separated from the body But in all this discourse if we can but gaine the true and most perfect sence we have sufficiently handled this text for We must first consider what the words meane And then how the words prove and argue For if we finde once but the true signification we shall then finde the perfect demonstration and proofe that ariseth from them First then the Church hath taken it as though the Apostle alluded to a grosse errour of the Cerinthians and Montanists and as Saint Chrysostome saith of the Marcionits which out of these words have gathered a ridiculous kinde of baptising of young Christians And they said when there was any Catechumeni that is those that were not baptised but were yet in their principles and in their catechisme for then they baptised none for the most part till they were come to yeares of discretion that themselves were able to make profession of their owne faith Now if any of these were taken away by death upon the sudden or by any casualty which had intended to be baptised at the appointed season which was Easter in this case they were to substitute and appoint some friend that was alive to answer for the dead man and to be baptised for him And then in a kinde of stage-playing they laid the dead childe or the dead man upon a forme or upon a table or on a bed and the substitute or appointed friend was to goe under the bed or table and to answer to those questions that the Priest did usually make to the partie baptised The first question was whether he would be baptised or no and if the dead man could not his friend was to say yea The second question was whether he beleeved or no the partie was to answer affirmatively for the dead man to that also The third question was Chrysost whether he renounced the Divell and all his workes and he was to answer to that too So saith Chrysostom this is a ridiculous thing that every Christian should laugh at in his minde to see their folly yet there is some shew of argument to be drawne from it for that out of mens follies God can ordaine strength And this proves that they had a conceit of the resurrection or else they would never have descended to such vaine and ridiculous fantasies Afterwards that the Church of God tooke up this custome yea such as were not heretiques but were brought up in the Church yet they thought it as possible for one man to be baptised for another as for one man to be helped by anothers prayers but this hath no shew of consequence in it For the one we have a command and a promise for the other we have neither Besides prayer is generall for all but the receiving of the Sacrament is personall for one for him alone that receives it So that one cannot be baptised for another Yet some in the Church mistaking this text of Scripture thought that when any that intended to be baptised were taken away before the due time they might appoint some that was his friend that had first beene baptised for himselfe And they thought this was profitable to him that was deceased But these are but mockeries of the Sacrament and questionlesse it is a thing that the Apostle alludes not to For the Apostle would never have indured this errour in the Corinthians or if he had yet it proves nothing It doth not follow that because foolish men abuse the Sacrament to a hope of the resurrection that therefore there shall be a resurrection For foolish actions have no probation there is no force in that which is without reason And seeing the Apostle is curious to rebuke them for lesser matters as concerning meate offered to Idols and women being uncovered in the Church which seeme to be matters of lesse moment yet he particularly reproves thē much more would he have rebuked this and not have suffered such a gangrene of errour to eate into the body of the Church as this was that makes a mockerie of the Sacrament Therefore seeing it hath no force to prove and because it is likely that the Apostle would not suffer such a thing to be extant there nor is there mention any where in his Epistles of such an errour that was crept into Corinth Therefore we reject the exposition although some other of the Fathers thinke that out of their common abuse the Apostle makes a good use and drawes an argument as in some cases it is necessary It is lawfull sometimes to draw arguments from the follies and dreames of the heathen so our Divines doe out of Plato and out of the historie of Err who they say after his death lived and was seen again of his friends and the storie of Epimenides he that slept so many yeares and revived againe But the Apostle useth not to insist upon such arguments he drawes something indeed from Menander and from Epimenides but it is matter of common knowledge and experience that no man could gaine-say And so I come to the second opinion What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead That is it was a custome for the first 500. yeares almost that those that were baptised into the name of Christ they thought good to deferre it till the latter end of their life and so when they lay sicke upon their death bed they called for baptisme For they thought according to the errour of Novatian that when a man had once received baptisme and had tasted of that heavenly gift as the Apostle speakes Heb. 6. if they then fell into sinne Heb. 6.6 there was no Sacrament for them nor no hope to be reconciled to God which is the cut-throat of all faith and repentance but they being carried thus by naturall reason thought that after they were baptised and had made defiance of the world the flesh and the divell and then fell backe and relapsed into sinne they thought there was no pardon for them And because they knew their owne weakenesse and infirmitie that they could not so renounce the world the flesh and the divell but that they were oft intangled with them or with some of them therefore unlesse they should bring upon their soules an inevitable necessitie of damnation they thought it good not to meddle with that Sacrament till they were past the necessity of sinning which when that is no man knowes For unlesse the grace of God subdue our affections as long as a man lives the power of sinning is not past But they imagined that old age would bring a cessation and a supersedeas of all offences and that then they might better serve God and with more quietnesse according to their profession Therefore they deferred baptisme to their last age and then they were baptised And in this errour we see what great men lived As Valentinian the Emperour whom S. Ambrose commends highly in his funerall oration For he purposed to be baptised when he came home but he was
he had from God hee cast all men into the prison of death and he keepeth them there and will keep them there by the common calamity of sinne he keeps all mens bodies there to the time of the resurrection which the Lord shall cause in the fulnesse of time but therefore the Lord following the way of justice and not the way of power for God was able to take us from death otherwise by other meanes then by the death of Christ but then hee could not be just Now God would teach us that it is better to follow the way of justice then the way of power for every man can be powerfull the devils themselves have power but they have no justice therefore God then in justice would have the death of his Sonne satisfie the wrath of God and would have him to die for them that should have died that his death might be the life of many thousands that his death might be the destruction of the power of death which had a commission given for the time that at the last might have an end To conclude because I see the time past let us also learne to frame our selves to this high spirit of the Apostle to insult over death and then if wee can insult over death much more may wee insult over all the calamities of this life for what is so great a calamity as that why should poverty oppresse us why should infamy vexe us if sicknesse diseases and death it selfe cannot oppresse why should trouble of conscience for sinne oppresse us when the grand enemy himselfe is conquered and when we have a part of the conquest wee are souldiers to that great Captaine and hee communicates his victory unto us all Iohn 16. ult Aug. Be of good comfort saith Christ for I have overcome the world Saith St. Austin What dost thou meane by this Be of good comfort I have overcome the world What have we to doe to be of good comfort it belongs not to us be thou of good comfort it pertaines to thee what are we the better because thou hast overcome the world Yes saith hee oh death thou which hast been the devourer now thou art devoured thy self thou that hast swallowed up men now thou art swallowed up thy selfe by a more potent cause oh death he was wounded for me that made me and he that through his death hath swallowed up thee hee hath conquered thee for me therefore I rejoyce in him which is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone his victory is my victory therefore he saith Be of good comfort I have overcome the world And this the Lord hath taught us in many passages of his holy Booke that hee might prepare us once to this courage to this great valour For in this a man is seen more than in any thing else in the patient abiding of trouble and misery in the patient enduring of death in this present life All worldly passions are seperated as chaffe by the wind from the godly the wind blowes away the chaffe but so it cannot the good corn that falls still on the floore the chaffe is blowne away with every wind of temptation and persecution Let us therefore take notice of that singular comfort which God hath given us out of the Scripture which all resolves at last into this one point Oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory In Iosuah 10. Ioshuah 10.24 wee reade that Iosuah there the Prince and Captaine he brought out the five Kings that were closed in a Cave and a stone rolled to the mouth of it till hee should come back hee brings them forth and bade the Captaines tread upon the necks of the Kings and not feare for saith hee The Lord your God shall fight for you This was a figure of this glorious victory of the Sonne of God over death All the potentates of Hell are like to the five Kings of Canaan which oppresse all they meet as Adonibezek they thumb them hee cut off the thumbs and toes of men and set them under his Table as dogges The Lord signified this victory of Christ by the victory of Iosuah over those five Kings and Adonibezek that hee would give a spirituall conquest over death hell sinne and all the adversaries that could oppose him and he would tread upon the necks of all his opposers What is so base a part what is so base a thing as the foot of a man and what is so lofty a thing as the necke and yet the very foot of Gods children the basest part shall tread upon the necks of their enemies upon the necks of Kings themselves which are compassed and surrounded with jewels and ornaments yet they shall bee subjected to the basest parts even to the heeles of godly men so great is the comfort of Gods children And as it was done then in Iosuahs time so also the comfort remaines now So wee see again the Lord bids the people look back whē they were past the Red-sea look back upō the Egyptians and the People Miriam had a song Exod. 15.1 when they looked back saw the Egyptians floating above the water A strange thing but God would have it so because he would have his people to have Arms to have the Arms of the Egyptians to fight against Amalek It is said the people looked back and saw them those proud spirited people those braggadocioes which thought to have swallowed them up quick and followed them with their chariots and Army those which before could not bee resisted now the Lord brings them to a calme he so cooled the Nation that the least boy might insult over them Israel looked and saw them and tooke off their armour took off their rings and jewels and their costly apparrell and furnished themselves with it when they went into the wildernesse So shall the conquest of Gods children be over death although it have beene full of threatning full of terrour and blood before yet the Lord will bring it into the floud into the Red sea he will overwhelme it in the water of his Omnipotency and his children shall look back and shall see him and spoyle him that was the spoyler and destroy him that was the destroyer and they shall take his weapons from him and make use of them to their owne purposes and they shall say as the people might have said to the Egyptians Where is thy bragging that thou usedst before thou art inclosed now in thine owne net Where is thy sting oh death Oh hell where is thy victory The Lord shall turne the termes the Lord shall make the field to goe on his owne side and take away the conquest from the adverse party It hath beene an ancient Proverb That to pluck the beard of a dead Lion even for children themselves it is an easie matter a poore child that cannot indure the noise or the sight of a living Lion Chrysost as St. Chrysostome saith the boyes
16.17 when he comes to Lidia there Sathan had entred into a woman and she having the divell in her Verse 18. uttered these words of Paul and Silas These are the men that teach the way of truth but the Apostle understanding that the divell spake that for some cozening for the hinderance of the Gospell the Text saith he grew into vexation and trouble of spirit and commanded the divell to come out of her Another time he comes to Paulus house Acts 13.8 and there Elymas the sorcerer opposeth him whereupon being moved with griefe he growes to those high termes that he never spake the like language but onely there Verse 10. Thou full of all subtilty thou childe of the divell wâ—lt thou not cease to pervert the right wayes of God these things therefore occasioned him new pangs and brought his death on multiplied his sorrowes and made him say as he doth here in the vexation of his spirit I dye daily For these Idolaters for these opposers for the inward troubles from his own flesh for outward troubles from his own corrupt nation these things so every where beset him that hee could make no evasion or escape Therefore hee sweares By the rejoycing I have in Iesus Christ our Lord I dye daily But the chiefe and maine thing that made the Apostle dye daily to dye upon the nest as it were it was the care of the Churches 2 Cor. 11.28 29 2 Cor. 11. the great compassion he had that great Armado of cares and businesse and toyle that lay upon him As he saith The trouble and care of all the Churches lyes upon me Who is weake and I am not burthened who is offended and I burne not The griefe that he conceived to see men back-sliders to see how hardly men were brought to it and how ill they lived in their profession that they lived not answerable to their calling in Christ to see men fall from grace to this world as he saith of Demas He hath forsaken me 2 Tim. 4.10 and imbraced this present world these strange alterations and turnings in the Church of God did so vexe and trouble and grieve his spirit that he could take no rest or repose in any thing in the world but was as a dead man free among the dead and he cryes out here I protest by the reioycing I have in our Lord Iesus Christ I dye daily I dye daily This is a great aggravation of the miserie To dye is the bane of nature the horrible of horribles which none of us all can indure to heare of the least approach of it casts us into infinite feares and horrour but to dye daily to know no end of death no period to determine it but to be in the continuall act of dying here is the height of all the patience of the Saints As they dye so they dye daily there is no time that shines perfectly cleare to them but all is in cloudes and disasters and misfortunes here I dye daily Every day brings its burthen with it that as we begge our daily bread so there is a daily death and we have not such assurance of our daily bread as we have of our daily death Men often by fasting pull downe themselves and keepe downe their bodies that they eate not their bread but there is no day but a Christian tasts of death Though hee have no taste of bread or any rellish of victuals yet hee shall be sure to taste of death I dye daily as though my life were of steele and my bones of marble as though this short threed of mine were of Adamant so thy terrours worke upon me Like a moath that frets a garment and leaves nothing but flockes and dust and ruine of the goodliest garment so the terrors of God the terrours of conscience the terrours of the world the discontents and feares the malice of the divell the malice of some false brethren and the falling away of others these things did so worke upon him and so vexe him that they did even bring him to nothing that there was no houre but it was full of distraction and perturbation I protest by the rejoycing I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily This daily death is the generall condition of Gods Saints Saint Paul suffered it not alone but he left it also as our inheritance he dyed daily and we may say who doth not dye daily He that knowes Christ and hath a will to follow him he shall finde his life in this life to be a continuall death wrastling with him and tyrannizing over him as Iob saith My soule rather desires strangling Iob 7.15 than to live as I doe Saint Paul had his death and the ministers of the Gospell now have their death and though they live in a time of peace and plenty yet they want not their death to gnaw on them The envy of men the malice and slander and villanous reports whereby they defame and disgrace their brethren to the pit of hell the non-proficiencie of men their scorning of the word these are as death to a man that is sensible of God or of his government The Apostle seemes to make all the day being divided into two parts to be a continuall dying The day is either naturall or artificiall and both these are full of deaths the day naturall is that we worke in and sleepe in the day artificiall is that onely which we worke in in the common course of nature and in both these there were deaths to the blessed Apostle In the day time the time of worke I dye daily in all the passages of my life in all the practises and exercises of religion whether it be Prayer Meditation or Teaching and admonishing the people In all these exercises I dye daily In my prayers I dye with coldnesse and dulnesse I have not zeale to wing my affections to God In my preaching I dye with weakenesse and neglect I cannot set forth that glorious word as I ought to doe In my Meditations I dye with sluggishnesse and lazinesse that I cannot hold on my beginnings in that course In my Meate and drinke and other refreshings I dye I am eyther too excessive or else too superstitiously vaine and fearefull Nay in that very time of the day wherein nature brings rest and repose in the time of night when I should sleepe and rest I dye in my very sleepe That is full of startling dreames and fearefull phantasies and perturbations to vexe my soule so that every day I dye whether it be in that part of the day which is for worke or that which is for rest every where I dye When the Sunne shines it is as a blazing starre that opens the day to mischiefe and discomfort When the Moone appeares it is as a Commet or candle to waken me to distracted thoughts The Stars are as so many clouds that drowne me in darkenesse My houres are as Iobs messengers that bring mee sad reports
in his third Booke of the Trinity he saith The Apostle did not feare to confirme the certainty of his salvation by swearing for saith he by the confidence that I have in Christ Iesus I dye daily Among the Greekes none doubted of it but those that were simple and unlearned Therefore I say this was an oath and so the strongest confirmation that can be 2 The thing he sweares by Esay 45.23 But how doth Saint Paul sweare by that which is not God It is not lawfull to sweare by any thing but the name of God as the Lord saith Every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confesse me and sweare by my name Heb. 6.13 It is true that when God sweares having no greater to sweare by he sweares by himselfe and when man sweares he must alway sweare by a greater For that is the end of an oath to protest an unknowne truth by the presence and countenance of a greater person then himselfe and one which cannot lye Therefore it is unlawfull for a Christian to sweare by any name but the name of God and that not often much lesse alway or in frivolous causes for this our Lord Christ condemnes when hee saith sweare not at all Math 5.34 that is not often nor out of passion But as an oath is a speciall service of God so it is to be taken upon speciall occasions but now we are bound to sweare by no name but the name of God and reioycing in Christ is not Christ himselfe Wherefore then doth the Apostle sweare by his reioycing in Christ We must understand that to sweare by any immediate fruit of the spirit of God by any thing that flowes immediately from God to us it is all one as to sweare by the name of God it selfe This is so individuall and inseparable a thing the comfort namely and the joy of Christ hath brought into the world that it is as inseparable from the spirit as the shadow from the body Therefore as a man may sweare by the shadow that there is a body and swearing the one he intimates the other and concludes the other so the Apostle here he sweares by this fruit of the holy Ghost which is ioy and peace even the peace of God which passeth all understanding which he found in his heart by the meanes of Christ Iesus who maketh our ioy to be full who is the fountaine of ioy swearing by this he sweares by the chiefe iewell of salvation which is the penny that Christ had given him as an earnest as a pawne and gage of his love Out of this that he saith Our reioycing observe I beseech you the wondrous temper of a Christian how he is composed of strange extreame contraries of death and life of sorrow and joy of peace and war There is nothing in the world that can be imagined so contrary as be the severall parts of a Christian mans constitution Upon this ground the holy Apostle goeth 2 Cor 4. 2 Cor. 4.8 c. where he makes the definition of a Christian after the same manner Saith he we are indeed oppressed and persecuted but yet not crushed altogether we are as men dead and yet behold we live poore and yet making many rich as having nothing and yet we possesse all things This is that marvellous mixture that God hath appointed his children to come to that they should be conformable to the sufferings of Christ and so be in death and yet that they should revive againe by the spirit of God and so no man be lesse in death being alway in life and having the certaine pledge and pawne of life eternall As for the men of this world the sonnes of flesh and bloud when they thinke themselves most lively then are they most deepely in death every thing worketh against them the stormes of Gods wrath attend them and worke upon their consciences at some time or other such fearefull deaths as out of which they can make no evasion or escape But with the children of God it is contrary when they are in the middest of death they are in the height of life 2 Cor. 4.16 As the Apostle saith Although our outward man dye daily and is corrupted yet the inward man is renewed and revived by the spirit of Christ So in all the passages of their life where death seemes to have the greatest sway and predominancie even there is life abundantly over death and the roote of life shall at length eate out the fruit of death And although death make a flourish for a time upon the Saints of God yet because there is a root of life it shall still grow and bud and bring forth at length that death may be swallowed up into victory 1 Cor. 15.54 In all things the children of God have full contentment in this life although they be in the middest of death This is the great miracle that God doth in the world Every holy man is a wonder every good man is a miracle like the children of Israel Exod. 14.22 that walked through the deepe where there was never way knowne before like the three children in the furnace Dan. 3.25 that walked in the middest of the fire as if they had beene in a pleasant Medow like the Israelites and all their cattell that passed over Iordan Acts 16.25 like Paul and Sylas singing at midnight in chaines and fetters in prison A miraculous spectacle to God and men which drawes the eyes of Angâ—â—s to the contemplation of it For in sicknesse a Christian is full of the saving health of God In persecution he is full of quiet and contentment of the holy Ghost In prison he is full of Psalmes and spirituall Songs as were Paul and Sylas When he is bound in shackles he is free and expedite and loose As the Apostle saith in another place though I be bound 2 Tim. 2.9 yet the word of God is not bound the Gospell of Christ is not bound In all things he is a breathing miracle of the power of God that sounds unto us as so many silver Trumpets the omnipotencie of God that makes such a correspondence and proportion betweene life and death that makes death and life dwell together in one body and yet hee will evacuate death by the power of life that life may surmount and death may be put under that at the last death may be debased and life may be advanced And in that he saith Our reioycing or your reioycing For it is not materiall whether way it is read for it is a common ioy If I reade it yours I have it if mine you have it for it is a common ioy in our common Saviour This is that which all of us confesse when we make our prayers to God we call him our Father and we call the Saviour of the world our Saviour and so we may call the spirit our comforter because this common veyne of joy it flowes and runnes
wofull calamity that sinne hath brought upon us to pray to the Lord to take these barbarous trickes from us and to teach us the true civility of his Saints even that honourable conversation that makes of beasts men and of men Angels and not of men beasts and of beasts divels as our condition is by nature 2 Tim. 3.13 The wicked prosper from worse to worse as the Apostle saith It is a strange phrase that they should prosper from worse to worse and yet it is true for the prosperity of the wicked is to his greater destruction It is the grace of God that exalts a man from a beast to be a man and from the state of a man to the state of an Angell And it is the basenesse of nature that brings a man from being a man to be a beast and makes him to creepe or to goe on all foure to whom the Lord hath given an upright positure and an erected countenance So much for the first poynt of interpretation I have been too long in it I will conclude the rest more briefely Second poynt Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to men or after the manner of men This is more intricate than the former and as I said wee ought not to misprize what the Church hath taught us but as dutifull children to see the variety of the gifts of God as they have flowed in the whole body of the Church from time to time This saith Beza Beza According to men it signifieth no more but according to the fashion of men as men use to fight with beasts to get the victory and to get themselves glory and reputation in the world what profit shall I have by this if there be no Resurrection So Beza thinks following the opinion of Ambrose and of divers others before him S. Ambrose But me thinkes this concludes and inferres nothing For a man might thus object against this suppose he went to fight with beasts as commonly men doe it is the condition of men to looke for the same reward that others have and the same glory that other men atchieve these men fought with beasts daily and they looked for their reward but yet they thought not of the resurrection of the body they dreamed not of such a thing as the bodies rising therefore the Apostle denyes that he went after the manner of men for vaine-glory or for an idle applause of the people or for any worldly gaine he had no such project but he did it onely for the hope of the Resurrection This exposition though there be somewhat in it is not close it is not the proper sence which the most and best follow Anselme Anselme hath another sence of it If I have fought with beasts after the manner of men or according to men that is saith he if my passions and sufferings were seene with the eyes of men all men that had looked upon me at Ephesus how I was troubled with those wicked men there they would have thought I had rather fought with beasts in humane shape then men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to mens iudgement they would rather have seemed beasts than men so that I call them not beasts simply my selfe but in the judgement of them that are my beholders and spectators that see my sufferings to see with what kinde of wits I was incumbred they would have judged them beasts and not men This is too farre off because the Apostle useth not this phrase in that sence elsewhere in any of his Writings Thirdly If I have fought with beasts after the manner of men that is if I have fought to death so Theodoret and Theophilact Theodoret. Theophilact As those men that used to fight with beasts they fought to death still for the manner was when they sent a malefactor or a man that was condemned ad certamen to the stage to fight with the beast if perhaps he came away the conquerour and slew the beast yet then the Executioner or Hang-man was either by sword or with a halter to strangle him and to make an end of him so that still he that fought with beasts hee fought to death for if he fought not to death with the beast yet he came to his death by man because the Iudge had doomed him to dye and though he gaue him leave to use his weapon to take armes and to defend himselfe yet when that expectation failed they did not fayle to take away his life another way so that then the Apostles meaning must be If he fought with beasts as men used to doe to fight to death that have death every way if they be cast naked and bound it is to death for they are torne in pieces if they be armed against the beast and prevaile over him and be not killed by him yet the law after tooke hold of them so that still they fought unto death This exposition seemeth to be favoured by that in 2 Cor. 1.8 2 Cor. 1.8 where the Apostle saith We tooke the sentence of death against our selves that is there was no way with us but one there was nothing but death presented to us the gastly face of destruction and desolation he speakes there as it is likely of this persecution But as I said before they fought not alway to death but some times for tryall and besides if Saint Paul had fought to death he could not after that have related this to us Therefore I come to the last opinion and as I take it the best because of some reverend translations to whom I incline more than to any thing which hath beene done in the Church these many yeeres which understand the end of it to be this After the manner of men that is to speake after the manner of men according as it is the Apostles phrase in many other places and a mans meaning may be the best knowne by his stile by observing his speech elsewhere a man may trace him the better afterward one place helpes to cleare another Now this in the Writings of Saint Paul is a common speech after the manner of men Rom. 3.5 Rom. 6.19 Rom 3.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I speake as a man And Rom 6.19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 J speake after the manner of men and in divers other places I speake after the manner of men and although here be not the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet here is the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same forme and phrase he useth there and so the Apostles meaning is this you know men have a forme of speech to call malitious and cruell men beasts and according to that forme I speake for my Lord and Saviour otherwise would not give me leave to speake so out of my owne spleene out of my owne passion to call men beasts for they are all my brethren and all must be imbraced in the bowels of love and in long suffering and patience
matter of this mystery follows We shall not all die but we shall all be changed The power and strength of death working unequally upon mankinde it seemes a great wonder and a mysterie indeed how that some should be happier than their fellowes to be exempted from this common law which is a Statute law Heb. 9 27. and It is appointed for all men once to die And how then are these become so happy to escape the common doome inflicted for the sin of Adam upon all mankinde surely to our common sense they are the happiest of all men even those that shall live in those dayes For we love our flesh so well that wee are loath to commit it to the ground wee are loath that dust should goe to dust and ashes to ashes but still wee would continue and be the last men upon the earth And this great ambition we have so truely and so radically in us that a man would give all that he had in this world not to be taken away till the world be taken away It is the greatest comfort of a mans life to be snatched and hurried away when the universality goes away It is a great comfort to have abundance of company in misery But for this the holy Ghost hath taught us Vse to settle our selves in patience the Lord hath appointed our severall times They are never a whit the more happy because they shall not die nor we never the more unhappy because wee shall die for life and death are all one to them that are planted in the Lord Iesus Christ For it is he that is our advantage he is our hope in death that wee shall attaine unto everlasting life And whether we shall come unto it by the way of resting and rottennesse in the grave or by a sudden and extemporarie change and mutation it ought to seeme all one unto us It is true if God should vouchsafe us that blessing to stand the last men upon the earth and to be the last generation it were a thing very plausible and that which we should desire but we ought not too much to settle upon it for the Lord hath made it a mysterie It is a mysterie when any man dies It is a mysterie in the generall and in the particular it is a mysterie when God calls any man unto him and wee must not wish contrary to the will of God but be content with that portion that he hath destinated unto us Our first parents because they were the authors of sin and transgression Adam and Eve the Lord hath given them the longest time of rotting they lie longest in their graves and they dwell in the pavillions and habitations of death the longest because they were the first authors of wrong to us In the later end of the world the Lord will incline in mercie because he hath been long in judgement in the judgement of death he will incline in the latter generations of the world and give them a taste of his mercy All things grow lesse by continuance and use as a raging plague and pestilence when it comes first into a Citie it takes away a number of people three or foure thousand in a weeke afterward the Lord allayes that rage and abates the disease that there are not so many this week as there were the week before nor so many the next week as there were this So in this common calamity as the world growes in yeares nearer the end of her time so her children that is the people of God which lie in their graves they have lesse time to lie The first authors of sinne when Gods anger was fierce and vehement they are condemned to lie longer in the dust to inhabit and dwell there At the last the plague of God shall begin to slacken and to abate it selfe and the anger of God shall be mitigated and mollified so that those that live in the last age they shall have the least time of sleeping in the dust But in these things we ought to make no difference for the patience that God indues his children with makes up this whether a man sleepe a thousand yeares or five thousand it is all one because God seasons their death with a meditation of the Resurrection and in the meane time inricheth the soule with the beatificall vision with the presence of his Majesty and with that joy that cannot be comprehended in the heart of man We shall not all sleepe Observe againe the Apostle speaks in the first person Wee he saith We shall not all sleepe and yet hee is asleep aswell as other men how then doth he say We shall not all sleep His meaning is to take upon him the person of the Church of God in generall and especially that part of the Church that shall survive when Christ shall come For St. Paul is done to dust as wee shall be and there is no difference in that part that went to the grave There is no difference but onely this that he sleeps in the Lord hee sleeps a glorious compasse and yet he saith We shall not al sleep Vnderstand that he speaks still of the â—ommon state of the Church and for that part of the Church which hee brings the argument for For now he brings his argument to answer an accusation or conclusion which might be made against his doctrine Some might aske him What shall become of those that shall be living at the comming of Christ Oh saith he I am of them although I die before that time yet I am of that number For the members of Christ are not distinguished by time but are all one Abel might have said Wee and Adam might have said Wee of the last end of the world This teacheth us how great the communion of Saints is that it is not broken by the entercourse of yeares time but that it still continues We shall not all sleep The blessing of God runs on still with perpetuity and that which is true to one generation is firme to another and that which belongs to one is common to all This is that communion of Saints in the strength of which the Apostle uttered this phrase We shall not all sleep as he doth oft times in his other Epistles We shall not doe this and wee shall not doe that Although the Apostle be dead and rotten 15. hundred years agoe yet he saith We shall not all sleep But we shall all be changed Still We as if he were one of the men Here he teacheth us another lesson that the Apostle was a man that still looked for the day of judgement He saith We shall all be changed It may be I shall be one of the men I know not it may be the trumpet shall blow while I live for the Lord hath reserved the time onely to himselfe the day of judgement is knowne to no man Nay the son of man as hee is man knowes not when Christ shall come to judgement Therefoâ—e I prepare my selfe
