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
ingenuous tender or apprehensive in Humane Nature it will be impossible for us to resist these endearing instances of the love of God and our Saviour which carry warmth and fervour enough with them to melt the most obdudurate natures Fourthly Christ's Death and Sacrifice is also to be considered as a sure and certain ground of our hope of pardon if we repent and amend For it was upon the vertue of Expiatory Sacrifices that all Mankind depended for their reconciliation with God and therefore these Sacrifices were a principal part not only of the Religion of the Iews but of the Gentiles too who besides their Eucharistical had their constant Expiatory Oblations to atone and pacifie their Gods. And this more especially in times of publick Danger and Calamity when they conceived their Gods to be most offended with them at which Seasons they were wont to offer up their most costly Sacrifices and devote not only Hecatombs of Beasts to their Altars but many times the more precious lives of Men Women and Children imagining that the more valuable the life was the greater vertue there was in it to appease the angry Deity And upon this sacred Rite did all the World build their hope of reconciliation with God as being conscious that by their sin they had forfeited their own lives to him and that there was no other way to redeem them but by making a commutation with him and offering him another life for their own which was therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a life for their life and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the price of their Redemption But alas so miserably defective were the very best of their Sacrifices that they could not rationally depend on them with any confidence or assurance For as for the Heathen Sacrifices God had never promised to accept them and it being an act of pure grace and favour in him to admit of such a commutation it wholly depended on his own good-will whether he would admit it or no and without some express revelation it was impossible for them to know which way his Will was determined in the case And then even their most precious Sacrifices which were the lives of Men were infinitely short in value to redeem the Lives and Souls of those that offered them those sacrificed men being sinners themselves and they but a few sinners for many And as for the Iewish Sacrifices though God in many cases had promised to accept them in commutation for the lives of their Bodies yet those being only the lives of Brutes which were but negatively innocent as being incapable of Sin or Vertue could merit nothing of God and consequently were infinitely short of a valuable commutation for the forfeited lives of their Souls All which considered there was no relying on them for Redemption from the Obligation they lay under to eternal punishment But now all these defects are abundantly supplied in the Sacrifie of our blessed Saviour For his life was not only infinitely valuable by reason of his personal Union to the Godhead and so in it self an equivalent Ransom he was not only no Sinner which the best of the Heathen Sacrifices were he was not only Negatively innocent which was all that the Iewish Sacrifices were but he was also perfectly righteous and by vertue thereof infinitely dear and acceptable to God and to crown all God himself both by express Revelation and by raising him from the dead hath openly declared his acceptance of his precious bloud as a Ransom for the sins of the World. And upon this most sure and certain ground stands our hope of pardon and reconciliation with God. So that in the precious bloud of this our meritorious and accepted Sacrifice we openly behold the mercy of God inviting us into grace and favour and with out-stretched arms ready to receive and embrace us which gives us the most effectual encouragement in the World to return to our duty I confess if we had no such Sacrifice to depend on the sence of our past guilts might justly discourage us from all thoughts of future repentance for though the natural goodness and benignity of God might happily give us some small hope yet on the other hand the consideration of his natural abhorrence of sin and the mighty Obligations he lies under to punish it as he is a wise and righteous Governour would very much dash our hope out of countenance So that the utmost encouragement we could have had would be that which the King of Nineveh gave his People Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not Jonah 3.9 But now we can certainly tell that if we will turn from our sins he will turn from his anger for our hope depends not on a doubtful peradventure but upon a full perfect and sufficient Sacrifice paid down to and accepted of God. What then should hinder us from returning to him who are thus firmly assured of his gracious reception and do certainly know before-hand that all our past provocations shall be blotted out and our penitent Souls embraced with the same grace and favour as if we had never offended Fifthly and lastly This Sacrifice of Christ is also to be considered as the Seal and Confirmation of the New Covenant For thus of old Covenants between God and Men were wont to be sealed and transacted by Sacrifice So Gen. 15. Abraham by God's Command being to strike Covenant with him offered a Sacrifice which he divided in the middle laying each Moyety one against the other between which God passed in the likeness of a burning Lamp and so made a Covenant with him saying Vnto thy Seed will I give this Land in which Rite of passing between the parts God condescended to the manner of Men for so the Iews when they struck Covenant with God were wont to cut the Sacrifice in sunder and pass between the parts thereof Ier. 34.18 19. by which action they made this imprecation on themselves Thus let me be divided and cut in pieces if I violate the Oath I have now made And accordingly the bloud of the Sacrifice is called by Moses The bloud of the Covenant Exod. 24.8 and the Iews are said to make a Covenant with God by Sacrifice Psal. 50.5 For all Expiatory Sacrifices were regularly attended with Peace-offerings in both which the Priest or the People were God's Guests and in token of reconciliation did eat and drink with him of the provisions of his Altar or Table For in the burnt-offerings the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings the Priests only as the Proxies and Representatives of the People were admitted to be God's Guests but then in the Peace-offerings which followed them the People themselves were admitted to his Table to partake with him of those sacred Viands So that in the first the Priests as the Peoples Representatives struck Covenant with God for them in the second they struck Covenant with God for
first Commencement of this Covenant Christ was Mediator of it and so hath continued all along under that particular Renewal of it which God made to the People of Israel For the Scripture expresly affirms that he is the Mediator and Surety of this New and better Covenant that is that it is he who as our Advocate with God obtains for us the Blessings of this Covenant and who as our King under God dispenses thâ—m to us and if he be thus the Mediator of this Covenant now he must have always been so even from the Fall upon which it commenced to his Ascension into Heaven otherwise the New Covenant upon which he now Mediates must have been four thousand years without a Mediator which considering the whole state and condition of it can by no means be allowed For besides that the Fall of man was the reason why God withdrew himself from all immediate converse with him and that therefore it is reasonably to be presumed that whatsoever converse he had with him afterwards it was through a Mediator there is nothing more evident from Scripture than that this very Covenant which is the standing Medium of God's converse and intercourse with men was granted to us by God in consideration of Christ's Death and Sacrifice Since therefore it was granted long before Christ died even from the Fall of Adam it must be granted upon Christ's obliging and engaging himself to the Father to die for us in the fulness of time which engagement of his was virtually and in effect an offering up himself a Sacrifice for us God being as much secured of it upon his engagement as if he had actually performed it Upon which account he is called the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world Rev. 13.8 because upon his obliging himself to die for us which was immediately after the Fall the Event became as certain and infallible as if in that very moment he had breathed out his Soul upon the Cross. And accordingly God proceeded on it as on a sure and certain Fund and in consideration of it granted the new Covenant to the World. Hence the Apostle tells us that it was by means of his death that there was redemption for the transgressions that were under the first Covenant Heb. 9.15 Since therefore it was in consideration of Christ's future Sacrifice that God first granted this Covenant to men it necessarily follows that upon the same consideration he at the same time appointed Christ to be the Mediator of it because as I shewed before he is Mediator in the right and vertue of his Sacrifice by which he obtained it and therefore since his Sacrifice had the same vertue in it when it was future as it hath now when it is past he had the same right to be Mediator of it then as he hath now In short Christ's Sacrifice was as certain in God's account and therefore as prevalent with him before as after it was offered and therefore since his Mediatorship of the New Covenant is wholly owing to the prevalence of his Sacrifice there was the same reason why God should admit him to be Mediator of it before it was offered as after and accordingly long before he offered up his Sacrifice he is called the Angel or Minister of the Covenant Mal. 3.1 And St. Paul expresly tells us that four hundred and thirty years before the Law of Moses this Covenant was confirmed of God to Abraham in Christ Gal. 3.17 and if it was then confirmed in Christ it is certain that then Christ was the Mediator of it Fourthly Christ's being always Mediator of this Covenant necessarily implies his having been always King under God of all that ever were admitted into it and particularly of the People of Israel because his Kingly Office is so necessary and essential a part of his Mediatorship that he cannot be properly a Mediator without it For to mediate as he doth between God and men is to act Authoritatively for and in the behalf of both parties so that if he act only for one he cannot be truly said to be a Mediator between both but in his acting Authoritatively for God consists his Royalty or Kingly Office as you may see p. 7 8. and if his Mediatorial Office necessarily includes a Kingly power to be sure that