extravagant humour in God to distinguish Men to be saved or damned only for believing or not believing in Christ But may we not think it as extravagant in us to distinguish our selves to have or not have a thousand pounds a Year only for sealing or not sealing a Deed Should we not call our selves Fools for refusing to put forth our hands to a piece of Parchment and take it off again to get an Estate by And yet we think our selves wise in refusing Eternal Life because we may have it upon such easy Terms For tho from the positive words of this Prescription the sealing and executing this Covenant of Eternal Life by Man without more saying or doing gives him as perfect a Title to Eternal Life as the sealing of a Deed among Men can make to the Lands contained in it Yet from the negative words of the Prescription there can be no Title to this Eternal Life without the complyance with this Ceremony For if Man can have any other Title to Eternal Life than according to this Covenant this Covenant don't give him a Title to it No Deed gives Man a Title that leaves any part of the Title at large out of the Deed. If the Grantor reserves any of the Title to himself then the Grantee hath no perfect Title But God hath excepted nothing out of this Covenant but his own Personal Life For when it is said That he hath put all things under him it is manifest that he is excepted who hath put all things under him Wherefore all the other parts of Eternal Life are subject to this way of Life by Jesus Christ And hence all other attempts for Heaven are accounted Sin He that entereth not in by the Door but climbeth up some other way is a Thief and a Robber and comes for to steal And having thus opened this Covenant First I put it upon the Profession of Divinity to deny one word of the Fact as I have repeated it Next I challenge the Science of the Law to shew such another Title as this And then I defy the Logicians to deny my Argument Of which this is the Abstract That the Law delivered to Adam before the Fall is the Original Cause of Death in the World That this Law is taken away by the Death of Christ That therefore the Legal Power of Death is gone And I am so far from thinking this Covenant of Eternal Life to be an Allusion to the forms of Title amongst Men that I rather adore it as the Precedent for them all from which our imperfect Forms are taken Believing with that great Apostle That the things on Earth are but the Patterns of things in the Heavens where the Originals are kept BVT why then doth Death remain in the World Why because Man knows not the way of Life The way of Life they have not known Or as I said at the beginning that Death maintains its dominion over us by our fear of it Having no other right to remain with us but because our Faith is not yet come to us When the Son of Man comes shall he find Faith upon the Earth Man is a Beast of Burden that knows not his own strength in the virtue of the Death and the Power of the Resurrection of Christ Which Ignorance doth not proceed from want of Revelation of the Truth but from our neglect to study and inaptitude to believe it O Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Unbelief don't go by reason or dint of Argument but is a sort of Melancholy-madness by which if we once fancy our selves bound it hath the same effect upon us as if we really were so It is like the noise of War heard in the Camp of the Syrians which made them fly when no one pursued Or like that possession of fear which still kept the besieged within the Garison tho the Enemy had left the Field Death is like Satan who appears to none but them that are afraid of him Resist the Devil and he will fly from you Or like Tyrants and saucy Pedagogues whose former Cruelties render them terrible to those who have been under their lash after they are freed from it Because Death had once dominion over us we think it hath and must have it still And this I find within my self that tho I can't deny one Word I have said in Fact or Argument yet I can't maintain my belief of it without making it more familiar to my understanding by turning it up and down in my thoughts and ruminating upon some proceedings already made upon it in the World Some Specimens whereof I 'll present to the Reader The Motto of the Religion of the World is as I have said Mors janua Vitae Death is the Gate of Life Now I say if we do by this mean the Death of Christ then we are in the right But if by this we mean our own Death then we are in the wrong The Death of Christ was necessary for him and us both because the Covenant of Life would not take effect but by his Death which in the Covenant hath two Capacities 1st As it was the consideration upon which the Covenant was made 2dly As it was the Ceremony by which it was executed But all this being over and done the Death of Man is wholly useless and serves to no intent or purpose in order to Eternal Life nor ever did And could we distinguish between the change of our State and the change of our Persons and Places this Doctrine would be more plain to us By State I always mean Title so that when I say a Man is in the State of Life I mean he is by Law intituled to live and when I say he is in the state of Death I mean he is by Law appointed to die Now a Man may change his State without change of his Person or Place Christ by his Death and Resurrection did pass under an invisible change of his State by being discharged from that Law of Death to which he stood before subjected by his Birth and being translated into that Law of Life which he gained by his Resurrection Which tho it were only a legal or invisible Translation he was thereby as safe from Death as he is now being ascended and sitting at the right Hand of God And yet his Person remained here unchanged Behold my Hands and my Feet that it is I my self These were Marks of Honour that could not be counterfeit And that some did not know him is said to be from their Unbelief or that their Eyes were holden that they should not know him But tho this change of his State in an instant did not work so sudden an alteration in his Person yet it did intitle his Person to a change for the better which Title he had not before his Death Christ was as perfect in his Nature and his Principles before Death as he was afterwards and yet he could not then
