infinite power with the vigorous activity of a glorified Soul II. The Bodies of good Men will be changed from earthly and fleshly into spiritual and heavenly So ver 44. It is sown saith he a natural body it is raised a spiritual body where those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render a natural body may perhaps be better translated an animal Body i. e. a body suted and adapted to this animal life which the beasts that perish enjoy in common with us a body that is sustained by animal operations and recreated with animal pleasures and which by reason of its gross substance doth continually crave to be supplied with suitable nourishment and treated with gross and carnal pleasures which is the very thing that renders it so great a Cumber to the immortal Spirit that animates it But at the Resurrection it will be improved into a spiritual body not that it will be converted into a spiritual substance for the Apostle's own words do assure us that it will still remain a body but the spirituality of it will consist in this that being wrought into a purer and finer substance it will no longer need or crave these animal nourishments and pleasures but be perectly fitted for and contemper'd to the soul and intirely resigned to its use and service for it will then be refined from all those animal appetites of eating drinking and carnality which do now too often not only render it unserviceable to the soul but also hurtful and injurious so that then it will be in intire subjection to the mind and all its members will be devoted Instruments to the service of Righteousness so that now there will be no longer any Law in its members to wage war against the Law in the mind but the mind will govern and the body obey without any contest or reluctancy and as the body will be wholly obedient to the mind so it will be perfectly adapted to its service for whereas now by reason of its gross consistency it is an unwieldy Luggage to the Soul and doth very much clog and incumber her in her operations it will then be wrought into so fine and tenuious a substance as that instead of a clog it will be a wing to the Soul for its consistence will be subtil as the finest Aether and active as the purest flame it will have nothing that is gross or burdensom in it to retard or weary it in its flights to rebate its vigour or slacken its motion but it will be all life and spirit and wing and like a perpetual motion be carried on with unwearied swiftness by its own internal springs and being freed from all that weight which now renders it so slow and heavy it will be able to move like a thought and to keep pace with the most nimble wishes of the Soul so that what Hierocles saith of his spiritual Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that it is such a body as is every way fitted to the intellectual perfections of the Soul will be true of this resurrection body which will be perfectly attempered to a perfect mind and fashioned into a most convenient Organ for it whereby to exert its purest and most spiritual operations III. The Bodies of good Men will be changed from weak and passive into active and powerful Bodies so ver 43. It is sown in weakness it is raised in power that is whereas the body which we sow in the grave is exceeding weak and infirm liable to infinite passions and diseases and can do but little but suffers much it shall be raised with a temperament so pure and just so hail and vigorous that no disease or infirmity shall ever find any place in it or be able to cramp it in its operations For besides that its elementary qualities if any such remain in it shall be turned into such an exquisit temper that they shall never jar or disagree with each other it shall be so spirited and invigorated by the blessed Soul that animates it that nothing shall be able to impair its health or discompose its Harmony So that it shall live for ever without decay move for ever without weariness fast for ever without hunger and wake for ever without either need or desire of refreshment And indeed considering for what purpose our Bodies shall be raised they have need to be very strong and vigorous for they shall be raised on purpose to be the Organs and Instruments of the operations of our glorified Souls which being exceeding active as they are spirits but exceedingly more active as they are glorified spirits will require bodies suitably strong and vigorous such as can support their joys express their activities and keep pace with their raptutous emotions to do which will require a mighty firmness and vigour of temper Since therefore at the Resurrection God will fit and adapt our bodies to the utmost activity of our glorified spirits they must necessarily be supposed to be endued with unspeakable strength and agility upon which account they are called by the ancient Hebrews Eagles wings upon which they suppose our glorified Souls shall be able to fly as fast and as far as they please and this I am apt to think is intimated in that passage of S. Paul 1 Thes. 4.17 And they that are alive and whose bodies are changed in the state of the resurrection shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air the meaning of which is not that they shall be snatched up from the Earth by any external cause of Agent but that their Bodies being changed into pure aetherial flame they shall of their own accords ascend in them as in so many fiery Chariots to the Throne of their Redeemer in the Clouds and from thence when the judgment is concluded shall as nimbly ascend with him through all those spacious Fields of Air and Aether that lie between that and the eternal Paradise of Blessedness For that they shall be caught up by Angels as some imagin I see no reason to think since our Saviour himself assures us that at the Resurrection they shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore shall not need their help in this angelified state either to waft them up into the Air or from thence into the Heaven of Heavens and if by their own activity they shall be able to perform so vast a flight as 't is from the earth into the uppermost Region of the Air and from thence into the supreme Region of everlasting glory we may from thence collect what a vast power they will be endued with at their Resurrection But this is most certain that then they shall be perfectly released from all dolorous passion and continue in perfect strength and health and vigour for ever So that whereas now our Bodies are exceeding weak and passive a kind of walking Hospitals of pains infirmities and diseases the time will come when our soul shall be accommodated with a much more
Essentials of Christian Worship 307 c. Thirdly In all the Essentials of Christian Regiment and Discipline 309. SECT X. Concerning the Ministers of the Kingdom of Christ. Which are of a fourfold Rank and Order First The supreme Minister of it is the Holy Ghost p. 315. Secondly next to him are the whole world of Angels both good and bad and as for the good they are subjected to Christ by the Order and appointment of God the Father ibid. That the good Angels were not subject to him as Mediator till his ascension into Heaven but had their distinct regencies over the several Gentile Nations 316 c. But upon Christs ascension these their distinct regencies were all dissolved and they subjected to Christs Mediatorial Scepter 320 c. And as for the bad Angels they were subjected to him by just and lawful Conquest 322. That this Conquest he obtained while he was upon Earth but especially in his last agony 323 c. Seven particular instances of the Ministry of good Angels under Christ first they declare upon occasion his mind and will to his Church and People 331 c. Secondly they guard and defend his subjects against outward dangers 333 c. Thirdly they support and comfort them upon difficult undertakings and under great and pressing calamities 334 c. Fourthly they protect them against the rage and fury of evil spirits 336 c. Fifthly they further and assist them in their religious Offices 340 c. Sixthly they conduct their separated spirits to the Mansions of Glory 342 c. Seventhly they are hereafter to attend and minister to him at the general Iudgment 345 c. The Ministry of evil Angels to Christ in four particulars First they try and exercise the vertues of his subjects 347 c. Secondly they chasten and correct their faults and miscarriages 351 c. Thirdly they harden and confirm incorrigible sinners 354 c. Fourthly they execute the vengeance of Christ on them in another world 357 c. The third sort of the Ministers of Christs Kingdom are the Kings and Governors of the world 361 c. by their subjection to Christ they are not deprived of any natural Right of their Sovereignty 363 c. But in the first place have the same commanding Power over all indifferent things and that in Ecclesiastical Causes as well as Civil that they had under the Law of Nature 364 c. And secondly are as unaccountable and irresistible as they were before 365 c. What thâ—se Ministries are which Kings are obliged to render our Saviour shewn in general from Isa. 49.23.476 c. Particularly first they are to protect and defend his Church in the profession and exercise of the true Religion 377.378 secondly they are to fence and cultivate its peace and good order 378 c. they are to chasten and correct the irregular 379 c. they are to provide for the decency of its worship and for the convenient maintenance of its Officers and Ministers 381 c. The fourth sort of Ministers of Christs Kingdom are the spiritual or Ecclesiastical Governors 383. That Christ hath erected a spiritual Government in his Church 384 c. That this Government is Episcopal proved from four Arguments first from the institution of our Saviour 388 c. secondly from the practice of the Apostles upon it 393 c. thirdly from the Vniversal Conformity of the Primitive Church to this Apostolick practice 404. fourthly from our Saviours declared allowance and approbation of both 421 c. Of the Ministers of this spiritual Government which are either such as are common to the Bishops together with the inferiour Officers of the Church as first to teach the Gospel 427 c. secondly to administer the Evangelical Sacraments 429 c. thirdly to offer up the publick Prayers and intercessions of Christian Assemblies 431 c. Or such as are peculiar to the Bishops as first to make Laws for the peace and good order of the Church 433. secondly to ordain to Ecclesiastical Offices 436. thirdly to exercise that spiritual jurisdiction which Christ hath established in his Church 439. fourthly to confirm such us have been Baptized and instructed in Christianity 446 c. SECT XI Of Christs Regal Acts in his Kingdom Which are of three sorts First such as he hath performed once for all of which there are four first his giving Laws to his Kingdom 449 c. That what Christ taught as a Prophet had the force of Law ibid. His Law spiritual 450. His Laws reduced under two heads first his Law of perfection 452 c. secondly his Law of sincerity 455 c. The second of those Regal Acts which he hath performed once for all is his mission of the Holy Spirit 457. A third is his erecting an external Polity and Government 458 c. Another sort of Christs Regal acts are such as he hath always performed and doth always continue to perform of which there are four first his pardoning penitent Offenders the nature of which is explained 461 c. the Scripture attributes it both to Christ and God the Father 462. that both of them have an appropriate part in it 463. The part of God the Father is first to make a general Grant of Pardon 464 c. secondly to make it in consideration of Christs death and sacrifice 466 thirdly to limit it to believing and penitent sinners ibid. c. The part which Christ performs in it is to make an actual and particular application of this general Grant of his Father to particular sinners upon their faith and repentance 474 c. The second of these Regal Acts of Christ is his punishing obstinate Offenders 476. A third is his protecting and defending his People and Kingdom in this world 479 c. The fourth is his rewarding his faithful subjects in the life to come 483 c. The third last sort of Christs Regal Acts are those which are yet to be performed by him of which there are three first he is yet farther to extend and enlarge his Kingdom by a more universal conquest of his Enemies 485 c. secondly he is yet to destroy Death the last Enemy by giving a general Resurrection 492 c. this proved from his own Resurrection ibid. The Objections against this argument and the Doctrine of the Resurrection answered 494 c. The manner of the Resurrection described at large from 1 Cor. 15.42.501 First this mortal body is to be the seed or material principle of our resurrection 502. secondly this seed must die and be corrupted before it is to be raised and quickened 503. thirdly this dead seed is to be raised and quickened by the Power of God 505. fourthly it is to be raised and quickned into the proper form and kind of a human body 508. fifthly this human body is to be very much changed and altered 510. the change that will be made in the bodies of good men is
