1

non potest reminisci, says St. Ambrose, No man can, no man dares think upon the last judgment, but he that can think upon it with comfort, he that is predestinated to eternal life. Even the best, are sometimes shaked with the consideration of the resurrection, because it is impossible to separate the consideration of the resurrection, from the consideration of the judgment; and the terrors of that may abate the joy of the other: Sive comedo, sive bibo, says St. Hierome, Whether I eat, or drink, still methinks I hear this sound, Surgite mortui, et venite ad judicium, Arise you dead, and come to judgment: when it calls me up from death, I am glad, when it calls me to judgment, that impairs my joy. Can I think that God will not take a strict account; or, can I be without fear, if I think he will? Non expavescere requisiturum est dicere, non requiret, is excellently said by St. Bernard, If I can put off all fear of that judgment, I have put off all imagination, that any such judgment shall be. But, when I begin this fear, in this life, here, I end this fear, in my death, and pass away cheerfully : but the wicked begin this fear, when the trumpet sounds to the resurrection, and then shall never end it; but, as a man condemned to be half hanged, and then quartered, hath a fearful addition in his quartering after, and yet had no ease in his hanging before; so they that have done ill, when they have had their hanging, when they have suffered in soul, the torments of hell, from the day of their death, to the day of judgment, shall come to that day with fear, as to an addition to that, which yet, was infinite before. And therefore the vulgate edition hath rendered this well, Procedent, They shall proceed, they shall go farther and farther in torment.

But this is not the object of our speculation, the subject of our meditation, now: we proposed this text, for the contemplation of God's love to man, and therefore we rather comfort ourselves with that branch, and refresh ourselves with the shadow of that, That they who have done good, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life. Alas, the others shall live as long as they; Lucifer is as immortal as Michael, and Judas as immortal as St. Peter: but Vita damnatorum, mors est", That which we call immortality in the damned, is but a continual dying; howsoever it must be

22 Augustine.

called life, it hath all the qualities of death, saving the ease, and the end, which death hath, and damnation hath not. They must come forth; they that have done evil, must do so too: neither can stay in their house, their grave; for their house (though that house should be the sea) shall be burned down; all the world dissolved with fire. But then, they who have done evil, shall pass from that fire, into a farther heat, without light, they who have done good, into a farther light, without heat.

But fix upon the conditions, and perform them; they must have done good; to have known good, to have believed it, to have intended it, nay to have preached it to others, will not serve, they must have done good. They must be rooted in faith, and then bring forth fruit, and fruit in season; and then is the season of doing good, when another needs that good at thy hands. God gives the evening rain, but he gave the morning rain before; a good man gives at his death, but he gives in his lifetime too. To them belongs this resurrection of the body to life; upon which, since our text inclines us to marvel rather than to discourse, I will not venture to say with David, I will show all thy wondrous works 23, (an angel's tongue could not show them) but I will say with him, Remember the marvellous works he hath done", and by that done, God will open your eyes, that you may behold the wondrous things that he will do: remember with thankfulness the several resurrections that he hath given you; from superstition and ignorance, in which you, in your fathers, lay dead; from sin, and a love of sin, in which you in the days of your youth, lay dead; from sadness, and dejection of spirit, in which you, in your worldly crosses, or spiritual temptations, lay dead; and assure yourself, that that God that loves to perfect his own works, when you shall lie dead in your graves, will give you that resurrection to life, which he hath promised to all them that do good, and will extend to all them, who having done evil, do yet truly repent the evil they have done.

23 Psal. ix. 2.

24 Psal. cv. 5; cxix. 18.

362

SERMON XIX.

THE FIRST SERMON UPON THIS TEXT, PREACHED AT ST. PAUL'S, IN The eveninG, UPON EASTER DAY, 1626.

1 COR. XV. 29.

Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead? If the dead rise not all, why are they then baptized for dead?

ODIT dominus qui festum Domini unum putat diem, says Origen; God hates that man that thinks any of his holy days last but one day; that is, that never thinks of a resurrection, but upon Easter day. I have therefore proposed words unto you, which will not be determined this day; that so, when at any other time, we return to the handling of them, we may also return to the meditation of the resurrection. To which we may best give a beginning this day, in which we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus: and in his one resurrection, all those several kinds of resurrections which appertain unto us, because howsoever these words have received divers good expositions from divers good expositors, and received one perverse exposition from our adversaries in the Roman church, who have detorted and deflected them, to the maintenance of their purgatory, yet all agree, that these words are an argument for the resurrection, and therefore proper to this day. And yet this day we shall not so much inquire, wherein, and in what sense the words are an argument of the resurrection, as enjoy the assurance that they are so; not so much distribute the text into an explication of the particular words (which is, as the mintage and coining of gold into several lesser pieces) as to lay up the whole wedge, and ingot of gold all at once in you, that is, the precious assurance of your glorious resurrection.