make his immediate passage to Heaven by way of translation because he was fallen under that Law which did oblige him to the common Fate of Death But having once suffered this and thereby and by his Resurrection delivered himself from that Law which had obliged him to it He then stood perfectly qualified to make his Exit by way of Translation And therefore having done all he had to do upon Earth he claimed a right of reentrance into his former Glory without dying any more I have finished the Work thou gavest me to do Now glorify me with that Glory which I had with thee before the World began And thereupon God sent him down one of the Chariots of Heaven to convey him thither as he had done before to those two Heroes of old whom I have excepted out of the possession of Death upon this their Faith in him before they saw him Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed Now I say this that as Christ did thus change his State upon Earth without change of his Person or Place so Man may do too with this difference that tho Christ passed this change by his own Death and Resurrection yet we can't do it by our own Death and Resurrection but must do it by passing through the Death and Resurrection of Christ in that legal Form prescribed by the Covenant of Eternal Life because his Death and not ours is made the Seal of that Covenant And this Man may do without any real Death or Resurrection of his own If the Death and Resurrection of Christ be the Passage into Eternal Life then he that is passed this is passed into Eternal Life whether he himself ever died or not And for us to think to imitate Christ in attaining Eternal Life by passing through Death because Christ did so shews us to be as ignorant of the Law of Eternal Life as a Man would seem of our Laws who seeing another intituled to an Estate by sealing of a piece of Wax upon a piece of Parchment should think to get the same himself by doing the same thing upon other pieces of the like of his own putting together For my own part I thank God I have already made this so familiar to my self that could I pass through an actual Death and Resurrection of my own without Pain I would not value the Experiment as any thing towards Salvation further than this that I should thereby know that there is nothing in it And of this I am as well satisfied by the Experiments made upon others as if it were upon my self When Christ had opened the Eyes of the Man born blind the People were ready to interrogate him to death What How Where When did he cure you What did he say to you What did he do to you What did you see first What did you feel first But he knew no more of the matter than they did Only that whereas I was blind now I see So when the People flock'd about Lazarus expecting to hear from him some News of the other World he could give them no other account of it than whereas I am dead now I am alive He was neither richer nor wiser by his Resurrection nor could learn by that how to escape another Death but died again and might have thus died and rose and rose and died a hundred times without any change of his State Wherefore Samuel ask'd Saul Why dost thou disquiet me to bring me up What wouldst thou have with me Is it to see me Why here I am an old Man in a Mantle as thou hast seen me a hundred times Wouldst thou talk with me Why thou knowst what I have told thee over and over the Lord is departed from thee and hath rent the Kingdom out of thy hand and so I tell you now and more I cannot say If Men will not believe Moses and the Prophets while they are living why should we fancy we shall rather believe them when risen from the Dead If they say the same things over again it is Impertinence and should they contradict themselves how could we believe them We have strange Conceptions of Death and Resurrection as long as we are on this side them But when we have once passed through and find our selves much the same as we were before we shall be at as much loss about it as we are now And if the Death of others who have died before us hath put us into such a fear of Death that we shall die too I can't conceive how our own Death should discharge us of that fear after our Resurrection but that it should rather augment it for what we have once felt we are ever after more afraid of feeling again The burnt Child dreads the Fire And yet far be it from me to say that Man may not attain to Eternal Life tho he should die for the Text runs double I am the Resurrection and the Life he that liveth and believeth on me shall never die and tho he were dead he shall live But this I say that by this very Text there is a nearer way of entring into Eternal Life than by the way of Death and Resurrection Whatever Circumstances a Man is under at the time of his Faith God is bound upon his Fidelity to make good this Text to him according to which part of it he builds his Faith upon If he be dead then there 's a necessity for a Resurrection But if he be alive there 's no occasion for Death or Resurrection either Nor doth this Text maintain two Religions but two Articles of Faith in the same Religion But this I do apprehend that the Article of Faith for a present Life without dying is a higher Article of Faith than that which expects Death and Resurrection because I passed through this last Article long before the other which I am now arguing for ever enter'd into my thoughts I once courted Death as Elijah did under the Juniper-Tree in the Wilderness when he requested for himself to die and said Now Lord take away my Life for I am not better than my Fathers Which shews that he was not educated in this Faith of Translation but attained it afterwards by study For no Man can comprehend the heights and depths of the Gospel at his first entrance into it And in point of order the last Enemy to be destroyed is Death The first Essay of Faith is against Hell that tho we should die we might not be damned And the full assurance of this is more than most Men attain to before Death overtakes them which makes Death a Terror to them But they that do attain to this assurance before they go hence can sing a Requiem at their Death Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace for mine Eyes have seen thy Salvation And if God takes them at their words they lie down in the Faith of the Resurrection of the Just But whenever he pleases to continue them after
and the Father Lo I come to do thy Will O God In the Volume of the Book it is written of me I will give thee the Heathen for thy Possession and the utmost parts of the Earth for thine Inheritance The first Text tells us what he came to do and in pursuance of what Agreement The other what he was to have for doing it and who he was to have it from Now God being the undoubted Author of Eternal Life there can be no hazard in this Title for want of a right Person to make the Grant which is more than can be said of any Titles amongst Men. 3. The Contents and Consideration That if he became bound we should be made free He gave his Life a Ransom for many Christ well knew what Man stood bound to under the Law of Death And did as well know that if he himself ever came under that Law he must thereby become bound to the same And that if he should come under the Law before he made an agreement previous to it he should be concluded by the Law to suffer under it upon his account and thereby be incapacitated to capitulate with God about it For the Life of a Man attainted as Christ was the first moment of his Birth is forfeited to the Law and therefore after that he could not have been at liberty to treat with God concerning that Law And thereupon he would not become charged with this Law till he had made this Covenant That we that were before charged with it might thereby be discharged from it By which he was to be neither Surety nor Bail for Man For in both these the Principals still remain liable and the Sureties stand only hazarded with them and have a Remedy over against them Which had been a dishonourable Engagement for the Dignity of so great a Person And therefore he offered himself a Ransom or nothing to be delivered in exchange for the Captives whereby he alone