power must extend to all that ever were admitted into the Covenant upon which he Mediates For how can any man be admitted into that Covenant of which he is the authorized Mediator without being subject to all the Authority which his Mediatorship necessarily implies Hence therefore it follows that Christ hath been always King of the Church of God or confederate Society of the true Worshippers of him in all Ages of the world For thus in the Old world St. Peter tells us 1 Pet. 3.19 that by that very Spirit whereby Christ rose from the dead he went and preached to the spirits in prison i. e. by Noah who by the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit was a Preacher or Herald of Righteousness Christ preached to the Spirits or Souls of men whilst they were yet shut up in and united to their bodies long before that general separation of their Souls from their Bodies which was made by the Floud vid. Dr. Ham. in Loc. at this time I say whilst they were yet alive Christ preached to them to warn them of that general destruction which was pursuing them and would ere long overtake them unless they speedily repented which shews that long before the Floud Christ acted as a King in issuing out by his Heralds his Royal Proclamations to men to declare his Will and Pleasure to them and warn them of the fatal consequence of their disobedience to it Soon after the Floud mankind almost universally Apostatized from God to Idolatry so that the Church or Society of the true Worshippers of him was quickly reduced into a very narrow compass so that four hundred years after it seems very probable thâ—t Melchisedeck was the only King in the world who was not an Idolater And now God seeing his Church almost totally extinguished by this general defection of mankind from his Covenant to recover and repair it he calls Abraham out of his Idolatry and Idolatrous Country and with him and his Posterity renews the New Covenant which the rest of mankind had renounced and deserted and to secure them from ever revolting from it he seals and ratifies it with them by a sign in their flesh viz. that of Circumcision which he gave them as a mark to distinguish and preserve them distinct from the Idolatrous Nations round about them And when afterwards the Posterity of Abraham was multiplied in Aegypt into a numerous Nation and this Rite of Circumcision being by Ishmael and Esau derived to their Posterity and so made common to other Nations with Israel God to renew this distinction gives them the Ceremonial Law upon their coming out of Aegypt one great design of which even as
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
utmost force of Law that is by Law established on the most dreadful Penalty he hath so far as his Regal Authority extends compelled us to the performance of our part of this Covenant so that if we do not perform it it is not to be attributed to any neglect or omission of the Mediator who to oblige us to perform it hath most faithfully acted for God even to the utmost extent of that power wherewithal he invested him And so on the other hand in acting for us as our Intercessor he hath taken no less care to insure God's part of this Covenant to us than he did to insure our part of it to God. For this Covenant being granted to us by God in consideration of a valuable satisfaction for our sins Christ hath not only rendered this satisfaction to God by dying for us and thereby purchased for us a just right and claim to all the blessings which God hath promised on his part if we perform what he requires on ours but in the vertue of this satisfaction he also appears for us at the right hand of God there to plead our right and to prefer our claim by exhibiting that vocal Bloud and those importunate Wounds with the price of which he purchased and obtained it So that now we are intitled to all the blessings of this Covenant not only by God's Promise but by Christ's Purchace too and to secure both we have Christ himself advocating for us in Heaven with the price of that Purchace in his hands So effectually hath he transacted for us in his Mediation with God in our behalf that we have the highest security imaginable that if we perform our part of this Covenant God will not fail to perform his since in so doing he would not only violate his own truth which he hath engaged to us by promise but also injuriously defraud his own Son of what he hath duly purchased for us by his Death and claims upon that Purchace by his Intercession For he intercedes for no other blessings in our behalf but what he purchased for us upon a consideration that was not only infinitely valuable in it self but also freely accepted by his Father and he purchased no other blessings for us but what are specified in this gracious Covenant so that he asks nothing for us but what he hath a right to obtain nothing but what he purchased by his bloud and is in strict Justice due to his meritoriouâ— sacrifice and consequently nothing that his Father can deny him without doing him the most outragious wrong and injury and therefore this we may be as confident of as we can be of any thing in the World that whatsoever he hath purchased for us he will not fail to ask and that whatsoever he asks he will be sure to obtain Thus Christ by his Mediation between God and Men hath taken the most effectual care to insure the mutual performance of this everlasting Covenant to both Parties For to insure God of our performing our part he hath bound it upon us by a Law enforced with an everlasting Penalty which is the strongest obligation he could lay upon us And to insure us of God's performing his part he duly purchased it for us by his Death and in vertue of that just Right he ever lives to claim it by his Intercession which is the strongest obligation he could lay upon God so that now as God cannot fail in his part without violating his Truth and Justice which would be to destroy his own Being and un-god himself so neither we can in ours without exposing our everlasting well-being and plunging our selves body and soul together into everlasting wretchedness and calamity And hence I suppose it is that our Saviour is called the surety of a better Covenant Heb. 7.22 or as the Greek word may be rendered the Trustee between both Parties to see that they mutually perform their several parts of this Covenant to each other which Office our blessed Lord hath faithfully performed in that he hath taken the utmost care to oblige both God and us mutually to make good our several engagements to each other For though he hath not undertaken for us that we shall certainly perform our part yet he hath undertaken to oblige us to it by the highest and most urgent reason which was all that he could reasonably undertake for Beings that are free to good and evil and if notwithstanding he hath thus obliged us we will be so desperately obstinate as not to comply he hath undertaken to chastise our obstinacy with a most dire and exemplary vengeance And since he thus proceeds in his Mediation upon the certain and stated terms of a Covenant which he himself hath published and revealed to us we may hereby most certainly inform our selves what he expects from us and what we are to expect from him For now we are sure that all he can expect from us is that we should faithfully perform our part of this Covenant that is that we should implore the assistance of God's holy Spirit and diligently to co-operate with it so as to repent and return from our evil ways to the sincere practice of all Christian Piety and Vertue and that herein we should persevere to the end and less than this he cannot admit without being an unfaithful Trustee for God of that blessed Covenant upon which he Mediates And now we are also sure that all we can expect from him is that if we implore the assistance of his Spirit we shall have it that if with his assistance we repent we shall be pardoned and that if being pardoned we persevere in well-doing we shall be crowned with everlasting life and less than this he cannot obtain for us without being an unfaithful Trustee for us For if he should exact less for God of us or procure less for us of God than that Covenant upon which he Mediates obliges God and us to he would be wanting in his care one way or t'other to see this Covenant with which he is intrusted duly and impartially executed and either defraud God or us of some part of that right which it devolves upon us which we have all the assurance in the world he will never do So that now we proceed upon certain terms and do know infallibly what to trust to we know that our Mediator exacts of us the whole and intire condition of the Gospel-Covenant that this he will certainly accept but that this he expects without the least defalcation or abatement so that if we heartily implore the assistance of his holy Spirit and co-operate with it we have all the assurance in the world that we shall be effectually enabled to render him that sincere repentance and obedience he requires and that if we repent we shall be pardoned and if we persevere in our obedience be advanced to everlasting glory On the other side we know infallibly before hand that if we refuse to submit to this condition or
Spirit or Holy Ghost whom Christ hath substituted to carry on his Mediation for God with men in his absence is no other than the third divine Person subsisting in the eternal Godhead And indeed considering the mighty part he was to act viz. to Mediate under Christ for God with men the same reason which rendered it necessary for Christ to be God to qualifie him for this Office vide Page 24. do render it altogether as necessary for the Holy Ghost to be so And indeed how is it possible he should operate upon so many men together at such remote distances as he is obliged to do by his Office and at once move every member of that vast Body of Christ the Catholick Church dispersed over the Face of the whole Earth unless like an Omnipresâ—nt soul he be diffused through the whole and co-exists with every part and if he be Omnipresâ—nt â—e must be God. And now having given an account of the Person and Quality of this Divine Spirit I proceed Secondly To explain his subordination and substitution to Christ in this part of his Mediatorship for God with men In order to which it is to be considered that this subordination of the sacred Persons in the holy Trinity proceeds not from any inequality of Essence but from the inequality of their personal Properties For as to their Essence they are all of them God i. e. infinite in being and perfections and being infinite they must all be equal there being no such thing as more or less in infinity and then being equal in Essence they must necessarily be equal in essential Power and Dominion and consequently as such are no way subject or subordinate to one another But as to their personal Properties it cannot be denied but they are unequal for