written in expresse words yet by the Spirit of God and by the demonstration God gave unto the world of Christ the later part was written as well in the mindes of men by the finger of the Holy Ghost as the former part was written in Gen. 2. But I take it the best sense of it is this and so the later Divines hold that the meaning of the Apostle is to make a comparison that as it is written the first Adam was made a living soule so I averre that the last Adam was made a quickning spirit So that the word It is written is to be understood of the first part onely and not of the later but the other I averre by the Spirit of God and by the power of the Gospell So that there is no man that need doubt of it hereafter but that there is infinite difference between the first and the second Adam To come to the sense of the words because I have been too troublesome in this I will be briefe The first man was made a living soule As if he should say he was made in a mutable changeable manner of perfection and it was in his owne free will to have stood and kept close to God if he would have been constant For then he should never have died But because hee would be trying conclusions and fall from his Maker therefore hee was animal a living soule although God made him for another purpose if he would have kept the place God set him in Secondly he was made such an animal as stood in need of second causes hee stood in need of meat and drink of rest and labour and sleepe and such things as these Thirdly he was made a living soule not a life-making soule living in himselfe but not giving life unto others But the Sonne of God was made a quickning Spirit not onely to have life in himselfe but to give life unto all his followers So that Adam took life but he could not give it Christ took life as being man from the Deity and he gives it as being God not onely the life of nature but the life of grace and glory And so he became in every thing a quickning and glorious Spirit The first Adam was made a living soule That is worldly minding the world looking to the earth he was to dig the earth to delve in the garden he was made for that purpose and for other worldly purposes Toward the center was his aspect but Christ was of another making hee was all for spirit all for heaven and heavenly affaires for the businesse of his Father for the reclaiming of soules for the pardoning of sinnes for the working of miracles for the gracious concurrence of those sweet principall meetings of mercy and truth which meet together in him So that the difference by this time appeares manifestly It is said Adam was made a living soule that is to have life in himselfe but not to diffuse and extend it to any other Christ Iesus was made the author of life and of all that we all hope for and pray for of life eternall of happinesse and glory But here are divers questions to be resolved which I will but propound and name unto you and so passe them ouer Quest 1 First it may be demanded because it is said that Adam was made a living soule and that Christ was made a quickning spirit whether Christ were not a living soule as well as Adam and whether Adam were not a quickning spirit as well as Christ And certainely these things are true if we take them in their kinde they be both true For Christ was not onely made a quickning spirit but he had a body as Adam had and hee was a living soule as well as Adam And Adam was not onely made a dull and dumpish thing given unto worldly matters but he was made a quick although not a quickning spirit Therefore for the first we must understand that it is true that the Lord Christ was made a living soule as well as Adam For there is a grosse errour of Eunomius Eunomius which thought that Christ had no reasonable soule but that his Divinity was his soule that it was in stead of a soule and that hee had no other soul but that This is a monstrous abortion for if Christ had not taken our whole nature hee had not saved our whole nature Now the best and chief part of our nature is the soule and it was the soule chiefly and principally that Christ came to save Therefore it is certaine that he tooke our soule as well as hee tooke our flesh and so was made a living soule as well as Adam And it appears also by this in that he had two wills in him as he had two natures the nature of God and the nature of man united in one person So likewise he had two wills the will of God and the will of man yet he subjected alway the lower will unto the higher Not my will but thy will be fulfilled not as I will but as thou wilt But the will of his manhood appeared in this thas as he was a man he was afraid of death Mat. 26.42 he desired that the cup might passe from him he would not have died at that instant yet as he was alway obedient to God the Father he desires that the upper will might prevaile and saith Not my will but thine be fulfilled Let the will of God prevaile and let the will of man be ruled and over-ruled Therefore as Christ had two wills so he had two natures and by consequent the full nature of God and man Or else if hee had not taken the soule of man as well as the body hee could not have delivered the whole nature of man the principall part whereof is the Soule But here is the difference although Christ were made a living soule as Adam was yet hee was more than so hee was not made for that purpose as an ordinary living soule but he had an accession of the glory and grace and strength of the Deity to make this living soule sublimate to perfection to make it capable of unspeakable mysteries which Adam had but in a poore pittance in a low condition hee had a living soule indeed well qualified and adorned with innocencie and the power of originall justice and a power to have life and grace and immortalitie if hee had kept and continued in the commandement but he had no higher matters hee had nothing in him whereby of necessitie he might abstaine from sinne but that he might sinne and be damned for it But in Christ there was an absolute necessitie of holinesse and perfection and of all the parts in him which was not in Adam Quest 2 For the second Question whereas it is said Hee was a quickning spirit Apollinarius Apollinarius inferred upon this that he had a phantasticall body and not a true body This is as grosse as the former for if Christ must take
you you have an ignorance concerning God because you call in question his power in this mighty benefit the resurrection of our bodies And then lastly he concludeth with mildnesse and sharpnesse and mingleth both together I speake this to your shame As if he should have said partly I am ashamed that I have spent so much time and so much labour among you and yet still you are in such waverings as these and are no better perswaded in the omnipotent power of God But as I speake this to your shame so I would not have you despaire but onely to take shame of your fault and so be brought to Repentance I speake it not to bring you to a confusion eternall but to a healthy confusion a confusion that brings conversion that conversion may bring salvation by the mercy of God I speak it not to overthrow you but to waken you that have beene intoxicate in a deepe sleepe by the wicked communication of these men This I take to be the sence of the Text. To proceed in order There are three parts Division into 3. Parts First a counsell or exhortation Then a serious expostulation 1. An exhortation 2. An expostulation 3. An Increpation And lastly a forcible dealing by way of Increpation whereby he doth as it were by an holy violence compell them to enter into the wayes of God and to be reclaimed from their sinnes The first is contained in these words Awake to righteousnesse and sinne not 1 delivered And that First in figure and then In plaine speech The figure in these words Awake to righteousnesse The plaine words follow And sinne not The one interprets the other In the figure there are two things 1 There is an Act to awake out of wine awake out of drinke for so the word signifieth Then secondly there is the tearme and manner whereto they must wake Awake to justice awake to perfection not as men halfe asleep and halfe awake to turne on the other side and take a nappe but to wake fully and freely It is such a waking as a man may be expedite to worke in the function of his life whereunto all waking men are disposed Then in the plaine words or exposition hee shews likewise two things 1 First that sinne is the mother of all errour of all grosse and base communication 2 Secondly that by the grace of God if we work with the grace of God we shall not sinne that is we shall not sinne in that grosse manner as these creatures do Although all men be sinners yet if we will tender the grace of God that is in us we shall so live as that we shall not sinne according to that phrase of Scripture which is afterwards to be expounded namely not with a full consent not with a high hand not to continue in sinne not to despaire in sinne but we shall know that if we do sinne we have a Mediatour of our reconciliation we have a Mediator which is God and Man Christ Iesus 1. Tim. 2.5 1. Iob. 1.1 2. who is the propitiation for our sinnes Then in the second part in the exposition there are two things to be considered First he tels them of their fault 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a word that we cannot well utter in English nor in Latine it is hard to be exprest in both languages to be ignorant of God And then because he would not offend all the company for a fews sake he saith Some of you have not the knowledge of God And then lastly the Application of all to them he saith he speakes it to their shame that is either he was ashamed to spend so much time and labour to so little profit or he spake it to their shame as the common Text reades it I speake it to your shame But yet it is such a speech as is not uttered in a virulent manner to cast them away to make them despaire but to bring them home that they might know what they ought to do for the time to come These are the branches of the Text. Of every one of these as the Lord shall give assistance and but a word of every one because they are common obvious things First it is to be observed 1. Part. The Exhortation Awake c. that the Apostle invites them and cals upon them for waking and for such a waking as if he should speake to a sort of drunkards that were drowned in wine and drunkennesse which is as base a kinde of sleepe as can be For all sleepe naturall of it selfe is justly accounted a meere losse of time the brother of death the field of danger a thing that hath no profit in it that spends one part of our life to no purpose And yet we cannot live without it for the repairing and re-edifying and building up of our bodies againe that were consumed and wasted before with daily labour Now if the naturall sleepe be a loosing of time a loosing of our spirits and a subjecting of us to danger much more then is it in the sleepe of sinne that poysonous sleepe that comes by excesse and drunkennesse These of all other are most dangerous and most hard for a man to bee rouzed out of It is a common thing in Scripture to compare sinners to sleepers and sinne to sleepe There are divers sleepes related in the Scriptures The sleepe corporall of the body and spirituall of the soule The sleepe corporall of the body is either naturall or violent Naturall sleepe is that when the strength of man is weakened and abated and his spirits are againe renewed by a gracious mist and dew that is cast upon the body whereby the naturall spirits the vitall spirits and the animall spirits are refreshed and raised againe to their worke Violent sleepe is either by drunkennesse or disease When nature is overwhelmed by drunkennesse or by disease As by Lethargies or palsies which all worke unto death which is also called sleepe For our Lord Christ saith We go to Lazarus who sleepeth And those that dye in the Lord they sleepe This is naturall sleepe The spirituall sleepe the sleepe that fals upon the spirit of man it is of two sorts in Scripture The one is celestiall and good The other is infernall for hell and hellish purposes Cant. 2.7 The first is that sleepe of the Church I charge you oh daughters of Ierusalem by the roes and by the hyndes that ye wake not my beloved untill she please that is in the meditation of holy things It is a divine rapture whereby the Saints of God have communion and are made one spirit with the Lord. Cant. 5.1 This is called in Scripture a sleepe I sleepe but my heart waketh But that which the Apostle speaks of here is an infernall sleepe that tends to a sleepe of damnation As sleepie diseases nourish death in men and there is no more assured signe that a man shall dye then when he is continually sleeping that he
proud thou dust and ashes which art nothing else but a masse and lump of poore rottennesse and putrifaction Take heed lest as thy outward man corrupts daily that the inward man be not corrupted to For there is no corruption like that when a man hath a rotten heart that is the most wofull putrifaction Take heed therefore to thy soule that though thy outward man be like it selfe corrupt 2 Cor. 4.16 yet thy inward-man may be renewed daily in holinesse and righteousnesse to serve the living God that thou mayst procure peace to thine own soule It is sowne in corruption It is raised againe in Incorruption Blessed be the God of Incorruption that although our bodies of themselves be subject to fade and molder away yet it is but for a season for that the Lord hath promised them another state which is incorrupt And although wee cannot understand how it shall be by looking upon these earthly bodies for we see every thing comes to nothing and is dissolved yet the Lord hath given us a signe of it in the starres of heaven which are incorrupt They are uncorrupt even in our common sense and experience for they be not mixed as these elementary bodies be they are not of such a grosse composition and therefore they stand in the firmament in their state and place as they have done from the beginning We have also a sign of it in the Angels which are uncorrupt also and in the soule of man that hee carries within him which is likewise uncorrupt These are emblems of that incorruption that God will worke upon our bodies also It is true the body that is tainted with sin it cannot be otherwise it must be a slave to corruption it is bound over to corruption it is full of putrifaction and it must needs say as Iob Job 17.14 I will say unto rottennesse thou art my mother and to the worm ye are my sisters and my daughters and my kinsfolke Yet the Lord hath made in these spirits and he will waken these bodies wherâ— he cleares and frees them from sinne he will make in them an eternall vigour and the everlasting influence of his goodnesse and grace shall keep that sweetnesse for ever after that it is once infused into it And this incorruption shall come to the bodies of the Saints three waies First by the goodnesse of the matter Secondly by the singularity of the forme Thirdly by the gracious assistance of the efficient cause First for the goodnesse of the matter The Lord shall make that a sollid lively and vigorous matter that shall never againe be subject to frailty as the body was before by sin that as the Indian or China dishes the earth and clay that they are made of is buryed certaine yeares in the ground that so it may ripen and be brought to that colour which after it comes to be capable of So the blessed God will bury these corrupt bodies under the ground to bring them to be a matter fit for his stamp and image to be set on which shall not be corrupt as the former was but shall remain full of strength and vigour and full of life and sweetnesse to indure for ever And then secondly for the forme The forme of man shall be all one as it is now and the matter to onely it shall be refined but the soule then shall be of such absolute power over the body that it shall command it every where The body shall yeeld a full obedience and the soule shall command with a full authority and it shall be so furnished with new abilities with new knowledge with new desires with new Zeale that it is impossible for any temptations to passe as they doe now Now sometimes the soule tempts the body and sometimes the body tempts the soule and they doe mutually work each others subversion but there shall be no such contrariety then but the body shall be for the soule and the soule for the spirit and the spirit for God that God may be all in all Therefore I say in that blessed world they cannot sin men that live in this flesh cannot but sin but God shall restore that blessed life that it shall not possibly sin nor conceive of sin that is with any inclination to sin For it is impossible for any man that is well in his wits that he should desire to be murthered it is impossible for a man that loves his wealth and riches to desire that a man should rob him it is impossible that such thoughts should come into the mind of a man that is well advised so it is impossible for the soule and body in that new world that ever they should have any delight to goe from God For then it were possible for a man to desire to be murthered or for a man to desire to be robbed of his wealth for to goe from God is for a man to lose his treasure to lose his life to lose his wealth to lose all his quiet and contentment and there is no man that would lose these Therefore as these earthly things doe so affect us that we cannot abide to be bereft of them much more then shall God so affect us that wee shall not indure to think of any separation or going from him As the Apostle saith Rom. 8.38 39. What shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Iesus Shall fire or sword or hunger or cold or nakednesse or life or death nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God iâ— Christ Iesus Thirdly and lastly this incorruption shall be in respect of the gracious assistance of the efficient cause This indeed is the cause of causes this is all in all For though God make a glorious matter and habilitate it with an excellent forme yet notwithstanding if it were not for the continuall influence and pouring in of that glorious life every thing that is made may be marred againe As St. Basil St. Basil saith Everything created is convertible and may be turncal The Angels themselves they live not upon themselves nor they live not upon necessity but by the will and grace of God therefore they are immortall Nothing hath immortality properly in it selfe but God alone as the Apostle saith 1 Tim. 6. To God 1 Tim. 6.16 who onely hath immortality That is who onely hath immortality of himselfe and of necessity hath it and cannot but have it All others have immortality by a dependant grace Here is the chiefe reason of our incorruption because God shall fill us with the sweet water of his river of incorruption which shall continually keepe us in our youth and in our glory and strength and in that state that he hath bestowed on us and the worke that he hath begun he will finish and follow it with his continuall assistance This is the reason why we shall be incorrupt For because of sinfull flesh the Lord permits it here to fall
a spirituall body So it is also written the first Adam was made a living soul and the last Adam was made a quickning spirit It is sown in weaknesse it is raised in power THe earth is Gods store-house whereinto he commits his treasure even the bodies of his Saints the Temples of his holy Spirit saith Tertullian Tertull. God hath made the earth to be as a ware-house therein to lay his commodities and from thence to require fetch them forth againe The sowing of these earthly bodies is manifest to us all but the raising of the seed that is sowne and the comming in of the harvest that is locked up and hid in the chambers of eternity in the omnipotency of God And there is no way for us to have accesse and to look into it but by the eye of faith whereby while we live in this flesh wee have a little peeping as it were through the key-hole to see a glimmering of the happinesse and of the gracious promises consigned unto us in Iesus Christ The things that here are spoken of the sowing of the body are so commonly knowne as that there is no man that calls that in question It is sown in dishonour it is sown in weaknesse It is sown in misery and mortality and the Apostle concludes all It is sown a naturall body but it is raised againe a spirituall body And because hee might seeme to offend some eares that never heard of that distinction that there was such a thing as a spirituall body for if it be a spirit then it is no body and if it be a body then it is not spirituall these things imply a contradiction Therefore the Apostle proves that which he had said he makes good his distinction and tels them There is a naturall body and a spirituall body And this hee proves out of the heads of them both out of the two maine Fountaines of mankinde the two Adams The one working to misery to sinne and to corruption and destruction and the other working to grace to obedience and to eternall glory And hee saith The first of these was made a living soule but the second was made and ordained a quickning Spirit The first was made to live to have life himselfe but he could not give life to another yea and that life that hee had was but mortall and fraile But the second Adam was made to have another kind of life and to be all spirit intending spirituall things and he was not onely able to live in himselfe but to give life to all his followers to quicken all them that belong unto him Yea although they be dead in their graves although they be dead in sins or dead in the damps of conscience yet hee is made a quickning Spirit to rouse and to raise them to the happinesse of the children of God This is the summe of the words read unto you To proceed in order There needs no great distribution or division of the Text because the words are nothing else but the probate of that which the Apostle had spoken before He proves it by the Scriptures that there is such a difference as a naturall body and a spirituall body The Scripture he brings is in Gen. 2.7 Gen. 2 7. where it is said The Lord breathed into Adam the breath of life and so Adam or man became a living soule or a living substance In the order of the words there are two miserable properties that remain to be spoken of touching the bodies of the Saints Division into two miserable Properties That they are sown in weaknesse That they are sown meerly naturall But the glory that God shall put upon them shall be in the highest contrary They shall rise in great strength and they shall be raised in a spirituall nature in a spirituall quality and condition 1 Property Sowne in weaknesse Concerning the first that the body of man is sown in weaknesse every man seeth there is nothing more weak and despicable then that all the whole life of man being nothing but a world of weaknesse as it is the prerogative of God to be Almighty so it is the miserable quality of man to be all weaknesse When he comes first into the world there is nothing more weak then he when he growes in the world the least fitt of disease of an ague any kind of opposition whatsoever will defeat him and bring him on his knees to such a degree of weaknesse and infirmity that he shall scarce support and sustain himself And even those that are the strongest of men that are strong to poure in strong drink Esay 5.22 as the blessed Prophet I say saith that spend their time in ryot those men doe soonest bring upon them this fatall weaknesse and none end so foule as they because though they seeme to struggle with the infirmities of nature and to overcome and transcend them for a time yet that inherent weaknesse which is in the flesh rebounds upon them and works them at last to nothing to the foulest expiration that can be Nay those noble spirits which as Tiberius was wont to say that there were some spirits in the world that account their businesse to be their solace their businesse and labour they account it comfort and consolation to them yet these men pluck and call upon themselves a greater weaknesse then other men so that the life of man whether it be base and degenerous or whether it be noble and spritely is nothing else but weaknesse If a man will doe nothing but sleepe out his time hee shall be surprised at length with base weaknesse If hee be vigilant and use the time that God hath given him to the highest and best purpose he is still overtaken with weaknesse and especially when the conscience of sin works upon a man there is nothing so weakens him as that doth Psal 39.11 When thou chastisest man for sin thou makest him like a garment that is moth-eaten And as the Prophet David saith by reason of my sinnes my bones are rotten and corrupted and all my ulcers stink there is no health in my body Psal 22.14 15. by reason of the sinnes of my soule My heart within me is like melting waxe I am broken like a pitcher like a broken vessell I am like a bottle in the smoak The conscience that God hath left in man to be his factor brings a weaknesse incomparable there is nothing that can be equall unto it But chiefly when all these meet together as in some they doe and when old age begins to rivle the face and to draw the complexion into furrows which was largely extended unto beauty and when the tresles and powers of the body begin to faile and the last terme and period is at hand then there is a wofull spectacle of weaknesse Even when a man cannot goe nor stand upon his supporters but hee reeles and falls when hee cannot taste his food nor smell nor finde
