hath forbidden us How strange is this for men out of a dread of damnation to neglect their duty and yet at the same time not to be afraid to live carnal and sensual lives Never therefore let any amongst you so long as you continue in your sins plead that you are afraid you should offend your Saviour if unworthily you eat his body and drink his bloud and therefore dare not communicate for your daily practice confutes this pretence whilst you notoriously break his Laws and violate his Authority and scandalize his Religion You pretend fear of damnation no such matter this is not the true reason of your abstaining from this Sacrament You are rather afraid the Sacrament will engage you to leave those sins you have no mind as yet to part with that it will put you upon the practice of those duties which are inconsistent with your profit pleasure or secular interest You are not afraid of displeasing God but of being too strictly tied and bound to please him You are afraid lest that solemnity should raise some scruples in your minds which you have no leisure to consider of You would not be troubled with such a serious business you suspect you shall not be able to sin so securely and quietly after it as now you do Let not such therefore as neglect this duty invent any such pitifull excuses but confess plainly that they love sin and the world too much that they prize them above the benefits purchased by Jesus Christ that they resolve to go on in their wickedness for some longer time and that therefore they do not come to this Sacrament They are loth to engage themselves so solemnly to doe that which they find in themselves no heart or will to perform This indeed is the secret thought of many men though indeed it is a very foolish one for they are very much mistaken who think themselves at greater liberty to doe evil whilst they abstain from this Sacrament for Christians are engaged by receiving this Sacrament to no other obedience than they were before by their Baptism it doth not so much oblige us to new duties as enable us to make good those obligations which our profession of Christianity hath already laid upon us 5. And Lastly If the receiving of this Sacrament were an indifferent rite or ceremony that might be done or omitted at pleasure then indeed the great danger there is in receiving it unworthily might in a great measure justify our omission of it But what if the danger be as great and the hazard equal of not receiving it at all as of receiving it unworthily where then is our prudence or safety when to avoid one danger we run into another every whit as great when for fear of displeasing God we disobey a plain command and for fear of damnation commit a damnable sin for I can call it no less to live in the neglect and contempt of this holy institution It is not very easie to determine which is the greatest affront to God or doth most highly provoke him never to perform our duty or to perform it after a wrong manner never to pray at all or to be present at prayers but not to mind or regard what we are about never to receive this Sacrament or to receive it often but make no difference between what we and drink there and what eat we do at our own houses But however he that receives this Sacrament although it be after an undue manner seems to me to shew somewhat more respect to God and his commands than he who wholly neglects it And besides there is hardly any wicked man that dares come to the Sacrament without some good thoughts and resolutions or who is not for a little time before and after the receiving of it more carefull of himself and his actions and though this doth not last long but he soon returns to his former wickedness yet however this is something better than continuing in sin and wickedness without any intermission or cessation Moreover such an one uses the best means of becoming better which by God's grace at some time may prove effectual whereas he that casts off all these duties is in a more desperate and irreclaimable state In short were there neither sin nor danger in omitting this Sacrament and yet so great hazard in the receiving it unworthily prudence and interest might engage us to chuse the safest side and not to meddle with it at all but if we expose our selves as certainly to God's anger and displeasure by wholly neglecting this duty as by performing it unduly then these words of the Apostle can be no pretence or excuse for our abstaining from this Communion For would not this be an odd way of arguing because intemperate eating and drinking is very prejudicial to our health and often breeds mortal diseases therefore 't is better never to eat or drink at all would it not be madness lest we should kill our selves by a surfeit to resolve to starve our selves by obstinate fasting And this shall bring me to the fourth and last thing I propounded to discourse of which was IV. To shew what is the onely true and just consequence which can be drawn from what is here affirmed by the Apostle He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself which is this that forasmuch as our Saviour hath plainly commanded all his Followers and Disciples to doe this in remembrance of him and yet on the other side there is so great danger in doing it unworthily that we should neither omit the duty for that would be a plain transgression of our Saviour's command nor yet be careless in the performance of it And this is the inference which the Apostle