stood bound And as such he was accepted I have trodden the Wine-press alone and none of all the People with me And therefore when he was taken there was not a Man taken with him I am Jesus of Nazareth whom ye seek let these therefore go their way And this was the highest Honour that God could put upon him to accept him a Ransom for the whole World And yet this was not an Honour above his Merit for as in Debts by Civil Contract 't is not the Multitude but the Solvency of the Debtors that makes the Payment so in the Laws of Ransom 't is not the Number but the Dignity of the Persons that is valued in the Exchange And hence this Son of Man being more worth than ten thousands of the people his Death was a greater Honour to the Law than if all the World besides had died under it And could Man from hence understand the force of the Covenant of Eternal Life he might see himself discharged from Death in the very moment the Law fell upon Christ which was the instant of his Birth Because Man was to be ipso facto released upon Christ's becoming bound And after that it was no matter to Man whether Christ had ever given Satisfaction to God or not we might have said to God Look thou to that For God by this Covenant having once accepted Christ for a Ransom Man could never after that have been retaken by any Law of Reprizal altho the Ransom had escaped As soon as the Ram was caught in the Thicket the Sacrifice that before lay bound upon the Altar was let loose Not that the coming of Christ in the Flesh was the Satisfaction but God was thereby sure of his Satisfaction For as certain as Christ by his Birth became a living Child in fact so certain did he that moment become a dead Man in Law But yet all that I have hitherto said doth not amount to instate Man into the same Title of Eternal Life which Christ had after his Resurrection Because a meer Ransom doth in it self amount to no more than to restore us to the same Liberty which we had before we were Captive And then this Ransom by Christ would only have reinstated Man into that Law of Life conditional in which Adam stood before the Fall But God having found out this Salvo for his Honour by that Man Christ Jesus he did at the same time find that this would not only do but over-do all that Man had misdone And that this superabundancy might not run in waste God did declare that for this Man should have eternal Life absolute as Christ himself had it And hence Eternal Life is called the Gift of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ over and above our Redemption So that now by this Covenant of Eternal Life we are not only ransomed from that Law under which we fell in Adam but are delivered over into a State and Title which we never had before the Fall viz. that absolute and indefeasible Estate of Eternal Life in which Christ was installed by his Resurrection from the dead And this Redemption from one Law and Deliverance over into another are both done at the same instant without any Interval of Time passing between them As in Conveyances amongst Men the Title vests and devests from one to another by one and the same Act. And hence this Covenant is not called the Covenant of Redemption but the Covenant of Eternal Life as the most worthy Title And therefore he that takes any thing by this Covenant must take Eternal Life or nothing A Believer is never spoken of with a less addition than Eternal Life He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting Life And thus it is in Conveyances among Men whatever is contain'd in the Deed can't be divided but must pass altogether by the Execution of that Deed which as to this now stands next in order 4. The Sealing and Execution for let the Contents of a Writing be what it will it is neither Deed nor Covenant till it is executed This Covenant of Eternal Life being thus formed in Heaven was afterwards sealed and executed by God himself according to all the Forms and Ceremonies of Titles among Men. For God having establish'd Eternal Life by a Law he hath used all the Ceremonies of Law to make a Title to it Every Law prescribes its own Ceremonies by which it is to be executed The Ceremony as I have said by which the Law of Death is executed upon Man is his Birth The Ceremony by which the Jews received the Law of Moses was Circumcision And the Ceremony by which the Covenant of Eternal Life was executed by God is the Blood of Christ And now I am come to that Point that hath puzled the whole World What! Eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of a Man and be saved That this Covenant should be sealed is agreeable to all other Titles amongst Men. But that it should be sealed with the Blood of
Christ as if he were in Heaven but he don't know it And God will not deliver out Eternal Life to Man faster than he makes him understand it for the knowledg of Eternal Life is the Essence of it This is Eternal Life to know God and Jesus Christ Every Man possesses as much of Eternal Life as he knows and he knows as much as he possesseth and no more And what the residue of Eternal Life is beyond our present knowledg it hath not enter'd into the Heart of Man to conceive For no Man can know till he doth know And hence the different Gifts of Faith by God bestowed upon Man are incommunicable to one another Abraham was singled out by God as the Father of the Faithful and yet he never attained the Faith of Translation which his Progenitor Enoch had done before him Elisha was an Eye-witness of Elijah's Translation and had a double portion of his Spirit given him by which he wrought Miracles on others and yet after all he died the common Death of Man having not attained to the Faith of his Master in that Point And thus the Apostles themselves who raised others from the dead through Faith in Christ did not yet attain this Faith to prevent themselves from Death Whence I say that God in the distribution of Eternal Life doth not give any part of it to Man contrary to his own Opinion and Apprehension of it And this is sutable to the dealings of Men with one another If an illiterate Man be to seal a Deed which he can't read and another takes upon him to read it to him and reads it in other words than what are written the Law will adjudg the Execution of it to be in the sense read and not in the words written because he that sealed it did so understand it So when the common Preachers of the Christian Religion do administer the Blood of Christ to their Communicants in the Sacrament as significant only to save them from Hell after Death but as ineffectual against Death it self How should the People who perhaps think themselves obliged to swear in verba Magistri have any higher Conceptions of it And thus like Priests like People As it is delivered them so they understand it And as they understand it so they receive it And as they receive it so it hath effect upon them According to thy Faith be it unto thee Which Faith I say is Knowledg not by sight but by evidence of things not seen of which we may have stronger Notions than by our Eye-sight The Face of a Man gives us but a superficial knowledg of him but his Works and Writings tell us his Principles and Capacities And thus Man knows God by his Word and his Works Nor doth God offer