in Luthers explication Saith he the bodies of the Saints shall be so strong at that day that they shall be able to remove Churches out of their places with their finger they shall be able to play with mighty mountaines as children play with tennis-balls His meaning is that they shall have a mighty and infinite power to work upon any thing that God shall set them about or that shall be expedient for them But these kind of speeches and discourses are explanatorie and are rather for recreation then for men to subscribe unto and yet it is most sure that their working power shall be great and admirable and although it shall not be infinite yet it shall be as neare to infinite as can be devised For whatsoever it shall please God to put in their minds to effect they shall be able to doe it and nothing shall make resistance Thirdly some other of the Fathers and of the later Writers Beza Calvin as Beza and Calvin expound it thus It is raised againe in power that is it is freed from the necessities of nature which is weaknesse For the life of man here in this world must be sustained by mennes it must have meat and drink and sleep and rest and an intercourse and change of things there must be physick and medicines to cure his diseases Now at that day the Lord shall so temper the body that it shall be able to live without meat and drink and it shall alway watch without any necessity of sleepe As St. Austin saith in his 5. Tome the 13. Book Chap. 23. Although the bodies of the Saints shall have power to eate and drink in that world yet they shall not stand in need of it they may doe it if they will but they shall have no dependancie upon meat and drink as now they have in this world So it shall rise a strong body That little strength that men have now is maintained by meat and drink under God they have no way else to preserve it and if a man fast sixe or seaven daies he must needs die presently because nature can indure no further abstinence and besides that old age is comming upon him although his meat be most delicate yet notwithstanding the power of digestion so far failes him that he is notable to concoct it and transmit it into bloud and nature as he was wont to doe and especially if his meat grow coorse or his fare be abated then wee know that the best and most singular strength in the world must fade and failâ— For commonly according as the Commons are so is the strength so our life is a meere dependance upon second causes next under God God gives meat a power to nourish and meat by a secondarie meanes nourisheth whereby it comes to be assimilated and made like unto the body and so we live and as meat growes worse or is taken away so the body impaires and when for a long time it is not able to master the meat and to digest it into the substance of the body then likewise the life is impaired and falls But the strength that the bodies of the Saints shall then have it shall be without these dependances the children of God shall be able to live and to keep their strength and vigour and fulnesse and perfection without any of these helps of second causes and although they may stoop to them when they will for variety yet they shall have no necessity of them Aug. Lastly as St. Austin saith in his 3. Tome 13. Book Chap. 26. this strength saith he that the Apostle speaks of I take to be specially this that whereas now of these earthly bodies of ours Mat. 26.41 the Lord Iesus saith the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and the Apostle saith Rom. 7.19 The good things that I would doe that I doe not and the evill things that I would not doe that doe I Saith the holy Father I take the meaning of that place of Scripture to be this That whereas now the strongest part of man the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and as a dull asse the Lord shall then prepare it so that he shall proportion and fit the horse to his rider that to the soule which is the rider and commander of the body hee shall give a horse of metall that shall be able to carry it to all actions whereas now it jades and tires upon every good thing The spirit here is willing but the flesh is weak but there shall be so perfect a concord and subjection of the flesh to the spirit that it shall goe hand in hand and shall hold pace with the soule the flesh shall be as willing to doe God service as the spirit and there shall be that wondrous transmutation of qualities that it shall seem rather a flesh made of spirit then otherwise For so it followes in the Text It is sowne a naturall body it is raised a spirituall body It is sowne a naturall body 2. Property Sowne in weaknesse it is raised a spirituall body This is the last difference of the 4. and in this is comprehended the summe of all For hee comprehends in the first word naturall all defects and all weaknesses and infirmities and in the word spirituall he comprehends all perfection and augmentation that God shall give in that day Saint Austin saith Aug. Beza a naturall body is a mortall body Beza saith it is a body subject to mutation a changeable body A bodie it is compounded of elements by a soluble composition A bodie that bows to the earth that goes to the center according to its owne naturall inclination A bodie that must at last bee resolved into its principles and as it is made of Elements so it must goe to Elemenâ—s againe This is a naturall body and thus we know it is with every body in the world For though there must be a change of them that survive when the Lord shall come and that they shall not have this dissolution that our bodies must have yet that change that they shall have shall bee in stead of this dissolution and who knowes in what kinde it shall bee and with what paines it shall bee No doubt it shall bee no great prerogative above us and although they shall not die and goe unto the earth as we doe yet they shall be full of pangs and horrour as the deaths of common men are For it is the nature of this body being animal and having no better a principle whereby it lives then the soule to dissolve and come to its owne principles dust to dust to come to ashes and earth according to Gods decree working upon this flesh of ours It is sowne therefore a naturall body that is subject to change and corruption But now see the hand of God on the other side It is raised a spirituall body This is that wherein the Apostle comprehends all the rest to perswade that
fall into a grosse error which they might conceive by this doctrine of his For if it shall be raised a spirituall body why then say the heretiques Apollinarius Eunomius and such like then it is not the same For it is now a meere naturall body and what is so contrary as naturall and spirituall Animal and spirituall are clean contrary therefore the Scripture still bids us live after the spirit and distinguisheth betweene the sonnes of the flesh and the sons of the spirit there is nothing more contrary then these now it is impossible that a thing should be capable of that which is contrary Therefore they say if it shall be a spirituall body then it shall not be Idem corpus the same body Another crew say If they shall be spirituall bodies then they are not flesh and bloud and bones as these elementary bodies are that die and are committed to the ground but it shall be another thing made by God of a strange composure Against this the Apostle tells us that there is such a distinction of a naturall body and a spirituall body and yet none of these monsters follow neither For it is the pleasure of the great God to adde such excellencies to that body which was before dust and ashes and mortall and to draw such lines upon it to give it such beauty and perfection that it shall seeme rather a spirit then a body it shall be so full of quicknesse and motion and life and dexterity that it shall rather seeme a spirit then a body To speak comparatively Hence we learne That seeing the Apostle proves his distinction that it is not lawfull for any man to make of his owne head of his owne braine any generall principles or definitions or divisions or distributions concerning the doctrine of the Gospell but he must shew reason for it Then secondly what reason doth the Apostle give for it why It is also written Hee proves this his doctrine by the Scriptures and unlesse he could have proved it out of them he must have been subject to the censure of all these heretiques that all that they had passed upon him should have gone for good except he could have refuted them by the Scriptures So he tells them that It is written So that here we have a maine conclusion of our faith to hold to alwaies and to stick to that wee must beleeve no man further then the Scriptures If he will speak his own minde he may doe it for illustration or for arguments sake but to put the devices of his owne head and braine to goe for points of religion for matters of faith it is a damnable thing he must have no more credit then the Scriptures will afford him hee must make no distinctions and differences except it be found in the written word If this had been well observed the Church of God had never come to that miserable distraction that it hath been in for the space of these thousand yeares every Intruder still presuming to make his owne devices fundamentall to avert the points of religion to make distinctions such as man never saw in the Scriptures As to talk of Purgatory invocation of Saints and of other errors newly sprung up in these later times Such things as these have no kind of being in the Scriptures no nor any shew of being notwithstanding these proud imperious spirits will bring them upon the Church of God and lay a heavy yoak upon the people of God to beleeve them as if they were the very oracles of Almightie God himselfe Wee must take heed of these things Teach mee as far as thou wilt out of Gods booke but if thou teach me otherwise thou art a liar and no teacher thou art a seducer and an imposter and no pastor as St. Bernard Bernard and also Gregorie Gregorie saith Therefore this blessed Apostle he puts downe his proofe he will have them beleeve him no further then hee brings Scripture for it It is written saith he As if he should say I make not this distinction of a naturall body and a spirituall body I have it made to my hand for it is written And where is it written it is a hard thing to find that all the whole sentence is not to be found any where but the first part of it is written that the first Adam was made a living soule the other part is made up by the spirit of the Apostle understanding the difference betweene the first and the second Adam to make up the antithesis of that notable difference betweene the one and the other Some of the Fathers doe take it thus that the whole sentence may seeme to be written that oft-times in the Scripture things are said to be written and to be done which are not written nor done meaning not in their kinde but in their effects by some consequence As St. Chrysostom saith of this Chrysost from the reason and event of the thing it was written because that men did see every christian knows that Christ Iesus doth so farre passe and surmount the first Adam as God surpasseth man as the soule surpasseth the body therefore the event and consequent of the thing makes it as if it were written For God hath made it good and so hath set it as a sure writing in the world And so he gives instance from divers Scriptures in the like things As in Heb. 12.21 Heb. 12.21 the Apostle saith speaking of the terrour of Moses when he was in the mount when the Law was given the terror was so great that Moses said I feare exceedingly Now in the booke of Exodus Exod. 19. Chap. 19. where those things are related there is no such thing mentioned that Moses said any such words but the Glosse expounds it That it is certaine upon the deed upon the teror that Moses conceived he trembled It was a thing done although it were not spoken he did tremble So here also it may be said Although there be no such words as the second part of this sentence that the second Adam was made a living spirit yet de facto it is true For all the Church of God knowes and subscribes that there is a maine difference betweene them Such other places there are as that in Isay 7.14 Isay 7.14 A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a sonne and they shall call his name Emanuell Now this was never done de facto as St. Chrysostom observes Chrysost the people never called him so they called him Iesus not Emmanuel And although the Angell gave that name to the virgin yet the people used it not and yet saith St. Chrysostom though it were not done de facto yet it was done de jure it was done in right and reason for that the things themselves do send forth such a voice and testimony that he was Emmanuel God with us Therefore these Fathers think the meaning of the Apostle is this That although it were not
live in sicknesse and at last to be swallowed up of death to come to rottennesse and putrifaction which is the naturall conclusion of all bodies that live in this world This course God hath appointed first and then upon this God will make his power glorious to bring the body from dust and filth and rottennes to be spirituall to bring it to sweetnesse and glory and beauty this is his order Therefore first they are naturall bodies miserable and weak and obnoxious and then the Lord will supervestire he will invest them with that glory and incorruption which is promised to us in Christ So much for that point the truth of the proposition and the order Now for the comparison of the two heads and fountaines they are laid downe 2. Part. The comparison of the two Adams as the causers of all this Why is this so that there is first the naturall and then the spirituall because God would have Adam the naturall man to come first and Christ the Spirituall man to come last that the one should be the first of men the other the last and that they two should carry the keyes of these closets and treasures the one of corruption the other of incorruption Therefore from them depends all the reason of the former proposition First it is to be observed that hee saith a man First in respect of their order and succession first and last and a man It is spoken of Christ that hee is a man as well as of Adam so that they were both men of the same nature and substance nay the second Adam was the sonne of the first For wee see St. Luke in his Genealogie Luke 3. Luke 3. brings Christ from Adam Which was the sonne of Adam which was the sonne of God So that Manicheus and Valentinus and Martianus have taught us blasphemous doctrines in former times and so have the Swenck-Feldians which have received their errour of late All these are from hence condemned For as Tertullian Tertull. saith Why is Christ called the second man except hee were as true a man as the first therefore of the nature of Adam was the Lord Christ made even by deduction of nature and by a line infallible to the Virgin Mary Although by reason of the sanctifying of the bloud of which his blessed body was to be made and because that there was no intervention of the help of man he is not to be ranked in the common generation of man-kinde for he was not borne as they that are borne of women that is after the naturall ordinary course but by the over-shadowing of the holy Ghost Therefore in this regard hee is greater and far above Adam but concerning the materiall part of his body which hee tooke of the Virgin hee was the son of Adam and so the second man or the last Adam not because hee was the last of all men Iesus Christ hath been many years since in the flesh but because he was to put an end to the state of all things that there should be no new state after the comming of Christ expected Before Christ there was the state of nature of the law of the separation of the Iewes and Gentiles there were divers kinds and degrees but now he is come all the former states of nature and the law are no more to be recapitulated and there is no difference between the Iew and the Gentile Colos 3.11 bond and free male and female but all are one in Christ Iesus Againe Christ is called the last Adam because he saith of himselfe Revâ—l 1.8 that hee is Alpha and Omega he is Alpha in respect of his Deity and he is Omega in respect of his humanity and hee is both Alpha and Omega both first and last in regard that hee is coequall and coeternall with God the Father For as he is God he is Alpha the beginning of all things created he is the first borne of all creatures Colos 1.15 and as hee is Omega he is the last conclusion and end of the Alphabet that there is no more state no more sacrifice no more law no more new to be expected in the world But that which a Christian is to betake him to he must have it in Christ or not at all and all other are deceived that seeke for any other name than that Acts 4 24. for there is no other name under heaven whereby we may be saved This is the first difference in their order The second 2. In respect of their places earth heaven is in respect of the places from whence they were descended The first man is from the earth earthly The second man is the Lord himself from heaven heavenly The places from whence they come are earth and heaven and there is no greater difference can be in all the things in nature Wee cannot say that there is any thing more distant than these two nor any thing more contrary than these two the one being the fountaine of light the other being the receptacle of darknesse The one being the spring of all actions the other being a meerely passive and dull substance The one being the cause impressive the other being the cause receptive The one being the originall and fulnesse of every thing that is good the other being participant as much as it is capable of it For so much as the supreame cause works upon it so much it is prospered by it The one being alway moving and stirring and whirling about the other being restive and not able to stirre out of its place There is nothing more contrary than heaven and earth and such is the deduction of these two prime causes But how was Adam earthly more then Christ Christ had a body of the Virgin and so he was of the bowels of the earth as well as Adam And how was Christ more heavenly and spirituall then Adam had not he a soule and spirit as well as Christ how can these things consist For the first you must understand that the Apostles meaning is where hee saith that Adam was from the earth that is as much as to say his chiefe powers and abilities were still inclined to the earth that he was fraile that hee was made in a condition to goe back againe to the earth that was his destiny and hee had a law imposed upon him to dig and delve the earth and therefore he is said to be of the earth Not because hee had not a soule from heaven for hee had a soule from heaven as well as Christ had but because he was drawne by his inferiour part by his body which was his earthly part because hee was drawne by that from the contemplation of heavenly things and had rather to take an apple with his wife than to follow the justice and uprightnesse of God because hee declined to the earth and base things and left the Creator for a poore creature and because hee left the unchangeable good
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
which is now accomplished but in one the Lord Iesus hath it alone in one Now it is in the first fruits then it shall be in the whole Harvest then it shall be made good to the whole Church which is now only performed to the head of the Church that Death is swallowed up into victory This I take to be the sense of the words To proceed in order First we are to consider it as the words lye and not as the logicall rule would carrie us For logically we have A subject A predicate And a Vinculum or Copulate The subject is corruption This corruptible The predicate is a certaine change it must have this corruptible must take and put on incorruption And the copulate is the oportet it must needs be so and this mortall must put on immortality And then after that there is a blessed comfort that the Church of God shall receive In the meane time shee receives it as being certaine that it shall be but then she shall receive it as a full payment at that time That Scripture which said Death is swallowed up into victory It shall then be utterly accomplished Wherein we are to consider First that the Apostle confirmes and strengthens himselfe by Scripture by that which is written Secondly where it is written Thirdly the substance and matter that is written That Death is swallowed up into victory Where againe we are to consider three termes First what that is that is swallowed Death and all evill and mischiefe Secondly the terme to which it is swallowed or consumed to victory Thirdly the efficient cause who swallowes it and what it is that swallowes Death that must needs be understood the death of the Sonne of God the death of Christ swallowes up the death of men into an absolute victory And then the answer to that question How is Death swallowed up in victory seeing it every day swallowes us up and consumes us how then is Death swallowed up himselfe And that is to be answered in these words because the time is not yet come When this corruption shall put on incorruption and this mortall shall put on immortality then shall be fulfilled this saying Every thing is in its own time when all things are done that should bee done when all things are accomplished that the Lord shall send before then that shall come after But we have it now onely in hope we have it onely in the first fruits we have it in some part we have it in the head then we shall have it in all the members We have it in some few that were raised with Christ to be witnesses of his Resurrection and they are pawnes for all the rest When this corruption hath put on incorruption and this mortall c. Of these parts briefly and in order as it shall please God to give assistance And first to follow the order of the words He saith this corruptible and this mortall speaking of the bodies of men For the soule of man is neither corruptible nor mortall as heretofore wee have touched Therefore those that understand these things of the Resurrection of the spirit of the Resurrection of the soule from vice to newnesse of life they are extremely mistaken and they abuse the word of grace which is here propounded unto us For the Apostle speakes of that part which is corrupt and mortall that the glory of God shall be shewed upon it and he saith this very body this Identicall thing this Idem numero not another body in stead of this but this which is now so corrupt The body shall remaine the same although the accidents and qualities shall be rare and glorious which shall accrew unto it yet it shall be one and the selfe same body As S. Chrysostome saith Chrysost the selfe same it shall be in the selfe same inches and quantity although the qualities shall be altred and it shall have gracious indowments yet they shall be the same substance they shall be the same bodies And againe it is to be observed that hee useth two words together hee repeates it This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality And this hee doth not without very good reason For it is no vaine repetition of the same thing twice over it is not S. Pauls purpose nor his custome so to doe but hee notes in us two certaine infirmities which the Lord shall stay and stanch at that day by that glorious vesture and garment of incorruption and immortality which he shall put upon us First then our body is corrupt that is changing from one forme to another it cannot continue in the same stay And secondly it is mortall that is subject to utter destruction to be altogether without any forme The first is the mutability which the matter whereof we consist cannot endure You understand that in all things that are made there are two great principles the matter and the forme besides the privation The matter is so infinitly capable and desirous of new formes that it cannot endure long to stay in one state still the matter desires a new forme to come upon it as being weary of that which it hath borne before We see it in all things in nature And though God worke his owne will and his gracious wonders by that yet notwithstanding it shewes the variety and disposition of the matter which is still capable and hath an appetite after a new forme and desires to be changed In the fruits of the earth The seed would not continue so a seed but when it is cast into the ground it comes to sprout and to spring and from thence it comes to be a little tree and so a greater and then it comes to grow backward it comes downe againe and comes to be a dead thing We see it in our selves First there is the matter of our nature then wee doe not so continue but it becomes an embrio then it comes from that forme to be a childe and when it is weary of that it comes higher So God brings things to perfection and then back againe to imperfection I speake onely of the variety in the materiall cause which as the Philosopher speaks is the devourer of formes it is ever desiring a new forme to be set upon it So God teacheth us by this that the very appetite of the matter shall carrie us to the certainty of a new forme which shal be set upon us in that blessed day because that this corruptible matter is ever changeable and changing formes It is certaine that God shall then stop the appetite of the matter and give it a forme which shall never be changed and that it shall never desire to change Here nature never stayes nor is never content with any forme but wee come from our prime matter to childhood from childhood wee passe along to youth and youth sends us to middle age middle age brings us to dotage and dotage sends us to our graves