the Father who begot must in that respect be superiour to the Son who was begotten and the Holy Ghost who proceeded must in that respect be inferiour to the Father and Son from whom he proceeded and upon this inequality their subordination is founded For as there is a stated Number in the Trinity by which the sacred Persons are determined to Three so there is also a stated Order by which they are ranked into a First a Second and a Third which Order is not made by mutual consent or arbitrary constitution but founded in the nature of those personal properties by which they are distinguished from one another For as the Father being the Fountain of Godhead to the Son must be first in order of nature and as the Son together with the Father was the Fountain of Godhead to the Holy Ghost and therefore must be second to the Father and in order of nature before the Holy Ghost so the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son must of the Three be in order of nature the Third For so the Scripture expresly asserts that he proceeded from the Father John 15.26 and also that he is the Spirit of the Son Gal. 4.6 and the Spirit of Christ Rom. 8.9 and the Spirit of Iesus Christ Phil. 1.19 And being the Spirit both of the Father and the Son he must be supposed to proceed from both And where-ever the Holy Ghost is in the Old Testament called the Spirit of God it is in the Hebrew Ruach Elohim in the Plural which seems to intimate that he proceeded not from one but from two divine Persons i. e. not from the Father alone but from the Son also So that though as to their Godhead they are all equal yet in order of nature and in respect of their personal properties the third is inferiour the second superiour and the first supreme and being unequal in those personal Properties by which they stand related to each other it is very reasonable that according to these their personal inequalities they should be subordinate to one another and consequently that the Father who is the Fountain of the Divinity should be supreme in the Divine Monarchy and that the Son who was begotten of him should minister to him and that the Holy Ghost who proceeded from the Father and the Son should minister to both And accordingly in all its external actions and administrations this hath ever been the Oeconomy of the Holy Trinity for the Father to act by the Ministry of the Son and the Son by the Ministry of the Holy Ghost For so before the Fall of man and consequently before this Mediation of the Son commenced it is evident that even in creating the World the Father acted by the Son and therefore is said to have made the World by him Heb. 1.2 and the Son acted by the Spirit who is said to have moved upon the face of the Chaos Gen. 1.2 for that by the Spirit of God there is meant the third Person in the Holy Trinity we have reason to believe because he is elsewhere said to have made man and to have garnished the Heavens as hath been already shewn And in the same Method of subordination the Godhead hath always proceeded in its transactions with the world and that more especially and remarkably in this great affair of Mediating with mankind wherein the Father hath always used the Ministry of the Son and the Son the Ministry of the Holy Ghost but in the matter of the Mediation it is evident that this subordination of these sacred persons was founded not only in these their personal inequalities but also in a mutual agreement between them in which the Son agreed with the Father that in case he would be so far reconciled to Rebellious Mankind as to grant them a Covenant of mercy and therein among other blessings to promise them his Holy Spirit he himself would assume our natures and therein not only treat with us personally in order to the reducing us to our bounden Allegiance but also die a Sacrifice for our sins upon which agreement the Father long before the Son had actually performed his part of it even from our first Apostasie granted his Spirit to mankind which Spirit was granted to this end that under the Son he should Mediate with men in order to the reducing them to their due subjection to the Father For all that heavenly influence which the Holy Ghost sheds forth upon the minds of men is wholly Mediatorial in God's behalf and in order to the reconciling men's minds unto him and therefore in this his Mediation he must be supposed to act in subordination to the Son who is supreme Mediator and accordingly as the Son hath been and will be always Mediating with men by this blessed Spirit even from his Ascension to the end of the World so I make no doubt but he always Mediated with them by the same Spirit even from the Fall of man to his Incarnation For so in the time of the Old World we read of the Spirit 's striving with men i. e. in order to the subduing their stubborn Wills to a due subjection to the Will of the Father Gen.
insinuating Orators before the Tribunals of their Enemies and there forced to answer for themselves Besides that they being to convert both Iews and Gentiles between whom there was an inveterate aversion and to unite them together into one communion it could not be otherwise expected but that great dissentions should arise among their own Converts as accordingly it hapned which if not managed with infinite prudence must needs give a great disturbance to them and interrupt the course and hinder the success of their Ministry And in such difficult circumstances it was almost impossible for them not to miscarry without being conducted by an infallible prudence and circumspection under all which exigencies the Holy Ghost served the primitive Church in the same capacity as the Vrim and Thummim did the ancient Iews i. e. as an Oracle to advise them in all cases of difficulty and direct them in the management of all their great and weighty affairs Thus in that difficult case which of the Apostles should be sent forth to the Gentiles the Holy Ghost either by a Bath Col i. e. Voice from Heaven or an immediate inspiration thus directs them Separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have called them Acts 13.2 and when they went forth among the Gentiles the Holy Ghost advises them where they should preach and where not Acts 16.6 and so also in the choice of their Bishops they had always the Direction of the Holy Ghost so in Acts 20.28 it is said that it was the Holy Ghost that set them over the Flock and S. Paul tells Timothy that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Episcopal Office wherewith he was invested was given him by Prophecy i. e. by the immediate direction of the Holy Ghost and S. Clemens who was a Disciple of the Apostles tells us that in those times they ordained Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 discerning by the Spirit who should be ordained and again that they did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having a perfect fore-knowledge who they should chuse And thus also for composing the differences which arose between their Iewish and Gentile Converts they had the immediate advice of the Holy Ghost who directed them to that wise expedient Acts 15.28 by which the peace of the Church was secured for the present and afterwards maintained in despite of all the attempts of seditious Incendiaries to break and divide it And thus having recourse upon all occasions to this infallible Guide they were never at a loss either what to say or how to behave themselves the Holy Ghost making good to them what our Saviour had promised them When they bring you before Magistrates take no thought what ye shall answer for the Holy Ghost shall teach you at the same hour what ye ought to say Luke 12.11 12. These are the extraordinary things which the Holy Ghost acted for and under Christ in order to the planting and propagating his Gospel through the World and which he continued to act so long as it was necessary for that end For as for the first the Gift of Tongues it seems to have been continued no longer than till the Gospel had been preached to and some Converts made in the several Nations the First-fruits of whom were always ordained to the work of the Ministry and when once the several Nations had Natives of their own to preach the Gospel to them in their own Languages there was no farther necessity of this miraculous Gift of Tongues And then as for the second the Gift of Revelation it seems to have been continued no longer than till the whole New Testament was revealed and the several parts of it were collected into one Volume and distributed to the several Churches after which there was no farther necessity of any new revelation But as for the third the Gift of Miracles it seems to have been continued much longer than either of the former as indeed there was longer occasion for it especially for that of ejecting evil Spirits who for many Ages had been the Gods of the World and detecting their frauds and impostures that so by beholding the manifold Triumphs of Christ's power over them the Heathen might be at length convinced of the falseness of their own Religion and of the truth of Christ's and accordingly this gift as I shall shew hereafter was continued in the Church for above two hundred years together till it had wrought its designed effect i. e. had sufficiently detected the fraud and malice of those Idol Gods to the conviction of all that were convincible and then it was withdrawn as being no farther necessary And then as for the last viz. the Gift of Counsel and Direction it seems to have been continued no longer than till the Government of the Church was every where established and its Affairs reduced into a stated course and method by which sufficient provision being made against those emergent difficulties with which the state of Christianity was perplexed this Gift also ceased together with the reason and necessity of it Thus by these extraordinary Gifts and Operations the Holy Ghost continued to sollicite the cause of Christ and his Religion in the World till by their invincible evidence he had baffled the malice and prejudice of a deluded World and captivated Mankind into the belief and obedience of the Gospel and this being effected he discontinued those Extraordinaries and now proceeds to solicite the same cause in a more ordinary and standing way and method viz. by co-operating with mens minds and wills in a more humane and regular manner by joyning in with their Reason and thereby influencing their Wills and Affections which brings me to the 2. Second sort of the Holy Ghost's operations viz. that which he ordinarily doth and always hath done and will always continue to do For upon the cessation of these his miraculous operations the Holy Ghost did not wholly withdraw himself from mankind but he still continues Mediating with us under Christ in order to the reconciling our Wills and Affections to God and subduing that inveterate Malice and Enmity against him which our degenerate nature hath contracted For it is by this blessed Spirit that Christ hath promised to be with us to the end of the World Matth. 28.20 and Christ himself hath assured us that upon his Ascension into Heaven he would pray his Father and he should give us another Comforter meaning this Holy Ghost that he might abide with us for ever John 14.16 and accordingly the Holy Ghost is vitally united to the Church of Christ even as Souls are united to their bodies For as there is one body i. e. Church so there is one Spirit i. e. one Holy Ghost which animates that body Eph. 4.4 and hence the Unity of the Church is in the foregoing verse called the Vnity of the Spirit because as the soul by diffusing it self through all the parts of the body unites them together and keeps them from flying abroad and dispersing into