power of life and heat failes therefore a man dies Death is nothing but a privation and by consequent it is nothing at all As the Sunne when it is set there is darknesse which is a matter of nothing but the absence of the Sunne So death is nothing but the absence of life nothing but a cessation of the powers in man But because wee conceive it after another manner as a grievous enemie as a triumphant enemy over all the world therefore the Scripture condiscends to our capacity speaks in our language and makes it as an enemy Christ and it as two enemies encountring each other and the one foyling the other and so foyling it as that there is no reliques or remainders of the one left because of the great victory and conquest of the other The victory of Christ shall bee so absolute over death that there shall be no occasion of feare because there shall bee no steppe of death that shall have being in the world And this is marvellously set downe by a metaphor of swallowing that that monster which swallowes all the world of men that hath swallowed our forefathers that hath swallowed all The ages and generations before us what are they else but the morsels of death which hee hath swallowed to glut his stomack and all cannot serve but still he is craving For death and hell and the grave are unsatiable they are never satisfied although they have abundance of income and harvest dayly throwne into them The metaphor is taken from those kinde of ravenous beasts which vse not to chew but to swallow their prey and specially from fish from Whales and Crokodiles which altogether smallow and choake it up without any mincing the meat they receive So the meaning is that the death of Christ swallowes up the death of nature and the death of sinne the second death that they have no more power over us Hee shall swallow them as the Whale swallowed Ionas he shall swallow them that there shall bee no more sight of them to live and to bee and to have power hee shall swallow them as the red sea swallowed up the Egyptians he shall swallow them as the fiery furnace swallowes a little water that is cast into it a sprinkling of water It shall swallow them as the mysts and vapours are swallowed up by the beams of the Sun that there shall be no appearance of them afterward It shall swallow them as the dry gaping thirsty land swallowes a little showre of raine after a long drought It swallowes them up as the weaker metalls that are cast into the fiery furnace that are so spent and consumed as that there is no remainder nor footsteps left of them So is this similitude contrived that the devouring death shall bee swallowed in the death of Christ And whereto shall it be swallowed To Victory To victory This is the strange terme that there is nothing now in the Church of God but triumphs trophees and victorie there is nothing now but songs of deliverance there is nothing but well-springs of life to water every tree in the garden of God The most strange and compleat deliverance that can bee is to bee brought from all the points of slavery to all the points of liberty Such a victoâ—y is this which is spoken of here There shall bee nothing but victory where there was nothing before but captivity Where there was nothing but sicknesse and after sicknesse death and after death damnation by meanes of the sinne of Adam Now there shall be nothing else but life and joy and glory and victory And this is the happy estate and condition of the second comming of Christ and his presence and possession of his children at his comming So wee reade it and so the best Translations hold it to victory Some others reade it to contention So St. Ierom Tertullian St. Ambrose St. Ierom. Teâ—tull Ambros Aug. and St. Austin in many places reade it to contention For saith St. Ierom it is a kind of contestation a kind of law and pleading in the court of God betweene the death of Christ on the one party and the death of nature inflicted for sinne on the other party and they shall enter into plea the one against the other and the power of the death of Christ shall command and overwhelme the power of the death of nature and of the second death which is of sinne by reason of the justice and righteousnesse which is in Christ For thereupon it comes to passe that death is swallowed up into victory because the death of Christ hath answered the justice of his Father and hath satisfied the wrath which wee had contracted against us And by that reason hee shall cease the Commission of death which is out for us because of Adams sinne Rom. 6. last For the wages of sinne is death but because Christ was without sinne therefore hee had no cause or reason to die but onely for our sinnes and so God is satisfied by his death and is well-pleased in him to give us life because the actions that proceed from Christ are not humane actions but the actions of his person the actions of God and man and by consequent able to merit for an infinite company and to be applied to many worlds if there were any more then this that is to all believers to the end of the world that shall have participation in his blood They shall have as they have a promise forgivenesse of sinnes and sinne being removed and forgiven death hath no claime But there was no sin in Christ therefore death had no right to him nor shall have to those that are in him therefore death shall make a surcease and be no more but shall be utterly abandoned and swallowed up into victory This is that plea that the Lord Iesus in his death makes against death I will be death against death Because thou hast forfetted thy commission because thou wast appointed of God to lay hold upon sinners and thou hast laid hold on him that is not a sinner therefore thou shalt lose thy place and thou shalt bee cashiered thou shalt have no more right over sinners because the justice and righteousnesse of the Sonne of God is imputed unto them to ridde them from thy hands and from those dismall conclusions which otherwise they should have beene drowned in There is the contention on the one party Death of Nature The other party is the death of nature Death which is the great master of the world to this day he shall have another plea. Hee shall say For thy part I acknowledge I was mistaken I acknowledge I laid my hands amisse when I tooke thee for there was no sinne in thee But for all other men from the beginning of the world God gave me them as prisoners and made mee their executioner I have not done amisse in these therefore I may justly hold them that are given me by Divine providence by the
as God hath made him which knew not sinne to be sinne for us that is he hath made him a sacrifice for sinne and hee was accounted a sinner as he was made sinne for us so this is the effect of this account and imputation of our sins upon him it shall be the imputation of his righteousnesse upon us as the holy Apostle saith 2 Cor. 6. He was made sin for us which knew no sin that we might be made the righteousnesse of God Now after this he hath shewed us the enemies he begins to shew us the use of all this he drawes to a conclusion and he saith God hath given us victory Thanks be to God that hath given us victory through Christ Iesus our Lord. As if hee should say if we had indeed the remnants of sin in us still wee were foolish to make any insultation over death for death would triumph over us for as long as sinne remaines death must needs ensue and as long as the law is put upon us to curbe and contradict us sin will be but now God be thanked that hath given us victory through Iesus Christ our Lord For he hath destroyed the one and hee hath fulfilled the other he hath destroyed the one by his gracious conversation and he hath fulfilled the law he hath appeased the wrath of God that now there remaines no more enemy but the field is cleare and we are masters of the field for ever Therefore God be thanked which hath given us victory through Iesus Christ our Lord. Wherein wee are to consider First the gift that is given It is victory Division of the Text into 5. parts an absolute and compleat victory over these fierce enemies Secondly whence this victory comes from God God hath given us victory It is from the whole Trinity Thirdly the manner how it comes by way of gift not by way of merit blessed be God that hath given us the victory Fourthly the meanes through whom it comes through Christ Thanks be to God that hath given us victory through Christ Iesus our Lord. It is by the arme of Christ Fiftly the end and use of all Thanks be to God For the blessings of God require thankfulnesse therefore the Apostle gives glory to him that glorifieth us he gives conquest to him that is a conquerour for us Thanks be to God that hath given us victory through Iesus Christ The sting of death is sinne the strength of sinne is the Law This former part of the Text describes the Adversaries extinct and vanquished that which hee speaks of a sting is diversly translated by Interpreters some call it morsum the biting comparing it to a serpent that poysoneth and infecteth and killeth by biting so sinne was represented to us in the garden by the serpent that gave the apple unto Eve Some take it for the sting of a waspe the Hebrew word Kota in Hosea 13. Hosea 13.14 signifieth that which is sharp as a stelletto a thing that makes a present impression and by the puncture it pierceth into the inward parts and brings sudden death So by divers Translators it is thus read I will be a plague unto thee oh death and I will be thy destruction oh hell Many and sundry wayes it is translated but it is sufficient for us to take that which the last and best translation affords and so we call it the sting because indeed death was never nor it could not be sharp unto us except it come to be armed with sinne nor there is no calamity in the world no misery that a man suffers but he suffers it willingly if he have a cleare conscience it being the onely rule of peace and quiet to be free from the cause and from deserving that thing that is imputed and cast upon a man But when miseries come not onely tedious of themselves but they come armed with the condignity of sinne that they have a certaine correspondence in commutative justice that he that hath done evill must suffer evill Now it becomes of all calamities the extreamest and most miserable Therefore it is said here The sting of death is sinne as though death it self were nothing unwelcome and harsh to the flesh of man but that it is inflicted for sin and as the wages of sin But here a man may very well make a stand and aske how can this be how should sin be the sting of death seeing it is rather contrary death is the sting of sinne for which is first was not sinne before death saith St. Austin in his 7. Tom. in his 3. S. Aug. Tom. 7. lib. 3. d◠peceat remiss Booke De peccatis remissione peccatorum saith he we sinne not because wee die it is no sinne to die because it is the fulfilling of the judgement of God upon sinne We sinne not in dying but we die for sinning for from that comes our death therefore seeing sinne was the cause of death and that death is a thing of nothing a thing that followes afte◠sinne it seemes therefore that sinne being first and sin being the cause of death it followes that it must use death as a sting unto it and not on the contrary that it should be a sting unto death But for this there is no great matter in the phrase for as St. Austin Aug. and the rest of Divines accord with him the Apostle calls sinne the sting of death not that death made it but that death is made with it and it is made by it so it is called the sting of death that is a deadly sting that brings death with it As a cup of poyson we call it a cup of death not as though death made the cup but because death is with it that he that takes that cup shall die with it So the tree of life and the tree of knowledge the meaning is not as though life were made by the tree or that knowledge were made by the tree but because the fruit of that tree would have brought life and would have brought the knowledge of good and evill This therefore is the meaning of the Apostles words that sinne by the just permission of God and by the deputation that God gave unto sathan to execute judgement upon sinners it comes upon every man armed and it is armed with death the most desperate weapon that can be that destroyes the very nature of man and brings him to his very foundation to a matter of nothing This is that sting that must prick us all at length as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Therefore let us learne while wee are now in this world to prepare our selves for this sting that we doe not kick against the pricks as our Lord saith Acts 9. Acts 9.5 Saul Saul why persecutest thou me it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks Let us therefore never grumble against the necessity of sicknesse disease and miseries for alas these are nothing in comparison of death we
intercepted by death Austin And Nebridius S. Austins great friend was not baptised till he was old and S. Austin himselfe was not baptised till his mans estate This errour God confuted by the death of Valentinian and other great spirits which although they were perswaded of the truth of religion yet they put off God and would not take his time but have a time of their owne choosing and therefore God gave them no time as Ambrose saith of the Emperour he wanted not the grace of baptisme because he had the faith of baptisme He yeelded his consent unto the truth and although he went away unbaptised yet he was truely baptised as one who in his heart yeelded to the faith and promises of Christ And if we should take it thus this is the sence of S. Paul in these words what shall they doe that are baptised for dead that is when they are ready to die and goe out of the world if there be no resurrection his argument followes that that which they did so late they would not doe it at all that which they did by constraint putting it off to the last time of their life they would not doe it at all except it were for the hope of the resurrection so that if there be no resurrection there is a maine frustration and a meere delusion of these men that suffer themselves so farre to be overgone with deadly sicknesse as that they looke every houre for death and yet then they take upon them the baptisme of life as a certaine pawne and pledge of the common resurrection This sounds somewhat like a truth but yet it is likely that the Apostle would have condemned this as well as the other being as ridiculous because this is injurious to God and to the Sacrament and pernicious to mens owne soules to tempt God whether he will give them a time of their owne choosing to put off the Sacrament that should be imbraced upon all opportunities to refuse it when God offers it which we should take thankfully and chearefully No doubt but the Apostle would have confuted this errour as the former and not have suffered the Corinthians to have beene so tardy in a point of salvation Wherefore I take this opinion not to be according to the Apostles minde for as I sayd that opinion is most probable and most agreeable to S. Pauls meaning that proves the strongest but this proves nothing that because a man that is driven to it in extremity at the time of his death to doe an action that therefore that action should bee of force that may be done in amazement and feare or by the instigation of others a man it may be is not lead to it by his owne will so much as by the perswasion of another and there is no reason that a man should ground upon such a weake stay to inferre such a strong conclusion The third opinion What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead that is for the forgivenesse of sins which are dead workes For so indeed the Lord seems to signifie when he saith God is not the God of the dead but of the living and also the Apostle when he saith ye were dead in sinnes and trespasses It is true our Saviour Christ includes in that speech both them that were dead naturally and them that were dead spiritually For in one place he saith God is not the God of the dead but of the living speaking of naturall death In another place let the dead bury their dead speaking of them that were dead spiritually and so we may apply it that those that are baptised for dead that is for remission of sinnes wherein the body and soule are dead and for the quickening and reviving of them by spirituall grace But this is too farre off for the Apostles meaning is not here to speake of a thing that is common that being common to all beleevers to be baptised for the remission of sinnes but he speakes of some peculiar baptisme that was not common to all in generall but belonged to some in particular Besides the Apostle speakes not here of the spirituall resurrection but of the corporall he speakes not of the rising from sinne to grace although it be true that they that are baptised are baptised for the remission of sinnes yet it is not proper here for the Apostle speaks of the resurrection of the flesh the spirituall is allegoricall which is from the death of sinne to the life of grace by repentance Therefore that proves nothing and is not likely to be S. Pauls minde for he purposed not to spend his time in trifles but to bring the validity of his arguments directly to conclude the cause Another opinion there is that hath many great and substantiall followers They that are baptised for the dead that is that are baptised into the death of Christ Iesus to be planted with him into the similitude of his death And this hath Chrysostome Theodoret Aquinas Calvin and many other great Divines for the Authors and followers of it And that you may see that it hath some similitude of reason in it looke in Rom. 6.4.5 Rom. 6.4.5 Doe you not know saith the Apostle that they that are baptised into Christ are baptised into his death therefore we are buried together with him in baptisme It is true that every man that makes profession of the faith of Christs baptisme among the rest of the articles that he professeth he must beleeve in Christ that was dead and buried that he was crucified and that he descended into hell and that he rose againe the third day c. And he professeth also that he is ready to dye for Christ when he shall be called to it and till that time come that he will dye spiritually in his heart and in his will to worldly affections which he knowes that Christ never had in him or had any liking to them but utterly abhorred them Therefore this being the symbol and badge of our profession it seemes from hence that every man that is baptised may be said to be baptised for dead that is for a dead Christ in whom he trusts which was dead but now is alive and behold he is alive for evermore Apoc. 1.18 He is baptised for dead that is to the world and the flesh that he may live for ever unto God Chrysostome proves this by an argument that hee thinkes fit and convenient for the purpose for saith he whether of the two is easier to raise the body from death or to raise the soule from sinne no doubt saith hee it is an easier matter to raise the dead body from the grave than to raise a soule that is dead in sinnes and trespasses to newnesse of life And behold saith he in the Romans the Apostle proves the one by the other that although we thinke it easier yet he intimates that that which we thinke to be easier is harder and that which seems more hard
and difficult is more easily atchieved and effected by the hand of God And he proves it out of Matth. 9.5 Mat. 9.5 where our Lord discoursing with the Pharisees when they had said who can forgive sinnes he askes them whether it were easier to say to the sicke of the Palsie take up thy bed and walke or to say thy sinnes are forgiven thee where our Lord clearely gives us to understand that it is a harder matter and a more powerfull thing to say thy sinnes are forgiven thee then to give limbs to him to walke and to take up his bed and goe his way For sicknesses are the punishments of sinne and the Lord removing that once he takes away the cause which is greater than the effect But although this be followed with so many so great and so worthy Interpreters yet me thinkes it hath no congruity with the purpose of the Apostle in this place for as I said before the Apostles meaning is not here to instruct us in the renovation of the soule of newnesse of life in holinesse and sanctification but to tell us of the resurrection of the flesh that is his chiefe argument the maine point he insisteth precisely upon Therefore to say to be baptised for dead is to be baptised for the name of a dead Christ it is too farre fetched and I cannot see how it can be brought in Therefore without prejudice to these glorious and goodly writers we proceed to further examination of these words There be some others that cannot indure what hath beene said before but they must devise trickes of their owne They say Saint Paul alludes to the Leviticall Law Numb 19. Numb 19. when a man had touched any dead carkasse he was to be cleansed before the even but suppose say they that the man dyed by casualty before night before he could come to the Priest before he could have gotten the matter of his purification what was then to be done Then say they his neighbour was to be cleansed for him and so they fall upon an opinion before named But what is their purpose certainly to bring in prayer for the dead because they thinke that as there was baptisme for the dead so there should be prayer for the dead And if the one fall to be so the other must needs be so too For I rather thinke that there should be prayer for the dead than that there should be baptising for them to speake in a sacramentall sence They doe it to bring in their superstitions of holy-water and sprinkling the graves and sepulchers and coffins of dead persons thereby to make them more pure before God and that which is more ridiculous that the Priest should undertake in times past and it may be now too in our times when he was sent for to a sicke body to give him the host and that the party were dead before he came he in the presence of the company was to eate it for him that was deceased and thought that that would be availeable to him for the forgivenesse of his sinnes and for the receiving him into heaven These things have no ground nor warrant neither in this Epistle nor in the old Law There is no such thing that there was any such purification by a proxie but it was alway done in a mans owne person and there was no friâ—nd admitted in any such action Therefore in that devise they make one lye to salve another as their custome is in other of their proceedings Further there is yet another opinion that saith that baptising for the dead it is meant of those that came and offered themselves voluntarily to afflictions and persecution And this is more neare the point for indeed in the Scripture it is a most usuall and common saying to call afflictions by the name of baptisme So Math. 20. Math. 20. Mark 9. Mar. 9. when the sonnes of Zebede come to our Lord and desire a boone of him requesting that one of them might sit at his right hand and the other at his left in his kingdome Christ answers them againe that they knew not what they asked And he proceeds further saith he Can ye drinke of that Cup whereof I shall drinke and can ye be baptised with the baptisme that I shall be baptised withall and they answer againe they could Christ tels them again that indeed they should drinke of that cup and be baptised with that baptisme but to sit at his right hand and at his left c. where we may see he speakes of the baptisme of fire and trouble and persecution That which is intended in those words the same also by comparison may be taught here and interpreted in this place They that are baptised for dead that is those that scorned their lives that cared not for them those that were ready to drinke the cup of Christ that were ready to throw themselves into danger for the glory of their Lord and Master To what end are they thus forward if there be no resurrection from the dead There be many things that favour this interpretation as the sequell that followes in the next words Where the Apostle saith why are we in danger or jeopardie every houre if the dead rise not as if he would bring the argument from abroad home to himselfe and then the sence of the place is this To what purpose doe men adventure their lives and cast themselves into apparant danger of death except they have a certaine hope of the resurrection to life and that that God that takes away their life now can give it them againe with advantage in the world to come This is true but whether it be fully proper or no to rest in this baptisme as absolute I thinke it lyes not in any mans power by any strong and full authority to determine It is true our Lord saith Luke 10. Luke 10. I have a baptisme to be baptised with and how am I pained till it be past Where he meanes in the same sence the baptisme of affliction For a man in affliction is as it were a dead man a man in prison as though he were in the bottome of the water in another element when there is persecution and trouble on every side But yet there is another opinion which shall be the last that at this time I will trouble you withall that is of Beza Beza and others that hold with him that all this that is spoken of baptisme here is not meant of any sacramentall washing but as the word is often used for a legall washing and purifying common and ordinary at the carrying forth of the dead as in Heb. 9. Heb. 9. there are many washings and the word is thus used in divers places in the Gospell As where Christ saith the Scribes and Pharisees when they come from the market they baptised their hands and they baptised their Cups and their Platters and Dishes It is the same word there and it signifieth
to dip to wash and make cleane And so it was a custome among Christians they used when they layd their dead bodies forth to wash them and annoynt them And all this was done as a certaine assurance and signe of the resurrection So the body of our Lord Iesus was imbalmed by Ioseph of Arimathea and Nichodemus and should have beene more fully embalmed upon that which we call our sunday morning but that the women received relation of his resurrection before they came to the grave This custome was used in Egypt as we see in the Scriptures and in expresse words Acts 9. Dorcas or Tabitha when she was dead shee was washed and layd in an upper roome And it seemes this custome was used by prophane men themselves in most Countries as the Poet speakes of Tarquynus when he was dead being slaine for his foule acts and tyrannizing parts a good woman saith he took him and in devotion washed his body and annoynted him according to the solemnity of funerals So the substance of the argument as Beza thinkes is this that all this expense about these corses carrying them to their graves in pompe that we cast them not out as beasts unburied but commit them to the bowels of our mother earth to lye there in certaine hope of the resurrection All the charge and cost that we bestow for them our washing of their bodies that we suffer them not to carry any pollution or staine with them all this is done in hope of the resurrection And this we would not doe except we had a hope of the resurrection but would cast them away without any care But we have a stately sumptuous care of their obsequies and proceedings in this businesse therefore we have a certaine hope of the resurrection Tertullian Tertul. saith if you aske me the fashion of my life and how I eate and drinke and how I wash my selfe in my bath I wash my selfe in such a bath as is convenient for the health of my body and I look for another bath when I am dead alluding to the custome that was then among Christians which was received from the Iewes or Hebrewes that had great skill in it and wrote it in bookes and put it into their Thalmud where there is a great long Chapter to this purpose how the funerals of men should be solemnized And of a truth there is some force of an argument from the customs and manners of the people of God to prove the certainty of our common faith in the resurrection But I am perswaded S. Paul did not greatly care for these fashions because they were but weake for though they prove something yet men might object and say what doe you tell us of idle customes that because men are carried by their friends with weeping and lamentation to their graves and those that be of greaer ranke with pompe and solemnity because they doe thus shall we therefore beleeve that there is a resurrection because this argument may suffer the traverse therefore it is not full although it prove something as Calvin Calvin saith well because death seemes to be the last extirpation and extinguishing and rooting out of men therefore it hath beene the wisedome of men and the nature of faith to devise life in death and to represent life by death For men that have friends that are men of respect and are able to have it so are carried to their graves with more pompe and magnificence than ever was done to them in all their life Because they would overcome death and make their scaffold of joy and delight in the height of death more then before in their life time to out-worke the feare of death in those that are living and to give assured hope of those that are dead therefore it was profitable for the Church to invent these things and the Church approves of it And then the Apostles argument is to what end are all these solemnities for the dead to what end is this cost to what end is this pompe in celebrating their funerals but as so many arguments of the resurrection And they tell us plainely that except we hoped to see the man againe in glory in the world to come we would not trouble our selves about these things but cast him away as a thing of nothing But by this we shew our esteeme of them that we account them to be those whose lives are layd up with God in Christ To conclude this because I have beene too troublesome to you in it Chrysost August I thinke that the fittest and the best sence is that of Saint Chrysostome and Saint Austine who though they lived in severall parts of the world yet with one spirit they agree upon it What then shall they doe that are baptised for the dead say they what is all this mortifying to the world what is this continuall expectation of death in the world what is all this preparation for the world to come which is in the opinion of worldly men nothing but a meere death They thinke that men that live thus are as dead coarses that have no society of mankinde those that are of retired life and conversation they are accounted dead men that man that is a man of abstinence that is a man of feare and trembling that is a man that betakes himselfe to God and neglects the world that addicts himselfe to a pure straine of devotion Luk 2.36 that like Hanna the daughter of Phanuell is in the Temple day and night praying and praysing God these men are civilly dead men these that are baptised to this kinde of holinesse that make this profession of the Sonne of God that live a strict course of life that use abstinence from the world and the delights therein that they may be vacant for God alone they are dead men alive or living men dead or men twise dead for so the world esteemes of them Now then what shall their profession and undertakings come to if there be no resurrection shall we say that these are deluded men that they are deceived farre be it from us farre be it to thinke that God will deceive them or put them besides their end Therefore they shall be partakers of that they looke for they shall have a most blessed and copious reward in heaven their labour is not lost in the Lord there is no part of their labour but it shall be fruitfull and glorious in the Lord. And if there be no resurrection why are they baptised for dead that is why are they taken for dead men that live not out their time as other men doe in jollity in mirth and bravery of the world as it hath beene and is a Proverbe among heathens while we live let us live As if to use a sober carriage were a kinde of death for men to refraine from the delights and pleasures of this world therefore while they live they will have a life of it and spend their time in
his owne particular instance and saith as the common ordinary number of Saints were baptised in bloud so the Colledge of the Apostles much more and he himselfe most of all This I conclude to be the sence of the Text and of those difficult words verse 29. of baptising for the dead It is that which the Apostle renders here and in the verse before going in other termes For first in verse 29. he cals it baptising for the dead In verse 30. he cals it Ieopardy every houre and now in this verse he saith I dye daily All the three phrases have but one sence and signification onely distinguishing the persons from whom he drawes the argument For the thing is all one the state of Christs Church here on earth is alway like it selfe in this life alwayes in an afflicted condition So then his argument first in verse 29. which is a great graund argument to prove the Resurrection he takes it from the passions and sufferings of the Martyrs and professors of Christ and it holds in all these three verses and that which followeth In the first of the three he brings the argument generall In the second particular In the third he brings it personall First generall verse 29. his argument is drawn thus If there be no resurrection of the dead why should any man be so mad as to be baptised in bloud for the testimony thereof that is to forsake Father and Mother Land Country and Life and al for the witnesse of the Gospell which chiefly stands in the hope of the resurrection for this is the baptisme that Christ speakes of when he saith Can ye be bapti sed with the baptisme that I shall be baptised with and can ye drinke of the cup that I shall drinke of that is the baptisme of teares of affliction the baptisme of bloud for the testimony of the truth And so he drawes his argument from the common example of the Martyrs in their sufferings implying that they were madde men if they would suffer in confidence of a bad cause to lose the best thing in this world for a lye Therefore their sufferings are a plaine argument a strong and perfect subscription and consent to this maine point of our faith the Resurrection of the dead that for which the Saints in all the world the Prophets before Christ the Apostles after Christ have beene baptised For as Iames the brother of Iohn Acts 12. who was killed with the sword Stephen the first Martyr and all that were slaine in the first generall persecution the Apostle drawes his argument thence that if there were no Resurrection then they had laid downe their lives in vaine but they had not laid them downe in vaine therefore there shall be a Resurrection This is the scope of that argument In the second place he comes to the Colledge of the Apostles in verse 30. and saith Why doe we live in ieopardy every houre that is why doe we live in danger of death in perill all our life long to dye as it were every houre and to be baptised for the dead As a man that is under water as it was the custome in baptising he is as it were lost so long as he is there he is a dead man and although perhaps he may get up againe and lift up his head yet as long as he is in that element it being not the element of our life he is a lost man So they that betake themselves to the profession of the Gospell they are baptised they are under water they are throwne over board they are cast away out of the ship of the world and made away to plaine destruction to ignominy to basenesse to poverty and every kinde of persecution that their enemies hand can make over them they are baptised for dead because they are in danger all the day long in all the passages of their life they are in jeopardy of death and deepely drenched in the conceit and feare of death which is worse than death it selfe Now in the third place in this verse he comes to the personall proofe of the poynt and that which is usuall with all the Martyrs in generall with the Colledge of Apostles in particular he applies in his owne personall instance and saith I dye daily I protest and it is no meane protestation if you will not beleeve my word yet take my oath I set my seale to it and sweare and I sweare by the Lord Iesus by the rejoycing that I have in our Lord Iesus Christ I dye daily This is the summe of the words Now you perceive the argument we will proceed on The greatest thing in such passages is to finde out the sence the matter will be evident enough In other places the matter is deepe and the sence is evident but in this and in passages of like nature it is contrary To proceed in order Here first we are to consider the marvellous strange assertion that the Apostle makes Division into two parts 1 The Assertion 2 The Probation where he saith I dye daily he dyeth and yet he liveth and he dieth daily There was no part of his life but still the shadow of death overwhelmed him which is the miserablest thing in the world to dye after death and still to be dying it is the worst kinde of death and yet the Apostle saith he dyed daily It is an assertion that the Saint of God pronounceth for himself for there is no man that can understand him but he that takes delight in these meditations he that hath part in the kingdome of Christ knowes what this meanes For experience teacheth this and not speculation or any argument that reason can afford Secondly we are to consider the probation of this because it is a strange paradox as Luther Luther saith What dost thou meane Paul to contradict thy selfe and all common sence and reason Doe I not see thee walke Doe I not see thee eate and drink Doe I not heare thee preach and yet art thou dead I see no signe of a dead man in thee Therefore the Apostle makes it good by an oath and saith I protest by the reioycing that I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily Where first we are to consider the manner of his inference it is by way of oath And then the thing he sweares by by the reioycing that I have in Christ A dead man and yet rejoyce it is a very strange mixture Thirdly we are to consider the ground of his reioycing where it is placed In Iesus Christ our Lord. Fourthly to consider the force of this argument and how we may preserve and keepe the strength of this argument alway unavoydable to be able to say and to sweare and lay to pawne and gage this Rejoycing that we have in Christ when we finde this confidence in our selves 1 Part. The Assertion First touching that marvellous assertion of the Apostle I dye daily If an ordinary
