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
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
more behinde still so to fill the desires of men and to draw their affections unto him As it is thus in these corporall things which are with lesse labour found out still there is an infinitum a kinde of infinite labour and toyle in it that they are not found out but by the hand of God So many golden mines in the earth that are undiscovered so many precious things that are not yet revealed Much more must it needs be in those holy secrets those gracious things in heaven in the glorious Court above when the footstoole is so infinite and secret Psal 77.19 Aug. As the Psalmist saith his footsteps are not knowne Saith Saint Austin well If the steppes of his feet be not knowne how then shall the counsels of his head be discovered Therefore in these things wee must settle our selves and returne the foole upon our owne soules when we meddle with these deepe and secret matters wee know not a great number of things that are created the hearbes that are under our feet we know not the difference of them wee know not the qualities of them nor their natures and operations and shall we then mount up into heaven to see what is done there before our time The Lord will give it us in time if wee keepe our selves within the limits of modestie and restraine our selves within that compasse which hee hath commanded us Vse Secondly we learne out of this in that the Apostle cals him foole and cals these things foolish therefore we should not affect these things and give our selves over to them We learne what to judge of all curious Divinitie and dâ—scourses that it is rather a part of folly then any shew and remonstrance of wisedome And by this reason a great number of Students and Scholars in this Land spend their time meerly in folly 1. Tim. 6.10 As the Apostle saith It is science falsely so called they studie and imploy themselves that they may be madde with reason that is by following a kinde of sublime reason as they thinke they fall from reason and loose themselves Like the Philosopher that so long conversed about the mysterie of the Sunne that at the last he made a question whether ever there were a Sunne or no he knew not whether the light came from the Sunne or from any super-illuminating cause or no. The Lord blindes men that are too quicke sighted to search into things that hee hath not provided for them Such things there be indeed as Saint Austin saith Aug. there are certaine idle delicacies and dainties but they are not for us they are for no man to know that would worke out his salvation with feare and trembling Phil. 2.12 Lastly in that he cals him foole or madde man we see how lawfull and how necessary it is sometimes to use the authoritie of the Spirit to use the majestie of the Spirit in the Gospell to call them fooles that speake foolish things And although Christ forbid us to do it in our particular and private talke and he that cals his brother foole Mat. 5.22 is in danger of hell fire yet it is one thing what a common Christian may do upon a little sleight cause and it is another thing what the Magistrate or what the Minister of the Word may do upon an urgent occasion Gal. 3.1 Wee see Saint Paul cals the Galathians madde men and foolish men and this questionist here hee cals him foole Luk. 12.20 Yea our Lord Christ cals the rich man foole Thou foole this night shall they take away thy soul Mat. 3.7 And Saint Iohn Baptist Oh generation of vipers So that there is left in the Church a power and authority which must be used when there is occasion to draw the sword against contumacious rebels which will not be reclaimed by other meanes As Saint Ambrose Ambrose saith the preacher of the Word must be like unto the Bee he must have both a sting and honey And Saint Chrysostome upon this place saith he Chrysost he gives him a sharpe tearme but hee passeth by him quickly hee gives him indeed a poore title but yet it is a fit one He was afraid lest hee should cut him too deepe therefore hee would not stand too long upon him lest he should make him runne away For as a wise man will easily endure such a word as this from the mouth of a wiser so a man when he is followed and baited too farre he will kicke against the pricks and be ready altogether to cast off the reprehension Now we come to the demonstration That which thou sowest c. 2 The demonstration Here is the substance of the Answer to the first question the answer to the second follows in the next verse The Lord of his great goodnesse and mercie hath made the possibilitie of his owne truth apparant unto us in all the common actions of nature What more usuall what more ordinarie what more necessarie then the sowing of seed Now the seeds man if he do but mark what he doth when he imployes himselfe he shall easily perceive that God teacheth him out of his owne trade what he is to thinke of this great mystery To sow the corne in the ground we know that to flesh and bloud and common sence it is a meere losse of it and if wee had not seene it done before wee should conclude so Therefore there are some men that are celebrated as famous in the Poets for inventing this the casting of the seed into the ground from whence people thought there was no returning Indeed that conceit might be in barbarous rude Nations but it is certaine that this doctrine was taught unto Adam in Paradise and hath beene transmitted to all his posteritie Yet there are some Nations that to this day do not know the common necessity of sowing nor use it not they understand not the mystery the Lord hath so farre blinded them So it is in this sowing of the body In all judgement of flesh and bloud when the body is put downe into the grave into the coffin into the earth it seemes to be gone for ever and it goes from worse to worse till it come to dust and ashes the prime principles of our creation We ought to compare therefore these things together and we shall see how wondrous God is in the one and learne thereby how glorious he will be in the other The seed that is sowne it is quickened and hath life that vegetable life th t things of like nature have to grow againe and to bee greater to feed it selfe and to feed us also For God hath made the seed of a singular piercing qualitie that the lesser it is the more power it hath Therefore the mustard-seed which is the least graine whâ—n it comes up it grows to be a great tree For in these small things God sets forth his power oft times more gloriously then in greater matters And
it is impossible for the body shall never grow worse and worse by degeneration but it shall bee brought by the power of God to that high perfection that it shall still be infinitely better and yet still it selfe it shall still be the selfe same in essence though not in qualities It shall be the same in substance and nature but not the same in eminencie of grace and glory It shall be the same in being but not the same in seeming or in circumstance And so Saint Chrysostome saith It is the same and not the same it is the same as touching the fundamentall essence of it and it is not the same concerning the augmentation and the rare qualities that God shall impose upon it and invest it withall And so I say it is that comfortable doctrine to this flesh of ours that there shall not be any other flesh glorified for it but that this flesh that hath suffered martyrdome this flesh that hath suffered hunger and thirst sicknesse and persecution in the world this flesh that hath suffered for Christ this flesh and no other but this shall receive the crowne of glory according to the manifold evils it hath indured Otherwise there could be no true consolation in this life seeing the spirit also shall have larger indowments The soule of man the wit shall be greater and the memory greater and all the parts and faculties shall be more excellent in the soule Now these being not visible parts therefore they are not that which shall rise For it is that which is visible which belongs to the Resurrection the glory of the soule cannot be manifest it is still hidden and inherent in the inner-man But this glory that shall be at the Resurrection it shall be manifest and there is no manifestation made but to the eye and the outward sences Therefore here comes the comfort to every poore distressed body that the same that suffers and is miserable afflicted and tormented in this world the very same body shall receive abundance of joy and comfort and glory and beautie in the day of the Lord. The poore creple that goes double that moves every mans heart to pittie to see him in the streets he shall rise with a glorious and goodly body being incorporate into Christ by faith he shall receive a body full of ample complements and blessed perfections To every seed his owne body If it be the same body how then is it a new body Ob. and how then in the Scripture is it called a glorious body which makes it different This I told you shall be by addition of certaine accidents of glory that shall acrew unto it Ans which cannot be separated as accidents may be from their subject but they indure with it continually And that consists 1. Partly in that goodly proportion that I spake of before wherein all men shall be raised in one size Not as they are now where there is great difference but all shall be of one stature and perfection And therein they shall more resemble the Image of God then if they should be made in greater variety 2. Secondly another qualitie wherewith they shall be indowed is the clearnesse and brightnesse of those bodies For although they shall not be transparent and translucent which is no property of a true body yet they shall be so full of light and gloriousnesse as the Lord Iesus his body were when he was transfigured in mount Tabor his garments did so shine that no Dyer or Fuller in the earth was able to make such a tincture or to give such a colour and glosse Mat. 17. as the garments of our Lord had Much more then was his countenance glorious and shining And if in the old Law Exod. 34.30.33 the glory of Moses face were so great that the Iewes could not endure to looke upon him but he was faine to take a veile and cover his face when hee read the Law that so they might heare what he spake without astonishment much more shall the glory of the bodies of the Saints be at that day They shall be all lightsome they shall shine like the starres in the firmament they being often compared in the Scriptures to the starres which cannot be numbred Thirdly another qualitie wherein