promising we shall come out of our Graves and live again after Death makes a Trial of us whether we can believe as Abraham did against Hope This is it that makes our Believing necessary and it is for this Reason that the Gospel does lay so much stress upon our believing in the Son who is the Person that has received Power to give us our Lives again For hereby God proves us whether we dare trust the concerns of our Life in the hands of his Son and are persuaded that he who undertook to restore Life and Immortality to us can raise us up at the last day In this Promise does mainly consist the Grace of the Gospel for it at once gives us a view of all that Mercy we have by Jesus Christ For it is an evident proof that he who will raise us up again has procured us a Pardon of those Offences which have brought Death into the World and that the God who has sentenced us to Death is fully satisfied with the Atonement that is made For it is not possible we should rise so long as that Wrath that kills us does lie upon us or the Offences for which we die are unremitted In Discoursing then of this Doctrine which is so considerable an Article of our Faith and makes Christianity so acceptable to Mortal Creatures I shall 1. Consider what we are to understand by it 2. What Assurance we have that we shall rise again A DISCOURSE OF THE Resurrection c. PART I. The Import of the Resurrection consider'd THE Doctrine of the Resurrection is so plainly deliver'd in the Sacred Writings of the New Testament that there are no sort of Christians but in some sense or other do assert a Resurrection or however would not be believ'd to deny a Doctrine that is so plainly deliver'd But yet there have been and still are such as do not believe such a Resurrection as the Gospel speaks of St. Paul tells us of Hymenoeus and Philetus that they erred concerning this Truth saying That the Resurrection was already past 2 Tim. 2.18 And there are still such as with them believe no other Resurrection but that which consists in the Renovation of the Soul which St. Paul speaks of Rom. 6.4 5. when he styles our walking in newness of life a being planted together in the likeness of his Resurrection But now they who understand nothing more by the Resurrection but our Baptismal Renovation or such a Change of our Conversation from a sinfull to a Holy way of living which the Apostle makes our imitating Christ's Resurrection to consist in do not believe the Resurrection of the Body which is the Resurrection that we are taught to expect And because the Scriptures speak of the Resurrection of the Body others by the Resurrection of the Body understand no more but our living again in a Body after Death not the same Body that dies but a heavenly Body But neither does this Notion of a Resurrection answer to the account that the Scriptures give us of it And therefore since there are such mistaken Notions of a Resurrection among Men it is necessary we should consider the true Nature and Import os it And 1. It implies that we shall return from a state of Death and live again or that the Soul which is separated from the Body by Death shall return from its state of Separation to live in a Body again 2. That we shall live in these very Bodies that are mortal and die 3. That we shall begin then to enter upon an Immortal life CHAP. I. 1. IT implies That we shall return from a state of Death and live again Or that the Soul which is separated from the Body by Death shall return from its state of Separation to live in a Body again When we die these Earthly Tabernacles fall down and go to the Dust and our Souls which dwelt in them take their flight and go to the place of unbodied Spirits This separation of Soul and Body is an effect of the Divine displeasure upon us It is to deprive us of that Particle of his Breath or Spirit by which when he made Man he became a living Soul Gen. 2.7 And accordingly when he resolved upon the Destruction of the Old World he threatned them That his Spirit should not always abide in those Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 6.3 i.e. Should not always lodge or inhabit in the Bodies of those Men as in a sheath as it is in the Original My Spirit i.e. The Breath or Soul that I breathed into Man when I made him But I will surely punish them with Death by taking from them the Spirit which they abuse by making it a Servant to the Flesh And now if this be a true account of the Nature of Death it is plain that in the Notion of it it does not imply either a Destruction or that sleep of the Soul which some Men dream of For all that this denunciation teaches us is That God when we die does withdraw the Soul out of the Body And this he may do though he assign it another place to live in after he has taken it out of the Body Now this we may much rather conclude from this Threat than that it is put into a state of Insensibility by Death For it being a Threat to deprive Man of the Blessing he had given him when he made him the most Natural sense must be this I will punish these Men by taking away their Souls from them and making them live a Vagabond life out of the Body which I designed at first to be their proper habitation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It shall not abide or dwell in the Body but it shall still abide or live though out of the Body And this notion of Death the Scripture does in other places take notice of As in that mournfull Saying of Jacob Gen. 37.35 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall go to Hades to my Son mourning i.e. To the place where his Soul was gone for he believed that his Body was devoured by wild Beasts And the hopes of dying the same Death could not be the thing that he comforted himself withall So likewise that Expression of the Psalmist is to be understood Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption Psal 16.10 i.e. Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hades the place where separate Souls live out of their Bodies nor my Body in the Grave And accordingly our blessed Lord told the converted Thief That that day he should be with him in Paradise which cannot be so understood as if he should that day go with him into Heaven because our Lord did not ascend to his Father till forty days after his Resurrection And therefore the Creed does not only teach us that he died and what manner of Death he died but that he was buried i.e. His Body was disposed of as the Dead Bodies of all other Men are and
not Adam's sin alone but our own too are the Reason why we die and consequently that our Justification is not from Adam's Offence only but from those many that we are guilty of By one Man sin enter'd into the World and Death by sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned v. 12. i.e. All Men die as well as Adam because all have sinned as well as he For untill the Law sin was in the World And again Death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression v. 13 14. i.e. All that lived between Adam and Moses died though they did not Transgress a positive Law as Adam did but only sinn'd against the Law of Nature But if we look a little narrowly into the Apostle's discourse the contrary will be evident For when he instanceth in a time when there was no Law that condemn'd Men to die for their own Offences his design is to prove that the Sin and Judgment that pass'd upon Adam does reach to all Men For what account else shall we give saith he of the Death of those that died before the Law of Moses was given They sinn'd 't is true but that could not be the Reason why they died because they were not under any Law that threatned them with Death if they sinned and therefore since they died it could be by vertue of no other Law but that by which Adam was Judg'd and Condemn'd He does say indeed that Death pass'd upon all Men for that all have sinned Yet Sin is not imputed where there is no Law which was the case of all that lived between Adam and Moses The summ then of the Apostle's discourse is this That Adam's Sin and the Judgment that was pass'd upon him is the Reason why all Men die but we are not to think that Men die only for Adam's Sin in such a sense as if themselves were not Sinners For though all have sinned yet all die because of Adam's Sin Obj. But if this be the meaning of the Apostle how comes it to pass that he tells us afterwards that the free gift is of many offences unto Justification Ans To which I reply That though by the undertaking of our gracious Mediatour we are justified from our own particular Offences i.e. Are put into such a state that we have no reason to fear being condemned when we come to answer for our own Actions if with sincerity we conform our Lives according to the Rules of the Gospel though we be guilty of many Errours and Mistakes Yet it is plain from what he discoursed before that it is Adam's Offence alone is the reason why we die because it is for Adam's Offence alone that we are born Mortal and are under a Sentence of Condemnation But by being justified from Adam's Sin and Condemnation we by sincerely submitting to the Law of Grace are acquitted of all those particular Sins that in our Natural state we are guilty of Because Adam's Sin being the Root and Original cause of our own particular Offences by being discharged from the Punishment that Adam's Sin brought upon Mankind we upon our embracing the Law of Grace are accepted by God to a liberty of working out our own Salvation notwithstanding our own Sins The many Offences that the Apostle here speaks of are those that in their Natural state Men are guilty of For of these alone he spoke in the foregoing Verses when for the proving it was for Adam's Transgression that we all die he instanced in those that lived between Adam and Moses who were not under the Government of any other Law but that of Nature and therefore did not die for their own particular Offences And of these he tells us the free gift is to Justification as well as of Adam's Sin because by being discharged from the Punishment of Adam's Transgression we shall not be condemned for those that no positive Law does threaten with Death But as for those Sins that in our Christian i.e. our Justified state we are guilty of we must be justified or condemned for them by the Sentence of our Mediatour according to the very Voice of the Law that he has given us to live by 2. Then Justification puts us into a possibility of living again after Death for ever For since it is the taking off from us the Curse that is come upon our Nature for the publick Transgression of our first Parents it takes away that which is the Cause why we die and which if it was not taken away would for ever hold us in a state of Death The Reason why we die is because God has doom'd us to it and that which is the Reason why we die would be a Reason too why we should never live again if God in Mercy had not pitied our Condition and absolved us from the Guilt for which we are condemned to die For as it is upon the account of God's Wrath that we die if we had for ever lain under that Wrath we must for ever have continued in a state of Death i.e. according to the Sentence God had pass'd upon us we had forfeited the Immortality of that Life that consists in the vital Union of the Soul and Body So that the import of the Sentence of Death we fell under was nothing less than an Eternal separation of the Soul and Body A Doom that adjudged the Body to Dust for ever and the Soul to live without its Body under the Dominion of that Evil Spirit that seduced us and the dreadfull Marks of the Divine displeasure for ever And as this is the meaning of that Judgment to Condemnation that is come upon all Men so the meaning of that free gift that is come upon all Men to Justification of Life is the hopes of rising again to that Immortality we lost For by Justifying us God acquits us from the Punishment he had condemn'd us to and by withdrawing that Wrath from us which sentenced us to an Eternal Dissolution of the Soul and Body he puts us into a hopefull condition of living again for ever As when he condemn'd us his Justice laid us under an obligation of satisfying his Wrath by a perpetual separation of our Souls from our Bodies So when he justifies us his Mercy re-instates us in his Favour and by discharging us from the Curse we are fallen under gives us an Assurance that Death shall not be Eternal but that there will come a time when our Bodies shall come out of their Graves and our Souls and Bodies shall happily by united again So that 3. Justification is an Act of mere Mercy and Goodness It is mere Grace and Favour that spares the Life of a Criminal when he is condemn'd to die For in such a case he can have no hopes of living unless he who has the Power of Life and Death does by reversing the Sentence save him from the Punishment Whereas a Law that allows
that he went down into Hell i.e. During the time that his Body was in the Grave his Soul was in the place where separate Souls do live after Death But although the Soul when it ceases to live in the Body does still live yet when it leaves the Body we who consist of a Soul and a Body do die And so long as the Soul does live without its Body so long we are under the power of Death And even that Soul that still lives is in the state of the Dead So that the Resurrection which is design'd to be a Remedy of that Calamity Death is to us must be the freeing the Soul from that Vagabond state that the Displeasure of God makes it to suffer out of its Body It is the bringing the Soul that lives when we are dead out of that state where it lives in a preter-natural condition without its Body to live as the Soul of a Man was by God appointed to do when he breathed it into a Body of Flesh I call the separate state of our Souls a vagabond and preter-natural Condition because when they go out of the Body they leave their own proper Habitation and wander into unknown Regions And therefore St. Paul styles our being in the Body a being at home and when we die in his style we travel out of the Body or go abroad 2 Cor. 5. And according to the import of that Curse by reason of which we die and go out of the Body we should for ever like Vagabonds that leave their native Soil and roam about the World have continued abroad but that God in great Goodness to us has provided us a mercifull Saviour whose business it is to take care of our Souls when they leave their own Habitations and in his due time to bring them back again to their homes And therefore St. Paul though he speaks of this separate state as a thing no way desirable in it self That no Man how little reason soever he has to be in love with this World does groan for that he would be uncloathed v. 4. Yet considering the safe hands our Souls are committed to when they are abroad does upon that reason speak of this state as a thing much more Eligible than to stay always here in the Body though it is our home We are always confident knowing that whilest we are at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord v. 6 8. i.e. Though we do leave our Habitations we are well pleased with our condition because we shall be under the immediate care of him who at the last will brng us out of this exiled State and restore us to our own Habitations again Hence the Resurrection is spoken of as our triumph over Hades that receptacle or prison of separate Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Hades where is thy victory 1 Cor. 15.55 The Sea gave up the Dead which were in it and Death and Hell or Hades delivered up the Dead that were in them And Death and Hell or Hades were cast into the lake of fire Rev. 20.13 14. i.e. Death will deliver up our Bodies which lie imprison'd in the Grave and Hades will deliver up our Souls that are there imprison'd and then an Everlasting Being shall succeed The Resurrection then does not only respect our Bodies which see Corruption but that Immortal part of us which by Death is forced out of the Body and driven like an Exile to live