to his Church was nothing but what he himself had first received from the Father so that though it was from the Father that the Son had his authority to send the Holy Ghost yet it was from the Son that the Holy Ghost had his Mission immediately And accordingly you may observe that after Christ's departure from this World the Holy Ghost acted immediately under Christ as the supreme Vicegerent of his Kingdom For next and immediately under Christ he Authorized the Bishops and Governours of the Church and constituted them overseers of the flock of Christ Acts 20.28 it was he that chose their Persons and appointed them their Work Acts 13.2 and gave them their several Orders and Directions Acts 15.28 Acts 16.6 in all which it is evident he acted under Christ and still continues to act as his supreme Substitute and Vicegerent and accordingly he is stiled by Tertullian the Vicarious vertue or power as he was the supreme Vicar and Substitute of Christ in mediating for God with Men so that now the Holy Ghost is subordinated to the Son not only by vertue of his procession from him together with the Father but also by vertue of his being purchased and obtained by him of the Father by his meritorious Death and Intercession I proceed III. To shew what it is that this Holy Spirit hath done and still continues doing in order to the effectuating this his Mediation For there are some things which he hath done and now ceases to do and some things which he hath always done and will still continue doing to the end of the World of both which I shall give some brief account in order to the fuller explication of the Ministry of the Holy Ghost under Jesus the great Mediator First therefore there are some things which he hath done and now ceases to do and of this sort were those extraordinary operations he performed in order to the Planting and Propagating Christ's Gospel in the World upon and after that his Miraculous Descent of which we read in Acts 2. For when Christ was departing from his Disciples into Heaven he ordered them to stay at Ierusalem and not to undertake that mighty work of Planting his Gospel through the World till they were endued with power from on high Luke 24.49 which power from on high was no other than that miraculous assistance which upon his Descent the Holy Ghost did afterwards vouchsafe them upon which Order they return to Ierusalem and there continue till the day of Pentecost fasting and praying together in an Upper Room when all of a sudden the Holy Ghost descended upon them in a visible body of bright shining fire and endowed them with all those Heavenly powers which were requisite to qualifie them for the propagation of Christ's Gospel through the World. For as they were to be the first Planters of the Gospel it was requisite First that they should be able to speak the several Languages of those Nations to whom they were to preach Secondly that they should be fully and clearly instructed in the Doctrines which they were to preach Thirdly that they should be able to give the most convincing evidence of the truth and divinity of their Doctrines Fourthly that they should be conducted by Infallible advice through all the emergent difficulties of their Ministry against all which necessities the Holy Ghost abundantly supplied them For First He inspired them with the gift of Languages without which they must have spent a great part of their lives before they could have been capable of preaching the Gospel to the World in learning the several Languages of the several Nations they were to preach to which must have very much retarded the progress of the Gospel And therefore the Holy Ghost upon this his miraculous Descent did in an instant infuse into them the Habit of speaking several Languages insomuch that all of a sudden and without any Rules of Grammar or previous instructions they were heard to speak to the great astonishment of their Auditors in the fifteen several Tongues of fifteen several Nations Acts 2.4 c. And though they were immediately dispersed abroad in the World and some of them into remote Countries whose names perhaps they had never heard of yet still where-ever they came they were inspired with the Language of the Country which they spake as freely as their own Mother Tongue And this was a vast advantage to them in their Ministry because they were not only enabled by it to preach the Gospel to all Nations but were enabled in such a manner as gave a mighty confirmation to their Doctrine For their very gift of speaking being a miraculous effect of divine power was an undeniable demonstration that what they spake was divine Secondly The Holy Ghost fully and clearly instructed them in the Doctrines which they were to preach and this was no more than what was necessary For what they preached who were the first Planters of the Gospel was to be the standard of truth and falshood to all succeeding Generations and therefore it was highly necessary that they should be fully and clearly instructed in the Doctrine of the Gospel that so their Successors in all Ages might safely relie on their Authority But whilst they were under the Personal Discipline of our Saviour who instructed them by Humane Methods i. e. by proposing his Doctrine to their Ears and through their Mediation to their Vnderstandings it is plain they made but very slow and slender improvements For after all his pains with them they continued very ignorant of some of the most material Articles of Faith and at best they had but gross Apprehensions of the nature of Christ's Kingdom and of the ends and reasons of his Death and were very diffident even of his Resurrection and the reason was that Christ taught them as a man doth a man i. e. by words which are only the audible Images and Representations of things which being liable to misapprehension and oblivion some of them they utterly foâ—got and some of them they grosly misunderstood But when the Spirit came upon them a wondrous Light broke all of a sudden into their Vnderstandings by which they discovered farther into the Gospel Mysteries in an instant than they had done under all our Saviour's teaching For though the Spirit taught them no new Doctrines but did only repeat and explain to them what our Saviour had taught them before for he shall receive of mine saith Christ i. e. of my Doctrine and shall shew or explain it unto you yet it is evident he taught them much more effectually than our Saviour For he spoke not to their Ears but to their Minds and represented things more nakedly and immediately to their understandings he conversed with their spirits even as Spirits do with Spirits without involâ—ing his sense in articulate sounds or material representations but objected it to them in its own naked light and characterized it immediately on their understandings And as he immediately
hence we are said to have boldness to enter into the Holy of Holies that is to draw near by Prayer to God by the Bloud of Iesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh Heb. 10.19 20. And our Saviour himself assures us that whatsoever we shall ask in his name he will do it and again he repeats it If ye shall ask any thing in my name I will do it John 14.13 14. that is he will procure it for us by joyning his Intercessions with our Prayers for so ver 16. he explains himself I will pray the Father II. The other intent and purpose of his making this Address or Intercession for us to the Father is to obtain of him Power and Authority to bestow on us all those graces and favours which in consideration of his Sacrifice God hath promised us It is not to move the Father to bestow on us the blessings of the New Covenant immediately with his own hand that our Saviour intercedes but to impower himself as Mediator between the Father and us to bestow them upon us according to the terms and conditions upon which they are proposed to us For though it is most certainly true that every good and perfect gift comes down from above even from the Father of Lights yet it is as certain that they come not down to us from the Father immediately but are all derived to us through the hands of the Son who by his continual Intercession obtains continual power and authority of the Father to derive and confer on us all those heavenly gifts So that as the High Priest when he had presented the bloud of the Sacrifice in the Holy of Holies was Authorized by God to bless the people vide 1 Chron. 23.13 even so our blessed Saviour by presenting his meritorious Sacrifice in Heaven and in the vertue thereof interceding for us with the Father is continually authorized by him effectually to bless us i. e. to confer on us the blessings of the New Covenant upon the terms and conditions that they are therein proposed For this power he obtains of God by his perpetual Intercession and hence he is said to be able to save all those to the utmost that come unto God by him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. 7.25 where his power or ability to save us to the utmost i. e. to confer on us all the blessings of the New Covenant is expresly attributed to his ever living to make intercession for us which is a plain Argument that the intent of his Intercession is to move God to authorize him to save us seeing that in answer to his Intercession he is continually impowered and authorized thereunto For it is to be considered that this power and authority and the exercise of it appertains to his Kingly Office which he first arrived to and still continues in by vertue of his Intercession and indeed herein consists the Royalty of his Priesthood in that by interceding for us as Priest in the vertue of his Sacrifice and continuing to do so he first obtained and still continues vested with Kingly Power and Authority to bestow on us those heavenly blessings he intercedes for and it is to this purpose that he intercedes not that the Father would bestow them on us immediately but that he would put and continue it in his power to bestow them as Mediator between the Father and us so that he acquired and holds his Royalty by his Priesthood and that Kingly Power by which he gives us the blessings of the New Covenant God gave and continues to him by way of answer and return to his Priestly Intercession And hence he is said upon his offering one sacrifice for sin for ever i. e. upon the perpetual Oblation of his Sacrifice in Heaven to have sate down on the right hand of God i. e. in the Throne of his Kingly Power and Authority Heb. 10.12 and accordingly Eph. 4.8 we are told that upon his ascending up on high i. e. to present his sacrificed body in heaven he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men which necessarily implies that he had received power and authority from his Father to give them and so Psal. 68.18 whence these words are quoted expresses it He received gifts for men i. e. upon the presenting his Sacrifice as Priest he received of the Father those Gifts for men which by his Kingly power he afterwards distributed among them So that what he gives by his Kingly power he receives by his Priestly and both the gifts which he gives and the authority by which he gives them are the fruits and returns of that perpetual Intercession which he makes by his Sacrifice And that by his Intercession our Saviour hath acquired this Royal power of giving us the blessings of the New Covenant he himself doth plainly enough intimate for thus of the Spirit which is one of those great blessings he tells his Disciples It is expedient for you that I go away i. e. to Heaven to intercede for you for if I go not away the Comforter will not come i. e. he will not come but upon my Intercession but if I depart I will send him unto you namely by that Royal Authority which upon my Intercession I shall receive from the Father Ioh. 16.7 And accordingly St. Peter tells the Jews that Christ being exalted by the right hand of God and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost i. e. upon his Intercession in Heaven he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear i. e. the miraculous vertues of the Holy Ghost Acts 2.33 And so for remission of sins he tells us that he hath the Keys of hell and death Rev. 1.18 i. e. power to bind or loose to pardon or condemn and lastly for eternal life he expresly tells the Church of Laodicea To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me on my Throne even as I have overcome and am sate down with my Father on his Rev. 3.21 By all which it is abundantly evident that Christ hath a Royal power delegated to him from the Father upon his intercession to grant and bestow all the blessings of the New Covenant upon those that comply with its terms and conditions For so all the graces and favours of God are in Scripture said to be derived in by or through Jesus Christ for so Eph. 1.3 God the Father is said to bless us with all spiritual blessings in or through Christ and Rom. 6.23 Eternal life is said to be the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord and we are said to be heirs of God or inheritors of his blessings through Christ Gal. 4.7 which plainly implies that though it is from God the Father originally that all our mercies are derived yet it is through God the Son immediately that they are all derived to us and that whatsoever God
