is the Constancie of the Celestial Bodies in their courses that every unusuall Spectacle in the heavens be it but the appearance of a Comet in the air or of 2 Sunnes whereof the one is in the air not in the heaven doth alwaies imprint a Terror or amazement in the inhabitants of the earth Whence if wee could out of a serious apprehension of both rightly compare the face of the heavens as now it is with that strange alteration described by St. John Rev. 6. 12 13. as that the pale moon shall be turned into blood that the Sun which now dazles our eyes with its brightnes shall becom as black as a sackcloth of hair or that the fixed stars which have continued their March from East to West without check or controll for almost 6000 yeares and yet have kept their ranks without any declination to the right hand or to the left shall then begin to reel and stagger like so many drunken men and fall to the earth like as when a figtree casteth her green figs being shaken of a mighty wind The very cogitation of this sudden change or confusion would make death
wherein thou shalt not be yet shalt thou be made again All times are alike to God His power to make thee again cannot be restrained by thy weakness or not Being it cannot be shortened by any length of time All of us that now are all the Generations that hereafter shall be must appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that all may receive in the body according to the things done in the body whether they be good or bad For he shall recompence every man according to all his works Yea so recompence That both those which now deny it and those that now believe and confess it shall from experience then say Verily there is a Reward for the Righteous Doubtlesse there is a God that judgeth the earth CHAP. XVI 1. COR. 15 16 17 20. 16. For if the dead Rise not then is not Christ raised 17. And if Christ be not raised your faith is vain you are yet in your sins c. 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the First-Fruits of them that slept The Apostles Method in proving The Resurrection peculiar and yet artificial His way of mutual or reciprocal Inference both Negative and Assertive justified and shewed That both these Inferences naturally arise and may concludently be gathered from the Text and from the Principles of Christian Belief Wherein the witness false upon supposition verse 14 15. should consist That Philosophical Principle Deus natura nihil faciunt frustrà divinely improved Gods special and admirable works have ever A Correspondent That is some extraordinarie rare End How sin is taken away by Christ's death How by His Resurrection How we are justified by Christ's Resurrection How we may try our selves and know Whether we rightly believe this Article Of the Resurrection of the Dead or No. 1. THat the Resurrection from death to life is in nature possible as implying no Contradiction though unto nature or any natural Agent most impossible hath been discussed at large before That there shall De Facto be a Resurrection unto Glorie meerly depends upon the Will and Pleasure or powerful Ordinance of God who as we believe is able to effect whatsoever His Will or Pleasure is should be wrought And our Belief of this Resurrection unto Glorie must be grounded upon His Will and pleasure revealed in Scriptures How Gods Will and Pleasure to raise up the Dead in Christ to an endless immortal and most happy Life hath been clearly revealed by his Prophets in The Old Testament I have shewed other-where and any one of ordinary observation in Reading the Scriptures and Commentators may Collect. Especially taking Example and light from our blessed Saviour his managing that Text Exod. 3. 6. I am the God of Abraham c. in his Argument with the Sadduces who both denied the Resurrection and disputed as they thought subtilly and irrefragably against it And observing the great dexteritie of St. Peter in the second and of St. Paul in the thirteenth of the Acts in proving the Resurrection of Christ out of the Psalms and out of the Prophet Isaiah and how fitly St. Paul in the 54. and 55. verses of this Chapter makes application of the Prophecie of Hosea Chap. 13. v. 14. unto the proper matter and season wherein it shall Consummativè be fulfilled I shall here make such observations as naturally arise from the verses before recited and from other verses in that Chapter wherein The Apostle useth such a method or manner of Argument to prove the Resurrection from the Dead as neither Moses nor any Prophet had used before They indeed foretold and fore-signified respectively that Christ should die and rise again and that all which believe in him should be raised to a life immortal with him But the Connexion betwixt these two Assertions which we are bound severally to believe from the authoritie of Moses and the Prophets as That Christs Resurrection from the grave should be the necessarie Cause of our Resurrection or That our future Resurrection should necessarily infer Christs Resurrection from the dead or that the denial or doubt of our Resurrection should infer a denial or doubt of his Resurrection is more then can easily be gathered out of Moses or the Prophets This mutual Inference of the ones Resurrection by the other whether Negatively or Assertively was first made by our Apostle in this place at least in expresse Terms though implicitely made by our Saviour before Our Apostle in making this mutual Inference seems in the Judgment of some to transgress or violate the Laws of Argumentation generally agreed upon in the School of nature which notwithstanding he elsewhere and usually more exquisitely observes then any Naturalist doth