himself to Man in any way aukward to human understanding The reason why I believe that this Doctrine I am asserting is true is because God hath said it But yet I could not thus assert it by Argument if I did not conceive it with more self-conviction than I have from any Maxims or Positions in human Science Whenever Christ speaks of Life and Resurrection he means his own I am the Resurrection and the Life And if we would thus understand him this Doctrine would be plain to us whether we would or no. But our Heads are so full of our own business that we can't think of any Death or Resurrection but that of our own Persons And thus we are at cross purposes with him as Men are with one another when one talks of Chalk and another of Cheese Christ saith they that attain that Life and the Resurrection from the Dead can die no more being the Children of the Resurrection Now here we fancy presently that when the Persons of Men have been once dead and risen again they can die no more But this is false for Lazarus and the others raised by Miracles did not thereby become the Children of the Resurrection but remain'd still the Children of this World and as such died again But Christ by his Resurrection did thereby become a Child of the Resurrection and did not nor could then after die any more And therefore whoever can attain this Resurrection can die no more neither And this is attainable by knowledg acquired in study like Attainments in other Sciences The perfection of any Science is a Mystery to the first beginners in it and hence 't is in vain to speak Wisdom to any but the perfect Now the Covenant of Eternal Life is a Law of it self and a Science of it self which can never be known by the study of any other Science but it self It is a Science out of Man's way being a pure Invention of God Man knows no more how to save himself than he did to create himself But to raise Man's ambition to learn this God graduats him upon his degrees of Knowledg in it and gives him Badges of Honour as belonging to that Degree as Men do to one another in other Sciences And thus the knowledg of the Virtue of the Death and the Power of the Resurrection of Christ makes a Degree in this Science Upon the attainment whereof a Man gains the Title of a Child of the Resurrection To which Title doth belong this Badg of Honour To die no more but to make our Exit by way of Translation as Christ himself who was the first of this Order did before us And this World being the Academy to educate Man for Heaven none shall ever enter there till they have taken this Degree here But when once they have passed this they can never after be degraded again to be turned down amongst the Dead as the fallen Angels were from Heaven because they hold by the Title of the Captain of their Salvation which is absolute and indefeazible Take one Thought more which seems plainer than all the rest It is said We that are alive at his coming shall be caught up together in the Air with him and we are commanded to be always ready for the second coming of Christ Then if Death be necessary to qualify us for this second coming of Christ the next thing we all have to do is to kill our selves that we may be so far in our way Unless we do expect that he should stay for us when he comes while we die and rise again which he hath declared he will not do For the least stay for the greater This long interval of time between his first and second coming is allowed for the preaching of the Gospel The Gospel must first be preached through the whole World as a Witness to all Nations and then shall the End be But every Man as fast as he hears of it is in the mean time at liberty to imbrace it without staying for them that are to come after him The Law and the Prophets were until John but since the days of John the Baptist the Kingdom of Heaven is preached and every Man presseth into it We are
that he would only forbear one Common Tree for it seems to be no more till it became otherwise by his eating of it Withal telling him that if he did eat of it his Life should go for it Not that God thought his Life satisfaction but it was all the Satisfaction God could have of him it was rather a Resentment of the Affront than any Satisfaction for it By which God shew'd that if Man had had more than his Life to give God would have had it of him And therefore to signify the height of this Resentment God raises Man from the Dead to demand further Satisfaction of him Death is a commitment to the Prison of the Grave till the Judgment of the great Day and then the grand Habeas Corpus will issue to the Earth and to the Sea to give up their Dead to remove the Bodies with the cause of their Commitment And as these Causes shall appear they shall either be released or else sentenced to the common Goal of Hell there to remain until Satisfaction Such was the Resentment of despised Love and yet this was a Resentment without Malice For as God maintained his Resentment under all his Love so he maintained his Love under all his Resentment For his Love being a Love of Kindness flowing from the generosity of his own Nature could not be diminished by any Art of Man And yet his Honour being concerned to maintain the Truth of his Word he could not falsify that to gratify his own Affection And thus he bore the Passion of his own Law till he had found out a Salvo for his Honour by that Son of Man who gave him Satisfaction all at once by the dignity of his Person Personal Satisfactions by the Laws of Honour are esteemed sufficient or not sufficient according to the equality or inequality between the Persons who give and take the Affront Therefore God to vindicate his Honour thus affronted was oblig'd to find out a Person for that purpose equal to himself who was affronted The invention of which is called the manifold Wisdom of God The Invention it self being the highest Expression of the deepest Love And the Execution of this Invention in the Death of Christ being the deepest Resentment of the highest Affront Which Death of Christ did nevertheless surmount all the Demands made upon him For as much as his Person was superiour in dignity to the Human Nature so much the Satisfaction by his Death surmounted the Offence of Man And thus I say this Law being fulfilled and over satisfied by Christ in his Death was and is taken away so that there was no such Law in being against him after his Resurrection He was made under the Law by his Birth but he did not arise under it having taken it away by his Death And having thus taken away the Law by his Death the Life regained by him in his Resurrection was by Conquest He met with no quarter from God nor Man God would not save him from Death tho he ask'd him and therefore he rescued himself from it He pray'd to be preserv'd from Death before it came upon him but he craved no Aid against the Power of it towards his Resurrection Destroy this Body and I will raise it in three days Die he knew he must but rise he knew he could And the reason of his Resurrection was because Death could hold him no longer For it was not possible that he should be held any longer of it And this he did not in contradiction to the Will of God For God having executed the Law upon him by his Death he did not oppose