in his time yet at last hee shall fall and be conquered by the hand of Caesar and by his prowesse be outed both of his honours and of his life And Caesar himselfe in the height of all that glory that can come upon a man in this world there was never any before him or the like shall bee after him yet hee could not hold his state but he falls into the hands of Conspirators a sort of bloody murtherers that shall kill him in his Counsell-chamber so uncertaine are the smiles of this world that there is no victory constant but still she flies moves and changes her tent and tabernacle from one side to another therefore there can bee no boasting or bragging in these earthly and worldly conquests which hath made the wisest Emperours of the world after they have had a good gale of fortune as they call it after they have prospered a while for feare of crosse blowes after they have left their honours and betaken them to a solitary life to live in Monasteries lest they should have a foule end after such goodly and faire proceedings But in this case in this victory that wee now speake of there is no uncertainty there is no inconstancy to be feared Ianus Temple is shut for ever They had a custome among the Romans they worshipped a certaine god which they thought was the Lord and Tutor of their City which they called Ianus which had in Rome a great Temple the doores whereof stood open all the while they were in warres and shut in all the time of peace and they were so cumbred with warre for 800. yeares together that in all that time the doores of Ianus Temple were but thrice shut they were alway open to shew that the warres were open and therefore they gave their god leave to goe out and in to succour them or else they thought his arme could not reach his power could not extend to their ayde See the ridiculous and foolish vanities of the Heathen when the warres were ceased they shut the doores to keepe in their god there was no use of him then Now this Temple I say for 800. yeares was in all that time but three times shut First in the time of Numa Pompilius Secondly in the time of Tytus Maneus as Tytus Livius saith after the Carthaginian warre And thirdly by Augustus Caesar But when the time shall come when God shall give to this corruption incorruption and to this mortall immortality then there shall be for ever a cessation of warre The Temple of Ianus shall never more be opened it shall be shut for everlasting there shall bee no cause of warre but the people of God shall bee in perfect peace with the Lord and shall live under the defence of his protection they shall live secure for ever Plutarch saith when Philip King of Macedon had gotten a great victory at Cheronia hee wrote to Archimedes and hee used lofty speeches in his letter as being proud and puffed up with his late victory Archimedes replies to him no more but this Sir saith hee you write stately to mee in high termes and I partly know the reason of it but if you will take the paines but to measure your owne shadow you shall find that it is no more that it is no greater nor no larger then it was before your victory You were as great a man then and as many inches about as you are now And it is true in worldly things Chance as they call it is so variable that no man can tell how hee shall begin or how he shall end but in this victory which the Lord vouchsafes us in Christ Iesus it holds not for the victory that we shall have there shall make our shadowes greater and it shall make our persons more honourable and fuller of power and majesty 1. Cor. 15.44 For it is sowen in dishonour it riseth againe in honour It is sowen in weaknesse it riseth again in power The victory therefore that we have in Christ it is not like the victory that Philip the King of Macedon got that his shadow was no bigger then before but this victory in Christ is a great enlarger of man and of all the parts and faculties in him that hee is not like himselfe as hee was before no more then an honourable thing is like a dishonourable or a strong thing is like unto a weake Now to come to the Order Oâ—der of the words read unto you here the holy Apostle explains that which he had said before when hee insulted over death A man might ask what is the reason thou takest upon thee so much seeing death shall conquer thee as well as other men and thou must die as well as the rest that have gone before thee To give a reason therefore of it he shewes that it was no presumption or idle imagination of himselfe but it was a thing conferred unto him by the power of Christ and his Gospel For saith hee I have good reason to insult as I did I know when that blessed time shall come wee shall have no enemies against us If there should be any enemy it should be either death or sinne or the law But there shall be none of these and therefore there shall bee no enemy but a perpetuall end and issue of man for ever There shall bee no death for why because there shall be no sinne for the sting of death is sin and death cannot come upon man but by the wrath of God which is conceived for sinne which being taken away death must needs cease for the worke ending the wages must needs end and the wages of sinne is death But how will you prove that there shall bee no sinne Because there shall be no law for the strength of sinne is the Law and the Lord shall give that glory to the bodies that shall rise that they shall not need any Law but they shall be a law to themselves and every man shall love God and please God not by constraint not by the terrours of the Law and Commandement but from the ducture of his owne free-free-spirit that shall leade and conjoyne and make him one spirit with the Lord. Therefore that which the holy Apostle said before is most constant and true that because there shall bee no enemies then left therefore we may boast in the Lord our God which hath given us perfect victory over all our enemies and there shall be no enemie left because there shall be neither sin which is the grand cause the Arch-enemy of mankind for that is taken away by the righteousnesse of Christ who knew no sinne he that knew no sinne God made him sinne for us that we might be made the righteousnesse of God Mark it saith the holy Apostle that we might be made the righteousnesse of God When was Christ made sinne for us In this miserable life and when shall we be made the righteousnesse of God In that blessed life Therefore
DOOMES-DAY OR A TREATISE OF THE RESURRECTION of the BODY Delivered in 22. Sermons on 1. Cor. 15. Whereunto are added 7. other Sermons on 1. Cor. 16. BY The late Learned and Iudicious Divine MARTIN DAY Doctor in Divinity Chaplaine in Ordinarie to his Majestie and sometimes Rector of S. Faiths LONDON Matth. 22.31 Have you not read what God hath spoken to you touching the Resurrection of the Dead LONDON Printed by T. H. and M. F. for Nathanael Butter and are to be sold at the signe of the Pide Bull neere Saint Austins gate 1636. To the Right Reverend Father in God and his most Ho. Lord JOSEPH By the Divine Providence Lord Bishop of EXCESTER MY LORD REligious spirits are usually Indulgent Patrons to Orphanes They imitate in this Act him who sayd I will bee a Father to the Fatherlesse I doubt not but that I shall finde your Honour of this generous disposition to these printed Posthumes of Doctor Dayes licensed by Authority and now seeking to your Lordship for protection I have adventured to present these papers comming to my hands to your Honour hoping the childe wil be wel liked for his Fathers sake who was wel known unto and entirely beloved of your Hon. in his primitive time in Cambridge as also while hee was our Pastor heere continued it towards him in his charge in your Lo. Diocesse even untill his dissolution however I have done this to shew my readines upon any occasion of service to your Lordship Thus craving your favour to shelter and fence this worke from open depravers and to continue your love to the Authors memory I humbly take leave being Your Lordships Servant NATH BUTTER To the Readers YOu cannot expect that these Sermons should have such exact politenesse and neat dressing as if the Authour had lived to revise them Yet you may discover Dr Dayes spirit expression method and matter to speake in all of them praesentemque refert concio quaeque patrem I would wish you then to read them without any prejudicate opinion as thâ—y are exercises whose Authour was famous in his time and which cannot chuse but yeeld you matter of counsell and comfort You have but few Authours in English upon this Epistle and fewer upon these subjects Lose by reading of them you cannot gaine you may I doubt not but they will proove beneficiall to the whole Church for whose sake I have published them Thus wishing you to gather hony out of these where it may be had I rest Yours N. B. 1 COR. 15.29 What shall they doe that are baptised over the dead if the dead rise not at all Why therefore are they baptised over the dead THis gratious Apostle the blessed organ and instrument of the holy Ghost doth so wondrously dispute his cause and contrive his arguments for the maintaining of this holy article of our faith the resurrection of the body that as Saint Chrysostome saith Chrysost in locum he leaves nothing unfetched either from God or men for in five or sixe verses before the text he disputes from the omnipotencie of God in raising Christ his Sonne He hath discoursed also of Christs kingdome and of the delivery of the kingdome of his mediation and of the end of all things the perfect consummation of all that God may governe and be all in all Now he descends to a lower kinde of sphere to arguments taken from the actions of men and presidents here below upon the earth And he saith that there were certaine men in the world that were baptised for dead that is they are baptised in a certaine hope of the resurrection of the dead whose labour is lost and their faith frustrate and to no purpose if they have not the end of that whereof they now make profession here So some expound it But that is to bring us backe into the same labyrinth we were in before Verse 14. for he saith before that our hope is vaine and our Preaching vaine if there be no resurrection Therefore waving that opinion I take it that the Apostle speakes of some other more peculiar and particular cause that is concerning the state of the Church of God in persecution wherin men despairing of helpe in this world despairing of any life or contentment they did come and offer themselves in a voluntary martyrdome and tooke the baptisme of death that is they were baptised to this purpose being willing to offer themselves as dead men to persecution for the Gospell sake which they would not have done unlesse they had beene certainly assured of the resurrection of the body Other sences there be but I must proceed in order from one to another and labour to finde out the likeliest for in truth there are innumerable many and the place is very difficult Onely two things we are most sure of in this argument and discourse here set downe to our hand First that whatsoever this baptising over the dead was and therein is all the difficultie yet it was a thing that was publike notorious and knowne to the Corinthians it was a matter that was not obscure to them although it be to us For the Apostle speakes not to them in clouds but by way of familiar and evident example thereby to winne their judgements to this conclusion concerning the bodies resurrection Secondly another thing is that whatsoever this baptisme was yet certainly it was a thing of much force it was a great argument to prove that which the Apostle intended For it is not his manner to deale weakely in proving and disputing but he useth all the strength of the holy Ghost as Chrysostome saith Chrysost that is as much strength and demonstration and evidence of the spirit as a man can be capable of And so upon this ground we must gather that that opinion is most likely and to be imbraced that maketh most for the resurrection of the body And if there be any sence of more force then other or any sence more pertinent than other to prove that maine conclusion certainely that is the sence which the Apostle intends For all those that be of lesser weight and smaller moment they are besides the Apostles purpose Questionlesse if there be any vigour or power in any more than another we must imagine that that is it the Apostle aymed at and that he would have us to ayme at All the doubt comes out of the ambiguitie of this one word Baptisme While some take this baptisme for the sacramentall washing others againe take it for a ceremoniall washing either such as were in the Law among the legall ceremonies or such as were knowne in the common course of life the washing of the bodies and corpes of the dead when they were layd forth for the Coffin Concerning these words for the dead there is also some doubt some expounding it for sinne some for sinners and some for them that are naturally dead that is when the spirit in the common course of nature is
we in jeopardy and danger every day and every houre are an exposition of the former Wherein he translates the argument from the common passion of the Church to his owne personall sufferings and those that were the first and principall in persecutions and troubles and he concludes that they were mad men that would undergoe such misery except they hoped for something unlesse they had a certaine hope of reward and recompence in those bodies in which they suffered For it is the body that suffers here the soule cannot be martyred but the body Therefore the Apostle saith Every man shall receive in their bodies according as they have done in their bodies 2 Cor. 5.10 whether it be good or evill Now for a man to undertake such great hazard and danger to be alway in jeopardy to be every houre in perill it is as bad as to be utterly consumed A man were better to be utterly dispatched than to be alway hanging in suspence for men to be still in anxiety to leade their lives in extremity and trouble to have nothing to comfort them here nor to have any expectation in the world to come of the common resurrection there were no madnesse comparable to this But because in these things we must not be presumptuous but must take them as the spirit of God hath suggested and dictated them to other men therefore I will not build certainly upon this sence although I thinke it to be the most true and naturall consequent that can be But we will consider also what the spirit of God hath spoken otherwise This gift of interpretation is not acknowledged nor understood among simple men although it be the greatest gift of all other For a man cannot tell what to build on he cannot tell what to thinke he knowes not what to say or what to conclude on If he ground upon a false interpretation Ierome in Gal. 1. as Saint Ierome saith upon Galath 1. upon these words I mervaile that you are gone to another Gospell saith he what makes this another Gospell false glosses and interpretations by giving a false sence of the Scriptures that which in it selfe is the pure Gospell of Christ may be made the Gospell of man nay that which is worse the Gospell of the divell so Saint Ierome Chrysost And Saint Chrysostome discoursing upon the same argument saith he If Christ himselfe shall not interpret the word which is obscure and darke in it selfe I shall neither gather the doctrine nor settle the conclusion so that the gift of interpretation is of all others the chiefe and prime foundation of divinity Therefore observing the great variety of the ancient Fathers in the Church of God I must of necessity abandon all kinde of darke and obscure speech and all that savours of affected language or eloquence yea and speake plainely as Saint Austin saith It is a farre better thing that the Grammarian or that the Criticke should reprehend us then that the people should not understand us In the divers sences of this Text I touched some others remaine which I will conclude as briefly as I can and then come to the other argument taken from his particular Why doe we thus Why doe we live in danger and jeopardie every houre What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead The first opinion was that the Text is to be understood according to the letter to be baptised for dead men This opinion is followed by many great and learned men and by Musculus which I wonder at for he was a most rare instrument of light to the Church of God throughout all the Scriptures and yet he thinkes this to be a good and a true construction That as Christ Iesus commended the fact of the unrighteous and unjust Steward although he did not commend the fact yet his wisedome is commended so the Apostles purpose is to shew that though it were a vaine thing for them to baptise the dead in the person of the quicke to baptise them by a proxey yet it argued that which the Apostle would inferre that they had a hope of the resurrection or else they would never have done it But because this hath beene condemned by the Fathers as hereticall and foolish therefore I wave that opinion as not being the Apostles meaning A second opinion was concerning those that did put off their baptisme till their death as the fashion was in the first 4 or 500. yeares after Christ The third what shall they doe that are baptised for the dead that is that are baptised into a dead Christ This is followed by a great number of worthy Divines Chrysostome Theophilact Oecumenius Theodoret and Calvine Another opinion What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead that is from the dead so the word signifieth sometimes and so Luther Luther saith that in the primitive times they baptised their children in the Church yards where the dead bodies were buried and were wont to stand upon the grave of the dead man and say This man shall rise againe I beleeve it and I take the Sacrament upon it and here I am baptised If wee could finde such a custome in the Church this were a cleare evidence but there is no history that makes this appeare unto us Notwithstanding if there had beene such a custome as that it being something superstitious it could not greatly inferre the argument and there is no reason to thinke they should be baptised upon the graves of the dead seeing the custome seemed to be contrary to baptise them in their Baptisteria or Fonts which were in little houses neere their Churches in which there was no burying of the dead for divers hundred yeares after Christ that is not till the Fonts were brought into the Churches till when they buried in the Church yards and in the Cloysters below Yet notwithstanding this might be true in some places as in the Church of Asia and in the parts upon the Euxine sea where they never baptised any but at the time of Easter and Whitsuntide and then they baptised them upon the graves of the dead to assure them that the dead that were contained in those graves and turned to dust should rise againe which they would now verifie by taking the Sacrament of baptisme upon it Therefore I give this interpretation the authority it deserves and take it as a true glosse on the Text but yet it is not the fulnesse of the great things the Apostle here intended The next opinion was they that are baptised for the dead that is dead to the world civilly dead that betake themselves to the study of mortification and will not live in those pleasures and delights which the world accounts the onely life Those kinde of pleasures and epicurious delights which worldly men take to be the life of life the Saints of God detest and abhorre them and in baptisme they doe renounce them the pompes and vanities of the wicked world and make
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
one after another Every minute is like the bodrags in the heart and braine of a man that are still accrewing fearefull shewes and signes of evill So that I protest by the rejoycing I have in the Lord Iesus I dye daily 2 Part. The Proofe Now I come to the second poynt which is the proofe of this For there is no man that would beleeve it because flesh and bloud cannot understand how a man should be dead and yet alive As the Poet saith As long as a man liveth whatsoever happen to him he is well breake a hand or a foot of him breake his bones and let him have life he is indifferent well But the children of God doe not judge so of these things For life is not to live meerely but to be in a good estate to be in a healthy condition therefore seeing the Apostle lived and had his being among men he being not now layd in his grave but conversing in our common element why then doth he say hee died daily Why even because of troubles and of cares It is true but because men would not beleeve how he should have such cares 1 By way of an Oath and how they should be the cut-throat of his life therefore now he interposeth his bond and it is a firme bond his oath which though it be but an imperfect argument yet is it taken of godly men for the strongest argument that is in Rebus humanis For things that are uncertaine are determined by the oath of an honest man and men take it for the most certaine truth that can be because an oath is a bond that gives testimony to the truth So the Apostle in this and in other places useth a strange kinde of reasoning drawn from the contrary and we are to beleeve him upon his Word It is true his friends and those that are sanctified will easily beleeve him but those that are without that are yet to bee wonne they are hardly to be perswaded Therefore for their infirmity and for the weakenesse of the Corinthians he puts his oath to it and sweares it is true I protest by the reioycing I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily Now you see the nature of the argument and if we consider it well it will appeare that the wisedome of God in the state of his children which is so farre above mans reach and reason that the Angels themselves can scarcely make a delivery of it For marke he had said before I dye daily and now he proves it by another thing cleane contrary by his rejoycing daily By the reioycing that I have in Christ Iesus continually by that reioycing that is alway with me by that reioycing I dye daily A strange thing that a man should have feare and care and yet be ioyfull too at the same time to dye and yet to reioyce or boast at the same instant for so the word signifieth to boast in the apprehension of a good thing to ioy in a singular measure for Ioy is the apprehension of a singular good in a singular measure that these two should be put together to say I reioyce daily and I dye daily this is a wonder which the Lord hath hid from flesh and bloud which he hath not manifested to the great ones of the world but to his little despicable ones even those that take delight in the kingdome of Christ By the reioycing I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily There is some variety in the reading of these words Some reade it by your reioycing and so that which I must honour our last translation hath it in the Margine by your reioycing some reade it or reioycing But there is no great difference for the sence comes all to one So Saint Ierome Saint Augustine Saint Chrysostome and Theophilact they read it by your reioycing But then on the other side there are a number of the Fathers that reade it our reioycing as Basile upon Psal 14. Athanasius and of later Writers Luther and Calvin Onely Beza holds with the Ancients and saith your reioycing making notwithstanding no difference in the Text or in the sence for saith he the Apostles meaning is by the reioycing that I have of you and by the reioycing that you have of me and saith Saint Chrysostome he calleth the proficiency of the Corinthians his reioycing as he saith 1 Thes 2. What is our crowne 1 Thes 2.19 and our reioycing and our glory are not ye And he answers his owne question and saith yes Ye are our crowne and our reioycing in the day of the Lord. This I take to be the more fitte and the more lively and fuller our reioycing rather than to reade it yours although it bee true it is the common Reioycing of Gods children they have all the same spirit and the same joyes yet a man may not lawfully sweare by that which is in another man but a man may sweare for himselfe Thus Saint Paul although he knew that the Corinthians were forward and full of the gifts of the holy Ghost and of ioy yet he had no reason to be so confident in them as to sweare by their reioycing Because a man knowes not what is in his neighbour he is not certaine he may iudge the best but he knowes nothing certainly and he were a mad man therefore that would sweare for that which he knowes not therefore the Apostle makes this oath not of the ioy or gloriation or boasting that was in the Corinthians but the boasting and gloriation of his owne spirit in the presence of Christ Iesus This I take to be the sence although it be true that the Apostle gloried much in his passions and sufferings at Corinth and he gloryed too for the preaching and successe of the Gospell this was matter of great gloriation and boasting yet it was the inward comfort and testimony of his conscience that made him sweare by his reioycing in Christ Others goe about to put it off with a kinde of Asseveration onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Bezae Annotat in locum that is another reading which Saint Ambrose followes and the vulgar Bibles and so the common translations at this day though they touch upon this and in a manner are weary of the other As if the Apostle should say for your glory sake But those that know the Greeke tongue they know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being not written with letters but like a halfe circle it is easily brought to be like the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the Scripture may be read promiscuously with eyther of them in this place But this is against the tenent of all the Fathers of the Church which have still thought this to be an oath As Saint Austin writing to Hillary in his 89. Aug ad Hilla ep 89. Et lib. 3. de Trin. Epistle he proves it lawfull for a Christian man to sweare because the Apostle writes by an oath And