The Inferences made by our Apostle are radically and generally Two The One Negative Per Reductionem ad impossibile aut absurdum The other Affirmative by Positive Proof The Negative hath many branches The First is ver 13. If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen The Second springs out of this in the 14. verse And if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain And yet of this their Faith One Branch was Their Belief in Christs death and passion The Third Branch seems to spring out of both these verse 15. Yea and we are found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ whom he raised not up if so be that the dead rise not The First Branch is resumed again by our Apostle in the sixteenth verse and the Second likewise in the seventeenth with this Addition that If Christ be not raised then such as believe in Christ are yet in their sins And ver 18. Then they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished not only frustrated of their hopes of the life to come but deprived or couzened of such pleasures or contentments of this life as the unbelievers injoy and without loss or detriment might injoy if the dead were not to be raised up or if Christ were not already raised from the dead For he saith ver 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable The affirmative inference is contained in ver 12. 20. Now if Christ be Preached that he rose from the dead how say some among you that there is no Resurrection from the dead This interrogation resolved into an Affirmative imports thus much If we truly Preach and you truly believe that Christ was raised from the dead then we must of necessity Preach and you of necessity believe that there shall be a general Resurrection of the dead and that such as die in Christ shall be raised up to immortal Glory And this affirmative is expressly assumed by our Apostle ver 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept And afterward by him powerfully re-inforced as may be seen in the 21 22
23. verses That this is our Apostles intent and meaning there can be no question All The difficultie is how either the Negative inferences or inconveniences which he presseth upon such as deny the Resurrection of the dead or the affirmative points which he chargeth these Corinthians and in them us undoubtedly to believe can be concludently gathered from the principles of our beleif 2. To begin with the Negative Inferences and in particular with the third Branch ver 15. Yea and We are found false witnesses of God c. Let us examine wherein did wherein could the falshood of this Testimonie consist Some perhaps would reply that We are not to say any thing of God though not benefitting his Majestie but that which is most true We are not indeed so far as we know or believe But albeit we fail in that we speak of him yet this is not enough to convince us of bearing false Testimony of Him To say or speak that of any which we take to be the Truth and to say it not with purpose to caluminate or slander but rather to his praise or commendations is not to bear false Testimonie of him much less against him albeit we be out of charitie mistaken in that which we say of him Admit then That the Apostle had been in some errour concerning the Resurrection when he first taught the Romans and these Corinthians That As Christ was raised from the dead to life immortal so we also in good time shall be raised to the same or like imortal life and that as he So we also should be raised by the immediate power of God his supposed mistake in the latter could not convince him of bearing false Testimonie on Gods behalf seeing that which he saith concerning the Resurrection of others besides Christ from the dead doth tend to Gods glory For to bear false Testimony of or against any Doth alwayes include some mater of imputation of aspersion or prejudice Whether we bear such testimony of God or of man What imputation or prejudice was it then to affirm that God had raised up Christ from the dead if there were no general Resurrection of others from the dead or wherein doth the falshood of the testimonie which our Apostle seeks to avert from himself punctually consist Did it consist in saying That he raised up Christ whom he did not raise up if so be the dead rise not The Apostle doth not suppose it as questionable much lesse simply deny it That God did raise up Christ from the dead but only deduceth his adversary to this inconvenience or absurditie that if the dead were not raised up then Christ was not raised and that he had born false witness of God in saying that he had raised up Christ So that The ground of the false Testimony lies in the denying of others Resurrection from the dead Yea to avouch that God did raise up Christ from the dead although the fact were true and unquestionable that God did raise him up were in our Apostles Divinitie to lay an imputation or slander on God if so be that such as beleive in Christ and die in Christ should not be raised up unto blisse and glory Better it were or at least less evil in our Apostles Judgement to deny that Christ was risen from the dead then granting This to deny The Resurrection of such as sleep in Christ For to grant the former and to deny the Latter were to cast an imputation of folly upon God and an aspersion of imposture upon the Son of God Christ Jesus our Lord. What imputation then is it unto God or how doth this Aspersion rise and fall upon Christ or his Apostle by granting that Christ was indeed raised up and yet denying that the dead shall be raised up again 3. It is a Maxim in Philosophie generally acknowledged if not first conceived by the heathens Deus et