him in his Resurrection And therefore tho he could not come down from the Cross because the Will of God was then against him yet he could arise from the dead because the Will of God did not then oppose him And so God leaving him to himself he conquered Death By which according to all the Laws of Conquest the Law of Death is taken away For by the Laws of Conquest the Laws of the conquered are ipso facto taken away by the very Conquest and all Records and Writings that remain of them are of no more force than waste Paper The Law of Death as I have said remains in words and will remain for ever but it had no more force against Christ after his Resurrection than if it had never been made And from hence the Title of Christ to Eternal Life is become absolute By absolute I mean discharged from all Tenure or Condition and consequently from all Forfeiture And this is the Title of Conquerors who hold of none but themselves because they receive their Right from none but their Arms. And is in opposition to the first Title of Life delivered to Adam which was held by Tenure as being received from God and being so held it became forfeited to him of whom it was held according to the Laws of Tenure But Christ receiving his Life in his Resurrection from none but himself I lay down my Life of my self and I take it up again it is now his own without Tenure and therefore is absolute and cannot be forfeited And as his Title to Life is thus become absolute by Conquest So the duration of it is become Eternal by being annexed to the Person of the Godhead A Man may have an absolute Title and yet that Title may be but for a time Life is called Temporal or Eternal according to the Persons or Things to which it is annexed or united The Life of Vegetables and Animals is called a Temporal Life because it is annexed to things which have a Temporal Duration And thus according to our Laws whatever is annexed to the Person of a Man is adjudged to have continuance during his Life So that if Land be convey'd to a Man indefinitely without naming any time how long he shall hold it he has without more saying an Estate for Life because his Estate is annexed to his Person which is said to have continuance for his Life And hence the Life of Christ regained by the Conquest of his Resurrection being annexed to the Person of his Godhead which is eternal doth thereby become Eternal Life for the Life of God and Eternal Life are synonymous Terms And thus Christ ever since his Resurrection did and doth stand seized of an absolute and indefezible Estate of Eternal Life without any Tenure or Condition or other matter or thing to change or determine it for ever And I had reason thus to assert the Title of Christ at large Because this is the Title by and under which I am going to affirm my Argument and to claim Eternal Life for my self and all the World Had Christ thus become Man and died and rose again all voluntarily to try an Experiment he had only saved his own Life and left all the World to shift for themselves But this would have been Knight-Errantry in tempting God against which he hath sufficiently declared himself And
this attainment much longer above ground that Time seems to them an Interval of perfect leisure as Alexander's did to him after his Conquest till at last espying Death it self they fall upon it as an Enemy that must be conquered one time or other through Faith in Christ And for this cause there seems a respite of time intended to be allotted to Believers after the first Resurrection and before the Dissolution of the World for perfecting that Faith which they began before their Death and which they could not attain to in the first reach of Life For Death being but a discontinuance of Life wherever Men leave off at their Death they must begin at their Resurrection The Believers already dead are not ascended into the Heavens for David is not ascended into the Heavens Nor shall they ascend after their Resurrection till they have attain'd to this Faith of Translation And by that very Faith they shall be then convinced that if they had had that Faith before they need not have died The Story of Lazarus makes this plain His two Sisters said to Christ that if he had been there their Brother had not died And others that stood by said Could not this Man that opened the Eyes of the blind have even caused that this Man should not have died And Martha said further That whatever Christ would yet ask of God God would give it him By which she declared her Faith to be that Christ could raise her Brother presently Now these People had not these Articles of Faith from any Religion then commonly received amongst them But observing the Miracles Christ had done before they could not beat it out of their heads but that he could have prevented the Death of Lazarus and could then raise him presently Both which were right and rational Conclusions and did form a true Religion in them But when Christ closed in with them upon it and offered to make it good by raising the dead Man presently they all fell to recanting their Faith one cry'd He stinketh and the other He hath been dead four days and thereupon desired him to desist And the reason of the Recantation is evident The common Religion then received amongst them concerning the Resurrection was what we still retain That there will be a Resurrection at the last day And this having gain'd an Impression upon them from the force of Education was too strong for that single Impression which fell upon their Minds from their own Observation only And therefore they thought it safer to renounce their own Faith than the Religion delivered them by their Parents But Christ by doing the thing did convince them that their own Faith and Opinion of him was right And yet he did not say that the Religion delivered them by their Parents was wrong For that there will be a Resurrection at the last day in which all they that are not before that time raised shall then arise But what he said by this Text was that this Resurrection at the last day doth not prevent a present Resurrection from Death nor an immediate Translation without Death to them whose Faith is ready to receive it We must all be changed but we need not all die in order to be changed for 't is not Death that works our Change but the Death and Resurrection of Christ which we may pass through without Death Paul was of this Religion that we may be changed without Death We shall not all die but we shall all be chang'd And yet tho he had deliver'd this to be his Faith in general he did not attain to such a particular knowledg of the way and manner of it so as to prevent his own Death And his Confession tells us the reason of his failure That he had not yet attained the Resurrection of the Dead but was pressing after it But tho he was taken away in this pursuit he hath not lost his labour but is got so much nearer to the mark and at his Resurrection will be so far beforehand with them that never studied it He had but a late Conversion and after that was detained in the study of another part of Divinity the confirming the New Testament by the Old and making them answer one another in which he seems to have spent himself and from whence all Students in Divinity after