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A64371 A sermon concerning the cœlestial body of a Christian, after the resurrection preached before the King and Queen at White-Hall April 8, 1694, being Easter-day / by ... Thomas Lord Bishop of Lincoln. Tenison, Thomas, 1636-1715. 1694 (1694) Wing T713; ESTC R20713 11,700 32

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shall rise first then those which are alive and remain shall be caught up in the Clouds together with those that have been raised to meet the same Lord in the Air and so shall they be ever with the Lord. The Sting of Misery is the Continuance of it and Hell is the more Hell for that Continuance also is the Heaven of Joy It is made Perfect by our possessing it without any Shadow of Suspicion of being ever bereaved of it And thus it will be after the Resurrection of the Just. Then shall be entirely fulfilled the Words of the Prophet Hosea He will ransom thee from the Power of the Grave He will redeem thee from Death O Death he will be thy Plague O Grave he will be thy Destruction Then shall be made good those Words of St. Paul Mortality shall be swallowed up of Life Or as he expresseth it in the Words after the Text When this Corruptible shall have put on Incorruption and this Mortal shall have put on Immortality Then shall be brought to pass the Saying that is written written of old by the Prophet Isaiah Death is swallowed up in Victory These which I have recounted are you will say very great Advantages which a Christian shall gain by changing this Earthly for a Heavenly Body But it may be you will add Why cannot the Soul be fully happy in it self without any Body at all and happier than in a Body though Incorruptible and Immortal To this I think it is proper to answer no more than thus much in this short Discourse which is design'd not for nice Dispute but solid Edification That is to say That God who framed his Creatures in divers Orders made Man a Creature consisting of Soul and Body and that it belongs to his Rank in the Creation to have them at last united again Also that by the perfectest Union of them a Creature of that Order is as such compleated both in his proper Being and in the happiness of it To this purpose are as I conceive the words of St. Paul In this Tabernacle we grow earnestly desiring to be Clothed upon with our House which is from Heaven If so be that being Clothed we shall not be found Naked For we that are in this Tabernacle do Groan being burthened Not that we would be Uncloathed but Cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life He would not be without a Body at That day for of that time he speaks but he is desirous that a Celestial Form should be put upon Terrestrial Matter These is a Question less curious than that which has been put but exceedingly more useful and it is this What shall we do that we may come at these several great Advantages of living at last in an Heavenly body And this is the Third Consideration and very fit for the Exercise of our Thoughts For in vain do we Philosophize about a Celestial Paradise and a Spiritual Body and an Heavenly Word without knowing and using the means of being happy in them all Those means are the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace to which Christians on their Parts have solemnly consented and which by the assistance of God's Grace they may and must perform by their sincere Obedience to Him The way to have better Bodies is to have more Virtuous Souls God hath put us into this Body as into the Habit of a Pilgrim on Earth as Probationers for a more excellent Cloathing And according to our Patience our Self-denial our keeping the Body in Subjection to the Mind our governing the Appetites and Passions of it so shall the Resurrection and Ascension of it be Righteousness saith the Book of Wisdom is Immortal and the giving heed to her Laws is the assurance of Incorruption and Incorruption maketh us near unto God And he that will not awake to Righteousness shall not ascend to a state of Incorruption God will not receive such a Violater of his Laws into his especial Presence He will not admit so brutal a Creature into his Kingdom where there is nothing to gratifie the Inclinations of Flesh and Blood Such a Creature would still be desirous to Eat and Drink and to enjoy the Pleasures of a corruptible Body We rise to Glory as Members of Christ who saith the Apostle died for all that they which live should not live to themselves but unto him who died for them and rose again His true Members we cannot call our selves with any Propriety if we fulfil not the holy Vow we made to him when we were initiated into his Church by renouncing and forsaking all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh. St. Paul hath told the World in express Terms That he who Soweth to the Flesh shall of the Flesh Reap Corruption He shall die after all the pampering of the Body with Epicurean Art and for that it may be much the sooner He shall fat himself for Slaughter but He who Soweth to the Spirit who Feeds and Cultivates the Soul with Wisdom and Holiness shall of the Spirit Reap Life everlasting the Life of an Immortal Soul in an Immortal Body Can it ever be imagined or if it be is it any other than mere imagination and a very false and gross one too that Christ shall raise the Temple of this Body to a Celestial House making that second Temple much more glorious than this first after it has been wilfully Desecrated by Man and put to the vilest uses of Insobriety and Lust. Such Sensualities render this Body more Earthly still and bury the Soul in it so far are they from promoting it to an Heavenly Estate The impenitent Sinner hopes against all grounds of hope if he has expectation of seeing God face to face with Eyes which have been full of Adnltery and of praising God in Heaven with a Tongue that has been set on Fire from Hell that has Insolently blasphem'd him on Earth and bitterly revil'd his Servants perhaps because they were his Servants or for reviling sake The like may be said of every Wickedness done by the Soul in this Earthly Tabernacle For we must all appear before the Iudgment-seat of Christ that every Man may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether it be Good or Evil. This is part of the Confession of our Faith which we have this day made in these words At Christ's coming all Men shall rise again with their Bodies and give account of their own Works and they that have done good shall go into Life everlasting and they that have done Evil into everlasting Fire Wherefore Fourthly Knowing the Terrors of the Lord which will seize upon the Ungodly and bring them to Destruction both of Body and Soul and the joyful Estate of a happy Soul in a Celestial Body which shall be the Portion of all those who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit We beseech you both by the Severities and Mercies