himself makes not that the Corinthians whom he blames so much for their unworthy receiving this Sacrament should therefore forbear coming to it any more at all but for the future they should examine themselves and partake of it with greater reverence and devotion than they had used to do Let the danger of receiving unworthily be never so great the consideration of this ought onely to make us so much the more carefull to receive it after a right and acceptable manner and to put us upon greater watchfulness over our selves when we meddle with such sacred things This is the use we ought to make of these words of the Apostle not rashly or precipitantly without due preparation or consideration to rush upon this holy Sacrament but seriously to mind the end and design of it and so duely to affect our spirits with the things represented to us by it that they may make lively and lasting impressions upon us and we may bring forth the fruit of all in a holy and unblamable conversation in the world To end all I would not have any thing I have now said upon this subject to you so interpreted or understood as in the least to take away from the reverence you have of
of God's worship but of those who pretend to the fear of God and care of their souls and yet live at ease in the gross omission of this duty Now amongst the many pleas or excuses with which men satisfy themselves in the neglect or disuse of this holy Communion that which most generally prevails and perhaps with some honest and well-meaning persons is the consideration of the words of my Text He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself So dreadfull is the threatning and punishment here denounced against those who receive this Sacrament unworthily that men are apt to think it much the safer and wifer course never to venture on a duty the wrong performance of which is attended with so great mischief Damnation is so terrible a word and to be guilty of the body and bloud of Christ as it is said v. 27. Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord is so heinous a crime that it may seem the most prudent course for a man to keep himself at the greatest distance from all possibility of falling into it Better never receive at all than expose ones self to so great hazard by receiving I hope therefore it will not be thought altogether unprofitable to entertain you at this time with a discourse on these words wherein I shall endeavour to give you the full meaning of them with the true and just inferences and consequences that may be drawn from them In order to which I shall shew you I. What is meant here by damnation II. What by eating and drinking unworthily III. How far this Text may reasonably scare and fright people from this Sacrament IV. What is the true consequence from what is here affirmed by the Apostle He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself I. What is meant here by eating and drinking damnation to a man's self The original word which is here translated damnation truly signifies no more than judgment or punishment in general of what kind soever it be temporal or eternal So that there is no necessity of translating it here by the word damnation nay there are two plain reasons why it ought to be understood onely of temporal evils and chastisements 1. Because the judgments that were inflicted on the Corinthians for their prophanation of this holy Sacrament were onely temporal verse 30th For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep 2. Because the reason assigned of these judgments is that they might not be condemned in the other world v. 32. But when we are judged where the same Greek word is used which in my Text is translated damnation we are chastened of the Lord that we might not be condemned with the world That is God inflicted these evils on the Corinthians that being reformed by these stripes in this life they might escape that vengeance which was reserved for the impenitent in another life and therefore it could not be damnation that is eternal damnation that was either threatned or inflicted upon them for their unworthy receiving The sum of what the Apostle means seems to be this that By prophaning this holy Sacrament they would pluck down some remarkable judgment upon their heads Of this saith he you have notorious instances amongst your selves in those various and mortal diseases that have been so rise in your City and this God doth to warn you that you may be awakened to avoid greater and worse judgments that are future and eternal Now this punishment was extraordinary and peculiar to that time for there is no such thing found amongst us at this day namely that God doth suddenly smite all unworthy Communicants with some grievous disease or sudden death Nor indeed are men afraid of any such thing though it is very plain that this is the true meaning of the words of my Text that by such prophaneness they would bring down some remarkable temporal judgment upon themselves But I shall not insist any longer upon this but take the word damnation as we commonly understand it and in that sense to eat and drink damnation to a man's self doth imply that by our unworthy participation of the Sacrament we are so far from receiving any benefit or advantage by it that we do incur God's heaviest displeasure and render our selves liable to eternal misery and so proceed II. To enquire who those are that do run this great danger they who eat and drink unworthily