atomes so the Holy Spirit by diffusing himself throughout this mystical body joyns and unites all its parts together and makes it one separate and individual Corporation So that when by Baptism we are once incorporated into this body we are intitled to and do at least de jure participate of the vital influence of the Holy Ghost who is the Soul of it and accordingly as Baptism joyns us to that body of which this divine Spirit is the Soul so it also conveys that divine Spirit to us So that as in natural bodies those Ligaments which unite and tie the parts to one another do also convey life and spirit to them all so also in this mystical body those federal rights of Baptism and the Lord's Supper which are as it were its Nerves and Arteries that joyn and confederate its members to one another are also the conveyances of that spiritual life from the Holy Ghost which moves and actuates them all And hence the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost the being born of water and of the Holy Ghost are put together as concurrent things and in Acts 2.38 Baptism is affirmed to be necessary to our receiving the Holy Ghost and if by Baptism we receive the Holy Ghost that is a right and title to his Grace and Influence then must the Holy Ghost be still supposed vitally united to the Church whereof we are made members by our Baptism and like an Omnipresent Soul to be diffused all through it and to move and actuate every part of it by his heavenly Grace and Influence It is true he doth not move and actuate us by meer force and irresistible power so as to necessitate us or to determine our natural liberty one way or t'other nor doth he ordinarily work upon men in such a strange and miraculous way as he did in the first Ministration of the Gospel when he frequently transformed men in an instant from Beasts and Devils into Saints and as it were at one act turned the whole Tide of their natures into a quite contrary Current For so Origen against Celsus very often triumphs in these sudden and miraculous Conversions wrought by the Christian Religion so lib. 1. p. 21. should any man saith he release men's Souls from all sorts of wickedness from Lust and Unrighteousness and Contempt of God and this but in a hundred instances surely no man would imagine that he could ever have inspired so many men with reasons strong enough to conquer so many Vices without a divine assistance but if you enquire into the lives of those that have imbraced Christianity you will find that whereas before they lived in all impurities and lusts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. from that very time wherein they received the Word how much more equal and temperate serious and constant are they grown So again li. 2. p. 78. in answer to Celsus who calls Christianity a pestilent Doctrine neither Jew saith he nor any one else can ever make it out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that a pestilent Doctrine should so wonderfully convert the most profligate persons that embraced it to a life most sutable to Nature and Reason and all manner of Vertue Such were the miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost in those days as to transport men in an instant from an inveterate habit of wickedness to a habit of Piety and Vertue For so Lactantius de fals sup lib. 3. c. 26. what a mighty influence the divine Precepts have upon mens Souls daily experience shews for saith he Da mihi virum qui sit iracundus maledicus effraenatus paucissimis Dei Verbis tam placidum quam ovem reddam da cupidum avarum tenacem jam tibi eum liberalem dabo pecuniam suam plenis manibus largientem da timidum doloris ac mortis jam cruces ignes Taurum contemnet da libidinosum Adulterum Ganeonem jam sobrium castum continentem videbis da crudelem sanguinis appetentem jam in veram clementiam furor ille mutabitur da injustum insipientem peccatorem continuò aequus prudens innocens erit i. e. Give me a man who is wrathful reproachful ungovernable and with a few words of God I will render him as placid as a Lamb give me a covetous a niggardly and tenacious man I will return him to thee liberal and distributing his money with a bountiful hand give me one that is timorous of grief and death he shall despise all manner of torment give me one that is lustful adulterous and a Buffoon you shall presently see him sober chaste and continent give me one that is cruel and thirsty of bloud his fury shall be immediately converted into pity and clemency give me one that is unjust foolish and criminal and he shall be presently rendred just prudent and innocent which wondrous Changes were so very frequent in the Primitive times that the Heathen as St. Austin hath observed were very much amazed at them and therefore attributed them to the power of Magick thinking it impossible they should ever be effected without the assistance of some very powerful Spirit But since Christianity hath been spread through the World and prevailed so far as to be the Religion of Nations the divine Spirit doth not ordinarily work upon men in such a strange and miraculous way nor produce in them such sudden Changes and instantaneous Conversions but proceeds more gradually and more suitably to the Methods of Humane Nature by joyning in with our understandings and leading us on by reason and persuasion from Acts to Dispositions and from Dispositions to Habits of Piety So that whatsoever Grace he now affords us it ordinarily works on us in the same way and after the same manner as if all were performed by the strength of our own reason so that in the Renovation of our natures we cannot certainly distinguish what is done by the Spirit from what is done by our natural Reason and Conscience co-operating with him only this we do most certainly know that in this blessed work the Spirit is the main and principal Agent that without him we can do nothing and that he is the Author and Finisher of our faith who worketh in us to will and to do according to his own pleasure but yet that he doth not work upon us as a Mechanick upon dead materials but as upon living and free Agents that can and must cooperate with him that he acts not on us by any necessary causality but in such a way as is fairly consistent with the natural liberty of our Wills and doth not renew us whether we will or no but takes our free consent and endeavour along with him and that having done all on his part that is necessary to perswade us he expects that we should consider what he saith and upon that consent to his gracious Motions and express this consent in a constant course of holy and vertuous endeavour and
that unless we do thus concur with him we shall for ever remain and perish in our sin notwithstanding all that grace which he affords us But as for the particular manner of the Holy Ghost's operation on our mind it is not to be expected that we who know so little of the nature and intercourse of Spirits should be able to render a clear and distinct account of it only thus much may be said that our Soul being a thinking Spirit whose very Essence consists in a power or principle of cogitation seems naturally incapable of any other passion from any external Agent but only the impression of Thoughts For how can a Spirit whose very Essence is thinking be any otherwise affected by any thing without it but only by being made to think or by having such thoughts and considerations impressed on it And by the same reason that bodies which are material substances are impressible only by matter Souls which are thinking substances must be impressible only by Thought And hence we find by experience that there is no Object we converse with can any otherwise affect our Mind than by suggesting such thoughts and cogitations to it and that all the pleasure and torment of our minds consists in joyful and tormenting thoughts which are plain Arguments that our mind is a sort of Being which nothing but thought can strike or touch and which hath no sense or feeling of any thing but only of dreadful or hopeful pleasant or painful Cogitations And if this be so then the way of the Holy Spirits working upon our minds supposing that he works sutably to their natures must be by inspiring or impressing them with thoughts For as he is an infinite Spirit he is always and every where present with our Spirits and hath an immediate access to them by vertue of which he can speak to our minds whenever and whatever he pleases and also urge what he speaks with that life and power as to excite our most serious consideration and attention and by this it is that he ordinarily works upon us in order to the reducing us to God viz. by inspiring such good thoughts into our minds as are most apt to move and perswade us to believe and obey the Gospel and by a continued repetition of them urging and pressing them upon us in order to the reducing our vain and roving minds to a fixed and serious attention to them For it is very apparent that our Faith and all our good Resolutions are the immediate effects of deep and serious consideration I considered my ways saith David and turned my feet unto thy Testimonies So that in reducing us to God the great work of the Spirit is to reduce us to a fix'd and steady consideration which being once effected there naturally follows a good resolution unless the Will be invincibly obstinate and to this as naturally succeeds the actual return of the Soul to God. Now to reduce us to this fix'd consideration the Holy Ghost in the first place suggests good thoughts to our minds and then to keep our minds fix'd and intent on them that so our worldly cares or pleasures may not divert us from them he most importunately urges and repeats the same thoughts or seconds them with a train and succession of new ones to the same purpose so that unless we are incorrigibly obstinate against all good motions we cannot avoid admitting them into our most serious consideration and when they are there they cannot fail of raising in us good desires and affections which if we carefully cherish will soon determine in holy purposes and resolutions In all