essentially due to their Sovereignty and whatsoever the Laws and Customs of Nations had before determined to be their Right but also by acknowledging before Pilate the Right of the Civil Tribunal to call him to account Ioh. 19.1 where he confesses that the Power by which Pilate arraigned him was given him from above and by reprehending S. Peter for endeavouring by force to rescue him out of the hands of the Civil Powers Put up thy Sword saith he into his place for all that take the sword shall perish by the sword Matth. 26.52 in which words it was far from his intention to prohibite the use of the Sword either to Governours who as S. Paul tells us bear not the Sword in vain or to private persons in their own lawful defence for he commands his own Disciples to buy them swords to defend themselves against Robbers and lawless Cut-throats who as Iosephus tells did very much abound in those days Luke 22.36 but all that he intended was to forbid drawing the Sword against lawful Authority in any case whatsoever though it were for the defence and security of his own person for this was S. Peter's case who in the defence of his Saviour resisted the High Priests Officers who came armed with a lawful Authority to seize and apprehend him in which our Saviour plainly owns himself accountable to the Civil Authority of his Country for if he had not been so it could be no fault in S. Peter to endeavour to rescue him from its Ministers and if Christ himself while he was upon Earth were subject to the Civil Authority what an high piece of arrogance is it for those who are at most but his Vicars and Ministers to claim or pretend an exemption And if it were so great a fault in S. Peter to draw his Sword against lawful Authority though it were in the defence of his Saviours Person then doubtless it is no less a fault in his Successors to pretend a Right from S. Peter to draw their Swords against Sovereign Princes though it be in the defence of their Saviours Religion And as our Saviour owned himself subject and accountable to the Civil Tribunal so S. Paul's injunction is universal Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers and surely every Soul must include the whole body of the Clergy as well as of the Laity unless we can produce some clear and express exception to the contrary and as the Command extends universally to all so doth the reason of it also for the Powers that are are ordained of God and if we must be subject to them because they rule by God's Authority then it is certain there are none that are subject to God but are under the force and obligation of this Reason And then he goes on Whosoever resisteth the Power of whatsoever Degree or Order of men he be resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation and if according to the Law of our Saviour it be a damnable sin for any person or persons whatsoever to resist the Civil Authority then it is a plain case that our Saviour hath not at all depressed the Sovereignty of the Secular Powers by subjecting it to any Superiour Tribunal but hath left it as absolute and unaccountable as ever it was before it was subjected to his Empire And thus having proved that Sovereign Princes are not devested of any natural Right of their Sovereignty by their subjection to the Mediatorial Scepter of our Saviour I proceed in the Second place To shew what those Ministries are which they are obliged to render to our Saviour by vertue of this their subjection to him In general it is foretold that upon their Subjection to Christ they should become nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers to his Church Isa. 49.23 that is that they should tenderly cherish protect and defend it and liberally minister to it whatsoever is necessary for its support and preservation and to be sure Christ expects of them that they should accomplish this Prediction by doing all those good Offices to his Church which the relation of a foster Father or Mother imports For when God Predicts any good thing of men it is plain that he would have them be what he foretels they shall be so that in this case the Prophesie carries Precept in it and doth not only signifie what shall be but also what ought to be When therefore God Prophesies of Kings that they shall be nursing Fathers to his Church he doth as well declare what they should be as what they shall be and so he foretels of them and commands them in the same breath If therefore we would know what those Ministries are which Christ now requires Sovereign Powers to render to his Church our best way will be to inquire what those Duties are which are implied in the relation of a foster Father to his foster Child Now the Duties of this Relation may be all of them comprehended under these four particulars First To protect and defend it against harms and injuries Secondly To Cultivate its manners with good Precepts and Counsels Thirdly To correct and chasten its faults and irregularities Fourthly To supply it with decent Raiment and convenient Sustenance answerable to which Sovereign Powers being constituted by our Saviour the foster Fathers of his Church are by vertue of this Relation obliged I. To protect and defend it in the Profession and exercise of the true Religion II. To fence and Cultivate its peace and good Order either by wholesom Laws of their own or by permitting and requiring it to make good Laws for it self and if need be inforcing them with Civil Coercions III. To chasten and correct the irregular and disorderly members of it IV. To make provision for the Decency of its Worship and for the convenient Maintenance of its Officers and Ministers which answers to the decent Raiment and convenient Sustenance with which the Foster-Father is oblig'd to supply his Foster-Child These Particulars I shall but very briefly insist on it being none of my Province to instruct Princes and Governors I. One of those Ministries which Princes by virtue of their Subjection to Christ are obliged to render to his Church is to Protect and Defend her in the Profession and Exercise of the true Religion that is not only to permit her openly to Profess the true Religion and to perform the publick Offices of it without disturbance or interruption but also to fence her with legal securities and guard her with the Temporal Sword against the power and malice of such as would disturb and persecute her and therefore Sovereign Powers are concerned above all things impartially to inquire and studiously to examine what the true Religion is lest being imposed upon by false pretences they misemploy that Power in the Patronage of Error which was given 'em for the Protection of the Truth II. Another of those Ministries which Princes are obliged by virtue of their
his continual intercession in Heaven Royal Authority to dispense that Promise to us doth by vertue of that Authority actually pardon us upon our actual repentance So that as soon as ever we perform the condition of Gods grant of pardon our Saviour who knows the inmost thoughts of our hearts and perfectly discerns our sincerity immediately pronounces our sentence of pardon and by a particular application of that general grant to us absolves us from our obligation to eternal punishment and freely receives us into Grace and Favour For though the completion and publication of our pardon is reserved for the day of judgment when we shall be absolved from all punishment i. e. not only of eternal misery but also of corporal death and temporal sufferings in the publick view and audience of the World yet it is certain that every penitent Believer in Jesus is actually pardoned by him in Heaven as soon as ever he believes and repents that is he is in foro Christi and before the Tribunal of his Royal Judgment Absolved from the obligation to suffer eternal misery which he lay under during his state of impenitence and Christ in his own mind judgment and estimation hath Judicially thus pronounced concerning him By vertue of my Fathers grant to all penitent offenders and of that Royal Authority which he hath committed to me I freely release thee from all that vast debt of everlasting punishment which thou hast too justly incurr'd by sinning against him Thus as the Father forgives us vertually by that publick grant of mercy which for Christs sake he hath made to all penitent offenders so the Son forgives us actually by that Royal Authority which the Father hath given him to make a particular application of that his general grant to us upon our actual repentance and as it is by the Fathers grant that the Son pardons us so it is by the Sons application of it that the Father pardons us and therefore we are said in or by Christ to have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sin Col. 1.14 i. e. to be forgiven for the sake of his blood in consideration whereof God the Father hath given him power to forgive us for so he himself tells us that all power in Heaven and Earth was given him Matth. 28.18 and there is no doubt but in all power the power of forgiving sins was included for so S. Peter tells us that through his Name i. e. by his Authority or judicial sentence Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Acts 10.43 And thus you see what the first Regal act is which our Saviour hath always performed and will always continue to perform viz. forgiving of sins II. Another of his Regal acts of this kind is punishing obstinate offenders For as he mediates for his Father in ruling and governing us he must be the Minister of his Fathers providence and being so whatsoever divine punishments are inflicted upon offenders are to be look'd upon as the stroaks of his hand and the Ministries of his power for he hath the Keys of Death and Hell i. e. the power of punishing both here and hereafter Rev. 1.18 and accordingly he threatens the corrupt Churches of Asia that he would remove their Candlestick and that he would fight against them with the sword of his mouth that he would come upon them as a Thief and that he would spew them out of his mouth Rev. 2.5.3.16 and Chap. 3. Vers. 16. all which is a sufficient proof that the punishment of offenders both here and hereafter is committed to him as a branch of that Royal Authority with which he is invested by the Father in the execution of which Commission he many times Chastens bad men in this life in order to their reformation and amendment for as many as I love saith he i. e. wish well to I rebuke and chasten Heb. 3.19 and many times he persecutes them with exterminating judgments thereby hanging them up in Chains as it were as publick examples of his vengeance to warn and deter the World from treading in their impious footsteps For so he threatens Iezebel and her followers I gave her space to repent of her fornications and she repented not behold I will cast her into a bed i. e. into a Bed-rid and irrevocable condition and them that commit Adultery with her into great tribulation and I will kill her Children with death and all the Church shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and heart and I will give unto every one of you according to your works Rev. 2.21 22 23. And though for wise and gracious ends he oftentimes spares bad men in this life and sometimes shines upon them a continued day of prosperity without any cloud or interruption yet he always overtakes them with the fearful storms of his vengeance in the life to come For no sooner do their souls depart from their bodies but they are immediately consigned by his warrant into the hands of evil Angels those skilful spiteful and powerful executioners of his justice under whose savage Tyranny they indure all the tortures and Agonies that the wrath and power of Devils together with their own awakened consciences and furious and unsatisfied affections are able to inflict Of which see Part 1. Ch. 3. For that the souls of bad men are transmitted into a state of wretchedness and misery immediately upon their separation from their bodies is evident from the Parable of Dives and Lazarus wherein in the first place Dives immediately after his death is said to be in great torment in Hell and this while his body lay buried in the grave Luk 16.22 23. which is a plain argument that in all that interval between death and the resurrection of the body the souls of bad men abide in a state of torment for secondly this torment of Dives's soul in hell was then when his Brethren were living upon earth and under the teaching of Moses and the Prophets ver 27. and 28 29 30 31. which shews that our Saviour supposes it to be at that very time when he delivered this Parable and consequently he supposes all bad men who were then dead and whose condition he represents by that of Dives to be then in Hell and there suffering unspeakable Agonies and Torments and if so then it 's plain that when ever impenitent souls leave their bodies they are carried by Devils into some dismal abode and there kept under a perpetual discipline of torment and in this deplorable state they remain expecting that fearful day of accounts when their condition through their reunion to their bodies and that dread bodily Torment they must then be condemned to will be rendered yet far more intolerable III. Another of those Regal Acts which our Saviour hath always and always will continue to perform is his protecting and defending his Kingdom in this World. For thus he promises his faithful Church of Philadelphia Because thou hast kept the