from home in a foreign Country contrary to the Laws of its Nature For the Resurrection restores us that which Death deprives us of and brings back our Exiled Souls to their old native Dwellings Although the Resurrection will bring our Dead Bodies out of their Graves yet this is not all that we are to understand by the Resurrection because the raising a Dead Body to life will not be the raising the Man that died unless the same Soul and Spirit that was separated from it by Death be re-united with it again To breathe a New Soul into a Body that is raised out of the Dust is rather the creating a New Man than the raising an Old one For the same Man that died cannot be said to be raised to life again unless the Soul be brought out of its Prison as well as the Body out of its Grave For so long as the Soul is kept a Prisoner in the place where separate Soul live we are as much in the state of the Dead as while the Body does lie in the Grave This re-embodying the Soul that by Death is compell'd to quit the Habitation it is at first born with and to live abroad in an unknown Region is the thing in which our Conquest over Death does consist and consequently is the Resurrection that the Gospel speaks of 'T is true the Resurrection has most usually a respect to the Body and does denote its leaving its Prison whither it is conveyed But besides this the Holy Scriptures do speak of the Resurrection with a respect to the Soul and that alteration of its state when it shall of a separate Spirit become embodied a second time i.e. When it shall be brought out of its confinement and returned to its own Habitation This is the meaning of that place where the Sadducees are said to have denied the Resurrection i.e. They were as is plain from our Saviour's Answer persuaded that Death does as well reduce the Soul to nothing as the Body to Dust And that since after Death there is no part of us remains alive there is nothing lest to ground our hopes of a Resurrection upon because there is nothing of us left in respect of which the Resurrection will be a Blessing and consequently that there is no state of life to be expected after this because Death does not only dissolve but destroy the very Principles of our Constitution Our blessed Lord therefore to prove to them that there is a Resurrection makes use of an Argument that proves that the Soul is alive after Death and consequently that there is another state in which as Men we must live an Immortal life God is not the God of the dead but of the living saith our Saviour i.e. The Souls of the great Patriarchs are alive somewhere else God could not properly style himself The God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob and therefore they must rise again Wherein the strength of our Saviour's argument lies I shall not now enquire For it is enough to my present purpose that he proves there will be a Resurrection because the Soul is still alive For this implies that the Resurrection will not only bring the Body out of its Grave but the Soul out of its Prison and return it to its ancient Habitation Otherwise the Soul 's being alive after we are dead would no more prove a Resurrection than if
it was extinguish'd For how is it possible to conclude there will be a Resurrection because the Soul lives in its separate state if the Resurrection means no more than that the Body shall come out of its Grave and that a new Soul shall be breathed into it Our Blessed Lord undoubtedly meant when he urged this to prove a Resurrection That the Soul which after Death subsists without its Body shall come out of its state of Death as well as the Body because it is still alive And by being united to the Body again have a new way of subsisting after Death which second state of Men is that which as the Learned Hammond observes is implied in the Resurrection Obj. If it be enquired how we can be said to rise again if the Soul as well as the Body be not laid to sleep Ans I Answer 1. That the Resurrection does not only import a restoring life to that which is dead but the giving us another kind of subsistence than that which we have after Death has separated the Soul from the Body So that though the Soul does live after Death yet it does not live as it will do after the Resurrection It lives in a separate condition from the Body when Death has broken the Union but the Resurrection will restore it to its ancient way of subsisting in a Body And therefore 2. The Resurrection does respect us as Men and is for the restoring us that Humane Life which we are deprived of by Death For though the Soul does live yet it is not the Soul alone that is the whole Man And as we are said to die when the Soul leaves the Body though the Soul still lives in its separate state so we are said to rise again when the Soul that is Immortal and does not cease to live when it is gone out of the Body is reunited to the Body again And now if the Resurrection does imply our returning from a state of Death and recovering a new life or the bringing the Soul out of its place of confinement to its own proper Habitation Before I proceed let us consider what Reflections this furnishes us with And 1. We may hence inform our selves of the true nature and meaning of Death And this is very necessary to be done that we may not despise and give way to mean and contemptible thoughts of it as if Dying carried nothing in it that was frightfull and amazing It is certain that those of the Heathens whose Names are transmitted down to us for the gallantry of their Minds have generally gain'd this reputation from the slight opinion they had of dying For it was reputed among them as a generous heroick Act to lay violent hands upon themselves and by a draught of Poyson or a sturdy Abstinence to put an end to their own Lives when their Designs and Interests did not prosper according to their Minds or they were in danger of falling by a publick Executioner Now that which brought this way of Dying into so much credit with them was their not knowing what Death is They either were persuaded that nothing of us remains after Death or if they had some dark Notices that the Soul does survive they spoke very doubtfully of it and were altogether ignorant how it lives when it is gone out of the Body but did believe they did themselves a mighty service when they thus escaped from a Temporal misfortune And thus it often happens still that Men when their Affairs succeed ill revenge their ill fortune upon themselves and die rather than feel the smart of their Calamities This is chosen as a Refuge from threatning Ills and fled to as a Remedy of present Pressures But yet both the one and other of these are to be pitied The former because they were governed by a belief that the Soul while it is in the Body is a Prisoner and that it vanishes into nothing when it is let out And the other because a clouded Mind betrays them to desperate Thoughts But besides these there are others that think lightly of Death for no other reason but because they think it a glorious thing to die like a Roman without discovering any signs of fear Such I mean who account it a bravery of Mind to out-face Death who are govern'd by no other Principle than a supposed baseness in Fear and therefore are resolved not to tremble although they know not but that they for ever lose all that they account dear to them This is a Temper that is of great account in the World But what greater baseness is it to fear losing that which we love and cherish than to love and desire that which we account good for us For my part I do not understand what great Vertue there is in living fearless of Death or in being able to meet it without a dejected look or undauntedly to expose a Man's self to the danger of it what-ever horrid shape it appears in if he who thus despises it has nothing out of this World that he can love or take pleasure in especially when we consider that it is as natural to fear that which is hurtfull and destructive to us as to love that which is good and beneficial There is I know a contempt of Death which is a noble Vertue but it is only that which Religion does work the Mind to For he who knows he shall live again has a great deal of reason to be fearless of dying But what account can that Man give of his slight opinion of Death who as little thinks of another Life as he seems regardless of Death and who while he resolves not to fear Dying thinks not and perhaps does not believe he shall rise again These Men undoubtedly know not what it is to die otherwise they who have all the reason in the World to fear it would never make it a Vertue not to be daunted or unconcern'd at it For 1. Death has not only a respect to our Bodies It is not only the closing our Eyes and stopping our Ears and tying our Hands and Feet and the rendring the several Members of our Bodies uncapable of performing the Functions of Life any more It is not the depriving this Earthly Machine which now we see to move and which we feed and cloath with art and care of all sense and motion If Death was nothing else but this I mean if all the hurt it did us respected the Body only such as the letting out our Spirits and congealing our Blood and the turning the Body into a Carcase and sending it to a Grave perhaps it might be as easie a thing for a Man to be fearless as a Beast is inapprehensive of it For why should a Man be more averse to dying than a Brute if he has nothing more to lose But when we cannot cure our selves of that Aversion we have to Death but by Religious Considerations which is the way that good Men take or by hardening our Minds
to a stupid contempt of it which is the method that bad Men grow fearless of it by this shows that Death is somewhat more than what our Bodies suffer by it Yet 2. It is not such a state of Insensibility as supposes the Soul as well as the Body to be laid in a profound sleep and that it is out of such a state of Silence that the Resurrection will awaken us For there is nothing more plainly taught us in all the Holy Scriptures than that the Soul does survive the Body and is in a state either of Happiness or Misery from the very time of its departure out of the Body For how else could God in any sense be styled the God of the living and not of the dead if there be no part of us that lives after Death For if the Soul as well as the Body falls asleep when Death puts an end to this lie and so continues to sleep as well as the Body till the Resurrection gives new life unto it the Soul is as much Dead as the Body till the Resurrection does quicken it again And if so God must be the God of the dead and not of the living till at the Resurrection he gives us new life And besides the Parable of Dives and Lazarus does prove that the Souls both of good and bad Men do live in another state after Death For how else could it be said that the one was carried into Abraham's Bosom and the other tormented in Hell if there were not two different States in which the good and bad do live after this life For if the Souls of all Men do sleep from the day of Death till that of the Resurrection then the Souls of Dives and Lazarus must have been in one and the same condition which the Parable does not suppose they were But 3. It is the haling the Soul out of its own proper Dwelling to a Prison or the banishing it from its own home to a strange unknown Region It is not the setting it at liberty by breaking down the Walls of its Prison which has been of old and still is a very prevailing Notion Sumus in his inclusi compagibus corporis Est enim Animus coelestis ex altissimo domicilio depressus quasi demersus in terram locum divinae Naturae aeternitatÃque contrarium saith Tully We are shut up within these fleshly Walls For the Soul was thrown down from its sublime Habitation and forced into an Earthly dwelling a place contrary to the Divinity and Eternity of its Nature which was the Opinion of Plato and his Followers who supposing a Pre-existence of the Soul taught it was thrust out of its Celestial Habitation into an Earthly Body for some fault and therefore that Death did but restore it to its ancient State by setting it at liberty from the Body So Hierocles discourses That it was by leaving the Fields of Vertue and Truth deplumed and thrust into an Earthly Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being banish'd Heaven and made a Vagabond upon Earth And therefore it is no wonder that they made light of Death which they supposed did set them at liberty and restored them to their first and most ancient way of living Ex vita discedo tanquam ex hospitio non tanquam ex domo I go out of this life as from an Inn not from home Now according to this Notion of Life and Death we have infinitely more reason to be weary of Life than afraid of Death and to mourn the Birth rather than the Death of our friends But the case is quite otherwise if we take a view of Death without any respect had to those Considerations that Religion furnishes us with For there is nothing more dolefull no greater Calamity can befall a Man and therefore there is nothing that he has more reason to stand in awe of and tremble at It is so far from breaking open the doors of a Prison and restoring our Souls to their pristine liberty that it pulls down its House and drives it like an Exile from its native Soil to live in an unknown place after an unusual manner The Body is not its Prison but its House and Dwelling-place and when Death takes it hence it is not as from an Inn where it never intended to stay long but from the Habitation where it would fain live its Immortal life and where according to the appointment of our Creator it was designed to inhabit for ever Now that Death does mean thus much is plain from the Doctrine of the Resurrection which is design'd to bring our Souls out of the Prison whither they are carried to live in a Body again which Doctrine God has made us acquainted with as a wonderfull Instance of his Mercy to us and that great Blessing which is to bear up our Minds against the Apprehensions of and sad Aversions we have to Death But now what Blessing would this be to us and what Comfort would it afford us if the restoring our Souls to their Bodies was to return them to a Prison and for ever to deprive them of their true and native Liberty This would be so far from being matter of joy and comfort to us that we should rise again that we had reason to look upon it as a Menace and bewail it as a Calamity as grievous as the Platonists suppose the first descent of the Soul into its Body to have been For what comfort can it be to us to know that our Souls after they are restored to their liberty if their separate condition be their true and most genuine way of living they shall be caged up again at last so as never to recover their liberty more But if it be an expression of abundant Mercy to us a matter for which we are bound to bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he has begotten us again to a lively hope of rising again by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ we have no reason to think that Death does us a kindness by setting our Souls at liberty from the Body as from a Prison It is in one respect a kindness as we shall rise again and live in pure and immortal Bodies but consider'd in it self if the Resurrection will be a Blessing to us it is a Calamity we ought to dread for it imports an Execution of that frightfull Sentence by which we stand condemn'd to lose our Souls that Sentence that suffers not the Breath that God has breathed into us to abide with us So that we have as much reason to be afraid of Death as a Criminal has to dread a Jail or an Exiled person to lament his Misfortune when he is condemn'd to quit the Society of his friends and acquaintance to go into a strange Country perhaps to live among a Barbarous people the Customs and Manners of whom he is unacquainted with 2. We may hence observe what Death is now to us since we have the hopes of a