they shall be like unto the corne The corne that seemed to bee a dead graine yet after comes to have an excellent greene colour and live so these bodies shall exceed in proportion of beauty There is great difference now some are faire and some are foule creatures and those that are the faire ones of the world they thinke themselves onely happie and those that are deformed they thinke they had better beene unborne then to live in the world Indeed it is a matter of great dejection and scorne to a naturall man to have a poore deformed body Therefore the Lord shall so alter all things in that day that every man shall have equall beauty The glorious Saints in heaven their perfection is one and the same perfection they shall have a common perfection like the Angels that waite before the Lord and the Seraphins that have the selfe same perfection and beautie shining upon them all although it be not sensible to us but is seene onely among themselves Fourthly all this glosse stature and goodlinesse that they shall have except it have also strength and vigour it is little worth Therefore God shall give them that too That as the corne riseth with an high stalke to a goodly stemme and hath knops to underproppe and support and keepe it up whereupon it is builded so the Lord saith Rev. 3.12 he that heares the word of God he will make him a pillar in the house of his Father that is he shall have the strength and glory and the fortitude of the great men of God that hee shall be able to do any thing that God shall assigne him to with great dexterity And all this with a further grace of incorruption for the seed that is sowne although it come up with a faire glosse for a time yet it presently corrupts and is brought unto a drie straw and stubble and that which is greene now to morrow it is cast into the fire But the Lord shall give unto this glorious glosse whereunto he shall bring the bodies of his Saints he shall give them an incorruptible crowne 1. Pet. 1.18 It is a crowne that is incorruptible an inheritance immortall that never hath any change The best beauty in this worldly glory a fit of an Ague will change it and long sicknesse will turne the fairest rose into an ashy coale there is nothing so subject to change and alteration as the glosse of beauty But that strength and beauty and goodlinesse of the creature after the resurrection shall be supported by that ever mighty power of Almighty God so that there shall bee no old age to draw wrinckles in the face of his Saints there shall be no sicknesse to
have imployed themselves in this world And there are divers similitudes that set out this in the Gospell Mat. 25. As of him that received ten talents and was made Lord of ten Cities Mat. 19.29 Of him that sowes plenteously and reapes plenteously whereas another soweth sparingly Of him that offers his bloud for the Lord Iesus Christ and receives an hundred-fold for it Of the Dâ—scâ—ples that shall be chiefe and prime in the kingdome of heaven Mat. 19.28 and sit upon twelve thrones to judge the twelve Tribes of Israel Luk 6.23 and that promise that the Lord makes Great shall your reward be in heaven There shall be a great reward for you therefore it seemes there shall not be so great a reward for other men as for the Apostles This joy is accidentall it happens to them because they have wrought in their callings because they have beene diligent in their places So the Schooles say a man of learning which is an accidentall thing for learning comes accidentally it is not a thing that is substantiall a man is â—ot borne with learning therefore they say according to the wisedome which a man hath used wel in this world hee shall be rewarded in heaven in a greater measure In respect of the substantiall joy he shall have all one penie with the rest but in respect of his accidentall joy honour for his wisedome and learning and for his almes-deeds which is by way of accident and so according to his workes he shall have a reward according to a mans works so shall his reward be This I take to be very true although I cannot well see how it should bee an infallible ground But we follow the Fathers direction Saint Austin speaking of the puritie of virginity Aug. of the professed virgins of his time well saith he those that shall come to the common immortalitie hereafter they shall have a great reward above the rest because they had something in the flesh which was not of the flesh they had something in the flesh which had no use or benefit of the flesh And in his 146. Epistle saith he If God have made all bodies visible and these visible bodies be so different each from other in distance of place in operation and power and in evidence much more must wee thinke he will make a difference at the day of the Resurrection And although all shall be as starres that shall shine in the firmament yet all shall not have one kinde of glory and of lustre Tertull. And Tertullian How shall there be many mansions in Gods house How doth Christ say In my Fathers house are many mansions Iob. 14.2 except it bee for the varietie of mens merits You must not be offended for this word merit for the Fathers in old time tooke it not in a proud sence but for the deeds done in the flesh whether good or evill So men should be rewarded according to their works or fruits they had done the Saints shall differ as one hath had greater works then another and greater deeds And Chrysostome brings this argument that unlesse this be granted that the Saints of God shall have a different portion of glory in the world to come and not be all alike it would make men that beleeve the Resurrection to be carelesse how they lived in good works or at least how they abounded in good works Because when a man once seeth salvation that it is common and that every man shall have as good a share in it as he he will not seek to be better then his fellow and so good works and almes-deeds would grow faint Therefore it is the best way to incourage them and to make them open and inlarge themselves to make them as capable as they can that God may fill them To this purpose the Fathers have a comparison of divers vessels that are cast into the water and all are filled a pottle is filled and a pint is filled and yet there is great difference every one hath as much as it can conteine but yet the pinte hath not so much as the pottle so the Saints of God they shall all be full of joy and full of glory but according to their capacitie the Lord shall fill them Therefore wee should make our selves large unto God that God may fill us to be large handed and large minded and large hearted to God this brings largenesse of glory and beauty and makes men principall starres in the firmament Theophilact brings another reason Theoph. which presseth better and urgeth further then this If we marke it saith he we see the damned in hell have a different torment therefore the Saints in heaven shall have a different glory The other is plaine by that saying where our Lord saith Matth. 11. It shall be easier for Sodome and Gommorrah then for that Citie which would not receive the Apostles and it should be easier for Tyre and Sydon then for Chorazin and Bethsaida they should have easier torment then those that despised the Gospell And therefore seeing there shall be an inequalitie of torment and that those that are cast away from the sight of God shall have a divers deformitie they shall all be deformed but some more then other there is more unworthinesse in some bodies according to the qualitie of their sinnes And so it follows on the contrary that the mercie of God shall bee opened and manifested in a greater measure upon one man then upon another according to the qualitie of their good conversation repentance and the good deeds that they have done in the flesh Saint Ambrose Ambrose also discoursing upon this argument Even as saith he out of one lumpe out of one piece and clod of clay God hath made all things but yet in a wondrous varietie For out of the water he hath taken all the brightnesse that is in this world the starres of heaven are bright because they are taken out of the water and the brightnesse of jemmes and pearles is out of the water mingled with earth and out of the earth comes all things that are obscure and darke so the Lord shall make out of this body out of one lumpe and masse a wondrous varietie At that day he shall make some as those that bring forth thirty fold others as those that bring forth sixtie and some as those that bring forth an hundred fold in an admirable difference and yet all shall have glory sufficient and in contentment and be full of glory The glory shall be full in it selfe although it shall not be so great as others And Saint Anselme Anselme saith clearly that there shall be one way for chastitie and puritie to shine for them that have lived chaste in wedlocke and another way for virginitie there shall bee one way for a man that gives little out of much and another way for him that like the poore widdow give as it were all that they have