I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men what avayleth it if the dead rise not Why should I cast my selfe into these dangers why should I indure them any longer why should I not at the first grapling with the troubles of this life betake my selfe to that more sure and easie condition But because the Church before mee hath done thus therefore I follow her steps I see what Iohn Baptist hath suffered I see what Iames the brother of Iohn hath indured I see what the Innocents have undergone I see what the blessed Martyr Stephen hath suffered All these in great tranquillity of spirit have yeelded their soules to God And the Prophets in former time I see they have suffered for the same profession that I now have taken upon me for their doctrine was the same they all poynted to Christ they all preached the doctrine of the Resurrection therfore as the Church in generall hath gone before and all the Colledge of Apostles in particular have traced after I also will personally insist in their steps 2 Tim. 1.12 and follow too I know whom I have beleeved I have laid up my trust in his hand that will not deceive me therefore I am assured there shall be a Resurrection of this flesh of this body that hath suffered so many torments for the cause of Christ it shall be againe invested with so many notes of glory and happinesse as it hath indured miseries and torments and that according to the multitude of my sorrowes so shall my consolations abound in Christ This I take to be the summe and sence of this Text. But it is intricate to consider the many sences that are given of it which notwithstanding we may not neglect any of them for then wee shall slight the grace of God which hath alway beene various in his Church We ought therefore to view every thing to prove all things as the Apostle saith 1 Thes 5.21 and keepe that which is best and most firme and sollid Augustne As Saint Austin saith God would have his Scriptures to bee hard and difficult and full of divers sences because hee would have no idle fellowes to come unto it because he would rouse up the diligence of his children The Lord doth not take away the proper sence of the Scriptures from them that are studious and diligent and carefull but onely hee shuts up the sence from negligent and carelesse men but he opens it againe to those that knocke as Christ saith Knocke and it shall be opened unto you Therefore first we are to consider the great and maine difficulty of the Text in the interpreting of those two words which are diversly taken Exposition of the words First what it is the Apostle meanes when he saith He fought with beasts Secondly what it is hee saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after men or after the manner of men And though the divers editions and translations have reconciled them to our hand yet there is nothing so authenticall but a man may give another exposition as good and as full of authority as that And then after the exposition we are to come to The description of this trouble Division 1 What it was and 2 Where it was What it was that it was such a kinde of trouble as was to death and to very destruction in the judgment of man as it appeares plainely by this and by that in 2 Cor. 1.8 where the Apostle makes a relation of it 2 Cor. 1.8 And then where it was at Ephesus the most ingenious place in the world where the divell had set his throne in the greatest triumph As it is said Rev. 2 I know thy dwelling Apoc. 2.13 where Sathans throne is there was Dyana's temple the most famous Idoll in the world the throne of Sathan Acts 19.35 was there more conspicuously then any where else therefore it was most likely that there should be the greatest persecution where men were most of all corrupted and infected with Idolatry And then lastly to gather the force of the argument if there be no Resurrection what doth it profit me that I have fought with beasts at Ephesus As if he should have said he is a mad man and a foole that will cast himselfe into danger without profit The great adventurers of the world they still propose to themselves ends of profit to what good to what end things may be it is that which sets all mens wits on worke it is that which commands the lives and labours of men to farre and forraine Countries and he that workes without an end without apparant profit he is of all men the most franticke therfore so must I be saith the Apostle if there be no Resurrection To what profit is it that I have fought with beasts If there be not some profit but that I have exposed my selfe to danger onely to get me a name I were of all others the most furious and mad but God forbid that the Church before me or the Apostles with me or I my selfe should bee thus deluded to throw our selves into hazard to have no profit to have no meanes to comfort our selves after our trouble to have nothing for our labour God forbid we should be so insensate Therefore because we doe thus and are assured of Gods promise that we shall have a reward and an abundant recompence therefore as sure as God liveth we shall not loose our labour there shall be a Resurrection for so the Apostles argument is framed If there be no Resurrection then why doe I take this paines and if I take this paines for no profit then I and the rest of the faithfull that suffer are mad and furious men but we are not mad nor furious but are indued with the spirit of God and we know what we doe wee know whom we have trusted 2 Tim. 1.12 and therefore wee are certaine of an abundant recompence This is the summe and ground of the argument and these are the branches of the Text. Of these in order as the spirit of God shall assist me And first for that the Apostle saith If I have fought with beasts A great many sound Divines hold it true in the letter that Saint Paul was obiected to beasts and was constrained to fight with them for the saving of his life You shall understand that among the severall torments the Church of God was subject unto by persecutors this was one kinde to make the people sport by setting two or three of the Saints of God upon a stage where there were so many Panthers Leopards Lyons or Beares and there they were to tugge for their lives We see in the Churches History this hath beene alway one kinde of their persecution We see it also of ancient time In the time of Daniel King Darius Dan. 6.16 upon the instigation of his Lords cast Daniel into the Denne and it is said the Lyons were famished a long time
renew reforme and regenerate our spirits it is impossible but that flesh should speake of flesh and should savour the things of the world and not the things of God that it may be carried with a full swing after its owne impieties grow worse and worse and never leave sinning till at last it sinke in sinne and the pit close her mouth upon it Let us therefore be warie in following the tract of our forefathers If they were naught we have no reason to insist in their steps except it be in good except it be according to the wayes of God according to the holy pathes of the Almighty For it followes not that because sinne hath beene predominant in all ages that therefore we should use it now It followes not that because women have prancked themselves in pride and made themselves the Idols of the world that therefore the daughters of Sarah should doe it now It followes not that because drunkennesse hath beene a common vice heretofore that therefore men should hunt and follow after it now We have no reason to follow our ancients in ill customes except wee will chuse to perish in those ill customes Therefore the Apostle bringeth an ancient stale sinne and useth the same sentence Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye To eate and drinke are the most essentiall necessaries of our nature the supporters of our being and there is no life but the Lord hath appointed it to be sustained by these two proppes Eating and Drinking Eating to supply the dryer and more sollid part of the body and drinking to moysten to bee a coach and conveyance for the meate that we eate to be a cooling and refrigeration of the heate of the body And in both of them God hath set his blessing that by eating and drinking the life of man should bee preserved and prolonged in some to forty in some to fifty in some longer by many yeares by the blessing of the Almighty Therefore to eate and drinke so farre as to recreate the body to refresh the spirits to strengthen us in our functions and callings to incourage us to give thankes to God who is our feeder eating and drinking be as necessary as living But the eating and drinking here intended and spoken of Let us eate to surfetting let us drinke to drunkennesse let us eate and drinke to excesse to study these things onely for satiety and gurmandizing and that fulnesse that may confound nature and drowne the spirits of men and not build them up in the feare of God and in thankfulnesse to him this is that they meane here Let us eate so as that we may over-eate let us drinke so as that we may drowne our understandings in drinke When men cannot tell how to use the gifts of God moderately they cannot eate as other men eate but as monsters they cannot drinke as moderate men drinke but as spunges that devoure all within their compasse that their bodies many times are so full of ballast that the whole ship is lost even in the harbour it is not able to hold all the water but sinkes under the burden and is made a spectacle of misery to God to Angels and to men to insult over This brutish eating and drinking savours of bestiality Eating and drinking it is the meere felicity of the beast in this world As Cornelius Tacitus saith well some men are like beasts and goe no further if you give them a little fodder they will lye slumbering and be idle and take no further care such are those people Psal 17.14 Tertul. whose belly God fils with his hid treasure those whose belly is their God as Tertullian rightly describes them Their stomacke is their Altar Their belly is their God Their Priest is their Cooke Their holy Ghost is the smell of their meate Their graces of the spirit are their sauces Their Kitchin is their Church and Temple And that Aculiculus the most filthy part of al the body is their great and admired Idoll As the same Father goeth on Thou saist thou hast faith hope and charity Thy faith is boyling in the kitchin Thy charity is in thy Caldron or pot Thy hope is in those divers dishes brought to thy table Thus Tertullian hath described the condition of these kinde of brutish men And we see that in ancient times before men had the knowledge of Almighty God they placed a great happinesse in this one poynt of eating and drinking to make themselves bruit beasts without understanding as Saint Peter cals them 2 Pet. 2.12 2 Pet. 2.12 unreasonable brutish beasts Insomuch as one great King among them when he dyed commanded this Epitaph to be set upon his tombe This I have that I have eaten and drunken all the rest is lost that I have all the rest is left and forsaken Tully Aristotle which as Tully saith well out of Aristotle what other thing then this could have beene set upon the tombe of an Oxe or bruit beast to say I have nothing else but that I have eaten but that I have consumed and driven into my paunch and so into the draught that I have and no possession else But Christians have another language those things we have that we have learned out of Gods word the wisedome that we have gotten of heaven and heavenly things these things we have left us when our life leaves us and nothing remaines but the portion of these Those that have read any thing of the Poets they know what was the common language of seduced nature When God left them to their owne dregges miserable poore creatures they had no further aymes and intents then these transitory and perishing things the filling of their bellies whose belly is their God whose end is damnation as the Apostle saith Phil. 3.18 Phil. 3.18 Whose glory is their shame and such was the glory of all the heathen Another of them said Eate drinke and play for after death there is no pleasure Ede bibe lude post mâ—rtem nulla voluptas Horacâ— there is nothing remains Another comes in with his vye and saith The Sun indeed may rise and set and rise againe but when our night comes once the night of death we sleepe for ever and there we lye and there is no more to be heard of us Another of them saith We must ease our youth and take the benefit of it as a flower because it runnes away with a swift foot And another saith use thy pleasures now for thou knowest not whether ever they will come againe thou knowest not whether ever after thou shalt have opportunity to enioy them Thus this beastly congregation of brutish swinish people they apprehended with the greatest industry that could be these vile pleasures of eating and drinking as though there were a necessity of pleasures in this life and that the greatest pleasure consisted in the palate in consuming of meate and drinke According as this wicked crew which the Apostle
speakes of here said Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye There is no wise man would ever give himselfe to this most bestiall fashion were it but for the ill consequents of it for to say the truth there is nothing makes a man lesse like a man then to be a great drinker especially to be a great eater such being the very monsters of mankinde Nature is content with little and those that exceed that measure are hated and ridiculous to all men To see what mischiefe it brings to the body to this little frame of the world To see what intollerable dammage accrewes by it to the understandings of men What grosse heavinesse it brings upon the body How it takes away all nimblenesse and agility How it takes away all the powers of the spirits How it confounds the memory How it drownes every part of reasonable discourse How it makes a man a swadde and deformes that proportion and comely figure that God hath imposed upon him Every man knowes these things by common and wofull experience and yet these wretches cry out Let us eate and drinke As if they should have said Let us become fooles Let us make our selves mad Let us drowne our understandings Let us disfigure our selves that men may not know us to be men for nothing makes a man lesse discerned to be that which once he was then excessive eating and drinking Let us so eate and drinke therefore that we may eate and drinke in heaven let us not so set our selves upon our bellies as to become sonnes of Belial Let us take our bread here as an earnest of that bread we shall have in heaven Let us sit at our tables so here as a representation of the 12. Tables on which the 12 Apostles shall iudge the 12 Tribes of Israel Luke 22.30 Christ saith They shall sit upon 12 Tables and eate and drinke with him in the Kingdome of God It should teach us to eate and drinke these temporall things with conscience with remembrance with prefiguration and signification of those eternall meates drinks which we shall have in the kingdome of heaven by the mercy God For although it is true wee shall not eate and drinke there yet because this life consists in eating and drinking the holy Ghost hath set us downe the modell of the life to come with such ioyes and delights as may be compared nay which farre transcend eating and drinking but can by no meanes better be expressed to us than by these of eating and drinking For to eate and to drinke and to reigne and to reioyce and to dance and sing there are no such things in heaven but we cannot understand the ioy in heaven while we are here upon earth except it be set forth to us by these foyles Therefore the Lord condescends to our capacity and tels us of eating and drinking in heaven Let us therfore eate so here as that we may maintaine a hope of heaven Let not our tables be made a snare here Rom. 11.9 that which God hath appointed for our sustentation let it not turne to our confusion God hath not appoynted meate and drinke to overthrow us but to refresh us to make us fitter for his service and more able to the workes of our calling let us therefore disclaime and abhorre this brutish acclamation which these wicked wretches make that have no portion but their belly that are altogether for the gut and let us repute them among the basest of beasts but let us so eate as those that shall receive eternall food in the kingdome of God So much for the first poynt the poyson propounded Now we are to see the cause that these men alleadge for themselves 2 Poynt Reason alledgâ—d To morrow wee shall dye why they should eate and drinke For the wretched understanding of men is so depraved and corrupted by the judgement of God that they will drinke poyson upon reason these Epicures alleadge reason for their brutish course and their reason is because To morrow we shall dye This was a close mockery for when Isay told them in his time they should dye by the judgement of God for their wickednesse they mocked God in the Prophet As if they should say he tels us we shall dye he still threatens judgement and we know not how soone we may be taken out of this world therfore as long as we live let us have a time of it and while we live let us live since our time is short let us take the benefit of that time we have and so make it our happinesse See the wondrous stroke of Gods hand in blinding the understanding of man We are subject God knowes to the whole hand of God and sinne workes shame and confusion every where But there is no plague like this when a mans braine is smitten when his understanding is disturbed when he draws false and base conclusions out of Idle and foolish premises then comes the wracke and ruine of the poor creature There is nothing so wretched and miserable in the world as a mad man And in the body of Christianity there are none so mad as those men that argue after a contrary manner which upon strange premises bring in unnaturall conclusions For I beseech you coÌ„sider doth it follow because to morrow we shall dye that therefore we should feast ioviall it out to day nay cleane contrary It followes rather thou shouldest throw thy selfe downe in spirit and humble thy soule with fasting and prayer and in all the parts of humiliation to God to crave pardon for thy sinnes and so to prepare thee a way to everlasting glory How can thy meate be digested when thou must dye to morrow what man is so stout hearted that if he knew he should dye to morrow would feast to day can such a man swallow down his morsels with pleasure can he put over his drink with delight can he have any taste or rellish in these things that is destinated a dying man It is a wretched and divellish conclusion And yet God gives over the wicked wretched world to draw poysonful sences and wicked conclusions out of cleane contrary premyses What is that thou sayest saith Saint Austine To morrow we shall dye let us eate and drinke saith he thou hast terrified mee indeed but thou hast not deceived me Thou hast terrified me because thou sayest to morrow I shall dye and perhaps so I may The frailty of my nature is such that I may dye to night before to morrow Yet thou hast not deceived me for if I shall dye to morrow as thou sayest I will fast to day certainly Augustine so Saint Austine concludes and so would all reason conclude even a naturall man for as Plutarch Plutarch saith there is no man that if the Emperour should send him word that he should prepare himselfe and that after three dayes he should dye there is no man would be so brutish as
us take it and put it into Gods Iewell-house where it hath its proper and naturall consistence Now for the substance of the sentence 2 The substance of the verse and the two Antagonists it is betweene two great Antagonists and adversaries good manners and evill words and which gets the victory over other evill words corrupt good manners that is they put them downe and so get the victory that they have no place or abiding any more in a man so that it cannot be knowne where they were The word manners First Antagonist Good manners although it be well understood yet we may adde something to give further light to it It signifieth a certaine habite in a man that is acquired with long labour and diligence and exercise by which a man hath gotten it to himselfe For there is no man borne with good manners but he is borne as a beast as Aristotle Aristotle saith a little childe is more harsh untractable than a beast a man were better keep and bring up a young Lyon he may doe it with lesse labour then to bring up a childe For because God will punish sinne in the first reliques of it therefore to shew the misery and deformity of it he suffers in children the way of impatience and harshnesse that it is the great and wondrous mercy of God that ever they should come to perfection and that they should have nurses to beare with them to humour them and follow them in all the wayes of their corruption So that manners are not naturall unlesse it be brutish manners but those here spoken of are not gotten but with a great deale of diligence What a stirre have we to over-master that filth and corruption that is in our children with stripes with putting them to schoole with exhortations with all the meanes in the world and all too little to beate out of them that naturall corruption and that pestilent humour that is crept into them by originall traduction of sinne But now the Lord hath given to the education of parents and to those of discretion by long custome to be guardians and guides to these little ones that the rudenesse of their nature and the barbarousnesse of their affections might be mollified As the wilde ground the husbandman by long tillage of it and the wilde Vine by pruning and cutting of it at the last he brings the wilde ground to be good soyle and the wilde Vine to be a fruitfull one so the Lord hath given a blessing upon the gift of education that at last he makes these wilde oats to be good corne in the harvest of God and he settles good manners where there was nothing but furious brutishnesse And when they are so setled by long labour by feare of punishments by hope of rewards and by such meanes as doth cultivate the ground of God although it be long before they be brought to this for there is much warre betweene these two adversaries in the Text when these good manners and thus settled then they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sitting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Sedes Indoles Mos. taken from a word which signifieth to sit and keepe residence For being thus ingrafted and keeping residence they are not easily wrought out againe for they come to be as it were a second nature the law of manners is not easily changed as Saint Basile Basile saith because they were first imprinted when the minde of the childe was tender therefore the impression goeth the deeper and continues the longer When the Lord settles the power of his grace in a man it is not easie for the divell to deface that impression and he shall never doe it utterly Although there be divers actions that may deface it in shew and for the present time but the Apostle here speaks in another respect although hee may extend his speech to the manners of grace among the Corinthians But these things that he speaketh of common profession common religion taught they were brought unto them by God who is the husband man as Christ saith Ioh. 15. I am the true Vine Ioh. 15 1. and my Father is the husbandman This culture whereby by diligent labour they were brought from the harsh Idolatry of the heathen to know Christ to come to the knowledge of his faith of his life of his death of his miracles of the benefits they received by the communion of his body and bloud of his blessed Resurrection and the promise of the reuniting of our bodies and of the returne of our spirits these were manners that grace had taught them besides the common profession of Religion for a man may make a profession of religion and yet have no grace Now if these manners remaine in a man he is past the danger of all the pawes of Sathan The divell shall not be able to plucke up these plants Math. 15.13 which our heavenly Father hath planted as our Saviour Christ saith But if we goe no further then common reason and profession and content our selves with the outward forme of religion then comes that to passe here spoken of that evill words corrupt good manners and though good manners be setled of themselves and keepe their residence strongly yet the mightinesse of our enemy is such that he will pull them out except they have a deeper impression by the spirit of God made in us Now we come to the other adversary which is Evill words Second Antagonist Evill words The manners are called good and the language ill not according to the estimation of men but according to the sheckle of the Sanctuary the ballance of the Sanctuary it is that that maketh good to be good and evill to be evill For many languages among men are accounted good that are base and evill and many manners are accounted evill that are perfect and good Therefore if we will examine what manners are good we must not repaire to the Courts of men to the fashions of men for sometime they are accounted most unmannerly amongst them that are the best mortified and sanctified men of all others Nor when we come to examine what are evill words what is wicked discourse and speech we must not measure it by mans iudgement but according to the Rule and Canon and square of the word of God It is that that judgeth men to be good or ill It is to be observed that the word here hath a great elegancie in it For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth such manners as are of great use and profit And so indeed from all kinde of goodnesse from all honest parts there is great profit profit for a mans selfe profit to his body profit to his soule profit to his state profit to his neighbour by his example so good manners be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things of use and profit whereas the actions of ungodly wicked men they are unprofitable As the Apostle saith