A SERMON CONCERNING The Coelestial Body of a Christian After the Resurrection Preached before the King and Queen AT WHITE-HALL April 8. 1694. Being EASTER-DAY By the Right Reverend Father in GOD THOMAS Lord Bishop of Lincoln Published by their Majesties Special Command LONDON London Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCIV A SERMON Preached before the KING and QUEEN 1 CORINTH XV. 53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality THIS is part of a very remarkable Discourse of St. Paul's and indeed all his are such In it he treats of the great Article by which our holy Religion stands or falls The Resurrection of Christ as likewise of that of Christian Men. For here he does not speak of the entire Argument but of the Resurrection to life Now after having prov'd by several convincing Reasons that Christ is risen and that those who are Christ's shall rise also in God's due time he proceeds to the discovery of a mysterious Truth not hitherto unfolded to the Corinthians This holy S●cret consisteth of two Branches The first is the wonderful change which shall of a sudden be made in the Bodies of those true Christians who shall be found alive at that time when Christ shall come to judge that world which with such insolence and ingratitude set him at nought The Apostle shews that there shall then be no other separation of the Souls of the Iust from their respective Bodies than what the Almighty power of God shall make by the transmutation of those Bodies from a gross to a heavenly frame The second is the like glorious alteration which shall be made at the last in the Bo●es of those who having slept in Christ shall be raised again at that day Behold saith he I shew you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall be changed In a moment in the twinkling of an Eye at the last Trump for the Trumpet shall found some awakening Power shall go before the Heavenly King when he descendeth with his Host of Angels and the Dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality That which I have to say at present upon these words may be reduced to four Heads 1. The grounds of the Belief of a Christian concerning this change of a corruptible and mortal into an incorruptible and immortal Body 2. The many and great advantages which will accrue to those whose bodies shall be at last in this extraordinary manner transfigured 3. The means without which no man shall attain this Blessed End 4. An Exhortation to the conscientious use of the means by which we may with certainty arrive at this Change which will be so very much every way for the better that whensoever we shall leave these earthly Tabernacles in which we shall dwell but a few days and peradventure whilst those last incommodiously enough we may by the grace of God and the ministration of his holy Angels be received into everlasting habitations 1. I begin with the grounds upon which we believe that the Body shall be raised and made Caelestial in the Heavens and corrupt no more and dye no more That the Body is mortal is an Article in every mans Creed though many live as if they had not spent a thought about dying and upon the account which after death must be made by them That the Body shall rise was a Doctrine which the Primitive Christians spake of with such great assurance that as the Heathen in Minutius Felix observes a man that heard them would almost think they themselves were already risen And tho the conceit of Origen about a new Caelestial body instead of the glorified frame of the old one at least of the ideal rudiments of it had been by his Followers entertained yet they agreed with other Christians in the point of a heavenly Tabernacle Nevertheless all men in all Ages have not had a Faith equal with theirs but some especially in ours so over-run with Scepticism have doubted concerning the Resurrection and further Change of this Body such things entring with difficulty into our imaginations of which no Instance has been seen by us Notwithstanding which we have reason to believe this Change though none have come out of their Graves to shew us it And here I appeal to all sensible men whether That God who is the Author of Motion by which all Alterations in bodies are made who brought this goodly Frame of the World out of an heap of indigested Matter who formed the Body of Adam out of the Dust who has so framed Nature that a spring of Vegetables should succeed their death in Winter who quickens dying Seeds into beautiful Stems and Flowers and Fruit who caused even the dry rod of Aaron to bud and blossom and bring forth Almonds who has given skill and power to men by Fire and other natural Causes to open and refine the grossest bodies in whose Book saith David were all our members written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them who is pleased frequently to raise the Sick to Health and Strength and Vigour after they had suffer'd a long and tedious languishment in which low Estate their Flesh and their Spirits were wasted and their Bones stood as it were staring upon them I appeal I say to all men of sound common sense whether that God who hath done these great things is not able to put together the parts of an humane body which he made contriv'd and formerly joyn'd and to advance the frame of it from grossness to purity To think he is not is next to no thinking at all and it is to reproach God's Power and Knowledge and Wisdom which is a perilous as well as an injudicious and irreverend practice How God will effect the change of this Body when he shall make it Coelestial I pretend not to explain No man I believe can minutely tell how a grain of Mustardseed grows up into a Tree or arborescent Plant. It is true we cannot properly call that part of this Doctrine which is revealed any longer a Mystery But there is something of it kept secret still God hath not been pleased fully to discover the methods of his working this wonderful effect It may suffice in this Doctrine of Grace as in those of time and place and rest and motion in Nature that we know enough for our present use though we know not all and that we are sure of the thing it self though we cannot comprehend the manner of it It is more than barely credible it is certain That God who can do all this will at last do it because he has said he will He who on earth caused the Faces of Moses and Saint Stephen to shine who translated Elias in the Chariot of a bright and glorious