for that which is changeable therefore he is said to be unconstant base and earthly that is a simple poore base creature which made himselfe according to his prime originall and studied and gaped after the things of the earth out of which he was extracted He had indeed better things if he would have used them but he was so stupefied and drawne back to his inferiour part that hee was made like unto his first materialls the earth But the other was from heaven not because he had not a body from the earth but because to that body was added a glorious divinity and that his body was not a person as Adams was For if the manhood of Christ had been a person he must have beene lyable as all persons that are borne to condemnation but his was not a person but a nature united to the second person in the Trinity so that although there be two natures in Christ yet there is not two but one person and the actions that come from any man they are the actions of his person of the subject and not the actions of his nature For it is a man that speaks and a man that works and not the body of a man that speaks or the soule of man So therefore it comes to passe that the actions that come from Christ they are the actions of his person not of his humane nature but of his person and so they be the actions of God and man That is of that person in the Godhead that took the manhood unto it and so they are made the actions of an infinite merit and possibility Herein then is the difference that although Adam had a soul as well as Christ yet he had onely a living soule that could enliven no body but himselfe but the Lord had a Spirit that is the Deity it selfe which is able to give life which is the fountaine of life to all the world And although Christ had a body from the earth yet that body was not left unto frailty but was governed and sanctified and glorified by the beatificall vision of God and by the presence of the incorporate union of the Sonne of God So by this comes the difference between them the one was a man and nothing else but from the earth the other was more then a man God and man and so he is the Lord from heaven 3. In respect of their qualities The third difference is in their quality and condition which is noted in this word hee was a Lord. Therefore Adam came not as a Lord he came as a servant he was to serve in all purposes he came to till the garden to till the earth he came to eate and drink to beget children to be the father of a family Hee came into the world to increase and multiply as God commanded him Gen. 1.28 to replenish the earth These although they be faire courses and God gave a blessing unto them yet they be carnall and fleshly there is no respect of excellencie in these things they are matters rather of necessity for the present solace in this world then of glory But Christ came not for this purpose He came not to eate and drink but his meat and drink was to doe the will of his Father Iohn 4 34. He had no generation all his generation is a spirituall regeneration he came to doe God service these were the things he was exercised in Therefore he was the Lord from heaven This is the high prerogative of Christ There were many Angels that came from heaven as well as Christ but they came not as Lords but as servants as fellow servants Rev. 22.9 as in Rev. 22. when Iohn would have worshipped the Angel See thou doe it not saith hee I am thy fellow servant Heb. 1.14 And in Heb. 1. they are ministring spirits that serve for the salvation of those that are elect and chosen for the inheritance Therefore they came not downe as Lords but as servants And although we reade in Scripture of those that came downe as Lords as in the apparition to Abraham Gen. 18. he called the Angell Lord. Gen. 18.3 And the Captaine of the Lords Army that appeared to Ioshua though these came in the glory Ioshuah 5.14 and might of the Lord yet they were not that Lord as here it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord that came from heaven For that Lord is but one Lord Heb. 1.2 which is the Sonne of God to whom the Father hath given the inheritance of all things Heb. 1.2 hee is the heyre of all things and the Iewes themselves confesse Come let us kill him this is the heyre Mark 12.7 and the inheritance shall be ours Hee then is the Lord from heaven Adam came not as a Lord nor yet from heaven but one onely part of him his soul without any conjunction of the divine nature there came a changeable soule into a fraile body but Christ the Lord from heaven that is the Sonne of God as being Lord of hell and heaven invested himself in a strange and wondrous manner into the body and wombe of a Virgin and tooke that masse and lump of blood whereof his blessed body should be compacted and united it to himselfe and exercised the power of miracles and of gracious wonders and all parts of perfection in that nature and therefore he hath exalted our nature high above the Angels nature for he took not upon him the nature of Angels Heb. 2.16 but he took the seed of Abraham Lastly in their qualities they differ that as the first man came from the earth and is a servant so he is earthly There are two parts of man as the Philosopher saith there is the mind and the understanding that is the subtile and divine and fiery part of man whereby he is appropincate and drawes neere unto God in the similitude of his Image There is another and that is the grosse and materiall part Chrysost as St. Chrysostom expounds it that this earthly man is one that is dull and grosse and nayled and tyed to these things that are present whereas the other 2 Cor. 4.18 is heavenly and altogether upon the things that are not seene for the things that are seene are temporall but them that are not seene are eternall So then the one by his condition was still looking downward the other was all spirit and full of vigour full of life alway looking upward still unto heaven his conversation was also heavenly having given all his followers power to have their conversations there Phil. 3.20 Phil. 3. But our conversation is in heaven from whence wee looke for the Lord Christ who shall change our vile bodies and make them like unto his glorious body So this is the Comparison of these two heads which that I may conclude this point wee must observe very strictly For by that meanes we may be both able to keep out all contrary
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
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
twinckle now for our good Perhaps they will alwayes stand hereafter and never any more looke upon us Let it bee our wisedome therefore to take our moment of time wee know not how our time is laid up in the hands of God we know not whether God will give us another moment after this Let us therefore apprehend this while we have it and let the grace of God worke while it appeares to us and while the motion of the Spirit offers it let us imbrace it because we know not our owne time Indeed in â—he twinckling of an eye the Lord receives a sinner but whether we shall have so much time as the twinckling of an eye to repent in wee know not Let us therefore take our moment for there may be a moment of sudden destruction come upon us and there may bee a time to plague us before our eye can twinckle There may come a time to dazle our eyes to corrupt our understandings and to infatuate our senses before we can twinckle our eye As a man that goes under a rotten house the house falls and destroyes him before hee have time to look So the judgement of God like a mighty mountaine it may fall upon the head of a man and crush his braines and work his sudden destruction before he be sensible of himselfe Therefore let us in the feare of God take all time and let us tell our moments The Lord tels our times hee observes our moments let us take our times and seasons And if we be thus prepared the Lord can work upon us in a moment for he requires no time to work his great works but he brings them to passe in a moment in the twinckling of an eye FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.52 In the last trump for the trump shall blow and the dead shall rise incorruptible and we shall be changed for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality IT was a true senteÌ„ce of S. Ierom Ierome that God hath kept the greatest doctrines unto the last times and the chiefest and most marvailous things be reserved for the very last end of the world How the dead bodies should be raised How they should be raised in a moment in the twinkling of an eye How there should be such a mighty collection over all the world by the sound of a trumpet What the trumpet should be whether one or many Who should blow the trumpet who should sound it What should be the sense and signification which the sound of the trumpet should give And what should be the effects and operations that should follow after These are those wonderfull doctrines and strange mysteries which God hath reserved to the fulnesse of time to the very consummation of all things And although every one of us must be raised by the power of that trumpet yet until the time that we heare it with our eares we shall never be able to comprehend it in our senses it being one of those things that are hard of understanding and so hard as perhaps the very Angell himselfe that shall be set to blow the trump doth not yet know what it should be till he come to undertake his office Therefore I pray you that I may give you some more light to understand this darke and obscure Text let us consider some other places of Scripture which doe illustrate this In Mat. 24.25 26. Mat. 24.25 26. our Lord Iesus speaking of this same thing saith The sonne of man shall send forth his Angels with a trumpet with a great sound with a great noise and they shall gather all the elect from the foure windes from the one part of the heaven to the other part of it So that which the Apostle cals here the trumpet that shall blow and the last trump our Lord calls it the Angels trumpet for the Angels shall come in the mighty voice of a trumpet and shall make a collection of Gods people There is another place also that something sets forth this 1 Thes 4.16 1 Thes 4.16 where the Apostle saith The Lord shall come in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a great noise in the voice of the Arch-angell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the noise that sea-men make when they are weighing anchor or when they are doing any great matter about the ship they all give a noise together that their work and labour might meet in one This is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or like the noise that Souldiers make when they goe forth with their Army against the enemy they come with a mighty noise to terrifie the enemy In that noise the Lord shall come downe He shall come downe with the voice of the Arch-angell and with the trumpet of God shall he descend from heaven and the dead in Christ shall be raised first So that out of these two places wee have some light added to this present place For Christ tells us that the trumpet shall be sounded by the voice of an Angell St Paul saith there by an Arch-angell But the Scripture useth no great difference of those for the word is used promiscuously oft times in the Scripture St. Paul saith it is the last trump to shew the difference of that from some other But that shall be the last because there shall be no more newes there shall be no more message from God to men any more And the Apostle saith in 2 Thes 4.16 2 Thes 4 16. he tells us it shall be in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a certain generall navall acclamation and crying one to another to help forward the common work The generall salvation must be helped forward by the sides of men So the Lord expresseth it Although indeed he can doe it by himselfe hee can doe it by his word and there is no difficulty and hardnesse in the matter yet because the Lord would have us to conceive the mighty power and work of his right hand hee sets it downe by this As suppose a mighty army of men were setting forward and exhorting one another to break through the strong holds of the enemy or as those that are in a ship when they are about their necessarie affaires stirring up each other to shew themselves men In stopping of holes and leakes or in weighing of anchor or in hoysing up the sailes which is not the worke of one man to doe but of all Therefore the Apostle useth that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here now we begin to come to the manner how the Resurrection of the dead shall be made and how the persons shall be summoned And it shall be by the voice of a strange and wondrous trumpet that shall sound over all the world That as the Roman Emperors used to call their souldiers to fight by the sound of a trumpet and after by the drumme which succeeded the trumpet and is thought to be equall unto them so the Lord shall