Now this phrase of eating unworthily being onely found here in this Chapter for the understanding of it we are to consider what the faults were with which the Apostle chargeth the Corinthians and we shall find them to be some very heinous disorders that had crept in amongst them occasioned by their Love-feasts at the end of which the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was usually celebrated which disorders therefore were peculiar to those times and are not now to be found amongst us as v. 18. First of all when ye come together in the Church I hear that there be divisions among you they bandied into separate parties and v. 21. In eating every one taketh before another his own supper that is Whereas there was a custome when they came together to commemorate Christ's death to furnish a common table where no man was to pretend any propriety to what he himself brought but was to eat in common with the rest this charitable custome these Corinthians wholly perverted for he that brought a great deal fell to that as if it were at his own house and at his own table and so fed to the full whereas another that was able to bring but a little remained hungry With such irreverence and disorder did they behave themselves at the Lord's Table as if they had been met at a common feast this the Apostle calls not discerning the Lord's body that is they made no difference between that heavenly food and common bread they ate the Sacrament as if it were their ordinary meat What saith he v. 22. have ye not houses to eat and drink in ye may e'en as well stay at home and doe this there is nothing of Religion in this nor is this to celebrate the Sacrament according to Christ's institution whereby we ought to represent his death for the world and to commemorate his love and to devote our selves to him in new and better obedience and not to make it a merry meeting onely to fill our own bellies But this was not all for they were also riotous and intemperate in these Love-feasts They play'd the gluttons and were drunk even when they received the holy Sacrament Now this was so notorious and foul a prophanation of the holy Mystery to make it an instrument of debauchery that we cannot at all wonder that God should so severely threaten and punish such an high affront and violation of his sacred ordinance No
unmixt from the dust of other bodies be all disposed into the same order figure and posture they were before so as to make the very self-same flesh and bloud which his soul at his dissolution forsook This seems a Camel too big for any considering person to swallow he must be of a very easie faith who can digest such impossibilities Ezekiel indeed when the hand of the Lord was upon him and he was carried out in the spirit of the Lord thought he was set down in the midst of a valley full of dry bones and that afterwards he heard a noise and behold a shaking and the bones came together bone to his bone the sinews and the flesh came up upon them and the skin covered them above and the breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet This may pass well enough in a Prophetical Vision and did handsomely represent the wonderfull restauration of the Jewish People But that all this and much more should in truth come to pass that our bones after they are resolved into dust should really become living men that all the little atoms whereof our bodies consisted howsoever scattered or wheresoever lodged should immediately at a general summons rally and meet again and every one challenge and possess its own proper place till at last the whole ruined fabrick be perfectly rebuilt and that of the very self-same stuff and materials whereof it consisted before its fall that this I say should ever really be effected is such an incredible thing that it seems to be above the power of reason so much as to frame a conception of it And therefore we may observe that the Gentiles did most especially boggle at this Article of our Christian faith as we reade in the 17th of the Acts when St. Paul preached unto the Athenians concerning the resurrection of the dead the Philosophers mocked at him and entertained his doctrine with nothing but scoffs and flouts and indeed it was one of the last things that the Heathens received into their belief and it is to this day the chiefest objection against Christianity How are the dead raised up and with what body do they come In my discourse of these words I shall doe these three things I. I shall shew that the resurrection of the dead even in the strictest sense as it is commonly understood and explained of the very self-same body that died and was buried contains nothing in it impossible or incredible II. Since it is certain that the body which we shall rise with though it may be as to substance the same with our terrestrial body yet will be so much altered and changed in its modes and qualities that it will be quite another kind of body from what it was before I shall give you a short account of the difference the Scripture makes between a glorified body and this mortal flesh And III. Lastly I shall draw some practical inferences from the whole I. I shall shew that the resurrection of the dead even in the strictest sense as it is commonly understood and explained of the very self-same body that died and was buried contains nothing in it impossible or incredible Whether this strict sense of the Article be the true or not I think I need not determine