between Christ and his members. For although he was the Son of God by his marvellous conception, and owned of him while he performed his ministry upon the earth; yet all the testimonies of God's favor to him, were not comparable to the declaration of it in raising him from the grave. Then in the face of heaven and earth, he said, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. So in this life God acknowledges and treats us as his children, he clothes us with the righteousness of his Son, feeds us with his word, and defends us from our spiritual enemies; but the most public declaration of his favor shall be in the next life, when all the children of the resurrection shall be born in a day. Add further, although the souls of believers immediately upon their separation are received into heaven, and during the sleep of death enjoy admirable visions of glory; yet their blessedness is imperfect, in comparison of that excellent degree which shall be enjoyed at the resurrection. As the Roman generals, after a complete conquest, first entered the city privately, and having obtained license of the senate, made their triumphant entry with all the magnificence and splendor becoming the greatness of their victories so after a faithful Christian hath fought the good fight, and is come off more than conqueror, he enters privately into the celestial city; but when the body is raised to immortality, he shall then, in the company and with the acclamations of the holy angels, have a glorious entry into it. I will briefly consider why the bodies of the saints shall be raised.

As the economy

1. The general reason is from God's justice. of Divine providence requires there must be a future state, when God shall sit upon a judicial throne to weigh the actions of all men, and render to every one according to their quality; so it is as necessary that the person be judged, and not one part alone. The law commands the entire man composed of essential parts, the soul and body. And it is obeyed or violated by both of them. Although the guilt or moral good of actions is chiefly attributed to the soul, because it is the principal of them, yet the actions are imputed to the whole man. The soul is the guide, the body the instrument. It is reasonable therefore that both should receive the recompense. We see the example of this in human justice, which is a copy of the Divine. The whole man is punished or rewarded. The soul is punished with disgrace and infamy, the body with pains; the soul is rewarded with

esteem and honor, the body with external marks of dignity. Thus the divine justice will render to every one according to the things done in the body, whether good or evil.

2. The special reason of the saints' resurrection is their union with Christ. For he is not only our Redeemer and Prince, but our second Adam-the same in grace as the first was in nature. Now as from the first, the soul was destroyed by sin, and the body by death; so the second restores them both to their primitive state, the one by grace, the other by a glorious resurrection. Accordingly the apostle saith, that by man came death, and by man came the resurrection from the dead. Christ removeth the moral and natural impossibility of our glorious resurrection :the moral by the infinite merit of his death, whereby divine justice is satisfied, that otherwise would not permit the guilty to be restored to eternal life; and the natural, by his rising from the grave, to a glorious immortality. For his infinite power can do the same in all believers. It is observable, the apostle infers the resurrection of believers from that of Christ, not only as the cause, but the original, example. For the members must be conformed to the Head, the children to their Father, the younger to the elder Brother. Therefore he is called, The first-fruits of them that slept, and the first-begotten of the dead. In Christ's resurrection ours is so fully assured, that the event is infallible.

"Glory to God, in full anthems of joy;

The being he gave us death cannot destroy:
Sad were the life we may part with to-morrow,

If tears were our birthright, and death were our end;
But Jesus hath cheer'd the dark valley of sorrow,

And bade us, immortal, to heaven ascend:

Lift then your voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die."

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.-Is. i. 3.

THERE is a universal ignorance and inconsiderateness of spiritual things in the nature of man; he takes less notice of his condition than the very brute beasts. "The stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed time, and the turtle, and the crane, and