and take heed to that our good manners be not corrupted But evill words corrupt good manners there is no such gangrene as evill words are to the good manners of men therefore we ought to avoyd and detest them for if they be evill words they will corrupt good manners these are evill words therefore we ought to take heed of them so the Apostle argues in these words certainly these are evill words and evill words corrupt good manners and good manners are the virginity of the soule and wee should keepe that inviolable Therefore for our life we must strive to avoyd these evill words as the language of the divell and not of men Be not deceived evill words corrupt good manners These are the branches of the Text. You must understand that some of the Fathers reade the Text otherwise for looke on the words and you shall see how the divers poyntings makes diversitie of lections for whereas presently before the Text the Apostle had said If the dead rise not againe some of the Fathers refer those words to this part of the sentence now read If the dead rise not againe let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye And indeed it may as well be referred this way as the other for it is taken from the common tenent of the Chapter If there be no resurrection which is still to be repeated upon every severall argument But our common reading is this If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men what availeth it if the dead rise not Now Chrysostome Chrysost Theophylact. and Theophilact reade it thus If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus what doth it profit me and there they make a stop If the dead rise not let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye But this as you see is not greatly materiall onely I must note it for the honour of the Church of God to see the variety of that gift of interpretation for as I have often told you there is no gift more excellent in the Church then the gift of proper interpretation to know the sence of the Scriptures and to be able to deduce it to the right parts it is the greatest divinity that can be Although the common people understand nothing but that which concernes manners that which allureth them to good and feares and affrights them from their sinnes yet the especiall divinity is in the matter of interpretation But which way soever wee reade it eyther as a thing spoken with an high stomacke with an indignation Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye Or if we take it as a consequent if there be no Resurrection as Saint Chrysostome saith Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye the Argument is still one and the same But we follow the common exposition which all Translations follow that the words are spoken from a high stomacke the Apostle speakes in a holy impatience What should I doe fighting with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men if there be no resurrection If there were no Resurrection I would rather follow my cups as the Epicures I would know the things that belong to the pleasures of the world I would make me friends of all men I would offend no man in matters of faith and profession therefore it is onely the conscience to the doctrine of the faith of the Resurrection that bindes me to resist all men and to encounter with the beasts of the field to take whatsoever fals unto me by the providence of God rather than to betray this one poynt of my faith which is the chiefe of all the Resurrection of the body For the sentence that he brings in in the person of the Epicure speaking it is taken out of Isa 22.13 Isa 22.13 It was the voyce of those obstinate and rebellious people the Iewes in the time of that Prophet saith Isay here is nothing but feasting insteed of fasting killing of sheepe and slaying of Oxen. When they should have considered the judgement of God upon their neckes they fell to pleasures and were so farre from repenting and turning to God by contrition that they devised preparation for their bellies to satisfie their lusts Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye A base and detestable speech which the holy Ghost notes against those obstinate Iewes that when the Prophet would bring them to a serious consideration of their miserable estate then being returned from Babylon and that all was wasted round about them and they had nothing left but a poore ruined Citie yet notwithstanding they would not bee wonne to God but would fall still to their pleasures and drowne themselves in the cups of excesse that so they might drinke downe their sorrow as the wicked wretches of the world doe that have no other comfort in misery and affliction but to drinke and seeke to be merry to worke out the crosses and judgements of God by some worldly jollity Thus did Caius Marius Plutarch Plutarch saith of him that being a man of great affliction and misery in his latter dayes when hee saw there was no way for him to escape the hands of Scilla he tooke the advantage of his absence and gave himselfe to drinking and excessive courses to forget his misery and so indeed hee shortened his dayes And it is wondrous and remarkable that the Prophet saith in that place These things saith he are entred into the eares of the Lord of hoasts and they are most abhominable in his sight and whereas you say Esay 22.13 Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye As I live saith the Lord you shall dye indeed the plague shall not be taken from you till you be all consumed till you be all dead under the stroke of it It is the just judgement of God upon obstinate sinners that resolve to make merry when God cals to mourning that kicke against the pricke and strive against the hand of the Almighty that thinke to drowne the memory of Gods judgements in their cups at their tables The Lord shall worke the contrary upon such a man and he shall finde that he hath done himselfe no good by this but hath brought upon himselfe his owne just confusion For so it befell these they dyed indeed and this plague was not removed from them till they were all consumed Vse So we see by this now that the world is no changling The blessed Prophet Isay lived almost 700. yeeres before Saint Paul and in his time there was such a damned crew as this that uttered this speech against heaven against reason against the hand of God and against their owne consciences Afterwards when Saint Paul came into the stage of this world he findes a company of wicked men iust like the former By this we see that the world is ever drowned in iniquity it is alway like it selfe in evill till the hand of God
wit and the best sence and judgement excels the naturall foole looke how farre the strongest man excels the weakest childe so farre the bodies that shall bee raised up in that glorious day shall excell the best and the brightest bodies that are here in this world For saith he as God hath made severall sorts of flesh now and hath given a bestnesse and a worstnesse in them that there is great difference and it is well knowne to us how they differ so in the Resurrection there shall be nothing there the worst shall be more glorious then the best and most noble perfections that are here And so I thinke it to bee true as the Fathers imagine that it is spoken of the difference that shall bee but it cannot bee directly prooved by Scripture as Peter Martyr Peter Mart. saith Although it be true that there shall be some inferiour unto others there yet we must not rest upon it nor make comparisons of it There is nothing that shall be so bad in that kingdome but it exceeds all the best things that are in this There is nothing that shall bee so meane in that life but it shall exceed the most glorious things in this life This I take to bee the purpose and meaning of the Apostle in bringing in this difference to shew that if there be a difference here much more shall there be there There is as much difference betweene the body that dyes here and the body that shall rise then being compared together as there is betweene fish and flesh as much difference as is betweene one part and member and another All of them are indeed flesh but yet there is one kinde of vigour and one kinde of use and life and motion in the one and another kind in the other and so it shall be at the Resurrection To conclude the summe of all is this Vse that wee prepare our selves in a continuall expectation with blessed Iob looking for our change Iob 14.14 to depend upon the Lord God to trust in him that is able to set his Image in a farre more glorious stampe then he did before that can renew his broad seale and out of one peece of elementarie dust can raise such wondrous matters as are here spoken of What is the most beautifull body in the world what is the goodliest flesh what is the fairest colour in comparison but a bag of dust and yet how marvellously hath God wrought upon this dust out of a poore meane ground to draw such a lively colour such an excellent picture upon nothing but dust It is a strange thing so to fortifie it with comely bones to fill it every where every concavitie of it with a faire beauty of flesh to adorne it with such a goodly glosse and colour like the flourishing flowers of the field to continue it thus for twenty or thirty yeares in this faire glosse and goodly composure this is the most wondrous act of God! Teaching us Vse that there is a further matter that remaines that he that hath wrought upon dust in this manner now his hand is not shortened but hee can worke upon the dust that shall be raised out of the grave againe hee can draw the lines upon it and breathe upon it as he saith by his holy Prophet Heare the word of the Lord ye dry bones Ezek. 37.4.8.10 and it is said the bones gathered