serve to cure us of that fondness we have for this life to make us somewhat more indifferent towards it than usually we are It is indeed so considerable a Blessing to us that we can enjoy nothing without it And upon this account it is so dear a thing and so desirable to us that when Age and Infirmities have drawn of our Spirits and made it a burthen to us we generally feel so much sweet in it that we can hardly be persuaded to part with it with any content It is for the sake of this that we rise up early and sit up late and employ the strength of the Body and the vigour of the Mind to find out Provisions to sustain and Remedies to prolong it There are a great many Considerations which if duly thought of would go a great way toward the abating that over-passionate Love we have of it for it is mortal and that is such a disparagement to it as ought to make us somewhat ashamed of doating upon that which we cannot keep And while we have it it is not to be maintain'd but with an abundance of cost and care a great deal of labour and toil both of Body and Mind So that though Life be so valuable a thing that we cannot but love and esteem it yet it is not this life surely that is so desirable Nor would a Wise man set a value upon Life if he was sure he should have no other life but this For who can be in love with Corruption and Misery or limit his Affections to Vexation and Sorrow Who can be fond of a life that is always so chargeable and very often so tiresome a thing to us as this is This indeed might be a consideration to incline us to think well of Death though it does drive our Souls out of our Bodies because the Corruption and Filth of such a Habitation is enough to nauseate and make them glad to be rid of them For what comfort can a Soul take in a House that is ever and anon ready to fall about its Ears and which daily toils and drudges it to find out some means to prop and repair it What pleasure can it be to a Spirit to live in so nasty a dwelling that in every room and corner from the highest to the lowest presents it with nothing but stench and silthiness But if the miseries and follies with which this life is embitter'd be not enough to wean us from it if the Soul be not willing to leave the Body though it is a dwelling that affords it little pleasure because it was not created to live alone yet when we know that after Death has sent it abroad to live we well know not how nor where we shall receive it again at the Resurrection Methinks this is a very satisfactory Reason why we should the less value this present life For the Resurrection does fully answer our desires of life and will for ever put an end to that Regret our Souls have to live out of a Body and therefore it assures us of such a life as is far more worth our having than this is Was this all the life that we have reason to look for perhaps there might be some reason in that why we should love this life with all its troubles and why our Souls should be unwilling to leave our Bodies as unpleasant a dwelling as they have in them because a bad one is better than none at all But when Death which puts an end to this life will it self have an End and our Souls shall not be left in Hell for ever as the Psalmist speaks of our separate condition we ought in reason to have some kind thoughts for that life we shall rise to when Death and Hell are destroy'd Did we know no more of it but this That we shall live again there is this reason why we ought not to be only fond of this life because this is not the only life we have to live But when the life we shall live is Immortal and full of Glory and our Souls shall never more be forced out of our Bodies when we have once received them again if we be found fit to live we who hope to rise to such a life have little reason to doat upon a life of sorrow and vexation and which Death will at last deprive us of We I say have little reason to be fond of this which must end even upon this account because we carry a fondness in us toward life For this inclination ought much rather to be towards a life that is altogether free from all that does discontent this 4. We may hence observe the Folly of Atheism For it teaches Men to deride and make a mock at the very Blessing which of all persons the Atheist either is or ought to be most fond of and for the making the most of which he pretends to believe as he does He believes that it is for the good of life for a Man to be at liberty to follow the swing of his own inclinations and that nothing is a greater enemy to it than Religion which as he discourses does extremely sour and embitter it by those ill-natur'd restraints that it lays upon us And now is there any Man that ought to be so much afraid of Death as this Man who is unwilling that Life should be sour'd with any thing that is unpleasant Is there any thing that he ought to dread more than that which will not only put an end to all his Enjoyments but deprive him of that great Blessing which he is for improving to the utmost and labours with all his Art and Skill to sweeten it with all that is gratefull and pleasant as he pretends It is indeed upon this reason that he persuades himself there is nothing to be look'd for after Death He loves this World so well that he is not willing to believe there is another to be expected after he is taken out of this unless he should live in the other as he does in this Let us eat and drink says he for to morrow we shall die i.e. Let us make much of Life while we have it for we shall not enjoy it long And the dead know not any thing neither is there any device or knowledge or wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest This is the substance of this Man's belief and reasoning But yet I say he of all Men should not believe and reason thus because he speaks against himself and argues against his own Principles For at the same time that he speaks against Religion for being an Enemy to Life he himself speaks very meanly and contemptibly of it The same reason that makes him an Enemy to Religion ought to make him the greatest Enemy to Death and to raise in his Mind the greatest abhorrency of it because according to his Opinion it will for ever take away all that sense in the pleasing of which he places all his happiness He
such delights as now we live in or because when we are once gone out of this World there is nothing more to be expected In either of these two cases a Man might be allowed to provide for this life with all the care and solicitude that he can without thinking of any other But if we must die and after Death must rise to Life again the same reason that obliges us to be carefull for this ought also to prevail with us to provide for another life We are very apt indeed to live here in this World as if we should never leave it i.e. While there is marrow in our bones and vigour in our spirits we are very apt to forget we shall die But yet there is no Man so ignorant or so insensible of the corruptible state we are at present in as to believe he never shall No the Graves they meet with in every Church-yard and the frequent Funerals of their friends or neighbours are so many irresistible Notices of their own Mortality and tell them the sad story that this lovely World they so much doat on and they must part This then is not the reason why Men live loosely but generally they who live wickedly are apt to persuade themselves that they shall never live again And though it is the illness of their Lives does drive them to this persuasion yet they discourse the matter as if the reason why they live no higher than this World was because they were certain there is no other And it is true that if they be right in their belief they are not much to be blamed for their way of living because if there be no other life but this a Man has nothing more to do than to enjoy this the best he can But then this is a tacit confession That if there be another life they ought not to live as they do because a sensual way of living can only be suited to a World that affords no other than sensible delights And then let this Man think with himself whether he does wisely to live so here as to put him out of conceit with another life when all his unwillingness to live again will not hinder him from returning to a new state of life Let him think whether his way of living be such as he can approve of and satisfie himself in when it makes him rather to chuse since he cannot avoid dying never to see nor hear any thing more than to rise and live again afterwards And if a wicked Man can upon no other score go on in his way with any tolerable ease but by wishing he may never see day again when once Death has closed his Eyes how can we chuse but think that a Resurrection to another life does in the opinion of this Man call for another course of life than what he now lives For if we we must rise and live again after this it is surely our interest and concern so to pass through this life as to carry along with us none of those sensual Inclinations and Affections as will not suffer us to live well in the next CHAP. II. The Resurrection as it denotes the raising our Bodies II. I Come now to consider the Resurrection as it imports our living again in these very Bodies A Resurrection is a restoring life to the Body that dies For if it was not the same Body that the Soul now lives in that it shall be united to again by the Resurrection it could not be called a Resurrection To believe that it shall inhabit a Body but not the same Body is to believe that God will make it a new Tabernacle but not erect and raise up the old one And how many subtilties soever Men of wanton Wits may frame to themselves to puzzle this Article of our Faith they ought to consider that they are undermining the very Doctrine of the Resurrection it self at the same time that they attempt to prove it impossible that the same Body should rise again But I shall not examine those curious Questions with which vain Men endeavour to perplex this Doctrine For since it is upon Revelation that the Certainty of it depends we are to have a Recourse to that Revelation that God has given us concerning it to understand the true import of it For what he has revealed he will do it is certain enough that he has power to do And if we know not how it can be done it is because we know not all that God can do 1. Then he has revealed that he will raise up these very Bodies again in which we now live and which see Corruption These Bodies I say which are the Instruments and Companions of our Souls in all the Actions and Labours of this life It is I know insisted on as a thing very congruous to Reason that the Body which is a partner with the Soul in its good or ill in this life should likewise share with it in the same in the life to come But this is a way of arguing that was not thought of till we had received the Notices of this Doctrine another way For the wise Heathens who believed the Soul's Immortality and that when it goes into the other World it is either adjudged to happiness or misery according to our Actions in this life never thought of this argument to persuade them into the belief of a Resurrection And it is very strange that not one of those great Men that have discours'd of the Rewards and Punishments of the other life should not think of this reasonableness that the Body should share with the Soul in these to inferr a Resurrection Neither is it easie to apprehend why it should be thought fit that a clod of Earth should have a reward or punishment for what is done when it can do nothing that is deserving of either I know it is fit and absolutely necessary the Body should be raised since the Man that does vertuously or wickedly must be rewarded accordingly But this Necessity cannot be made appear by any Congruity in the thing that the Body should partake with the Soul of its future Recompence but only from that Revelation that tells us we must all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body We must all appear we who now live in the Body and every one not the Soul only of every Man must receive the things done in the Body Therefore our Saviour tells us expressly That all that are in their Graves shall hear his voice Joh. 5.28 All that are in their Graves i.e. the same Men that are dead which cannot be true if the same Bodies be not raised that go to the Grave No Bodies go to the Grave but those we now live in and therefore the same Bodies must come out of their Graves otherwise we shall not rise the same Men we die nor will those that are in their Graves hear his voice For if it was
we have born the Image of the Earthy have lived in such a Body as Adam had so we shall bear the Image of the Heavenly i.e. We shall have such glorious heavenly Bodies at the Resurrection as Christ now has For flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God Flesh and Blood such as now we carry about with us Bodies that cannot live without food and which by reason of the weakness and imperfection of their Senses are oftentimes pained by that which is their pleasure But what is corruptible must put on incorruption and these vile Bodies shall be changed and fashioned like to Christ's glorious Body Phil. 3.21 i.e. Such as his Body is such shall ours be discharged of all that is their burden and shame or that creates vexation or uneasiness here and improved to that height in all its Powers that we who cannot bear the light of the Sun when it travels in its strength whose Eyes water and are offended when too much light pours in upon them shall be enabled to live in such glory as is not yet revealed and to walk in that inaccessible Light to which no mortal Eye can approach This Change is express'd in Scripture by our rising with spiritual Bodies and bearing the Image of the Heavenly which does not mean that our Earthly Bodies shall be turned into Spirits For then the life we should be raised to would not be of the same nature with that which we now live i.e. It would not consist in the vital Union of a Soul and a Body but of two Spirits For a Body turned into a Spirit is no Body But now that which the Scriptures teach us concerning a Resurrection is That our Bodies shall come out of their Graves and that we shall have the same Bodies as well as the same Souls though improv'd in their capacities and qualities That the life the Resurrection is designed to restore us is the life we lose because it is styled the Resurrection of the Dead which could not be if it be a Body turned into a Spirit that our Souls shall be united to For then the Resurrection would not unite it to a Body at all i.e. It would not give us the life of a Man which is the life that Death deprives us of They who contend for such a Rarefaction of our Bodies into Spirits tell us That we shall have the agility and subtilty of Spirits so as to be able to penetrate Bodies and to be in a place not as we are now by filling it but as Angels are who do not exclude any Body thence by being there And this they suppose is the Nature of Christ's glorious Body which is the pattern after which the Resurrection will fashion ours For to this purpose they insist upon that Text of St. John which tells us That our Saviour enter'd into the room where the Disciples were met together when the Doors were shut As if St. John's meaning was That he had passed through the Doors in the same manner as a Spirit does But now the Evangelist saith no such thing nor do I see how any such thing can be concluded from what he does say The Words of the Evangelist are these Then the same day at evening when the doors were shut where the Disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews came Jesus and stood in the midst Joh. 20.19 In which he only tells us the time when but nothing of the manner how he appeared whether by passing through or opening the Door or any other way That he came in the Evening when the Doors were shut i.e. At that time of the night when according to the Custom of the Jews who were not wont saith Musculus to shut their doors in the