raise us up by Iesus Christ i. e. by his personal Power and Agency and accordingly Iohn 6. 39 40.44.54 Christ promises us over and over again that he will raise us up at the last day and Iohn 11.25 he thus declares himself to Martha I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and Iohn 5.28 he tells us that the hour is coming in which all that are in the Grave should hear his voice And of the truth of this he hath given a most sure and certain pledge by his own Resurrection which not only demonstrates the possibility of the thing that the dead may rise but also gives ample assurance that they shall For that he hath in him a power to raise the dead is evident by his raising himself and to be sure that Power and Spirit that was in him when he raised himself is able to raise all those in whom it resides Whoever therefore hath the Spirit of Christ that Spirit by which he rose from the dead hath the power of the Resurrection in him which power to be sure will not be always in vain but one time or other will most certainly be reduced into Act For so the Apostle assures us Rom. 8.11 If the Spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in us And indeed considering that Christ in dying and rising from the dead acted as our Head and Representative we may justly conclude that as when he laid down his life he laid it down for ours so when he took it up again he took up ours with it and consequently that he vertually raised us by the same Spirit whereby he actually raised himself because he hath not only Power but also Will as he is our Head and Representative to raise us even as he raised himself So that we are already risen in our causes since our Head and Representative is risen and hath the same power to raise us as he had to raise himself and hence he is called the first-born from the dead and we the Sons of the Resurrection Col. 1.18 because our Resurrection is now in the same causes that is in the same Will and Power as his was before he arose And therefore also he is called the first fruits of them that rise that is the pledge and handsel of the general Resurrection because he is risen with the same Will and Power to raise us that he had when he arose to raise himself and hence we find the Apostle argues from the Resurrection of Christ to the general Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead If we are all agreed that Christ is risen what reason can any man have to doubt of the general Resurrection But if there be no resurrection from the dead then is Christ not risen ver 13. To say that we shall not rise is by consequence to deny the resurrection of Christ because that very same will and power which must have been the cause of Christs resurrection if he be risen must be the cause of ours if ever we rise and therefore if it be insufficient to raise us it could never have been sufficient to raise him and consequently he cannot be risen If it be objected against this reasoning of the Apostle that our resurrection will be far more difficult to accomplish than Christs was because his body was never corrupted nor were the parts of it ever dispersed as ours will be long before the resurrection and therefore that cause which was sufficient to raise Christ may not be sufficient to raise us It may easily be answered that to the infinite power by which Christ was raised all possible things are equally easie and therefore allowing our resurrection to be but possible it must be every whit as easie to that infinite power by which Christ was raised to reduce all our scattered atoms into one mass again and to reorganize them into a humane body and reunite it to its ancient soul as it was to quicken the yet uncorrupted body of our Saviour So that all the question is whether the thing be possible for if it be it will be every whit as easie to the omnipotent cause of our Saviours resurrection to raise our bodies as it was to raise his But I beseech you why should it be thought more impossible for God to raise a dead corrupted body whose parts are all dispersed and scattered throughout the vast wilderness of matter and reunite it to its primitive soul than it was at first to create the matter of it and then form it into a humane body and animate it with a humane soul He who at the first creation could separate the confused mass of matter into so many distinct kinds and species of Beings can doubtless at the general resurrection as easily separate the same matter into its distinct and several individuals For what should hinder him who numbers the stars of the Heavens the sands of the Sea and the hairs of our heads from keeping an exact account of all our scattered particles and from knowing what dust belongs to every body and what body to every soul Or how can it be difficult to him whose power is as immense as his knowledg to recollect all the parts of this curious piece of Clockwork which he both made and took in sunder and to restore every pin into its proper place every spring to its due vigour and activity and every wheel to its primitive figure and motion If it be farther objected that there is an impossibility in the nature of the thing for the same dead body after it is corrupted and its parts all disperst to be reunited and raised to life again I answer that since these dispersed parts of our bodies do not perish but are safely laid up in the Chambers of Nature however they are scattered or wherever lodged they are all within the ken of Gods knowledg and within the reach of his power and so long as they are so why should their separation render it impossible for them to be reunited how and when he pleases If you say that in that perpetual course of transmutation which the matter of humane bodies runs it may happen and sometimes doubtless it doth that the same particles at several times are incorporated into several bodies As for instance when one man eats either the flesh or that which hath the flesh or substance of another in it and digests it into a part of his own body and substance in which case how is it possible at the resurrection that the substance or matter of this part should be reunited to them both To this I answer that considering that scarce the hundredth part of what we eat is digested into
the substance of our bodies and that all the rest we render back again into the common mass of matter by sensible or insensible evacuations though we should suppose one man to have eaten up the whole substance of anothers body yet he retains but one part of an hundred and what should hinder an omnipotent power from raising the body he hath devoured out of the ninety nine parts which he lets go again And then considering that in seven years time the whole substance of our body Changes he must if he live so long evacuate that one part which he retain'd and so the whole will be at last worn off from the matter and substance of his body Nay suppose this Devourer to feed altogether upon mans flesh as some affirm the Canibals do and that in the last seven years before his death he devours one hundred humane bodies weighing two hundred pound a piece according to this computation the utmost he can be supposed to digest of the flesh of these hundred bodies into the substance of his own amounts not to above two pound of each so that of the two hundred weight of bodily substance whereof these devoured bodies did consist there will still remain one hundred ninety eight undigested into the substance of the Devourer which we may easily conceive is sufficient matter out of which to re-produce the same bodies For we many times lose as much of our substance in a sweat and a great deal more in a consumption as these devoured bodies do in their being eaten and digested notwithstanding which our bodies continue numerically the same But as for the bodies of these Man-eaters there is no doubt but they carry with them a great deal of other substance to their graves besides that of mans flesh for the liquor which they drink with it and the bread which they eat with it and the other accidental nourishments which they receive with it goes into the substance of their bodies as well as that and these being at least one half of their nourishment must constitute at least one half of their bodies What then should hinder but that at the resurrection the other half of them which consists of mans flesh may be separated from them and restored to those humane bodies they devoured and if so then each of them shall recover its whole substance again and not want so much as one particle of all that matter whereof they were composed when they were eaten for it is but just that they should be made to refund those unnatural spoils which they barbarously ravished from the bodies of other men But then you will say How shall the body of the Cannibal that eat them be raised when according to this account it be must deprived of one half of the substance it died withal I answer that to this remaining half of his bodily substance there may without any repugnance to its being raised the same body be added out of the common mass of matter as much new bodily substance as is sufficient to redintegrate it in all its parts for the resurrection of the same body doth not necessarily imply that all the same matter shall be raised and no other and no more For if all shall be raised in the most perfect stature and proportion of humane bodies as there is no doubt but they shall then Infants and Dwarfs and such as die of Consumptions must have new matter added to that which they die withal and therefore the resurrection of the same body can imply no more than this that every body shall be raised out of the same matter so far as it will go and therefore if this remaining half of the substance of the Canibals body will not go far enough to redintegrate his whole body at the resurrection there is no doubt but God will add new substance to it which will no more hinder it from being the same numerical Body than the reparation of an house with new stones and Timber hinders it from being the same numerical house For suppose that God by a Miracle should in an instant restore a man to his full Bulk the substance of whose body is half pined away by a lingring Consumption this would not at all hinder but that still it would be the same numerical Body Why then should the Addition of new bodily substance to the remaining half of the matter of the Canibals body at the resurrection hinder it from being raised numerically the same And this I conceive is sufficient to clear the doctrine of the general Resurrection from all pretence of Repugnancy and Contradiction But suppose after all that there should be some rare and singular instances wherein it will be impossible in the nature of the thing for the same numerical Body to be raised again this would no more impeach the truth of a general resurrection of the same bodies than Enoch's and Elias's not dying do the truth of the Maxim of the Author to the Hebrews It is appointed for all men once to die If therefore in any instance it should be impossible in the nature of the thing for God to raise the same body it will be sufficient to serve the purpose of rewards and punishments for God to cloath the same soul in a new body For it is the soul that individuates the man and makes him to be the same person though he hath not the same body We have not the same matter about us when we are ten years old that we were first cloathed with when we were born and as he who shall be rewarded or punished ten years hence for a Vertue or a Crime which he acts now will be rewarded or punished in the same body though not in the same matter so he who shall be rewarded or punished at the resurrection for the good or evil which he doth in this life will be rewarded or punished in the same person though it should not be in the same body But it being more congruous to the accuracy and exactness of the divine justice that it should be in the same body as well as in the same person and it being every whit as easie to an infinite power to restore to our souls the same bodies as to cloath them in new ones for within the compass of posssibilities all things are equally within the reach of Omnipotence mens bodies shall be universally rebuilt at the Resurrection out of those old Ruins and Materials in which they did good or evil in this life and if there should happen some particular instances wherein such a numerical resurrection should be in it self impossible these will be only a few exceptions from that general rule which rather confirm than destroy it For thus from Scripture we are assured that they who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake Dan. 12.2 and that all that are in the grave shall hear Christs voice and come forth John 5.28 29. that the Sea shall give up the dead which are