it is sufficient for me to shew that if this be the true sense of it yet the Atheist or Sceptick hath nothing considerable to object against it but what is capable of a fair and easie answer However give me leave just to lay before you some of the principal reasons and Scriptures upon which it is built and established And 1. I think it must be acknowledged that this hath been all along the most common received opinion amongst Christians that at the last day we shall rise again with the very same flesh with which we are clothed in this state and which we put off at our death and that our heavenly bodies will not onely consist of the same substance and matter with our earthly but will be of the same consistency and modification perfect flesh and bloud though in some properties altered and changed Most of the ancient Fathers of the Church excepting some few that were of a more inquisitive temper and philosophical genius than the rest as Origen and some others did believe and teach that at the general resurrection men should he restored to the very same bodies which they dwelt in here and which at last were laid in the grave that their bodies should be then as truly the same with those they died in as the bodies of those whom our Saviour raised when he was upon earth were the same with those they had before that no other body should be raised but that which slept and that as our Saviour Christ arose with his former flesh and bones and members so we also after the resurrection should have the same members we now use the same flesh and bloud and bones And that this was the common belief and expectation of all Christians in the primitive times that they should appear again at the general resurrection with the very same bodies they lived in here on earth will appear from that spite and malice which the Heathens sometimes shewed to the dead bodies of Christians reducing them to ashes and then scattering them into the air or throwing them into rivers that thereby they might defeat and deprive them of all hopes of a resurrection of this Eusebius gives us an eminent instance out of the Epistle of the Churches of Vienna and Lyons in France to those in Asia and Phrygia under the Persecution of Antoninus Verus which gives an account how that the Heathens after many vain and fruitless attempts to suppress the Christian Religion by inflicting the cruelest torments on the Professours of it which they bravely endured looking for a joyfull resurrection at last thought of a way to deprive them as they fondly imagined of that great hope which ministred so much joy and courage to them under the severest trials which was by reducing the wrackt and mangled bodies of the several Martyrs into the minutest Atoms and then scattering them in the great River Rhodanus Let us now say they see whether they can rise again and whether their God can help them and deliver them out of our hands Now this is a sufficient intimation to us that it was then the known common opinion of Christians that the very same body and flesh which suffered and was martyred here on earth should be raised again at the last day And indeed those amongst the Ancient Christians who have undertaken to defend or explain this Article of the resurrection of the dead do it mostly by such principles arguments and illustrations as do suppose the very same body and flesh and members to be raised again which the soul animated here in this life 2. This hath not onely been the common received opinion of Christians but also the most plain and easie notion of
a resurrection seems to require it namely that the very same body which died should be raised again Nothing dies but the body nothing is corrupted but the body the soul goeth upward and returns to God and therefore nothing else can be properly said to be raised again but onely that very body which died and was corrupted If God give to our souls at the last day a new body this cannot literally be called the resurrection of our bodies because here is no reproduction of the same thing that was before which seems to be plainly implied in the word resurrection Indeed the word is sometimes used otherwise as when a House or Temple that hath been consumed by fire is rebuilt on the same ground where it formerly stood this is often though improperly and figuratively called the resurrection of it and after the same manner do the Latines use the word resurgere but yet the most proper and literal signification of the word resurrection is that the same flesh which was separated from the soul at the day of death should be again vitally united to it 3. There are many places of Scripture which in their strict and literal meaning do seem plainly to favour this sense of the Article that the very same flesh shall be raised again what more plain and express saith St. Hierome than that of Job Job 19.26 27. Though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self and my eyes shall behold and not another But however plain these words may seem to be yet I cannot think that the primary and original meaning of them doth at all relate to the resurrection nor were they ever so understood and interpreted by the Jews as Grotius tells us not but that they might be prophetical of it and so by way of accommodation may be fitly applied to it but the first and most easie sense of the words seems to be this After my skin is consumed let that which remains of me likewise by piecemeals be destroyed yet I