sinfull man had spoken this it had beene no newes but that it should come from a most sanctified vessell of the holy Ghost a chosen vessell one that for his life was unblameable and for all learning and the graces of the spirit incomparable that he should utter this it is a very strange mervaile Indeed a reprobate a man that followes his owne lusts that lives not to God but to himselfe he may truely say I dye daily For the Lord makes his life to be hanged before him as a perpetuall signe of death that as the children of God are said to have the earnest of the spirit and of the kingdome of heaven so the servants of sinne may be said to receive the earnest of hell So many passages of his life as there be they are as so many flakes of hell burning before him and doe assure him that at the last he shall be tumbled and divolved into the damnation of the divell and his Angels That gnawing worrne of conscience makes his life a continuall death But that the Saints of God should be thus troubled too it is this that moves the wonder And yet the Apostle here saith nay and sweares it too that not onely wicked men are troubled and galled with the conscience of sinne that they are alway in death because they are the sonnes of death and study that which tends to death but he that had the fruit of life he that had the spirit of God and of Christ in him Gal. 2.20 nay that had Christ himselfe as he saith It is no longer I that live but Christ liveth in me that he should he subject to this death and to this frequencie of death that there was never a day came over his head but a new death was presented to him It seemeth strange The reason of this we must fetch out of the rest of his writings for there he hath set downe the summe of every thing that we are to conceive of this mystery The first reason or meanes of this death it was that he carried the divell about him as Gregory Nazianzen saith in his 32. Nazianzen Orat. 32. Oration to the Bishops at Constantinople when he was to leave the place Saith he Even as it was with Paul 2 Cor. 12.7 so doe I carry the divell about me alluding to that place 2 Cor. 12. where the Apostle complaines of the messenger and instrument of Sathan that was sent to buffet him continually that he could not be at peace and quiet for him and he prayed to the Lord thrice against it but the Lord answered him My grace is sufficient for thee Rom. 7 23. This was it that made him to say I protest by the rejoycing that I have in our Lord Iesus Christ I dye daily For my life is such a kinde of condition as wherein the flesh and the spirit are continually conflicting together good and evill righteousnesse and sinne are alway countermanding one another A good conscience and an evill conscience sorrow and joy heaven and hell God and the divell are continually in an agony and combate This conflict that I sustaine betweene the flesh and the spirit is that which makes me dye daily and makes me cry out Oh wretched and miserable man that I am Rom. 7.24 who shall deliver me from this body of death that is from the sting of the law in my members whereby I am carryed in contradiction to the good spirit of God And so as Nazianzen saith he did carry Sathan about him nay within him also For the reliques of sinne which he cals the messenger of Sathan the instrument of the divell the remainders of corruption were in him yea and are in all the sonnes of God For there was none ever without them but that Sonne of God that came to take away the sinnes of the world The second reason why the Apostle said he dyed daily was because the divell bare him outwardly by envy and trouble and persecution he carried him on his shoulders he was the beast that he was set on And no marvell for if the divell could make our Lord sit on his backe Math. 4. Mat. 4. and that our Lord Iesus rode upon the divell as a man would ride upon a horse if he were so impudent as to set himselâ—fe under our Lord and carry him about to the pinacle of the Temple and to the mountaine then well may he come to the shoulders nay to the very bowels of his members If he did so to the head he will doe to the members much more Acts 17.4.12 Thus he still carried Paul wheresoever he came by the envy of the world by the malice of the Iewes and Gentiles as upon the occasion of those devout and religious womens beleeving whereupon they raised persecution against him and that wheresoever he came there was eyther stoning or fire and faggot or banishment some mischiefe intended Treason by false brethren treason by his opposers or treason of those that were best trusted of him every where he was inclosed with perill This was the divell without him as some of the Fathers imagine 2 Cor. 12 7. from that place 2 Cor. 12. that messenger of Sathan there sent to buffet him They say it was not so much any inward thing he speakes of But I yeeld not to this for I suppose it was somewhat inward Rom. 7.23 But the Fathers say he meanes another matter he speakes of men and of the malice of men that would not suffer the Gospell to passe in the world and that for this he saith he dyed daily by the perpetuall hand of those murtherers I cannot goe any where but the malice of men persecutes and followes me so that I cannot rest and if they could trap me once in their snare and make a prey of me I were surely theirs and then I were gone the feare of this makes me dye daily Thirdly another cause that made the Apostle dye daily was the opposition that hee had by Idolaters wheresoever he came Idolaters still laboured to put downe the Gospell As we see at Athens Acts 17. Acts 17.16 The Text saith His spirit was sore troubled when hee saw the City given to idolatry And so likewise when he came to Ephesus they cry Acts 19.28 Great is Diana of the Ephesians Diana the Idoll of Ephesus had like to have cost him his life Therefore the vexation of his spirit to see men fall down to stocks and stones and to forget that loyalty they ought to God Rom. 1.25 To worship the creature in stead of the Creator This made him teare his cloathes and ready to teare his flesh for the vexation of his spirit to see whole Cities so given over Fourthly another cause of this daily death of the Apostle it was the opposition that he had by Witches and Sorcerers wheresoever he came almost the divell would still set some Witch in the place so in Acts 16.17 Acts
into all the parts of Christs mysticall body in all the parts of the world The communion of Saints is taught us here Christ is alike to every one Our reioycing mine in Asia yours in Europe mine in Ephesus yours in Corinth mine on this side the sea yours beyond the sea My reioycing or our reioycing in our common Lord and Saviour It is ours because Christ is ours because he is the Lilly of the field Cant. 2.1 and the Lilly of the valley he is the Lilly of the field not of the garden a garden is a private place reserved for the particular owner of it but he is the flowre of the field that all passengers may take him up and smell to his sweetnesse He is the Lilly of the valley who conveyes grace and sweetnesse and beauty and maiesty to all that approach him He rules in the midst of the seven golden Candlestickes because his vertue may be equally diffused as lines from the center to the circumference all concurring together in the center So all nations and people in the world have seene the salvation of God because they have met together in the center our Lord Iesus Christ By our reioycing in Christ Iesus our Lord. 3 The ground of this reioycing Here is the ground and foundation Christ Iesus our Lord. Christ is that fountaine from whence all streames If the old man worke death the new man shall worke life and we have put off the old man that we may put on the new that is that wee might be more invested with the one and lesse with the other By our reioycing in the Lord Iesus This common sunne which is the ioy of the world is sometimes ours and sometimes not ours When it riseth to us it sets in another place to another world of people The Antipodes have not the sunne when we have it and againe when they have it we want it because of day and night and intercourse of times For the sunne compassing the globe of the earth must of necessity by interposing the shadow make this difference so that the Sunne is not alway ours although it be the light of the world But the Sunne of righteousnesse is alway ours he is alway above our horizon alway beneath our horizon to the Antipodes as well as to us and to as many as the Lord shall call that Lord is the same he is the bright morning starre that was yesterday to day and for ever the same Heb. 13.8 Apoc. 1.8 He is Alpha and Omega By the reioycing that I have in Christ Iesus our Lord. And herein wee are to observe the causes of this joy for first he is Iesus and then he is Christ and then he is our Lord all this makes up the fulnesse of our joy If he were not Iesus he could not worke this miracle in our frayle tabernacles For as he is God he is called Iesus as he is man he is called Christ He is called Iesus because hee is a Saviour now man cannot save He is called Christ because he was annoynted and God cannot be annoynted It is the property of a man to receive annoynting from a higher thing This makes the fulnesse of our ioy for being Iesus he is able to conferre upon us streames of joy being the omnipotent fountaine of life all that we receive being from him from him we receive grace for grace as it is Ioh. 1. Ioh. 1.16 he being the fulnesse of joy from God the Father at whose birth the Angels sang Glory to God on high ioy on earth to men good will Luke 2.14 It followes therefore that hee is able to worke joy in the spirits of men that he can give light in darkenesse There is nothing difficult to him but his spirit can make all things lightsome he can make a man reioyce in tribulation and affliction as he is Iesus And then Christ that is annoynted Psal 45.7 for hee is annoynted with the oyle of gladnesse above his fellowes And what is that annoynting but the oyle of ioy and gladnesse that is that great fulnesse of ioy wherewith he is annoynted that it should not stay upon the head of Aaron or his beard Psal 133.2 but should runne downe to the skirts of his cloathing that all the body of the Priest should be filled with joy As our Saviour saith to his Disciples that when they came to a house Luke 10.5 they were to salute it and to say Peace be to this house When Christ comes once to a man hee brings joy he is that annoynted one he takes of that oyle of gladnesse and gives it to his fellowes that is to the followers of his salvation Lastly he is our Lord. Therefore he is a good Master and wisheth well to his servants he hath a horne of oyle and he poures it out that Amalthean horne of ioy and comfort and consolation for all the elect of God And hee is willing to doe it for us because we acknowledge him to be our Lord. Therefore we must examine our selves by this whom wee acknowledge to be our Lord. And we shall soone see the reason why we want this joy if a man be under the divell and acknowledge him to be his Lord he hath nothing to give him but misery and terrour and discomfort sorrow and distresse a man can receive nothing else there because he serves a bad Master but if thy Master be Christ the annoynted of God he shall bring thee ioy and peace of conscience and then certainly it will manifest it selfe It will appeare in thy countenance in thy words in thy patience in suffering with Gods Saints it will appeare in all the passages of a mans life that men may perceive that the oyle of grace is poured out upon him and is infused into him and it opens it selfe plainely and manifestly in every thing that passeth from him that is indued with the spirit of God Let us therefore labour which is the last poynt of the Text to preserve the force of this argument 4 The force of the Aâ—gument that we may be sure of our salvation and of our reioycing in Christ And if need be to protest and sweare it to lay it to pledge as a man doth his lands and estate When he would make a thing certaine he infeoffes a man in those things that are most neare and deare to him the best things that he hath So the best thing that the Apostle had it was his reioycing in Christ his comfort of conscience the peace of God which farre transcended his passions and sweetned his afflictions and made him reioyce in tribulation that comfort of Christ that hee had within in his spirit and from abroad by the proficiency of his Schollars to see them grow up in the feare of God in the knowledge of Christ in the profession of the faith this is the reioycing the Apostle speakes of I would that we all had this reioycing espeeially those that stand
in the Apostles place that they would Vse 1 follow his steps to have their reioycing in this one Lord and master to have no ioy in the world or in men in goods and profits in pleasures honours or in preferments which the world usually buyes and sels To have no reioycing in these but as they bee men that belong to God so let them reioyce onely in God And there is all the poynt of gloriation Therefore let not the rich man boast in his riches Ier. 9.23 or the strong man in his strength but let him that reioyceth reioyce in the Lord for it is he that executes iudgement and iustice and that sheweth mercy to those that reioyce in him as the Lord speakes Vse 2 Againe this must teach us to mingle these two together as the holy Apostle doth Reioycing and death we must labour by the study of pleasing Almighty God to keepe this sweet temper in us Wee are sure of the one but we must labour for the other I wonder not when I heare thee say as the Apostle doth here I dye daily for every man doth so there is not the most sensuall man but he hath a touch of death every day eyther by sensible misery or by the touch of conscience by bringing of his sinnes to his view That is incident to nature and a consequent of sinne to dye But what is thy reioycing what comfort hast thou in Christ This is that we should desire and call upon God continually for even to make this temper and mixture in us for the one is as necessarie as the other and God is as ready to give the one as our nature is ready to draw the other upon it selfe And this must be by this one meanes the making Iesus Christ thy Lord knowing no other Lord besides him no nor none against him nor none with him but that he may have the preheminence and be all in all as he is to his children in the world and shall be for ever in another world So thou must make him all thy ayme all that thou desirest all thy gloriation because thou must or canst desire nothing but it is seated in him To conclude with the time here is a modell of a christian mans estate death and life sorrow and ioy he is composed of such strange differences as the understanding of man cannot attaine unto But yet assuredly the Lord is never so heavy to him in iudgment but he is withall rich in mercy sorrow of heart shall never so surround him but he shall have the ioy of the holy Ghost to survive him As Saint Augustine Augustine saith upon that place of Paul Redeeme the time because the dayes are evill I saith he it is true the time in this world is evill but all the dayes that are in Christ are good dayes all the dayes of the Lord are good all the dayes of sinne are evill Let us sell them then he that redeemes parts with one thing to get another Let us sell these evill dayes in this world that we may get those good dayes in the grace of Christ And as Saint Gregory Gregory saith Good Iesus hee that hath thee looseth nothing and though he be in the midst of death yet he shall be recompenced with life although hee be in the midst and swallowed up with sorrow and deepe pangs of conscience yet thy spirit is there to remove that sorrow for though sorrow indureth for a night yet ioy commeth in the morning Psal 30. Psal 30.5 And in thy light wee shall see light thy wrath indures for the twinckling of an eye but in thy pleasure there is life for evermore This is the blessed state that every Christian is called unto and the Lord make it every one of our portions for Iesus Christs sake Amen FINIS 1 COR. 15.32 If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men what doth it availe me if there be no resurrection from the dead THis is now the conclusion of that argument which Saint Paul draws from his owne person For drawing his principall argument from the sufferings of the Church to prove the resurrection of the dead he begins first with the generall and then he descends to the particular and last of all he comes to the personall First the generall was verse 29. What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead Then in the next verse he comes to the Colledge of the Apostles and saith We also are in ieopardy every day And for his owne particular he protests he dyes daily in the verse before the Text. And now he comes to explaine this how it should be taken saith he If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men Because he had spoken of a thing unlikely and unusuall and unwonted and therefore it might be offensive to Atticke eares such as were at Corinth to say that he lived and yet was dead therefore now he tempers his speech and mitigates it by this exposition when he saith He received the sentence of death against himselfe for hee was cast to beasts to fight with them eyther indeed according to the letter as it was a kinde of punishment and torment that the Pagan persecutors assigned the Christians unto or by way of metaphore as many and most of the Fathers of the Church interpret it But how ever the force of the argument is all one For whether he were cast to beasts and suffered to take his weapons and to defend himselfe and so by the mercy of God to escape without hurt from them or whether he meane by fighting with beasts beastly minded men as the phrase of Scripture often insinuates the strength of the argument is all one For often times a man were better bee cast unto beasts then to men there being more mercy and lesse fury in the pawes of the very beasts than in the working braines of men and the malicious conveyances that they have in the world So whether wee take it for beasts literally or for men that were beasts metaphorically the force of the argument is equall For saith he if there were no hope of the Resurrection then I would doe as the world doth and I would say as they say I would accommodate my selfe to all mens humours I would be so farre from casting my selfe into such dangers as to sight with beasts or with beastly men as that I would seeke to recover my owne which I had once being a Pharisie I would live a quiet and peaceable life among my brethren as I did then when I was rather ready to doe others hurt than to suffer any I would much rather choose that state of life than thus to be plagued and plunged and drowned in misery if there were not a hope of a Resurrection but the vigour and life of that hope duls all the pangs in this world and sweetens the cup of affliction which else would eate out my very intrayles If
before that they should devoure him suddenly as they iudged but we know the issue of it the Lyons by the mercy of God were so couchant to Daniel that he had no harme But when his accusers came they were so rampant as that they crushed the bones of them their wives and children before they came to the ground Ignatius Epist 12 ad Romanos Saint Ignatius when hee heard the voyce of the Leopard that was to devoure him in the height of his spirit he gave God thanks Now saith he I shall be ground as fine flowre by the teeth of the Leopard that I may become fine manchet for God I shall become bread for Gods owne Table Sylvanus Bishop of Emesa Nicephorus Hist l. 7. c. 16. and divers others of Gods Saints have passed this way into heaven even by being objected unto beasts But Saint Paul certainly was not in this manner to bee cast naked and bound as a prey unto the beasts for that was for condemned men but Saint Paul was not cast as a condemned man to death to be torne in pieces but as a man condemned onely to tryall ad certamen to make sport to the people So there were certaine mercenary fellowes hirelings that for money would adventure their skinnes and lives and tugge with the Beares as there was of late amongst us So the Court of persecutors when they had sitten against any of the Saints of God as it came in their minde to make them a spectacle and to give sport to the people they appoynted such a one to be cast to the beasts not to bee bound hand and foot and torne in pieces without resistance but to make use of his weapon and of the cunning he had and if it were possible to make an evasion In this sort they say Paul was cast and objected to the beasts We see also in Tertullians time Tertul. it was the common exclamation still against the Christians If the yeere were too hot or if it were too dry or if there were barrennesse or any inundation upon the ground they put it still upon Christians and their word was Cast the Christians to the Lyons Christianum ad Leones This may well be this interpretation may well stand that Saint Paul in this kinde was objected to the very beasts to fight for his life He was not cast to them as one bound and naked to be torne in pieces of them but as one that was put to a venture ad certamen either by miracle to bee delivered by his fortitude and skill or else to be devoured Thus we reade of divers in former time Q. Curtius Alexander the great caused Lysimachus his deare friend to be cast to the Lyon and he by his valour overcame the Lyon and slew him and made himselfe after a free man and better accepted into favour with Alexander In this sort some imagine that Saint Paul was rescued and delivered by the power of God Almighty from the mouth of the Lyon As he saith 2 Tim. 4. 2 Tim 4.17 God hath delivered me from the mouth of the Lyon even the Lyon literally to whom he was exposed at his abode at Ephesus for he was there almost three yeeres This exposition no man can possibly finde fault with it being naturall and easie and as long as the literall sence is easie and without absurdity may be admitted we ought not to flye to metaphors But yet there is some thing that the contrary side of Divines hold against it Obiect 1 As first if there had beene such a thing that Paul had beene cast to beasts at Ephesus to fight for his life Saint Luke the great Chronicler of Pauls actions would not have omitted it but hee speakes nothing of it therefore there was no such thing For it seemes that he that takes upon him to write the History of a man must of necessity set down the chiefe and most rare and eminent passages of his life and what greater and more glorious relation could there be than that Saint Paul should fight for his life at Ephesus even with beasts and that he should by the mercy of God be delivered as Daniel was from the Lyons in the denne Therefore seeing Saint Luke hath buried it in deepe silence and mentions nothing lesse therefore it argueth it must not bee thus understood that Saint Paul was thus cast unto beasts Answ But this is easily put off For wee know that Saint Luke although he were a diligent writer of the actions of Saint Paul yet hee pretermits many things which Saint Paul himselfe in the Catalogue of his owne passions relates 2 Cor. 11.24.25 2 Cor. 11. for we have not in Luke many passages that are there As his being a day and a night in the deepe sea with some others but onely a briefe and short narration so that this may well be among those things that Saint Luke left unwritten as referring us more fully to the narration of Saint Paul himselfe who was the best witnesse of his owne travailes Another obiection Beza hath surely saith hee Obiect 2 Saint Paul was not cast naked â—eza and bound as a prey to the beasts for then saith he it had beene unlawfull for Saint Luke not to have taken notice of such a wondrous miracle as that Therefore if hee were cast to them it must be as a man to fight for his life and surely saith he he came not there to fight with beasts for that would have taken from his reputation hee would have beene thought to bee a sword-player to venture and expose his life to fight with beasts to please and satisfie men For this exercise was called venation and condemned by the Cannon law A man may not for money or for pleasing of the people come upon a Stage to encounter with beasts but to account it as a bloudy furious and barbarous spectacle to be abhord and abstained But this also hath no weight in it Answ For a man cannot say that Saint Paul came unto it with his will but he was thrust on and forced to it and I cannot imagine why a man should be lesse reputed of or how it should bring any shame to his profession when he suffers wrong Indeed when he offers wrong and thrusts himselfe into such actions then it is true but when he is thrust upon it that he cannot avoyd it in this there is no matter of disreputation The last objection against this opinion is of them Obiect 3 that say that those that were objected to beasts were alway cast to them for a prey But that is not so For all Civilians agree Answ that there were two sorts of them that were cast to beasts There were some that were condemned according to the quality of their offence as they thought to be torne in pieces and in that sort Saint Paul was not cast to the beasts Some againe were cast to them to try masteries and so they say Paul was
renew reforme and regenerate our spirits it is impossible but that flesh should speake of flesh and should savour the things of the world and not the things of God that it may be carried with a full swing after its owne impieties grow worse and worse and never leave sinning till at last it sinke in sinne and the pit close her mouth upon it Let us therefore be warie in following the tract of our forefathers If they were naught we have no reason to insist in their steps except it be in good except it be according to the wayes of God according to the holy pathes of the Almighty For it followes not that because sinne hath beene predominant in all ages that therefore we should use it now It followes not that because women have prancked themselves in pride and made themselves the Idols of the world that therefore the daughters of Sarah should doe it now It followes not that because drunkennesse hath beene a common vice heretofore that therefore men should hunt and follow after it now We have no reason to follow our ancients in ill customes except wee will chuse to perish in those ill customes Therefore the Apostle bringeth an ancient stale sinne and useth the same sentence Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye To eate and drinke are the most essentiall necessaries of our nature the supporters of our being and there is no life but the Lord hath appointed it to be sustained by these two proppes Eating and Drinking Eating to supply the dryer and more sollid part of the body and drinking to moysten to bee a coach and conveyance for the meate that we eate to be a cooling and refrigeration of the heate of the body And in both of them God hath set his blessing that by eating and drinking the life of man should bee preserved and prolonged in some to forty in some to fifty in some longer by many yeares by the blessing of the Almighty Therefore to eate and drinke so farre as to recreate the body to refresh the spirits to strengthen us in our functions and callings to incourage us to give thankes to God who is our feeder eating and drinking be as necessary as living But the eating and drinking here intended and spoken of Let us eate to surfetting let us drinke to drunkennesse let us eate and drinke to excesse to study these things onely for satiety and gurmandizing and that fulnesse that may confound nature and drowne the spirits of men and not build them up in the feare of God and in thankfulnesse to him this is that they meane here Let us eate so as that we may over-eate let us drinke so as that we may drowne our understandings in drinke When men cannot tell how to use the gifts of God moderately they cannot eate as other men eate but as monsters they cannot drinke as moderate men drinke but as spunges that devoure all within their compasse that their bodies many times are so full of ballast that the whole ship is lost even in the harbour it is not able to hold all the water but sinkes under the burden and is made a spectacle of misery to God to Angels and to men to insult over This brutish eating and drinking savours of bestiality Eating and drinking it is the meere felicity of the beast in this world As Cornelius Tacitus saith well some men are like beasts and goe no further if you give them a little fodder they will lye slumbering and be idle and take no further care such are those people Psal 17.14 Tertul. whose belly God fils with his hid treasure those whose belly is their God as Tertullian rightly describes them Their stomacke is their Altar Their belly is their God Their Priest is their Cooke Their holy Ghost is the smell of their meate Their graces of the spirit are their sauces Their Kitchin is their Church and Temple And that Aculiculus the most filthy part of al the body is their great and admired Idoll As the same Father goeth on Thou saist thou hast faith hope and charity Thy faith is boyling in the kitchin Thy charity is in thy Caldron or pot Thy hope is in those divers dishes brought to thy table Thus Tertullian hath described the condition of these kinde of brutish men And we see that in ancient times before men had the knowledge of Almighty God they placed a great happinesse in this one poynt of eating and drinking to make themselves bruit beasts without understanding as Saint Peter cals them 2 Pet. 2.12 2 Pet. 2.12 unreasonable brutish beasts Insomuch as one great King among them when he dyed commanded this Epitaph to be set upon his tombe This I have that I have eaten and drunken all the rest is lost that I have all the rest is left and forsaken Tully Aristotle which as Tully saith well out of Aristotle what other thing then this could have beene set upon the tombe of an Oxe or bruit beast to say I have nothing else but that I have eaten but that I have consumed and driven into my paunch and so into the draught that I have and no possession else But Christians have another language those things we have that we have learned out of Gods word the wisedome that we have gotten of heaven and heavenly things these things we have left us when our life leaves us and nothing remaines but the portion of these Those that have read any thing of the Poets they know what was the common language of seduced nature When God left them to their owne dregges miserable poore creatures they had no further aymes and intents then these transitory and perishing things the filling of their bellies whose belly is their God whose end is damnation as the Apostle saith Phil. 3.18 Phil. 3.18 Whose glory is their shame and such was the glory of all the heathen Another of them said Eate drinke and play for after death there is no pleasure Ede bibe lude post mâ—rtem nulla voluptas Horacâ— there is nothing remains Another comes in with his vye and saith The Sun indeed may rise and set and rise againe but when our night comes once the night of death we sleepe for ever and there we lye and there is no more to be heard of us Another of them saith We must ease our youth and take the benefit of it as a flower because it runnes away with a swift foot And another saith use thy pleasures now for thou knowest not whether ever they will come againe thou knowest not whether ever after thou shalt have opportunity to enioy them Thus this beastly congregation of brutish swinish people they apprehended with the greatest industry that could be these vile pleasures of eating and drinking as though there were a necessity of pleasures in this life and that the greatest pleasure consisted in the palate in consuming of meate and drinke According as this wicked crew which the Apostle