natura nihil frustra Faciunt God and nature work nothing in vain From this principle such of the heathens as knew not God such as denyed His providence or knew not how to distinguish him or it from nature held it an impietie or prophaness to slander nature either of Errour in her working or of folly in producing effects to no good end or purpose Some there were which did question whether Monsters as children which are born with two heads with more Toes or fingers then are usual c. were not Errata naturae errours imperfections or oversights of nature But they finally resolve that albeit such events might fall out by the errour or contrary to the intentions or indeavours of That particular nature wherein these misfigurations were found yet they were intended by a more General nature and intended by it to some good use and purpose As commonly prodigious births do portend somewhat whose knowledge is usefull and good for others Now the Heathens erred in ascribing that to general or universal Nature which was peculiar unto God who is the Author Moderator and guide of Nature whether general or particular And if by general or Universal nature they meant no other thing then we do by the guide and God of nature Mentem teneant Linguam corrigant their meaning was good but their expression of it much amiss This we know that God doth suffer or cause nature oft times to miscarry in her course or projects for ends best known to himself No man is born blind or deaf or dumb without some errour or defect in that particular nature whereof or by which his body is framed All these and the like effects are besides the intention or contrary to the endeavour of nature which alwayes aymes at the best Hence our Saviours Disciples as we read John 9. ver 2. When they saw a man which was blind from his birth asked of their master who did sin this man or his parents that he was born blind They had not moved this Question unless by light of nature they had known that blindness from his birth was contrarie to the ordinarie and common course of nature though not contrarie but consonant to the Will of God in this particular For it is more then probable that they had read though then perhaps they did not actually remember who made the dumb or the deaf him that seeth or the blind Have not I the Lord Exod. 4. 11. God they likewise knew did for some good end or just cause either suffer or cause nature to miscarry in this man And they likewise knew sin to be a just cause of many miscarriages in the humane nature And hence they question Whether God had punished this man with blindness from the birth for his own or for his parents sins But they themselves did erre in collecting That extraordinarie blindness had befallen him either for some extraordinarie sins of his own or of his parents and this error our Saviour rectifies ver 3. Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents that is neither of them
were more extraordinarie sinners then others were who neither were blind themselves nor had children that were blind from the birth The true cause of this defect in natures work in framing this man the true reason why he was born blind as our Saviour expresseth in the next words was that the works of God should be made manifest in him So true it is which the heathens had observed Deus et natura nihil frustrà faciunt It was not in vain nor to no purpose that nature did not effect or accomplish her work in this poor man for by this means Gods works in him were more manifest to himself and others then if he had been born with Eagles eyes He was not only cured miraculously of his native blindness but the eyes of his understanding by this miraculous cure were opened and inlightned to see more for his souls health then the learned Scribes and Pharisees did in whom neither nature nor Art had been defective 4. Galen that great Physician and curious searcher into all the secrets of the humane nature had well observed That there is no part nor parcell in the whole body of man which hath not its proper use And from contemplation of this undoubted Truth he was inforced to acknowledge what otherwise he seemd to deny Divinum Opificem A Divine Artificer or worker even of the least and most contemptible parts of mans natural bodie And of This work of God though much defaced by our first parents sin he gave the like verdict that God himself did of all his works That every part of mans body was good exceeding good and admirably framed to its proper use or function The most artificial works of man of the most exquisit and most industrious Artificer will alwayes admit some errours and defects no work of man is good in its kind That is the best which hath the fewest faults or oversights or is adorned with the fewest impertinent or unuseful beautifications Whereas the works of nature even the defects of particular nature are useful and profitable for the setting forth of Gods glory and for procurement or advancement of the publick good Now if the ordinary works of nature which be likewise the works of God be never vain idle or impertinent but have a correspondent use or End to which without errour they serve Much more must the extraordinarie works of God be presupposed to have some special End or extraordinary use as proportionable to them as the end or use of ordinary works of nature are to the ordinary operations or indeavours of nature Now our Apostle supposeth That our Saviours Resurrection from the dead was an extraordinary work of God The most remarkable work of God that had been manifested to the world and by necessarie consequence it must have an effect or end most remarkably correspondent unto it and what