day-time the Doors were shut Or if they give an account of such a Miraculous way of appearing as surprized the Disciples this does not necessarily oblige us to believe that he came into the room as a Spirit by piercing through the Doors For he might present himself among them in a surprizing manner though he did not pierce the Door neither is it known that Spirits do thus appear So that it is no proof that the Resurrection did turn his Body into a Spirit because he enter'd a room at that time in the Evening when the Jews shut up their Doors unless it be made appear that he could no other way enter it but by passing through the Door and that Spirits are wont thus to enter But that our Saviour's Body was not turned into a Spirit and that the Miracle of his Appearance did not lie in his passing through the Door he himself gave his Disciples a sensible proof at this very time when he show'd them his Hands and his Side and bid them Handle him and see that it was he himself i.e. The Man Christ Jesus that was crucified and no Spirit as they believed him to be because a Spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see me have Luk. 24.39 When therefore the Scriptures tell us that we shall rise with spiritual bodies the meaning is that our Bodies when the Resurrection has restored us them shall not need those refreshments of Meat and Drink and Sleep that now they stand in need of but shall live as Spirits do without putting us to charge and labour to maintain their life And this our Blessed Lord teaches us in his Answer to the captious Question of the Sadducees whose Wife the Woman whom the seven Brethren had successively married should be at the Resurrection The children of this World where one Generation goes and another comes marry and are given in marriage because in a World where we are mortal this is the only way we have of preserving our Names and of living when we are dead But they who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that World and the Resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage neither can they die any more but are equal to the Angels Luk. 20.34 35 36. i.e. They are equal to the Angels in this That they shall die no more and since they are in this equal to them they shall live like them For because they themselves will be Immortal the reason of Marrying and giving in Marriage will be at an end And indeed there is a necessity that our Bodies should be thus changed because the World we shall then live in will not be the same as this is For whether we shall ascend to the highest Heavens where Christ now sits at the right hand of God or whether we shall have our Habitations in that new Earth that will be made after this old one which has been the Seat of so much Wickedness is destroy'd it is requisite our Bodies should be otherwise fashion'd than now they are that they may be suited to the Nature of the place we shall dwell in It is not a thing that a Christian can find any thing incredible in that our Bodies after they are raised and
thoughts of a Resurrection For this is a Doctrine that tells us we shall recover all the Life and Sense that we lose by dying and instead of the Glories of a corruptible World be entertain'd with such glorious Sight and charming Hallelujahs as our Eyes and Ears never saw nor heard in this life 4. Let us consider the folly of being fond of them as now they are One of the greatest temptations that we are subject to in this life does arise from the great Love of and concern we have for our Bodies For though we have Souls as well as Bodies and our Souls are of infinite more value and worth in themselves as they are the Breath of God and that part of us which makes us Men and of infinitely the nearest concern to us as they are that part of us that makes us capable of Everlasting Happiness or Misery Yet when the Interests of these two Parts of us do thwart each other and both cannot be attended to at the same time we seem to set much less by our Souls than our Bodies And though we profess to believe that our Bodies deserve not half the care that our Souls do yet we make the Interests of our Souls to give place to those of our Bodies Our Souls seem to lie at a further distance from us and are not so much within our ken as our Bodies are We don't so soon feel what they want nor are we so sensible what we are like to suffer by neglecting them as when we lose an oportunity of providing for our Flesh Although Knowledge and Vertue be as necessary for the Soul as Food is for the Body and our better part does languish and decay for want of them as much as our fleshly part does for want of the Necessaries of this life yet we don't feel the pain of a Soul that languishes for want of its proper nourishment so much as we do the weakness of a starved Body And therefore whatever the Soul suffers we think our selves under so indispensible an Obligation to take care of our Bodies that we afford little time for the improving of the Soul There is no Argument more common whereby we excuse our selves from the Exercises of Religion which are designed to nourish the Spiritual life of the Soul than the urgency and great necessity of our Secular concerns i.e. Those Affairs by which the Body is to be provided for And when this Necessity is pleaded Conscience must be satisfied and the Soul must not complain of its being almost famish'd But this fondness for our Bodies is the occasion of much worse Evils than the bare neglect of the Soul For it is the occasion of all that Injustice and Oppression that want of Faith and Truth that Theft and Rapine that is committed in the World For why do Men cheat and cozen but for the sake of their Bodies Why do they lye for a little advantage or invade their Neighbour's property and take away by force and violence that which is another Man's but only that they may be in a better condition to feed and pamper their Bodies to indulge and gratifie their fleshly Lusts Did not Men love their Bodies too much there would be none of these mischievous Vices in the World And yet the Bodies we so much doat upon and for whose sakes we do so much mischief to our selves and others are Bodies that must die and perish Bodies that are now subject to innumerable Infirmities and carry so much Imperfection in them as ought to make us ashamed of them or at least to carry very indifferently toward them But what a shamefull thing is it so to love a Lump of mortal Flesh when there is a time coming that unless by our Sensualities we disappoint our selves we shall receive them raised from their Beds of Corruption and cloathed with Immortality and Glory Did we only consider that ere-long they must be laid in the Dust and that then all our thoughts and projects for things relating to this life will be at an end it would check that extravagant love we have of them But how much more when we consider that we shall receive them again so spiritualized that they will no more need the things that now we endeavour to please them with Let us look forward to that time when unless we spoil them now they shall be improved to such a perfection and it will surely put us out of countenance to think of our folly in doating on them now so much when there is so little in them as deserves our love Our Bodies are 't is true a part of us and we cannot but love that which is so near to us Neither does Religion charge a due care of them as a sin But it does tell us and our own Reason tells us that it is an unaccountable folly to be so doatingly fond of corruptible Dust as to pamper and deck these Earthly Bodies as if they were now in their best and most glorious Condition And to be guilty of such Sins now for the sake of them as will deprive us for ever of them again when we should receive them Immortal When they come out of their Graves free from those extravagant Appetites and unruly Lusts that now prompt us to such methods of pleasing them as carry a great deal of danger in them as they will do if we receive the Wisdom that Religion teaches us they will then be highly worthy of our Value and Esteem And then it will be a proper time to begin to love them when there is nothing cleaves to them that we ought to be ashamed of 5. How meanly ought we to think of those pleasures that here in this World we are capable of The only reason why we affect them is because they are gratefull to our Bodies And it is certain that God has had that regard to our Bodies as to furnish a World with all that is delightfull to sense to be our Entertainment But yet we make too much use of this Argument when we fly to it as a Reason why we may lawfully and without offence use this World as generally we do The pleasures of this life are for the making Life chearfull and comfortable and where lies the fault then if in a World of so much trouble and vexation where we are doom'd to labour and misery we endeavour to make a life of labour and sorrow as easie to us as we can This is the Argument by which sensual Men reason themselves into an unmeasurable fondness for every thing whereby Sense is gratify'd and the Body delighted 'T is this gives reputation to the sportings and frollicks of Wit even when they pass the bounds of Innocency and unmannerly break in upon the most sacred things For a Jest is so luscious a thing that it goes down glibly and often carries with it very horrid Prophanations 'T is this does reconcile Men to Company and Drinking and the washing away of Cares and the
of a Resurrection For the thoughts of a Resurrection can never be sufficient to fortifie our Minds against the Fears of Death if after we are risen again Death will still take its turn to carry us to our Graves For in this case there is nothing after Death to bear up our Minds against so great an Evil. But this is not the Life we shall rise to but a Life that Death shall have no more power over This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality and then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory 1 Cor. 15.54 55. And among all the other advantages of that Life we shall then enter upon St. John reckons this That there is no more Death Rev. 21.4 But the great Question is How we can be said to begin to live an Immortal Life then when the Soul that lives in these Bodies is an Immortal Principle now and does not lose its Life by being separated from the Body but does continue to live when the Body is returned to Dust To this I say that though the Soul be Immortal and does not cease to live after it has left the Body yet the Man that consisted of a Body and a Soul does And the Life that the Soul lives is not that Life which a Man by Dying loses For though the Soul be a principal part of us yet it is but one part and the Body is another and it is in the vital Union of these two parts that the Life of Man consists And as it is this Life that Death deprives us of so it is this Life that the Resurrection will restore us And this Life will then begin to be Immortal It is not the Soul that will then begin to be Immortal For Immortality is the privilege of this part of us even while it is now in the Body But the Immortal Life we shall then begin to live is the Life we now live only made Immortal i.e. When the Resurrection has united the Soul and Body together again this Union will never more be broken So that an Immortal Soul shall then live in an Immortal Body for ever And it is in this sense we are to understand the Scriptures when they speak of our putting on Immortality and the Gospels bringing Immortality and Life to light For if we consider the Immortality of the Soul that was a Principle acknowledg'd and believed long before the Gospel was preach'd So that it cannot be the making our Souls Immortal when it tells of our putting on Immortality Now is it the Soul's Immortality that is brought to light by the Gospel for that was known long before But the Immortality and Life that we owe our knowledge of to the Gospel is that indissoluble Union of Body and Soul which will begin at the Resurrection And now from hence we may observe 1. That it is then only we shall begin to live We date our Lives from the time we come into the World and reckon that we have lived through so many Ages of our Infancy our Childhood our Youth our Manhood and Old Age when we arrive to three or fourscore Years This is a Life that we account very long and when so many Years have not drawn it off we reckon it deserves a great deal of respect and reverence And yet all this Life which makes such a noise among us and is of such mighty repute with us is only the Dregs and Relicks of that Life which the Curse that is come upon us has taken from us That liveliness and vivacity that belong'd to innocent Man is sinn'd away and gone And the Spirits that are left us are the very Refuse and Bottom of what we were once stored with And because these serve to feed Life and are not run off sometimes till three or fourscore Years we persuade our selves that we live a great while And yet if we arrive to the utmost length of Life the truest account that can be given of it is this That we have been so many Years a Dying For the first step we take into the World is toward our Graves And though we live to see Thousands fall beside us and Ten thousand at our right hands before it come nigh us yet all that can be said of us is this That we die a more lingring Death than others And besides a Life of fourscore or a hundred Years is so short in comparison of that which is Eternal that it does not in the style of Scripture deserve the name of Life It is styled Vanity and compared to a shadow to instruct us that it has nothing of Reality in it And when it is once spent what is become of all those Years that we are said to live Though Man be so strong that he comes to fourscore Years yet is his strength then but labour and sorrow for it is soon cut off and we flee away Psal 90.10 But when the Resurrection gives us Life again then it is that we shall in the most proper sense be born to live For then we shall receive all that spirit and vigour that we have lost so much Spirit that Eternity shall never waste it And if we account a Life of fourscore Years venerable how much Reverence ought we to have for a Life that has no Death at the end of it Now this is the Life we shall be born to and begin to live when at the Resurrection our Souls take possession of our Bodies again And could we but with steadiness enough apply our Minds to the consideration and meaning of Immortality this Life would appear so much like a Vapour or a suddain Flash that gives us no time to consider whether it be any thing or no as would abate of that respect and value we have for it For 't is sure we can then only be said to begin to live when we begin to feel our selves free from Corruption and the Approaches of Death 2. We shall then begin to live that Life we are appointed to For a mortal and corruptible Life was not that which God design'd and made us for But it is the Curse that Sin has let in upon us the Punishment God has subjected us to for Adam's Transgression By one Man sin enter'd into the World and Death by sin saith the Apostle Rom. 5.12 i.e. The Mortal state we are now in is owing to Adam's Disobedience For had not he disobey'd the Command not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge we had not known what Death meant In his state of Innocency he was a Probationer for Immortality and the Law that threatned him with Death in case of his Disobedience did implicitly at least assure him of Immortality if he did not disobey For it implies that as while he was innocent he was not condemn'd to a Mortal condition so on the other hand he was not