natures they remaine longer uncorrupted and perhaps there be some stones that never knew what corruption meanes but those things that are most tender are most subject to corruption because the Ayre which is the mother of life and death the mother of generation and corruption where it is able to disperse the dimensions of it it works corruption as it gave beginning so it works an end It is the plague of God upon every sonne of Adam that the same ayre that gave him life it works also his dissolution In corruption we may observe that the finer the thing is the worse it is corrupted the nature of things that are most finely modulated when they come to be corrupted they have the vilest stench and corruption of all other there is nothing that is made so exactly as the body of a man yet being dead there is no stench like unto it alway the corruption of the best things is the worst Thus it is also in this spirituall corruption The manners which the grace of God and good education hath planted in man the wilde naturall disposition being rooted out and the grace of God being planted in and grafted there it keeps its seat and residence and as long as it is free from externall and outward danger it is well enough but when there comes an outward heat and the ayre to worke upon it that is temptations from abroad temptations from the devill bad examples in the world this outward heat it works upon the substance of the inward stocke and before a man can thinke of it entreth and pierceth Ionah 4 7. and corruption makes way as the cankerworme in Ionas gourd that though it was greene and fresh in the morning yet it was down and withered before night Againe as the tenderest things soonest corrupt so men of the best wits of the best judgements men that have the greatest memories men of the most dexterious spirits their mindes by Gods just judgement are most subject to sinne and grosse corruption Every man doth not serve the devill with like affection and with like spirit Some know how to serve him after one manner and some after another weaker things are subject to lesse corruption but the finest and the tenderest things are soonest corrupted As the fairest and goodliest flowers are soonest blasted and withered To conclude this point When these things in men are corrupted it is the worst corruption that can be When the understanding is corrupted as the Apostle speaks To the cleane Tit. 1.15 all things are cleane but to the uncleane all things are polluted and corrupted even their understandings When a mans braine is tainted when his understanding is corrupted it is most pestilent When he takes lyes for truth when he follows errours instead of the Oracles of God This is not the condition of a man well educated by grace Therefore I beseech you let us say with the Apostle Evill words corrupt good manners and let us take heed of all ill manners and ill speeches which is the next and the maine thing that I should come unto I shall speake but a word of it The word signifieth not onely a passing flying word but a setled discourse of a company and societie of men a kinde of league that men have together for the words that are flying and passing away they may be rejected and cast away Every wicked man that speaks ill and wickedly he is not presently apprehended or liked of but if a man still keepe on and make his discourse of it if he make it his disputation and argues the case now the danger comes there is nothing worse then such ill words to corrupt good manners Our first parents Adam and Eve were corrupted so even by evill words The serpent offered them no violence but onely spake an evill word and so hee conveighed that poyson He did not offer according to the power that the devill the wicked Angels had to hurt their bodies he offered them no injury by force but he spake the word and so entred into Eve into that grace and justice that was originally in he◠and corrupted it in a moment Behold how soone one sparke of fire kindles a whole stacke of corne how one scabbed sheepe infects all the flocke It is infinite to see how corruption grows and spreads it selfe like a tetter that it is seldome or never restrained and limited except the Spirit of God use a mighty hand in it And as it was at the first so it is now as Saint Austin saith Aug. Thou killest not thy brother by the sword or by a violent hand as Cain killed Abel but thou doest as bad thou speakest a bad word thou givest him bad counsell thou givest him an ill example and that is worse then to kill with the sword for the sword goes but to a mans bodie but evill words they go to the heart to the soule and alway the infection the deeper it is and the nearer the heart the more dangerous and the worse it is Evill words corrupt good manners If evill words corrupt good manners What do evill books then for as long as the word is but spoken it is but winde that goes and comes there is no great regard to be had of it it is a lighter matter and he is a perfect man that never slides and stumbles in his words every man will give a man leave to tosse and roll himselfe in his words and will take it when it comes to his owne turne againe But evill books lascivious wicked books that are set forth when they are exhibited they remaine and hold on Therefore certainly if they shall be damned that speake ill words which tend to the subversion of good manners and to the corruptions of Gods children if they shall be damned ipso facto as all must confesse it follows then those that study damnable books abusive things whereby the good manners of the children of God are cast into hazard these shall receive double damnation If bare evill words are so dangerous what are they when they are set out to the full when the devill will not walke only in bare words lest he prove foolish and contemptible but he will strout it out in action with a lively voyce with a goodly faire cōplexion in stately habite in all pompe and gallantry of apparrell when thus men in a goodly feature act it for the devill for they do nothing but set the devils poyson in a faire glasse or cup and give it people to make themselves drunke of it it must needs be more venemous poyson and more pestilent mischiefe that comes to the soule by reading these books then by other things The Philosophers tell us of a filthy kinde of creature differing from all other creatures which ingenders at the eare the conception of the female is at the eare and the generating of the male is at the eare too Though this may be a fiction as it may be true for we are ignorant
you you have an ignorance concerning God because you call in question his power in this mighty benefit the resurrection of our bodies And then lastly he concludeth with mildnesse and sharpnesse and mingleth both together I speake this to your shame As if he should have said partly I am ashamed that I have spent so much time and so much labour among you and yet still you are in such waverings as these and are no better perswaded in the omnipotent power of God But as I speake this to your shame so I would not have you despaire but onely to take shame of your fault and so be brought to Repentance I speake it not to bring you to a confusion eternall but to a healthy confusion a confusion that brings conversion that conversion may bring salvation by the mercy of God I speak it not to overthrow you but to waken you that have beene intoxicate in a deepe sleepe by the wicked communication of these men This I take to be the sence of the Text. To proceed in order There are three parts Division into 3. Parts First a counsell or exhortation Then a serious expostulation 1. An exhortation 2. An expostulation 3. An Increpation And lastly a forcible dealing by way of Increpation whereby he doth as it were by an holy violence compell them to enter into the wayes of God and to be reclaimed from their sinnes The first is contained in these words Awake to righteousnesse and sinne not 1 delivered And that First in figure and then In plaine speech The figure in these words Awake to righteousnesse The plaine words follow And sinne not The one interprets the other In the figure there are two things 1 There is an Act to awake out of wine awake out of drinke for so the word signifieth Then secondly there is the tearme and manner whereto they must wake Awake to justice awake to perfection not as men halfe asleep and halfe awake to turne on the other side and take a nappe but to wake fully and freely It is such a waking as a man may be expedite to worke in the function of his life whereunto all waking men are disposed Then in the plaine words or exposition hee shews likewise two things 1 First that sinne is the mother of all errour of all grosse and base communication 2 Secondly that by the grace of God if we work with the grace of God we shall not sinne that is we shall not sinne in that grosse manner as these creatures do Although all men be sinners yet if we will tender the grace of God that is in us we shall so live as that we shall not sinne according to that phrase of Scripture which is afterwards to be expounded namely not with a full consent not with a high hand not to continue in sinne not to despaire in sinne but we shall know that if we do sinne we have a Mediatour of our reconciliation we have a Mediator which is God and Man Christ Iesus 1. Tim. 2.5 1. Iob. 1.1 2. who is the propitiation for our sinnes Then in the second part in the exposition there are two things to be considered First he tels them of their fault 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a word that we cannot well utter in English nor in Latine it is hard to be exprest in both languages to be ignorant of God And then because he would not offend all the company for a fews sake he saith Some of you have not the knowledge of God And then lastly the Application of all to them he saith he speakes it to their shame that is either he was ashamed to spend so much time and labour to so little profit or he spake it to their shame as the common Text reades it I speake it to your shame But yet it is such a speech as is not uttered in a virulent manner to cast them away to make them despaire but to bring them home that they might know what they ought to do for the time to come These are the branches of the Text. Of every one of these as the Lord shall give assistance and but a word of every one because they are common obvious things First it is to be observed 1. Part. The Exhortation Awake c. that the Apostle invites them and cals upon them for waking and for such a waking as if he should speake to a sort of drunkards that were drowned in wine and drunkennesse which is as base a kinde of sleepe as can be For all sleepe naturall of it selfe is justly accounted a meere losse of time the brother of death the field of danger a thing that hath no profit in it that spends one part of our life to no purpose And yet we cannot live without it for the repairing and re-edifying and building up of our bodies againe that were consumed and wasted before with daily labour Now if the naturall sleepe be a loosing of time a loosing of our spirits and a subjecting of us to danger much more then is it in the sleepe of sinne that poysonous sleepe that comes by excesse and drunkennesse These of all other are most dangerous and most hard for a man to bee rouzed out of It is a common thing in Scripture to compare sinners to sleepers and sinne to sleepe There are divers sleepes related in the Scriptures The sleepe corporall of the body and spirituall of the soule The sleepe corporall of the body is either naturall or violent Naturall sleepe is that when the strength of man is weakened and abated and his spirits are againe renewed by a gracious mist and dew that is cast upon the body whereby the naturall spirits the vitall spirits and the animall spirits are refreshed and raised againe to their worke Violent sleepe is either by drunkennesse or disease When nature is overwhelmed by drunkennesse or by disease As by Lethargies or palsies which all worke unto death which is also called sleepe For our Lord Christ saith We go to Lazarus who sleepeth And those that dye in the Lord they sleepe This is naturall sleepe The spirituall sleepe the sleepe that fals upon the spirit of man it is of two sorts in Scripture The one is celestiall and good The other is infernall for hell and hellish purposes Cant. 2.7 The first is that sleepe of the Church I charge you oh daughters of Ierusalem by the roes and by the hyndes that ye wake not my beloved untill she please that is in the meditation of holy things It is a divine rapture whereby the Saints of God have communion and are made one spirit with the Lord. Cant. 5.1 This is called in Scripture a sleepe I sleepe but my heart waketh But that which the Apostle speaks of here is an infernall sleepe that tends to a sleepe of damnation As sleepie diseases nourish death in men and there is no more assured signe that a man shall dye then when he is continually sleeping that he
of nature For it is seene in the falling and rising of the Sunne In the descending and ascending of the starres It is seene in the intercourse of Summer and Winter It is seene in the vicissitude of day and night It is set forth in the continuall intercourse of generation and corruption in the world And especially it is seene in this one thing in the seed that is sowne in the ground For a man in his garden may observe the certaintie of the Resurrection in his field in the hope of his harvest he may see that God is able to do as much for his body as he doth for those seeds that he commits to the ground As S. Chrysostome saith well Chrysost there is a twofold kinde of sowing or semination 1 One of seed 2 Another of bodies All men sow seed so God sowes bodies and the Church-yards are called Gods acre in some countries because there is sowne that seed that God preserves to eternall life hee is able to bring them from the bosome of the earth and we must trust and credit him with it to bring them from dust to be invested with glory and to be made conformable to the body of his Sonne Therefore here the holy Apostle out of arguments drawne and observed from nature out of the common course that men are acquainted with daily he brings a very forcible remonstrance to prove the necessity of the Resurrection And that he may do it with the more force and emphasis he brings it by way of prosopopeia making a man to speak and move questions and then to give himselfe the answer He brings in a simple man an ignorant man either disgracing the doctrine of the Resurrection or else being simple and ignorant desiring to know what the truth of it were And he moves two questions The one touching the Resurrection in generall as though it were impossible the dead should rise The other touching the manner and qualitie of their bodies if the dead should rise how with what bodies shall they come To which questions he returns a twofold answer The first more bitter by way of reprehension The second of demonstration shewing the reasons why and the manner how they shall come For the first Thou foole saith he that which thou sowest it is not quickened except it dye Doth not thy selfe teach thy selfe that there must needs be a raising of these dead bodies of ours because God hath used thee as an instrument to make a kinde of Resurrection For when thou committest thy seed to the ground God gives it a body at his pleasure but thou takest paines and usest the meanes to effect it that it may come to passe That now which thou doest to thy corne will not God do to his corne Are we not all the seeds of God are we not all the corne of the Almighty hath thy ground by thy diligence and culture better abilitie and power to bring forth a new eare of corne then the earth to yeeld up thy body by Gods worke and blessing upon it So he answers the first question The second answer is in the next words concerning the manner and qualitie of the bodies when they are raised As they shall come bodies so they shall be bodies but with certaine qualifications otherwise qualified then they are now In the prosopopeia in the questions that hee makes and in the answer that the Apostle returnes to them in the next verse we are to observe First that he speaks indefinitely Division into 1. A question bringing in a simple ignorant man moving questions arguing and disputing and talking against the resurrection 2. The matter of it 3. The answer in the matter 2 questions 1. Of the generality Secondly he notes to us the matter of his questions what he demands And there are two questions One is concerning the generalitie of this maine Article How can the dead rise how can they be raised againe 2. of the forme of the bodies raised The second is concerning the forme and disposition of their bodies when they be raised Suppose there shall be such a thing as the raising of the dead yet with what kinde of bodies shall they come 3. In the Answer we have 1. A reprehension And then in the answer we are to consider First a reprehension of this boldnesse for medling with Gods mysteries too much for medling too farre Foole. So that to move questions is not alwayes a signe of wit and great learning Though questions may be moved in a sober manner when men do it for satisfaction but to multiply question upon question to no purpose this is grosse follie and rather makes men giddie in their understandings then gives them any instruction Therefore he cals him foole 2. A demonstration And then he demonstrates it out of the actions that men are every day conversant in That which thou sowest I will shew thee out of thine owne field out of thy plot of ground that this is not incredible but that there shall be a resurrection Why because that which thou sowest must first dye that it may live after For it is never quickened untill the corne come to a very jellie and be turned to nothing but corruption and rottennesse and putrefaction in the earth and then it pleaseth God to raise it Therefore as the corne in the ground first dyes that after it may live so Gods corne must dye there must be a passage to a temporall death that God may raise it thence unto eternall life Of these briefly and in order 1. part The Question First concerning the questionist in this place the partie that moves the question You must first note that the Apostle will not lay the imputation upon the Corinthians because he would not too much offend them Hee doth not charge them that they should be so long taught in the schoole of Christ and yet be so little edified as to move such idle questions as these For hee takes it as a thing confessed among them and although indeed many denyed it yet he will not cast it upon them every where but hee labours to keepe himselfe peaceable and quiet with them that so he might worke the better upon them Therefore he brings in a man at large he supposeth such a man in the world one that understood nothing of the power of God nor yeelded unto it he supposeth him to speake such a word as this How are the dead raised c. And this as Saint Chrysostome saith teacheth us that we should not be personall or particular Vse Chrysost in our reprehensions When we are to deale with Gods people in a publicke place we must not deale so personally and particularly that any may thinke themselves pointed at For by that meanes they may be made incorrigible but such things must be supposed in the person of a stranger there must be a kinde of compassing a kinde of wheeling about as we see Nathan did
which are the judges of life and death For who can tell what is dead and what is alive in the creature but he that is Lord of the creature Therefore though it have a kinde of action though it have a kinde of life lurking in it yet to our sence it is to no purpose it is of no use it is a meere jellie that is good neither for man nor beast Therefore it is dead So our Lord Christ saith Ioh. 12.24 Verily saith he comparing himselfe to the wheat-corne the corne of wheat saith hee except it fall into the ground and dye it remains alone and brings forth nothing but is single still but when it fals into the ground when it is buried and dyes in the earth then it brings forth much fruit So the Sonne of Man if he should live still in the world and not dye hee should remaine alone hee should do no good hee should be a single Christ no man could be saved by him but if he dye and rise againe hee shall raise a mighty harvest unto God So we see the truth of this doctrine manifested against the Philosophers That the corne is simplie dead it is demonstrated hence because the corne of God which is farre better then the common corne it dyes the bodies of men are truly dead yea the body of that wheat corne the Sonne of God himselfe was dead It is idle therefore for them to imagine that it hath a perfection to it selfe though it be corrupted to us For it is certaine that all these things dye the corne dyeth man dyeth the Sonne of God dyed according to that part of his humane nature which was mortall Therefore hee compares himselfe to a wheat corne to shew the great and sweet convenience betweene him which is the head and we that are his members how it is figured in these parcels of nature First the Lord hath made the corne of the earth to feed man and hath given a gracious abundance unto it that it comes forth in a goodly beautie and with strange varietie And then he teacheth us that the bodies of men shall rise so too which are much more deare then corne And lastly he hath given us a patterne in his owne body being cast into the earth which else should have remained single but being once interred and rising againe brings forth abundance of fruit This we may see in the bread of this life and in the bread of heaven how they both worke to give us an assurance of the Resurrection The bread of this life is corne the bread of heaven is Christ he is the Mannah that came downe from heaven Job 6.58 and these breads the bread of the body and the bread of the soule make up the conclusion as a certaine thing that that which is nourished by both these breads shall follow the qualitie of them The body of man is nourished with the one and the soule of man with the other Therefore the substance of the man must rise because the bodily bread riseth and the spirituall bread riseth and we feed of them and according to that which a man feeds on he is conformed As the Philosopher saith man is nourished of that thing whereof he consists and he consists of that whereby he is nourished And further we may observe in the phrase hee doth not say that the corne liveth but it is enlivened as Saint Chrysostome Chrysost and Saint Basil Basil observe Because hee would give us to note that all is in the power of God that worketh all in all Therefore he saith It is quickened It signifieth a passion or suffering and to be wrought upon from a higher cause It is quickened it is enlivened from a higher superior power So that the growing of the corne is not meerly from the influence of the Sunne or of the Moone no nor from the goodnesse of the soyle nor from the diligence of the husbandman nor from any naturall inherent qualitie but God gives it a body God gives it life And if his eye of providence be so watchfull in these particular cases in things of this small qualitie much more will he be watchfull in that great worke wherein he hath bound himselfe by a promise and if that be too little he hath sworne it we have his oath that it shall be so He hath given us to know in his Word 1. Cor 3.6 that it is not in Paul that plants nor in Apollo that waters but God that gives the increase that is there is nothing that can bring forth fruit no not a tree except the Lord give the increase All the second causes are nothing it is God that works all as the Psalmist saith Psal 127.1 2. It is to no purpose for men to rise early or to go to bed late and to eate the bread of carefulnesse It is in vaine for the watchmen to watch the Citie except the Lord keepe it The Apostle doth not say It doth not live except it dye but he saith It is not quickened it is not enlivened still hee reflects upon God and yeelds unto him the praise and glory of all things for from him onely comes the blessing and increase And lastly to conclude with the time hee saith that after the corne is dead it is quickened againe it is enlivened againe so it shall be with the bodies of men after they be dead but hee saith except it first bee dead it cannot be alive so that dying is the necessary reason of living It is a condition absolute if wee must live we must of necessity dye first Vse This must teach us that there is no exemption and priviledge from death if we look to be of their number that shall come to life Men cannot possibly be clad over this body with glory this body is not capable of the garment of glory except either it be brought to a change as they shall be that live at the comming of Christ or else it dye and be raised againe It is impossible that the robe of glory should cover this body of ours as it is Vse This should comfort us against death that because we shall dye first therefore wee shall be quickened againe it hath the force of a cause or condition in it it cannot bee otherwise Because the corne dyes therefore it lives and the reason that it lives is because it first dyes There is no hope of recoverie of life except first there bee a passage through death Hence we have exceeding comfort against the sorrows of death Those things that seeme to argue cleane contrary against us they make most for us For because there be such unlikelihoods of the Resurrection therefore we shall rise because we shall be dead therefore we shall be alive because we shall be closed within the grave as in a prison therefore we shall be inlarged because we are brought to dust and ashes therefore we shall bee brought to glory and to a heavenly condition
that is in so great a variety and difference from the body that is here present as the difference is great betweene heaven and earth betweene the stars that are in heaven and the stones that lie upon the earth And so is it in the resurrection So as the particular differences are between the heavenly bodies one star differeth from another in glory they have not all one magnitude they are not all of one brightnesse but according to their severall magnitudâ—s so is their shining brightnesse So the Lord shall make the admirable difference not onely betweene the present bodies that we have here and the bodies which shall be raised but likewise between the bodies themselves that although all shall be full yet all shall not have a like measure but every one shall receive according to their capacitie So now to come to that part of the Text. You see the substance is thus much Hee tels us there shall be some rare qualities which God shall poure upon this flesh which it could never attaine to in this life for that it is still pestered with the contrary It shall have honour it shall have strength it shall have nimblenesse and subtlety and all this shall be tyed with a golden band of incorruption which is that that makes all sweet and full For to have good things and to fall from them is as good as never to have them but this incorruption is the glorious tye of all the rest the crowne of all the rest that the strength there shall be without corruption their beauty shall be incorrupt their agility and subtlety of body shall be incorrupt all these things shall be for ever they shall be preserved by the perpetuall influence of Gods mercy and love upon the creature This is the height and depth of this Text. As if the Apostle had said You wonder in your selves to consider the great difference that shall be between the bodies that are raised and the bodies which you have now in this life I will shew you plainly how it shall be All the difference ariseth from certaine qualities for the substance there is nothing different or contrary in it but in the quality is all the difference and contrariety and I will shew you it by such qualities as are most contrary one to another For what is more contrary then corruption and incorruption what is more contrary then honour and dishonour what is more contrary then weaknesse and power what is more contrary then naturall and spirituall and behold God shall so turne the termes of this present state in that blessed world that whereas now here is nothing but a masse of corruption then there shall be a glorious peece of incorruption whereas now it is compassed about with shame and deformity in death and in sicknesse in consumption and in misery then there shall be a vessell of honour that shall be every way shining and glorious in the sight of God that whereas now this body is subject to weaknesse all the strongest lives in the world being full of great weaknesse then it shall be a mirrour of strength it shall have an arme able to break a bow of steele that whereas now it is a lumpish creature then it shall be swift as a soaring eagle and like unto an Angell of God for we shall be equall to the Angels of God in heaven So then Division into two parts 1. A description 2. A condition first we have here a Description of the state present in a metaphoricall word the promise of the state to come in another metaphor like unto it And then we have the condition and severall manner how these shall be In the first two particulars 1. The state present 2. The state in the life to come Concerning the first for the state of the body present the Apostle saith It is sowne The metaphor for the life to come is in this that he saith It is raised up again It is sown in corruption it is raised again in incorruption Each of these estates differenced by foure essentials and their contraries And then for the essentiall parts of difference he makes them foure wherein the body is sowne and there are foure contraries wherein it is raised For the first the body is sowne in rottennesse It is sowne in corruption For the second it is sowne in deformity and ugly vision that this corruption cannot lie hid for then it were more tolerable but it must come unto the eye of the world a mans friends must looke upon him and see the gastly countenance in the dead corps This the Apostle calls dishonour there is nothing in the world more dishonourable that is there is nothing in the world more hatefull to look upon then the dead body of a man Thirdly he saith It is sown in weaknesse that is in such a miserable feeblenesse and desolation and so deprived of all strength and power that it is left as a trampling stock for men and beasts And lastly he saith It is sowne a naturall body that is nothing but a meer elementary thing nothing else to the sense of flesh and bloud and to looke on These are the wofull parts of this body that wee have in this present life But on the contrary God shall invest it in stead of corruption with incorruption with impassibility with immortality and in stead of weaknesse it shall have strength and so of the rest These are the branches of the Text of these briefly and in order as it shall please God to give assistance And first for the two metaphors that be used 1 Part. Metaphor of the present life Chrysost It is sowne It is a good observation of St. Chrysostom that the holy Apostle is so confident in the matter that he useth the termes interchangeably between the sowing of the corne and the burying of the dead body For saith he when he speaks of the sowing of the corne he useth the phrase which properly belongs to the burying of the dead and when hee speaks of the burying of the dead he useth that maner of speech which belongeth unto the corn To teach us that as there is nothing that could have been spoken more fitly nor no comparison could have been more naturall then this which he taketh from corne so likewise that there is nothing more sure and certaine then that the one shall come to passe as truely as we daily see the other For when he speaks of the corn which is cast into the ground he saith It is not quickned except it die To die belongs properly to that which hath life which hath a sensible life although there be a kind of death to in other things but yet this word is used most properly to signifie the life of man when it passeth from the body And againe when he saith It is quickned to be quickned most properly belongs to the highest life the life of man So to die and to be quickned againe
from death are phrases and termes that properly belong to the life of man yet the Apostle useth it here in speaking of the corne to which it belongs not properly and significantly And now when he comes to speak of the burying of the bodies he useth a phrase which is proper to the corne and saith It is sowne and It is raised up that is it is brought forth in that variety as the corn is cloathed with And the reason St. Chrysostom saith is this Because we are as sure of the one as of the other and also to shew the fitnesse of the comparing of these things There is no comparison that could have been so fit therefore he interchangeth the phrases of the one to the other to shew that it comes all to one It is sowne The body of man hath two kinds of sowings in this world One is when he is sowne into the esse into the being of a man and that is in the wombe of his mother as St. Chrysostom saith in which sense it is said that such and such descended from the seed of Abraham and from the seed of such progenitors Another sowing is this which the Apostle speaks of here which is in the wombe of that great mother the Earth which is the common mother and universall nurse of all mankind Now of the first St. Paul speaks not here although it be true indeed that some Interpreters have turned it that way For it is certaine that the prime principles of men are laid in corruption and the first sation or sowing is a concealed and secret matter a shamefull action and sometimes a dishonest thing but the Apostle hath no intention to speak of that for he speaks here by way of allusion and saith So is it in the resurrection of the dead Therefore I cannot follow those extravagancies but apply it to the Resurrection It is certaine the Apostle meanes of that sowing of God when he sows the body in the ground Earth to earth ashes to ashes as St. Chrysostom saith Chrysost that is the best sowing by far For the first is a sowing to misery and weaknesse to live in troubles and crosses and affliction in this world even as Iob saith Job 14.1 Man that is borne of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery but this sowing of God of his children in the grave of which this Text as also this Chapter must be understood it is a sowing not to a life of misery but to a state of glory There shall be no trouble after that but a quiet and perfect rest and renovation when the fulnesse of time shall appeare So then It is sowne Hee useth this word upon purpose to take from us the feare of death the feare and trouble of that great monster and bugg of the world For as much as to die is a hopefull thing as the sowing of the seed is a hopefull action Sowing is a word of confidence and expectation as we see 1 Cor. 9. 1 Cor. 9.10 11. that he that sowes may sow in hope and he that reaps may reap in hope and he that ears may eare in hope All these are words of hope words that are very full of contentment to the minde for by that meanes there is a certaine expectation of gaine and advantage It is sowne That is when a man dies he is full of hope there is a blessed hope that waits and attends upon him As Iob saith the just man the good man hath hope in his death and the faithfull with faithfull Abraham they hope against hope that when desperation assailes him then he is strongest in his hope to God It is sowne Therefore is is not cast away it is not brought to nothing it is not destroyed but it is sowne it is laid up in a faithfull hand it is laid up as a depositum and not onely so but it is put forth to Interest and hath a great Income againe It is sowne And it is sowne in a due place in the field of God in Gods acre as in many places in Germany the Church-yards are called Gods acre It is not cast into the water it is not cast into the fire to be burned nor to the thorns and weeds to choak it it is not left to be picked by the fowls of heaven but it is sowne in that place where God hath purposed it shall repose and rest Yea it is given upon tale and the earth shall restore and give up her dead she shall surrender every body which God hath committed unto her It is sowne with the diligent hand of the great husbandman the Lord Almighty he that casts his seed with judgement and laies it up with knowledge and great wisdome Ioh. 15. Joh. 15.1 saith Christ I am the Vine and my Father is the Husbandman The Lord therefore takes this seed and he so layes it up where it may bring the most profit and rise with the richest advantage It is sown in the bosome of the great mother the earth which is fruitfull and abounds in plenty which receives the first and later raine Deut 11.14 and sets the vallies thick with corne Psal 65.14 that it makes men rejoyce and sing In such a place is this semination this sowing it is sowne by the hand of God it is sowne in the expectation of hope profit This word the Apostle useth to allure us to familiarity with that which of necessity we must undergoe Men must forgoe this tabernacle but it is grievous to them to think of it they are perplexed and distressed when such melancholy thoughts come in their heads Let us shake hands therefore with that to the which we must needs bow at the last And let us conceive the goodnesse of God which follows us even unto our death and opens a gate of hope and makes us prisoners of hope and gives passage to the performance of those blessed promises wherein we are instructed and whereto we are called by the lure of the glorious Gospell So much for that metaphor Now the other for the body to come 2. The metaphor for the life to come Chrysost it is very significant It is raised up Saith St. Chrysostom the Apostle doth not say it grows up of it self but it is raised up as being done by another so indeed our redemption it is not wrought by any thing that is inherent in us but it is an externall action that comes from God it is the hand of God that works on us and raiseth us up It is raised therefore by the power of him that raised Christ from the dead Rom. 8.11 It is raised by him that raised for us a horne of salvation in the house of his servant David Luke 1.69 John 11.17 It is raised as Lazarus was raised after he had been foure daies in the grave It is raised as a house is raised from the foundation It is raised as the Temple