was that The resurrection of such as live and die in Christ or rather the manifestation of Gods glory and unspeakable goodness in their Resurrection unto immortal glory and happiness 5. The former principle Deus nihil frustrà facit being thus far improved That all Gods special and admirable works tend to some special and admirable use and purpose both parts of our Apostles mutual inference as well the Negative If the dead rise not then is not Christ raised as the Affirmative If Christ be raised then shall the dead arise will appear to be as Firm and sound as the mutual Inference of the Cause from the Effect and of the Effect from the Cause or as firm and sound as the mutual Inference of the Final Cause by the Efficient and of the Efficient by the Final Albeit to speak properly and in the exact terms of the Schools The necessity of the Efficient Cause depends upon the necessity of the End The End makes the Efficient to be necessary The Efficient doth not make the End to be necessarie The immediate proper Effect of the Efficient is not the End or final Cause it self but Medium proximè destinatum ad finem some Mean immediately destinated to the end without which the End or scope at which Nature in her operations aimed cannot be obtained If one should ask why man and other terrestrial creatures have Lungs when as fishes as most men and more probably think have none The reason were good and the answer satisfactory to say That man and other like creatures stand in need of Respiration and so of Lungs to temperor cool their blood with whose excessive heat or distemper life otherwise would quickly be choaked The preservation then of life is the End or Final Cause why man and other like creatures have Lungs But why life should be preserved no Cause can be given in nature This is a Principle presupposed Howbeit of respiration or breathing without which the life of man cannot be preserved or continued the Lungs are the true and proper Efficient Cause This Mutual Inference is good Quicquid pulmones habet respirat Quicquid respirat pulmones habet Whatsoever creature hath lungs hath also the benefit of breath or respiration This is an Argument from the Cause And whatsoever hath the benefit of breathing or respiration hath lungs This is an Argument from the Effect And again Negatively Whatsoever hath no lungs hath no benefit of breath or respiration Whatsoever hath not the benefit of respiration hath no Lungs In St. Pauls Divinity The manifestation of Gods Glory and Goodness in the Redemption of man is the End or Final Cause of all the Articles which we believe concerning Christ as God and man of which even for this reason we are to seek no further Cause or reason But the manifestation of this His Goodness being presupposed as made necessary by His Omnipotent Will The Mutual Inference between the Son of Gods Incarnation or between the several parts of his Sacerdotal or Regal Function and the several parts of our Redemption will be as perspicuous and firm as any Inference included in the former or like Instances First Unless Gods Will and Pleasure had been set to manifest His Goodness in the Redemption of mankind the Son of God had not been Incarnate had not Died had not been Raised from the dead The manifestation of Gods Glory in our Redemption was the true Cause why the Son of God was to be incarnate His Incarnation was not the Cause why Gods Goodness was to be manifested or why His Will and pleasure was set to redeem us For This as we said is the Final Cause and can have no other Cause of its necessitie but rather imposeth a necessitie upon other Causes subordinate as upon Christs Incarnation Passion and Resurrection But however Christs Incarnation was not the Cause why Gods Glory and Goodness was to be manifested in our Redemption yet the actual manifestation of Gods Goodness in our Redemption and our Redemption it self is procured by the Incarnation and Sacerdotal function of Christ as by a true and proper Efficient
consecration to the priesthood after the order of Melchisedec His presentation of himself to his Father as our High-Priest and as the First fruits from the dead was the most acceptable offering or sacrifice that ever was offered unto God a matter of greater joy and triumph to all the inhabitants of Heaven then Isaac's safe return from the intended sacrifice was to Abrahams familie or then Josephs advancement in Egypt was to old Jacob. Now if the First fruits from the dead were thus acceptable unto God we cannot distrust but that the after-crop shall prosper and shall be gathered by the Angels of God when the the time of ripeness shall come into everlasting habitations However in the mean time it be sown it shall be reaped in Glory and possesse its glory in immortalitie This Article then of Christs Resurrection from the dead and of his becoming the First fruits of them that sleep is the ground or root of all our Apostles Inferences from vers 35 to the end of this chapter concerning the Resurrection or the estate of their bodies that shall be raised to life but of these we have spoken at large before The sum of all is intimated by our Saviour himself John 12. 23 24. The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified Verily I say unto you except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone but if it die it bringeth forth muh fruit Thus much likewise was foretold by the Prophet Esay in that Evangelical Prophecie Esay 53. 10. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his Seed he shall prolong his dayes and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand Now this pleasure of the Lord was our full Redemption 10. To conclude this point Albeit our Sins were taken away by Christs death in both the Senses before mentioned and albeit in this life we be Actually Justified that is actually acquitted from the guilt of sins past by Belief in Christs Death and Resurrection and freed likewise from the rage and tyrannie of sin by Participation of his Grace and Inhabitation of his Spirit in us yet shall we not be Absolutely and Finally Justified that is freed from all Reliques of sin inherent until we be made partakers of his Glorie This must be the Accomplishment of our Justification by Faith in this life And it is no Paradox or strange opinion to say that We sinful men shall be finally Justified by utter extirpation of sin out of our nature at our last Resurrection When as Christ himself in whom sin never took any root much less bore any branch into whom no seed of sin did ever fall is said to be Justified by His Resurrection from the Dead that is acquitted from all burthen of our sins But where is Christ said in this sense to be Justified In the 1 Tim. 3. 16 Without controversie Great is the mysterie of godlinesse God was manifested in the flesh and Justified in the Spirit To omit all other interpretation of this phrase St. Paul means the very self same thing by saying Christ is Justified in the Spirit that St. Peter means when he saith He was quickened in the Spirit 1 Pet. 3. 18. Both mean That he was Justified or freed by the Spirit or Power of the Godhead from death or any other further burthen of our sins Christ saith St. Paul Heb. 9. 28. was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him he shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation that is to free us from the power of death and all burthen of sin from which he himself was freed at His Resurrection So then it is in its time and place most true which the Romish Church doth most untruly teach that there is a Justification by inherent righteousnesse But this Justification cannot be had may not be expected in this life it cannot be accomplished in us until that Change be wrought whereof our Apostle speaks verse 51. of this Chapter This Final Justification by this blessed Change is the full Effect or final issue of Christs Resurrection from the dead he that doth not believe this future change or final issue of Christs Resurrection doth bear false Testimonie of God or against him even whilst he saith that he believeth that Christ was raised from the dead For to grant Christs Resurrection from the dead and to deny or doubt of this Final Justification or Absolution of all true believers in his Resurrection from the reliques of sin is to cast an Aspersion upon God himself as if he had wrought this great work of Christs Resurrection frustra that is to no Use or End correspondent to such a mighty Ground-work or Foundation 11. Every man then is bound to believe That all true Beleivers of Christs Resurrection from the dead shall be undoubted partakers of that endlesse and immortal glory unto which Christ hath been raised But no man is bound to beleive his own Resurrection in particular unto such glory any further or upon more certain terms then he can upon just and deliberate Examination find that he himself doth truly and stedfastly believe this Fundamental Article of Christs Resurrection from the dead Now if it were certainly determined and agreed upon by all what it were truly and stedfastly to believe this Article all the controversies concerning the Certaintie of Salvation or Irrevocable Justification in this life by Faith would determine themselves and be at an end But of the Examination of our Faith or of its truth sincerity or strength we shall have fitter occasion and more full time to speak in unfolding of the last part of the Article of Christs coming to Judgment that is the manner of the Process in the Award of final Sentence In the mean time it shall suffice to admonish the Reader That he rate not the truth or measure the strength of his Belief in this main Article of Christs Resurrection only by the strength of his perswasions of its Speculative and General Truth specially in the absence of temptations to the contrarie or whiles it is opposed to the exceptions of Atheists or Insidels which deny or oppugn it How then must the truth or strength of our Belief or Faith in this Article be measured Only by our stedfast and constant practise of the Special Duties whereunto the belief of it doth bind all professors of it Now the Special Duties whereunto the Belief of it doth bind us are succinctly and pithily set down by our Apostle Col. 3. 1 2. If then ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God set your affections on things above not on things on earth c. And verse the 5. Mortifie therefore your members which are upon earth fornication uncleannesse inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which is Idolatry And verse 8. Put off all these anger