him have stood upon his Shoulders For this is a Point previous to the Faith of Translation and must be learn'd before it in order to it And this his pressing tho he did not attain hath much encouraged me to make this Inquiry being well assured that he would not have thus pursued it had he not apprehended more in it than the vulgar Opinion is about it We don't think our selves fit to deal with one another in Human Affairs till our Age of one and twenty But to deal with our Maker thus offended to counter-plot the Malice of fallen Angels and to rescue our selves from eternal Ruin we are generally as well qualified for before we can speak plain as all our Life-time after Children can say over their Religion at four or five years old and their Parents that taught them can do no more at four or five and fifty For Religion being preach'd to them as a Mystery they are forbid to think of understanding it Graecum est non potest legi The common Creed of the Christian Religion may be learn'd in an hour And one day's Philosophy will teach a Man to die But to know the Virtue of the Death and Power of the Resurrection of Christ is a Science calculated for the study of Men and Angels for ever BUT if Man may be thus chang'd without Death and that it is of no use to him in order to Eternal Life What then is Death Or Whereunto serveth it What is it Why 't is a misfortune fallen upon Man from the beginning and from which he hath not yet dared to attempt his recovery And it serves as a Spectrum to fright us into a little better life than perhaps we should lead without it Tho God hath formed this Covenant of Eternal Life against Death Man still maintains a Covenant with it They have made an Agreement with Death and Hell By way of composition to submit to Death in hopes by that obedience to escape Hell And under this Oath of Allegiance we think our selves bound never to rebel against it The study of Philosophy is to teach Men to die from the Observations of Nature The Profession of Divinity is to inforce this Doctrine from Revelation And the Science of the Law is to settle our civil Affairs pursuant to these Resolutions The old Men are making their last Wills and Testaments And the young are expecting the execution of them by the death of the Testators And thus Mortis ad exemplum totus componitur Orbis Now what one Man dares raise a Faction against the whole World thus constituted under the Political Government of Death Why but if the
Truth of Religion be defined by the number of Professors then the Mahometan is safer than the Christian and the Romish than the Protestant The majority of Votes in Civil Affairs may conclude our right but it don't thereby convince our Judgment Nor are our Rights thereby concluded further than for that Turn only And thus it is in the whole Scheme of Government In the Power Elective The majority of Electors conclude the minority for that Turn only In the Power Legislative The majority of the Legislators make a Law but their Successors are not by this precluded from repealing that Law by another majority In the Power Judicial The opinion of the Majority make a Rule in Law but their Successors may alter those Rules by the like Majority Which hath made much difference between Opinions Antient and Modern And tho these seem and indeed are incertainties in the Law yet the policy of Man can't form a better Because those Laws or Judgments which are good at the time of the making may come to be otherwise by things that may happen in revolution of time And therefore none but God himself who alone foreknows Times and Seasons can establish an Eternal Law When the vastness of Empire in the Persian Monarchy had raised a Pride in their Kings to arrogate to themselves this Power it proved but a Fallacy And thus when Hadassah the Queen had prevailed upon Ahasuerus to reverse his Decree for the Massacre of the Jews the Scribes who were the Lawyers in those days soon found out an Evasion of the Law to sute the change of the King's Mind They let the former Proclamation for the Massacre go as it was And issued out another granting the Jews liberty to stand for their Lives with force of Arms. And thus both these Decrees were executed with the loss of about 75000 Men slain on one side And yet forsooth these two Proclamations so contrary to one another and issued within less than three months one of the other must bear the Sacred Name of Eternal Laws for the Honour of the King that made them This I instance to shew that the Policy of Man can't constitute an Eternal Law And from hence I say I am not so much concerned for the present Opinion of the World against me because being but the Opinion of Men it is subject to a change And I know the time when the whole World were of another Opinion Adam and Eve had no fear of Death till they fell under the Law of Death And could their Posterity who are fallen under this Law with them apprehend their deliverance from it into the Law of Life they would all be converted in a day I was under this Law of Death once and while I lay under it I felt the terror of it till I had delivered my self from it by those thoughts that must convince them that have them And in this thing only I wish for their sakes that all Men were as I am Nor do I yet think my self obliged in this Argument to dispute all the rest of the World by Unites For in Matters of Faith Men aggregate into Churches and Classes where we may argue with a whole Clan of them at once Now for Children and Madmen and all the Nations that know not God nor call upon his Name I am no more capable of discussing this Point with them than with Creatures wholly deprived of Speech But for the whole Christian World professing their Religion from Revelation I 'll venture to encounter them all at once and that in their own Creed which I know they can run over as fast as a Mariner doth the Points of the Compass But if after that we would but catechise our selves a little in it we shall find that when we come to the main Point our Faith will be like the Athenians Worship We believe we know not what You believe in God and in Jesus Christ his Son our Lord born of the Virgin suffered under Pontius Pilate crucified dead buried rose again the third day ascended into Heaven sitting at the right Hand of God and from thence he shall come to judg the living and the dead Very well this is a full description of the Person in whom you place your Faith But what is it that you do or would believe of him or in him Why we believe him for our Saviour Save you from what Why from our Sins Why what hurt will Sin do you Why it will kill us How do you know Why the Law of God saith so In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die Why but then will not this Saviour save you from this Law and from this Death No no he 'l save us from Sin Why then it seems you have got a Pardon for Horse-stealing with a non obstante to be hang'd Do but see now what a Jest you have made of your Faith And yet I defy the Order of Priesthood to form a better Creed than this without admitting the Truth of my Argument Or to make sense of their own Faith without adding mine to it It is much easier to make a Creed than to believe it after it is made Nor can any Man really believe