to its owne condition and so it comes from better to worse and from thence to nothing at all to dust and ashes But there by reason that the Lord shall shew his mercy and by reason of the infinite delight that man shall take in God againe there shall be a continuall application of God to man by a continuall influence as the Schools speak So as it is impossible to think of any entrance of corruption as that place where the Sun shines continually can never be darke and that plot of ground which hath a sweet well ever pouring into it can never be dry nor thirsty So it must needs be where God is alwaies slowing in his light and love and grace it is impossible there should be any pressing in or any suspition of corruption to come againe Therefore concerning these things the Scripture tells us Psal 36. Psal 36 9. With thee saith the Prophet is the well of life As if he should have said thy waters run alway sweet Psal 87.7 and abundantly all fresh springs are in thee Psal 23.1 therefore we shall not lack nor die for thirst because we shall have the well of life Psal 36.8 And Psal 36. Thou feedest them with the fulnesse of thy house and thou givest them pleasures as out of a river And for this purpose also even for that we should be assured of this the Scripture tels us that we shall have in stead of sorrow fulnesse of joy in stead of darknesse in this life we shall have eternall light in stead of sicknesse we shall have his saving health in stead of death we shall have life everlasting And so wee see what this incorruptibility is it consists in impassibility that the body shall not be able to suffer from any thing because God shall be alway flowing into it his goodnesse and love in Christ Iesus It shall not be able to suffer from a tempting devill it shall not suffer from it selfe nor from any other created nature it shall not suffer from sicknesse nor from time the teeth of time which devoureth all things shall not be able to set its fangs upon the bodies of the children of God They shall not suffer from hell nor from death there shall be no matter of feare in any thing they shall not suffer from the flames of fire it shall not be able to consume those glorious bodies nor the sharpest sword shall not pierce the least haire of them but as we see God preserved the three children in the fiery furnace Dan. 3.27 when it was extraordinary hot that there was not so much as the smell of the singeing of the fire upon their garments The blessed God that is able to doe this in these corrupt bodies much more will hee doe it in that incorruptible condition when hee shall advance them to that glory which himselfe will give them who is the prime author and patterne of impassibility And if the Lions were not able with their teeth when they were so famished Dan. 6. to seize upon the body of Daniel when hee was cast into the dungeon much lesse shall infirmities have power or any other violence be able to touch the bodies of those that shal be glorified in the day of Iesus Christ It shall rise in incorruption I see the time is past I will but touch the next point and leave the rest It is sowne in dishonour it is raised againe in honour The greatest griefe that a man conceives in his death is the dishonorable condition that doth accompany him that though he were never so beautifull and beloved before yet his best and dearest friends will be readie to quit him now yea they cannot indure his company so that he must be removed out of sight as being an odious spectacle to looke upon as an intolerable neighbour that is not to be come neere as one that will infect all the society where he is as a pestilent creature that must be shunned and avoided that must be shut up close within the ground where hee may doe no harme nor be noysome and offensive to those that are above ground This is the strange dishonour to our nature that the great Lords and Ladies which have slept before upon their beds of Ivorie Amos 6.4 which had their goodly Curtaines and Canopies and singular arts to give them pleasure and contentment now being dead they must be outted from their palaces and their goodly-roomes and be thrust in the bowels of the earth they must be accounted such kinde of creatures as with whom there is no cohabitation Even Abraham himselfe although he loved Sarah dearly as his owne heart yet he could not endure her when she was dead but after a certaine season when he had mourned for her he was faine to be a sutor to the sonnes of Heth to sell him as much ground as to bury his dead in Gen. 23.4 to remove her out of his sight The best and the mightiest Monarchs in the world cannot secure themselves from this dishonour If they die on the sea they must be cast over-board or if they die on land they must suffer themselves to enter into this common misfortune and although art and imbalming and curiosity may doe much yet divers parts of them must of necessity be taken committed to the ground lest all about them be pestred by them This is the wofull stroak of nature the dishonour and deformity the beastly-figure of death which makes a man terrible to all the beholders so that that goodly countenance should be turned to a gastly skeleton that those faire cheeks should come to be pale ashes or as a black charcoale that those sparkling blazing eyes should become nothing but as a dim and dark peble and that which is the most fragrant piece of all the mouth to become the most ugly and odious of all The Lord hath drawne the pattern of sin in the face of a dead man and hath made it more sinfull and more ugly in that one spectacle then in any thing in the world besides Thus he that would not rest in the beauty of his creation that would not maintain the glory of his countenance and the image of God that hee had imprinted upon him hee shall now undergoe the most foule image and figure that could be devised There being no beast no creature that is halfe so ugly nothing falling so from it self nothing so unlike it selfe there being nothing traversed with such contrary passions and with such figures and lines of misery as the face of a dead man It is so with all men and although it appeare lesse in some then in others yet leave them a certaine time and they all at the last become so gastly that a man that hath a constant minde and can indure many things yet he loathes to behold a dead man This is the dishonour of sinfull flesh such a basenesse and contempt that a mans best friends shall run
the least relish of it when his eyes waxe dim when he can retaine nothing in his stomack but he casts it up againe when hee can hardly speak a word nor know his best friends but all the organs of life and sense are drowned in death This is that poore weaknesse which the Apostle speaks of It is sown in weaknesse When he is casheerd and deprived of all sense of all power and motion and nothing remaines but a base and desperate imbecility and such a kind of infirmity as that there is no hope in flesh and bloud that ever there shall be made any recovery This is the state of all men Vse And it must teach us beloved to weepe over our weaknesse to think of it in the degrees and parts of it The Lord hath given us many prognosticants of it every sicknesse and every qualme and every distresse of conscience and whatsoever troubleth us in this world they be nothing but so many Kalenders of that great weaknesse that once shall come and make an end of us And therefore as it is said Man hath not one death alone but a number of deaths and that which takes him away is called the last death for he hath many before that This is the state of sowing the body But now behold the promise of the great God! he will raise it up in power the weaker it is sown the stronger it shall rise and this weaknesse that we have it is no argument of discomfort nor a mean to make us distrust but it is a surer tye to binde God to performance and a sure evidence of our deliverance that as our weaknesse is great so our strength shall be much more infinite which shall be wrought by the mighty power of God whereby he is able to subdue all things to himselfe It is raised againe in power or in strength For it is raised by him that is the strong God by him that is El Eli Elohim the God of strength of might and of majesty By that God that loves to make his strength seen in our weaknesse and to make his glory perfect in our infirmity by that God that delights to work in contraries and to bring fire and water out of the same principle that God hath undertaken to raise up this weak body Therefore the Apostle saith It is raised speaking in the present tense as of a thing done not in the future tense It shall be To bring us acquainted with the truth before it be done and to make us assured of it as if it were performed already We are as sure indeed to be raised to that glorious strength which God hath promised as if the deed were done for it is in the counsell of the great God in which those things that hee hath promised be as if they were already performed because he is true that hath promised and because he is able to keep his promise he is able to keep his word for it is his onely prerogative to keep his word and his promise for ever And this is that wondrous comfort that he hath given unto us that if it were possible for the body to have more weaknesse then it hath if it were possible to be debased worse by infirmity then it is yet then we had a stronger argument to prove the strength to come to which the body shall be restored For the weaknesse which we have and carry about us the greater it is the stronger proofe it makes for Gods infinite mercy in the deliverance of us For as we see by experience that vessels and barrells of gunpowder laid up in vaults and cells the more waight is laid upon them the greater pyles and masse of building there is over them the more furiously and strongly they break forth at the touch and traine of the least fire So likewise it is certain that the bodies that are turned into powder to dust these powder-bodies of ours for at last they must all all come to pulverell to dust powder these bodies the more weight is upon them the more earth the more difficulty and the greater weaknesse they have whereby they are compassed and surrounded it makes way for the more strength to burst out when the fire of God shall light and touch upon it when there shall be a re-union of the spirit a deduction of the soule when that fire shall light upon it that comes from heaven then they shall rise in a glorious strength for the more they have beene held downe by weaknesse the more they shall be rescued and ransomed and restored to a greater vigour It is raised in power and strength and in a strength that is answerable to the weaknesse that where the weakness is the greatest there the strength shall transcend in greatnesse And what is this strength It is reduced by the Fathers into foure particulars First St. Austin and St. Chrysostom and generally all the Fathers think Aug. Chrysost that the strength that shall be most eminent in the body when it riseth shall be in the power of motion which because I have before spoken of I will but now touch it As the top of the flame that is in a dry reed it runs upon the reed and you know when such platts of ground are on fire they set all a fire about them so the body of man it shall be able to flye to run and to move as swiftly as the flame doth upon the top of any combustible matter And as the Sun and the Stars and the Angels and spirits of men doe never sleepe and yet are still in motion and are never weary of their motion so the body that shall be raised and fitted againe unto the soule shall be without labour and pain without weaknesse and wearinesse and shall never faile nor faint but shall be able to hold out in an everlasting motion as the Sunne and the Stars doe in the firmament In which sense as Luther Luther saith they shall be able to goe ten thousand furlongs in the twinkling of an eye I name that as a matter of recreation because his spirit was wondrous cheerfull and merry in the Notes that he gives tending to that purpose The second thing wherein this strength shall consist shall be in the efficacy and power of their working So that those that be the weakest things in the world now that one devill if he were permitted were able to wrythe the necks of ten thousand people about then at that day God shall give them that strength of body that they shall be able to encounter a whole legion of devils which shall then have no power over the bodies of men as now they have nor shall not be able to possesse them and to rule them at their pleasure nor to make monsters of them but the body of one Saint shall put to flight and fright a whole legion of sathans complices And this mighty power whereby they work that I may a little still proceed
upon him our nature hee must take that which stood in most need of redemption which is the poore body which is subject to all miseries and calamities For how should hee be called The sonne of man if he had not a body But as he is called The sonne of God so he is also called The sonne of man and hee came to save both parts of man that were downe by reason of sin he came to take the flesh of man to be incarnate and that is it that we so rejoyce and boast of that Christ was become incarnate became man and tooke our flesh upon him and in that flesh he hungred in that flesh he suffered in that flesh he was buryed in that flesh he rose againe in that flesh he ascended into heaven to make a way by the vaile of his flesh into the Holy-of-holyes Heb. 10.20 to all that constantly and truly beleeve in him Quest 3 Thirdly another Question is moved here How Adam is said to be corpus animale seeing God gave him a power of immortalitie for if it were corpus immortale then it could not be corpus animale as saith S. Austin and that truly but Adam had corpus immortale therefore it was not corpus animale and by consequent he cannot be so different from Christ as the Apostle makes him here For the Apostle brings in the two roots and fountaines of man-kinde and he makes the one animall and the other spirituall Now saith St. Austin I demand if Adam had an immortall body how was it an animall body For an animall body is that that is fraile and changeable an immortall body is that which is unchangeable And againe as the holy Father urgeth it further Certainely saith he we recover in Christ that which we lost in Adam and one thing that we recover by Christ is immortality therefore we lost immortality in Adam we lost it in the first Adam and we recover it in the second Now if we lost immortality in Adam then he lost it for us he lost it first as being the foundation of our kinde and we lost it in him being his posterity Then certainely he had it if he lost it for no man can lost that which he hath not and therefore Adam having immortality how should his body be fraile and mortall and an animall body These are things contrary each to other The Father answers againe These quirks and devises make the faith of many men to stagger and it makes some men to answer it thus That the body of man was changed in Paradise God made his body a mortall body but after this he brought him to the Symbole of life and gave him a commandement to abstaine from the tree of knowledge of good and evill which had he done and had kept that commandement then should the fruit of the tree of life have so preserved his life that he should have lived for ever So these men thinke that the Lord changed the condition and quality of his body in Paradise in the giving of the command Aug. But S. Austin answers it better afterwards I thinke saith he that the most safe and proper answer is this that although it be true that we recover immortality by Christ and that we lost this immortality in Adam yet we have a farre greater advantage by Christ we gaine more by Christ then we lost by Adam Adam never had this certainty of immortality that we have he had a kinde of a possibility of it but it was conditionall Now conditions make nothing to be and so this stood upon an if If thou keep the commandement thou shalt live and if thou doe not thou shalt die therefore a man cannot say that there was any immortality planted in the person of Adam because it was uncertaine it was mutable it was in the freedome of his will which was changeable he was not made in a certaine necessity of obedience therefore it was conditionall To conclude all As the holy Father saith the body of Adam although it were meerely naturall as ours is yet it was in a farre better condition then ours are that is it had no necessity of dying as ours hath for our bodies must needs die but the body of Adam might have beene sublimate and brought unto the heavenly joyes without death which ours cannot be For it is impossible for flesh and blood to enter into the Kingdome of God 1 Cor. 15.50 Therefore we have no way to come to glory but by suffering the common calamity of nature which is by stooping to the burthen of death And againe Adam had in his very person those seeds that might have prolonged and continued his life by the blessing of God and the Sacrament of the tree of life whereas we by his sin have gotten nothing but the seeds of death and mortality working us from one misery and sicknesse to another and from sicknesse to death And if the mercy of God intervene not from the first to the second death to eternall misery and perplexity Therefore the difference is this the Lord made him in a better estate then we for he had no necessity of death nor no principle of death but what by his owne will he contracted but in us there is a necessity of death we must die and yet by the mercy of God in Christ wee are restored and renewed by his intercession and sacrifice unto better things then we lost in Adam The Lord make us assured of this blessed and glorious estate that thereby we may be armed against death against the feare of death and that thereby we may grow more and more spirituall that wee may become partakers of that divine grace which may make us while we live in this world not to be of the world but Citizens of that blessed and heavenly Ierusalem which is the mother of us all Gal. 4.26 To the which the Lord bring us for his infinite goodness and mercies sake Amen FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.46 47. But that is not first which is spirituall but that which is naturall and then that which is spirituall The first man is of the earth earthly the second man is the Lord himselfe from heaven As is the earthly so are they that are earthly and as is the heavenly so are they also that are heavenly IN the former part of this Treatise the Apostle hath discoursed of the kindes and degrees of our future happinesse in the glorious resurrection Now hee comes to tell us of the causes and of the order The substance of these words which I have read unto you is to give satisfaction to that common curiosity that is in Gods people whereby they seeke to prevent the time and to enjoy their happinesse before it be Gods will and pleasure It is naturall to man as Cornelius Tacitus saith to runne before his fortunes Corn. Tacit. And so it is among Christians themselves there is a kinde of
harmelesse humour although when it is too extreame and violent it is full of sinne yet it is construed to a good sense that they desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is best of all that is to say not to be dissolved after the fashion of the common death as S. Paul did but to have a kinde of light mutation and change and so to be translated unto glory You see in 2 Cor. 5.4 2 Cor. 5.4 where the Apostle tells us We would not be spoiled of this body that is we would not die but supervestiri wee would have a garment or vestment of glory and immortality to be put upon this body without death As if hee should say we would have corruption to enter into incorruption and we would be made capable of heaven with these bodies unchanged by death To that the Apostle answers in these words No saith he these things are contrary naturall and spirituall and it is impossible for a naturall body to be capable of spirituall qualities or a spirituall body of naturall qualities we must needs leave off the one before we can take the other we must lay downe the rags of this flesh before we can take the garment or vestment of glory and eternity in that blessed life that followes And although we have a great desire to goe unto life without death yet wee must mortifie that desire for it is as vaine as nurses wishes As nurses that wish the most eminent and excellent things to their children so we delight our selves in this imagination But the Apostle tells us that wee must take things in order for that God hath made all things in order First we are to taste of the naturals and then to be made partakers of the spirituals so we cannot be borne into this world but by nature and we cannot be borne into our spirituall possession at the first but first we must have a kinde of naturall life and by the grace of God that prepares us unto the life spirituall So God hath appointed and ordained every thing to goe by succession that all things should not be done at once but every thing in its time For saith he that which is spirituall is not first but that which is naturall and then that which is spirituall And to this purpose hee brings in the two great fountaines and seminaries of mankinde the one for the life of nature the other for the life of grace a man and a man both of them being men but yet being diversly qualified and both leaving their qualities to those that be their followers For saith the Apostle the causers of all this great difference of naturall and spirituall be the two Adams the one was meerely naturall and was no more but a man The other although he were naturall yet he was spirituall too he was both God and man The one wrought unto death the other wrought unto life the one was bent and inclined to sinne the other was full of all grace the one left an inheritance of misery the other left great demeanes of glory to all those that are his followers Now as these causes bee contrary in themselves there being as much difference betweene them as there is betweene East and West so wee must imagine the effects to be different too For if the one did work to hell and damnation the other wrought to heaven a glorious redemption and salvation for all Gods people and if the wickednesse of the one were derivable upon his posterity in the flesh much more the goodnesse and righteousnesse of the other is derived unto them that are true beleevers and followers of him The first man was of the earth earthly the second man was the Lord from heaven And as they be so be their disciples as is he that is earthly so are they that are earthly and as was the heavenly so are they that are heavenly They are to follow their masters cue and to be of the same condition as their Chieftaine and Soveraigne The carnall man dies in Adam the spirituall lives in Christ even to life everlasting This is the substance of the words read unto you Now to proceed in order of the Text. First Division into 3. parts 1. The order of the PropositioÌ„ 2. The comparison betweene the 2. Adams 3. The conformity of their members we are to consider the verity and truth of the order of this proposition how the Apostle intends that that which is spirituall is not first but that which is naturall For it seemes that the best things should be first and spirituall things being best therefore it seemes they should be first yea it seems to be a disparagement unto things spirituall and heavenly to come in time after things naturall But the Apostle saith no God hath appointed it so and hee gives no further reason as St. Chrysostom observes that they may give themselves content in this that it is Gods will it shall be so that is a reason sufficient they need seek no further Secondly we are to consider the comparison betweene the two heads and roots and fountaines of mankinde the first man and the latter man and they are compared in foure things The first is in respect of their order and succession the first and the last or the first and the second The second is in respect of the place of their nativity whence they come the first from the earth the second from heaven The third is in the quantity of their difference and excellencie the first came as a servant the second came as a Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And though the word servant be not noted in the Text yet it is to be understood by this that he saith The Lord himselfe Therefore the first came not as a Lord but as a servant but the second came as a Lord in all points yea as the Lord himselfe from heaven Then lastly for their qualities the one is earthly the other is heavenly The third part of the Text is the conformity of the members that belong to these heads with their heads For as there are two great foundations of mankinde so likewise they have members answerable to them Those that be of Adam that is naturall men they be as their father is such as the earthly is so they are that are earthly and those that be of Christs retinue they be such as their Master is too For as is the heavenly so are they also that are heavenly which is not meant of the manners and condition of men here in this world for the Apostle meddles not with that in all this Chapter but it is spoken of the bodies that shall be raised at that day thâ—t as all men be earthly by nature the best Saints of God here are in an earthly condition and must be dissolved into earth and as we have that by means of the first Adam from whence wee descend so from the second Adam wee have a hope and shall
heresies and also to raise our selves to the imitation of our head to be conformable to him For this very Text of Scripture that Christ came downe the Lord from heaven hath given occasion to a great number of lying spirits to conclude that the Lord had no true naturall body that he had no true flesh but that he brought his body downe from heaven and that hee passed as through a pipe through the Virgin Mary Because say they if Adam and Christ be opposed together and that Adam brings his body from the earth then Christ brings his from heaven It followes therefore that they are not one kind of body and by consequent there must be a kind of celestiall body appointed for Christ because it must be directly opposite to Adams Now there is no consequence or sense in this For the Apostle opposeth not Christ unto Adam in regard of the substance of his flesh but in respect of the difference of his qualities The quality that Adam put upon his flesh was death and sicknesse misery and deformity but Christ hath put upon it another kind of quality another robe another garment and vestment of immortality of grace and perfection and beauty and strength and all kind of abilities another kind of quality Therefore hee saith not another substance of flesh for Christ came of David and David came of Adam they were all one flesh but because the one was the fountain of death and the other the fountaine of life they must needs work contrary effects Therefore according to the effects that they work the Apostle proceeds that the one works to basenesse and misery the other to glory to excellency to comfort and beauty But these heretiques will pretend a great number of places of Scripture and a great many arguments whereby they doe as the Apostle saith deceive 2 Pet. 2 14. and draw aside unstable people and make them at their wits end when they are not able to resolve the places they alledge As first they say this that the Lord Iesus did deny his Mother therefore he had no true flesh And they prove it out of St. Matthew 12. when hee was teaching the people they came and told him that his Mother and his brethren were without Mat. 12.47 48 49. desiring to speak with him and hee answers them who is my mother c. therefore say they Christ denies his mother This is false Christ no where denyed his mother But that place shewes that he had more care of the businesse he had in hand hee had more care of his Fathers commission of the Kingdome of the preaching of the Gospell of forgivenesse of sinnes of curing diseases and to doe the rest of the works of our redemption therefore he must not neglect them and be distracted from them to goe to inferiour things so that his mother must give way to those things he doth not deny his mother but onely prefers the practice of the other things Againe they say Christ cannot be adored if hee have true flesh or else he can be but halfe adored But now whole Christ must be adored therefore he had no true flesh For if we adore that which is flesh it is a creature and so it is idolatry for whatsoever is given to the creature that way is Idolatry Therefore Christs body was not created but was a super coelestiall thing above the order of mankinde Answ It is true the flesh of Christ was framed and wrought above the order of mankinde and yet so as that still it was true flesh And although wee ought to adore whole Christ yet in the adoring of Christ we doe it to the person Wee use not to disjoyne his natures but wee adore that God that was pleased to take upon him man we adore that blessed person in the Trinity that for our sake and for our salvation came downe from heaven and was incarnate by the holy Ghost in the womb of Mary It is that person we adore So that wee goe not about with the heretique Nestorius to make a division of the natures but we adore whole Christ God and man not man alone but God not God alone but man Many other shifts and sophismes they have but these are the chiefest and indeed they are scarce worth repeating but we must labour to furnish our selves because we know not what kinde of miscreant heresies are like to grow now in the latter end of the world Now the conformity follows in these words 3. Part. The conformity As the earthly is so are they that are earthly and as is the heavenly so are they that are heavenly It must needs be that as the principles are so the things that are made and framed of them must be All things in nature are a resemblance of their originall and it cannot possibly be that they should much swerve from them For every effect is in his cause a thing can draw no other inclination then that that is drawne from its cause Therefore as the earthly man is so must the earthly be As Adam for I will not meddle with other interpretations of the Fathers because they are not pertinent to this place therefore ruleth all in this present life hee makes all his followers earthly and mortall so Christ rules all in the blessed life to come and makes all things contrary that is immortall and glorious and powerfull For in Adam all the world is ruled according to the censure of God upon sinne as God doomed sinne Earth thou art Gen. 3.19 and to earth thou shalt returne which was the sentence upon Adam and upon all his posterity So we see daily this sentence fulfilled upon us and upon ours upon all our progenitors and successors It failes upon none and those that shall be changed at the latter day it shall be unto them as a kind of death for dust thou art and to dust thou shalt returne it is the common voice of God upon nature Therefore in this life wee must looke to be as Adam was to have no other inheritance then hee hath left us In the life which is to come wee shall have an inheritance from the Lord of heaven It is true by the grace of the Gospell and by the faith we have in Christ Iesus we have something more then Adam gave unto us but of that we are not put into possession to inherit untill the Lord shall appeare from heaven For when Christ our life shall appeare then wee also shall appeare with him in glorie Colos 3.4 Colos 3.4 As is the earthly so are they that are earthly Not in respect of their manners as some of the Fathers by way of digression have noted upon this place and St. Chrysostom assents unto it and St. Augustine also yeelds to it but to insist upon the strict tearmes for we can goe no further nor we cannot make any better sense of it that wee are like Adam in all things in this life In our birth In
our life In our inclination In our declination In our death In our grave and sepulchre In all things wee are like our first parent Adam which is the father of our nature as Christ is the father of our state in grace Therefore as at the first wee are made by the hand of God as Adam was wee are made out of a base matter as he was the Lord made him out of the red earth Psal 119.73 so saith David thy hands have made me and fashioned me out of such a kind of substance are we made We are like him in our beginning Adam was left to a kind of free-will to goe this way of that way Which free-will hee had entire and might have kept it if he would In our infancie wee are partly left that way but custome and corruption lead us another way for wee are forestalled by inbred corruption by sinne and we are mis-led by the corrupt customes in the world so that children are corrupted before they be sensible Otherwise children have that in them above men that they may say This course I will take and this course I will not take For when a man takes a course to be vicious and to fall into sinne he cannot be so free as he that hath a pure mind which is like unto a white paper wherein there is nothing written For they that fall into evill they set such blots upon them that cannot be gotten out without the bloud of Christ And indeed in the fairest paper in the minds of children there is that corruption that the bloud of Christ must wash it out even that originall sinne though they be free from actuall Therefore in this wee are like unto Adam mutable and changeable Nay our condition is worse than his for he had a power not to sin and we have no power but to sinne as long as wee live in this flesh Thirdly in the inclination of our mind As Adam grew hee had an inclination to eate and to drink a necessity of increasing in the world of steep and work and the like so in these things wee grow and many men are so set upon these worldly things that they commonly faile God and their soules in other things And for our declining age we are like unto him Although hee lived in strength a long time yet at last hee failed of his strength and of his wit and at length came to be turned to dust to nothing So it is with us as is the earthly so are they that are earthly we must follow his condition wee cannot avoid it we must be like unto him Lastly as Adam died and went to his grave from which he was taken earth to earth dust to dust and rotted in the earth and there he lyeth now and hath lyen for the space of almost 5000. years in the dust so the Lord will bring our bodies by the common sentence which hee hath pronounced against our sins and the sin of Adam he will bring them to the same state For as is the earthly so are they that are earthly In their birth in their life in their inclination in their death in their grave and in all the parts and passages of this mortall race they are all alike each to other But the Lord who is to give a new life of grace which begins here and shall be completed in the life of glory which shall be manifested hereafter he shall conforme his members unto him more then Adam doth his For if we be miserable because of the first Adam much more shall we be glorious because of Christ the second Adam And if a weak cause be able to conforme his members unto him a stronger cause shall be much more able Therefore as the misery of man is derived from Adam to his posterity so the glory and majesty of God shall be derived and exhibited and set forth and fulfilled from Christ as from a root and fountaine to all those that follow For from his fulnesse we have all received even grace for grace Iohn 1 16. Therefore he saith those that are spirituall shall be such as he that is spirituall as Christ is now in his glorious body For this must be taken of the glorified body of Christ and not of his mortall body For he had a mortall body in which he died but when it was raised againe it was a glorified body And as it was in the Resurrection of Christ so in the common Resurrection we shall be like unto him by the power of Christ that worketh all in all And if Adam could convey unto us an inheritance of misery and weaknesse and declining much more shall the Lord convey a stronger inheritance of glory and beauty and of all that wee can desire and that can fill the heart of man all which the word of God hath made a promise and tender of Therefore as the Apostle saith comfort your selves in these words 1 Thes 4.18 even in observing the order that God would have and be content that your naturalls may passe away that your spirituals may succeed For we must of necessity be borne before we can be borne anew of water and of the holy Ghost We must be borne first of the will of flesh and bloud wee must be borne after againe by the sacred laver of regeneration not of the will of flesh and bloud Iohn 1.13 but of the spirit by the word of God and by faith in Christ Iesus And as St. Austin saith we could not die Aug. except wee had been the members of Adam nor wee could not rise againe except wee were the members of Christ But these things be so ordained by God that wee cannot looke for the one except we be content to taste of the other The Lord made not the Angels and us in one condition they were made in their full perfection at the first therefore some of them fell from that to be devils some of them continuing by the grace of God and are confirmed for ever But man was not so made but as a scholler to come by divers degrees to grow forward from rudiments and principles unto further perfection that the glory of God might be seen in his successe and course in his bringing on and production that he appointed for man Vse Therefore wee ought to be contented with the ordinance of God to rejoyce in it and to be willing to suffer the cup which God hath put into our hands even the cup of death when the Lord shall call for us And wee ought also to arme our selves with this exceeding comfort that this is the onely passage and way which God hath made for that glorious state hereafter For if there be naturall there shall be spirituall and if there be no nature there shall be no spirit Therefore this misery and weaknesse is as it were a doore and a way unto greatnesse and strength and ability This is that which the blessed Apostle saith 2 Cor. 11.
