sideration were it, to imagine a live head, and dead members? Or, consider our bodies in ourselves, and Our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost; and shall the temples of the Holy Ghost lie for ever, for ever, buried in their rubbish? They shall not; for, the day of judgment, is the day of regeneration", as it is called in the Gospel; Quia caro nostra ita generabitur per incorruptionem, sicut anima per fidem": Because our body shall be regenerated by glory there, as our souls are by faith here. Therefore, Tertullian calls the resurrection, Exemplum spei nostræ, The original, out of which we copy out our hope; and Clarem sepulchrorum nostrorum, How hard soever my grave be locked, yet with that key, with the application of the resurrection of Christ Jesus, it will open; and they are all names, which express this well, which Tertullian gives Christ, Vadem, obsidem, fidejussorem resurrectionis nostra, That he is the pledge, the hostage, the surety of our resurrection: so doth that also which is said in the school, Sicut Adam forma morientium, ita Christus forma resurgentium; Without Adam, there had been no such thing as death, without Christ, no such thing as a resurrection: but ascendit ille effractor, (as the prophet speaks) The breaker is gone up before, and they have passed through the gate, that is, assuredly, infallibly, they shall pass.

But what needs all this heat, all this animosity, all this vehemence, about the resurrection? May not man be happy enough in heaven, though his body never come thither? Upon what will ye ground the resurrection? Upon the omnipotence of God? Asylum hæreticorum est Omnipotentia Dei, (which was well said, and often repeated amongst the ancients) The omnipotence of God, hath always been the sanctuary of heretics, that is, always their refuge, in all their incredible doctrines, God is able to do it, can do it. You confess, the resurrection is a miracle; and miracles are not to be multiplied, nor imagined without necessity; and what necessity of bodies in heaven?

Beloved, we make the ground and foundation of the resurrection, to be, not merely the omnipotency of God, for God will not do all, that he can do: but the ground is, Omnipotens voluntas Dei revelata, The Almighty will of God revealed by him, to us: 22 Augustine. 23 Theophylact.

21 Matt. xix. 28.

24 Mich. ii. 13.

:

and therefore Christ joins both these together, Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God; that is, not considering the power of God, as it is revealed in the Scriptures: for there is our foundation of this doctrine: we know, out of the omnipotence of God, it may be; and we know out of the Scriptures it must be that works upon our faith, this upon our reason; that it is man that must be saved, man that must be damned; and to constitute a man, there must be a body, as well as a soul. Nay, the immortality of the soul, will not so well lie in proof, without a resuming of the body. For, upon those words of the apostle, If there were no resurrection, we were the miserablest of all men, the school reasons reasonably naturally the soul and body are united; when they are separated by death, it is contrary to nature, which nature still affects this union; and consequently the soul is the less perfect, for this separation; and it is not likely, that the perfect natural state of the soul, which is, to be united to the body, should last but three or four score years, and, in most, much less, and the unperfect state, that in the separation, should last eternally, for ever: so that either the body must be believed to live again, or the soul believed to die.

Never therefore dispute against thine own happiness; never say, God asks the heart, that is, the soul, and therefore rewards the soul, or punishes the soul, and hath no respect to the body; Nec auferamus cogitationes a collegio carnis, says Tertullian, Never go about to separate the thoughts of the heart, from the college, from the fellowship of the body; Siquidem in carne, et cum carne, et per carnem agitur, quicquid ab anima agitur, All that the soul does, it does in, and with, and by the body. And therefore, (says he also) Caro abluitur, ut anima emaculetur, The body is washed in baptism, but it is that the soul might be made clean; Caro ungitur, ut anima consecretur, In all unctions, whether that which was then in use in baptism, or that which was in use at our transmigration, and passage out of this world, the body was anointed, that the soul might be consecrated; Caro signatur, (says Tertullian still) ut anima muniatur ; The body is signed with the cross, that the soul might be armed against temptations; and again, Caro de corpore Christi cescitur, ut anima de

25 Matt. xxii. 29.

VOL. I.

Y

Deo saginetur; My body received the body of Christ, that my soul might partake of his merits. He extends it into many particulars, and sums up all thus, Non possunt in mercede separari, quæ opera conjungunt, These two, body, and soul, cannot be separated for ever, which, whilst they are together, concur in all that either of them do. Never think it presumption, says St. Gregory, Sperare in te, quod in se exhibuit Deus homo, To hope for that in thyself, which God admitted, when he took thy nature upon him. And God hath made it, says he, more easy than So, for thee to believe it, because not only Christ himself, but such men, as thou art, did rise at the resurrection of Christ. And therefore when our bodies are dissolved and liquefied in the sea, putrified in the earth, resolved to ashes in the fire, macerated in the air, Velut in casa sua transfunditur caro nostra, make account that all the world is God's cabinet, and water, and earth, and fire, and air, are the proper boxes, in which God lays up our bodies, for the resurrection. Curiously to dispute against our own resurrection, is seditiously to dispute against the dominion of Jesus; who is not made Lord by the resurrection, if he have no subjects to follow him in the same way. We believe him to be Lord, therefore let us believe his, and our resurrection.