which things you see it is only by impression of thoughts that the Holy Spirit operates on our minds But this will more plainly appear by considering those particular operations on our minds which the Scripture attributes to the Holy Ghost all which may be ranked under these five Heads 1. Illumination 2. Sanctification 3. Quickening or excitation 4. Comforting or supporting 5. Intercession First Illumination or informing our minds with the light of heavenly truth thus Eph. 1.17 18. the Apostle prays that the God of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of Glory would give unto them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him that the eyes of their understanding being enlightned they might know what is the hope of Christ's calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and 1 Cor. 2.12 we are told that it is by receiving the Spirit of God that we know the things that are freely given us of God. Now this illumination of the Spirit is two-fold first External by that revelation which he hath given us of God's Mind and Will in the holy Scripture and that miraculous evidence by which he sealed and attested it for all Scripture is given by inspiration of God 2 Tim. 3.16 or as it is elsewhere expressed was delivered by holy men as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1.21 And all those miraculous testimonies we have to the Truth and Divinity of Scripture are as hath been already proved from the Holy Ghost and upon that account are called the demonstration of the Spirit So that all that light we receive from Scripture and all the evidence we have that that light is divine we derive originally from the Holy Spirit But besides this external illumination of the Spirit there is also an internal one which consists in impressing that external light and evidence of Scripture upon our understandings whereby we are enabled more clearly to apprehend and more effectually to believe it For though the divine Spirit doth not at least in the ordinary course of his operation illuminate our minds with any new truths or new evidences of truth but only presents to our minds those old and Primitive truths and evidences which he at first revealed and gave to the World yet there is no doubt but he still continues not only to suggest them both to our minds but to urge and repeat them with that importunity and thereby to imprint them with that clearness and efficacy as that if we do not through a wicked prejudice against them wilfully divert our minds from them to vain or sinful objects we must unavoidably apprehend them far more distinctly and assent to them far more cordially and effectually than otherwise we should or could have done For alas our minds are naturally so vain and stupid so giddy listless and inadvertent especially in spiritual things which are abstract from common sence as that did not the Holy Spirit frequently present importunately urge and thereby fix them on our minds our knowledge of them would be so confused and our belief so wavering and unstable as that they would never have any prevailing influence on our Wills and Affections So that our knowledge and belief of divine things so far forth as they are saving and effectual to our renovation are the fruits and products of this internal
Bishops is not consined to the Ministry of any particular Church but extends to the Ministry of the Church Catholick for so S. Paul Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas all are yours and you are Christ's that is they are all Ministers of the Catholick Church in common of which you are Members and as such you have all a share in them 1 Cor. 3.22 23. yet it is the particular application of this their general capacity to this or that particular number of Christians or Congregations of Christians that constitutes them particular Churches and being first authorized Ministers of the Catholick Church they carry along with them into the particular Church they are sent to all that Church-Authority and Power by which it acts and operates as a Church So that without Pastors or Governours particular Churches are nothing but so many Bodies without Souls to animate and act them and therefore as in natural Bodies the form that acts them doth also constitute their Kind and Species so in these Ecclesistical Bodies the Pastors and Governours that move and act them as Churches do also constitute them Churches What these lawful Pastors and Governours are I shall have occasion to discourse hereafter when I come to treat of the Ministers of Christ's Kingdom it being sufficient at present to shew the necessity of them to the constituting particular Churches Seventhly The Church is one universal Society of all Christian People distributed into particular Churches holding Communion with each other by holding Communion with each other I mean owning each other as parts of the same body and admitting each others Members as occasion serves into actual Communion with them in all their Religious Offices It is true in the Primitive Churches there were sundry prudential acts of Communion pass'd between them such as their formed and communicatory Letters by which the holy Bishops gave an account to each other of the state and condition of their respective Churches and consulted each others judgment about them but these were not at all essential to that Communion which they were obliged as true Churches to maintain with one another All the Communion which they are obliged to as they are similar parts and distributions of the Catholick Church is that they should not divide into separate Churches so as to exclude each others Members from Communicating in each others Worship when ever they have occasion to travel from one Church to another For so long as there is no Rupture between distant Churches no declared disowning of each other no express refusal of any act of Communion to each others Members they may be truly said to maintain all necessary Communion with each other And that this Communion is absolutely necessary between all those particular Churches into which the Catholick Church is distributed will evidently appear from these four considerations First that by Baptism as was shewed before all Christian People are made Members of the Catholick Church and by being made Members of it they are all obliged to Communicate with it for how can they act as parts of the whole that hold no Communication with the whole They who are Members of any Society have not only a Right to communicate in all the common Benefits of it but also an Obligation to communicate in all common Offices of it and therefore since by Baptism we are made Members of the Catholick Church or Society of Christians we are thereby not only entituled to partake with it in all its Priviledges but also obliged to joyn with it in all its Offices But then secondly it is farther to be considered that the Catholick Church being all distributed into particular Churches we can no otherwise communicate with it than by communicating with some particular Church for how can we communicate with the whole that is all distributed into parts without communicating with some part of the whole And since the whole is nothing but only a Collection of all the parts what Communion can they hold with the whole who hold no Communion with any part of it So long therefore as there is any such thing as a visible Catholick Church upon Earth we are obliged by our Baptism unless necessity hinder us to maintain a visible Communion with it and so long as this Catholick Church is all distributed into so many particular visible Churches we cannot visibly communicate with it unless we communicate with some one of those particular Churches For how can we be in Communion with the whole body when we are out of Communion with all the parts unless we can find a body to communicate with without all its parts or some universal Church without all particular Churches But then thirdly it is also to be considered that as we cannot Communicate with the universal Church without Communicating with some particular one so neither do we Communicate with the universal Church by Communicating with any particular one unless that particular one be in Communion with the Church Universal For if I cannot communicate with the whole without being in Communion with some part of the whole it is impossible I should communicate with the whole unless I communicate with some part that is in Communion with the whole It is as possible for a Finger to communicate with a body by being joyned to an Arm that is separated from the body as it is for a Christian to Communicate with the Church Catholick by being joyned to a Church that is separate from the Church Catholick But then fourthly and lastly There is no particular Church can be in Communion with the Catholick that separates it self from the Communion of any particular Church that is in Communion with the Catholick For they who separate from any part of any whole must necessarily separate from the whole because the whole is nothing but all the parts together and it is a contradiction to say that they who are separated from any one part are yet united to all How then is it possible for any Church to separate it self from the Communion of any other Church which is a true part of the Church Catholick without separating it self from the Communion of the Church Catholick it self since the Church Catholick is nothing but a Collection of all true Churches and to be at the same time united to all true Churches and separated from one true Church is the same absurdity as to be separated from all true Churches and yet united to one In short the Catholick Church is one by the Communion of all its parts and therefore they who break Communion with any one part must necessarily disunite themselves from the whole For when two Churches separate from one another it must be either because the one requires such terms of Communion as are not Catholick or because the other refuses such as are Now that Church which requires sinful or uncatholick terms of Communion doth thereby exclude not only one but all parts of the Catholick Church from its Communion because they