he be hungry we should give him meat if thirstie drink as the Apostle commands In sum we must feed Him but seek to starve his Humor by substracting all occasions of exasperating his mind and seeking occasions to do him good so the heat of his malice having nothing to work upon will by little and little die as fire goes out when the fewel fails 16. For a Friends sake that has indeared us to him for many of whom we yet expect more kindnesses we think it good manners to tolerate many things which otherwise we would not And shall not Christian Faith and true Religion teach us much more to remit all for Gods sake of whom we have received our selves our very bodies and souls and all that we have of whom we yet expect much more then we have received even everlasting life and immortal bodies to be crowned with Glory What if our Enemies have sought to take away this miserable and mortal life God freely gave it us who likewise at his pleasure may justly challenge it And if we cannot justly complain if he should take it from us is it an hard Precept that he wills us not to revenge yea not to complain by way of revenge of such as would but could not take it from us The Lord may as justly command us to forbear all desire of revenge all complaint of such as would take away our Life as he himself can take it That they would so have done was their own That they could not do so unto us is the Lords doing to whom we owe all thankfulness for preserving it and this may be the best occasion of shewing our thankfulness if we for his sake forgive such as sought to take away our Lives Nay if we would but examine this Precept by exact Reason passion set aside in as much as God hath freely given us life he might most Justly command us not to murmur against such as should take it from us For who can appoint him his Time or who can refuse any for his Executioner whom the Supream Judge of Heaven and Earth shall permit But in as much as God hath preserved our lives which our Enemies sought he may justly command and we must obey him so commanding to do any good unto them that sought our evil God is a a more Absolute Lord over the lives of Kings and Princes then they are over their Lands or goods he hath a more absolute interest in all mens actions and affections then any man hath in his own goods or fruits of his ground Now what Lord or Master is there that would indure such a servant as would not bestow his goods or benevolence on whomsoever it pleased him to appoint albeit he were his servants enemie If this we refuse and yet acknowledge our selves to be Gods servants may not God justly say unto us Ex tuo ipsius ore judicaberis If any refuse to set his affections on whomsoever God shall appoint him to employ his actions for whose good it pleaseth him albeit he be our open enemie How much more ought we to do it if we consider the Hope of reward in the life to come 17. Thus you see The First ground of this precept drawn from The equalitie of all men by nature improved and fortified by the Doctrine of Faith that is by The acknowledgement of One Father and Creator and yet may it be further confirmed if we consider what Affinitie nay what Consanguinitie we all have in Christ and what he hath done for us We are saith the Apostle if we be Christs flesh of his Flesh and bone of his Bone Our conjunction with him if we be or would be conjoyned with Him although it be spiritual and mystical yet is it a True a real and lively conjunction He is a True and lively Head we are true and lively members of him and one of another And must have as true a fellow feeling one of anothers harms or sorrows as one part of our own body hath of the pain of another No body Politick ever on earth not the most united in place in Lawes customes or any other Bond of Civil Societie whatsoever had or can have the like union or so near conjunction as all that are members of Christs mystical Bodie truly have as all that professe themselves members thereof should in practise testifie that they have otherwise as the Lawyers say Protestatio non valet contra factum It is in vain to professe thou art a Christian in vain to protest thou art a true professor or Protestant if thy deeds and resolution if thy practice do not seal the truth of thy profession or Protestation for not doing this as the Apostle saith thou shalt confesse Christ and Christianitie with thy lips but deny both Him and it in thy deeds and in thy practise and so thou shalt be judged not according to thy sayings but according to thy works and resolution or omissions of working Would you know then what some of the Heathen have thought of the duties of every member in a body Politick Plato in his fifth Book De Republica hath a comparison to this purpose If a man receive a wound in any part as in his foot or hand or have but some pain or grief in his finger we will not say That his hand or foot is wounded or that his finger feels pain But The man himself hath suffered a wound in his hand or foot That he himself hath a great pain c. For albeit the pain or grief spring first from this or that part yet it overflowes and affects the whole bodie The branches of it spread throughout all parts and every part is worse because one part is so ill Yea every part forbears its natural function or recreation in some measure for the ease of this The head wants its sleep other parts their rest by reason of the spirits recourse thither as so many comforters sent from them to visit their sick friend or fellow member In like manner Plato thought it meet that in every City or Common-weal as often as any good or harm did happen to any Citizen or Free denizon thereof it should not be counted that mans good or harm only but the good or harm of the whole City and every member thereof should be alike affected If this the Heathens by meer light of nature could discern to be the dutie of the meer natural man what tongue of man or Angel can expresse in Terms befitting so high A mysterie what Brotherhood what fellowship what Sympathie and what affection should be between the members of Christs Body for no society like this no fellowship like to that in Him This union exceeds all other much more then the union of one part of our heart with another doth the union of the heart with the foot Doubtless our Saviour spake according to the duty if not according to the custome of honest hartie neighbours in the good old world in the Parable