in it and that death and Hell i. e. the grave shall deliver up the dead which are in them Rev. 20.13 All which expressions according to the literal sense of them from which without necessary reasons we ought not to depart do plainly import a resurrection of the same numerical bodies Our Resurrection therefore being a possible thing is as easie to an omnipotent Power as Christ's was and therefore his resurrection is a most certain pledge of ours since he rose as our common Head and Representative and consequently rose with the very same Will and Power to raise us which he had to raise himself Having thus proved the Truth of the matter of Fact viz. that Christ will raise us at the last day I proceed in the next place to the manner of the Fact how it is that he will raise us In treating of which I shall regulate my self by that account which the Apostle gives of it 1 Cor. 1.5 in which he having proved at large the truth of the Resurrection from ver 12. to the 35th he comes to answer an Objection concerning the manner of it but some man will say how are the dead raised up and with what body do they come In answer to which he gives a large description of it and by the similitude of seed explicates the manner how it shall be performed till he comes to ver 42. where he applies the similitude to the matter in hand so also is the Resurrection of the Dead and then goes on with a farther enlargement on it to the end of the Chapter So that this so also refers both to what went before and to what follows So also i. e. so as I have already in part described and shall farther explain in my ensuing Discourse This so therefore referring to the whole description implies these five particulars of which the whole consists First So is this mortal body to be the seed and material Principle of our Resurrection Secondly So must this Seed die and be corrupted before it be quickned and revived Thirdly So is this dead corrupted body to be raised and quickned by the power of God. Fourthly So is it to be raised by the Divine Power into the proper and natural form of an humane body Fifthly So is this humane body to be changed and altered in its Resurrection I. So is the Resurrection of the dead i. e. so is this mortal body to be the seed and material principle of the Resurrection For this is plainly implied ver 36. Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die Intimating that as the Seed is the material cause of the Ear of Corn which afterwards springs up so are these mortal bodies which we sow in the Earth at least the main materials of those immortal ones into which we shall be quickned at the Resurrection Perhaps as the Seed digests and incorporates into it self the juyces of the Earth and shoots them up together with its own substance into the Stalk and Ear so in some particular instances at least there may be other matter at our Resurrection interwoven with the appropriate substance of our mortal bodies and together with it spring up into immortal ones Yet from the Apostles comparison it is apparent that this very mortal body which we sow in the Grave shall be at least the Seed and Embryo which shall receive our Soul at the Resurrection and by that supposing other matter be added to it assimilate and digest it into its own substance Now though to reproduce the scattered particles of our dissolved flesh and extricate them out of all those other substances whereinto they have been woven and entangled may seem to us at first view an impossible performance yet that it is not so I have already demonstrated and if a parcel of Quicksilver after it hath run a tedious course of alteration shifted it self out of its natural form into that of a vapour out of a vapour into an insipid water out of water into a white or red or yellow powder out of that into a salt and thence into a malleable Metal may by a skilful Artist be reduced out of all these various contextures into its natural form of plain and running Mercury why should we think it either impossible or difficult for a Being of immense knowledge and power to watch the wandering particles of our corrupted bodies through all their successive alterations and to retrieve them out of all those substances into which they shall be finally resolved to take out of one body what belongs to another and restore to each its own and finally to incorporate them all together into their natural forms and figures II. So is the Resurrection of the dead i. e. so is this Seed of our mortal body to die and be corrupted before it shall be raised again That which thou sowest is not quickened unless it die intimating that as the parts of the Seed are separated in the ground and dissolved into a liquid Jelly before it springs up into a Stalk and Ear so this mortal body of ours must be corrupted its parts must be dispersed and dissipated from one another before it quickens and springs up again at the general Resurrection and indeed the body must naturally corrupt when once it is separated from the Soul that enlivens it and that before it is raised and glorified the Soul should remain for some space separated from it seems highly necessary For the nature of Souls is such as requires a gradual and leisurely progression out of one state into another their faculties are such as cannot in a natural way be improved but by degrees or qualified in an instant for two extream conditions without a miracle But as for this mortal State and that of the Resurrection they are two such remote and distant extreams as that our slow paced natures cannot travel from one to the other under a long space of time and for a Soul to pass in one instant out of an Earthly into an Heavenly out of a fleshly into a spiritual out of a mortal into an immortal body seems too great a leap for a Being whose nature confines it to a gradual improvement For how should a Soul which hath been so long immured in mortal flesh so long accustomed to its sensual pleasures so cloged and incumbered with its unwieldly organs so pinioned and hampered by its brutish appetites How I say is it possible in a natural way for such a Soul to be immediately disposed to act and animate an Heavenly Body And therefore it is requisite that for some time at least it should continue in a separate state there to inure it self to a heavenly life and by a continued contemplation and love and imitation of God to ripen gradually into the state of the Resurrection and to contract a perfect aptitude to animate an heavenly body that so its powers being enlarged and improved by exercise it may be able to manage that active
fiery Chariot and be prepared to operate by its nimble and vigorous Organs which till the Soul is rendered more sprightly and active by long and continual exercise will be perhaps two swift for it to keep pace withal It is true the Apostle tells us of some Souls that in an instant shall be fitted for and with these heavenly bodies 1 Cor. 15.51 52. Behold I shew you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment i. e. those good men who are living just before the Resurrection shall suffer no separation of their Souls from their Bodies but the beggarly vestment of their flesh while it is upon them shall in an instant be transformed into a glorious and immortal Robe which to be sure it would not be unless in the same instant also their Souls were made fit to wear it But then it is to be considered that both will be miraculous And for ought I know it will be as great a Miracle immediately to fit an imperfect Soul for a glorified body as immediately to change a gross and corruptible body into a glorious and immortal one And therefore though some Souls shall be immediately qualified to operate by glorified bodies without any intermediate space of separation yet this being extraordinary and miraculous is only an exception from the general rule of Providence which is to leave things to proceed and act according to the regular course of their Natures and if Souls are so left as ordinarily to be sure they are it is highly requisite that they should be allowed some space of separation from their mortal bodies before they are cloathed with their immortal ones and consequently that this mortal body should be corrupted and dissolved before it is quickened and glorified III. So is the Resurrection of the Dead that is so is this dead corrupted body to be raised and quickned by the power of God so Ver. 37 38. That which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be but bare grain perhaps of Wheat or of some other grain but God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him in which he plainly intimates that as a grain of Wheat sown in the ground is only the Seed or material Principle of the Stalk and Ear that spring up from it but God is the principal efficient cause that forms the matter and enlivens it and causes it to spring up and ripen so though these mortal bodies which we sow in the Grave are the Seed and matter out of which our immortal one shall spring yet it is God that must recollect this matter reduce it into a body again and reunite it to its ancient Soul. For this is such a performance as doth require an Almighty Agent it is he alone can trace our scattered Atoms through all those Generations and Corruptions wherein they have wandered and retrieve them out of all those other bodies whereinto they have been finally resolved It is he alone can separate them into the several Masses whereunto they originally appertained and order distinguish and distribute those rude Masses into their various parts and connect and joyn one part to another It is he alone that can reorganize those undistinguished heaps into humane bodies and reunite them to their Primitive Souls And accordingly we find that this great Article of the Resurrection is in Scripture resolved into the power of God for so our Saviour attributes the Sadduces denial of the Resurrection to their not knowing the Scripture and the power of God Mat. 22.29 which plainly implies that the power of God must be the cause of the Resurrection So 2 Cor. 1.9 S. Paul tells us that he was brought into a great extremity that so he might not trust in himself but in God that raiseth up the dead and 1 Tim. 6.13 I charge thee saith he before God that quickeneth all things And indeed to quicken our bodies when they are dead requires the same power as it did at first to create and form them For as at their first Creation they were formed out of the pre-existing matter of the Earth so at the Resurrection they must be reproduced out of the same matter again and as at the Creation all those distinct kinds of Beings we behold lay shuffled together in one common Mass till the fruitful voice of God separated this united Multitude into their distinct Species so at the Resurrection after these mortal bodies are crumbled into dust and that dust is scattered through all that confused Mass again it is God alone whose powerful voice can command them back again in their proper shapes and call them out again by their single individuals so that as our first existence was only a real Eccho to Gods omnipotent Fiat so will our return into existence be to his Almighty Surge The Scripture indeed seems to affirm that the holy Angels will be imployed in this great transaction though what they are to do in it is not expresly related only 1 Thes. 4.16 the Apostle seems to intimate that their Office will be to collect the scattered relicks of our mortality for there he tells us that the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and the Trump of God upon which the dead in Christ shall rise first Which popular description seems to import that as by a loud voice or a Trumpet it was anciently the custom of the Jews and other Nations to summon Assemblies and particularly by a Trumpet to collect and rally their Armies so at the Resurrection our Saviour by the Ministry of his Angels under the conduct of their Archangel will assemble and rally our scattered Atoms and then by his divine power Organize them into humane bodies again and reunite them to their proper Souls For so Mat. 24.31 Christ tells us that his Angels shall with the sound of the Trumpet gather together his Elect from the four Winds Which if you compare with the above-cited Text you will find that this sound of the Trumpet by which the Elect are to be gathered is to precede their Resurrection and consequently that it is not to gather them when they are raised but to gather them to be raised that is to collect their dispersed dust which hath been blown about upon the Wings of the Wind in order to their being redintegrated into humane bodies and reinformed with their Primitive Souls IV. So is the Resurrection of the dead i. e. so are our dead bodies to be raised again into the proper form and kind of humane bodies and this is implied in ver 38. but God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him and unto every Seed his own body i. e. as to the seed of Wheat which dies in the Winter God gives in the Spring the Body or Stalk and Ear of Wheat so to this mortal body which we sow in the Grave God will give at the Resurrection it s own proper and specifick form For the