is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repents Luke 15.10 we cannot but suppose that so far as their own ability and the Laws of the invisible World will permit them they do promote and further our repentance since in so doing they contribute to their own joy and in a word since the Scripture assures us that the Angels are present in our holy Assemblies which that passage of S. Paul seems necessarily to imply 1 Cor. 11.10 For this cause ought the woman to have power over her head i. e. to be veiled in the sacred Assemblies because of the Angels or out of a decent respect and reverence to those blessed Spirits who are supposed to be present there since I say they are present in our Religious Assemblies we cannot reasonably suppose them to be present merely as Idle Auditors and Spectators who have nothing else to do but only to observe and gaze upon our holy solemnities and therefore must conclude that their great business there is to assist us in the performance of them to remove our indispositions and recollect our wandrings to fix our attention excite our affections and inflame our devotions for besides as they are the Ministers of the divine Providence they have many opportunities of presenting good objects to us and removing temptations from us of disciplining our natures with prosperities and afflictions and of so ordering and varying our outward Circumstances as to render our duty more facile and easie to us besides which I say as they are Spirits they have a very near and familiar access to our souls not that they can make any immediate impressions on our Vnderstanding or Will which are a sphere of light to which no created spirit can approach it being under the immediate Oeconomy of the Father of Spirits but yet being Spirits there is no doubt but they may and oftentimes do insinuate themselves into our fancies and mingle with the spirits and humours of our bodies and by that means never want opportunity both to suggest good thoughts to us and raise holy affections in us For that they can work upon our fancies is apparent else there could be neither Angelical nor Diabolical dreams and if they can so act upon our fancies as to excite new images and representations in them they may by this means communicate new thoughts to our understandiâ—g which naturally Prints off from the fancy those Ideas and Images which it there finds set and composed And as they can work upon our fancies so there is no doubt but they can influence our spirits and humours else they have not the power so much â—s to cure or inflict a disease and by thus working â—pon our spirits they can moderate as they please the violence of our passions which are nothing but the flowings and reflowings of our spirits to and fro from our hearts and by influencing our humours they can compose us when they please into such a sedate and serious temper as is most apt to receive religious impressions and to be influenced by the Heavenly motions of the Holy Ghost These things I doubt not the blessed Angels can and frequently do though we perceive it not and though by the Laws of the world of Spirits they may probably be restrained from doing their utmost for us that so we may still act with an uncontrouled freedom and be left under a necessity of a constant and diligent endeavour yet this we may be sure of that as the evil Angels are always busie to pervert and seduce us from our duty so the good are no less active to reduce us to and assist us in it VI. Another instance of the Ministry of Angels in the Kingdom of Christ is their conducting the separated Spirits of his faithful Subjects to the Mansions of Glory It was an ancient Tradition among the Jews that the Souls of the Faithful were conducted by Angels into Paradise of which the Chaldee Paraphrase makes mention on Cant. 4.12 and this Tradition of theirs is confirmed by our Saviour Luke 16.22 where he tells us that when Lazarus died he was carried by Angels into Abraham's bosom i. e. into that place of refreshment where the Soul of Abraham who was the Father of the Faithful dwells and in all probability that fiery Chariot and Horses wherein Elias was mounted up to Heaven 2 Kings 2.11 was nothing but a Convoy of Angels and accordingly Tertullian de anima c. 52. stiles the Angels Evocatores animarum i. e. the Messengers of God that call forth the lingring souls out of their bodies and shew them the Paraturam diversorii the preparation of those blessed Mansions where they are to abide till the Resurrection And this Office the good Angels do perform to the Souls of the faithful not meerly to congratulate their safe arrival into the world of blessedness though there is no doubt but that they who do so heartily rejoyce in the Conversion of sinners are ready enough to congratulate their Glorification but that which seems to be the great reason of this Ministration of theirs is to guard holy Souls when they leave their bodies through those lower Regions of the Air which are the Seat and Principality of the Apostate Angels who may therefore be very reasonably supposed to be continually lying in wait there like birds of prey to seize upon the Souls of men as soon as they are escaped out of the Cage of their bodies into the open Air and either to sâ—are and terrifie them in their passage to Heaven or to lead them away captive into their dark Prisons of endless horrour and despair and therefore to prevent their affrighting good souls which is all the hurt they can do them as they pass along through their Territories they are no sooner parted from their bodies but they are taken into the custody of some good Angel or Angels who guard them safe through the Enemies quarters and beat off those evil Spirits from them that would fain be infesting and assaulting them and it is not at all improbable but that by this very thing those evil Spirits do distinguish what Souls do belong to them from what do not viz. their being destitute of or attended with this holy Guard of Angels When they behold a separated Spirit under this Heavenly Convoy they fly away from it with infinite rage and envy to see it irrecoverably rescued out of their power to make it miserable but when they perceive one destitute and abandoned of this Angelick guard they immediately seize it as their own and so commit it to their Chains of darkness And as the good Angels do guard good Souls as they pass through the Air against the power and malice of the Prince of the power of the Air so they also conduct and guide them to their Mansions of blessedness For when the departed Soul is wafâ—ed through the Air into those immense tracts of Aether wherein the Sun and all the Heavenly bodies
said now I find the Devil has the full possession of thee and that henceforth there remains no more hope of reclaiming thee go therefore and dispatch thy wicked purpose as soon as thou pleasest So that now it seems he was entirely delivered up to the Devil who thereupon immediatly hurries him to the execution of his black design IV. And lastly Another instance of the Ministry of evil Spirits to Christ is their executing his vengeance on incorrigible sinners in the other World. For since as I have shewn before our Saviour makes use of the power and malice of these evil Spirits to correct and chasten men in this life why may we not thence conclude that he makes use of the same to plague and punish them in the life to come especially considering that they bear the same malice to us in the other life that they did in this for they tempt us to sin here for no other end but that they may make us miserable there and therefore to be sure that same malice of theirs which excites them now to contribute all they can to our sin will equally provoke them then to contribute all they can to our misery and render them altogether as active in tormenting us in Hell as they were in tempting us upon Earth and then considering that Spirits can act upon Spirits as well as Bodies upon Bodies and that the more powerful any Spirit is the more vigorously it can act upon other Spirits we may be sure that those evil Spirits being Angels by nature are incomparably more powerful than the souls of men and therefore can act upon them with unspeakable more force and vigour than one Soul can on another for the weaker any Spirit is the more passive it must necessarily be to those Spirits that are stronger and more powerful and therefore by how much weaker wicked Souls are than wicked Angels by so much more passive must they be to their power and consequently be so much more liable to be vexed and tormented by them and since in all probability the disproportion which Nature hath made between the power of Angâ—ls and Souls is far greater than that which sin hath made between the power of one Angel and another we may reasonably conclude that wicked Souls are far more impressible by the power of wicked Angels than wicked Angels are by the power of good Angels and therefore since the good Angels can make such violent impressions upon the wicked ones as they are not able to endure but are still forced to fly before them as oft as they encounter them vid. P. 965. what intolerable impressions can wicked Angels make upon wicked Souls when they are abandoned by God to their malice and fury for though our Souls are no more impressible by corporeal action than the beams of the Sun are by the blows of a Hammer yet that they can feel the force of spiritual action we find by every days experience for so a thought which is a spiritual action if it be very horrible or dismal doth as sensibly pain and aggrieve our Souls as the most exquisite Corporeal torment can our Bodies Now there is no doubt but evil Spirits can suggest preternatural horrors to our minds and repeat and urge them with such Importunity and vehemence as to render them most exquisitely painful and dolorous of the truth of which we have a woful Example in that miserable Wretch Francis Spira who upon that woful breach he made in his Conscience by renouncing his Religion notwithstanding he had received several kind admonitions from Heaven to the contrary was forsaken of God and delivered up alive into the hands of those dire Tormenters of Souls whereupon though he had not the least symptome of bodily melancholy he was immediatly seized with such an inexpressible Agony of mind as amazed his Physicians astonished his Friends and struck terror into all that beheld him for he was so near to the condition of a damned Spirit that he verily believed Hell it self was more tolerable than those invisible lashes that his Soul endured without any intermission and therefore he often wished that he were in Hell and as often attempted to dispatch himself thither in hope to find sanctuary there from those direful thoughts which continually preyed upon his Soul. Now that these Horrors were inflicted on him by Diabolical suggestion is evident both by the impenetrable hardness and obstinacy of his mind against all the motives of Repentance that accompanied them and by the horrible blasphemies they frequently extorted from him And if now in this life they have so much power to torment our minds whenever God thinks it meet to let them loose upon us what will they have hereafter when our wretched Spirits shall be utterly abandoned to their mercy and they shall have a free scope to exert their fury on us and glut their hungry malice with our Torment and vexation And since it is evident they do not want power we may certainly conclude even from that natural malignity that is in the temper of a Devil they do not want Will to plague and torture us in the other World. And this Will and