together and the Lord breathed into them the breath of life and they stood up The Lord is able to do these things and certainly these colours and this flesh that we carry in this world they are as earnest penies of that glorious flesh that shall be collated and confirmed upon us when this life shall be ended Onely as we looke for these things so let us sanctifie our selves to the Lord God let us keepe our selves unblameable in the wayes of the Lord let us reconcile our selves by true and unfeigned repentance Iam. 1.27 let us keepe our selves unspotted of the world that this flesh may not be tainted with the pollutions of sinne but that it may be preserved for that use which it was appointed for even to be a temple and tabernacle for the Holy Ghost for so it shall be sure to have this blessed change put upon it There is as much difference betweene that which is now and that which shall be as there is difference betweene any parts of the body naturall as much difference as there is betweene unsensible and sensible creatures as there is betweene men and beasts as much difference as there is betweene the flyer and the swimmer betweene fish and fowls Yet still the same flesh shall be the same flesh shall rise that dyed but the Lord shall adde unto it Ambr. he shall ampliate it saith S. Ambrose he shall make it better he shall not destroy the substance but he shall adde a new qualitie a new glorious quality which shall indure for ever 1 COR. 40.41 And bodies heavenly and bodies earthly but one is the glory of the heavenly and another that of the earthly one glory of the Sunne another glory of the Moone and another glory of the Starres for one starre differeth from another in glory So also is the Resurrection of the body THis noble and divine order which the Apostle hath taken for the assurance of our faith in this grand point of the Resurrection is noted by all Interpreters to be the glory of that spirit within him that he could not possible shew a greater evidence of the holy Ghost then in this manner of proceeding Therefore Tertullian Tertull. saith that Saint Paul did with all the strength of the holy Ghost bend and imploy himselfe in this Argument His meaning is with all the strength of the holy Ghost that Saint Paul was capable of For otherwise it cannot be said of any man that he can use all the strength of the holy Ghost for the strength and power of the holy Ghost is more then any man can comprehend But the order I say is so excellent and divine that he leaves no part of nature unransacked and unpierced for the finding of some argument and some evidence of the Resurrection First he taught us to finde it in our gardens in our fields in the things that are sowne in those things that are under our feet Then afterward he riseth somewhat higher and teacheth us to finde it in our flesh that we carry about us in the flesh of men in the flesh of beasts in the flesh of birds in the flesh of fishes in which as there is great varietie so all this present variety serves to shew and portend a variety in the world to come in the bodies that shall rise And now hee riseth higher and teacheth us to finde the Resurrection and the varietie of the bodies that shall be in the Resurrection from a comparison that he takes from heaven and heavenly things that we may see it also above
our heads Psal 104.1 God hath drawn out the heavens as a curtaine that it might be full of glorious starres and every starre gives a certaine document and lesson of this that he treats of the certaintie of the Resurrection So that there is no part of nature voyde but all proclaime this doctrine of the Resurrection And he proves that look what difference there is betweene the bodies that bee in heaven and those bodies that be here in earth the same difference there shall be betweene the bodies that shall be then and the bodies that are now And although there bee in some bodies that are in this world as in the bodies of Princes and the bodies of beautifull men and women a rare luster and a goodly glory a marvellous feature and a stampe of Gods Image incomparable yet in comparison of that which shall be it is nothing That body that shall be in the world to come doth as farre surpasse this whatsoever it bee suppose it the fairest and most delicate bodie in the world as the lightsome starres do passe the poorest stones on the earth or any common forme and figure in the earth is not so much transcended by the glory of the starres as the bodies in the Resurrection do transcend and surmount the glory of any thing that is seene here below This is the summe of the words Now that we may proceed in order First we are to consider Division into 2. comparisons how he draws this Argument from heavenly bodies and compares them with earthly bodies wherein he gives the preferment to the heavenly bodies in these words where he saith There is not the same glory to the one as to the other There is one glory of the heavenly and another of the earthly That is there is a farre inferiour glory of the earthly in comparison of that which is heavenly Then secondly he makes a comparison of the heavenly bodies among themselves that as there is great difference betweene the starres of heaven and the stones upon the earth so there is great difference betweene the starres of heaven one with another not onely being referred to the earth which can make no comparison with them but in comparison one with another as they are in heaven some of them being of one magnitude and some of another some of them being of one lustre and some of another there is great difference there also Some of the Fathers have understood this of the different state of glory that shall be in heaven In the first similitude they say the glory that shall be revealed upon the sonnes of God shall be as infinitely beyond all the glory that is now as the glory of the starres in heaven excels the glory here on earth And for the other point of difference in the starres themselves thereby is signified that the just shall all shine in heaven as starres but in a different manner as the starres do now One starre differeth from another in glory And so he concludes all this parable and similitude So is the resurrection of the dead That is even as we see these earthly things to be farre exceeded by the heavenly in all kinde of beautie in all kinde of glory in all kinde of durabilitie and in all kinde of qualities which are commendable so the Resurrection shall be That is the bodies that shall rise then shall farre exceed these that are now as farre as heavenly things exceed earthly things And even as now there is a difference betweene starres that all are not alike in glory and all have not a like lustre nor like power and influence so then in the Resurrection there shall be difference and degrees every man shall have enough yet notwithstanding every man shall not have the same Of these things briefly and in order as it shall please the Lord to give assistance And first concerning the nature of the Apostles Argument 1. Part or comparison hee takes it now from heavenly bodies The higher a man goes in the body of Nature the more he learnes and the better he seeth the worke of him that is the Author of nature the Creator himselfe There is a great mysterie great power of instruction in the works of God Rom. 1. The wisedome and majestie of God is seene in his works But then is he best seene when a man doth ascend and rise up the skale and proceed from lower works to higher For even as he that climbeth to the highest top of an hill may see the furthest off so hee that ascends in the works of God in the disposing of the world the more he advanceth the more clearly hee seeth and the greater revelation is made unto him All the works of God they are great masters and teachers unto us if we will learne any thing There is nothing so dull there is nothing so poore but it is able to teach us But yet among the rest there is nothing comparable to the heavens being the fairest booke and the goodliest volume wherein the glory of God is expressed above all other things As the Psalmist saith Psal 19.3 The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shew his handy worke There is no voyce nor language in the earth wherein the speech of heaven is not heard As there is no angle nor corner that is hidde from the light of the Sunne Vers 6. and from the heat and power of the Sunne but he searcheth it out so there is no man that is indewed with any sence but he is taught by that heat and light the greatnesse of the Almighty which these earthly things cannot attaine unto For they be restive and they be dull they be contained in their places they have not that diffused power and operation that the Sunne and the starres have to worke every where Therefore there is no worke of God more teaching and instructing then the booke of the heavens And therefore Saint Paul now makes his argument from the stronger that if our gardens could teach us and if our seeds could teach us if our fields could teach us and if our flesh can teach us even this flesh that we carry about us if these could teach us these things that are elementarie and sublunarie if these have a power of instruction no doubt then that golden booke that rare-volumne that is above that is written with so many starres as so many golden letters and so fairely written Hab. 2.2 that he that runnes may reade it no doubt I say but this is fuller of discipline and can much more easily draw the Schollar as containing in it more familiar precepts and more moving examples to winne us unto God His comparison here is taken in the name of bodies heavenly bodies and earthly bodies By heavenly bodies is meant the starres because they are created substances and not imaginarie things as the Philosophers would have them in their flattery and foolery they thought that the great men that