easie and convenient as well as glorious habitation wherein it shall for ever forget those dismal Cries O my Head my Heart my Bowels and enjoy everlasting rest and freedom Now she is in a travelling condition and the Inn she lodges at is mean and inconvenient her Provision is course her Bed hard and her Rest continually interrupted with noise and tumult but when she is once got home to her own House her house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens she shall there live in perfect ease and pleasure free from all the annoyances of flesh and blood from all the disturbances of pain and sickness and from all the toil and fatigue the noise and hurry of this mortal condition and with splendid State delicious fare soft and quiet repose recompence her self a thousand fold for all her present travel and weariness IV. And lastly The Bodies of good men will be changed from corruptible and mortal into incorruptible and immortal So ver 42.53 it is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption and this corruptible must put on incorruption this mortal must put on immortality i. e. Whereas this body which we lay down hath in the very constitution of it the seeds of mortality and corruption at the Resurrection it shall spring up into an incorruptible and immortal substance perfectly refined from all mortal and corruptible principles for so our Saviour pronounces of those who shall be accounted worthy to attain to this blessed Resurrection that they cannot die any more Luke 20.36 which is a plain argument that our mortal body shall not be merely varnished and gilded over with an external glory and beauty but that all inward principles of corruption shall be utterly purged out of its nature so that it shall not be preserved immortal merely by the force of an external cause but be so far immortal in it self as not to have any tendency to death in its nature and constitution For either it will be so liquid that should its parts be separated by any external violence like the divided Aether they will immediately close again or else so firm and compact that no external violence will be able to divide them and thus having no alloy of corrupt principles in its nature no quarrels or discords between contrary qualities and being perpetually acted by a most happy sprightly and vivacious soul which will every moment diffuse a vast plenty of life and vigour throughout all its parts it will be also secure from all inward tendencies to mortality and being thus fortified both within and without against all attempts towards a dissolution what should hinder it from living for ever and flourishing in immortal youth And thus I have endeavoured to give an account of the happy Changes which good mens Bodies will undergo in the general Resurrection But though they shall all of them be raised with unspeakable advantages and improvements yet it is apparent from this 1 Cor. 15. that they shall vastly differ in the degrees of their glory so ver 41. There is one glory of the Sun and another glory of the Moon and another glory of the stars for one star differeth from another star in glory so also is the resurrection of the dead i. e. As the Sun is more glorious than the Moon the Moon than the stars and one star than another so shall our bodies at the Resurrection be arrayed with different degrees of glory and doubtless these differences of Glory in our raised bodies will arise from those different degrees of perfection to which their respective Souls have arrived for the more perfect those souls are the more improved and accomplished bodies they will require because according as they rise in degrees of perfection their powers will be enlarged and their faculties rendered more active and consequently will require bodies more active and powerful And therefore since at the Resurrection God will accommodate every soul with a body sutable to it in its utmost exaltations and improvements we may reasonably conclude that the several bodies that are raised shall be more or less glorious as the several souls to which they appertain are more or less advanced in degrees of perfection For the fitness and congruity of souls to glorified bodies consists in their moral perfection and if upon an impossible supposition a wicked soul should be mistaken for a pious one and thrust into a glorified body it would not know what to do with or how to behave it self in it but like a Swine in a Palace would soon be weary of its habitation and impatiently long to be restored to its beloved stye and mire For a glorified body is an Instrument proper only for a glorified soul to act and work with It is purposely framed and composed for contemplation and love for joy and praise and Adoration and what should a vicious soul do with such a body to whom those heavenly exercises it was designed for are unnatural 'T is piety and vertue that fits and disposeth a Soul to animate and act in a glorified body and therefore I am apt to think that as the animal disposition of our soul doth now co-operate with the divine Providence in the forming its animal body in the womb so that divine and spiritual disposition which the Soul doth contract before and improve after its separation from the body will co-operate with the Almighty Power of our Saviour in the forming its new body at the Resurrection and that as by the Animal Plastick power of our souls God did first form our Animal bodies so by this spiritual Plastick power of it which is nothing but its moral perfection he will hereafter form our spiritual bodies and if so then the more of that perfection the Soul arrives to at the Resurrection the more it will spiritualize and glorifie its body and so still the more perfect it grows the more it will improve its glorified body in beauty lustre and activity so that as through a transparent Glass we plainly discern the size and colour of the substance contained in it so perhaps through the still encreasing degrees of the bodies glory the degree and size of the Souls perfection will appear But whether this be true or no which I confess is only my conjecture thus much is certain that the bodies of men will be raised with different degrees of glory and therefore since we are assured that the great end of the last judgment will be to distribute to every one according to his Works we have sufficient reason to conclude that the bodies will be glorified more or less in proportion to the perfection of their Souls And thus I have endeavoured to give a brief account of those happy changes which good mens bodies must undergo at the Resurrection I proceed therefore in the next place to shew the woful change that will then also be made in the bodies of wicked men In which I shall be very brief because we have but a very short
and general account of it in Scripture where we are only told that they shall awake to everlasting shame and contempt Dan. 12.2 and that they shall come forth to the Resurrection of Damnation John 5.28 and that upon their Resurrection they shall be judged according to their works and cast into the Lake of fire Rev. 20.13.15 from whence it is apparent that they shall be raised for no other end but to be punished to endure that vengeance which shall then be rendered to them even the vengeance of eternal fire for that will be their doom Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Since therefore their Resurrection will be only in order to their being fetched from Prison to Iudgment and sent from Iudgment to Execution to be sure their bodies will be raised in full capacity to suffer the fearful execution of their doom that is with an exquisite sense to feel and an invincible strength to sustain the torment of eternal fire For since they must suffer for ever they must be raised both passive and immortal with a sense as quick as lightening to perceive their misery and yet as durable as Anvil to undergo the stroaks of it which to all eternity will be repeated upon them without any pause or intermission Thus shall they be raised with a most vivacious and everlasting sense of pain that so they may ever feel the pangs of death without ever dying so St. Cyril Catech. illum 4. p. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. wicked men shall be cloathed with eternal bodies that in them they may suffer the eternal punishment of their sins and so they shall have strength to suffer as long as vengeance hath will to inflict and therefore since it is the will of divine vengeance that they should suffer eternal fire the divine power will furnish them with such bodies as shall be able to endure everlasting scorching in that fire without being ever consumed by it for at their Resurrection their wretched Ghosts shall be fetched out of those invisible Prisons wherein they are now reserved in chains against the Judgment of the great Day to suffer in that body wherein they sinned and that therein they may be capable of lingring out an eternity of torment they shall be reunited to it in such a fatal and indissoluble bond as neither Death nor Hell shall ever be able to unloose And this is all the account we have from Scripture concerning the change that shall be made by the Resurrection in the bodies of wicked men viz. that from weak and corruptible bodies they shall be changed into vigorous and incorruptible ones and be endued with a quick and everlasting sense of all that everlasting punishment which they are raised to endure Thus having given an account at large of this second Regal Act which our blessed Saviour is yet to perform viz. Raising the dead I proceed to the III. And last viz. his judging the World. In treating of which great and fundamental Article of our Faith I shall endeavour First To prove the truth of the thing that our blessed Saviour shall judge the World. Secondly To give an account of the signs and forerunners of his coming to judge it Thirdly To shew the manner of his coming Fourthly To explain the whole process of his judgment I. I shall endeavour to prove the truth of the thing viz. that our Saviour shall judge the World than which there is no one Proposition more frequently and plainly asserted in holy Scripture Thus Acts 17.31 we are told that God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained and that this man is Jesus Christ we are assured Acts 10.42 And he commanded us to preach unto the People and to testifie that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead So also 2 Tim. 4.1 I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom And accordingly we are told that we shall all stand before the Iudgment seat of Christ Rom. 14.10 And all appear before the Iudgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 And to the same purpose our Saviour himself tells us that the Father judgeth no man that is immediately but hath given all judgment to his Son and afterward he gives the reason of it because he is the Son of man Iohn 5.22.27 that is because he dutifully complied with his Fathers Will in chearfully condescending to cloath himself in Humane Nature and therein to offer up himself a willing Victim for the sins of the World for so Rev. 5.9.12 Worthy is he alone to receive the Book of judgment and to open the Seals thereof because he was slain and hath redeemed us to God by his blood worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive the power and honour the glory and blessing appendent to his high Office of judging the World. From all which it abundantly appears that this great action of judging the World is to be performed by Christ. I proceed therefore to the Second general Head I proposed to treat of which was to give an account of the signs and forerunners of his coming to judgment For before he actually appears he will give the secure World a fearful warning of his coming by hanging out to its publick view a great many horrible signs and spectacles for thus the Prophet Ioel Ioel 1.30 31. I will shew wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth blood and fire and pillars of smoke the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord which Prophesie of his is particularly exemplified by our Saviour Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the Sun be darkened and the Moon shall not give her light and the Stars of Heaven shall fall and the Powers of the Heavens shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven Matt. 24 29 30. and more particularly Luke 21.11.25 Great Earthquakes shall be in divers places and Famines and Pestilences and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from Heaven and there shall be signs in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the Earth distress of Nations with great perplexity the Sea and the Waves roaring and then it follows then shall they see the Son of man coming It is true this Prophesie of our Saviour immediately respects the destruction of Ierusalem and was in part accomplished in it several of these very signs being a little before the Calamity of that City actually exhibited to the publick view of the World as both Iosephus and Tacitus assure us and several others of them were exhibited immediately after