In establishing whereof, we shall this day, make but this short passage, by these two steps: glory in the end, and grace in the way; the glory of our bodies, in the last resurrection then, and the grace upon our souls, in their present resurrection now.

For

as we do not dig for gold merely and only for treasure, but to dispense and issue it also, for present provision and use, not only for the future, but for the present too; so we do not gather the doctrine of the resurrection only for that dignity which the body shall receive in the triumphant, but also for the consolation which thereby our souls may receive in the militant church. And therefore, as in our first part, which will be, by what means the knowledge and assurance of the resurrection of the body accrues to us, we shall see, that though it be presented by reason before, and illustrated by reason after, yet the root and foundation thereof is in faith; though reason may chafe the wax, yet faith imprints the seal, (for the resurrection is not a conclusion out of natural reason, but it is an article of supernatural faith; and though you assent to me now, speaking of the resurrection, yet that is not out of my logic, nor out of my rhetoric, but out of that character, and ordinance which God hath imprinted in me, in the power and efficacy whereof, I speak unto you, as often as I speak out of this place.) As, I say, we determine our first part in this, how the assurance of this resurrection accrues to us, so when we descend to our second part, that is the consolation which we receive whilst we are in via, here upon our way in this world, out of the contemplation of that resurrection to glory, which we shall have in patria, at home in heaven, and how these two resurrections are arguments and evidences of one another, we shall look upon some correspondencies, and resemblances between natural death, and spiritual death by sin, and between the glorious resurrection of the body, and the gracious resurrection of the soul, that so having brought bodily death and bodily resurrection, and spiritual death and spiritual resurrection, by their comparison, into your consideration, you may anon depart somewhat the better edified in both, and so enjoy your present resurrection of the soul, by grace, with more certainty, and expect the future resurrection of the body to glory, with the more alacrity and cheerfulness.

Though therefore we may hereafter take just occasion of entering into a war, in vindicating and redeeming these words, seized and seduced by our adversaries, to testify for their purgatory, yet this day being a day of peace and reconciliation with God and man, we begin with peace, with that wherein all agree,

that these words (Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead? If the dead rise not all, why are they baptized for dead?) must necessarily receive such an exposition, as must be an argument for the resurrection; this baptism pro mortuis, for dead, must be such a baptism as must prove that, the resurrection. For, that the apostle repeats twice in these few words; Else, (says he) that is, if there be no resurrection, why are men thus baptized? And again, if the dead rise not, why are men thus baptized? Indeed the whole chapter is a continual argument for the resurrection; from the beginning thereof to the 35th ver. he handles the an sit, whether there be a resurrection, or no; for, if that be denied, or doubted in the root, in the person of Christ, whether he be risen or not, the whole frame of our religion falls, and every man will be apt (and justly apt) to ask that question which the Indian king asked, when he had been catechized so far in the articles of our Christian religion, as to come to the suffered, and crucified, and dead, and buried, impatient of proceeding any farther, and so losing the consolation of the resurrection, he asked only, Is your God dead, and buried? then let me return to the worship of the sun, for I am sure the sun will not die; if Christ be dead and buried, that is, continue in the state of death, and of the grave, without a resurrection, where shall a Christian look for life? Therefore the apostle handles, and establishes that first, that assurance, a resurrection there is.

From thence he raises and pursues a second question De modo; But some man will say, says he, How are the dead raised up, and with what body come they forth? And in these questions, De modo, there is more exercise of reason and of discourse: for, many times, the matter is matter of faith, when the manner is not so, but considerable, and triable by reason; many times, for the matter, we are all bound, and bound upon salvation, to think alike; but for the manner, we may think diversely, without forfeiture of salvation, or impeachment of discretion; for he is not presently an indiscreet man, that differs in opinion from another man that is discreet, in things that fall under opinion. Absit superstitio, hoc est superflua religio, says a moderate man of the Roman church'; This is truly superstition, to bring more under

1 Gerson.