way whereby God wakeneth sinners When he cannot do it with a still voyce then he useth jogging and pinching As those that will not be awaked with speaking or with calling easily on them we use to jogge them and to rubbe them and sometime to give them a pinch that by that meanes at least they may be brought unto watchfulnesse Thus God doth when he sends calamities and adversities when hee pincheth a man in his fortunes when he pincheth a man in his estate when he pincheth a man in his good name And these are stronger voyces then the former when he toucheth the body and flesh of a man as Sathan said concerning Iob Touch his flesh and thou shalt see what is in him Job 1.11 so God seeth especially what is in a man when he comes thus neere him then he begins to seeke the Lord then he begins to waken from that dulnesse and slumber that he hath contracted by his sinnes and he returnes with full strength of spirit and affection to God that he may not againe fall from him So that adversities are to be accounted as so many pinches and touches from the Lord and when adversities befall us in any part of our estate let us acknowledge This is because I am asleepe the Lord now sends this to rowse me Let me hearken to the voyce of him that calleth me and that will bring me out of this sleepie humour to my right sences againe Lastly another way whereby God awakeneth sinners is by strong cryes and clamours When adversities will not work then the Lord gives a man over to great and extreame persecutions of his own soule so that the conscience cryes out and the inward heart of a man misgives against himselfe that he is filled with feare and horrour that his bones waxe old with the disquiet of his heart Psal 32.3 and by reason of his roaring that he is troubled in soule and spirit as the Prophet David saith that he hath no part of sanitie or health in his members Psal 38.5 but all is turned to stench and corruption by reason of his foolishnesse This is that mighty clamour that God raiseth in the heart of a man and makes an allarum bell to sound to ring him home to God by force because gentle meanes will not serve the turne As for foolish men when they looke upon these pinches in the world they consider them as casuall matters a worldly man considers them as matters of fortune as accidentall things which he might have avoyded if he had beene carefull But now when the conscience of a man is troubled Prov. 18.14 a troubled spirit who can beare Then these inward clamours of the heart appeare outwardly in the countenance in the gestures and behaviours of a mans body As we see in Ahab himselfe the clamour of the murther of Naboth it so rung in his eares that it made him hang downe his head like a bulrush 1 King 21.27.29 and to go clad in sackcloth it made him so humble himselfe that God yeelded for that feigned repentance much pittie and commiseration in this life So much for the action Do you awake It is true it is Almighty God that must waken us and if we be not wakened by him we for ever slumber unto death For he that alway sleepes shall never rise againe it being the brother of death Therefore as that fellow said when he killed a sleeping man and came to answer the fact before the Emperour saith he I found him dead and I left him dead he thought it a sufficient satisfaction that hee was asleepe and therefore dead I say therefore although God must raise us by his owne power and it belongs to him onely to raise us yet when we have received the power of grace we can then heare the call of God and understand when he summons us and then we have power to rowse up our selves Not of our selves for all our power is from him yet wee have not received the grace of God so in vaine as that it should not worke For grace is of a working nature when it is once ingrafted and received Therefore let us take heed that we receive not the grace of God in vaine but let us cooperate with it 2. Cor. 6.1 and let us give that regiment and government to the graces of the spirit that we have received in the full extent and latitude of it By this meanes wee shall be capable of this instruction and exhortation when he saith Awake you A man must not say it lyes not in my power to awake it is God that must waken me let God worke it if he will and if he will not it is not my fault because I cannot do it This is absurd blasphemy For we have received a talent of God and if we will use it wee may bring it to his will and make it some way answerable to his command Therefore awake God hath done his part he hath called thee he hath pinched thee he hath raised clamours and cryes in thy conscience therefore hearken to his voyce resist it not hearken to him that calleth from on high and awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Now follows the manner how wee must awake and the tearme whereto Awake sufficiently which I take to bee the best sence It is true as Saint Chrysostome and Beza Beza saith A man were better be asleepe still Chrysost then to watch to wickednesse therefore the Apostle bids them wake to righteousnesse or else to sleepe still As Cato Cato was wont to say to his servants Either do some thing some businesse or sleepe againe So it is in the house of God a man were better not to be awaked then to spend his time idlely or to spend his time in mischiefe and wickednesse there shall bee lesse condemnation to a slumbring sinner then to an active sinner that runnes on in the functions of wickednesse and toyles himselfe in the divels service there is none desperate as he Therefore as Beza saith Awake unto righteousnesse that is the true watching A man awakes indeed when he awakes to worke when hee wakes to do the actions of a living man and so you you shall bee truly raised from the sleepe of sinne when you do the worke of righteousnesse For this is the tearme whereto God hath called you not to drowsinesse to a slumbering lethargie but to nimblenesse of spirit to be active in your operations But I take it the most true and sensible exposition is that which Saint Basil Basil gives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Awake worthily that is Awake sufficiently competently to wake so as a man never intends to returne to sleep againe As Saint Austin saith upon that place Aug. Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Behold saith he it is not enough for a man to wake but
spirit but the body This is the great mercie and blessing of God that although the body be never so naked yet the promise of the Resurrection is made unto that For the spirit needs no Resurrection the spirit cannot rise for it never falleth And as Saint Chrysostome saith the Resurrection must be of that which fals but the spirit never fell otherwise then by sinne and it is not otherwise raised then by repentance a spirituall kinde of resurrection But the Apostle meddles not with that here but he cals it the resurrection of the body and he shews that this comfort the body hath that although it be never so poore and never so bare though it bee cast into the furrows of the earth never so forlorne and forsaken and be stripped of all the glorious weedes that it had before yet it hath a promise that it shall resume unto it its former glory nay a farre greater glory a glory that shall indure for ever Indeed the corne when it comes out of the earth againe it flourisheth for a time and then afterward is resolved into the old corne againe and becomes like it selfe all the greennesse and goodlines of it with two or three moneths drying Sunne fades away or with the blast of a tempest it perisheth But these bodies when they shall be raised againe God shall give them that singular beautie that he intends to bring them to hee shall give them that durability that duration that no winde shall weather-beat them no Sunne shall scorch them the Sunne shall not hurt them by day Psal 121.6 nor the Moone by night for the Lord is their protection and their candle for evermore 2. Part. Gods part I come now to the second part of the Text which is Gods part He denyes it to man and saith that he doth not sow that which shall be but he saith God gives it a body that is that body that God meanes to give it man doth not sowe actually How comes it then By the hand of him that guides and governs all things he gives to every seed a body as he pleaseth and to every seed his owne proper body Where first the Apostle would reduce the glory of all the action of this creation to God all the operation in this great worke it is of God And to make us to settle onely in that he useth a phrase that is most sweet and gentle when he saith God gives it a body He doth not say God creates and makes it a body for those are works of labour we understand and conceive alwayes by those works something that is painfull and hard to be gotten And although God take no paines in the worke of creation yet it is so propounded to us as a matter of great difficultie Therefore he tooke sixe dayes to make the world in to raise our intentions to understand the greatnesse of the worke and the order that God tooke it was not a confusion therefore hee did not all things at once as he might have done but in succession of time But I say those words when they are used in Scripture they are spoken still in the sence and notion of labour But the word giving is alway taken in another sence as a matter of facilitie and easinesse to shew both the quicknesse and facilitie and also the goodnesse of the giver So in this that hee saith that God gives it a body he shews that it is a customarie thing for him out of his hidden treasures still to draw forth and to poure downe his benefits upon mankinde with chearfulnesse and good will his minde is set to do it not onely to his friends but to his enemies Mat. 5.45 for he makes his Sunne to shine and his raine to fall upon the just and unjust and hee makes that corne to grow even the corne of Infidels as well as Christians So great is his goodnesse to mankinde Vse And withall in that he saith God gives it a body It should teach us alway to receive these creatures as gifts from God as earnests of Gods love unto us A man that useth these temporall things either hee must make them assurances of things eternall or else he must abuse them And being the gifts of God of whom we receive every thing therefore they must be used to the honour of God which is the donour Our bread and food and all the parts of our maintenance as they spring and issue from him so they should be returned to him with a retribution of thankfulnesse and a gracious conversation God gives it a body and to every seed his owne body This is the maine point with which the Apostle intends to comfort the present body that is afflicted in this world For there were certaine Heretiques that said there was one body that fel and another body that rose that there was one body that rotted and corrupted in the grave and instead of that God gave another body And so there was a kinde of mutation or substitution to let one body dye but another to be raised out of the ashes as the Phoenix is said to rise out of the ashes of her mother But it is not so saith the Apostle There is no substitution there is onely by the blessing of God a restitution of the same thing unto a higher and a better and a more beautifull estate There is not one body that dyes and another body that is raised for then there could be no resurrection For what kinde of victory can this be said to be over death if the same thing that was foyled and conquered be not conquerour againe by the powerfull hand of God Therefore Christ is so carefull to prove this point unto us that it was the same body of Christ that rose that suffered upon the crosse hee was so carefull I say that wee should know this that he ordained it so that Thomas should be so distrustfull that he should gage his wounds Joh. 20.27 and finde the print of the nayles that he might looke on them that he might touch them and handle them that he might see that it was the same identicall body that he had before he went to the grave For he foresaw that there would such a doctrine of devils arise in the latter end of the world to say that Christ both in his body personall and in his body mysticall that there was a mutation of bodies that one body should dye and another rise in the place of it But against this the Apostle saith He gives to every seed his owne body In the body of nature the corne doth oftentimes so degenerate that wheat will turne to barley and barley to oates the better corne will turne to worser by reason of the badnesse and hungrinesse of the ground or by reason of the weaknesse of the seed or the unseasonablenesse of the times or the indiligence of the husbandman These things oft times cause these mutations But in this seed our bodies
make them wither there shall be no griefe of heart no discontent of minde to make an alteration in the outward man there shall be nothing to make a change because God shall crowne them in heaven with incorruption And lastly the Lord shall give them another quality which shall be the rarest of all the rest And that is a strange agility and nimblenesse of body that they shall be able to move upward or downward as it shall please them While we are here in this life we have heavy bodies a man must walke upon his owne foundation hee must have the scaffold of the earth under him But if hee presume any further and offer to go any higher with Daedalus and with Icarus he shall be cast into the sea hee exposeth himselfe unto danger and his waxen wings will be fired by the beames of the Sunne But then at that day though our bodies in all things substantiall shall be like these and shall still bee true bodies yet the glory of them shall be so great and the strength and power that the spirit shall have over this flesh shall be so absolute as to command it which way it pleaseth When we move now either we go forward or backward or side-wayes or else downward but upward we cannot but then the Lord shall give us ability to move upward too And this is that the Apostle saith we shall be taken we shall bee snatched up to meete the Lord in the clouds 1. Thes 4.17 there shall bee such a mightie power and prevalencie in the spirit of man to rule and command the body The Lord hath given us instances of it in some things in the Gospell Mat. 14 26.29 Our Lord himselfe walked upon the water and not onely he himselfe but he gave Peter power to walke with him And this was a signe of that he meanes to do at the day of the Resurrection As their bodies then walked and were sustained by the power of God in the ayre and was able to make that which is fluent and soft and yeelding in it selfe to make it a sollid pavement like unto the stones to walke upon the same power shall also worke in our bodies that agilitie which is in the Eagle So the Prophet speaks yea our Lord compares us where he saith Where the body is Mat. 24.28 thither will the Eagles resort which is meant not onely of a spirituall flight by faith but also of the bodies assumption And this our Lord confirmed by the Ascention of his owne body Iob. 14.2 for he went before to prepare a place for us that beleeve in him Now we know that his body ascended to heaven it had the power to move upward as well as any other way We have examples of it also in Henoch and Elias which were both translated Elias carried in a fierie Car to heaven 2. King 2.11 And all this with eternitie and immortalitie that there shall not any thing of it passe away there shall be no expectation of death there shall be no feare of change This is the greatest thing of all when God shall give fulnesse of glory to have also full security For whatsoever glory men have in this world so long as they know that there is a worme â—hat can gnaw it or that it is possible for them to be outed this glory is nothing because it is glory that may be no glory Such is the state of these worldly things that there is nothing so great but it is subject to be brought from that greatnesse But the Lord shall give this glory for ever and ever as himselfe is he that is eternall in himselfe he is eternall to all those that he shall make his followers and companions in that blessed kingdome For they also shall receive that part of eternitie as farre as they are capable It is this safetie and securitie that makes this blessing amiable and for that the Lord hath given us an example for securitie in Scripture where for forty yeares together in the wildernesse the Lord so provided that there was no mans cloaths that were rent or worne not so much as the soale of his shoe impaired by that long and tedious travell We see also they had securitie of food continually it never ceased to follow them but in convenient time was still administred to them Therefore it follows that God that can do these things for garments for these ragges that we weare upon our bodies he meanes much more to do it to the bodies themselves As Christ saith Is not the body better then rayment Mat. 6.25 then garments Seeing therefore that he did it unto garments that are of farre lesse worth will hee not do it unto the bodies themselves He that kept their garments 40. yeares without wearing and yet what weares so soone as a garment he was able to have done it for eternity if it had pleased him But God gave them that for an instance to shew that these things belong in a higher nature and degree and measure to the setting forth of the lifâ—â—ternall and were to foreshew and to be an earnest of that infinite glory which God hath reposed for them that wait for the comming of his Sonne Which the Lord worke for us all c. 1 COR. 15.39 All flesh is not the same flesh but there is one flesh of man there is another flesh of beasts another of fishes and another of fowls THere is nothing more plain and easie then the sence of these words they are knowne to every man by experience And yet it is very hard to finde out the intent and reason why they were uttered Divers men have diversly commented upon them For some think as Tertullian Tertull. others that follow him that the Apostle speaks not as he seemeth to do of the flesh of beasts and of the flesh of men and of fishes and birds but by an allegorie comprehends some other thing concerning the diversitie and degrees of men And so he interprets The flesh of men that is of holy and just and good men There is one flesh of men that is of holy men for they are properly to be called men A man so farre forth as he is unholy so farre forth he comes short of a man and those are onely truly and really men that be good And then by the flesh of beasts he saith the Apostle meanes the flesh of beastly heathen men the flesh of Ethnicks of those that do not beleeve in God those that do not beleeve in Christ the Saviour of the world He saith such are beasts for they differ not world He saith such are beasts for they differ not from beasts neither in their sence nor in their conversation Then for the third there is another flesh of fishes he saith by fishes are meant those that are baptised and regenerate by water the fishes of our Lord Iesus Christ Mat. 4.19 whereof he said to his disciples I will make
his worke Diddest thou ever see the Whale Iob 41. Didst thou ever see the goodly proportion that he hath and the carelesnesse and contempt that he hath of thee and of all the weapons that thou canst bring against him I say in that vast element the wonders of God appeare more then upon the face of the earth What shoales what millions what mighty armies of fishes every yeare passe and repasse the sea and keepe their seasons and times that rather then men shall want they come and offer themselves in their seasons to be meat for man that as some kinde of birds flie unto us at certaine times in the yeare so also at certaine seasons the fishes of the Sea do swimme unto us For God hath given the Sea that qualitie that invites them hee makes the South sea so hot that the fishes are faine to come and refresh themselves in the North and every where where they come they fill the shores with plentie And to this kinde of creature God hath given a flesh that is waterish like to the element where it lives And withall he hath given it the blessing to be fit for the use and food of man and that in admirable delicacie and great variety For whereas there is not of all the beasts and birds upon the earth set them all together not forty kinde of severall dishes for there are but foureteene kinde of beasts that are fit for meat and but twenty five or twenty sixe of birds and no more there are of severall kindes of fishes very neare two hundred that are wholsome and good for the food and use of man And this food it is not ordinarie but to some bodies and in som Countries it is a great deale more nourishing and faemiliar and good then either that of beasts or birds Therefore the Lord hath glorified himselfe in this creature wondrously by the miracle of the two fishes he wrought that upon the fish that we do not reade in the Gospell hee wrought upon flesh Luk 9.16 For in that Countrey as their fish was most delicate so their meat most ordinarily was fish His Apostles were fishermen and his last apparition to them was in giving them a dish of broyled fish upon the shore where a fire was kindled and the fish was laid upon it no man knew how It was a dish which the Lord gave them they found the fire the broyled fish upon it by a miraculous act of Christs hand that as he commanded the fish to have money in its mouth so hee commanded preparation to be made by the ministery of Angels for his Apostles dinner in that place The last flesh he speakes of is the flesh of fowls or birds and that is another wonder indeed and of great varietie For the water and the ayre they differ but in their thicknesse and thinnesse the ayre is a thinne water and the water is a thicke ayre and so the motion of the fishes and the motion of the birds do differ accordingly For the fishes do move with that speed that they may be said to flye in the water and the birds do flye with that facilitie that they may be said to swimme in the ayre they are wondrous things that the Lord hath wrought in these two elements But there is nothing that comes to that height of excellencie for naturall motion as the birds which can be in any place They can rest upon the waters as many of them do they can rest upon the land and yet they can travell in the ayre and in a short space of time they can overcome a great journey To see that a massie heavy body should be carried up with the helpe of a feather of a wing and hang in the ayre that if a man should see them that had never seene it before hee would thinke they should all breake their necks and that it were impossible for them to be free from danger And yet the Lord hath given them such a poyse and such a measure that though they bee made with round bodies yet their spirits are so thinne and fierie and nimble that they can sustaine themselves even in the clouds and soare aloft for many houres together This argueth also the power that shall be in the bodies that shall be raised from the dead For they shall have that abilitie and power to soare about Christ Mat. 24.28 to flocke about him as the Eagles about the body And this flesh of birds to see in what a wondrous varietie it is is strange For the cleannesse and uncleannesse of them For their severall kinds For their forme and figure and proportion For their quantitie For their colours For their feathers in some goodly and glorious in others for necessitie in others their feathers are like the streames of a flagge rather then feathers Of those I meane that are heavier bodies and cannot mount aloft The great God is wondrous in all these things and we ought not to looke upon them with an idle eye but to make it a Sabbath dayes exercise to instruct our selves in these varieties and to praise and blesse God where we see any step of his greatnesse I will conclude in a word 3. Part. How this variety of fleshes proves the resurrection Now we come to the use of all this It is true there is one kinde of flesh of men another of beasts another of fishes and another of birds but what is that to the purpose how doth this prove that there shall be a resurrection The Lord hath made all these things that be in the world to be types and paternes of better things that are reserved for another world therefore if he have set a glorious varietie here much more will he do it there even those things that wee account here to be the best of things they shall be so farre short of that which shall be then revealed as that the best things that are now shall come short by farre of the worst that shall be then Wee can distinguish among the beasts which are best and which are worst and among the fishes and fowls and in the parts of our bodies all are not so beautifull as the eye there are some parts of lesse and worse respect and in the beauty and colour and complexion of the faces of men and women there are better and worse Some are exceeding goodly some are extreamly deformed and we make a difference alway betweene that which is worst and that which is best in every kinde So the Apostle argues thus God shall so alter and change the things that remaine for a better life hee shall so alter them to a betterment and perfection that the best things that are here shall not compare with the worst thing that shall be there Looke how farre the most excellent beautie excels them that are most deformed in face looke how farre the best bodie excels the worst the most crooked and impotent body looke how farre the best
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