any part of the Gospel that doth not believe it all For it is a Doctrine so dependant upon it self that unless we know the whole of it from the beginning to the end we can't know the use or reason of any part of it Wherefore notwithstanding this Inundation of Death in the World and the infection of fear contracted upon Man from hence I am not afrighted from reassuming my Assertions at the Beginning That this long possession of Death over Man is a possession against Right That the length of this Possession is no foreclosure of the Right of Man to Life And that he that dares prosecute his Claim with effect may recover this Right and avoid that possession And that he that is got through the Death and Resurrection of Christ hath had Judgment against Death and execution of Eternal Life Christ by the instant of his Resurrection stood dissolved from all his former Relations to the World neither could he die any more being become a Child of the Resurrection For tho he did arise with the same Body with which he died yet that risen Body was not the Son of the Virgin Mary because he had assumed it by a new Power and in another manner than that by which he was first born The Body with which he lay down in the Grave was of no more use to him in his Resurrection than so much other common Matter for he was put to add Life to it by his own Power which he could have done to any other matter as well as that The present Bodies of Men laid down in the Grave are of no use to God in the Resurrection Therefore he permits them to be dissolved into any other Forms knowing that he can give the old Forms again to any other Matter by those
Characters of them which remain with him God is able out of these Stones to raise up Children unto Abraham And in this he resembles himself to a Potter who takes no care to preserve his broken Pots for any other use of them because having the Moulds by him he can make several Vessels of the same Figure out of one Earth as well as another And tho all the Vessels of the same Mould are not the same in identity of Matter yet being the same in Form they are the same to all uses intents and purposes And hence tho the Dead shall not arise with the same identity of Matter with which they died yet being in the same Form they will not know themselves from themselves being the same to all uses intents and purposes But in this God is so curious an Artist that he keeps a several Character in Heaven for every Figure of Man on Earth by which as the Apostle saith every Seed shall receive its own Body Whereas we like Fac-simile Mechanicks make one Mould serve for a thousand Figures But then as God in the Resurrection is not bound up to use the same Matter neither is he obliged to use a different Matter Whenever the Body to be raised doth remain so intire from Corruption that the form of it is not spoiled God uses that form again as it is without composing any other Matter Thus he did with the Body of Christ according to that Promise Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Grave nor suffer thy holy One to see Corruption And thus Christ did with the Bodies he raised in the days of his Flesh All which I instance still to shew the Insignificancy of Death one way or other in order to Eternal Life and that the Death of Man works no change in him To make this still more plain consider when and where the Predestination of God is executed upon Man Christ said Rejoice in this that your Names are written in the Book of Life Which he would not have commanded Man upon Earth if the knowledg of it which seems to be the top of Man's Ambition were not attainable here Now this being part of the secret Will of God as his own Memorandums of what he intends to do it can't be shewn to Man by Inspection But when God comes to execute this secret Will then it becomes part of his revealed Will which belongs to Man Secret things belong to God but things revealed to us and to our Children And the time of the Execution of this Decree being the instance of our Faith in Christ As many as were ordained to Eternal Life believed We may by this be as sure that our Names are written in the Book of Life as if we had wrote it with our own hands And that this instant of Faith is the time of the execution of this Decree appears by what Christ said to the Thief on the Cross This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise From whence some think themselves obliged to believe a separate Existence of the Soul from the Body by Death For say they something of this Man did immediately go into Paradise and we see his Body remains here Ergo his Soul went Whereas Christ did not speak this of the Person but the State of the Man Christ and he were both under the same State before they were executed which was the Law of Death And that very day they both exchanged this State into the State of Life Christ by his own Death and the Man by Faith in him tho the Person of Christ went one way and his another So from the words of David Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Grave there was a Conception raised of the separate Existence of the Soul For think we the Body of David is in the Grave Ergo his Soul is gone to Heaven by it self But Peter evinced this Doctrine as erroneous by shewing that David spoke prophetically of the Resurrection of Christ in which the word Soul comprehends his whole human Life which did die and rise together And that it is translated Soul is an Anglicism not understood in other Languages which have no other word for Soul but the same which is for Life As 't is usual for some peculiar Countries to have an odd Name for a common thing which is not vulgarly known in any other parts of the same Kingdom See how Man's Life came to him at first God first formed the Figure of Man's Body in common Earth from whence Men also form Figures of one another Then to this Figure God added Life by breathing it into him from himself whereby this inanimate Body became a living one But in this Composition the Spirit is so perfectly mixed with and diffused through the whole Body that we can't now say which is Spirit nor which is Earth but the whole is one intire living Creature As in levened Dough we can't say which is the Leven nor which is the Dough. But God who first infused this Life can extract it out again and leave the Body as it was before this Life was thus put into it And this form of Death God chose for Man Dust thou art and unto Dust shalt thou return God unmakes Man just as he made him He takes him to pieces like a jointed Tool he draws in his Breath to himself and leaves the Lump to the Elements of which it was at first composed which by degrees loses its very Form and takes its place again in common with other Matter And thus the Spirit returns to God that gave it for the remainder of the Spirit is with him But in this return the Spirit of Man maintains no self-existence having surrender'd it self into the Ocean of Life from whence it first flowed When Rivers return into the Sea they are no more Rivers but lose their Name and Property being merged in the Ocean of their original Fountain And yet God doth retain in his Memory the particular Characters or Ideas of every instance of Life which he doth so extract from whence in the day of the restitution of all things every Body shall have its own Spirit and every Spirit it s own Body But to return to my Argument whence I have a little digressed to descant upon this Opinion of the self-existence of the Soul If this Man that was crucified with Christ did immediately become in the same state with him how comes it that he lies still in the Grave while Christ is ascended into the Heavens To this I say that tho this Man's first Faith did thus qualify him for a change of State yet he had not proceeded far enough in this Faith to qualify himself for an immediate Tanslation of his Person but this he must expect with the rest of them who have died in the same Faith with him and who will not now attain that Perfection till after the Resurrection for there 's no Work in the Grave Man is as safe upon his first Faith in