judgment seat whence every Eye shall see him shine in his own his Fathers and his Angels glory who in a bright Corona shall sit round about him like so many Stars about a Sun and where as the Prophet Daniel describes him Chap. 7. ver 9 10. he shall exhibit himself to publick view cloathed in garments as white as snow with the hair of his head like the pure wooll sitting on a Throne like the fiery flame and its Wheels as burning fire with a fiery stream issuing out from before him and a thousand thousands ministring unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand standing before him whilst the Iudgment is set and the Books are opened And thus I have given a brief account from Scripture of the manner and circumstances of his coming from whence I proceed to the IV. And last general I proposed to treat of viz. to explain the whole Process of this Iudgment And that we may proceed herein the more distinctly we will consider it with respect to those twofold objects viz. the Righteous and the Wicked about which it is to be exercised for it is plain from Scripture that they are not to be judged promiscuously one among another as they come but the Sheep are to be separated from the Goats the Good from the Bad and to be tried and sentenced apart from one another Mat. 25.32 33. And he i. e. the Son of Man shall separate them from one another as a Shepherd divideth his Sheep from the Goats and he shall set the Sheep on his Right hand and the Goats on the left in which separation the precedency will be given to the Sheep or Righteous who are to be judged first for so the Scripture assures us that the dead in Christ are to rise first and that after they have undergone their Iudgment they are immediately to be wasted up into the Air there to meet the Lord and to sit as Assessors with him in that Judgment which he shall afterwards pass upon the wicked vid. 1 Thes. 4.15 16 17. compared with 1 Cor. 6.2 In explaining therefore the Process of this Iudgment we will treat of it in the same order wherein it will be transacted beginning first with the Iudgment of the Righteous in which according to the Scripture-account of it there are these five things implied 1. Their Citation or Summons 2. Their personal Appearance before the Judgment Seat. 3. Their Trial. 4. Their Sentence 5. Their Assumption into the clouds of heaven I. This Judgment of the Righteous includes their Citation or Summons which as was observed before is to be performed by the Voice or Trump of the Archangel i. e. by an Audible shout or noise made by the Prince of Angels and sounding throughout the Universe like the mighty blast of a Trumpet For as it was anciently the manner of Nations to gather their Assemblies by the sound of a Trumpet so by the same sound the Scripture tells us God will assemble the world of men to judgment and that this shall be a real Audible sound like that of a Trumpet though proceeding from no other instrument than that of the Archangels mouth I see no reason to doubt because with such a noise we read God did descend upon Mount Sinai Exod. 19.16 and why may we not as well understand the one in a literal sense as the other it being no more improper in the nature of the thing for God to proclaim by such a sound his coming to judge the World than it was his coming to give Laws to Israel But then together with this mighty Voice or Trump of the Archangel there shall proceed from Christ a divine power even his holy Spirit by which he raised himself from the dead by whose omnipotent Agency all those holy Reliques of the bodies of his Saints which are now scattered about the world shall be gathered up reunited and reorganized into glorious bodies for so the Apostle attributes the Resurrection of our bodies to the Holy Ghost Rom. 8.11 For if the Spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in us he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in us and the old materials of their bodies being thus reunited and reformed by the powerful energy of the Holy Ghost accompanying the sound of the Archangels Trump those Saintly Spirits which anciently inhabited them and which are now come down from heaven with their Saviour shall every one re-enter its own proper body and animate it with immortal vigour and activity and whilst the dead Saints are thus arising those who shall then be living and have not tasted death shall by the same Almighty Power be changed transformed and glorified in the twinkling of an eye 1 Cor. 15.51 52. which being transacted they shall all be gathered together by the Ministry of the holy Angels from all parts of the Earth before the judgment Seat of Christ Mat. 13.27 For II. This Iudgment of the Righteous doth also include their personal Appearance before the Judgment Seat. What this Iudgment Seat will be hath been briefly hinted before viz. a vast body of luminous aether condensed into the form of a bright and radiant Cloud and placed in the Region of the Air at a convenient distance from the Earth streaming with light from every part and casting forth an unspeakable glory for which cause it is called the Throne of his glory and is described by S Iohn to be a great white or refulgent Throne Rev. 20.11 out of which Lightnings and Thunders are said to proceed Rev. 4.5 which implies that it will be a Cloud it being from Clouds that Thunders and Lightnings do proceed And before this glorious Tribunal or bright Iudgment-Seat shall all the Assembly of the Righteous appear to undergo a merciful Trial and receive a happy Doom Here shall the glorious company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble Army of Martyrs the holy Church throughout all the World both Militant and Triumphant meet and in one entire body present themselves before their blessed Redeemer who looking down from his exalted Throne shall at one view see all the Congregation of his Saints before him and with infinite complacency surveigh the fruit of the travel of his Soul and the mighty purchase of his precious bloud for so the Apostle tells us that we must all stand before his Iudgment Seat. Rom. 14.10 III. This Iudgment of the Righteous doth also include their Trial for so the Apostle assures us We must all appear i. e. we Righteous as well as others before the Iudgment-Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body 2 Cor. 5.10 which plainly implies that even the Righteous shall undergo an impartial trial of their deeds that so they may receive a reward proportionable to them and more expresly Rom. 14.12 he tells us that we must every one of us give an account
into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we shall be ever with the Lord. For to be sure that rapturous love which the sight and sentence of their Saviour hath by this time kindled in their pious breasts will wing their souls with vehement desire to be with him and then being cloath'd with glorified bodies that are as vigorous and active as their Souls as nimble and expedite as their thoughts and wishes it will be in their power soon to accomplish their desire and fly from hence up to the Throne of their Lord. And now this being the first general meeting of the blessed Jesus and his Church the first Interview that ever was between the heavenly Bridegroom and his holy Bride O the dear welcomes the infinite mutual congratulations that will pass between them How will they now melt in love and dissolve in mutual flames now when like long absent Lovers they are safe arrived into each others Arms never never to be parted more And now this joyful meeting being consummated they begin to prepare for a most dreadful solemnity and that is the Iudgment of the Wicked In order to which the Judge will reassume his Throne and place his Saints all round about in shining Circles ten thousand thousand together that so as his Assessors they may bear a part in the ensuing Judgment for this the Apostle asserts as a notorious principle of our Christian faith Know ye not that the Saints shall judge the World 1 Cor. 6.2 that is that they shall not only accuse and condemn the wicked World by the holy example of their lives but also that they shall give their votes and suffrages to that dreadful sentence which Christ shall pass upon them And now the Iudge and his Assessors being set proceed we to the II. Second Judgment which is that of the wicked in which there are also five particulars included First their Citation Secondly their personal Appearance Thirdly their Trial Fourthly their Sentence Fifthly their Execution I. Their Citation For the first Judgment being finished it 's probable a new summons will be given by the Voice or Trump of the Archangel to assemble the wicked World to their Judgment upon hearing of which all those wicked souls that have left their bodies and been hitherto confined in some dark prison of the Creation shall be forced to leave their dismal habitations in which they would a thousand times rather chuse to continue for ever if they might have their own option than to undergo that fearful Iudgment whereunto they are cited but being dragged into the open light again by those Devils who have been hitherto their Jailors they shall every one be forced to put on those old accursed bodies of theirs in which they contracted those crimson guilts which now they must expiate in eternal flames and now the souls of the dead being shut up in their bodies again like prisoners in a sure Hold and there secured by an immortal tie from ever making another escape the bodies of the living shall by a miraculous change be render'd at once so tender and sensible that the least touch of misery shall pain them and yet so strong and durable that the greatest loads of misery shall never be able to sink them and thus being all of them put into an immortal capacity of suffering and thereby prepared to undergo the fearful doom which awaits them they shall from all parts of the World be driven before the Judgment Seat of Christ. For. II. This Iudgment of the wicked implies also their personal Appearance at our Saviours Tribunal for so S. Iohn in his prophetique Vision of the day of Judgment saw the dead both small and great standing before God Rev. 20.12 and in Mat. 25.31 32. we are told that when the Son of man sits down upon the Throne of his Glory all Nations shall be gathered before him that is the impure Goats as well as the innocent Sheep as he afterwards explains himself And now good Lord what a Tragical spectacle will here be An innumerable number of self-condemned wretches assemble together before the Tribunal of an Almighty and implacable Iudge quaking and trembling under the dire expectations of a fearful and irrevocable doom and with weeping eyes pale looks and gastly countenances aboding the miserable fate that attends them For thus it is represented Rev. 1.7 Behold he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him they also which pierced him and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him and well they may considering how they treated him and what little reason they have upon that account to expect any favour at his hands for to be sure the sight of him must give a dreadful Alarm to their consciences and suggest to them the sad remembrance of the innumerable provocations they have given him Look up O ye miserable creatures see yonder is that glorious person whose Authority you have so insolently affronted whose Name you have so impiously blasphemed whose Mercies you have so obstinately rejected behold with what a stern and terrible Majesty he sits upon yonder flaming Throne from whence he is now just ready to exact of ye a dreadful account for all your past rebellions against him but O unhappy and furlorn see how they droop and hang their heads as being both ashamed and afraid to look their terrible Iudge in the face whose incensed eye sparkles upon them with such an insufferable terror and indignation as they are no longer able to endure but are forced in the bitterness anguish and despair that ever humane souls were seized with to cry out to the Rocks and Mountains to fall upon them and to hide them from the face of him that sits upon the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. III. Another particular implied in this judgment of the wicked is their Trial for so 1 Cor. 4.5 we are told that in this fearful day of reckoning God will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the very counsels of the heart and this will be no hard matter to effect considering that he who is to be the Iudge of these guilty Criminals hath been a constant witness to all their actions that his All-seeing Eye hath traced them all along through all their secret mysteries and dark Intrigues of Iniquity and hath kept an exact record of them in the book of his remembrance so that to convict them of their guilts he will need do no more but only produce his own registers and expose what he hath there recorded to the view of the World and there the wretches will see themselves transcribed and all their abominable actions exactly copied from their first Originals there they will find all their secret machinations their dark cheats their leud imaginations and hypocritical intentions recorded in the most legible Characters and perceiving themselves thus shamefully unstript and uncased before the World their very inwards dissected and the