deserved well in this world were turned into starres and so they imagined Hercules and Antonius and Arctophilax and a great number of toyes and trifles that they devised as though the starres were the bodies of men or that they were persons of a spirituall substance But the Lord teacheth us that they are no earthly bodies they are things that were created in the first beginning and they are bodies which notwithstanding seeme to be nothing lesse then bodies they seeme to be spirituall things to be spirits rather then bodies being of such a swiftnesse and of that rare operation and brightnesse Yet the Lord tels us that they are bodies that is that they have a kind of earthlinesse in them they have a kinde of matter in them For although they be farre different from these inferiour things from these inferiour bodies yet in respect of the first Creator they are but bodies For there is but one spirit there is but one pure Spirit which is God himselfe All things else have a kinde of dreggie matter in them which makes them bodies the bodies which are heavenly that is the starres are bodies because they are visible because they are circumscribed because they have figure and proportion and they are bodies because they are kept within a certaine compasse and limit Whence it follows that seeing they are bodies therefore they are not to be worshipped as the Heathens used to do and as the Indian people at this day worship them but hence we see they ought not to bee worshipped Why even because they are but bodies nay they are insensible bodies they have not sence to guide them So that for all their puritie and the use they are of to the world yet in the perfection of life they are not comparable unto the beasts of the field for the beasts of the field that have sence are more perfect in their kinde then the Sunne in the firmament Eatenus because to have life and sence is a better kinde of being then to be without it The starres are bodies without sence they are bodies without soules and they are over-ruled by other things or else as they bee bodies they could not possible rule themselves Now these goodly bodies how they should bee carried up and downe every 24. houres after what manner whether they flye as the birds in the ayre so they in their spheares and orbes or whether they swimme as the fishes in the sea as divers men have imagined a man would thinke that one of those wayes they must needs be moved but it is certaine they do neither of them For they have a mighty power that God hath given them and the Angels execute this power and they turne the whole globe over Psal 104.2 as the Psalmist saith where he cals it the curtaine of heaven which is bespangled with stars and the whole curtaine is turned over together as an Ancient or Flagge displayed that is imbossed with gold all the whole compasse and circumference is moved together or as a woman when she turnes the rimme of a wheele about both the circle and the center are moved together and so all the wheele moveth round together so the power of the Angels move the celestiall bodies by the appointment of God that in twenty foure houres they compasse the whole earth which is as much in effect as if a bird should flye fifty times the space of the world in halfe a quarter of an houre The rarenesse therefore of this motion and the strangenesse of it argueth that God hath set over them some spirituall mover which wee call their standings and their Intelligences which move them to and fro in an unspeakable manner And for the manner of it that it should be in such a contrary course that never a starre should rise to morrow in the same manner as it doth to day and that the Sunne should never rise at one and the same point twice in the yeare but still varie and by varying make the compasse of the yeare as the Moone makes the compasse of the moneth For the Sunne hath one motion whereby hee makes the day and the Moone another motion whereby shee makes the night Againe there is another motion of the Sunne whereby hee makes the yeare and the Moone hath another motion whereby she makes a moneth And so for the rest of these heavenly bodies some of them fulfill their course and period in twelve yeares some in five yeares some in thirty some in a hundred yeares the Lord having set such a rare guidance in these things that there is nothing but a man may know it before hand a man may tell fifty yeares yea an hundred yeares before hand when there shall be an eclipse and the presages of these things are certainly knowne This argues that these bodies celestiall are moved by spirits celestiall For of themselves being but bodies they could not possible do thus they could not keepe this exact and swift motion nor they could not rowle over of themselves it is impossible being but bodies that they should do these things Now I come to the second point 2. Part or comparison wherein the Apostle compares these bodies together in respect of their glory There is a great glory indeed in terrestriall bodies there is a great glory in gold and silver and many men esteeme them more then the starres of heaven There is a great glory and lustre in jewels and precious stones there is a goodly transparent beauty in them in the lustre that they give There is a great glory in the beauteous faces of Gods Saints and in the gorgeous and pompous out-settings of Kings and Princes in their Courts of state There is great glory in every part of humane felicitie but being compared to this glory of the heavenly bodies they are meere foyles to that For saith the Apostle there is one glory of the heavenly and another glory of the earthly That is there is a farre greater glory of the heavenly then can bee supposed to bee in the earthly For first of all the glory in the heavenly bodies is pure but the glory in the earthly is mixed the purer the glory is and the more it is separate the more singular and excellent it is Now the glory which is in the stars above is pure in comparison of these earthly things And although they bee speckled and spotted in respect of God and be full of dregges in comparison with the Angels yet in relation to earthly things they are most pure even puritie it selfe All these inferiour things in their glory they have a mixture They are mingled of foure things there is nothing so glorious but it is composed of the foure elements even of Earth Water Fire and Ayre and these elements are never so well glued together but they will worke themselves asunder iâ— time whereas that celestiall beauty is pure without mixture it is an Essence that is elaborate to the full God hath brought
there shall be one way for him that gives his goods to the poore and another way for him that gives his life for Christs sake These shall shine in a different manner And as Ambrose Ambrose againe Even as for the penies sake there is no man that shall bee driven out of Gods kingdome but he that can bring the peny and shew it unto God and say Here is thy Image here is thy superscription Cesar know thy owne and take me for thine owne for here I bring thee the penie As he that can bring the penie shall have heaven so there be some that have more then the penie and those shall have varietie of mansions and goodly places in the paradise of God they shall be the chiefe and principall To conclude all Let us desire the Lord Vse that we may have some place and if it be never so little it shall be full enough The Lord shall fill all those that follow him as with a river in the pleasures of his house and to be a doore-keeper in the house of God in that blessed kingdome is worth all the tents and riches in this world Let us not dispute much about these things but let us rest in that doctrine which is delivered in the Scriptures and let us know that if God admit us to heaven we can have no meane place any thing there is better then all the glory of this world even the least and poorest mansion that can be And that we may have the greatest and the best and principall place there there must be an holy ambition for heaven and for the greatest place in heaven As the sonnes of Zebede desired that one might sit on the right hand of Christ Mat. 20.211 and another on the left let us know how it is to be gotten that so we may be made capable for it For it is not attained without a high comprehension there being no meanes for these straite vessels to keepe and hold such a latitude of honour they are too great for us therefore God shall reward us according to our works and according to the service that we do him Not for any merit of ours for that were nothing at all but hell and confusion but for the merits of Christ upon whom wee layhold by faith By which means his merits are made ours and we make him ours and shall be sure to finde him ours at that day Which the Lord grant SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.42 So also in the Resurrection of the dead It is sowne in corruption it is raised againe in incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised again in honour IN these words the holie Apostle describes unto us those rare supernaturall qualities which God will deck the bodies of the Saints withall in the great day of the Resurrection Hee hath shewed heretofore by certain parables and similies that such a thing is likely to be that it is possible but now he tells us indeed what it is And so after that pleasing doctrine that was uttered in similitudes he comes to a more sad and solemne and sentencious kinde of doctrine and sets it downe in materiall propositions concerning the future state of Gods children It is true that to prepare the minds of men by familiar similies and examples before their eies is a part of wondrous art and great oratorie for so our Saviour used in the Gospel still to draw men by those things that were before them to teach them by their owne trades and by their proper callings by that meanes growing familiar with their understandings making those things that were hidden plain and open by those things that they were most conversant in But that kind of doctrine is not alway to be followed because as they say similitudes illustrate indeed but they prove nothing there is a kind of deeper divinity then that which is from similitude which our Saviour Christ mingleth with his similitudes as the Apostle Paul doth here For now he comes to tell us of those things which we could not have beleeved except the similitudes before had prepared us and had shewed us that they are things possible that the body that is so corrupt that it should have a new quality that it should receive incorruption and never corrupt again that the dead body which is so deformed should have such a glory and beauty that there is no creature no visible creature which God hath made can compare with it that the body that is so weak and so full of infirmity that it should have such a supernaturall strength whereby it shall exceed a thousand Sampsons in strength and vigour that the body that is a lump a meere carnall masse that it should come to that nimblenesse and agility and swiftnesse that it should become rather a spirit then a bodie when it is raised That these things should so happen it were altogether incredible if the Lord had not made it probable before by the things that we familiarly use by the corn in our fields by the flowers in our gardens by the flesh of the creatures by the difference of coelestiall and terrestriall bodies and by the difference of heavenly bodies among themselves Now he comes to the generall hypothesis and makes the reduction of all those similies that went before So is it in the Resurrection of the dead So that is in all those 4. comparisons which I named before you may apply all these very well understand by them the nature and the qualities of the bodies that shall be raised up So is it in the Resurrection of the dead So as it is with the corne so as it is with those divers kinds of flesh as it is in the difference of the heavenly bodies cōpared with the earthly as the heavenly bodies are mutually different one from another In the corne as there is a strange variety in the growth of it from that which was sowne it comes to an admirable plenty so the glory that shall be revealed upon the bodies of the Saints out of a rotten thing which was nothing but as an eare of corne putrifyed and corrupted out of this there comes a glorious stalke of incorruption and beautie that shall remaine for ever And as it is in the flesh of beasts and in the flesh of men the flesh of fouls and of fishes as there is great variety and some are sweeter then other and some more sollid and compact then other so is it in the Resurrection of the dead in comparison of this flesh that we have here This flesh is like unto the flesh of fishes in respect of that which shall be there The Lord himselfe shall so perfume it with his glorious unction that it shall be for ever stedfast and strong and able unto all purposes that it shall be filled with all faculties and prepared unto all the functions that God shal appoint unto it So is the Resurrection of the dead So
of the Lord out of the prime materialls and beginnings It is raised never to fall downe againe It is raised not to relapse againe but to stand as a goodly monument for ever It is raised by the mighty hand of him that raiseth the poore out of the dust and mire Psal 113.7 8. and makes them equall to the Princes of his people Therefore in this word the Apostle would teach us also wherein our hope consists It is sowne that is a hopefull action but after it is sowne it must be raised againe that is a dependant action which is not in our selves but from the Lord. Therefore we must raise our hearts unto God and returne our devotion and best affections to him while we live here that he may raise these bodies of ours when they have no power to raise themselves but when they shall lie in the dust of confusion he shall raise them up that they may be living Temples for the holy Ghost for ever to inhabit It is necessary before hand to raise our spirits unto him that he may make a requitall unto us at the great day of his Visitation So much for the metaphors It is sowne in corruption Corruption is the worst change that can be It is a motion from a being to a not-being For as generation is a work of God whereby something which was not is brought to have a being so corruption is a work which God permits to be done whereby a thing is brought to fall from that being either to no-being at all to have no being in our sense or else to such a base and naughty being that a man can see no reason why it should ever have been so glorious and so goodly to come to such a foule disgracefull downfall Corruption therefore is the destruction of the thing that was made as in all things we see in the world In naturall artificiall things when a matter is corrupt once it grows fit for nothing and although there be some kind of liquors that when they are corrupted they serve for some use as wine when it is corrupt it turnes to vineger and although it be not fit to drink yet it serves to raise the appetite in sauce and so divers other things doe so corrupt that notwithstanding they serve for some use but yet the chiefest and greatest number of things when they come once to be corrupted they come as much as to say to nothing to a kind of dissolution for there is nothing that can be turned unto nothing simply but because the use and property and substance is so disgraced and a contrary thing succeeds a better it is as if the thing were not at all Now this corruption is done two waies It is effected either by separation of the matter Or by removing of the forme The matter and the form you know are the chief things of which every body consists and we see that in death these things hold exactly For the forme of man being his reasonable soule as long as that is in the body it is cōpact and free from corruption and it keeps the beauty in the forme and image of God in its proper frame and figure But when the soule is gone then corruption works and dissolves the matter to Now when the matter is dissolved or the element is dissolved and corrupted this is that corruption which the Apostle speaks of here when hee saith The body is sowne in corruption that is the principles of the body which consist of bloud and flesh and skin and bones and colour and complexion and proportion and figure and frame all these goe away presently after the soule is gone And though some hold longer then other as being of more sollid parts yet they continue not long even but a few yeares and in some grounds a few dayes destroy the whole man This corruption began when wee began God t is true made the body of man uncorrupt had he persisted in obedience but as soone as man by his prevarication by transgression of Gods command was drawne into sinne he brought upon him this worme of corruption which never ceaseth to work upon the powers and faculties of flesh and bloud and upon every part till at the last it work it to an utter nothing to a very desolation And this corruption if it could be contained it were well if it could consist within some termes For corruption is proper to the body but yet through the infection of sin the gangrene hath so poysoned and possessed the whole man that corruption by a metaphor is brought into the soule to which is the speciall part of man And when the best things are corrupted the corruption is most wofull of all Matth 6.23 If the light that is in thee be darknesse how great is that darknesse saith the Lord Iesus Men in this world are corrupt in body they are corrupt in soule they are corrupt in their understandings in their speeches they are corrupt in their wayes Psal 53.1 as the Prophet saith Corrupt they are and become abominable in their doings there is none that doth good no not one They are corrupt in their consciences the consciences of wicked men are defiled with hypocrisie that they stink in the nostrils of God and men And to this corruption every man is subject more or lesse But the chiefe corruption intended here is corruptibility that is the rottennes of the parts of the body when they are once dissolved and melted and fall from one another To conclude this point because we know it by experience and we beare about us these corrupt bodies and we are troubled with the signs of corruption every day if we understand any thing Vse 1 It should teach us therefore not to triumph in any of these worldly things that puffe up the flesh and fill the mind with vaine conceits of its owne sufficiency but rather let us study mortification such as becomes the children of God let us weep for our owne corruptions for they grow so fast upon us that they make us odious even unto our owne selves when wee come to have a sense of our selves Againe it teacheth us this to take heed how we Vse 2 patch over this corruptibility as we use to do What a deale of cost what a deal of painting and art and labour and time is spent now adaies to conceal this corruption Corrupt bodies will not seem to be corrupt but they will be immortall and eternall and those offensive things that be in nature and that grossenesse and loathsomnesse that lurks in these bodies we seek by perfumes and by orient colours and singular diet to suppresse them and obscure them that they may not appeare But now the Lord hath put a worm in this flesh see it and acknowledge it and waile over it make not thy selfe better then thou art deceive not thy selfe thou art nothing but dust and ashes a corrupt creature a masse of corruption Why then art thou
the least relish of it when his eyes waxe dim when he can retaine nothing in his stomack but he casts it up againe when hee can hardly speak a word nor know his best friends but all the organs of life and sense are drowned in death This is that poore weaknesse which the Apostle speaks of It is sown in weaknesse When he is casheerd and deprived of all sense of all power and motion and nothing remaines but a base and desperate imbecility and such a kind of infirmity as that there is no hope in flesh and bloud that ever there shall be made any recovery This is the state of all men Vse And it must teach us beloved to weepe over our weaknesse to think of it in the degrees and parts of it The Lord hath given us many prognosticants of it every sicknesse and every qualme and every distresse of conscience and whatsoever troubleth us in this world they be nothing but so many Kalenders of that great weaknesse that once shall come and make an end of us And therefore as it is said Man hath not one death alone but a number of deaths and that which takes him away is called the last death for he hath many before that This is the state of sowing the body But now behold the promise of the great God! he will raise it up in power the weaker it is sown the stronger it shall rise and this weaknesse that we have it is no argument of discomfort nor a mean to make us distrust but it is a surer tye to binde God to performance and a sure evidence of our deliverance that as our weaknesse is great so our strength shall be much more infinite which shall be wrought by the mighty power of God whereby he is able to subdue all things to himselfe It is raised againe in power or in strength For it is raised by him that is the strong God by him that is El Eli Elohim the God of strength of might and of majesty By that God that loves to make his strength seen in our weaknesse and to make his glory perfect in our infirmity by that God that delights to work in contraries and to bring fire and water out of the same principle that God hath undertaken to raise up this weak body Therefore the Apostle saith It is raised speaking in the present tense as of a thing done not in the future tense It shall be To bring us acquainted with the truth before it be done and to make us assured of it as if it were performed already We are as sure indeed to be raised to that glorious strength which God hath promised as if the deed were done for it is in the counsell of the great God in which those things that hee hath promised be as if they were already performed because he is true that hath promised and because he is able to keep his promise he is able to keep his word for it is his onely prerogative to keep his word and his promise for ever And this is that wondrous comfort that he hath given unto us that if it were possible for the body to have more weaknesse then it hath if it were possible to be debased worse by infirmity then it is yet then we had a stronger argument to prove the strength to come to which the body shall be restored For the weaknesse which we have and carry about us the greater it is the stronger proofe it makes for Gods infinite mercy in the deliverance of us For as we see by experience that vessels and barrells of gunpowder laid up in vaults and cells the more waight is laid upon them the greater pyles and masse of building there is over them the more furiously and strongly they break forth at the touch and traine of the least fire So likewise it is certain that the bodies that are turned into powder to dust these powder-bodies of ours for at last they must all all come to pulverell to dust powder these bodies the more weight is upon them the more earth the more difficulty and the greater weaknesse they have whereby they are compassed and surrounded it makes way for the more strength to burst out when the fire of God shall light and touch upon it when there shall be a re-union of the spirit a deduction of the soule when that fire shall light upon it that comes from heaven then they shall rise in a glorious strength for the more they have beene held downe by weaknesse the more they shall be rescued and ransomed and restored to a greater vigour It is raised in power and strength and in a strength that is answerable to the weaknesse that where the weakness is the greatest there the strength shall transcend in greatnesse And what is this strength It is reduced by the Fathers into foure particulars First St. Austin and St. Chrysostom and generally all the Fathers think Aug. Chrysost that the strength that shall be most eminent in the body when it riseth shall be in the power of motion which because I have before spoken of I will but now touch it As the top of the flame that is in a dry reed it runs upon the reed and you know when such platts of ground are on fire they set all a fire about them so the body of man it shall be able to flye to run and to move as swiftly as the flame doth upon the top of any combustible matter And as the Sun and the Stars and the Angels and spirits of men doe never sleepe and yet are still in motion and are never weary of their motion so the body that shall be raised and fitted againe unto the soule shall be without labour and pain without weaknesse and wearinesse and shall never faile nor faint but shall be able to hold out in an everlasting motion as the Sunne and the Stars doe in the firmament In which sense as Luther Luther saith they shall be able to goe ten thousand furlongs in the twinkling of an eye I name that as a matter of recreation because his spirit was wondrous cheerfull and merry in the Notes that he gives tending to that purpose The second thing wherein this strength shall consist shall be in the efficacy and power of their working So that those that be the weakest things in the world now that one devill if he were permitted were able to wrythe the necks of ten thousand people about then at that day God shall give them that strength of body that they shall be able to encounter a whole legion of devils which shall then have no power over the bodies of men as now they have nor shall not be able to possesse them and to rule them at their pleasure nor to make monsters of them but the body of one Saint shall put to flight and fright a whole legion of sathans complices And this mighty power whereby they work that I may a little still proceed