imagine that those bodies that dyed crooked shall rise crooked nor that those bodies that dyed weake and lame and yong shall rise so but God shall make a great variety there because he hath made a wondrous variety here There is one glory of the Sunne I will not shew my infancie in discoursing of these things but onely give a touch and so passe to the hypothesis where the Apostle saith so is the resurrection The glory of the Sunne is the greatest of all the glories in heaven all the created bodies we see are nothing comparable he is that great Gyant that God hath set in his chamber which is alway ready to runne his course Psal 19.5 The great messenger of the world which searcheth and vieweth and giveth intelligence of all nations and reports of them to God from whose heate there is no nation nor latitude of people can be hid his glory is this That he is both the chiefe of all the heavenly bodies and that this glory is his owne too First he is the chiefe you know as the Philosopher said well if it were not for the sunne whatsoever the Moone and Starres could doe we should have a continuall night For that is that great and mighty lampe of the world wherein God hath recollected and bound up all the body and bulke of light and it is of that unspeakeable beautie and of that rare excellency that all the stars in heaven borrow their light from thence so that it is the chiefest and the greatest And his owne light it is also he doth not take it from other starres as the rest doe derive their light from him but God tooke that light which he made the fourth day before for the light was the first thing that God made for a worke of distinction it was a chaos and confusion before but when the light was made the distinction did appeare and as a man cannot work without light so God describes himself unto us and therfore he made light for himselfe to worke by although indeed he be light it selfe 1 Tim. 6.16 and dwelleth in that light that none can attaine unto The Lord I say gathered that light which was in the creature before and put it into the body of the sunne and so made that light proper and peculiar to the sunne that he should have a power to diffuse and communicate his light to all the starres in heaven There is no starre that shines in his owne light but all the light they have they borrow it from the sunne because that God would bring all the light to one head and principle as all things doe depend and have their being in one God And this very beauty of the sunne which wee know is the greatest and the goodliest yet it is not alway alike but there is a difference in that too The sunne shines not so bright in the winter as hee doth in the summer because his beames in the winter be not so direct as in the summer and in the southerne parts of the world where the sunne is directly over the verticall poynt directly over their heads as they have more heate so they have a far greater light then we that have but an oblique or slant or side way beame their light is farre more For according to the nature of the beame so is the proportion of the light and heate in the winter lesse because the sunne is in a lower circle and though he be nearer the earth by his bodily presence yet he is further off by his power and operation and in summer when he seemes to be neare yet he is furthest off in body but is nearer by his operation because of the directnesse of his beame I say the Lord hath made a difference in the beate and light that is in the body of the sunne that there is one kinde of heate and light in summer and another kinde in winter So wondrous is God in making of difference and planting variety in every thing The second is the glory of the Moone There is another glory of the Moone The glory of the Moone we know how farre it comes short of the first of the glory of the sunne for it is neither a full glory neither is it her owne glory but that which it hath is derived from the body of the sunne and in the day time when the sunne is in his strength the Moone is like a cloud if it be then above our horison and when there is any shadow by the interposition of the earth the shadow of the earth doth so drowne her and so deprive her of the light of the sunne for the time that either totally or in so many parts she is utterly darkened And evermore one side of the Moone is blacke because of the distance of the sunne For that side which is next to the sunne is light and that side which is from the sunne is as a blacke cloud and according as it goeth further from the sunne or comes nearer to him because her motion is swifter than the sunnes for she doth that in a moneth which the sunne doth in a whole yeare because he is further off from the earth accordingly I say as she comes nearer to him or goeth further off so is her light sometimes she appeares to be halfe light sometimes full Moone and sometime againe nothing at all because the beames of our eye cannot discerne her when there is a meeting of the sunne and her body And yet wee may observe what a wondrous variety GOD hath given her that this which is the lowest and the meanest plannet in the heavens the meanest starre and the least of all others although it bee the least and the blackest and most unlightsome of all the rest yet the LORD doth by it as wondrous things as hee doth by all the starres of heaven nay he doth something more by it then he doth by the sunne it selfe For all the rising of waters all the ebbing and flowing of the sea all the motion of the bloud in the creatures all the guydance of the braine of man all the distemper of lunatiques and frantiques and whatsoever thing almost is in the trees in the vegitables or in the sencible things to be guided and governed they are dependent directly upon the regency of the Moone so that although it have a lesser light yet because it is nearer it hath a more wondrous operation Vse It teacheth us this lesson that although God have given lesser gifts to some men that although they be like the Moone in comparison of others that are like the sunne yet because they are nearer home because they looke to their charge because they keepe their flocke because they looke to their families that God hath put unto them even these men that have a weaker light they doe more good then those that are greater men that are further off that are carelesse and negligent therefore the Moone hath a greater operation being nearer
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
bloud that is sinfull creatures as well as wee and yet they be in the Kingdome of God Thirdly it may be objected concerning them that shall be alive at the comming of the Lord they shall be flesh and bloud as we are and they shall in a moment of time be translated to the Kingdome of God therefore it seemes that flesh and bloud inherits the Kingdome of God Answers to the 3. Objections For the answer to these For the first we must observe that it is one kind of possession that a man hath spiritually by faith and apprehension and it is another to have it in reall entrance and in a reall investiture The Saints of God are called in this life the sons and daughters of the Kingdome and they are called heyres of the Kingdome and Co-heyres with Christ But how it is onely in faith it is onely in taste in an earnest of that which shall be fully paid hereafter as the Apostle saith Heb. 6. Heb. 6.5 It is impossible that such as have tasted of the heavenly joy c. So that wee doe not deny nor the Apostle doth not say that flesh and bloud shall not taste of heaven nor corruption taste of incorruption for we have it the children of God they have the very pledge and earnest of it sealed unto them But how It is in expectation For the Lord Iesus tries his servants in their expectation by their waiting upon him In the world it is true it is one thing to be a Noble-mans or a Gentlemans heyre and it is another thing to come to the possession of the land he is sure of it by his birth by his primogeniture he is sure that it shall be his but he hath it not yet Hee may live like a poore gentleman and his father may curbe him and keepe him in before he come to enjoy it he hath it not for the present So the Lord hee suffers those that be his heyres to want to be troubled and afflicted in the world hee suffers them to have no better pittance then this As one saith I hope for things better hereafter and therefore I swallow those things that are present here And then for the second point objected concerning Enoch and Elyas Answ 2 There are divers opinions of Divines about it Some think that their bodies are not in heaven but were buried in some place unknowne as wee see in Moses death and that they shall rise againe at the Resurrection This I confesse hath many grounds and good reasons to prove it that it is the prerogative of Christ alone to be in heaven For there is none that hath descended but the same that hath ascended which is the son of man which is in heaven Eph. 4.9 10. But yet the commō tenent of the Church is otherwise whereunto I must yeeld and subscribe namely that the bodies of Enoch and Elias and those that rose at the Resurrection of Christ be actually with Christ and keep him company in heaven And although the ascension of those be not manifest yet it is agreeable to the analogie of faith to beleeve it For to what purpose should the Apostle insist so much upon this Heb. 11.5 By faith Enoch was translated if he were not after another maner dignified and honoured than ordinary men And to what purpose is it said that Elias was carryed to heaven in a whirlewind and a fiery chariot if the Lord would break his neck upon a rock and cast him downe againe to the earth This had been no honour but a punishment Therefore as their raptures are noted in the Scriptures so the tearms are notable and such as no man can attaine unto in the common Resurrection For the blessed God which is the God of the married and of the single life he tooke out of each estate one to accompany him in his heavenly Kingdome Enoch was a married man and figured those in that estate that should associate and keep Christ company in heaven Elias was a single man and he took him to be a symbole and type of the single life To teach us that married and unmarried both if they be in Christ are accepted of him and shall reside and keep him company in the Kingdome of heaven And for those that rose at the Resurrection of Christ it is a constant opinion and followed of the best Divines that those were never admitted to returne to their bodies againe for that had been to deprive them of a greater benefit which they had before Therefore to answer the argument If Enoch and Elias and those that rose with Christ I say if they be in heaven they be flesh and bloud therefore flesh and bloud doth inherit heaven and so by consequence the Apostles speech doth not alway stand firme when he saith Flesh and bloud shall not inherit the Kingdome of God Therefore it is possible for flesh and bloud to inherit heaven For the answer of this we must understand that Enoch and Elias had a change and the changing of their bodies was equivalent unto our death And although they were rapt up in a strange manner yet all that was mortall in them all that was corrupt it was consumed by the strong hand of God We see the Lord can worke as it pleaseth him in naturall things You see how the lightning sometimes so alters things that it falls on that it draws out all the pith of them all the substance in a moment We see gold that is cast into a hot fornace the fire licks it up and melts it So we see those earthen pipes that are used too commonly in our mouthes how soon the fire alters them and refines them We see these things in nature Now wee must imagine that the mighty power of God can doe much more for the body so that that which was nothing but mud before he can make a pure chrystall glasse of it It is not impossible for nature almost to worke this for we see men make glasse of sand and therefore to the operative word of God there is nothing impossible It is credible and to be beleeved therefore that the Lord changed their bodies in their rapture that whatsoever was corrupt and base and dreggie in them it was wrought out Answ 3 The same reason is for them that shall be alive at the comming of the Lord the Lord shall so work upon those bodies which they shall then beare which shall be corrupt flesh and bloud the Lord shall work them in an instant to purity even as the fornace of metallers does the fornace of those that deale in fire-works For as the fornace changeth the substance of the thing that is cast into it upon the instant and licks it up and devoures it if it be combustible or if it be not combustible as gold or the like then it turnes and melts it to better purpose to a better burnish to a better hue so the all-working-hand of God shall doe Therefore although