that when they had eaten their Eyes were opened v. 7. But the mischief of the Temptation lay in this That they were prevailed upon to Eat of it before their time before they were prepared and qualified for it or fitted for so great a Benefit as was designed them in it And therefore it was that God turned them out of the Garden lest they should Eat likewise of the Tree of Life and live for ever i.e. Lest they should make themselves Immortal when by setting their Appetites at liberty they had made their improvements in Vertue more difficult than they would have been and when in the Condition they were in Immortality would have been no Blessing For I don't suppose that the Tree of Life was planted in Eden to repair the decays of a mortal Body but that by Eating of it they might be made Immortal when by a course in Vertue and Piety they were become fit for a Translation to that place where they should no more need Meat or Drink to support their Lives And therefore St. John tells us that in the New Jerusalem that glorious City we shall after the Resurrection dwell in for ever There is the Tree of Life whose Leaves are for the Healing of the Nations Rev. 22.2 i.e. Whose Fruit shall make us Immortal as the Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise should have made Adam had he not disobey'd the Divine Command The Sum of all is this Adam was created in so sound and healthfull a State that Age and Infirmities could not Naturally have prevail'd over him But as he was not Naturally subject to Death so neither was he Created in an Immortal Condition But Life and Death were set before him and as he was a Probationer for Immortality so God having created him Innocent left it to his own choice whether he would live or die i.e. Whether by Obeying he would procure to himself when the time of his Tryal was over a grant to Eat of the Trees of Knowledge and of Life or whether by disobeying God he would be debarr'd of this privilege and instead of being translated to a state where he should live without Food as the Angels do be doom'd to a Life of Sorrow and Labour So that as Mortality was the Judgment that came upon him for his Sin so Immortality was the gift God would have bestow'd on him for his Obedience had he improved himself for it This then being that perfection of Life that God when he made Man innocent design'd him for The Resurrection 't is plain is design'd to restore us to that way of living that God in our Creation fitted us for For although Man was not created Immortal yet it is plain he was created for an Immortal Life because God put an Immortal Principle into these Bodies of Clay which now are Mortal For why should he unite two such Principles together and make it Natural for an Immortal Soul to live in a Body if he did not design they should live always together And if this was the way of living that Man was intended for in his Creation the Life that the Resurrection is designed to give us is the same Immortal Life that we were Created for For he that over-cometh i.e. maketh those Improvements in Vertue as Adam should have done shall after he is risen again for the confirming of Life to him eat of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God Rev. 2.7 i.e. We shall be made Immortal as Adam should have been The Life we now live which is subject to Diseases and Death is not the Life that God gave us but the sorry Remains of that Life which he appointed us to It is only so much as has been left us But at the Resurrection we shall begin to live like Men. For then our Immortal Souls shall be united to Immortal Bodies And the Life we should have lived if we had never sinned will then Commence when Corruption and Mortality which are the Punishments of Sin shall be changed into Incorruption and Immortality which are the glorious Privileges of the Sons of God 3. We shall then be freed from the Reproach of Mortality and Corruption The Reproach I call it for there can be no greater Reproach to a Creature that was made for Immortality than to die And especially when we consider that Death is the Punishment of Sin and that we die for our Disobedience to our Creator and Soveraign Lord. In this case Death puts us to open shame in the sight of all the World We seem to have a Natural sense of the fault that is the occasion of it when we lament the Funerals of our Friends and Relations And the natural dread and horror of Death that is in all Men does express a mighty Regret that such a thing as Mortality and Corruption should belong to us who have an Immortal Principle within us We go out of the World like Criminals and can any thing grate more upon an ingenuous Mind than to think we die because we are under an offence and we condemned to die And had not our gracious Redeemer born our Shame for us and appeas'd the Wrath that is come upon us and made it a more easie thing to enter upon another state with what shame and horror with what confusion and disorder can we imagine that our Souls would have crept out of these Bodies For in this case they would have been dragg'd like Apprehended Malefactors to that separate state whither they go when they leave the Body as to a Gaol over which the Devil has the power For according to St. Paul's Expression he has the power of Death Heb. 2.14 i.e. Death would have deliver'd our Souls into his hands as a condemn'd Criminal is put into the hands of an Executioner They would have been consigned over to him who has the power over that State whither Death sends us And oh with what Vexation and Anguish would they have been tormented to think that all this was come upon them by the just Judgment of God! Think with how much shame a Man that was born to a plentifull Estate appears among Men or is haled to a Prison when by his Folly he has reduced himself to Beggary and Rags and the common Reproach of all that knew him is See the Man that has undone himself by his Extravagancies And how much more grievous would it have been to us had not Christ by dying and rising again taken away our Reproach to have been pointed at by Angels when we had gone into the other World without the Bodies that by the Law of our Creation we were appointed to live in and when we had fall'n under the Power and Dominion of Evil Spirits to have had it said of us That we were the Spirits of Men and had brought our selves into that Condition by our own Folly and want of Consideration But Christ by Death has destroyed him that had the power of Death
Punishment for Grace to save him from But the case is not thus with us For the Scripture saith he has concluded all under sin Gal. 3.22 i.e. He has already given Judgment upon us and therefore his Justifying us cannot be by declaring us Righteous according to the Law of Integrity but by acquitting us of the sin he has concluded us under And what other Judgment is it that the Apostle has a respect to in this Expression but that which he gave upon Adam when for his Disobedience he condemn'd him to die God 't is true does in a secret and invisible way govern and judge the World in all Ages of it He hurls contempt upon Princes he humbles the proud and makes a Land barren for the wickedness of those that dwell therein And when he does any thing of this nature he concludes that sinfull People under their own Sins whom he punishes for their Wickedness But yet these and such-like Calamities though they are the Judgments of God and argue him to have pass'd a doom upon such a People Yet it is secret and does not determine of Men's state and condition any further than as to the Temporal comforts of this life But the sin that the Scripture tells us we are concluded under does respect all Men and the Judgment it speaks of had finally determin'd of our state had not Mercy interposed And of this nature was the Sentence that God pass'd upon Adam For his Judging him was of the same nature as the great Judgment at the End of the World will be It was open and by way of Process and Accusation Adam was cited charged admitted to plead for himself and at last convicted and condemned And this Sentence did determine of the final condition of Mankind appointing him and his Posterity irrevocably to Death So that he had died immediately and this Wrath of God would have lain upon us for ever had not the Divine Mercy contrived a means to justifie and save us And since it is by vertue of that Sentence we all die we are concluded under the guilt of Adam's sin i.e. We know our Doom and what we are to expect upon the account of that corrupt and mortal Nature that we receive from him If then Justification be from some punishment that we are already condemned to suffer it must be from this of Dying because no other Sentence is as yet pass'd upon us And unless we be discharged from this it is in vain that we have a new Law given unto us For we are not capable of Immortality till we are pardon'd the fault for which we are condemned and no Man can qualifie himself for a Blessing that he is not capable of This is the account of Justification that St. Paul gives us when he opposes it to Condemnation and makes it to consist in the Abolishing of Death Forasmuch as the Children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself took part of the same that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death that is the Devil and deliver them that through fear of Death were all their life-time suject unto bondage Heb. 2.14 15. i.e. The reason of Christ's Incarnation and Death was that he might bear our Punishment and set our Minds at rest which upon the account of that Sentence that doom'd us to die are full of Anxiety and Trouble at the thoughts of losing a Life that we are so fond of He under-went all that we account an Evil in Death His Body was turn'd to a Carcase and his Soul went to Hell or the place whither Death transports our Souls that state where the Devil designed when he robb'd us of our Immortality to erect a Tyranny over the Souls of Men where having vanquish'd that wicked Spirit he return'd triumphant with the spoils of our Enemy to his Body again And therefore as St. Paul saith there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 In which words he has not a respect to the last Judgment in which all Flesh shall be Eternally sentenced either to an Immortal Life or an Eternal Death as if no Christian need to fear being condemn'd at that day For there are no doubt many vicious and leud Chrisitians that will be judg'd unworthy of the Name they bear and of the Hopes that belong to it But his meaning is that they are absolved and acquitted from the Sentence of Death that Adam and his Posterity long since received that their Souls being rescued out of his hands who has the Power of Death shall at the Resurrection return in a Triumphant manner to their Bodies again which is the great Privilege we have by Jesus Christ For these words are an Inference from what he discoursed in the foregoing Chapter where he consider'd and complain'd of the Misery of Man's Natural state as we are obnoxious both to Sin and Death Oh wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death Rom. 7.24 And sets before us the Goodness of our Christian state which assures us of pure and glorious Bodies Bodies perfectly deliver'd from Mortality and those corrupt Affections and Appetites which Adam's Sin has let loose upon us I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord v. 25. So that they who are in this state and take care to approve the things that are Excellent that they may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ are in as good a condition as if Sin and Death had never enter'd into the World For there is no Condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus i.e. By Christ we are deliver'd from the Body of this Death or this Mortal sinfull Body And shall for ever enjoy the benefit of this Deliverance if we walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit And in this respect Jesus Christ is styled the second Adam in opposition to the first from whom Sin Mortality and Death are derived to us That as by the Apostasie of the first we are condemned to die by the Obedience of the second we are discharged from so dreadfull a Punishment and restored to the Hopes of living again And this he discourses more fully in the fifth Chapter where having observed the Calamity of that Mortal condition we are doom'd to by reason of Adam's Transgression he magnifies the Grace of God in this respect That through the Redemption we have by Jesus Christ we are deliver'd from this Effect of Adam's Offence As by the offence of one Judgment came upon all Men to condemnation i.e. As all Men were condemned to die for Adam's sin even so by the Righteousness of one the free gift came upon all Men to justification of life v. 18. i.e. All Men were discharged from the severity of this Sentence and allowed the liberty of providing for a Life that is Eternal as if they had never sinn'd nor ever been condemn'd to die It is true the Apostle discourses as if it was
is a reasonable and necessary Duty because there can be no Religion at all without it And the believing the Principles of Revealed Religion is as reasonable and necessary because there can be no Christanity without it By Revelation we have a plainer account and a more distinct and certain Knowledge 't is true of all the Principles of Natural Religion than we could have it and in this respect it is of great use for the furthering that Piety and Holiness without which we cannot see God nor live an Immorral life But it was not for the making these things known only that God sent his Son into the World For though it was necessary that when he would once more make a trial of our Faith and Obedience to him he should rectifie those mistakes that we were run into concerning the first Principles o Religion yet it was first of all necessary that he should put us into such a condition that the hopes of succeeding in our Endeavours after Holiness might be an encouragement to us Now this is the thing that he has Revealed to us in the Gospel and 't is the being persuaded of this astonishing Mercy that is the Faith which Christianity presses upon us And besides considering our present Circumstances the belief of the Principles of Natural Religion is not enough for us who have corrupted our Nature This Faith was suited to the state of Innocent Man before he was doom'd to a Mortal Condition But since we feel our selves Mortal and know we must die what encouragement can our knowing there is an Immortal state for such as improve themselves for it be to us to aspire after it when we know we are Mortal and cannot avoid dying Surely something more is needfull to encourage us to do our utmost to prepare our selves for it than the Faith that was the foundation of that Religion whereby Innocent Adam was to have made himself Immortal because we cannot become Immortal as he might have done For unless we believe that we shall live again though we die we are so little concern'd in that Life that is Eternal that we shall never upon the bare believing there is such a Life and that Man was made for it be persuaded to the Practice of Holiness because such a Belief does not persuade us that there is such a Life for us The Soul 't is true is Immortal and will live for ever after Death has separated it from the Body But for ought that any Man knows 't is so much the worse for us that it is if it must always live in such a state as is not Natural to it For it is very plain that it leaves the Body with a great deal of Reluctancy And I don't believe that they who are no friends to the believing the Doctrines of Redemption and Justification as they mean our being restored to the Hopes of a Resurrection by the Death and Passion of Jesus Christ are such friends to Death that they part with their Bodies very easily And this I think proves that they could be very well content that their Bodies were as Immortal as their Souls and that they might live an immortal life in their Bodies It is not the Soul's Immortality that contents them however they may seem to put a good face on 't and make a Vertue of Necessity For they look upon Death as a great Calamity at least which no Man could do was he persuaded that Death would put him into his best State and Condition Now what does all this mean but that a Resurrection