though God could not open the kingdome of heaven to flesh and blood but not to flesh and blood corrupted with sinne As long as we are in this life our flesh is full of sinne and our blood in the veines of the body runne with sinne and as long as they bee so they bee meere matter of corruption and therefore they cannot enter into incorruption Howbeit Adam in his first creation was flesh and blood and yet had hee stood in the state of grace and innocencie he had entred into heaven with his body of flesh and blood So that the meaning is not as though God could not conferre so great a benefit upon flesh and blood but because it hath corrupted it selfe Flesh hath corrupted his owne way and blood is tainted with sinne it is tainted defiled and polluted blood it is not such as God made it but it hath received a tincture from the Divell In regard of this it must be dissolved and brought to rottennesse and corruption that God may raise it a new seed and so make it pure and perfect againe and make it capable of the heavenly and blessed inheritance So that the summe of the words is this As long as wee be flesh and blood as long as wee bee in this life sinfull flesh that we carry about with us wee must not looke to be translated into heaven Adam should have been translated into heaven if hee had lived and kept that state wherein hee was made Wee desire indeed to bee like him in that but our desires and our hopes must be grounded upon Gods will not on our own fancies and we must expect what the Lords will hath determined He hath determined that wee should come to death before we enter into life that we should beare the image of the earthly before we come to the image of the heavenly and wee cannot have incorruption and glory poured upon this body that wee carry about with us by reason of sinne because it is in sinne For sinfull flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdome of God And although when Christ shall come there shall bee alive many millions of men that shall not die as we doe yet they shall have a change and there change shall be unto them as death is unto us now For it is not possible that any corrupt body should enter into incorruption This I take to bee the summe and sense of the words read Now to proceed in order we are to consider First the persons that he saith as we have borne Then secondly the matter propounded of those persons First there is a sentence or proposall Division into 1. the Persons 2. the Matter propounded Secondly the explanation of that proposall The proposall that is made of these persons is by way of comparison as wee have borne the image of the earthly so also wee shall beare the image of the heavenly The explanation of it what hee meanes by this image The Corinthians might aske and say they doubted of his words these are obscure things that the Text saith The image of the earthly and the image of the heavenly My meaning saith hee is nothing but this that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Eingdome of God nor corruption cannot inherit incorruption So in the proposall or proposition in the 49. verse we are to consider these things First that God made man to an Image Secondly that that Image being defaced and deformed wee are made to another kinde of Image than we were first intended for we are made to the image of the earthly Thirdly we are to observe the reddition that as we beare the image of the earthly so we shall also beare the image of the heavenly Fourthly the certainty in the sicut so as according to that manner And this makes us assured of the thing that this is a ground experimentall that because wee have the image of the one therefore wee are assured of the image of the other For still we are made to an image that is for the proposall In the explanation in the words following brethren I say unto you or my meaning is this Wherein the holy Ghost teacheth us to speak plainly and not to wander away in new quaint words in obscure sentences but to make the doctrines cleare that wee take in hand And then for flesh and bloud that they are not capable of heavens kingdome and for what reason they are not capable And lastly the summe of all corruption which is flesh and bloud cannot enter into incorruption which is the Kingdome of heaven For that which he call flesh and bloud in one place hee renders it againe in another place by corruption and that which he called the kingdome of heaven in the former words he turnes it in the latter words incorruption So that the Apostles perspicuity and evidence is wondrously to be admired in this place hee labours to speak of a high matter a deep profound matter of dignity so plainly to flesh and bloud Hee saith flesh and bloud shall not enter into the Kingdome of God Not because it is flesh and bloud but because it is corrupted and there shall not enter any thing that is corrupt into incorruption because they are contraries and one contrarie cannot enter into another It is impossible for a man to be alive and dead to be sick and well at one time there is no difference in the world greater then the difference of corruption and incorruption and because flesh and bloud is corrupted for sinne it is full of misery and wretchednesse by sinne and the Kingdome of heaven is an uncorruptible crowne it is impossible that these should be coincident and meet and be mingled together Therefore corruption must be evacuated and rooted out before incorruption can be attained Of these things briefly and in order as God shall give assistance And first concerning the persons 1. Part. The persons of whom these things are propounded of whom these things are pronounced It is of Gods Saints For as I have often told you this whole Chapter is spoken of and endited concerning the Resurrection of the Saints onely There is indeed a resurrection of those that belong not to God which is a resurrection to punishment and shame but the Apostle meddles not with that in this whole Chapter but speaks only of the Saints resurrection and he saith We that have borne the image of the earthly wee shall also beare the image of the heavenly We that is those that are called of Christ and sanctified by his holy Spirit to these it is to whom this promise appertaines For every man beares the image of the earthly good and bad but every man shall not beare the image of the heavenly but onely those for whom it is ordained The nature of man is not capable of heaven for if mans nature were capable of heaven then all men should have it because all men have the nature of man indefinitely and equally but it is the
wee see in the picture that is rased sometime there will be an arme or a finger left plaine and all the rest of the picture defaced some part of it remaines but by that a man knowes not what it is So the Image of God that glorious picture of beauty was altogether soyled and over-rased put out and besmeared by mans sins and transgressions yet the Lord hath left some sparkes and some lineaments as a finger or an arme remaines This now is called the image of the earthly And though there be some Image of God which is heavenly yet it is so defaced that it is called the image of the earthly Now wherein stands this Image You know by experience wherein it is even in all the parts and passages of this miserable life So St. Austin saith Aug. Wee beare the image of the earthly in being borne into this earth in the miseries of the world in the corruptions of our life in the labouring for our meat and drink that wee have in our hungring and thirsting in the necessities of eating and drinking in being subject to sicknesse in our declining withering away and in our dying at length and our rotting after we are dead In these things wee beare the image of our Father and the fairest son and daughter of Adam must needs confesse thus much that either they are or shall be drowned in basenesse An ugly physiognomie and yet it is that which Adam hath engraven upon our sinfull nature But blessed be God that saith wee shall have another image For as he teacheth us to groane and to be wearie of this as being a reward and punishment of sinne so hee hath given us a lively faith and hope that we shall attaine unto another image that shall rectifie all this and shall bring upon us a face that shall never decay not as the face of Adam that goes and declines from age to age from sicknes to sicknesse but the face of Christ that shall continue one and the same for ever The Image therefore of the heavenly must be in a contrary quality For if the one were in a poore naturall birth the other is in regeneration if the one wer 〈…〉 weaknesse and infirmitie the other was in strength and power of miracles and high supernaturall abilities if the one was in sicknesse the other was in health if the one was in death the other was in eternall life if the one were in corruption and rottennesse the other was in sweetnesse and fragrancie This is the Image of the heavenly And these Images as I said are not vaine imaginarie pictures but reall impressions things that are truely seated in us and so seated as never after to be defaced and removed The Image of God it was once changeable for it was set upon Adam and it was removed the Lord began to set it againe and to imprint it on Iesus Christ and thence it was never removed nor never shall be from his followers on whom he shall set it As the Law that was written by Moses was written in two Tables twice over First the Lord gave one Table of stone which Moses when hee came from the Mount cast downe in his anger and broke them so the Lord tooke the second Table and wrote upon it the same words and those stood stedfast and were never altered nor broken and defaced So also it is with these two Adams For the first was made fraile and feeble and the image of God and the command that was written in his heart was broken in pieces upon the peoples idolatry upon his owne transgression But when the Lord renewed his image upon man againe which was done in the person of Christ Iesus that was the second writing of the Table and when he had written the second time then God would write no more For there the glory and vertue and power of the Commander stands for ever and the beauty and vigor of that face is subject to no fading but it brings it selfe and all that loue it to perfection 4. The certainty The next thing to be considered is the certainty of this for this indeed is improbable and to flesh and blood impossible even for a man to say because he hath been earthly therefore he shall be heavenly A man may rather say because I have beene earthly therefore I shall not bee heavenly Yes saith the Apostle sicut As wee have borne the one so we shall beare the other As we have borne the image of the earthly so also wee shall beare the image of the heavenly This is the wondrous arguing which the Spirit of God teacheth us even to hope against hope and to reason against reason For it utterly non-plusseth all reason to say an earthly thing shall become heavenly that it shall change the nature It is impossible to make gold of dirt yet God can doe it and hee gives us that assurance that as sure as wee are borne to the image of the earthly as sure experience as we have of that so sure we shall have the image of the heavenly the one is an argument and a signe and a previall disposition to the other That wee all beare the image of the earthly every man in his continuall groaning and clamour testifies to God to himselfe and to the world There is no man that lives without his burthen and God knowes our burthen how it is in continuall misery and perplexity and such kinde of defections that if God did not sustaine us a thousand deaths would overtake us instead of one And therefore this experience of misery which wee have by Adam is a sure signe and token that God will advance us to the glory of the second Adam For these two are dependent each upon other A man is borne into this world to be borne againe in a better world a man dies here that he may live hereafter a man is miserable here that he may be glorious hereafter hee is a sinner here that hee may be holy and righteous hereafter the things here are seales and tokens of a blessed and better inheritance Therefore the Apostle saith sicut as sure as we have the one so surely we shall have the other It is a semblance it is a true and certaine figure and assurance that as wee carry the badge of Adams mortall flesh so we shall carry the stamp and image of Christ in flesh mortall and uncorrupt This is the wondrous wisedome of God which passeth all the understanding of man to teach still by contraries As in that sweet example Iohn 11. Ioh. 11. of Lazarus God would not work but by a cleane contradiction Lazarus was sick they sent to Christ Lord he whom thou lovest is sick The Lord heard it Let him be sick let him die too he stayes the longer he comes not to him The next newes was brought Lazarus was dead The Lord prevents the newes and saith Lazarus our friend sleepeth He comes unto the house when
notwithstanding they shall not die nor be put into their graves for that change shall be unto them instead of our death And doe not think your selves so much the worse that God favours you the lesse or that he favours them more because they goe not to their graves as you doe For the Lord makes you by patience subject to his holy will hee gives you that patience that for his sake you can be content to be deposed to lay downe your earthly Tabernacles And you must not vexe and grive at them for they are never the better for it For their change is to them as a death although it be not with the same obsequies and in the same outward shews yet in effect it shall be the same Therefore that wee are done to dust and that they never see dust this is no disparagement to us nor no great comfort to them for it shall be all one in effect the Lord imbalmes the memory of his Saints and he preserves their dust and tels the sands of their dust and hee keeps them in perpetuall record so that whatsoever hee poures out hereafter upon another generation it shall not be a prejudice to those that are now dead For the Lord goes down with those that sleepe to the grave hee descends with them and preserves them and keeps them he numbers their haires he numbers the members and parts of their bodies And this is that mysterie which the Apostle speaks of here Behold I shew you a mysterie It is a great mysterie that any man should live and not see death yet the Apostle tells us that there shall be millions of men that shall live and yet they shall have no death many that shall have a mortall and corrupt and sinfull life as we have and yet they shall not have any death It is a great mysterie that all the Saints should not come to life eternall by the same meanes that is by way of putrefaction and of resurrection and yet there are millions that shall not come to life that way but by another way of change and mutation Behold I tell you a mysterie we shall not all die but we shall all be changed This is the summe of the words Division into 1 The time 2 The manner and meanes Now the Apostle expresseth and explaineth himselfe farther by telling the cause and the means how this shall be done for hee saith this shall be done as concerning the time immediately in an instant in the twinckling of an eye And as concerning the manner and the meanes of it by the vertue of the last trump The trump that shall blow And so the substance of it is this The Lord shall sound forth his Trumpet which shall have a power to change the bodies that as at the first hee spake the word Let this be made Gen. 1. and it was made Let there be light and there was light so there shall be another power in the voice for the renewing and re-creating of things as there was a power in the voice then to create and make the world so there shall in the re-creating and re making of the world that shall make a change of all things And as in the beginning things that were dark before were made light Let there be light and there was light of that which was dark before and that which was confused before was made orderly and distinct which is the greatest extremities that can be light and darknesse order and confusion so likewise there shall be a mighty voice of God in that sounding silver Trumpet that shall then blow to change the bodies of men from dark to light some bodies and shall change their thoughts from confusion and disorder to bee regular and orderly The trumpet is the voice of God the operation of the Almighty which as it wrought a strange change in the Creation so it shall worke a stranger in the recreation and renovation of the world These are the parts and parcels of the Text. Now to proceed in order as it shall please God to give assistance The first thing to bee considered is that the Church of God in respect of this mystery which the Apostle speaks of hath been drawne to diverse readings and expositions of this Text. For they could not see how it should be true that the Apostle saith All shall bee changed because they thought it onely belonged to the godly But it is certaine that the ungodly shall be changed too for their bodies that are now corrupt shall be then uncorrupt But how to sustaine misery and torment that they had better not to bee than to bee in such a case All the paines of hell shall not so work upon them to dead them not to consume them but they shall bee able to consist in the middest of torment Now the least care and trouble in the world kills a mans heart and works him off but then God shall so change the bodies of the reprobates that they shall bee able to indure whatsoever torment shall bee laid upon them But because those men understood not this they thought the change was to bee taken in a good sense to belong onely to the godly Therefore they reade it two severall wayes differing from ours For our reading is this which is so in the Originall according to the Greek copy Wee shall not all die but wee shall all bee changed And so it agrees properly with that which went before For he gives an answer to a question that might be made Why doe you say that corruption shall not enter into incorruption nor flesh and blood into the kingdome of heaven shall not they bee corrupt flesh that shall live at the comming of Christ to judgement To this the Apostle saith Indeed they shall not die but instead of that death they shall have a change So that this is an inference upon the former and an answer for the removall of an objection Now as I said diverse partes of the Church reade it two other wayes The first is this Wee shall all certainely die but wee shall not all be changed For they were carefull still to appropriate and bring the change unto Gods people and inheritance as though it belonged not to the wicked Another Reading is this Wee shall all rise againe but wee shall not all bee changed so that still they make the negative upon the change because they understood not how this thing might bee conceived to belong to the good and bad which is the change of the bodies Now indeed in their severall senses they be all true For the first that saith wee shall not all sleepe It is true of the common masse of mankind but not of every particular body and of every particular age For I told you before that the Lord shall exempt a whole world from the common death which wee suffer Therefore it is not true in the particulars that we shall all sleâ—pe For there shall be many thousands of men
that shall not sleepe that is they shall not die after the common maner of death And then for the second opinion the second sense that Reades it We shall all rise againe That is false for there are none that shall rise but those that were dead and because all shall not die therefore all shall not rise as I said before in the opening of the Text. So that this is the proper and true sense of the Text and it is that also which is in all the Greek Copies The other is onely in some old Latin Copies and is diversly taken and mistaken by the Fathers This therefore is the Apostles meaning We shall not all sleepe that is wee shall not all die after this order and maner of death but wee shall all bee changed Those that bee in their graves shall be changed to incorruption to immortality and life and they that never come to the grave shall bee changed another way which shall be semblable and answerable unto the death that wee have So that all shall be changed yea not onely the godly to glory but the reprobate and wicked shall bee changed to a dureability to indure the torment which the justice of God hath allotted to them for their deserts from all eternity This Reading therefore is that that we must rest in as being the most proper resolution of the Apostles mind who giving a reason of that hee had said before that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdome of God No saith hee they shall not inherit it but by a kind of change and mutation not after the fashion as we doe God hath reserved for them another kind of translation by mutation not by buriall and putrefaction as our bodies doe Now I come to the words The first thing is this that he saith Behold I shew you a mystery Mystery is a word derived from the Hebrew Mister or Mistar and it signifieth a hidden thing or else from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some would have it of shutting or closing of the eye because that all eyes are shut up and closed to the mysteries of God and it lies not in the power of any eye to understand the secrets of the Almighty Secret things belong unto God Deut. 29 29. but revealed things belong unto us and to our children saith Moses The Gospel is full of these mysteries and there is nothing so mysticall and hard to bee understood as these things concerning the renewing and reparation of the world For the things that bee done in common experience be nothing mysticall but those that we looke to by faith those things that we apprehend by hope they are all full of mysteries But the blessed God hath revealed them to his Apostles to S. Paul and to the rest and to the Ministers of his Word By reading the Scriptures he hath revealed that which is farre remote from the sense and understanding of any mortall and carnall man The mysteries of the Kingdome must bee revealed Behold I tell you a mystery The Lord hath told it me and I must tell it to you againe it is a thing that I am acquainted with by the Spirit of God which hath revealed it to mee It was once as strange to me as it is to you but God hath delivered it to me that by my ministery it may come unto you Behold I shew you a mystery The word signifieth three things in the Scripture as Chrysostome noteth One is when by an outward visible thing some other invisible thing is signified and represented So in the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper where the water in Baptisme signifieth the precious blood of Christ and the wine and bread in the Lords Supper signifieth the breaking of the body and the powring forth of the blood of that emmaculate Lamb that was offered up for us Thus the Sacraments bee called holy mysteries hidden and secret things which the world cannot understand because they deride them because they doe not affect them but they are onely knowne unto the chosen ones of God In that sense the word is not here used for the Apostle speaks not of a mystery here by any outward thing to signifie some inward matter as in the Sacrament Another way mystery is taken for a partiall or halfe esteeme or conceit of any thing we speake of So in 1 Cor. 13. the Apostle tels us 1 Cor. 13.12 We see in a dark mystery wee see in a cloude wee see in a riddle in a dreame Wee understand in part we know in part As if hee should say All that we see in the providence and guidance of God here in this world is full of mystery some part of it wee know and some part wee know not so that the partiall knowledge of man because it attaines not to fulnesse it is called seeing in a mystery seeing in a darke view But neither in that sense doth the Apostle use it here in this place The third sense is saith St. Chrysostome when a man speaks something against the common sense and reason which the wisedome of man cannot attaine unto and reach nor would never have dreamed of And this is it which the Apostle speaks of here Behold I shew you a mystery that is I shew you a matter which you would hardly have conceived with your selves or that you will scarcely believe when I tell it to you I tell you that there are many men that shall never die nor never rise againe and yet they shall have their part of glory and be accepted and come to happinesse as well as you This paradox which is contrary to common opinion contrary to common sense and which is above the common reach and apprehension of man the Apostle calls a mystery in this place And hee hath great reason to put an ecce before it behold I tell you c. Vse To teach us that where any thing is mysticall in the Gospel and in the Scripture we ought to double our files to double our attention and to raise our spirits to hearken to that which is so secret For it is all our desires and it is naturally ingraffed in us to heare of newes to heare newes of State newes of the greatest importance Wee seeke we labour we travaile and wee sharpen one another to know what reports there are in the greatest importments Much more should wee be thus affected in the matters of God and of our owne salvation Therefore the Apostle satisfieth us and saith I will tell you you seeke for it and you long to know this you make many doubts and scruples in your hearts behold I will resolve you in one word The condition of the world that shall bee when Christ shall come it shall be farre different from this It is a mystery to tell you but it is infallibly true It hath been revealed unto me by the Spirit of God and I will open it to you the people of God And the
I look for my change as well as another man As Iob Iob 14.1 saith All the dayes of my life will I looke for my change So the Apostle saith every man must look for this that he may be prepared For perhaps I may be the last man perhaps the trumpet may sound to night before to morrow for there is no man knowes when the day of doome shall be It is reserved in the bosome of God alone and we are alway to looke for his comming because we know not when he will come whether at midnight Marke 13.5 or at the dawning of the day Therefore wee should alwayes be ready with our lamps lighted and our loynes girded that we may be prepared when the Bridegroome commeth to enter into the Kingdome Mat. 25. Thus the Apostle saith we shall be changed He speaks as if hee should be one of them although long since he were interred in the earth yet because hee knew not his owne dissolution or the destruction of the world when it should be therefore he had it in perpetuall memorie Wee shall not all sleepe but we shall all be changed And what is this change 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how death is called a sleepe I have told you heretofore and I will not repeat it now We shall be changed that is in quality for so the word signifieth even an altering of the quality not a changing of the substance For the same body that suffered death for sinne the same body shall be glorified by the grace and favour of God As sin came upon it to doe it to death so the grace of God shall overflow it to bring it to life For where sin hath abounded grace shall super abound Rom. 14.20 If therefore the sinne of Adam were able to mortifie all to their graves much more shall the grace of Christ be able to quicken all his to life everlasting Therefore I say we shall be changed meaning as concerning the qualities not concerning the substance For that body which was once the Temple of the holy Ghost shall never cease to be the Temples of the holy Ghost and those parts that felt misery by Adams sinne they shall feele sweetnesse of grace by the bounty that shall be revealed through Christ Iesus our Lord. We shall all be changed This change how it shall be made and in what degrees I have partly spoken of it before The Apostle delivers it unto us when hee said It is sowne in weaknesse it is raised in strength It is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption It is sowne a mortall or naturall body but it riseth a spirituall body It is sown in dishonour it riseth againe in honour These are the manners of the change which having heretofore stood upon I will not now repeat The change therefore shall be in those foure noble qualities which the Apostle formerly described unto us And this change shall be wrought by the omnipotencie of God upon a matter that wee would think could not indure such a strange operation as that is But the Lord is able to command light to come out of darknesse and hath wrought by meane things in the world the great impressions of his power Hee therefore is able to work upon this weak body and to set upon it the stamp of incorruption of glory of immortality and of strength Hee is able to doe it and his power will doe it according to his gracious promise We shall all be changed All we saith the Apostle chiefly this change shall be upon the Saints of God but yet it shall not be so restrained to them but that in part it shall extend to all men I told you in the opening of the Text that the Reprobates shall have their part in this change for their bodies shall be made uncorrupt and immortall but not to glory and beauty not to comfort and consolation as the bodies of the Saints shall but to extremity and misery Like as a brick which lies in the fire continually and is alway burning and yet never consumed or as that Axbestam which the Philosopher speaks of which is not consumed but is able continually to abide the fire so the bodies of those that doe â—ot feare the Lord and worship him the earthly tabernacles of theirs shall be made durable of paine but not capable of honour and glory They shall be made capable of no comfort and yet they shall not be spoyled and consumed by any paine and sorrow that shall lie upon them This change therefore Vse we must desire the Lord that it may be for the better and not for the worse That seeing there shall and must be a change of these bodies that it would please the Lord to change us from these frailties and miseries that we now live in to the blessed joy and hope which he hath called his children unto And that wee may be capable of this we must desire God to make a change of us in this life for the Lord shall change all things hee is the changer of us he is unchangeable himselfe all things else he shall change Psal 102. Thou shalt change the heavens and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy yeares never faile So that the Lord being onely immutable and the same for ever it is hee that works the change upon all things Wee see in the common course of our life what changes hee works in our ages hee changes childhood to youth and that to manhood and thence to old age A strange and various change In our Climates there is Winter and Summer there is day and night there is stormy and faire weather Wondrous changes bee also in matters politique and civill he turnes warre into peace he changeth peace into warre it is he that suffers Nation to rise against Nation all the changes in the world come from God So wee must imagine in our bodies that shall be changed that all shall be wrought by his owne hand Vse This must teach us first to desire God to make a happy change in our soules before hee make the change in our bodies For there can never be a comfortable change in any mans body except first there be a precedent and a president change in the soule For except the soule be changed from worse to better from wickednesse to holinesse of life it is impossible for a man to looke for a good change of his body where there is no precedent change in his soule Therefore while wee are in this life wee are to looke for this change If the Lord change thy soule from sinfulnesse to holinesse thou maiest bee sure thy body also shall bee changed to happinesse and immortality and glory If thy soule be not changed but thou art worse and worse verily thou shalt have a change in the Resurrection but it shall bee unto dismalnesse to fearefulnesse and to distraction so that a man had better never have beene borne than to be
then bring a mighty Armado out of the bowels of the earth which in the conceit of men were gone they were given as lost for ever But the Lord shall then bring forth such an infinite army as doth exceed the wit and conceit of man to imagine For our thousands we shall have millions nay for our single persons we shall have millions at that day And those that shall survive at the comming of the Lord they shall be but a handfull in respect of the mighty army which the Lord shall raise and remount out of the earth which shall then pay her tribute with which the Lord hath intrusted her Here therefore he shewes the manner how this shall be done and he shewes the great difference between the trumpet of God and the trumpets of men For though they be both taken in a simile from war yet there is infinite difference in thē The trumpet of man summons and calls onely those that are living souldiers it calls the living to be at such an houre present in the battaile to follow their colours and to keep their ranks But the trumpet of God cals the dead themselves by a strange sound It shall penetrate the bowels of the earth and shall speak unto dust and ashes which is dissolved to nothing to rise and come in presence before the Emperour to come before God Againe there is another marvailous difference When the trumpets of men sound then the armies gather together and kill and murther each other there is nothing but death and murther slaughter vastation and destruction But the trumpet of God it calls men to no death but to life and sense and glory and abilities So contrary is the Trumpet of the Lord to the trvmpet of man and yet it hath some similitude and diverse conveniences with it which that I may in order observe Division into 6. parts We will first consider what this trumpet is Secondly why it is called the last trump in respect and difference to some other And thirdly what this trumpet shall doe when it shall sound for the trumpet shall sound Origen Origen translates it well the trumpet shall trump so the Greek words have it That is it shall sound after one manner after the musick that God shall appoint to sound out of such a hollow long musicall instrument and what shall be the effect of it in the substance and the matter for it shall be a voice significant that men may understand it Fourthly the effect and operation of it that so soone as the trumpet shall sound over the whole world presently the dead shall rise incorruptible The very wicked themselves shall then be incorruptible as concerning the integrity and perfectnesse of their members but not as concerning the happinesse and joy which the children of God shall be possest of Fiftly the Apostle shewes us the reason of all this For saith hee it behooves it should be thus for it must needs be so It must needs be so both in respect that it is impossible for this corrupt body to enter into incorruption unchanged and because also that congruity stands with divine justice that that body which had been before corrupt should be invested with and put on incorruption that every man might take and receive his reward or punishment according as he hath done in this corrupt flesh Lastly we are to consider the sweet metaphor in the word to put on Where the Lord shews us that now wee have the rags of corruption upon our backs we have this flesh but instead of that God will give us that blessed garment that fine linnen spoken of Rev. 19. Rev. 19.8 that fine silke that is the justification of Christ which shall be unto us as the soul is to the body a perpetuall rich vesture to keep us from the wrath of God and to preserve us in eternall happinesse for ever Of these things briefly and inorder as it shall please God to give assistance 1 Part. What Trumpet this is First concerning the word here used a Trumpet That the word trumpet doth signifie either properly the instrument musicall for the gathering of men together or metaphorically something else that doth the like office every man easily understands But in which of these senses it is here to be used it is not easily determined For it is very likely that indeed the meaning of the holy Ghost is that there shall be properly a trumpet that shall sound a very materiall trumpet although perhaps it shall not be of the same matter and metall that ours is of yet notwithstanding it shall be some kinde of instrument that God shall prepare to make the like sound as a trumpet doth And that this is likely to be true the letter will carry it The letter must never be shunned except there be some kinde of inconvenience that will follow upon the literall exposition For where there is no absurdity or inconvenience wee are bound in conscience to expound the Scriptures in a literall sense and where it includes any absurdity wee are to leave the literall sense and to take another which is analogicall But here because the letter will carry it and chiefly because the Apostle repeats it twice it is a great argument that it shall be a true materiall trumpet For first the Apostle saith in the verse going before the last trumpet and then hee shews the effect of this trumpet it shall blow or sound Our Lord Christ useth the same word in Mat. 24. Mat. 24.31 and St. Paul expresseth the same in 1 Thes 4. 1 Thes 4.16 Therefore it is an argument that properly and truly it is to be understood a trumpet as we in our sense doe apprehend it although the matter and effects and use of it be higher then any trumpet in the world Againe another reason is this When the Law was given in Exod. 19. Exod. 19.16 there was a trumpet with a high shrill voice which increased more and more I demand what that was Surely it was not made of metall or any artificiall composition as those that we have yet the Lord made it in the clouds even the sound of a trumpet he made it more exact and perfect by his power than any man can doe by art and invention Therefore as then at the promulgation of the Law there was a true distinct noise of a trumpet sounding that the people perceived and conceived it to be the voice of a trumpet so likewise when the new law shall be given that is when the fulnesse of all things is come at the Resurrection of the dead there shall be a created voice which shall be loud and it is likely that it shall be a true materiall trumpet Notwithstanding perhaps not after the common frame of men yet it shall be so ordered as that a man may distinguish it and say it is the voice of no other instrument but of a trumpet Lastly it appeares by this in that the great