am confident that before I die with these very eyes I shall see my Redeemer and be restored by him to my former happy state So that the words are a plain prophecy of his own deliverance and an high expression of his confident hope in God that in time he would vindicate his innocence and bring him out of all his troubles But if this place will not hold there are others in the New Testament of the same importance St. Paul in the 53d verse of this Chapter speaking of our body and the glorious change it shall undergo at the resurrection tells us that this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality now by this corruptible and this mortal can onely be meant that body which we now carry about with us and shall one day lay down in the dust Thus also the same Apostle tells us Rom. 8.11 He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies Now that which shall be quickned and raised to life again can be nothing else but that very body of flesh which is mortal and died though there is some question to be made whether the quickning our mortal bodies by the spirit of Christ dwelling in us should not rather be understood in a metaphorical or moral sense of the first resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness than of the general resurrection at the consummation of all things But farther the mention and description the Scripture makes of the places from whence the dead shall rise doth seem plainly to intimate that the same bodies which were dead shall revive again Thus we reade in Daniel Ch. 12. v. 2. That those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting death Where we may yet farther observe that the Metaphor of sleeping and awaking by which our death and resurrection is here expressed doth seem to imply that when we rise again our bodies will be as much the same with those we lived in as they are when we awake the same with those we had before we laid our selves down to sleep Thus again it is said in St. John's Gospel Chap. 5. verses 28 and 29. The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation And in the Revelations Chap. 20. verse 13. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell that is the grave delivered up the dead that were in them and they were judged every man according to their works Now if the same flesh shall not be raised again what need is there of ransacking the graves at the end of the word the Sea can give up no other bodies but the same which it received in nor can the Grave deliver up any but onely those that were laid therein if it were not necessary that we should rise with the very same bodies the graves need not be opened but our flesh might be permitted to rest there for ever To this may be added that St. Paul tells us in the 3d Chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians verse 21. that our Saviour shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body Now this vile body can be no other than this flesh and bloud which we are now cloathed with restored to life again 4. If we consider the several instances and examples either of those who did immediately ascend up into Heaven or of those who after death were restored to life again they all seem plainly to confirm this opinion that at the last day we shall rise again with the very same flesh and bloud which we had here Enoch and Elias of old were translated into Heaven in their terrestrial bodies and therefore may be supposed now to live there with the same flesh and parts they had when they were here upon earth And those three that were raised from the dead in the Old Testament and those that were recalled to life by our Saviour or accompanied him at his resurrection all appeared again in the very same bodies they had before their dissolution and these were examples and types of the general resurrection and therefore our resurrection must resemble theirs and we also must appear at the last day with the same bodies we lived in here Even our blessed Saviour himself who was the first fruits of them that slept did raise his own body according to that prediction of his Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it up again Nay he appeared to his Disciples with the very prints of the nails in his hands and feet and with all the other marks of his crucifixion Behold my hands and my
feet says he that it is I my self Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have from whence it seems to follow that we in our resurrection shall be conformable to our Saviour and resume the very same bodies that were laid in the Sepulchre 5. And Lastly It is farther urged by some of the Ancients for a proof of the resurrection of the same body that the exact justice and righteousness of God doth require it that God's justice I mean that which consists in the equal dispensation of rewards and punishments will seem to be much obscured at least will not be so illustriously manifested and displayed to the world unless the same body of flesh be raised again that so that which was here the constant partner with the soul in all her actions whether good or evil may also hereafter share with her in her rewards or punishments It seems but equal that we should be punished in the same body in which we sinned and that that very flesh in which we pleased God should be exalted and glorified at the last day and receive a just recompence of reward for all the trouble and hardship it underwent in this life Thus I have given you a