is very acceptable to us and that without it we in our Circumstances cannot have that Immortality which Adam by the Principles of Nature was encouraged to hope for I dare say that they can be very well contented that God would raise their dead Bodies again so improved as we believe he will And upon what account then can they except against the Reasonableness of that Faith which they can be contented should be true and own to be necessary to make the belief of another State a compleat and sufficient Motive to a Holy Life The Apostle observes that without Holiness it is impossible to please God and therefore that he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11.6 And accordingly he gives us a large Catalogue of brave Men that by Faith subdu'd Kingdoms wrought Righteousness and obtained the Promises Which implies that we shall never be persuaded to deny our selves the present Enjoyments of this life and keep our selves within the measures and bounds of Religion unless we believe there is another Life and a God that will reward us there And therefore so much Faith as this is was a Duty that Adam while he was Innocent was obliged to because though he was Innocent he was a Probationer for Immortality And it was requisite that he who was a Probationer for Immortality should believe there was such a State and that there was a God that would reward him with it if he did improve himself to the perfection it belong'd to for the encouraging him to do his Duty But so much Faith as was sufficient to encourage an Innocent Man is not enough for us who are guilty and condemn'd to die because we are so For Innocent Man might by improving his Nature i.e. by doing his Duty make himself Immortal But we who are guilty and condemn'd can do no such thing because we are not in a state of Trial if we be not freed from the Curse that is upon us And that which is needfull to put us into such a state must be a part of our Faith if we do believe that we have a prospect of Immortality i.e. We must believe that God has justified us that we may apply our Minds like Probationers for Immortality to that Improvement of our selves that is to qualifie us for it 4. This is a further Consideration that ought to reconcile us to the Thoughts of leaving this World I have observed with how much satisfaction we ought to go out of this World because the Resurrection will restore us both our Souls and Bodies again i.e. Will bring our Bodies out of their Graves and our Souls out of that place where they live in a Praeter-natural state out of their Bodies But the thoughts of our being in a Justified state ought to raise our Minds much higher and to fortifie them with more Resolution and Courage when we come do die because it sets before us the Reason and Ground of our Hope and eases our Minds of that which is the most stinging Consideration in Death Death is as I have said very terrible to us upon many accounts It hales us out of a World that cloaths us with solt Raiment and gorgeous Apparel and feeds us with rich and sumptuous Delicacies and furnishes us with delights for the Eye and Ear and every Sense All which must be very troublesome
Resurrection For by this all that is terrible in it is taken away and we may look upon it without terrour and amazement For though it snatches our Souls from us and sends them as Exiles to a strange place yet they go out of our Bodies with a comfortable hope of returning back again That which makes the state of an Exile so extremely melancholy and afflicting is That he is not only deprived of the comfortable Enjoyments of his own Country among his dearest Friends and Relations but doom'd to spend all his days in a wandring condition among strangers without either Home or Kindred But now our Souls when they are commanded out of our Bodies do not leave them with any such sad and sorrowfull Reflections but go to their appointed place with joyous Hopes of being restored again after a time And by this Consideration it was that the Apostle chear'd the Minds of the Thessalonians exhorting them not to sorrow for those that were asleep as others which have no hope 1 Thess 4.13 i.e. Not like the poor ignorant Heathens who had no notice of a Resurrection For in this he makes the joyous condition of our Christian state to consist that we can rejoyce in hope i.e. In that hope of having our Souls which the displeasure of God does not suffer to dwell long in our Bodies here return'd us again which we have by the Gospel Whereas the pitious state of the Heathens lay in this That they were without hope Ephes 2.12 i.e. Without this hope but were either altogether ignorant or in great doubts what became of their Souls when they lest their Bodies But the most comfortable Consideration of all is this That our Souls though they are thus haled out of our Bodies and sent into an unknown World yet they are under the care of a gracious Saviour This is it that alters the condition of separate Spirits from what it would have been had not Death been conquer'd that he who has triumph'd over Death and Hell or Hades has the inspection and custody of all those pious Souls that enter there that he is their Guardian and will not suffer them to be lost for ever Our Blessed Lord makes the goodness of Lazarus's Condition when he died to consist in this That he was carried by Angels into Abraham's bosom Luk. 16.22 In which Expression he undoubtedly intimates to us the great security that hereby was given him that even in that condition God was still his God which was the Blessing that was granted to Abraham and by which our Blessed Lord tells us he is assur'd of a Resurrection His being in Abraham's Bosom does denote a participation of Abraham's Privileges For as by the Excellency of his Faith that great Partriarch got the glorious Character of being the Father of the Faithfull so he is an Instance to us of all the good that God designs those that believe as he did And not only so but he was as it were consider'd by the Jews as the great Patron of all that died in his Faith That upon the account of the Covenant that was deposited with him and the Promise that was granted to his Faith God would certainly be a God to all that go whither he is gone The Jews consider'd Abraham as we do Christ to be the Corner-stone in whom all the Building of their Church being fitly framed grew to an Holy Temple and the Head over all things to 'em i.e. That principal Person by means of the acceptableness of whose Faith all the Privileges they enjoyed and the Blessings they hoped for descended to them And that therefore they could no-where be so safe and rest with so much hope as with him For it was a common Opinion among them that the Souls of good Men when they left their Bodies went to the place where Abraham was and that there they lived with him as Children in the House of their Father To this sense may that promise be applied Gen. 12.3 In thee shall all families of the Earth be blessed Which does not only signifie that it should be a Proverbial speech among all people that God would deal with them in this life as he did with Abraham but that in him or by being under the Guardianship of his Faith all pious Souls should be happy after Death So that our Lord when he tells us that Lazarus was carried to Abraham's Bosom spoke in the Language and the common Phrase of the Jews who believed that the Souls of good Men when they left their Bodies went to the place where Abraham as the Father of a Family has the chief place For why is Lazarus said to be carried into Abraham's Bosom rather than the Bosom of Adam Seth or Enoch or of Isaac or Jacob whose Posterity they were but because the Covenant upon which they depended was at first lodged with Abraham and that by being with him he was secured of the utmost Blessing that was intended in it These all saith the Author to the Hebrews i.e. The good Men of old that died having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect Heb. 11.39 40. i.e. They did not in their times receive the promise of the Resurrection to an Eternal life or it was not in the times of the Old Testament that God had determined to conferr this Blessing upon them But it was reserved for the times of the Gospel when Christ having by the Sacrifice of himself satisfied for our offences should merit and receive the power of restoring us to an Immortal life So that they did not receive the full of their Hope but though they were secured of it by being with Abraham yet they were to wait the full completion of it till the times of the Restitution of all things This then of old was the thing that sweetned Death to the Minds of those brave Men that died in the Faith of Abraham that they should go to that great Patriarch as Children to their Father's house who was assured of a Resurrection by having the Lord for his God But the Mind of every sincere Christian has a more powerfull consideration to support it who goes out of the World in the favour of a mercifull Redeemer Though the Soul be ravish'd from the Body and carried away under an Arrest as a Criminal to a Prison yet this is no terrible thing to a Christian who not only goes to that Houshold of Faith of which Abraham is the Father but abides under the shadow of the Almighty and is under the protection and care of him who has the power of life and whose second appearing he waits for There he rests in hope and rejoyces in the favour of his Lord who he knows will not suffer him to be lost for ever but will remember him at the last and grant him the Blessing by which he shall be perfected But again 3. This may
a new Body that should then be framed and the putting our Souls into such new Bodies could be styled a Resurrection of the Body it could not be the Resurrection of the Body that is in the Grave because a Body that is not yet made is not a Body that is in the Grave And accordingly St. Paul teaches us that it is this corruptible that must put on incorruption and this mortal that must put on immortality 1 Cor. 15.53 i.e. It is no other Body that we shall rise with but that which is now subject to Corruption and Mortality It is this Body that dies and sees Corruption And it is this Body that must rise again freed from Corruption and the power of that Law that has subjected it to Mortality And accordingly it is called the Resurrection of the Body and the Resurrection of the Flesh which it could not be if it meant no more than the giving us a Body which never was a Body before and the cloathing us with such Flesh as never had been Flesh The Apostle does indeed illustrate this Mystery by the springing up of Grain from the Seed that is sown which is only the same in kind with the Seed it grows out of And thence he inferrs that God gives it a Body as it pleases him and to every Seed his own Body i.e. Grain of the same kind But Similitudes are not to be interpreted too strictly nor to be understood to give a full and proportionable proof of the thing they are designed to illustrate So that we are not to conclude from hence That it is only a Body of the same kind with that which was buried and corrupted in the Grave that shall grow out of that which is corrupted as Wheat does out of Wheat that has seen corruption But that as the Seed which is sown does see Corruption before it yields its encrease so our Bodies before they rise must likewise see Corruption But still that they shall be the same Bodies that die and see Corruption that rise again he plainly teaches us when he tells us That it is this corruptible that must put on incorruption and this mortal that must put on immortality Neither are we to think it enough to style it the Resurrection of the same Body though the Body that rises springs out of any one small Particle of that Body that dies which is an invention to satisfie the Atheist of the possibility of the Resurrection of the same Body though our Bodies after they have lain long in their Graves may possibly undergo innumerable changes by being mixt with other Bodies For this is not to assert as the Scripture teaches us a Resurrection of the same Body but only of some small part of it Only so much of our Bodies in this case can be said to rise as did belong to our Bodies before they saw Corruption but all the rest that the Resurrection will give us it must do so by a new Creation for it is a contradiction to suppose that any one little portion of the Body that dies may by Multiplication or any other way become all the parts and portions of which our Bodies did consist One part can be no more than one part and if but one part arises then all the rest are lost and all that the raised Body will consist of besides must be such as it never had before And what is this but to suppose that it is a new Body that is made and not the old one that is raised For it is much more reasonable it should be denominated from all that new quantity of Matter of which it is framed than from one single Particle that is old If then it be the Resurrection of the same Body that goes to the Grave that the Scripture teaches us as certainly it does we are not to trouble our selves with those Difficulties that seem to thwart the belief of it because those things that appear impossibilities to us are none to God We ought therefore to be very cautious how for the removing the Cavils of unreasonable Scepticks we start new Notions of a Resurrection lest while we endeavour to remove the Objections that are made against this Doctrine we destroy the Truth of it For a Resurrection in its true Notion does certainly suppose a restoring of Life to the whole of that which falls and dies and not only to some part of it for all that is added to the Old is not raised because it never fell This was the Resurrection that the first Christians believed and maintained and which the Heathens quarrell'd with and opposed Christianity for Had not this been the Doctrine that was taught and believed by the Christians there would have been no reason for those scoffs with which the Heathens loaded it as an impossibility or a childish figment For those of them especially who as well as Christians believed that the World had a beginning could no more suppose it impossible that God should make a new Body after this is turned to Dust than that he should make a Man at the first But that which they could not conceive to be possible was the reviving a dead Body And therefore it was that for the perplexing this Doctrine the more they burn'd the Bodies of Christians whom they Martyr'd and threw their Ashes into the Air or Sea that the Winds or Waves might scatter them thinking thereby to shame the Christians into a Confession of the Impossibility of such a Resurrection as they expected But 2. They must be these Bodies made glorious and spiritual fit for the Objects and suitable to the Condition of the World we shall then live in It is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body 1 Cor. 15.42 43 44. Though they are the same Bodies that rise yet they will not rise with the same Qualities and Infirmities They will be the same Bodies but changed and improved to such a condition as is proper for a state of much greater glory and perfection than that in which we now live is Here our Bodies have dishonourable and feeble Parts are subject to the infirmities of Age and the decays of Sickness and at the best have those Necessities about them as require daily refreshments of Meat and Drink and Sleep But when we come out of the Grave all this infirmity and weakness this dishonour and feebleness this imperfection and corruption shall be left behind And we who went into the Chambers of the Dead the food of Worms shall come forth the companions of Angels We who go to our Beds of Dust with that stench and rottenness as compells our dearest friends to bury us out of their sight shall come forth with Immortal Bodies that shall neither need food nor raiment nor any thing to sustain them as now they do For as