This blessed day, which we celebrate now, he rose : he rose so, as none before did, none after ever shall rise; he rose; others are but raised: Destroy this temple, says he, and I will raise it; I, without employing any other architect, I lay down my life", says he: the Jews could not have killed him, when he was alive; if he were alive here now, the Jesuits could not kill him here now; except his being made Christ and Lord, an anointed king, have made him more open to them. I have a power to lay it down, says he, and I have a power to take it up again.

This day, we celebrate his resurrection; this day let us celebrate our own our own, not our one resurrection, for we need many. Upon those words of our Saviour to Nicodemus 2. Oportet denuo nasci, speaking of the necessity of baptism, Non

solum denuo, sed tertio nasci oportet, says St. Bernard, He must be born again, and again; again by baptism, for original sin, and for actual sin, again by repentance; Infelix homo ego, et misera

20 Tertullian.

27 John ii. 19.

28 John x. 17.

29 John ii. 3.

bilis casus, says he, cui non sufficit una regeneratio!

Miserable

man that I am, and miserable condition that I am fallen into, whom one regeneration will not serve! So is it a miserable death that hath swallowed us, whom one resurrection will serve. We need three, but if we have not two, we were as good be without one. There is a resurrection from worldly calamities, a resurrection from sin, and a resurrection from the grave.

First, from calamities; for, as dangers are called death, (Pharaoh calls the plague of locusts, a death, Intreat the Lord your God, that he may take from me, this death only, and so St. Paul says, in his dangers, I die daily") so is the deliverance from danger called a resurrection: it is the hope of the wicked upon the godly, Now that he lieth, he shall rise no more3; that is, now that he is dead in misery, he shall have no resurrection in this world. Now, this resurrection God does not always give to his servants, neither is this resurrection the measure of God's love of man, whether he do raise him from worldly calamities or no.

The second is the resurrection from sin; and therefore, this St. John calls, The first resurrection 33, as though the other, whether we rise from worldly calamities, or no, were not to be reckoned. Anima spiritualiter cadit, et spiritualiter resurget, says St. Augustine, Since we are sure, there is a spiritual death of the soul, let us make sure a spiritual resurrection too. Audacter dicam, says St. Hierome, I say confidently, Cum omnia posset Deus, suscitare virginem post ruinam, non potest; Howsoever God can do all things, he cannot restore a virgin, that is fallen from it, to virginity again. He cannot do this in the body, but God is a spirit, and hath reserved more power, upon the spirit and soul, than upon the body, and therefore Audacter dicam, I may say, with the same assurance, that St. Hierome does, no soul hath so prostituted herself, so multiplied her fornications, but that God can make her a virgin again, and give her, even the chastity of Christ himself. Fulfil therefore that which Christ says, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall lives: be this that hour, be this thy first resurrection. Bless God's present goodness, for this now;

32 Psal. XLI. 8.

So Exod. x. 17.

311 Cor. xv. 31.

33 Rev. xx. 5.

34 John v. 25.

and attend God's leisure, for the other resurrection hereafter. He that is the first fruits of them that slept, Christ Jesus, is awake: he dies no more, he sleeps no more. Sacrificium pro te fuit, sed a te accepit, quod pro te obtulit: He offered a sacrifice for thee, but he had that from thee, that he offered for thee: Primitiæ fuit, sed tuæ primitiæ; He was the first fruits, but the first fruits of thy corn: Spera in te futurum, quod præcessit in primitiis tuis: Doubt not of having that in the whole crop, which thou hast already in thy first fruits; that is, to have that in thyself, which thou hast in thy Saviour. And what glory soever thou hast had in this world, glory inherited from noble ancestors, glory acquired by merit and service, glory purchased by money, and observation, what glory of beauty and proportion, what glory of health and strength soever thou hast had in this house of clay, The glory of the later house, shall be greater than of the former". To this glory, the God of this glory, by glorious or inglorious ways, such as may most advance his own glory, bring us in his time, for his Son Christ Jesus' sake. Amen.

SERMON XVII.

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL'S, ON EASTER DAY, IN THE EVENING, 1624.

REV. xx. 6.

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection.

In the first book of the Scriptures, that of Genesis, there is danger in departing from the letter; in this last book, this of the Revelation, there is as much danger in adhering too close to the letter. The literal sense is always to be preserved; but the literal sense is not always to be discerned for the literal sense is not always that, which the very letter and grammar of the place presents, as where it is literally said, That Christ is a vine, and lite37 Hag. ii. 9.

35 1 Cor. xv. 20.

36 Augustine.