Power of theirs our Saviour makes use of as the Common Executioner of his Vengeance upon incorrigible sinners in the other Life for as soon as ever a wicked Soul departs from its Body it is immediatly consigned into the hands of those Diabolical Furies who like so many hungry Hounds seize it with infinite greediness and fall a tearing and worrying it with horrible suggestions without any pause or intermission and by continually recording its sins to it and reproaching it with the folly of them and putting it in mind of that dismal eternal futurity it must suffer for them do incessantly sting and vex it with swarms of dire reflections and tormenting thoughts which are the only Instruments of Torment that can fasten upon a Soul. And hence in Matt. 18.34 the Devils to whom the wicked Servant was delivered up by his Master for his cruelty toward his fellow Servant are called Tormenters as being the Ministers of our Saviours just Vengeance upon wicked and incorrigible offenders And thus having shewn at large that the good and bad Angels are the Ministers of Christ and wherein their Ministry to him consists I proceed to the III. Third sort of the Ministers of Christs Kingdom viz. The Kings and Governours of the World for though there are many Infidel Kings in the World that know not Christ and that never submitted themselves to his Empire but instead of that do openly defie and persecute his holy Religion yet these of right are subject to him though in fact they are inslaved to the Devil and he hath the disposal of their Crowns and the command of their power and doth actually imploy and use it even as he doth the power of the Devils in the prosecution of the righteous ends of his Government And though too many of those Kings who by
participation of the blessed immortality of Heaven so also Rev. 3.21 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 Throne And he promises the Bishop of the Church of Smyrna in particular Be thou faithful to the death and I will give thee a crown of life Rev. 2.10 In all which places he expresly declares his Royal Authority to reward his faithful Subjects when they leave this World with the joys and felicities of the World to come and this Authority he is continually exercising in his heavenly Kingdom For when ever any faithful and obedient Souls depart from their bodies he presently sends forth his Angelick Messengers to conduct them safe to the immortal Regions and there to lodge them in some one of those blissful Mansions in his Fathers House which he went before to prepare for them where free from all the disturbances of flesh and blood and of a vexatious and tumultuous World they live in continued ease content and joy wrapt up with the ever-growing delights of contemplating loving and imitating God and of the most wise and amicable Society and Communication with each other in the enjoyment of an endless bliss and pleasure for so we are assured from Scripture that the happiness of the righteous doth commence from the moment of their departure hence So Rev. 14.13 Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them and with St. Paul it was the same thing to depart from hence and to be with Christ Phil. 1.23 which necessarily implies that upon his departure he expected to be immediately with Christ and elsewhere he teaches that to be at home in the body was to be absent from the Lord and to be absent from the body to be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.6 8. neither of which can be true if the Souls of good men go not to Heaven immediately when they go from hence but that they do so is as plain as words can express it in that promise of our Saviour to the Penitent Thief Verily verily I say unto thee this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luke 23.43 From whence it evidently follows that even in the very Article of a true Penitents death Heavens joys do attend his departing Soul to receive it immediately when it is dislodged from the body Thus in the very moment of its departure hence the Pious Soul is transported to those blessed abodes beyond the Stars which are the proper seat and pure Element of Happiness where the blessed inhabitants live in a continued fruition of their utmost wishes being every moment entertained with fresh and enravishing Scenes of pleasure where all their happiness is eternal and all their eternity nothing else but only one continued Act of Love and Praise and Ioy and Triumph where there are no sighs or tears no intermixtures of sorrow or misery but every heart is full of joy and every joy is Quintessence and every happy moment is crowned with some fresh and new enjoyment But of this blessed state I have given an account at large Part. 1. Chap. 1. and 3. And this is that blessed reward with which our Saviour crowns his faithful Subjects immediately upon their departure hence so that he doth not permit them to lie sleeping in the dust unrewarded till the end of the World but as soon as they have finished their work upon Earth admits them to the joy of their Master to all the felicities that their separated spirits are capable of in those several degrees and measures of perfection which they there arrive to in which happy state they remain during their separation from the body expecting the farther completion of their happiness in a glorious Resurrection by which their Bodies and Souls being reunited their whole Humane Nature shall be filled with bliss to the utmost stretch of its Capacity And now having shewn what those Regal Acts are which Christ hath always performed and doth always continue to perform I proceed in the III. And last place To shew what those Regal Acts are which are yet to be performed by him before he surrenders up his Kingdom and these are reducible to three Heads First He is yet farther to extend and enlarge his Kingdom by the Conquest of its enemies Secondly He is yet to destroy Death the last Enemy by giving a general Resurrection Thirdly He is yet to judge the World. I. He is yet farther to extend and enlarge his Kingdom by a more universal conquest of its Enemies For if we consult the ancient Prophesies concerning the vast extent of our Saviours Kingdom we shall find that there are a great many of them which as yet were never accomplished So Psal. 2.8 9. Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession thou shalt break them with a Rod of Iron thou shalt dash them in pieces like a Potters Vessel whereas hitherto it is certain Christ was never possessed of the uttermost parts of the earth nor did he ever yet break his incorrigible opposers with a Rod of Iron or dash them in pieces like a Potters Vessel so also Dan. 7.4 it is foretold of Christ that there should be given him Dominion and Glory and Kingdom that all People Nations and Languages should serve him and that all Dominionâ— should serve and obey him ibid. ver 27. so also Dan 2.34 35 44 45. that the stone cut out without hands by which all agree is meant the Kingdom of Christ should become a great Mountain and fill the whole earth and that it should break in pieces and consume all those other Kingdoms Thus also it is foretold that the Lord should be King over all the Earth Mich. 5.4 and that there should be but one Lord and his name one Zech. 14.9 and that he should have Dominion from Sea to Sea and from the Rivâ—r to the 〈◊〉 of the Earth Psal. 72.8 and that all Kings should fall down before him and all Nations serve him ibid. ver 11. and that all the ends of the earth should remember and turn to the Lord and all the kindreds of the Nations worship before him because the Kingdom shall be the Lords and he shall govern among the Nations These and sundry other such like Prophesies there are which as yet it is certain were never accomplished according to the full import and intent of them Wherefore we may certainly conclude that there is a time yet to come before the consummation of all things wherein our Saviour will yet once more display the victorious Banner of his Cross and like a mighty man of War march on conquering and to conquer till he hath confounded or converted his Enemies and finally consummated his victories in a glorious Triumph over all the Powers
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
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-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
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
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
those dreadful words Go ye cursed into everlasting fire the persons concerned will immediately perceive the dire effects for all on a sudden they will see the Clouds from above and the Earth from beneath casting forth Torrents of fire upon them which in an instant will set all the World in a Blaze about their ears At the sight of which all this wretched World will be turned into a mournful Stage of Horrours in which the miserable actors being seized with inexpressible amazement to see themselves all on a sudden encompassed on every side with flames will raise a hideous Roar and outcry millions of burning men and women shrieking together and their noise shall mingle with the Archangels Trumpet with the Thunders of the dying and groaning Heaven and the crack of the dissolving World that is sinking into eternal ruins In which miserable state of things whither can the poor Creatures fly or where can they hope to find a Sanctuary If they go up to the tops of the Mountains there they are but more openly exposed to the dreadful lightnings of Heaven if they go down into the holes and caverns of the Rocks there they will be swallowed up in the burning furnaces of the Earth if they descend into the deep there they will soon be overtaken with a storm of fire and brimstone and where-ever they go the vengeance of God will still pursue them with its everlasting burnings And thus having no retreat left them no avenue to escape out of this burning World here they must remain for ever surrounded with smoak and fire and darkness and wrap'd in fierce and merciless flames which like a shirt of burning pitch will stick close to and pierce through and through their passive bodies and for ever prey upon but never consume them And now the Almighty Judg having seen his dread sentence executed will arise from his Throne and from thence return to the Seat of the blessed in a solemn and Glorious Triumph with all his holy myriads of Angels and Saints who as they follow him through the Air and aether will with loud Hosanna's and triumphant acclamations celebrate the praises of their Redeemer Thus shall the Ransomed of the Lord return with him with Songs to the heavenly Zion and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads and everlasting praises in their mouths For being arrived into those blissful Regions there in those glorified Bodies which they put on at their Resurrection they shall live for ever in unspeakable pleasures