have been carelesse and negligent in his wayes before so God shall take the advantage and come upon them upon the Sabbath day and upon the Sabbath day at night when men use quietest and with greatest repose to lay themselves to rest It is the last trump And why is it called the last trump Because God will have no more messages to man When the trumpet hath sounded there shall be no more newes nor no more intercourse between God and man Till that trumpet sound there is a daily intercourse betweene heaven and earth the Lord sends us newes by his word he sends us newes by his Sacraments by his punishments and afflictions by his blessings and fatherly preservations The world is full of his gracious trumpets which are ever sounding either to make us better and to bring us from sinne or else to discourage and harden us if wee goe on in our ill doings Still there is an entercourse betweene God and man but when the last trump shall blow all such entercourse shall cease Those that have done well shall goe into life Mat. 25.46 and shall have the perfect vision of God without any more newes or message from God to them and those that have done ill shall goe into everlasting fire and shall have a continuall privation and absence of God without any hope of seeing his face any more This is called the last trump because that after the trumpet hath blowne there shall be no more change in the dealings and affaires betweene heaven and earth I see the time almost past 3 Part. What sound the trumpet shall give I come therefore to the next thing what the trumpet shall sound For if the voice shall be sensible then it must needs have some signification and must utter something that men must understand For it is not enough to say that it is a voice of a trumpet an inarticulate and generall sound and no word for it cannnot be so And though the trumpet of God shall sound it shall not be so dull but it shall have a more sweet and significant impression to teach men what they have to doe Therefore the Fathers have gone so farre as to expresse what words the Trumpet shall sound St. Ierome Jerome and some of the Fathers with him say the words that the trumpet shall sound shall be Arise ye dead and come to judgement Therefore saith hee I am so possest with this I am so possest with the assurance of this that to what place soever I goe if I goe to my study if I walke if I eate or drinke if I lie downe to sleepe whatsoever I encline my selfe to me thinks I ever heare in my eares the voice of the trumpet sounding Arise yee dead and come to judgement But the holy Father may seeme to speake rather out of a high straine of fervent zeale by allusion than of any certainty that the trumpet shall so sound Theophilact Theophilact saith the trumpet shall sound to this effect Draw neare for the Iudge is at hand the Iudge is before the doore prepare your selves As Isay saith The voice of a cryer Esay 40.3 Prepare you the way of the Lord make his paths straight This indeed is more agreeable to the Scriptures Iohn Baptist that prepared the way before Christ he was a type and figure of the Angell Gabriel that shall found the trumpet to prepare the way of the Lord and shall give a sensible and significant note what hee would have men to doe But this it is sufficient for us to point at because wee know not the certainty of it It shall be such a voice as shall give sufficient warning it shall be a voice that shall be sensibly perceived the intendment of it shall runne over all reasonable eares there is none shall be so deafe or so dull but they shall heare and apprehend the meaning of it But what word it is whether it shall be articulate or no it is not left for us to enquire after Howbeit wee honour the invention of the holy Fathers because they tend something to the rectifying of manners and for the stirring up of mens affections for this purpose 4 Part. The effect Now followes the effect and operation of it when the trumpet shall blow The dead shall rise incorruptible This is that wondrous effect that the trumpet of God hath this is the great difference between the trumpet of God and the trumpets of men For they worke death and destruction when they blow and sound to the warres but this trumpet of God shall sound to life and immortality But this shall not be in the power of the instrument but it shall have this force by the power of God and from the power of Christ unto whom God hath given all judgement and power to raise and to change the quick and the dead But what is this that he saith The dead shall rise incorruptible Some think it is onely meant of the Saints because all this discourse of the Resurrection as Beza Beza and some other Divines observe is restrained to the Saints But the former part of the Apostles discourse is more large and so also may this be taken that not onely the bodies of the Saints shall be incorrupt but also the bodies of the wicked But how Saith St. Austin they shall be in the fulnesse of perfection of the parts and members they shall all rise incorruptible they shall have bodies that shall never be obnoxious to corruption and destruction but shall last and indure in the fire for ever They shall have a braine and a wit that shall never be dissolved they shall have a memory that shall never forget their wickednesse and sinnes that they have done and the blasphemies they have committed against God and the abominable actions they have done in the tabernacle of this flesh They shall have the proportion also of men and women in their true frame and proper stature and not as being lame or blind or the like as perhaps some of them died But they shall be raised in the fulnesse and perfection of their members and parts howbeit it shall be so as it may most dispose them to eternall torments that they may be able to indure that is all the reason why God raiseth them uncorruptible that they may be able to indure the corrupting causes For those causes that seeme to corrupt any thing in the world as sorrow and feare and malice and vexation and torture of the flesh which a man would think in time would bring any thing to an end yet they shall not be able to corrupt them Therefore saith St. Austin Aug. though they shall be raised incorruptible yet after a sort they shall be corrupted by the paine and torment which they shall indure But how Not to be brought to a worstnesse or destruction but they shall have an eternall life to suffer misery Let us labour therefore Vse and desire of
is done as it is certaine it shall bee done for wee have Gods word and promise for it wee have the appetite of the matter which still calls and cries to God for a forme and we have the Lord ingaged by example and president and by the head and first fruits Christ Iesus the head when this is done Then shall bee fulfilled that which was spoken As if he should say I speake not these things to you of my selfe and out of my owne Apostolicall authority which I might stand upon but I speake them out of the writings of those men that were illuminated by the same Spirit from the writing of the holy Prophets Then shall be fulfilled that which was spoken or written That word that word of grace that word of promise that word which is able to make the dead revive and the word is this that Death is swallowed up into victory Where observe First who wrote this And then the substance of the words Concerning the first the Apostle defends his authority from ancient times to teach us what we are to doe in like cases But this is a common obvious point I will not insist upon it Concerning the Author Isay and Hosea are alledged for it some holding with the one some with the other Certainely it is in Isay in the true intimation according to the word Isay 25.8 Isay 25.8 where God promiseth the people a deliverance out of the Captivity of Babylon He saith God shall destroy death for ever he hath swallowed up death for ever or to victory for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 netsahh may signifie both entrance into length of time or else victory Because victory properly respects the time and that is true victory which is not to be dashed nor daunted with any time that is the most perfect victory that is not daunted in any time So in this respect the word time and victory is taken in the holy Tongue for the same and that which the Septuagint here translates the one the Apostle in the Text translates the other Although indeed the Apostle follow the Septuagint yet they have another translation besides which is God shall swallow up death for ever So the Prophet Isays words I take to be the best and the fittest Hos 13.14 The other in Hosea is in Hos 13.14 where the verse following after my Text is repeated expresly but the words of this verse of my Text is not there to bee found Therefore this I take to be the word of Isay Observe now what the word is that hee useth for it it is full of life it brings men from temporall things to the expectation of things eternall The Lord speakes to them of a great feast that they should make after their comming up out of the Land the Apostle takes it to set forth the eternall feast For it is to no purpose to have these temporall things and to bee swallowed up of death and hell The Apostle teacheth us therefore what construction wee should make of the blessings of God in this life to extend them in a high sense They are never sweet till then The bread that wee eat should make us mindefull of the bread of heaven that is of the glorious presence of God which shall for ever delight us And the honours and preferments that wee have here except they signifie to us those glorious and stately seates of glory hereafter they are rather plagues and punishments then blessings By death there in the Prophet is meant the generall Captivity but the Apostle takes it for the death of the body To victory is the terme and manner whereto it shall bee swallowed But I should be too troublesome to enter upon them now FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.54 Then shall bee fulfilled that word which is written Death is swallowed up into victory Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory WHat is so weak and againe what is so strong as a Christian man saith St. Ambrose Ambros Hee is exceedingly weake because hee is subject to any temptation and incomparably strong because hee can triumph over death it selfe which is the triumpher over all mankind For what can he feare that is fearelesse of death and what is able to insult over him that can insult over that which is the last of all terribles which is the dissolution of nature Thus the Lord hath tempered in the same vessell great infirmity and great valour that hee might shew his owne strength for in mans weaknesse is Gods strength consummate The Apostle therefore to prove those wonderfull things which hee had said before that this corruptible must put on the garment of incorruption this mortall must put on the weed of immortality he doth now as it were bring into the minds of the Corinthians the present spectacle hee lifts up their hearts to view it as a thing acted and done before their eyes As he saith to the Galathians Gal. 3.1 that Iesus Christ was crucified before their eyes whom they never saw crucified but hee was so lively described unto them by his Gospel that he saith they saw it acted and saw him really crucified and all the passages of his death and passion So now he would bring the hearts and minds of the Corinthians to such a kind of contemplation as to see the Lord God raising up the dead and to see the dead putting on their new garments their new coat of immortality and incorruption He represents all to the eye and when hee hath so done hee brings in a kinde of insultation a verse that they were wont to sing in victories and triumphs 1. Sam. 18.7 As in the triumph of David over Goliah the women sang Saul hath slaine his thousand but David his ten thousand so the Saints of God as St. Chrysostome saith Chrysost Dost thou see saith he what a generous spirit is in the holy Apostle how hee paints before the eyes of the people this most noble and divine indowment this garment of incorruption and immortality and behold how he himselfe is rapt And in that most heavenly and strange rapture as a man inspired from heaven he insults over death lying under his feet and treads upon the head of him that treads downe all things else and cries over him Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory This is the song of the Church and that song which the Saints of God desire with full contentment to sing and it is given to all them that are true hearted to the Lord to sing this song with a full resolution But when the time is come that it should be sung the weaknesse of our nature perhaps will not suffice to it For it is one thing for a man to bee valiant when he is in health and it is another thing when the fit and when the storme takes him then to appeare that which hee professed himselfe to be before
there are but few that can come in the houre of death to make this insultation But all should aspire for it and looke after it and should desire God to inable them to doe thus as St. Paul speaketh and as many Saints and Martyrs have in their martyrdome insulted over death with these words For this was often the motto in their mouthes Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory Division into five Parts Now that we may proceed in order First wee are to consider that which hee saith the word shall be fulfilled which was written And then where it is written And thirdly what it is that is written Death is swallowed up into victory And fourthly when this shall bee performed Then then when our bodies are changed and this corruptible hath put on incorruption 1. Cor. 15. and this mortall hath put on immortality then shall bee fulfilled this saying And lastly the use and ground of all that is to take heart and courage for these things are written for consolation A man that can take no comfort against death shall never have any comfort any time of his life if there were no joy in our death there could bee none in our life Therefore all this is to renew the spirits of Gods children and to make them undaunted when that great and common Adversary shall ceaze upon them The Insultation is in the 55. verse 1. Part. The fulfilling of the prophecy which is taken out of Hosea 13.14 Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory Of these parts briefly and in order as it shall please God to give assistance And first concerning the fulfilling of the Prophesie The holy Apostle would raise up the Saints of God to applaud and to take delight and to gratulate one another to see the fulfilling of Prophesies come to an end For all Prophesies must bee fulfilled Matth. 24 35. and though heaven and earth should passe away yet no jote and tittle of the Law and the Prophets can passe till all bee fulfilled and accomplished Now the Apostle brings to their minde those sweet prophesies of former time whereby he concludes the certainty of these things which he now delivers to them For there is no greater contentment to any man that is a true judicious Reader of the Scriptures then this to see that the things promised in the Gospel are not yesterday matters they bee no new things no late devises but they be almost as ancient as the world they are drawne out of the treasures of God in former ages by the holy Prophets that spake in former times what should come to passe in the fulnesse of time And as St. Pauls manner is still hee confirmes his doctrine by the precedent doctrine of the Prophets so here in this saith St. Chrysostome speaking many infinite incredible things it was needfull for him to set to a seale and to conclude all with the authority of some Author that had gone before And he tells them this is a word written It is a book-case it is no new thing which he saith but that which God had inspired before into the holy Prophet Isay and the Prophet Hosea and divers others concerning the same doctrine that he reveales unto them Therefore to conclude this point Vse We should learne by this example to confirme our faith to incourage our selves by the constancy of Gods word the constant truth which hath beene from age to age And that is it which must settle and stablish if there were any thing which swerved from the common custome or any thing that were new then wee might doubt whether it were from God or no. But because in all things it is so consonant to it selfe and God is the same God of the Old Testament and of the New it is a great confirmation to us to keepe us from doubting and from many scruples which Satan the enemy of mankind suggests unto us 2. Part. Whore this is written But where this word is written or who is the Authour of it as I said Divines doe diversly interpret Some thinke it is from Isay some thinke it is from Hosea and some that it is a writing from them both that it is two testimonies It is not unlikely that his purpose was to cite both the Prophets two of them together Matth. 18.16 that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word might bee established Therefore the first part of the sentence is taken out of Isay the second part out of Hosea That in Isay is Isay 25.8 Isay 25.8 you shall see there the Lord makes a banquet to his Church and the conclusion of that heavenly banquet is this God shall destroy death for ever hee shall swallow up death into victory as it is here spoken His meaning and purpose is there to speake of the deliverance from the captivity of Babylon but because there is no use in these temporall blessings except wee referre them to spirituall for these outward things be but as earnests of greater graces which God hath reposed for us in a better world therefore the argument followes As the common Tenent of the Scriptures hold still that from things present wee may argue things to come and from things temporall wee may prove to our selves the assurance of things spirituall So the deliverance out of the captivity of Babylon did signifie to them and was an assurance of the deliverance from hell of the deliverance from the bondage of destruction of the deliverance from the bondage of sin and the bondage of death Therefore the Apostle translates that according to the meaning of the Prophet which raiseth Gods people to understand that they had greater enemies to encounter with then Babylon And if God should have stayed his hand there and have given them a meere deliverance out of Babylons countrey they should be no better then men of a few dayes continuance For they must die after that deliverance and they had greater enemies then Babylon was from whom they must desire to bee delivered and whom they stood in feare of which would draw a more dangerous consequence then all their enemies else besides For Babylon could but inthrall their bodies and that but for a time but hell would destroy both body and soule for ever Therefore God saith hee would destroy death hee would destroy the death of the body and the death of the soule the first death and the second death and he would swallow both into victory That is the death of Christ should get the mastery of them that they should never need to feare them afterward they should bee so couched in silence that they should have no power nor strength remaining in them but they shall bee as though they had never beene they shall be so obliterate Now for the other place Hosea 13.14 Hosea 13.14 where the Prophet discourseth strangely after a wondrous and hidden manner For I think there was
no other noise nor voice rang among them but victorie victorie and though they lost many men that were slaine and heard of the death of many of their friends yet they were content to offer the lives of their friends in that common sacrifice so the victory might be pronounced amongst them So we reade of Rome and Athens and especially of Carthage for the newes of a victory that they had over the Romanes they did nothing for a whole moneth together but goe with garlands on their heads and celebrate festivalls as men with exceeding joy transported out of themselves For this purpose also the great Conquerours called many Cities after that name by the name of victory as the City of Nice where the first Counsell was kept it signifieth victory and Nicosia-Stratonica and Verturia Thessalonica and many other Cities had their names given them of their victories and the great Captaines would call themselves Nicanors and by the like names victorious men And those that bore the victory they still wore garlands which were alway greene because they would have their names and conquests never to wax old but be alway greene therefore they had their garlands of Laurell So wee see how the world use to be have themselves in victory how they are never daunted with any thing nor grieved with any thing if they may have the victory they are content to lose the life of their best friends This should teach us to apply these things in a spirituall sense to be as wise in our generation as the world is in their generation we were so desirous of victory and so desperate for it that wee would have given all things to be made partakers of it we would have given the first fruits of our bodies for the sinnes of our soules thousands of rammes and ten thousand rivers of oyle that wee might be made victors of this grisly monster but we were not able to do it nay rather then we would not have the victory we were content to lose the life of our Chieftaine Christ Iesus who slept in death that we might ever wake unto life eternall wee were content that he should die for us and the hands of us all were in his bloud we were content that he should die that death by him might be swallowed up into victorie Let us therefore entertaine this glorious motion into our soules let us lift up our heads with melody to God let us know that nothing can make against us now because wee have the victory a constant and perfect victory where there is no enemy resides or remaines The princes of this world have but halfe victories the enemy runs away from them and comes and makes head again and comes the next yeare with a greater force But God when he gets a victory he leads captivity captive he leaves no possibility of rising againe but hee strikes to the maine he strikes the adversary to the heart he cuts off stub and stock of all likelihood and probability that there should not be any fear of it afterward he takes away the essence of the thing and so he makes an absolute victory The Insultatiō Now followes the Insultation whereunto God would raise a christian mans heart Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory These words that be in the vocative case in the Apostles writing in the Prophet are in the accusative I will be death unto death and I will be destruction against hell Here the Apostle understanding the purpose of the holy Ghost teacheth us not too much to be tyed to the letter of the Scripture but to the sense and meaning he takes out these two hee singles them out and sets them downe in the constancy of his spirit as though they were two personated enemies Death and Hell that is death and the grave for hee speaks here of the resurrection of the dead of such as are dead in Christ and they shall never come to hell therefore although the word be translated Sheol hell yet it is here taken for the grave onely whereunto the godly goe as well as the ungodly to hell goe not the godly but the ungodly they goe to the grave which is the common receptacle of all and it is a degree of misery and mischiefe that after a man hath lost his ability when he hath lost his life and power when he hath lost his colour and glory and perfection to be thrust down as a brute beast into a pit and to lie there and rot and putrifie therefore because these two are the most shamefull enemies the one to rid a mans body of the precious soule that is in it and the other to bring upon him the most foule and beastly condition of rottennesse the Apostle singles them both out and insults upon them as upon dead Captaines as upon them that are not able any more to strike a stroke but lie devoid of all power and upon their heads he brings forth this insulting sentence Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory Oh death where is thy sting thou that hast stung all the men in the world as we know death is painted with a dart in his hand to sting and to strike to the heart to deprive men of their life to take away the heart bloud of men thou that stingest men with sicknesse and takest away their vitall spirits oh death now thy sting is dulled it is broken in pieces it hath no edge it hath no point it can effect nothing further And thou grave which wast wont to have the victory which wast wont to be so victorious as to make the fairest faced dames and the goodliest beauty in the world to bring to dust and ashes to beat a man to powder to bring a man to dust which is the greatest victory that can be to drive a man to dust thou that wast so absolute a victor where is now thy glory and victory as if he should say it is no where it is altogether vanished away there is no appearance nor any more power nor life in thee to worke death we are secured from thee for ever wee are freed from thy sting that thou shalt no more strike us to death with thy dart And thou grave thy victory to turne us to dust is nothing all these are taken out of thy hands for ever So this is the glorious triumphant song which the Church of God hath ever sung over this Conquerour there were two enemies that fought a strange duell that was the death of Christ and the death of nature the Leader of the victorious army died yet notwithstanding he lives for ever the leader of the conquered and banished army killed him and yet notwithstanding he dies for ever for so according to Heb. 2.14 Heb. 2.14 the Lord appointed that by death the Lord Christ should destroy him that had the power of death that is the devill For the devill by means of a commission that
when they see a Beare or a Lion or a Wolfe dead in the street they will pull off his haire and insult over him and deale with them as they please they will trample upon their bodies being dead which they durst not looke upon when they were alive Such a thing is death it is a furious Beast a rampant Lion a devouring Wolfe which consumes all the world The Lord hath laid him now at his length he hath laid him dead that he is unable ever to have life againe and so the very children saith St. Chrysostome are able to insult over him That wee have had Martyrs saith hee of 14. or 15. yeares old which have offred themselves to the fire and to the sword and to all the passions of this hungry beast they have offered themselves to the devourers with a willing imbrace and have played upon him which is the common swallower of all mankind as Theophylact saith well We doe still devour and swallow up death by the faith that wee have in the life of Christ for that faith makes us so constant as that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus as the holy Apostle saith Rom. 8. Rom. 8.35 What shall separate us from the love of God shall tribulation or persecution or sword or hunger or cold or nakednesse shall Angels or life or death things present or to come life or death No none of these are able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus our Lord But these things are easily spoken and as long as we be in Theories so long as we bee in Contemplation wee may easily subscribe to them but who is hee that is able to doe thus when the time serves That is in the hand of the great God to give the garland whensoever it shall please him It must be our ambition to seek for it to intreat the Lord to crowne us with that victory with that heavenly valour which himselfe hath promised to all that love him Apoc. 2.17 I will give him the crowne of life and blessed is hee that continueth to the end for hee shall eat of that hidden Mannah and shall flourish as a tree in the Paradice of God But it lies not in us to continue neither therefore he that gives the end must also give the meanes and the same prayer that sues for the one must also beg and intreat for the other all this comes from God from the true love that wee have to Christ from the hope that we have in him to partake of his victory from our beleeving and confessing that God hath raised up Christ from the dead For if thou beleeve with thy heart and confesse with thy mouth that God hath raised up Christ from the dead thou shalt bee saved If wee beleeve that this victory of Christ is for ever accomplished wee shall be saved If thou beleeve although thou must doe many other things which are conditionall to salvation yet this is the maine point beleeve in the Conquerour and the conquest is thine hee conquered not for himselfe but for thee to make the spirits of his Saints conquer in heaven and to make their bodies also to reigne with him there when he shall appeare Col. 3 4. for when the Lord Iesus shall appeare we shall also appeare with him in glory See the extent and latitude of his conquest When God takes a field hee takes it for all the world not for one countrey as earthly Princes doe but all commers from the East and West and North and South shall yeeld unto the Lord and rest under his shadow Even all Nations a tot quot The Dinner of the great King refuseth no guests and rather then they will want guests and the Feast shall be unfurnished he will send to the hedges and highwayes to bee searched to come and fill his Table whereunto hee calleth by the Gospel and whereunto he bring us for his Sonnes sake Amen FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.56 The sting of death is sinne and the strength of sinne is the Law but God bee thanked that giveth us the victory through our Lord Iesus Christ TO bragge before the victory begotten before the field bee wonne it was ever held a most vaine presumption as the King of Israel said to the King of Syria Let not him that buckleth on his armour bragge as he that puts it off For there is nothing more uncertaine then the events of warre and oft times when mighty men promise to themselves the assurance of the victory they faile and come to be foiled Yet notwithstanding so great is the confidence of St. Pauls spirit and so great is the assurance that wee have in Christ Iesus our Lord that wee dare boldly insult over death and proclaime the victory although our selves must bee vanquished For this most noble and gracious Triumpher over death hee lies in the grave he lies in the dust as well as wee must doe and there is no difference to the sight of flesh and blood betweene the ashes of St. Paul and the ashes of another common man and yet notwithstanding the Spirit of God was so mighty and potent in him and the faith of the things to come did so represent unto him the things promised that as though the matter were now presently performed he insults over death and takes upon him the person of a man new risen again from the dead As St. Ierom well speaks hee supposeth that those times that bee long to come and God knowes how long he supposeth that they were come in his time and as it were in the person of a man newly risen newly raised from death he begins Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory So the holy Father tells us that the words should bee then rise in every mans mouth when God shall raise them out of their graves to that incorruption and that immortality which this corruptible and this mortall must put on It shall be the speech in every mans mouth then as being triumphant over death Oh death whre is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory Thou hast had victory over my poore bones and body a long time but what is it now thou hast lost it for evermore In these victories in the world there is no certainty because that which they call fortune is so changeable as it seldome setteth up one man but anon it raiseth another to pull him downe againe So the victories are fading and passing away and he that is a Conqueror is conquered and made a slave to those that formerly were his inferiours Ignarius it is said had a great victory over the Cimbri and Tutons yet hee fell shortly after into the hands of Scilla that conquered him and Scilla that was once the Sunne-rising when Pompey once appeares he becomes the Sunne-setting And if Pompey were never so famous a Victor as there was none more glorious