it must be as grievous a thing to be haled out of it to a dark Prison and a stinking Grave where the Body he loves must be a feast to Worms and Vermine and at last corrupt and perish never to live more as it is usually to persons born to plentifull fortunes to be turn'd out of their Houses where they were born and brought up or to see them tumbled into heaps and rubbish So that one would think that if it was only for the sake of his Body which he is so very tender of he should be as much over-joy'd to hear of a time when he shall receive his Body again as a poor Prisoner is when he has liberty given him to return home or he who has seen his House demolish'd by an Enemy to see it by the Charity of a friend to rise again out of its Ruins And so undoubtedly it is to every wise Man because it gratifies a very sensible desire in us and makes up the loss we sustain by dying For it is the general belief of Christians that the Soul after it is departed out of the Body though it be in a happy state as the Souls of good Men certainly are is not so perfectly happy as it will be when at the Resurrection it is united to its Body again Wherein the imperfection of its Happiness does consist or from what Reason it is that it is not so perfectly Happy as it will be then is not for us who know so little of the condition of separate Spirits and how they live to tell But why may we not suppose that it carries along with it into the other World a strong inclination toward the Body it has left behind which is either more or less violent as we either mortifie or indulge to it in this World And so long as such an inclination and desire is not satisfied it cannot be so compleatly Happy as it will be when it carries no unsatisfied desire in it This is certain that Death which divides the Soul from the Body does offer Violence to it and the separate state in which it lives afterwards is preter-natural And when it is rent from the Body against its own inclination why may it not retain an inclination to its own true and most natural way of living again I know indeed that the Souls of good Men by Faith and Resignation to the Divine Will do save themselves from that anguish and vexation that such a preter-natural way of living does vex the wicked Spirits of bad Men with For as they leave the World with a great deal of regret and many violent conflicts so it is very likely that they carry those Resentments for being forced out of a Body that they love along with them as are their torment But though the Patience and Resignation of good Men does make Death more tolerable and a separate state not to occasion that vexation to them as it does to the wicked yet it is the hopes of a Resurrection in them does overcome those natural Reluctancies to Death that are in us and persuades them with a constant Mind to bear with the loss of their Bodies for a time in Obedience to the Divine Appointment But had there been no such promise I do not see how any Man could be content to part with so considerable a part of himself as his Body for ever For in this case Death would be inflicted as a Curse and we should go out of the World as Offenders whom God is not reconciled to i.e. Such Offenders as must bear his Displeasure for ever So that however a good Man may with patience resign himself to the Will of God who has appointed that all Men shall die so long as he knows that God is his friend and has appointed a time too when he shall have his Body restored him again Yet it would be a great difficulty to compose his Mind to such a temper if after all his endeavour to please God he was for ever to lie under his displeasure If there was no Resurrection to be expected he would want the only Motive that could dispose his Mind to such a bearing Temper as will make his spearate State tolerable And although the hopes of rising again does quiet the good Man's Spirit under the loss of its Body yet during its separate State it must ratain a strong Desire towards its ancient Companion because to live in a Body is Man's natural way of living and because he needs a Consideration to bear up his Mind under the thoughts of parting with it But it is not the living in any Body that will satisfie this desire For the inclination that it carries with it into the other World is towards the Body it left behind And if it be not this Body that the Resurrection unites it to again how can this Inclination be laid and its desire of living in its own Body be satisfied by being put into a new Body The Resurrection by assuring us we shall live again does speak a great deal of comfort to us who naturally are afraid of and abhorr Death But it would not be half so comfortable to us as it is if it did not give us hopes of living in these very Bodies that we have taken a love to and are so loth to part with Now this is the great satisfaction that it gives us For it acquaints us that these two intimate and ancient Friends that are so hardly prevail'd upon to bid adieu to each other shall meet again never to part more The Soul is well acquainted with the Body it now lives in and has contracted such an intimacy with it that it is loth to leave it And that alone which can silence this dissatisfaction is the hopes of being united at the Resurrection to the Body it has already made trial of and has such an inclination to whereas an unknown Body can give no relief in the case because it is unknown what it shall be and how we shall live in it And how then ought we to rejoyce in hopes of the Resurrection which will restore us the very Bodies which we have such a fansie for This Doctrine should methinks be received by mortal Creatures with the greatest greediness even out of Love to our Bodies We take a great deal of pains with them now to nourish and sustain them to repair their decays and to keep them alive and yet for all this they must die And why should we not be overjoy'd with the thoughts of a Resurrection when we shall have the Bodies again that we have taken such a liking to 2. It is very requisite we should take that care of them now that we may rise with comfort and that when our Souls come to inhabit them again they may have a quiet and peaceable dwelling in them For otherwise the thoughts of rising again and living in these Bodies after Death will be so far from being comfortable that it will fill us with
terrible Reflections and occasion a World of vexation and trouble Now this will be the case of wicked Men. For there are Two things that will make it a dreadfull thing to them to rise again 1. That they must go into Bodies that will vex and torment them with intemperate Appetites 2. Into Bodies that they will be asham'd of 1. Into Bodies that will vex and torment them with the rage of intemperate Appetites The Souls of such Men are in a very wretched condition For they are straitned with the same unhappy Dilemma as the Leprous Men were when Samaria was besieged If they stay out of their Bodies their inclinations to them will be their torment but if they go into their Bodies again the rage and extravagancy of such Appetites as they can meet with nothing to gratifie them with will miserably disquiet them So that they will neither live at ease with nor without their Bodies The Resurrection will satisfie the inclination they have to live in their Bodies again by restoring them just such Bodies as the sensuality of their tempers can take pleasure in But the Resurrection upon this account will not be gratefull to them because it will restore them to such Bodies as will call for the same enjoyments and gratifications as here in this life they are pleased with in that place where there is not one drop of water to cool a scorched Tongue And oh what will be the Torment of being doom'd to unquenchable thirsts What the misery of a Spirit that is shut up in a Body all on fire within by reason of Appetites that find nothing to allay their fury This is the thing that makes wicked Men averse to the thoughts of another life It is not because there is any thing in a Resurrection that the Reason of Man can find any fault with For nothing can be more desirable to a Man that knows he must die and yet has a mighty fondness for life and the Body he now lives in than the thoughts of living again after Death and living too in those Bodies that Death deprives him of But that which makes bad Men so afraid of a Resurrection is the too great love they have for this World and the pleasures of a sensual life ann that they by their way of living have put themselves into such a condition that they can't live well nor happily any-where else They would live but they would live no-where but here where they find all the pleasures and delights they have any inclination to And was it to such a life that the Resurrection would restore them they would without question be over-joy'd to think of living in their Bodies again such as they are But since by pursuing the pleasures of a sensual life they render themselves unfit for a glorious Resurrection and uncapable of living in a state where they shall meet with none of the delights that they take pleasure in they chuse to wish that they may never live more because they are sensible their bodily Appetites when they have nothing to please them will make them miserable They by gratifying their Senses and studiously providing for the Pleasures of the Body set such an edge upon their Appetites that when they come into that other World where there is neither Meat nor Drink to satisfie their Luxury nor Riches nor Honours to gratifie their Covetousness and Ambition nor fleshly Pleasures to delight a sensual disposition will fill them with as much anguish and pain as the Man who for want of Bread is forced to eat his own Flesh For it is not to be expected that those Appetites that have put a Man to a World of pain and trouble to satisfie them here that by the violence of their cravings would suffer him to take no rest nor spare no cost to give them satisfaction but have compell'd him to consume his strength and impair his health to waste his Time and Estate to wound his Conscience and lose his God should be more modest and temperate more sparing and less vexatious when it is not in his power to gratifie them It will be the same Body he must rise with which here in this life he has indulged and cherish'd and whose Lusts he has fulfilled And how is it possible but the same Body should look for the same Gratifications and for want of them pine away and languish with inward regrets and anguish Such a Body must rise again because Christ is risen for our Justification i.e. As I shall shew hereafter has acquitted us from the punishment due to the first Transgression which is the Power and Eternal Dominion of that Death that we now die But it must rise to die a second Death to receive a second and more fatal Sentence because it wants that Spirit of Life which should preserve it from Death And is laden with so much new Corruption of its own as will not suffer it to live for ever after it is risen again 2. Into Bodies they will be ashamed of Such Bodies as will not rise such pure and glorious Bodies as the Resurrection is designed to make them For it is not to be hoped that a Body that is laden with more Corruption than it brought into the World with it should rise pure and glorified That a Body that is destroy'd by its own Excesses and Debaucheries should rise so strong and vigourous as to be able to live for ever in a glorious and happy State Such as Men make their Bodies here in this World or such as they are when they part with them such will they be when they receive them again The Resurrection will indeed restore those Bodies pure and glorious whose Lusts have been mortified and which by being kept under a strict discipline have been the instruments of Righteousness but those that have been made the slaves of Sin and debauched with a vicious Conversation must arise bloated with Intemperance and deformed with all the marks of Lust and Wickedness that here they have contracted And now with what shame will such Men receive their Bodies with all those marks of Ignominy and Disgrace that here they imprint upon them How will they hang their heads when they see the Righteous cloathed upon with Bodies of Light and Glory beautified with all the Graces and lovely Features that belong to heavenly Bodies and their own loathsome with the stains and filth of foul Impurities They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and they that turn many to Righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever But some shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt Dan. 12.2 3. They shall call upon the Mountains to fall on them and the Hills to cover them when they shall see the vast difference between the glorified Bodies of the Righteous the exalted condition of those that have waited for that solemn day and their own How will it fret and vex their Souls to see their own deformity and to see themselves
despised and detested for it by all that glorious Assembly They shall awake to shame i.e. They shall wish themselves out of sight of all the World when they see with what vise Bodies Bodies that upbraid them with their own guilt and bear the marks of those Vices they have indulged to What confusion will it give the unclean person to behold the filthy Scarrs and nasty Ulcers that his sin has given him With what a dejected Look will the intemperate Man appear with all that fire in his Eyes and Face that will betray his Lust With what a sad damp upon their Spirits will those Men look who shall come forth with Tongues swoll'n and blister'd with all those Oaths and dreadfull Blasphemies wherewith they have rudely assaulted the Name of God! And if this be the case of bad Men if it be upon this Reason That a Resurrection is no comfortable Doctrine to them surely it behoves hoves us to take great care how we use our Bodies now That we don't make them so vile and corrupt that we neither can nor can with credit live in them again That we don't abuse them by Rioting and Drunkenness by Excesses and Debaucheries by those Sensualities and Wickednesses which will so exasperate our Appetites as to make them an everlasting torment and shame to us Alas Men know not how much mischief they do themselves by indulging to Sensuality and Worldliness For there Spirits are thereby made so fleshly that they cannot rejoyce in the Company of pure and naked Spirits nor live without their Bodies in any kind of ease And yet the Bodies they desire to live in are so wretchedly corrupted that when they are embodied in them again they cannot live in them again without a great deal of shame and vexation if they can live in them at all 'T is therefore the Apostle's Exhortation not to yield our members weapons of unrighteousness to serve sin but to yield our selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God Rom. 6.13 i.e. Not to yield our Tongues instruments of Rancour and Spight Malice or Envy by giving vent to those Evil Passions in Railings and Cursings nor our Eyes the instruments of Wantonness by conveying impure Flames into the Soul nor our Hands the instruments of Revenge by executing the bloody Commands of that furious Passion and the like but all of them the Instruments of Piety to God and Charity to our Neighbours And there is a great deal of reason for this because we must rise again and when we rise our Bodies will be such as we now make them If we make them Instruments of Sin the Corruption wherewith such a course of life does over-charge them will not suffer them to live when they are risen but will bring upon them a worse Death than that which Adam's Transgression has subjected us to And there is no way to receive them pure and glorious from the Grave but by purifying them now from all filth and corruption by conquering those Lusts that will otherwise destroy us and taming those Appetites that will otherwise be our Everlasting torment If ye through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Rom. 8.13 i.e. If we set our selves with indignation