and delights and be entertain'd not only with all that happiness which they enjoyed in the state of their separation when they were only blessed Spirits but also with all the satisfactions and delights that their glorified Bodies can require and enjoy So that now their blessedness shall be consummate and all the capacities of their humane nature compounded of body and soul shall be fulfilled with bliss till they overflow and can contain no more But wherein the happiness of their glorified Bodies shall consist I shall not presume to inquire the Scripture being silent concerning it And what the happiness of their souls shall be hath been shewn at large before Part 1. c. 3 4. So that as to that state of eternal life in which our Saviour shall place his faithful servants in the conclusion of this great Judgment I need say no more of it in this place SECT XI Concerning the conclusion and surrender of the Kingdom of Christ. WHen our Saviour hath finished that last and most glorious act of Royalty viz. Iudging the World and hath finally condemned to everlasting fire the irreclaimable enemies of God and crowned all his faithful subjects with eternal Glory and Beatitude the Apostle tells us He shall deliver up the Kingdom to God even the Father 1 Cor. 15.24 For our better understanding of which we are to consider that the Kingdom of Christ is twofold First Essential as he is God Essential and doth subsist in the divine Essence by the supereminent perfections of which he being exalted above all things hath an essential Right of Dominion over all things and this is Co-eternal with himself and is as inseparable to him as his Being this he can no more deliver up than he can his Godhead which without ceasing to be can never cease to be supreme over all things But then in the second place there is his Mediatorial Kingdom which is that of which we have hitherto been treating and this as hath been shewn before was by solemn compact and agreement confâ—r'd upon him by the Father upon condition that he should assume our Nature and therein make expiation for our sins in consideration whereof the Father obliged himself to grant a Covenant of Grace to the sinful World and to constitute him the Mediator of it by which Mediatorial Office he is authorized to rule for God according to the tenour of that gracious Covenant as well as to intercede for us and in ruling for God according to that Covenant he is to crown and reward all such as return to and persevere in their duty with everlasting happiness and to render eternal vengeance to all such as obstinately persist in their rebellion So that when this is done as it will be in the conclusion of the day of Judgment the whole business of his Mediatorial Kingdom is at an end then the Covenant of which he is now Mediator will be completely executed and consequently his Mediation will cease as being of no farther use and having no farther part to act For now God and Man being made completely one the Office of a Mediator ceases of its own accord for a Mediator is not a Mediator of one Gal. 3.20 and therefore the two parties being perfectly united there is no farther use of a Mediator between them Wherefore as our beatifical Vision will supercede the necessity of his prophetick Office to teach and instruct us as our perfection and intire fruition will supercede the necessity of his Priestly Office to offer and intercede for us so the security of our possession of both will supercede the necessity of his Kingly Office to protect and defend us and therefore when our Affairs are once reduced to this happy issue his Kingly Office as well as all other parts of his Mediatorship will for ever cease But since this great Mystery is no where expresly delivered in Scripture but only in that forecited 1 Cor. 15. I shall endeavour to give a brief account of the whole passage which lies in vers 24 25 26 27 28. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall put down all Rule and all Authority and all Power for he must reign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet the last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death for he hath put all things under his feet but when he saith all things are put under him it is manifest that he is excepted which did put
the Tabernacle where he fixed his abode between the Cherubins and from whence he frequently displayed himself before the whole Congregation in the beams of that visible Glory which he there assumed as the Symbol of his special presence and by thus doing he took a most wise and effectual course not only to raise and excite their devotion but also to restrain and confine it within its proper bounds and limits for while men are under the government of sense there is nothing hath that prevalence with them to excite their affections and fix their thoughts as material Phantasms so that God by exhibiting to them a visible presence of himself and thereby impressing their imaginations with a material Phantasm of his presence and Glory did at once both spur their affections and bridle their fancies from roving into wild similitudes of him and thereby take an effectual course to prevent the worshiping him by those outward Images which they exemplified from the similitudes which they framed of him in their own fancies and having this visible glory to entertain their fancies they had the less temptation from their sense to hunt after sensible similitudes and representations of him that outward Shechinah which they sometimes saw being a sufficient help to raise up their groveling minds and carnal affections to the contemplation and worship of his invisible glory and that that outward visible glory in which he appeared to them was intended for this purpose seems plainly implied in Deut. 4.12 where Moses tells them that when God spake to them out of the midst of the fire they heard the voice of the words but saw no similitude and so again ver 15. from whence he infers Take ye therefore good heed unto your selves left ye corrupt your selves and make ye a graven Image the similitude of any figure the likeness of Male or Female c. ver 16.17 where by their seeing no similitude is not meant that they saw nothing for God himself had promised Moses that the third day he would come down in the sight of all the people on Mount Sinai Exod. 19.11 and therefore in all probability they saw the fire or visible glory in which he descended for it is expresly said they saw it afterwards Exod. 24.17 but this fire shining without any determinate form or shape they might very well be said to see no similitude for by similitude it is evident he means a determinate shape ver 16. where he bids them beware of making the similitude of any figure so that the People saw God only in an unfigured flame or visible glory that was cast into no determinate shape though within that it is probable as was shewn before God appeared to Moses and the seventy Elders in a glorious humane shape And this it seems God deemed a sufficient help to inable them to fix their thoughts on and determine their worship to himself and therefore he strictly charges them to content themselves with this and not let their fancies rove as they were too prone to do after formed similitudes and Images of him lest those Images should create in their minds false and opprobrious notions of him and cause them to imagine the immense Godhead as the Heathen did to be like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by Art and mans device Acts 17.29 Thus men being degenerated into a life of sense and thereby rendered extremely propence to Idolatry to worship God by Images and thereupon to form blasphemous notions of him as if he were such a one in himself as those Images represented him God was pleased to exhibit to them a sensible presence of himself that thereby he might the more effectually excite their awe and reverence and at the same time restrain their imaginations from debauching their minds with unbecoming similitudes of his infinite Being and Perfections And for the same reason that God under the Old Law appeared to the Iews in a visible glory he afterwards appeared to this lower World and doth still continue to appear to the upper personally united to a humane body and soul for so S. Iohn represents Christs assuming of humane nature who before he assumed it was that God who appeared to the Iews from their Tabernacle in that Shechinah of visible Glory to be only a removing out of one Tabernacle into another out of the Tabernacle of the Law into the Tabernacle of humane nature John 1.14 The word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and truth where instead of he dwelt among us in the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. he Tabernacled or dwelt as in the Tabernacle among us he removed his abode out of the old Tabernacle and took a new Habitation in humane nature for that this is the Apostles meaning is evident from what follows and we beheld his Glory which plainly refers to that Glorious Light or flaming substance called the Glory of the Lord in which of old he was wont to display himself before the Congregation of Israel from between the Cherubins and in this very Glory S. Iohn says he beheld him viz. at his Baptism and Transfiguration at both which times he was seen by them shining in the very same Glory wherein of old he was wont to shine out of the Old Tabernacle and therefore it is added that this Glory wherein S. Iohn beheld him was the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father i. e. it was the very same Glory with that wherein the only begotten was heretofore wont to display himself from the Tabernacle of Moses so that the meaning of the words seems at least to be this He dwelt among us in our nature just as heretofore he did in the Mosaick Tabernacle and in this Tabernacle of our Nature we Twice beheld him shining forth with the same Glory wherein he was wont to shine out of that Old Tabernacle from between the Cherubins Since therefore Christ dwelt in our nature in the same manner and therein appeared in the same visible Glory that he formerly did in the Old Tabernacle there is no doubt but he did it for the same ends and purposes and therefore since one of the ends of his dwelling in that Tabernacle was to restrain men from running into Idolatry there is no doubt but among others he intended this end also in assuming our natures than which there can be no visible appearance in nature more proper to excite our sluggish and to determine our roving devotions upon him for since in this life of sense which we now lead we need a sensible presence of God to raise up our minds and affections to him in what presence could he have appeared to us more proper for this end than that of our own nature a presence which is not confused like that of the Old Tabernacle which was only a mixture of shapeless lights and shadows but distinct and determinate