there is a spirituall body all the rest are included in this It is sowne in corruption it is raised in incorruption It is true if it be spirituall it must needs be incorrupt so It is sown in dishonour it is raised in honour It is certaine if it be raised a spirituall body And so for strength if it be spirituall it must needs be strong Therefore the Apostle concludes all in this It shall be raised a spirituall body But how a spirituall body Marke he saith not that the flesh of Gods Saints the bodies that shall be raised that they shall be spirits but spirituall bodies Still it shall be a body So that there is no change in the substance but onely in the qualities and properties Tertull. Saith Tertullian the Apostle doth not speak of any change of the substance of nature but of the glorious qualities that shall come unto it Surely saith hee there is nothing that riseth againe but that which was sowne and there is nothing sowne but that which is dissolved and rotten in the earth and there is nothing lies rotting in the earth but flesh therefore nothing shall rise again but the flesh For there was nothing that the sentence of God went upon but the flesh of Adam Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt returne So St. Austin expounding the words In Tom. 5. Aug. Lib. 13. How shall they be spirituall Not because they shall cease to be bodies they are not therefore called spirituall as though they were turned spirits and ceased to be bodies but because they shall subsist with a living and quickning spirit and because they shall be made indwellers and inhabitants of heaven which is the place of spirits it shall then be the place for the bodies of men For now it is a strange paradoxe to say the body of a man should dwell in heaven and though we know that Christ hath it by a speciall priviledge yet there is no man can imagine how the bodie of a man should dwell in heaven in those pure skies in those bright regions and that the heavinesse of the body should not praecipitate it downe to the earth and cast it into the fire and to dismall events that should consume it But when the Lord shall change this corruption into incorruption the bodies of the Saints shall be the onely fit inhabitants of heaven therefore it is called spirituall because it shall dwell in heaven which is the place of spirits the body shall then be able to inhabit there therefore it is called spirituall as being fit to possesse those mansions that are destinated properly for spirits But Chrysostome makes a question here Saith he Chrysost What is this that thou sayest here blessed Apostle Dost thou say that the bodies of the children of God are not spirituall now are they all meerly animal now are they not spirituall how is it said that they are Temples of the holy Ghost if the holy Ghost dwell in them he makes them spirituall they are called spirituall men all the children of God and if they be spirituall men then they have spirituall bodies But the Father answers himselfe again It is true these bodies we carry about us now by the power of the holy Ghost are after a sort spirituall but that body which shall be then which he here speaks of shall be infinitely far more spirituall This is onely in inchoation in beginning in the first fruits that shall be in the summe and substance and fulnesse of perfection And St. Bernard If thou sayest our bodies shall rise againe thy meaning is not to take away the being of the body but to give it a new lustre as the face of Moses and as in the transfiguration of Iesus Exod. 34. For as Moses when God put that brightnesse upon his face that the people could not look upon it but he was faine to haye a vaile on his face his face was still the same but yet there was a change of glory there was an accession of brightness whereby it seemed a spirit rather then a common ordinary visage so the bodies of men that shall be raised there shall be such an accession and augmentation of glory and beauty and brightnesse that it shall rather seeme spirituall then otherwise And as it was in the Transfiguration of Christ Mar. 17. his garments shone that no Dier in the earth could make the like and his face shone as the sunne in his strength the face of Christ was all one his garments were the same he had the same physiognomie but onely there was a new accession of glory that came unto it So the bodies of the Saints they shall be all one the very same body shall be revived which hath suffered misery here and shall have a new glory put upon it and that very body shall have strength that here was weak and subject to death The Lord shall then cloathe it with glory and although it shall rise a spirituall body it is not in respect of the change of the substance but in regard of the augmentation of glory which shall accrew unto it It is raised a spirituall body So much of those two Attributes of the change from weaknesse to strength and from naturall to spirituall Now in the words following the Apostle comes to prove that such a thing there is as a naturall body and a spirituall body And this he doth to prevent objections partly lest men should think that he coyned new distinctions and divisions which is a thing faulty in the Church and partly lest men should be drowned in error by misconceiving his doctrine For the first If a man should have said unto him Where doe you learne this did you ever heare any man speak such a thing that there is a spirituall body Yes saith the Apostle there is both there is a naturall body and there is a spirituall body I will make the distinction good and prove it This teacheth us Vse that men ought to be carefull what distinctions they bring into the Church of God For as the Apostle saith to Timothy 1 Tim. 6.21 and to Titus Shun novelty of words and inventions shun them they are not to be admitted they destroy the faith and puzzle the understandings of all Gods children Vincentius Lirinensis Vincentius Lirinensis saith That although men ought to speak many things in the Church of God after a new fashion yet they ought to speak no new thing at all Therefore lest they should be offended with this distinction as though the Apostle had brought it out of his owne braine as though it were a new device of his owne hatching he is forced to make it good and to prove that there is such a thing because hee would not be thought an Inventer of new devices and a maker of new distinctions which is a plague in the Church of God throughout all ages Secondly another reason was this because hee would not suffer them to
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
single combat and let us end the quarrell so and if hee overcome mee then we will be your servants and if I overcome him then you shall be our servants Behold here are but two men that fight the action of fighting belongs but to two persons but by the power of God David overcame and the effect of that victory redounded to thousands to Saul which was the King and to all his Courtiers and to all Israell to all the people of God the power of Davids victory belonged to them all and so the action of David it was not limited to his owne person because hee was a chosen man a chosen vessell set forth by the Spirit of God to this victory Therefore the power of the victory was beneficiall to all his Countrymen much more is the victory which Christ hath obtained against the powers of darknesse he fought alone and he overcame alone It is true the personall act belongs to him alone and hee deserves onely all the glory for it but the extent of the act he communicates to his friends to every true Christian It is that which is called our victory because the Iew overcame the Philistin Therefore all the Iewes overcame the Philistins because our flesh and nature hath overcome in Christ for hee was flesh of our flesh and bone therefore our nature is advanced and exalted by him that is the Victor and hee being the Conquerour wee that are his friends and kinsmen are Conquerours with him though we have not struck one stroake in the battaile Againe observe in the like Gen. 14.15 16 when Abraham came to destroy those 5. Kings and to rescue Lot and the four Kings that were defeated that Text saith that Abraham alone and his owne people got the victory but when hee had done the glory of the victory was given to all those that had lost in the battaile every man had his owne as far as might be restored and Abraham would not gain so much as the latchet of a shooe lest they should say they had made Abraham rich and so the power and glory of his victory was communicated to those that had any dealing in the warre Therefore I say if this were possible in humane things how shall we doubt of it in the Omnipotencie of the Almighty that the victory of Christ is made common to all that beleeve in him and they have part in that victory that can claime it that can intreat it of him they are made fellow conquerers although they had no hand in it nor made no appearance in the doing of it Againe wee see in 1 Sam. 30. 1 Sam 30. when the people were ready to stone David and he receives an answer from the Lord that if he would follow those robbers hee should rescue the prey and so by the mercy of God he did but there were two great rubs after hee had got the conquest The one was when the souldiers came to divide the spoile whether they that had fought in the warre should have all or no To which David saith no there were 200 men which were not able to follow them being faint and therefore were faine to stay by a brook they could goe no further in regard of their weaknesse and the souldiers that got the battaile after they had the victory they would have had them to have had no part of the spoile because they went not forth with them But David saith no 1 Sam. 30.24 Who will trust you in this thing who will beleeve you in this matter they that stay by the stuffe they shall have as good share as they that fought in the battell because although they went not with us yet their good will was with us therefore they shall have as great share as we Againe when the spoyle came to be divided he sent of it to severall Cities and Townes thereabout to them which never had any hope to have rescued their owne goods hee sent unto them saying Here is a blessing from the Lord to such a towne here is a blessing from the Lord to such a town Behold now how is it possible for us not to beleeve that we have part in the conquest of Christ We see David which was a figure of Christ hee doth thus they that were not able to follow they that could not march along with them they have part of the prey and they that never came out they that did not dare to rescue their goods they have the prey sent home to them Our Lord Iesus Christ is far more rich in mercy then any man can be imagined to be hee sent unto us the spoiles of hell the spoile of death and he made us partakers of his victory although wee were so faint and so fearfull that wee could not march in the battaile nor stand with him because he would have all the glory and praise alone yet hee takes not the victory alone but he gives us part and possession he gives us part of the spoiles of his enemies hee makes us Conquerers of all those that he hath conquered So then to conclude this point there are two wayes how Christ makes us partakers of this victory The one is by way of Application The other is by way of Corroboration The Application of faith is this 1. Application That Christ doth take unto himselfe all his followers to receive their life and nourishment and their being and glory from him and upon this promise faith doth worke and saith Christ is mine and all Christ belongs to me He was incarnate for mee hee was borne for me he lived for me he died for me he rose againe for me he overcame for mee and whatsoever he did it is mine that is the power of faith by way of application which God hath given as a duty or office to the holy Spirit that the holy Spirit must apply the Sonne of God and his merits unto us and by this meanes of application we are made Conquerers The second meanes is Corroboration 2. Corroboration When faith hath applied Christ it receives comfort and power and with that strength that God hath vouchsafed it it works its best against the powers of darknesse That it hates and detests evill wayes that it shuns iniquity it labours to avoid all meanes of apostacie and backsliding from God and seeks every thing that may please the Lord with an upright and perfect heart and though he cannot doe it yet he seeks to doe it and hee wishes perfection when he is in the lowest and basest degrees of imperfection Therefore out of this wee learne that if wee would have comfort to our selves of the victory of Christ to joyne these together application and corroboration Wee are too forward to apply to our selves all the merits of Christ every man saith Christ is mine but when it comes to the push and when temptation the enemy appeares wee are then so base and so cowardly as that we flee almost before we
is a lively hope made over to all the branches that they shall rise againe with the root It was graced by the manifold apparitions of Christ and confirmed unto us according as the Apostles had receiued it from the will of Christ to grace that day the eighth day with his apparitions It was confirmed unto us by the Apostle Saint Iohn who maketh mention of the Lords day hee was rapt in the Spirit upon the Lords day And by these two places Act. 20.10 and this present place 1. Cor. 16.2 The time prevented me that I could not shew you the authoritie from age to age and the concurrence of these two things which was the gathering of collections upon that day for the Apostle includes both these both that the day should be changed to the first of the Sabbath that is to the first day of the weeke And secondly that upon this first day of the weeke it should be a particular appendix of the Sabbath dayes worke to lay up somewhat for the Saints because then there were no such officers appointed in the Church therefore every man waâ— his owne Treasurer every man was his owne overseer for the poore to lay up by himselfe as Chrysostome saith this priesthood thy charitie and thy love to thy brother hath bestowed upon thee that a man should provide and ordaine by his owne hands till such time as the Church should provide overseers and collectors for the poore and Deacons that they should be every where as they were then at Ierusalem Now it may seeme a matter not worth the labour to prove this point concerning the time of the Sabbath if it were not that some phanaticall spirits in these latter dayes had raised such a mist and vapour to cloud this truth and to bring backe the Iews ceremoniall Sabbath which saith Gregory if any go about to do he must bring in the Iews sacrifice and so he shall derogate and destroy the bloud and sacrifice of Christ which was offered once for all Give me leave therefore a little before I come to the residue of the Text for indeed it is full of matter to shew you how the Church of God in the first beginning acknowledged this day for the true Sabbath of the Lord. And upon these grounds out of Scripture I need not do it I know among you that are fully perswaded but there are some men that do infringe the glory and purpose of this Text and contradict the Fathers even some of our late Writers that are otherwise worthy Interpreters of the word of God yet here they hold that the Apostles meaning is where he saith One of the Sabbath that it is not to be understood upon the Lords day but they thinke it may be any one day in the week Wherein it is a wonder that they should give such a scandall to the Church of God in weakening the arguments and the faith of the Fathers that were before us and to make us uncertaine what to adhere and cleave unto I spare their names because they are worthy instruments of the Gospell Onely I go about to refute and cast down their opinion which I will do briefly and by the libertie and licence of the time that I may make the shorter worke The first of the Sabbath the Lords day Therefore that this first of the Sabbath is the Lords day it is manifest by other places of Scripture whose consent make an absolute verity every where for the rule of Scripture is to expound one place by another In Matth. 28.2 The woman came to the grave upon the first of the Sabbath when as it shined up when the light shined up upon the first of the Sabbath then came the woman to the grave the same word is used there as there is here The first of the Sabbath which was the day of the Lords resurrection and not every day in the weeke but the eight day from the creation So againe more clearly in Mark 16.2 and vers 9. it is said there verse 2. the women came very early in the morning upon the first of the Sabbath or of the weeke And in the 9. verse it is said Iesus did rise upon the first of the Sabbath in the morning that is upon the first day of the week This phrase in Scripture alludeth to that in Gen. 1.7 the morning and the evening were the one day that is the first day for one and first in the Hebrew tongue are promiscuously taken which is in every one day of the Sabbath that is in every Sabbath or upon the Lords day or in every first day of the weeke which is the Lords day Then the authoritie of the Acts of the Apostles and this place and that of Saint Iohn which saith he was rapt in the spirit upon the Lords day The judgement of the Fathers for the obâ—ervation of the Lords day All these things be firme and true establishers of the point we have declared Now for the Fathers that they were all also of the same minde you shall heare Iustin Martyr Iustin Martyr Apolog 1.2 that lived an hundred yeares after Christ within an hundred and foure yeares after he saith in the second of his Apollogeticks In the day saith he that we call Sunday the day which the Heathen men called Sunday which is now our Sabbath day for the other day before was called Saturne day of Saturne which was the Iews Sabbath in that day saith he the congregation come together and there are prayers offered up to God and after the Sacraments are received there is a collection made every man layes up as much as his own good will is according to his own election and it is given to the superintendent or to the chiefe Minister of the place and he seeth the poore provided for with it he seeth it be bestowed upon them Tertullian which lived two hundred and foure yeares after Christ in his booke called Tertull. in sould Crowne Apolog. ca. 16. The souldiers Crowne he saith Vpon the Lords day wee abhorre fasting for it is a time of feasting with us And in his Apolloget Chap. 16. saith he If we give one day in seven to merrinesse and joy to joyfulnesse in the holy Ghost it is but all one as the Iewes do which give yet superstitiously the day of Saturne to idlenesse and meere superstition so saith Tertullian there is a certaine little chest in the Church and every man puts into it what seemes good to him if he can and if he will for there is no man constrained and this is done once in a moneth For the place could not endure that it should be done every Sabbath as the Apostle saith here upon every first of the Sabbath but because of the povertie of the countrey it was but once in a moneth that they brought their charitie for the poore Clemens Alexandrinus in the fifth of his Stromata Clem. Alexan. Strom. 5. Pâ—ato he brings a prophesie out of
that wondrous and unwearied peregrination which he made in the world for he went from place to place and still was winning countries to the obedience and service of his Lord and master he might therefore ill loose so much time as should be spent in carrying the money from Corinth to Ierusalem or from Ephesus where it seemeth he now was because many countries in the world were not yet discovered there were many Nations that were not yet brought to the faith and obedience of Christ and he was sent to be a Preacher to the Gentiles and therefore he was to preach to all the Gentiles that he could extend himselfe unto being as Chrysostome saith like unto the sunne in the firmament that riseth in the one part of the world and in twenty foure houres compasseth all the round such an one was the Apostle which was sent and instituted by our Saviour and therefore it was much for him to lose so much time as this action would require to carry it so farre as to Ierusalem but now that the love of the brethren was so great and their necessitie was so important and exigent that he thought it not amisse for the time to lay aside the care of the greater office and to stoupe to this which was the lesser for it is true indeed the Apostle which way soever he went he gained soules to his master and it was all one for him howbeit there is great difference in this in planting of a new foundation where Christ was never heard of and in confirming of those places where Christ had beene taught and received and embraced Therefore there was some oddes and disadvantage in this that he should spend so much time as to go backe to Ierusalem whereas all those places were now already wonne to Christ and he should have gone and marched forward toward the North parts of the world where Christ had not as yet beene heard of and yet he sets all the care of this aside for the present and urgent necessitie that his brethren were in at Ierusalem and he thinkes that the works of mercie that belong to the Saints of God are to possesse and to take up the time of a man rather then some higher thing What then the preaching of the Gospell was not that the greatest part that belonged to his function Quest why then should he leave that seeing it was contrary to the rule that the Apostles themselves gave Act. 6.2 where there was a mutiny among the Greeks and the Hebrews because there was a neglect of their women in the common ministration and the Apostles to prevent such a mischiefe which was now growing among them and to take away the viper of discention and division which now troubled the Church they made this generall rule and principle that it was not fit that they should leave the Word of God to serve tables Behold this rule it bound all men it included all the Ministers of the Church and all the Apostles themselves therefore the Minâ—sters or Apostles should not leave the Word of God their daily function Apostolicall to serve tables And yet we see the Apostle leaves the word of God the preaching of the Gospell and other matters of great concernment the calling of the world to the faith of Christ he leaves this to serve tables that is to carry the money that was gathered at Corinth to Ierusalem which in effect was nothing else but to serve tables This therefore hath beene a question among Divines in all times how farre it should be extended and whether Saint Paul exceeded the limits or no or whether that that he did were well or no for some have thought that either he forgat that rule or else that he was not bound unto it Answ But this is easily answered It is true as long as the Church of God suffers no detriment by a mans absence no notable detriment and so long as it is otherwise well provided and so long as the businesse swallows up no great length of time but that with convenient speed the party may returne to his former calling so long the Apostles themselves were bound to intend the works of mercie and to serve tables It is true the Apostle was not to leave the Gospell and to serve tables because the greater work must be first intended except there be present necessity but in the second place he ought to intend that and if so be they can be joyned both together the preaching of the word and the serving of tables as Saint Paul did in this action for it is manifest they did concurre together both If a man can do thus it makes a more gratefull smell in the nostrils of God As Saint Austin said that he did not take accounts and reckonings because he bent his study to answer Hereticks he carried no keyes nor rings to seale daily matters and every commoditie of victuall in his house which they used to seale with a ring he carried none of these but he gave all the charge of them to his Steward but saith hee if God should give me a vacant time I know that this belongs to my charge too And Synetius Bishop of Pentapolis saith he I am farre from condemning those Bishops that take upon them the care of orphans and seculer poore and of almes houses and hospitals I am so farre from condemning their holy actions that I do admire at it and much wish that my selfe were fit for both but I know mine owne infirmitie they can passe through them both without pollution but if I should enter into these reckonings and summes to take care for these things I should lacke the whole sea the whole Ocean could not bee sufficient to cleanse mee from the pollution I should contract thereby And the Quinisex Councell in Cannon 35. Concil Quini sex Can. 35. they ordained that the Bishop should looke to the provision for the poore either in his owne person either himselfe or else by his Prelate or Archdeacon that was under him these things are so manifest as that no man of sence can deny it but those of the new fangled opinion of late would draw Ecclesiasticall persons from medling with temporall things yet surely these things are not meerly temporall but are ecclesiasticall for it is the gathering and collection of men that are spiritually minded and it is imployed for a spirituall purpose for the maintenance of the Church which are the sonnes and daughters of the Spirit of God It is true there was somewhat more in Saint Paul then in another man because he was not tyed to any place he had no fixed seat but he might go through the world therefore much more might hee passe such a journey and backe againe wheras our Bishops now have their setled residence and their little compasse therefore he might better do it then other men ordinary Bishops in that oeconomicall Province which the Lord put him in trust with Church men may tend secular