not confined to the Religion of the old World nor to expect the success of the latter days by the second coming of Christ but are at liberty every moment to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as fast as we can bring our Faith up to it That he delays his second coming is not that he hath any more to do in order to Man's Salvation For as to that he declared it finished before ever he yielded to Death But the World is not ready to receive him and till then the Heavens must contain him Whence this is called the Day of his Patience But this doth not prohibit them that are ready to come to him where he is Come for all things are now ready He then was and still is ready for the Resurrection of the Dead The hour is coming and now is when the Dead shall hear the Voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live Where we see the Emphasis of the Resurrection is not placed in any point of Time but in the hearing of that Voice be it when it will And 't is observable that in all the Miracles wrought by him upon the Bodies of the Dead he used different words of command according to the different Circumstances which the Persons to be raised were then under The Son of the Widow of Nain and the Daughter of Jairus being both dead and neither buried when he first came to them he only said to them Arise But Lazarus being in the Grave he said to him Come forth And he did not only give different words of Command but prefixed to each Command a particular description of the very Person he call'd for He touched the Bier of the Widow's Son and said Young Man arise And took the Ruler's Daughter by the hand and said Maid arise And Lazarus he called by his Name Which were Injunctions to the rest of the Dead to lie still till he call'd ' em For as he himself observed in two other Instances That there were many Widows in the days of the Famine but unto none of them was the Prophet sent save unto the Woman of Sarepta And many Lepers in the days of Elisha the Prophet but none of them were cleansed save Naaman the Syrian So many young Men and Maids were dead and buried in those days of the Son of Man but none of them were raised save those he call'd for Nor did these arise together nor any one of them by virtue of the Word of Command given to the other of them but every one in his own order as they were named and called Nor shall there a Man or Woman arise from the Dead for ever till the Son of God calls them by their Name And whoever after that dares stay for his Fellows shall never be call'd again They that were first bidden to the Feast and refused to come were not again admitted with them that accepted the Invitation but stand barr'd for ever by that dreadful Sentence They shall never taste of my Supper And yet they did not refuse it by a flat denial but with the usual Complement That they were otherways ingaged But if he would not admit the Son of a dead Man to go back and bury his Father Dare we ask him leave after he hath call'd us to Eternal Life to go and lie with our dead Fathers and our dead Mothers till the Resurrection at the last Day Let the Dead bury the Dead And the Dead lie with the Dead And the rest of the Living go and lie with them I 'll follow him that was dead and is alive and lives for ever Nor can I think who I should stay for Will any one pursuing after Wealth wait for a Beggar Or he that 's flying for his Life keep pace with a Cripple Why then should a Man aspiring after Heaven stay for Petty-Canons and Vestry-men I remember the best bred Man that ever was in the World commended Publicans and Harlots for entring into the Kingdom of God before them that thought themselves their betters And therefore he that stands complementing with the Door of Eternal Life in his hand offering the Ceremony to others to go before him shews himself no Courtier of Heaven And tho now I am single yet I believe that this Translation of Faith without Death will be general before the general Change Paul speaks of shall come And that then and not before shall be the Resurrection of the Just which is called the first Resurrection And after that the Dead so arisen with the Living then alive shall have learnt this Faith which shall qualify them to be caught up together in the Air then shall the general Resurrection of the Dead be After which Time shall be no more But I expect that the beginning of this Faith like all other Parts of the Kingdom of Heaven will be like a grain of Mustard-seed spreading it self by degrees till it overshadow the whole Earth And since the things concerning him must have an end in order to that they must have a beginning But whoever leads the Van will make the World start And must expect for himself to walk up and down like Cain with a Mark in his Forehead and run the Gauntlet for an Ishmaelite having every Man's Hand against him because his Hand is against every Man Than which nothing is more averse to my Temper And this makes me think of publishing with as much regret as he that ran away from his Errand when sent to Niniveh But being just going to cross the Water I dare not leave this behind me undone lest a Tempest send me back again to do it And to shelter my self a little tho I know my Speech would betray me I left the Title Page Anonymous Nor do I think that any thing would now extort my Name from me but the dread of the Sentence He that is ashamed of me and of my words before men of him will I be ashamed before my Father and his Angels For fear of which I dare not but subscribe my Argument tho with a trembling hand Having felt two Powers within me all the while I have been about it one bids me write and the other bobs my Elbow But since I have wrote this as Pilate did his Inscription without consulting any one thing else about it I 'll be as absolute in mine as he was in his What I have written I have written And after this I 'll never write again but spend the residue of my days in Action contrary to the regular profession of Religion And having pursued that Command seek first the Kingdom of God I yet expect the performance of that promise To receive in this Life an hundred fold and in the World to come Life Everlasting I have a great deal of Business yet in this World without doing of which Heaven it self would be uneasy to me And therefore do depend that I shall not be taken hence in the midst of my days before I have done all