in his time yet at last hee shall fall and be conquered by the hand of Caesar and by his prowesse be outed both of his honours and of his life And Caesar himselfe in the height of all that glory that can come upon a man in this world there was never any before him or the like shall bee after him yet hee could not hold his state but he falls into the hands of Conspirators a sort of bloody murtherers that shall kill him in his Counsell-chamber so uncertaine are the smiles of this world that there is no victory constant but still she flies moves and changes her tent and tabernacle from one side to another therefore there can bee no boasting or bragging in these earthly and worldly conquests which hath made the wisest Emperours of the world after they have had a good gale of fortune as they call it after they have prospered a while for feare of crosse blowes after they have left their honours and betaken them to a solitary life to live in Monasteries lest they should have a foule end after such goodly and faire proceedings But in this case in this victory that wee now speake of there is no uncertainty there is no inconstancy to be feared Ianus Temple is shut for ever They had a custome among the Romans they worshipped a certaine god which they thought was the Lord and Tutor of their City which they called Ianus which had in Rome a great Temple the doores whereof stood open all the while they were in warres and shut in all the time of peace and they were so cumbred with warre for 800. yeares together that in all that time the doores of Ianus Temple were but thrice shut they were alway open to shew that the warres were open and therefore they gave their god leave to goe out and in to succour them or else they thought his arme could not reach his power could not extend to their ayde See the ridiculous and foolish vanities of the Heathen when the warres were ceased they shut the doores to keepe in their god there was no use of him then Now this Temple I say for 800. yeares was in all that time but three times shut First in the time of Numa Pompilius Secondly in the time of Tytus Maneus as Tytus Livius saith after the Carthaginian warre And thirdly by Augustus Caesar But when the time shall come when God shall give to this corruption incorruption and to this mortall immortality then there shall be for ever a cessation of warre The Temple of Ianus shall never more be opened it shall be shut for everlasting there shall bee no cause of warre but the people of God shall bee in perfect peace with the Lord and shall live under the defence of his protection they shall live secure for ever Plutarch saith when Philip King of Macedon had gotten a great victory at Cheronia hee wrote to Archimedes and hee used lofty speeches in his letter as being proud and puffed up with his late victory Archimedes replies to him no more but this Sir saith hee you write stately to mee in high termes and I partly know the reason of it but if you will take the paines but to measure your owne shadow you shall find that it is no more that it is no greater nor no larger then it was before your victory You were as great a man then and as many inches about as you are now And it is true in worldly things Chance as they call it is so variable that no man can tell how hee shall begin or how he shall end but in this victory which the Lord vouchsafes us in Christ Iesus it holds not for the victory that we shall have there shall make our shadowes greater and it shall make our persons more honourable and fuller of power and majesty 1. Cor. 15.44 For it is sowen in dishonour it riseth againe in honour It is sowen in weaknesse it riseth again in power The victory therefore that we have in Christ it is not like the victory that Philip the King of Macedon got that his shadow was no bigger then before but this victory in Christ is a great enlarger of man and of all the parts and faculties in him that hee is not like himselfe as hee was before no more then an honourable thing is like a dishonourable or a strong thing is like unto a weake Now to come to the Order Oâ—der of the words read unto you here the holy Apostle explains that which he had said before when hee insulted over death A man might ask what is the reason thou takest upon thee so much seeing death shall conquer thee as well as other men and thou must die as well as the rest that have gone before thee To give a reason therefore of it he shewes that it was no presumption or idle imagination of himselfe but it was a thing conferred unto him by the power of Christ and his Gospel For saith hee I have good reason to insult as I did I know when that blessed time shall come wee shall have no enemies against us If there should be any enemy it should be either death or sinne or the law But there shall be none of these and therefore there shall bee no enemy but a perpetuall end and issue of man for ever There shall bee no death for why because there shall be no sinne for the sting of death is sin and death cannot come upon man but by the wrath of God which is conceived for sinne which being taken away death must needs cease for the worke ending the wages must needs end and the wages of sinne is death But how will you prove that there shall bee no sinne Because there shall be no law for the strength of sinne is the Law and the Lord shall give that glory to the bodies that shall rise that they shall not need any Law but they shall be a law to themselves and every man shall love God and please God not by constraint not by the terrours of the Law and Commandement but from the ducture of his owne free-spirit that shall leade and conjoyne and make him one spirit with the Lord. Therefore that which the holy Apostle said before is most constant and true that because there shall bee no enemies then left therefore we may boast in the Lord our God which hath given us perfect victory over all our enemies and there shall be no enemie left because there shall be neither sin which is the grand cause the Arch-enemy of mankind for that is taken away by the righteousnesse of Christ who knew no sinne he that knew no sinne God made him sinne for us that we might be made the righteousnesse of God Mark it saith the holy Apostle that we might be made the righteousnesse of God When was Christ made sinne for us In this miserable life and when shall we be made the righteousnesse of God In that blessed life Therefore
the wofull calamity of our nature over which we must desire God to give us the victory and behold it followes in the Text But thanks be to God which hath given us victory through Iesus Christ our Lord. Which words I can but enter into of the gift or blessing which is vouchsafed victory Victory is alwayes welcome but especially when it is atchieved against a dangerous enemy The child of God is borne to be a Conquerour as St. Iohn saith 1 Iohn 5.4 1 Iohn 5.4 Every thing that is born of God overcommeth the world Every thing that is borne of God where the Fathers observe that the Apostle speaks in generall he speaks in the neuter gender to shew that there is no man that is so meane or so vile and base of whatsoever condition he be that he may rather be called a thing than a man yet that he hath the spirit of grace by that hee is able to encounter and overcome the world and this victory that wee have it is over such powerfull enemies as that except God had promised it except God should worke it all the power in heaven and earth could not attain unto it A man that is borne a Conquerour over his owne corruptions and over himselfe he is greater than ever was the greatest conquerour and it is better to be made in this kind a Victor over his owne passions than to be the universall Emperour of all the world Saith Seneca there are many men that have subdued Principalities Kingdomes Cities Townes and Countries and brought them under their owne masterie but there are few that have guided themselves but still there is a Tiger within them that disgraceth and obscureth their outward conquest by reason of the foule seethings and corruption in their owne flesh therefore for a man to get the victory and to overcome himselfe is to get the victory and to overcome all the world for man is a microcosme a little world as St. Austin saith thou maist obtaine the victory against thy selfe for thy selfe After a certaine wondrous manner God hath ordained a christian souldier a militant member of his Church to fight against himselfe for himselfe For hee that will lose his life saith Christ for my sake and the Gospels shall save it Hee that will lose his delights and his pleasures hee that will make warre with himselfe and will have no peace with his affections the Lord shall give him that peace that passeth all understanding and although hee kill his body with chastizing it yet it shall be saved in the day of the Lord St. Bern. saith St. Bernard The victory is thought and reputed in the world to be lost rather by flying than by dying for there are many men slaine in the field that are not accounted as cowards and fugitives or vanquished men because they died upon the place but when they quit the place when they fly and are not able to hold out in the field hee that remaines accounts himselfe the Victor because the rest are fled and vanished away So the spirituall victory in Christ it is lost by flying for we should rather die for God we should rather die in his zeale and for his glory and keep our standing than to yeeld and fly from the devill and our own corrupt affections and stoop to them then sathan gets the victory when wee cast away our weapons and play the loose scouts in the field There is no hope of victory in those actions Hee hath given us victory Over what hath he given us victory victory must be over some enemie I shewed you before the parties what they are now I am to shew you who they are that God hath given us the victory over over death over sinne over the law over death that there is not so much as a relique of it remaining there there is no hope that ever hee shall returne and make head againe that is a famous victory wherein the roots of future seditions are taken away and plucked up when there is nothing left for any hope of future rebellion When the Romanes had warred with the Carthagenians and oft times overcome them yet still within a while within 8. or 10. yeares or lesse they made head againe and stirred up new warres and so they had successive combustion And so in all the Nations of the world there are none that are so vanquished now but they may become conquerours hereafter The same thing that the Lord hath made an underling now may be the Head and Chieftaine in time to come But in this victory that we have over death it is without any hope or comfort on deaths part and without any feare of suffering on our part for it is so taken away as though it had never been and that which had the greatest triumph the mightiest trophees in the world unto which all Kings and Princes have bowed their heads and laid downe their scepters for all the goodly things in the world have been nothing else but the morsells of death I say this victorious enemie by the hand of Christ it shall be turned to a thing of nothing it shall have no name nor notion it shall be left without any hope of recovery It shall have no more strength to sting for the sting is gone The second enemy we shall have victory over is sin because the prince of this world sifted Christ to know whether hee were pure wheat or no and the Text saith he found nothing in him but he was as the finest flowre of wheat without all bran of corruption without all inclination to sinne being conceived and borne in perfect purity and living in the strength of that purity insomuch as hee defies all his adversaries hee challengeth them saying Who can accuse mee of sinne Because I say our blessed Saviour in all the parts of him had nothing but the light of purity in his eyes in his understanding in his tongue in his gesture in his words in his actions in his perseverance in all the parts of his doctrine in all the passages of his miracles there was nothing else but a fountaine and a world of purity therefore death incroaching by the malice and violence of sathan and the envy of the high priests upon him that had no sinne it lost all the power and government that it had before for taking away life from him that had no cause of death in him it follows therefore that it is justly exattorate and put out of place and hath lost his commission for ever for Christ overcame sinne by satisfying for it on his holy crosse and by his example in his holy life by giving a holy example to his Apostles and Disciples and all beleevers in the world Hee overcame sinne by drinking the cup of Gods wrath which by our sinnes was filled to him and he overcame sinne by his gracious example by the copie of his holy life and much more by his holy Spirit by which he diffuseth his grace
a meere Idoll And S. Ierome S. Jerom. speaking of this argument Thanks be to God that hath given us victory through Iesus Christ our Lord. For saith hee who was there to doe it but God Who was there to encounter all these enemies but Christ alone His friends forsooke him his Disciples left him Isay 45. as the Prophet saith It was I and none else that stood in the battaile Therefore saith S. Ierome S Jerom. to him alone belongs all the praise of the victory And S. Austin S. Aug. most heavenly and graciously discourseth of this point When I consider the victory of a Christian saith he which is this that his chiefe and deadly enemy is swallowed up by Death and by what death was he swallowed up by the death of life That is a strange saying that Death should be swallowed up by the death of life Why should I doubt to say that of God which God hath not doubted to doe for mee God hath certainly performed this for me therefore I may speake and affirme this of him What is the matter therefore that the Apostle saith wee may insult thus over Death and give thanks to God for the victory because saith he that Life being dead did kill Death the fulnesse of life did swallow up the bitternesse of death and all death and miserie is dissolved and consumed in the body of the Lord Iesus So S. Chrysostome saith In this great warre saith he the trophee was planted by the hand of the Lord himselfe he set downe the standard he set downe the place and note and mark where the enemy was discomfited and left the field But after that was done he cast out garlands as after the battaile is won after the field is won the Emperours devised Crownes and Garlands for those that had beene Conquerors with them But the Lord finding none there but he himselfe hee calls the by-standers wee that had not sought a stroke yet he vouchsafed to cast unto us Crownes and Garlands and hath made us to communicate and participate of that noble and glorious victory which himselfe hath only attained But this point of Doctrine must bee brought home more familiarly for this is true to those that be men of judgement and understanding they make no doubt of it but I must make it plaine to babes and sucklings How is it possible therefore that the victory of Christ which hee got over sinne and over death that it should be ours seeing both personall actions be uncommunicable that which is done by one person is not communicated to another person because the act is confined in him that did the act And seeing also that the children of God as long as they live in this world that they cannot be called Conquerours of their temptations for they are conquered many times and hee that is the best man in the world though he sometime overcome yet he is many times overcome too Nay almost the least temptation although it wound not a man to the heart yet it drawes blood of him as S. Iohn saith If we denie and say that we have no sinne we deceive our selves If we say he speakes of himselfe and the rest of his fellow Apostles 1 Ioh. 1.8 If wee say that there is not sinne in us that there doth not sinne remaine in us we lie and the truth of God is not in us we deceive our selves And the Apostle saith That hee was a miserable man himselfe under captivity Rom. 7.19 23. and that good thing that I would doe that doe I not and that evill thing that I would not doe that I doe What a miserable kinde of conquest is this Can a man be said to be a Conquerour in this miserable state when he can doe nothing that he would doe and doth all things that he would not doe How can this be agreeable Besides we see in the examples of the Children of God that they have had no conquest but have beene foyled What conquest had David over his great and grievous temptations We shall see almost nothing that was offered to him but he fell in it When he comes to be a Iusticiarie which is the easiest matter in the world to doe Iustice yet hee failed in that and gave to a false servant halfe his Masters good And when it came to a matter of revenge he failed in that too when hee made that rash vow that he would cut off from Naball all that turned to the wall besides the foule fall that hee had afterwards so that what victory had this man what victory had Manasses that afterwards was saved by the miracle of mercie What victory had hee over those murtherous attempts and conceits that he had whereby hee put to death many thousands of Gods children What conquest had Salomon when he was brought from his high wisedome to that low ebb when hee was brought to serve whores and devils and Idols and yet hee was a Type of Christ and is a true Saint in heaven The Thief on the Crosse what conquest or victory had he nothing in the world except we account that victory to controll his fellow thief and to stand speake a word for Christ To conclude this point seeing there is calling at the eleventh houre and as long as a man hath life he hath hope to be called to the service of God and many are not called untill the last period of their life It seems therefore that a Christian hath no conquest in this life for he is carried to doe that which he would not do and he cannot do that which he would do for al the examples in the Scriptures carrie us in a contrary streame How then is it said we have the cōquest victory For the first I answer thus where it is said that all actions personall are incommunicable It is true except they be generall persons If the man be a private peculiar person the action rests in himselfe but if he be a selected uniuersall chosen person the Action doth not rest in himselfe but it extends it selfe to a great multitude even to all that belong to him Such an one is Christ his Actions are not personall to be limited to himselfe but by way of merit they are applied and extended to all the world of Beleevers Wee may understand this by those things that God hath given us by the comparisons he hath made unto us in the Scriptures as being figures and fore-runners of his blessed Sonne In 1 Sam. 17.8 9. 1 Sam. 17.8.9 looke there at that mighty president the fight betweene Goliah and David which figured unto us the fight betweene the devill and the world and all adverse powers on the one side and the Lord Iesus our Chieftaine on the other side Marke what the Captaine of the Philistines saith Why saith he should we joyne our selves in battaile the whole Army let there be one man chosen out on either part and let us have a
us that are the children of Abraham although wee must study holinesse Heb. 12.14 without which no man shall see God and we must abhor all the works of darknesse and come into the light yet we are so fraile in this flesh that we cannot doe the one nor the other But miserable wretches we have two lawes the law of our members and the law of God and so we must conclude with the Apostle Rom. 7.25 I serve the law of God in my minde and spirit but the law of sinne with my members and yet hee concludes in this place thankes bee to God that gives us victory in Christ Iesus our Lord. To conculde this point It is the faith that a man holds in God the faith he hath in Christ that makes us Conquerers and gives us the victory It was this that armed the thiefe upon the Crosse when hee had done nothing all his life time but plaied the thiefe and robbed and oppressed and played his tragicall part in the world yet hee shewed himselfe to have one mite of faith in the end of his life and for that he was accepted And Christ saith unto him Luke 23.43 This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise That whereas the Pharisees and Priests and Scribes thought Christ to be justly executed and put to death yet notwithstanding hee put his faith in him and beleeved that hee was a King and that he had a great portion of glory reserved for him and that hee was able to communicate it to his followers therefore he desires to partake of that glory Luke 23.42 Lord remember me when thou commest into thy kingdome Now I come to the last point of the precedent verse Thanks be to God since wee have the victory in Christ Iesus our Lord that is since wee have both received the fulnesse of the conquest imparted to us and also the first fruits of the Spirit by which we are able to overcome though not fully to overcome yet to overcome by the power of his victory and to be accounted conquerers though we bee but cowards Thanks be to God for this great gift and mercy of imputation The holy Apostle saith Theodoret Theodoret. hath concluded all his discourse with a necessary line with thanksgiving and praise to God For indeed as wee are bound to thanke God for every thing that wee receive so much more for the chiefe and principall things that wee take from his hands There is no thing so gracious as this to be victors to bee borne to be Conquerers and to be conquerers over such enemies too as have conquered all the world this many thousand yeares together that in sight that there was nothing that domineered nor nothing got the victory but death and sinne and hell and to conquer these miscreants that had over-run all the world this is the hand of God which is to be rejoyced in and if there bee any blessing for us to blesse our soules in it is this that we are conquerers in Christ saith St. Austin Aug. For saith hee If I must thanke God for every petty benefit what greater reason can I have then to give thanks for chiefe and maine benefits The grace of God in Iesus Christ our Lord is that which gives us this victory Thanke God saith St. Bernard thanke not thy selfe St. Bern. thank not Saints thanke not Angels thanke not preparatory works thanke not foreseene merits thanke nothing else but let the praise rest wholly and totally in God It is he that did all therefore to him be given all praise and glory for ever and ever FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15. ult Therefore beloved brethren be stedfast and unmoveable abounding in the worke of the Lord alway because you know your labour is not in vaine in the Lord. WEE are come now to the conclusion of this Chapter which followes most naturally as Chrysostome saith Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast c. It is a true conclusion when a man hath fully proved the premises hee that concludes a thing before he hath argued well and proved the matter he discourseth of hee is either a foole or a falsarie for it must needs argue it is a lie when a man will ground upon uncertaine grounds It argueth also weaknesse in him when hee thinks hee hath perswaded without sufficient ground for there is no wise man will be perswaded without due confirmation and demonstration of those things that are argued Therefore now the Apostle comes in as an excellent Oratour to conclude not upon poore grounds nor upon weak evidences but upon strong perswasion and demonstration saith Tertullian Tertul. Hee useth all the strength of the holy Ghost to perswade to this powerfull article of the Resurrection his meaning is with all the power of the holy Ghost that he was capable of for else the power of the holy Ghost is as infinite as God himselfe is infinite But now when the Apostle had driven this doctrine home when he had so beat it into them as that there was no scruple left to any gainsayer or contradictor when he had shewed the cause of the Resurrection when he had shewed the maner of it when he had shewed the absurdities that would follow the contrary doctrine if men did doubt of it when hee had shewed the effects and consequents of it of that glorious incorruption and immortality when hee had proved it by force of holy Scriptures Oh death I will be thy death oh hell I will be thy destruction When he had set downe all these firme and maine presidents it is time for him now to bring in his conclusion He is a foolish builder that will set up the roofe of his house before the walls be built and he is an idle discourser that will offer to bring a thing into his Auditory upon any triviall reason but the Spirit of God teacheth us first to settle the understandings to perswade the minds of men by strong and puissant arguments and then to draw forth conclusions for hee must first move a mans senses and understanding and then draw his will for the will is alway plyable to the conclusion but the understanding is attentive to the demonstration All this while the Apostle had held the understanding giving demonstrative causes and such reasons as no man could contradict him in Now that being done he closeth with the will and that is easily brought if he can perswade the understanding therefore he saith Therefore my beloved brethren that is seeing these things are thus seeing I have told you the will of God in this point that Christ is risen himselfe and that he is risen so palpably that he was seene of more than five hundred brethren at once and that he is the Head of the body and that therefore all the members must be raised up at one time to come with their Head and be joyned unto him Seeing that
Lord because it is to him and for his sake or else if it were in the quality of the worke it were in vaine for there is nothing in us that is good therefore it is not any thing that is inherent in that but it is in the power of God that can doe what pleaseth him and that will give liberally even for the least thing that we have done he will give a great recompence it is he that makes it fruitfull and copious and plentifull in the recompence it is the Lord that rewardeth all thus And he concludes it under scale you know that this is true you know your labour is not in vaine in the Lord. This is that great blessing of God that double grace when hee makes us know the thing that it is impregnable that it is a thing not to be resisted that it is such a thing as all the powers of hell and darknesse and contrary disputations cannot make you doubt of You know this To know is to know by reasons naturall that never faile that this shall be thus the promise of God is so therefore you know it by that you know it by the practice of the Saints you know it by the testimony of the Spirit of God you know it by the common tenent of the world so that whatsoever God hath spoken hee is willing to performe and it is done already as though it were acted at this present time It is the heavenly and blessed contentment of a Christian man that hee hath the priviledge to know his happinesse before hee hath it that man that is advanced to morrow that is a poore man to day hee may hope well and wish well but hee knoweth nothing a man that goes to the field to fight in the battaile hee knowes not whether ever he shall come againe as Ahab said He that puts on his armour let him not brag as he that puts it off When a man sets forth on a journey hee knowes not whether ever hee shall returne home or not When a man enters into traffique for viands and matters of life hee knowes not whether hee shall gaine or lose there is nothing that wee can tell in this world that it shall be thus for time will alter and change it In all the works of Philosophy there is no certainty of the time to come but in the booke of God there is a certaine knowledge blessed be God for that knowledge It is a thing without exception it is a thing without all doubt Iohn 4. Our Lord Christ said to the woman of Samaria Ye know not what ye worship we know what we worship The knowledge therefore of true religion was among the people of God so the knowledge of the promises was among them too wee know saith the Apostle 1. Cor 5.1 when this earthly Tabernacle shall be abolished we have a heavenly mansion So the Apostle saith I know whom I have believed I know whom I have trusted And in 1 Iohn 2.15 Wee know that we are translated from death to life because wee love the brethren This therefore is that excellent priviledge of a Christian that he hath above all the schollers in the world that as he is made to glorie so he knows it before he hath a taste of the Spirit the earnest of the Spirit before which makes him cry Abba Father that helps him to pray that comforts him in trouble that stands by him that leads him and guides him on that never forsakes him in the state of grace till it bring him to the state of glory To the which the Lord bring us for Christ his sake Amen FINIS CORINTHS COLLECTION FOR THE SAINTS AT IERUSALEM Seven Sermons on 1 Corinth 16. the first 9. Verses BY That Worthy and Learned Preacher of Gods Word MARTIN DAY Chaplaine in Ordinarie to his Majestie and late Rector of S. FAITHS London Heb. 13.16 To do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased LONDON Printed by T.H. for Nathanael Butter and are to be sold at the signe of the Pide Bull neere Saint Austins gate 1636. 1. Cor. 16.1.2 Now concerning the collection for the Saints as I have given order to the Churches of Galatia â—ven so do yâ— â—pon the first of the Weeke Let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gatherings when I come THis is the last head or common place of this holy Epistle which the Apostle hath therefore reserved to the last because he would have it the better in printed in the memory of his schoollars For all the rest indeed have beene matters of great concernment but this most of all it being the common office of Christianitie and a generall duty that runnes through the whole body as the life doth For the poore you shall have alway with you saith our Lord Christ and therefore your mercie to the poore shall be alway exacted so S. Chrysostome Chrysost The Apostle now saith hee goes forward to the head and principle of all good things He hath touched upon it before in Chap. 13. Chap. 13.1 speaking of charitie Though I had the tongue of men and Angels yet if I had not charitie I were nothing But that charitie is of another kinde for that intends the use of spirituall gifts that a man should forget himselfe for the common good that hee should not labour so much to shew himselfe a scholler or a Linguist as to speake to common capacities that is the charitie meant in that place But now here he speakes of another kinde of charitie not in the collation of things spirituall but of temporall wherein a man is put to his proofe more then then in the other for the conferring of sprituall things commonly as they come freely so they come easily without much paine or trouble There is no man almost but he will communicate his learning and knowledge to another gratis but for these temporall goods that we have in this world they can hardly be drawne from us and a small quantitie a poore despicable portion is exacted when we are brought to the best Therefore now the Apostle comes to that point of charitie which doth most of all discerne a Christian whereby he is best knowne the parting from his owne goods the defrauding of his owne genius of his owne belly that he may be helpfull to others And so this is the ninth and last part of this Epistle for as I told you heretofore Divines have diversly distinguished the Epistle but the best and the most neere and likely division is into nine severall points of doctrine whereof this is the last The first was of taking away the schismes and divisions which was in the Church of Christ One was of Paul another of Apollo another of Cephas another of Christ In the first second third and fourth Chapters that is the first common place of this Epistle The second was concerning the power
never any man but out Saviour Christ was able to understand Hosea no nor shall doe till the worlds end To make a setled discourse and a plaine exposition of him it is almost impossible for hee seems upon purpose to write in parables and hard Enigmataes and riddles Therefore hee concludes his Prophesie Hosea 14.9 He that hath wisedome shall understand this For indeed he that hath not wisedome cannot possibly attaine the knowledge of it But this that St. Paul saith may be taken in divers kind of speeches that either I will be thy death oh death which is the best reading of all and followed by the best Divines or oh death where is thy sting as the Apostle reades it here The summe of the Prophet Hosea is this to teach that God was purposed and was willing to deliver his people out of the captivity of Babylon and to have brought them quickly home againe and to have stablished them in their owne country But because they were contumelious and rebellious against him therefore their wickednesse and obstinacy stayed his purpose and therefore he would be death to them and would not spare them as wee see in the sequell of the Text. But I will not trouble you with these thornie discourses It is certaine that that which is there written may be taken many wayes and for mee to shew you the variety of Readings were but to cast a stumbling block before your most holy faith Therefore I will resolve upon the authority of the Apostle which followes the Septuagint and reads it thus not I will be thy death but Oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory according to the Septuagint For St. Paul followes the Greek copie the translation of the Septuagint in all places almost where he citeth Scripture Howbeit to gather that cōclusion and proposition as Hosea saith by way of supposall If my people had been good if they had been wise death should not have had power over them but I would have been the death of death the Apostle brings it in the way of affirmation oh death where is thy sting Now the reason is this where God propounds things by way of condition there the Saints of God keep the condition alway and so the matter is true to them which is propounded As in Psal 81. If Israell would have kept my wayes Psal 81.13 16. I would have fed them with the finest flowre of wheat but because they did not keepe my wayes therefore they were famished and perished Out of this a man may gather that a childe of God that keeps his wayes shall be fed with the finest flowre of wheat with the best delicates that can be So Hosea speaks by way of supposition in the potentiall mood If my people had been wise if they had repented them of their sinnes I would have done this great miracle for them the Lord would have freed them from their captivity and brought them to Israel out of Babylon which he never did Indeed Iudah returned out of their captivity but Israel did never returne If they had been penitent God would have done this but because they were not and repented not of their rebellion therefore God determined death against them Vse Out of this where the promises of God are hindred by the malice of men the Saints of God can gather matter of comfort and consolation For they keepe the Covenant of the Lord they repent them of their sinnes they are wise when God strikes them and their vexation gives them understanding Therefore they conclude if God would have done this to them if they had beene better certainely he will doe it to mee which desires to be better if hee would have delivered them if they had repented he will deliver me which doe repent before him in sackcloth and ashes Those good things which the wicked cannot have because they keepe not the condition wee shall have them because we keepe the condition You understand then how these things are to bee reconciled Hosea speakes in the potentiall mood that God would doe this but St. Paul speaks it in the indicative mood by way of insultation God hath done it Hee will doe it because the Saints of God are found not truce-breakers but they keep covenant with the Lord as much as they can by the helpe and assistance of his holy Spirit This is all the difference for that which is in the moods and is uttered againe in the tenses it is of lesse moment In that it is said in Hosea the Lord shall doe it and St. Paul saith he hath done it as speaking of the time past This is the nature of faith to expound the promises of the Gospel as things done actually because they are as sure being once signed with the privy signet of God as if they were performed There being no difference with God betweene the things present and the things to come So in the hope of Gods children the promises of God are yea and amen For in Christ Iesus all the promises of God are yea 2. Cor. 1 2◠and amen 2 Cor. 1. So much concerning the Prophet where it is written Wherein because that is the greatest difficulty I thought onely to observe that the Apostle speaks in the confidence of faith that it is now done which the Prophet saith shall bee done And that which the Prophet Isay saith hee shall destroy death the Apostle saith he hath destroyed it that is then when these things shall bee done And Hosea saith I will bee thy death the Apostle saith Where is thy sting oh death These matters I say must be expounded as belonging onely to the faithfull of whose resurrection the Apostle speaks in this Chapter alone For the faithfull doe willingly keepe the condition with God they breake not peace with him but keepe their covenant Therefore that which the rebells should have had if they had kept their truce and covenant that the godly shall have because they doe keepe the condition of the covenant 3. Part. What is written Now I come to that which is written the sentence of Isay is Death is swallowed up into victory Here is first a strange and wondrous position that death should bee swallowed up but of this I have spoken before I will but touch it now And then for the maner of the phrase swallowed And then the terme whereto to victory And then the efficient cause whereby what it is that swallowes up death the death of Christ 1. Swallowed Concerning the first wee must understand that according to the common speech of men death is such a puissant and powerfull adversary that there is no Prince in the earth that can confront him He is indeed able to meet him but he is foyled by him Although indeed death bee nothing but the cessation of nature because a mans sight failes him therefore he is blind because the power of hearing ceaseth therefore a man is deafe because the