they be in heaven yet they are not there without some change of body not without the destruction of the corrupt part whereby it was made sinfull And though the Saints that shall live at the comming of Christ shall be translated and it is true they shall be so but how by the mighty power of Gods omnipotencie that shall work them throughly to perfection and shall take away the drosse and leave nothing but that which is pure and sit for the glory of God to dwell in and make his residence there For it is impossible that the slaves of miserie should make their residence in the Court of glory because of the corruption of sinne that is left in them which must be rooted out that they may be capable of that blessed condition To the which the Lord bring us Amen FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.51 Behold I shew you a mysterie we shall not all sleepe but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye by the last trump THere is almost no part of our Christian faith so generall but it admits of some particular exception 1 Tim. 1.15 Christ came into the world to save sinners yet not all sinners but those that are penitent and converted So the Rule is that all men must once die Heb. 9.27 and that all men that are dead shall rise againe And yet this is not true of all particulars for there are some exceptions against this truth yea there be many thousands of men and women many millions that shall neither die nor rise againe Yea a whole world the world that shall stand at the comming of Iesus Christ shall neither die nor rise again But these are but a handfull in respect of former ages and therefore some particular exceptions doe not infringe a generall rule for if there be some then that shall not tast of death yet there is no man doubts but that the common law of death is imposed upon all men and every man must suffer it in his time And although it be a true Article of our faith that all flesh that is dead shall rise againe to judgement yet there are a certaine number which shall be exempted and which shall be translated after another manner not by way of Resurrection but by way of change and mutation And the Apostle calls this a great mysterie for indeed as all the whole doctrine of the Resurrection is full of mysteries so this above the rest to understand what kinde of change this shall be to understand how they that live at Christs comming shall be priviledged more than us that lived before them For it is a great priviledge for a man never to goe to his grave and hee that sleeps least in the dust we account him in common sense and reason the happiest we esteeme him the happiest man that stayes the shortest time in death How therefore these things should be conceived it is mysticall and hidden from our senses All this notwithstanding the Apostle resolves upon it and saith although it be a mysterie to us yet it was not a mysterie to him for it was revealed by the Spirit of God to him and he reveals it and tells it again unto us that there is a remnant of men that shall survive when Christ shall come to judgement which shall not goe to heaven by that common path that wee goe they shall not come to see death as we doe nor to the putrefaction and filth which is incident to our nature but they shall be translated by a kinde of change which shall be unto them as our death is to us and they shall not have a resurrection as our bodies have they shall not goe under grovnd to rise againe they shall not be dissolved to be renewed againe And this is the wondrous mysterie which is of all most strange For suppose a child that is both new borne and newly interred as there shall be many thousands that shall die two or three dayes before the Resurrection these must now rise very raw out of their graves the change then that shall now be made upon their bodies that were so newly interred must needs be a very wonderfull one It is past the reason of man to conceive but it is enough that it rests in the power of God and that he hath revealed it to his Apostles and Teachers of his Church by an infallible determination and that it shall be truely and really effected upon the persons of them that shall then live whatsoever wee think and deeme to the contrary So now the Apostle begins partly to tell us of the great world that shall be when Christ shall come and partly to prove that which hee had said before As concerning the state of the world he would have us to consider that in the latter end the Lord shall come in a moment and he shall take things as he finds them and those that are then living he shall make his own hand glorious upon them as he pleaseth by a kinde of change and mutation although not according to the common decree and course of dying And for the other that it is a proofe of that hee had said before we are to consider the words that formerly he had said that corruption shall not inherit incorruption nor flesh and bloud shall not inherit the Kingdome of God Now for that a man may thus object and say against it What then shall become of them that live when Christ comes to judgment are not they flesh and bloud as well as wee for their bloud shall be corrupted as well as ours is and corrupt flesh as well as wee their flesh shall be tainted with sinne and with all kinde of transgression and disobedience as ours is and rather worse for the longer the world stands the worse it growes therefore if flesh and bloud shall not inherit the Kingdome of God and that corrupt flesh and bloud shall not come into incorruption what shall become of them that Christ shall finde at his comming The Apostle answers that Nay saith hee God hath provided another way for them and that is by mutation and change So that though they shall be flesh and bloud as wee are and corrupt flesh and bloud as wee are and perhaps worse corrupted than we because the last times of the world shall be the worst yet the Lord shall so work by his omnipotent power as that their corruption shall be refined and wrought out they shall be molded by the mighty hand of God and by that fire that shall goe through the world For as hee hath a visible fire to purifie the elements and all this visible masse which we see so he hath another kind of fire a spirituall fire to purge the bodies of men from their originall and actuall transgressions which they have contracted the power of God shall so worke that they shall have some Analogie with our death which
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
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
saith hee would have none to gather when he came because it would tend both to his and to their shame if they should be found unready Vnreadinesse is a fault in all the parts of Christianitie and there was no man that ought to be so forward as they therefore he prayes them to do it before hand These are the parcels of this Text. Of these things briefly and in order as it shall please God to give assistance 2 Motive from the Churches authority First concerning the motive from the Church It hath alway beene a strong argument that is taken from the Churches authority He that heares you heares me and he that scornes you scornes me saith our Lord Christ and tell it to the Church and if he will not heare the Church let him be to thee as a heathen and a publicane or sinner Hee that will not do as the Church doth he is out of the Church of God he is a banished man from heaven and a cast-away from all hope of salvation This argument therefore must be of speciall consideration with us what the ancient Church hath done before times we must follow their steps if we meane to partake of the reward that they and we both looke for We see that antiquitie is a great and a maine reason to induce any good understanding for if the Church of God have authoritie to perswade all her children and those that follow after certainly then the ancientest Churches are of the greatest authoritie Now the Church of Galatia was a more ancient Church then Corinth Therefore the Apostle alledgeth the authority of that Church to bring this on So we see also in persons not only in Churches but in particular persons Rom. 16.6 Salute Andronicus and Iunia that were before me in the Lord they were Christians before Saint Paul therefore Saint Paul gave them honour as his predecessors as his glorious and honourable Ancestors that were in the Lord before him Therefore hee saith honour them and salute them much So in this case Galatia was the more ancient Church therefore it was to be the rule of Churches afterward in all good things in all things belonging to the propagation of the Gospell to the maintenance of a good conscience The authoritie of the Church is the greatest argument one of them under heaven and it is certaine if our mother Church which was once the Church of Rome if it had not proved extreamly cruell and tyrannous in her proceedings there ought no Church to have fallen away from her communitie for by separation from her if she had continued a true