against our fleshly Lusts and resolve no longer to please our Bodies we take an assured course to live But if we live after the flesh we shall die For so long as we live to our Bodies and make provision for our Flesh to fulfill the Lusts thereof we cherish and indulge that which at first brought us into a mortal condition And there is no way to exchange a corruptible for an incorruptible Body but by ceasing to humour our bodily Inclinations and gratifie our sensual Appetites For by doing this we raise our Souls from a Bed of Corruption and God as the reward of our Vertue will at the last make our Bodies immortal too 3. If the Resurrection will restore us our Bodies in so glorious a condition again let us consider how proper a Remedy the hopes of this is to those Fears of Death that now haunt us Death is terrible indeed and that which makes it so frightfull to us is because it robs us of our Bodies and turns them into Dust It closes our Senses and suffers us no more to see the Glories of a World that we have been so long acquainted with nor to taste the sweets that are in bodily Enjoyments The dead know not any thing saith the Wise-man neither have they any more reward for the memory of them is forgotten Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished i.e. They are neither in a capacity to do themselves or others either good or harm neither have they any more portion for ever in any thing that is done under the Sun Eccles 9.5 6. i.e. They have no profit from any of those usefull Arts and Inventions that are owing to the ingenuity of Men here in this World They receive no benefit from the Riches and Pleasures the Pomps and Splendours that this World is stored with There is no desire no knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest v. 10. No prosecuting of any usefull study nor reaping the benefit of other Men's labours And if it was to be thus with us for ever Death would be a most uncomfortable prospect But although Death does deprive us of all this yet we have little reason to stand astonish'd at the thoughts of dying when we know we shall not only receive our Bodies again but receive them freed from Corruption For this will be a sufficient compensation for all that we can lose by dying because we shall receive all we lose far more perfect than now we enjoy it If we did well consider the thing it would upon another account appear a very foolish thing to lament our condition because it is mortal and to terrifie our selves with the thoughts of leaving a World where we have indeed a great many delightfull Entertainments for our Senses For whether we be pleased with it or no we must die And it is not very wisely done to let the thoughts of that which we cannot help be troublesome and disquieting to us Upon this account we ought surely so to manage our selves as we would do if we were in a strange Country where though we meet with very delightfull prospects to tempt us to love it yet we don 't upon the account thereof think it fit so to fix our Thoughts and Affections there as to make it a hard matter to us to leave it again But though this be a Consideration that should make a wise Man neither afraid nor unwilling to die yet we are not altogether so wise but we need other Considerations that are capable of satisfying our desires of life and of removing that which is the cause that Death is so terrible to us And of this nature is the
Body as does abundantly answer the Expression of God's being their God For if God be their God he will certainly satisfie so Natural a desire as that of a separate Soul towards its Body is i.e. He will bring the Soul out of its separate state and raise the Man that is dead Thus then of old from the time that Man became Mortal has this Doctrine been Revealed And although there are no such express Texts in the Old as there are in the New Testament for it yet all that consider the import and design of these Promises made to Adam and Abraham must grant that nothing less than the Resurrection from the Dead was intended in them They are the Promises upon which God founded his Church in the two first periods of it as now the Christian Church is upon that clear discovery we have of a Resurrection And because the Church is the same it was in all Ages the foundation likewise must be the same And as in the time of Adam's Innocency it was the Hopes of an Immortal Life that was the Encouragement he had to maintain his Innocency so since we became Mortal it is the same Hope wherewith God encourages us to return to and persevere in our Duty only with this difference That now we are to be made Immortal by conquering Death Thus the Seed of the Woman will break the Serpent's Head and God will show himself to be Abraham's God CHAP. II. The Resurrection as Exemplified to us in the Resurrection of Christ II. I Come now to consider what Ground of Certainty we have for this Doctrine as it is Exemplified to us in the Resurrection of Christ And this is such a sensible Demonstration of the certain Truth of it that none can reasonably make the least doubt of it who does not call in question the Truth of Christ's Resurrection For if it be certainly true that Christ is risen from the Dead this is a sufficient Answer to all those Objections wherewith wanton Wits endeavour to puzzle this Doctrine For no Argument can be good against which there lies plain matter of fact Let them pretend never so much Impossibility in the case yet since we can tell them of a Man that was dead and is alive again all the Impossibilities that they talk of come to this That it is impossible a Man should know all that God can do There are Two things then that I shall do 1. Consider the Certainty of Christ's Resurrection 2. What Ground of Certainty we have from thence that we shall rise again SECT I. Of Christ's Resurrection I. In speaking of Christ's Resurrection I shall 1. Consider the Certainty of it That he did rise 2. By what Power he rose 1. That he did rise again i.e. That the Body in which he suffer'd which was dead and buried and which lay three days in the Grave was raised again out of the Grave and is ascended into Heaven That the same Jesus who was Born of the Virgin Mary and lived a true and proper Life as we do among the Jews for above Thirty years and whom they took and put to Death as truly as they did the two Malefactors that were Crucified with him That Jesus I say who under-went as real a dissolution of Soul and Body as any other Man that is born into the World does did rise again the same Man both in Body and Soul as before he was Crucified This is the Doctrine that the Apostles were appointed to publish to the World that by being convinced that a Man who died as we do was raised again we might believe that there is forgiveness with God i.e. That the Punishment that is inflicted on us for Sin will not be Eternal Ye Men of Israel hear these words Jesus of Nazareth a Man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you as ye your selves also know Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of Death Act. 2.22 23 24. The sum of which is this That as it was the same Jesus who was approved of God among them by Miracles and Wonders and Signs that the Jews crucified so it was the same Jesus that they had crucified and slain that God raised up This is an Article in which upon the account of the Curse we are fall'n under we are so nearly concern'd that the Apostles did mainly inculcate it as if the Preaching the Resurrection of Christ was to preach the whole of Christianity And God took care we should have as full an Evidence of the Truth of it as any Matter of Fact can possibly be proved by The Apostles I say were mainly concern'd in persuading the World to the belief of this Doctrine not that this is all that Christianity requires us to believe but because the other Articles of our Faith do either terminate in this and by consequence must be believed when we believe this or else are not of that moment to us as this is This is an Article that sets before us the Mercy we stood in need of the Mercy of being deliver'd out of the Hands of our Enemies and of having Life and Immortality the Blessings we lost in Adam brought to light And therefore the Resurrection of our Lord was accounted of that moment in our Religion that the Office they consider'd themselves Ordain'd to was this of being Witnesses of his Resurrection Act. 1.22 And accordingly this Doctrine St. Paul did in a peculiar manner recommend to the thoughts and care of Timothy Remember this that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my Gospel 2. Tim. 2.8 This then being so considerable an Article of our Faith I am to consider what Evidence we have of the Truth of it For as the Apostle speaks if Christ be not risen then is our Preaching vain and our Faith is also vain 1 Cor. 15.14 i.e. The Christian Religion is of no use to the World The Evidence then that we have to prove this though it be not such as does carry an infallible Certainty in it yet is such as is sufficient to satisfie any unprejudiced person Because it is all the proof that a Matter of Fact as this is is capable of For we have the Testimony of several Hundreds that saw and convers'd with him after he was risen and that for forty days had both opportunity and liberty to examine the Truth of it throughly and to satisfie all the Doubts that rose in their Minds concerning it And besides we have good reason to believe that his greatest Enemies were convinced of the Truth of it And they who will not admit of this as a sufficient proof may as well question the Truth of every thing we see whether those be Men or no that we live among nay whether we our selves be not
Death For what better and safer hands can this Power to deliver and save us be lodged in than the hands of our Saviour For he to be sure will suffer nothing to be lost that he came to save and which he has Power to save This I have insisted on because some who believe that Christ rose again cannot see any Reason from thence to believe that we shall rise again too Now there are but Two things that I can think of that can be an occasion of distrust in the case 1. That this Power was not given him to this purpose 2. If it was we are not certain that he will make use of it Now we are sufficiently secured against any fears of this nature For 1. If he has any Power at all given him it must be to this purpose For none can be said to have a Power to do a thing given him which he is not to do by the use of that Power A Power which is not to be made use of is no Power at all and it could not be said that Christ has Power given him to raise us if this Power that is given him be sufficient to do this and yet he is not permitted to use this Power to this purpose Now that he has such a Power his own Resurrection is a sufficient proof For upon the same Reason that we believe he rose from the Dead we must believe that he has Power to raise the Dead because the Scriptures that teach us the one do teach us the other also So that if he has the Power of raising us committed to him it must be to this purpose that he may raise us And 2. We have great Reason to believe that he will make use of this Power to this purpose For will not he accomplish his own undertaking Will he not finish the thing that he has been sollicitous for Has a Malefactour any reason to doubt whether his Life shall be saved when his friend that has with Cost and Charge been long suing for his Pardon has it at last in his own hands No we are secured by the Love of our Redeemer that the Power he has received will be made use of for our deliverance For where can such a Power be better lodged than with him whose great concern it is to have us saved Thus the Apostle does argue upon this matter If when we were Enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his Life Rom. 5.10 i.e. If he loved us so much when we were Enemies as by dying to reconcile us to God can we believe that he loves us the less now for having loved us so much before Or that after he has procured such a Power of delivering us from Death he will not do what he was so desirous should be done He who died that we might live will undoubtedly give us Life now that he has the Power of giving Life conserr'd upon him This is the Faith that the Gospel requires of us and it is so well grounded that nothing can be more reasonable But 2. Since Christ has received Power to justifie us by raising us from the Dead and giving us Eternal life This may insorm us wherein the Mercy of the Gospel does consist This is a Matter worthy our Consideration because there are so many that mistake it There are few or none so little acquainted with the Circumstances of our Nature but are sensible that we stand in need of a great deal of Mercy to save us And this Universal acknowledgment that it must be Mercy that saves us is an acknowledgment likewise that no other Religion but such a one as is sounded upon Mercy is suited to the Natural condition of Mankind A Religion that only teaches us our Duty and what improvement is necessary to qualifie us for Immortality is not now so adapted to our Nature as when Man was Innocent For because there are strong Aversions in us to that which is good Sensual inclinations that render man Sins very gratefull to Flesh and Blood and by that means give Sin such a power over us that the Conquest of one Sin is many times the labour of a Man's life we are not in a Condition to improve our selves for Immortality as Innocent Man might But though this is the Acknowledgment of all Men and the Gospel upon that account does contain the best Religion we can be under the Government of yet the Mercy of the Gospel which is the Mercy we want is not so well consider'd but that many who believe it is Mercy must save them do rest upon such Mercy as will not save them For that which many found their Hopes upon is the simple Consideration of the mercifull Nature of God without any regard to any particular Instance wherein he has Exemplified to us the Mercy he would have us depend upon For because Mercy is an Attribute that belongs to the Divine Nature they persuade themselves that nothing severe can be dreaded from a God of Mercy Thus bad Men bear up their Spirits under the pressure of their guilt and put by those Terrours wherewith the Consideration of God's Justice would affright them into an amendment of Life and at last make a shift to go out of the World without any great sense of their Danger For if they must appear before a Just and Holy God yet the God that will Judge them has the Bowels and Compassions of a Father And this Thought lays all frightfull Apprehensions of his Justice They consider not that Death is the Wages or the just desert of Sin and that by carrying their Sins along with them into the other World they carry that along with them that the Justice of God has already condemn'd and does punish them for when they die They think not that while they do wickedly they despise the Mercy that God has shown us and even throw away their own Lives which the Divine Mercy by justifying them from a Sentence of Condemnation has put into their own power to save It is evident indeed that their own Consciences being witnesses they do that which deserves Death I mean the Eternal loss of their Souls when they have a recourse to Mercy for their hopes of recovering them again when they are lost i.e. When they are separated from their Bodies and sent into the other World to live among Cursed Spirits For why else should they expect to receive their Souls again from the Hands of Mercy rather than of Justice if they were not conscious to themselves that they justly lose them And since they are conscious of this in their own Minds what reason have they to think that God will not do that which their own Consciences tell them they have deserved And there is this further to prove the Folly of such a Hope that they see the Mercy they trust to does not save them from the Punishment of Sin But Death