bound and tremble as miserable Captives under our hands Others of them appeal to the Consciences of the Heathens themselves who had been Spectators of their miraculous Victories over these infernal Spirits So Minutius Faelix All these things are very well known to a great many of your selves that your Gods are forced by us to confess themselves Devils when by the torment of our words and by the fire of our Prayers they are chased out of human Bodies even Saturn and Serapis and Jupiter and the greatest of those Gods you worship being overcome with sorrow are forced to acknowledge what they are and tho it be to their shame especially when you are present yet they dare not lye but being adjured by the true and only God they quake and tremble in the bodies they possess and either leap out immediately or vanish by degrees Others of them offer to make the experiment even before the Tribunals of the Heathen and to answer for the success with their own lives So Tertullian in his Apologetick Let any man that is apparently acted by one of your Gods be brought before your own Tribunals and if that supposed God being commanded by any Christian to speak doth not confess himself to be a Devil as not daring to lye to a Christian take that malepert Christian and pour out his blood immediately Yea how often saith he a little after only upon our touch of and breathing upon possessed persons are these Gods you adore forced to depart out of their Bodies with grief and reluctancy you your selves being present and blushing at it And these things as Origen tells us cont Cels. lib. 7. were ordinarily performed even by the meanest Christians which is a plain Argument that it was done merely by the power of Jesus without any Conjuration or Magical Art. And can we imagine that the Devil without any constraint from some superior power would ever have quitted that Tyranny he had so long exercised over the bodies and consciences of men who had thitherto adored and worshiped him or that he would ever have confessed himself to be a Devil to those men who sought the ruin of his Kingdom and made use of his Confessions to that purpose had he not been forced to it by the Authority of the Father of Spirits Is it likely he would have exerted his power to the ruin of his own interest and the amendment of those Souls he had insnared and captivated as he must necessarily have done should he have impowered the Witnesses of our Saviours Resurrection to confirm their Testimony by Miracles And since they all along declared they did them in the name and by the power of Iesus to be sure if it had not been so the God of truth would never have impowered them to impose such a cheat upon the World. These Miracles of theirs therefore were plain signs and tokens of the truth of what they did attest viz. that Jesus was risen from the dead and that not only as they were so many divine seals by which God himself did confirm their Testimony whose goodness and veracity could never have permitted him to set the seal of his miraculous power to a lye But besides this the Apostles Miracles were so many plain demonstrations that Jesus was risen and alive since they did them all in his name and by his power For how is it possible that Jesus could have impowered them to do Miracles had he been still among the dead and in a state of inactivity A dead man can do nothing himself much less can he impower others to do Miracles So that by those miraculous Works which the Apostles did by the power of Christ they did in effect thus bespeak the World Look here O incredulous World if nothing else will persuade you that our Lord is risen and alive behold the vital operations which he exerts in us his Disciples tho of our selves we are as impotent as you yet no sooner do we invoke our great Masters Name and implore his Aid but we are presently enabled to perform mighty things beyond the power of any mortal Agent without any other Charm but his powerful Name we raise the Dead bind the Devils restore the Blind recover the Lame and cure all manner of Diseases and is not this as plain a token of his being alive as if he were now standing before you in our room and doing all these things in his own Person If he were dead still he could not act in us as you see him do and therefore if nothing else will convince ye that he is alive again behold these mighty powers which he exerts in us and be at length persuaded by these sensible tokens of his activity which we produce before your eyes that he is risen from the dead For it is worth observing that this gift of Miracles was never so plentifully communicated to the Apostles as after Christs Ascension into Heaven for before he ascended he commanded them to tarry at Ierusalem till they had received the Gift of the Holy Ghost or which is the same thing the Gift of Miracles Acts 1.4 5. and this gift as he himself tells them vers 8. was to enable them to bear Testimony to him unto all the World for he being now ascended into Heaven they could no longer produce his person to convince unbelievers of the truth of his Resurrection and therefore to supply this defect Christ gave them the gift of Miracles that that might be instead of his bodily presence a plain and sensible token of his being restored to life again And indeed this was as certain a sign of it as if he had continued upon Earth and openly conversed among men in the view of the World for the most crrtain sign of life is action and by what hath been said it is apparent that Christ did not more visibly act in his own Person when he was upon Earth than he did in the persons of his Apostles after he ascended into Heaven These miraculous Operations therefore which they performed by the Power of Jesus were all of them so many plain and sensible Signs and Tokens of the truth of what they did attest viz. that Jesus was risen from the dead So that considering all these circumstances of the Apostles Testimony I dare boldly affirm that from the beginning of the World to this day there never was any matter of Fact more sufficiently and credibly testified than this of the Resurrection of our Saviour and by raising him from the dead God hath bore witness to him before all the World that he really is what he pretended to be the true Messias and only Mediator between himself and us Which brings me to the second Head I proposed to shew what an excellent convincing Argument this is of the truth of our Saviours Doctrine and Mediation and how effectually it justifies his pretence of being the true Messias and only Mediator 'T is true all the Miracles which our Saviour wrought while he
Soul will have the same faculties at the Resurrection that it hath now in this mortal state and the Body is only in order to the Soul its parts and members being all purposely contrived into fit instruments for the Soul to work withal These inward faculties therefore continuing still and for ever the same it is highly requisite that at the Resurrection they should be refitted with the same corporeal instruments of action for the Soul is to the Body what the art is to the thing that is formed by the Art and therefore as the thing formed is not perfect so long as it is any way disproportionable to the Art which formed it so neither can the Body be perfect till in all its parts it is every way apportioned unto the faculties of the Soul and how can the matter of this corrupted body be readapted to the natural faculties of a humane Soul unless it be raised again into an humane body and restored to its Primitive figure and proportion For should it be raised with more or fewer parts than those it now consists of it must either be defective or superfluous in its parts or the Soul must have more or fewer faculties to employ them It is true after the Resurrection the Scripture plainly tells us that our Souls shall no longer exercise those their Animal faculties of nourishing and propagation that the Sons of the Resurrection shall neither marry nor be given in marriage but that they shall be equal to the Angels of God Mat. 22.30 and indeed since every individual man will then be raised into an immortal state there will be no need either that they should be nourished themselves or that they should propagate any more individuals to preserve their kind But it doth not hence follow either that the Soul shall be deprived of those Animal faculties or consequently that the Body shall be raised without the Organs by which those Animal operations are performed for though our Saviours Body after the Resurrection had no need of nourishment yet it is plain it was raised again with its natural instruments of eating and drinking which he once actually used to assure his Disciples of the reality of his Resurrection and though now those parts are useless to him as to that particular animal operation yet there is no doubt but his Soul still uses them for other unknown purposes peculiar to his glorified state or if he do not yet since those parts were necessary to the perfection of a humane body and consequently to the redintegration of his humane nature it was requisite he should be raised with them that so he might have corporeal Organs adapted to his animal faculties which it is plain were not extinguished by his Resurrection and since the Resurrection of our Saviours body is in Scripture represented as the pattern of ours for he shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body Philip. 3. Vers. 21. we may hence warrantably conclude that ours shall be raised as his was compleat in all the parts of an humane Body V. And lastly So is the resurrection of the dead i. e. so are these humane bodies to be changed and altered by the resurrection So ver 37. That which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be but bare grain intimating that as the seed when it is sown is nothing but bare seed though when it is quickened it springs up into a long stalk and ear which many times contains in it an hundred grains even so this mortal Body which is only the naked seed of our Resurrection shall be very much altered from what it is and changed into a more compleat and perfect substance For the more clear and distinct explication of which we will first consider the Change that will then be made in the bodies of good men and secondly the change that will be made in the bodies of the wicked First We will consider the Change that will then be made in the bodies of good men which consists of four particulars First They will be changed from base and humble into glorious Bodies Secondly From earthly and fleshly into spiritual and heavenly Bodies Thirdly From weak and passive into active and powerful Bodies Fourthly From mortal and corruptible into immortal and incorruptible Bodies I. The Bodies of good Men will be changed from base and humble into bright and glorious ones so ver 43. It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory that is when it is sown in the grave it is a base and abject thing not to be indured above ground for its gastly looks and nauseous stink and putrefaction but at its resurrection it shall come forth in a bright and beautiful and venerable form for so our Saviour assures us that after their resurrection the righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father Mat. 13.43 that is the matter of their bodies shall be refined and exalted into a bright and lucid substance which shall glitter like the Sun and cast forth rays of glory round about them and this perhaps is that inheritance of the Saints in light that is embodied in light which the Apostle speaks of Col. 1.12 for when this dull matter comes to be re-animated with a blessed and glorified Soul it will doubtless derive from it a great deal of beauty and lustre For if now our Soul when it is overjoyed can so transfigure our Bodies fill our eyes with such sprightly flames overspread our countenances with such an amiable air and paint our faces with such a serene and florid aspect what a change will it make in our Resurrection-body which being incomparably more fine and subtil than this will be far more pliable to the motions of the Soul When therefore the happy Soul shall re-enter this softned and liquified matter ravished with unspeakable joy and content how will its delightsom emotions change and transfigure it how will its active joys shine through and overspread it with an amiable Glory especially when with this natural energy of its glorified Soul our Saviour himself shall cooperate to change this vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Though now therefore the matter of our bodies is vile and sordid and such as seems altogether incapable of such a glorious change yet according to the best Philosophy there is no specifick difference in matter and if the vilest and most ignoble matter may by mere motion not only be Crystallized but transformed into a flaming brightness as we are sure it may if in lighting of a Candle that is newly blown out by applying another to the ascending smoke this dark and stinking substance may in the twinkling of an eye be changed into a bright and glorious flame into what a refulgent substance may the matter of this mortal body be changed by the concurrence of an