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the swallow; but my people knoweth not the judgment of the Lord." The very dumb ass reproveth the madness of the prophet, as St. Peter speaks, 2 Peter. ii. 16. And for this reason it is, that we shall hear that frequent apostrophe of God in the prophets; when he had wearied himself with crying to a deaf and rebellious people, he turns his speech, and pleads before dumb and inanimate creatures; "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: " nothing so far from the voice of the prophet as the heavens, nothing so dull and impenetrable as the earth; and yet the heavens likelier to hear, the earth likelier to listen and attend, than the obdurate sinners. 'Hear, O ye mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth." Nothing in the earth is so immovable as the mountains; nothing in the mountains so impenetrable as the foundations of the mountains, and yet these are made more sensible of God's pleadings and controversies, than the people whom it concerned. "The creatures groan," as the apostle speaks, under the burden and vanity of the sins of men; and men themselves, upon whom sin lies with a far heavier burden, boast, and glory, and rejoice in it. Of ourselves we have no understanding, but are 66 foolish and sottish," as the prophet speaks: we see nothing but by the light and the understanding which is given unto us; we can not have so much as a right thought of goodness. The apostle doth notably express the universal blindness which is in our nature: "Walk not as other Gentiles, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, or from a godly life, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart." 1. Their minds are vain; the mind is the seat of principles, of supreme, primitive, and underived truths; but, saith he, their minds are destitute of all divine and spiritual principles. 2. Their understanding is darkened the understanding, or dianoctical faculty, is the seat of conclusions; and that is unable to deduce from spiritual principles (if there were any in their minds) such sound and divine conclusions as they are apt to beget: so though they know God (which is a principle) yet this principle was vain in them; for they conceived of his glory basely, by the similitude of fourfooted beasts, and creeping things; they conceived him an idol god, as the Epicures; or a god subject to fate and necessity, as the Stoics; or a sinful, impure god, that by his example made uncleanness re

ligious, as St. Cyprian speaks; one way or other they became vain in their imaginations of him. But though they knew him, yet the conclusions which they deduced from that principle, that he was to be worshipped, &c., were utterly unworthy his majesty; they worshipped him ignorantly, superstitiously, not as became God; "they changed his truth into a lie." 3. Suppose their principles to be sound, their conclusions from those principles to be natural and proper: yet all this is but speculation; they still are without the end of all this spiritual prudence; their hearts were blinded. The heart is the seat of knowledge practical; that, by the principles of the mind, and the conclusions of the understanding, doth regulate and measure the conversation: but that was unable, yea, averse from any such knowledge, for," they held the truth of God in unrighteousness; they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," they served the lusts of their own hearts; were given up to vile affections; were filled with all unrighteousness, and had pleasure in evil works, even when they did things which they knew deserved death, and provoked judgment. This is that universal defect, which is in us by nature; and very much of this remains in the best of us. Here then, when we are not able to conceive the Lord's purpose in his word, though of itself it be all light; when we find with David, that "it is too excellent for us,"-let us learn to bewail that evil concupiscence of our nature, which still fills our understandings with mists, and puts a veil before our faces. The whole book of God is a precious mine, full of unsearchable treasures, and of all wisdom. There is no scoria, no refuse in it; nothing which is not of great moment, and worthy of special and particular observation and therefore much are we still to bewail the unfaithfulness of our memories and understandings, which retain so little, and understand less than they do retain. If David were constrained to pray, "Open mine eyes," to see more wonders in thy law, how much more are we to pray so too! If there were a damp of sin in David's heart, that did often make his light dim, and did make him " as a beast in understanding," as himself complains; how much darkness then and disproportion is there between us and that blessed light! Look upon heretics old and new, Marcion's two gods, a good and evil; Valentinian's thirty and one gods in several lofts and stories; worshippers of Cain; worshippers of Judas; worshippers of the Serpent; and

a world of the like sottish impieties: nay, amongst men that pretend more light, to see the same Scriptures on both sides held, and yet opinions as diametrically contrary as light and darkness; one gospel in one place, and another gospel in another place, to speak nothing of those blemishes that are in the writings of the most rare and choicest instruments in God's church: all these are notable evidences of that radical blindness which is in our nature, and is never here quite removed; for if the light be not seen, it is not for want of evidence, but for want of sight.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.-Psalm i. 3, 4.

HE illustrates and confirms the preceding sentence by a simile. For he shows in what sort they are to be counted happy that fear God: namely, not because they enjoy a transitory and vain mirth for a moment only, but because their estate standeth fast. And there is a kind of tacit contrast between the freshness of the tree that is planted in a moist plot, and the fading beauty of that which, though it flourish fairly for a while, does, notwithstanding, soon wither by reason of the barrenness of the soil. For as concerning the ungodly, we shall see in Psal. xxxvii. 35, That they are like the cedars of Lebanon. For they swim in such abundance of all wealth and honor, that there is nothing wanting to make them happy in this world. But how much soever