must not seeke to disgrace and defame him or insult over him but to performe the works of nature to every man for where there is no nature there can be no grace the worke of nature is this to entertaine strangers But suppose hee be not for Christ but against him Wee may not say God-speed to his wicked actions when wee know it but so long as wee doe not know it we must not disgrace or defame him as the custome is now in these later times of the world Surely I make no question but if St. Paul were here among us in person except hee could well prove himselfe to be Paul he should be torne with the malicious speeches of men and with mocks and scoffes with the intemperate abusive behaviour and ill-manners of all envious natures and sausie manners in the world And for conduct it may be he should have a company of boyes to follow him and to cast stones at him and to mocke him as the boyes mocked Elisha and called him Bald-pate bald-pate but hee brought two Beares foorth of the Wood and destroyed fourty two of them Let us take heed in these cases what wee doe let us strive to bee as humane and courteous as wee can in all the points of Christian duty let us seeke to shew our love even to our enemies and as long as we doe not know them to bee enemies of God and of Christ so long let us give them all kinde of furtherance and approbation and good countenance let us entertaine them at our charge and conduct them foorth especially when wee know that a man is set for the building up of the Kingdome of God and for preaching of the name of Christ 5 Part. The forme of speech Now to conclude all because the time is past with the forme of speech that the Apostle useth that is perhaps or peradventure Perhaps I will come and winter with you He that saith perhaps he doth not speak certainly It is a wondrous thing that the Apostle should say perhaps or it may chance or it may fortune or the like when as hee knew that there is no chance nor no fortune but that all is ruled by the Divine providence And if the â—postle say so then we may but wee are taught not to use it Aug. as Austin saith it repents me saith hee that ever I named fortune seeing therefore that all things are ruled by the providence of God that not so much as a sparrow can fall to the ground nor so much as a haire of our head Quest When a man combs his head there is not a haire that falls down but it is in the sight and knowledge and providence of God how then can the Apostle name fortune and say perchance I will doe this Answ How the Apostle saith perchance But you must understand that the Apostle speaks not this as a man that was Atheistically minded to doubt of Gods providence but as one doubting of the event of the thing he knew his owne will but he did not know Gods will he speaks therefore certainely of himselfe and saith I will come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is if the Lord give me leave but because he knew not whether he would give him leave or no therefore he saith peradventure or perhaps I will come So although there be no such thing as fortune to speake the truth that governes any thing the providence of God rules all yet because we are ignorant what God will doe as we say all it is the ignorance of the cause that brought the name of fortune for of it selfe it is nothing but because wee know not what there is to come hereafter the hidden things are reserved to God therefore wee so moderate our selves with this kind of speech and say perhaps this shall be with ifs and ands and conditions because wee can set nothing downe absolutely This was the goodly and glorious spirit of the Apostle hee still yeelds himselfe to the direction of God and hee would doe nothing till hee saw Gods command for it and his approbation of it for he was still ruled with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perhaps I will doe thus or perhaps I shall not doe thus for I serve not my owne flesh I am not my owne servant but I am the servant of God Thus farre I have troubled you with this discourse which the common people take no affection or liking to but those that are understanding men in the Church of Christ they know that these things also must be stood upon as well as others The spirit of the Apostle is to be imitated of us in that hee assures himselfe of all kindnesse and comfort from his schollers the Corinthians and presumes that as he was willing to come to them so he knows that they were as willing to receive him This spirit should be in all christians to surmise no bad thing in any man and although a man see a cloud in the face and brow of a man yet still to perswade himselfe the best of gentlenesse and kindnesse in him this is the true temper of the child of God St. Paul knows hee may be bold to say he will come to Corinth and hee knows that they will be as willing to receive him and to convey him againe it is a sweet harmony where these things agree together Now in these latter times there is nothing but striving and pushing about common and meere necessary things If poore St. Paul were now to passe in England he must spend a great deale of his owne meanes to get in his tythes or else hee could not have them there is such seeking every day to undermine and to defraud by base contracts and secret leases and one thing or other that would suck the bloud of St. Paul and make him that he should not be able to pay for his wintering But the children of God are of another mind and those few that be among Gods people they be content to winter and to summer the Preachers of the Gospell to give them all approbation and content that the Gospell may proceed and not be hindered by the malice of men This is the goodly disposition of the Saints and they that doe thus the peace of God and the glory of Israel shall be with them and if they give but a cup of cold water in the name of a Prophet they shall not lose their reward but shall receive the reward of a Prophet in the day of reward which the Lord grant us all FINIS SERM. 6. 1. COR. 16.8 9. But I will stay at Ephesus till Pentecost for there is a great doore opened to me and a mighty and there are many adversaries SAith the Wise man in the Proverbs Man may purpose but it is in God to dispose and governe that purpose for these purposes of S. Paul as it seemes by all likelihood they never came to take effect and that made him in the former verse to
whose Name he makes profession Adversarii multi the adversaries bee many adversaries without any cause adversaries to them that bee their friends this is the case of the Gospel as our Lord Christ saith I am come to save you I come to heale you I come to redeeme you from all misery and you seeke to kill me a man that hath done good to you And St. Paul saith Am I therefore your enemy because I tell you the truth Such grosse and senslesse adversaries the Gospel must looke for absurd men 2. Thess 2. 2 Thess 2. I beseech you brethren pray to God for us that wee may bee delivered from absurd men senslesse men that will not know their owne good men that know not who comes to doe them service strange adversaries that will fight against their benefactors such are the adversaries of the Gospel I paid that which I never tooke they rewarded me evill for good saith David to the great discomfort of my heart but the servant is not above his Master if our Lord have beene served thus we must not thinke much to taste of the same cup of which he hath drunke before us Againe this must teach all men that travaile in the cause of Christ to have the world in no estimation but to account it as an inraged beast that speaks and doth and kicks as a child that hath no wit nor sense that scratcheth the Nurses duggs from which it receives milkc Wee must thinke to be in the middest of Lions as our Lord Iesus saith in the middest of Wolves Behold I send you forth as Lambs in the middest of Wolves be yee therefore wise as Serpents and simple as Doves And here there are two sorts of men greatly to be blamed First those of former times that could not indure opposition but when the adversaries began to rise they would fall into the Wildernesse and live like Hermits men of great gifts and of excellent perfections yet they could not indure opposition being tender hearted and of weake spirits they could not beare the malice of the multitude but would keepe themselves away and would leave the places wherein they might have done great good they left them to be invaded by Foxes and Wolves to destroy the vineyard of the Lord. This I say was culpable in them because they came short of the spirit of St. Paul that was not daunted with the multitude of adversaries but he would goe so much the rather by how much the adversaries were greater and more in number for there bee many things in the world in the aboundant company of the adversaries which are so far from affrighting as that they give greater incouragement As the Poet saith the Shepheard speaking there of the cold Winter and of the North-wind hee saith that hee feared them as little as the Wolfe feares a number of sheepe or as the Land-flood doth feare the banks in a river So it was in the high and gracious spirit of the Apostle and those that were like unto him for St. Paul was called comparatively the Wolfe of Benjamin and in a good sense because the sacrifices were offered in the Tribe of Benjamin the Temple being in the Tribe of Benjamin it was called a ravening Wolfe because it devoured the bodies of the beasts that were offered in sacrifice So St. Paul that was of the Tribe of Benjamin was compared to a Wolfe as Gregory Gregory Augustine and Austin give the reason because he did eate up the sacrifices of the Heathen people as St. Peter in the vision was bid to Arise kill and eate this was the power that the Apostle had in the Church to devoure the wickednesse of the people and to change and digest it into their owne stomacks Now as the Wolfe cares not how many sheepe there be in a fold for when hee comes to steale if the shepherd and his dog be away hee takes more comfort in a great many then to see a handfull of sheepe he knowes that if their were ten times so many they could doe him no harme being fearefull creatures therefore he rejoyceth So the children of God are compared to Wolves to Lions to creatures that are victorious and conquering they are so farre from a sheepish and fearefull and base and cowardly disposition for the faculties and abilities of their adversaries that they take the more delight to see the adversaries many And as the great floods when the snow is melted upon the mountaines or when there hath beene a great Land-flood when it fâ—lls from the hills it scornes to be compassed in within banks but it overflowes and over-runnes all and makes new conduits new sourses and new channels where there was never any before So the mighty streame of the Gospel by the Apostles it could not bee contained within the banks and common limits that the Philosophers and naturall men could afford but it over-ranne all with a mighty current and flood upon the world with the sacred influence of it the hearts and mindes of them were watered that were never possessed of it before That kind of Monasticall Heremiticall life it is nothing agreeable to the profession of St. Paul in this place that for feare of danger will convey themselves into woods into caves and cells and alienate themselves from their worke and labour because they are afraid of opposition the spirit of St. Paul riseth the greater As the Palme-tree the more weight is laid upon it so much the more it strives and heaves against it so the Spirit of God in this Apostle and in all true Christians it is never so frolick nor they are never so high-spirited as when they see the malice of their adversaries most pregnant and most furious against them Secondly it blames those men much more 2 Sort blamed that in the time of prosperity when there are many adversaries yet they will not shew themselves but lie on their pillowes of pleasure and seeke to bee quiet they will have no man speake against them they will incurre no mans hatred or ill-will but they will hold the truth of God to themselves in the bosome of their owne conscience and never open it or stand for it These men are farre worse then the former for indeed the former had some good pretence because there was way-laying lying in wait for their lives and conspiracy against them to take them away from the earth therefore they thought it fittest to yeeld to the time and to reserve themselves unto a better occasion But when men shall live in their prosperity and have peace round about them and shall see the adversaries come and creep in craftily and sow false doctrine hereticall doctrine and things that savour of the old dregs and reliques of Antichristianisme and they themselves have excellent gifts and meanes to refute and confound these things and yet because they will not abridge themselves of their pleasure they will set some young novice in the place that is able to
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
separated from the body But in all this discourse if we can but gaine the true and most perfect sence we have sufficiently handled this text for We must first consider what the words meane And then how the words prove and argue For if we finde once but the true signification we shall then finde the perfect demonstration and proofe that ariseth from them First then the Church hath taken it as though the Apostle alluded to a grosse errour of the Cerinthians and Montanists and as Saint Chrysostome saith of the Marcionits which out of these words have gathered a ridiculous kinde of baptising of young Christians And they said when there was any Catechumeni that is those that were not baptised but were yet in their principles and in their catechisme for then they baptised none for the most part till they were come to yeares of discretion that themselves were able to make profession of their owne faith Now if any of these were taken away by death upon the sudden or by any casualty which had intended to be baptised at the appointed season which was Easter in this case they were to substitute and appoint some friend that was alive to answer for the dead man and to be baptised for him And then in a kinde of stage-playing they laid the dead childe or the dead man upon a forme or upon a table or on a bed and the substitute or appointed friend was to goe under the bed or table and to answer to those questions that the Priest did usually make to the partie baptised The first question was whether he would be baptised or no and if the dead man could not his friend was to say yea The second question was whether he beleeved or no the partie was to answer affirmatively for the dead man to that also The third question was Chrysost whether he renounced the Divell and all his workes and he was to answer to that too So saith Chrysostom this is a ridiculous thing that every Christian should laugh at in his minde to see their folly yet there is some shew of argument to be drawne from it for that out of mens follies God can ordaine strength And this proves that they had a conceit of the resurrection or else they would never have descended to such vaine and ridiculous fantasies Afterwards that the Church of God tooke up this custome yea such as were not heretiques but were brought up in the Church yet they thought it as possible for one man to be baptised for another as for one man to be helped by anothers prayers but this hath no shew of consequence in it For the one we have a command and a promise for the other we have neither Besides prayer is generall for all but the receiving of the Sacrament is personall for one for him alone that receives it So that one cannot be baptised for another Yet some in the Church mistaking this text of Scripture thought that when any that intended to be baptised were taken away before the due time they might appoint some that was his friend that had first beene baptised for himselfe And they thought this was profitable to him that was deceased But these are but mockeries of the Sacrament and questionlesse it is a thing that the Apostle alludes not to For the Apostle would never have indured this errour in the Corinthians or if he had yet it proves nothing It doth not follow that because foolish men abuse the Sacrament to a hope of the resurrection that therefore there shall be a resurrection For foolish actions have no probation there is no force in that which is without reason And seeing the Apostle is curious to rebuke them for lesser matters as concerning meate offered to Idols and women being uncovered in the Church which seeme to be matters of lesse moment yet he particularly reproves thē much more would he have rebuked this and not have suffered such a gangrene of errour to eate into the body of the Church as this was that makes a mockerie of the Sacrament Therefore seeing it hath no force to prove and because it is likely that the Apostle would not suffer such a thing to be extant there nor is there mention any where in his Epistles of such an errour that was crept into Corinth Therefore we reject the exposition although some other of the Fathers thinke that out of their common abuse the Apostle makes a good use and drawes an argument as in some cases it is necessary It is lawfull sometimes to draw arguments from the follies and dreames of the heathen so our Divines doe out of Plato and out of the historie of Err who they say after his death lived and was seen again of his friends and the storie of Epimenides he that slept so many yeares and revived againe But the Apostle useth not to insist upon such arguments he drawes something indeed from Menander and from Epimenides but it is matter of common knowledge and experience that no man could gaine-say And so I come to the second opinion What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead That is it was a custome for the first 500. yeares almost that those that were baptised into the name of Christ they thought good to deferre it till the latter end of their life and so when they lay sicke upon their death bed they called for baptisme For they thought according to the errour of Novatian that when a man had once received baptisme and had tasted of that heavenly gift as the Apostle speakes Heb. 6. if they then fell into sinne Heb. 6.6 there was no Sacrament for them nor no hope to be reconciled to God which is the cut-throat of all faith and repentance but they being carried thus by naturall reason thought that after they were baptised and had made defiance of the world the flesh and the divell and then fell backe and relapsed into sinne they thought there was no pardon for them And because they knew their owne weakenesse and infirmitie that they could not so renounce the world the flesh and the divell but that they were oft intangled with them or with some of them therefore unlesse they should bring upon their soules an inevitable necessitie of damnation they thought it good not to meddle with that Sacrament till they were past the necessity of sinning which when that is no man knowes For unlesse the grace of God subdue our affections as long as a man lives the power of sinning is not past But they imagined that old age would bring a cessation and a supersedeas of all offences and that then they might better serve God and with more quietnesse according to their profession Therefore they deferred baptisme to their last age and then they were baptised And in this errour we see what great men lived As Valentinian the Emperour whom S. Ambrose commends highly in his funerall oration For he purposed to be baptised when he came home but he was
away from him yea and his dearest beloved shall stop their noses at him This should teach us to humble our selves in this disconsolation Vse and to adde this to all the honors we have in the world if we have any or doe yet looke for any This dishonour of death is a cooling card that should make a man moderate in all his proceedings It should make him fearfull in all his doings It should make him understand that he ought not to be puffed up with conceits and pretences of honour but to qualifie himselfe with this comparing his dishonour which the Lord will lay upon sinfull flesh There is nothing so honourable but it shall be covered with shame and dishonour at the hour of death when we shall depart this world It is sowne in dishonour Well! although it be thus yet the Lord hath a help for this againe it shall be raised after another manner It shall be raised in honour in great glory As disgrace and dishonour is the worst of punishments so honour and grace and glory againe is the best of preferments There is nothing so sweet unto us as that to be above others to be beloved of others to be admired of others and to be served of others this is that sweet breath of life and that sweet contentment that shall fill us with marrow and fatnesse And this God purposeth to poure upon these dishonourable bodies that die so beastly and deformed that they are trampled on by the feet of beasts if they lie abroad and if it be in the Church where wee usually bury the poorest and basest of men tread upon them I say the Lord shall raise it at that day in such honour that it shall be like the stars of heaven it shall be like the Sunne in glory it shall be like the Angels of God it shall be like the Sonne of God Phil. 3.21 for he shall change these vile bodies and make them like his glorious body according to his mighty power whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3.21 Now by the contrary dishonour we may see that the honour of the Saints shall consist 1. In a goodly stature 2. In a perfect beauty 3. In a gracious fragrancie In the stature of the body there shall be no uncomelinesse there shall be no crookednesse there shall be nothing wanting that can be required as we use to say of images that are drawne in waxe that they are compleat so likewise God shall so paint his image in the bodies of his Saints when they shall rise that it is not possible to find it so in any thing but in the Exemplar in the master-piece the body of Christ there is nothing else that shall be more glorious As in those happy Countries where the leaves are alwaies greene and the earth is alway budding and bringing forth so the bodies of Gods Saints as St. Austin saith shall have that greennesse and vigorousnesse of incorruption possesse them totally St. Augustine And lastly that it shall be of a gracious fragrancy it is certaine that that also may be opposed to the stench of these carkasses The dead body is dishonoured in nothing more then by a caryon-like smell for thereby it differs nothing from a beast nay it is far worse then a beast for there is nothing so putrifies as the body of a man there is nothing brings forth such ugly things as that For out of the brain comes scorpions and snakes and out of the flesh toads and serpents which is not usuall among the beasts For some of them bring forth bees and some wasps but of Ages and Eumines and divers others it is reported that scorpions and snakes came out of their heads after they were dead and wreathed about their faces And we know by wofull experience of late time of divers gentlemen that were troubled with such a wofull thing that they had wormes in their braines and in their entrailes I say therefore answerable to this as the miserie is great to which the body of man is subject greater then other creatures because he is the onely sinner so at that day God shall make an aboundant recompence by pouring upon it the spring of beauty and sweetnesse and fragrancie that they shall be as a garden of spices in the nostrills of God and of his Saints Every Saint shall also be as a glasse to each other and every one shall see his fellowes beauty and they shall reflect one upon another in the joy and gladnesse of the Holy Ghost to see the wonderous work which God hath wrought upon this piece of frailty And even as Iacob was as the smell of a field when he came near his Father Behold saith Isaack I smell the smell of my sonne as the smell of a field Gen. 27.27 which the Lord hath blessed There being nothing more delightfull to the sense then a blooming field of new corne and of sweet grasse and flowers that rise out of the earth And therefore the holy man compares his sonne to a field which the Lord hath blessed Much more shall these be fragrant fields the Lord blessing them with infinite variety of goodnesse and of grace and sweetnesse that the field of God shall be more pleasant then the fields and gardens of men and then all the paradises in this world And as the head of this company is described Cant. 1. Cant. 1.3 4. Draw me and I will run after thee in the odour of thine anointments noting unto us the sweetnesse that is incorporated in the body of Christ And as we reade also of St. Paul Acts 19.12 that by the blessing of God he had napkins and handkerchiefs brought from his body that were of such sweetnesse that they were able to cure diseases so also we may understand what shall be the variety there from the sweetnesse that is now in the body arising from the mixture of the bloud in the veines which makes a perfect sympathy and harmony The Lord at that day shall make all things much more abundant As the Church also is described by the sweetnesse of her cloathes in the Canticles Cant. 1.14 My Spouse saith Christ is as a garden of myrrh or of spices and her breasts are like the clusters of grapes and like the fruit of Engedi So every man and woman shall be although here they be sickly and subject to never so many infirmities and diseases in this life yet the Lord shall so alter the bodies of those that serve him here in that blessed estate there that they shall be sure to finde a singular proportion of beauty of strength and of fragrancie that all the just shall be termed the field and paradise which God hath blessed FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.43 It is sowne in weaknesse it is raised in power It is sown a naturall body it is raised a spirituall body There is a naturall body and there is