mother they had separated from their father too the God of all comfort the God of heaven and earth for a man cannot have his fathers blessing if he go from his mothers bosome but now when all things were turned to pride to worldly covetousnesse to ambition and vaine glory and their own greatnesse without the true aime and without respect to the right end when all was turned to pride and selfe-love that they would depose Kings and Princes out of their seats and kingdomes it grew then to be a monster and ceased to be a mother and thence it is not lawfull to have any communion with them that are so blasphemous But else I say if they had continued in that modest humilitie which they were first bred in Rome a true Church 500 yeares after Christ continued in for the space of foure or five hundred yeares surely the authoritie of the Church had beene a rule for the whole world for where they do well the Apostle makes a law from their doings As the Churches of Galatia do so do ye 2 What the Church of Galatia was Secondly here is to bee observed what this Church of Galatia was it was a famous but yet it was but a poore Church it was so famous in zeale that the Apostle protests that they would have given him their eyes to have done him good wherein he signified their infinite ardor and fervencie to the Gospell of Christ at his first comming although afterwards by his absence they were seduced and drawne away by circumcision by some creeping Iewes that stole in among them But as it was famous for the greatnesse of the graces of the spirit so it was but meane in condition Therefore the Apostle might well draw an argument from it for the Corinthians could not object and say What do you tell us of Galatia Galatia is a potent kingdome a rich kingdome full of meanes and full of glory above our Citie but this they could not do for it appeared to all the world to be but a poore place a place of no trafficke except it were a little in the Euxine sea for it is a middle-land place And although the countries of Asia-minor whereof Galatia is one can maintaine themselves Galatia in Asia minor yet for any great superfluitie and abundance to send to others they cannot do it especially the Citie of Galatia which is excluded and kept from the Pamphilian Sea by the border of the South which lyeth betweene it and Pamphilia So we see here that according as God hath given Churches meanes and abilitie so they should exceed those that are poorer the richer sort must do after a rich manner and if the poore should at any time seeke to transcend them it were a shame to them that are greater and more able The Citie of Corinth it was the Mart of all the world Corinth the Mart of the world Hom. Iliad 2. therefore Homer in his time which was one of the ancientest Writers that ever was among the Heathen there is none like him in his second Iliad he saith three times over Rich Corinth The reason of it is because of the scituation which is betweene two seas from whence all the traffick of the world flocked flowed to it Therefore it followed that seeing the Church of Galatia had farre lesse meanes then Corinth and yet they had done thus Therefore Corinth must much more obey this precept And it is a lesson that I would that men of sence and reason would lay to their owne consciences both in the Church and in their private persons for we have a great number of poore Churches even in this Citie that are sessed oft times to pay farre more then richer places do and there are many poore persons that are truer pay-masters that pay scot and lot better then many greater men do which the Apostle intimates here to be a shame it is a shame that poore Churches should go before rich it is a shame that Galatia should go before Corinth and exceed them it is a thing that God will have a saying for and these great ones that have their thousands and their ten thousands about them and yet they will not pay that which belongs to their poore officers to their poore servants such as belong to them poore Church-men that will not pay that which belongs to them
speake nothing to the purpose especially nothing to the combate nothing to the duel that ought to bee betweene the adversaries and the champions of Christ but leave all to such kinde of fresh-water-souldiers and themselves in the meane time taking their ease because they thinke it is not safe medling and perhaps because they thinke they shall bee discomfited and if they should chance to be overcome there would bee more shame to them by their overthrow then there could come glory by their conquest if they should offer to stand in the cause of Christ These kinde of men are exactly contrary to the Apostles spirit Where there are many adversaries there the Spirit of God should rise in men as it is said of Saul when Nahash the King of the Ammonites put that base and deadly condition upon the Gileadites that they should give him their right-eyes by way of compact The Text saith the Spirit of God came upon Saul when hee heard such a thing that although the Ammonits were a great and terrible and an infinite number and the case grew desperate for they were to deliver the Citie within eight dayes yet so much the more strong was the Spirit of God in Saul and he tooke a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them to the quarters of Israel and told them that so their cattell should bee served whosoever would not follow him in this just quarrell So St. Paul although otherwise in Acts 17. Acts 17. when hee saw Athens full of Idols full of Devills that there was every where Temples set up the Text saith that his spirit was exasperated so moved he was in himselfe he was in a holy trance hee was without himselfe to see that horrible blasphemy against God So it is ever naturall to true spirits that are guided by the Holy Ghost not to bee daunted with perill nor to hang downe their heads for the opposition of the Devil but to gather strength and courage for as much as it is a signe that God is with them a signe that God hath sent them It was the lot of Christ to be beset about on every side that when he had done the most good to sustaine the greatest harme of those ungratefull monsters The adversaries are many therefore I will goe Adversarii multi contrary to the course of flesh and blood which because the adversaries are many and great therefore I will not goe I will keep within doores I will lie safe I cannot doe any good what can I doe against so many what can one man do against so many thousands No but the Spirit of God perswaded him that hee alone had the world in his breast and that he was able to conquer as Samson who with the Iaw-bone of an Asse slew a thousand men and he was stronger by the haires of his head which were but an excrement yet it made him stronger then all the adversaries that were against him so the least thing in the child of God which seems the excrement of the world the hairs of their head are able to confront and confound all adverse powers Mat. 10. As our Lord Iesus tels his Disciples in Mat. 10. They shall not be able to resist the Spirit whereby you speake Deut. 28. one of you shall scatter ten of them and an hundred of you shall scatter a thousand of them The enemies of God are set to be routed before the few handfulls of Gods children as in the Army of Gedeon 300. men put to the slaughter and wrought the confusion of a thousand thousand Midianites Let us therefore have this confidence in our spirits in the truth and cause of God and not be unsetled or moved with the speech or with the actions of men or with the disasters of the times nor with the conceits that flesh and bloud will suggest unto us for verily if we stand upon our own foundation we shall be able to undermine them and to keep our standing against them there is no counsell nor no power nor no hand that can come against the will of God for hee carries all abrest before him and his legions are able to drive the world into smoake and to make the mountains to tremble at the approach of him The adversaries are many Many because they are gathered from many Nations Devout men of the Iewes from all quarters under heaven Acts 2. Acts 2. And wheresoever these Iewes dwelt they were still as it were the chief Prelats they would looke to the state of the Church and make that the supreame object We see in Thessalonica a poore Colonie they sent as if they were the chiefe Magistrates after St. Paul to take him alive and to bring him to his answer when he was at Berea A strange spirit was in them to be adversaries to the cause of Christ they were great persecutors wheresoever they were whereas our Colonies and our Churches in other places of the world they take not half so much upon them a man may live as quietly and safe at Hamborough and such places in as much peace and quiet and more too sometimes than in his owne countrie because there is not that fulnesse of authority there as there is here But the Iewes were of that nature that still they would be the chiefe primates and the great men of the world wheresoever they were Therefore the Apostle having such a confluence of them from Greece from Asia from Scythia from India from Egypt from Cyrene from Rome and from all the parts of Italie from Germanie and from Spaine it selfe where the Iewes were dispersed and scattered he finding them in all places so exact and so purposely set to the maintaining of Moses law and to oppose any new opinion that should come in place he must needs complaine of adversaries There is a great number of adversaries from all parts of the world and they be all adversaries full of power and full of terrour every man thought himselfe a Prelate every man took himselfe to be a ruler and a governor therefore the match was so much the harder the combat was so much the more dangerous because he was in the middest of all the power of his adversaries and yet this daunted him not But now the holy Ghost gives us here to consider what kinde of adversaries these were that is they were the most potent and powerfull adversaries not only great in their number but great also in their affections great in their strength and great in their zeale for there is no adversarie so much to be feared as those that are nearest neighbours to us in the profession of the common religion In Micah 5. Micah 5. Let no man trust his servant nor his neighbour A mans owne houshold shall be his greatest enemies as the common proverb saith A man hath no worse friends than them hee brings from home with him so it was here the Iewes of all others should have maintained Christ