brief account of this strictest sense of the Article of the Resurrection namely that the very self-same lesh and bloud which make up our bodies here on earth shall be raised again at the last day and after it hath been changed and glorified by the power and spirit of Christ I speak onely of the bodies of good men shall ascend up into Heaven and there live and dwell for ever in the presence of God I come now to shew that there is nothing in all this impossible or incredible which I shall do by proving these three things 1. That it is possible for God to observe and distinguish and preserve unmixt from all other bodies the particular dust and atoms into which the several bodies of men are dissolved and to recollect and unite them together how far soever dispersed asunder 2. That God can form that dust so recollected together of which the body did formerly consist into the same body it was before And 3. That when he hath made this body he can enliven it and make it the same living man by uniting it to the same soul and spirit that used formerly to inhabit there It cannot be denied but that these three things do express the whole of the resurrection of our flesh in the strictest sense and none of these are impossible 1. God can observe and distinguish and preserve unmixt from all other bodies the particular dust and atoms into which the several bodies of men are dissolved and recollect and unite them together how far soever dispersed asunder God is infinite in wisedom power and knowledge he knoweth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their names he measures the waters in the hollow of his hand and metes out the heavens with a span and comprehends the dust of the earth in a measure he numbers the hairs of our head and not so much as a sparrow falls to the ground without his knowledge he can tell the number of the sands of the Seashore as the Heathens used to express the immensity of his knowledge and is it at all incredible that such an infinite understanding should distinctly know the several particles of dust into which the bodies of men are mouldred and plainly discern to whom they belong and observe the various changes they undergo in their passage through several bodies Why should it be thought strange that he who at first formed us whose eyes did see our substance yet being imperfect and in whose book all our members were written from whom our substance was not hid when we were made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth should know every part of our bodies and every atome whereof they are composed The curious artist knows every pin and part of the Watch or Machine which he frames and if the little Engine should fall in pieces and all the parts of it lie in the greatest disorder and confusion yet he can soon rally them together and as easily distinguish one from another as if every one had its particular mark he knows the use of every part can readily assign to each its proper place and exactly dispose them into the same figure and order they were in before and can we think that the Almighty Architect of the world whose workmanship we are doth not know whereof we are made or is not acquainted with the several parts and materials of which this earthly tabernacle of ours is framed and composed The several corporeal beings that now constitute this Universe at the first creation of the world lay all confused in a vast heap of rude and indigested Chaos till by the voice of the Omnipotent they were separated one from the other and framed into those distinct bodies whereof this beautifull and orderly world doth consist and why may not the same power at the consummation of all things out of the ruines and rubbish of the world collect the several reliques of our corrupted bodies reduce them each to their proper places and restore them to their primitive shapes and figures and frame them into the same individual bodies they were parts of before All the atoms and particles into which mens bodies are at last dissolved however they may seem to us to lie carelesly scattered over the face of the earth yet are safely lodged by God's wise disposal in several receptacles and repositories till the day of restitution of all things in aquis in ignibus in alitibus in bestiis saith Tertullian they are preserved in the waters in birds and beasts till the sound of the last trumpet shall summon them and recall them all to their former habitations But the chiefest and most usual objection against what I am now pleading for is this That it may sometimes happen that several mens bodies may consist of the very self-same matter for the bodies of men are oftentimes devoured by beasts and fishes and other animals and the flesh of these is afterwards eaten by other men and becomes part of their nourishment till at last the same particles of matter come to belong to several bodies and it is impossible that at the resurrection they should be united to them all Or to express it shorter it is reported of some whole Nations that they devour the bodies of other men and feed upon humane flesh so that these must necessarily borrow great part of their bodies of other men and if that which was part of one man's body comes afterwards to be part of another man's how can both rise at the last day with the very self-same bodies they had here But to this it may be easily replied that but a very small and inconsiderable part of that which is eaten and descends into the