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ἐγείρειν, and ἐγείρεσθαι come to be so applied, I affirm, that they can, with no tolerable accord to common sense and reason, be allowed to signify any thing else, but the repetition or restitution of lost existence, or, in other words, the resuscitation of that which had perished before.

And thus much in answer to the objection brought to prove the impossibility of a resurrection of the same numerical body, founded upon the continual transmutation of one body into another. The sum of all amounting to this, namely, that if the transmutation of human bodies, after death, into other animate bodies successively, be total, the objection, founded upon such a transmutation, is not easy to be avoided; and if, on the other side, it be not total, I cannot see how it proves, that the restitution of the same numerical body carries in it any contradiction, nor, consequently, any impossibility at all. For the point now before us depending chiefly upon the due stating of the object of an infinite power, if the thing in dispute be but possible, it is sufficient to overthrow any argument that would pretend to prove, that an omnipotence cannot effect it. Which consideration having been thus offered by us, for the clearing of the forecited objection, we shall now proceed

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Second place, to produce something, as we promised, by way of positive proof for the evincing of a resurrection, notwithstanding all the difficulties and repugnancies which seem to attend it. And here, since this is a point of religion, knowable only by revelation, it cannot be positively proved, or made out to us any other way than by revelation, that is to say, by what God has declared in his written word concerning it; for natural reason and philosophy will afford us but little assistance in a case so extremely above both. Accordingly, since revelation is our only competent guide in this matter, the natural method, I conceive, for us to proceed by in our discourses thereupon, must be this, namely, that whereas the objection is, that the resurrection of the same numerical body implies in it a contradiction, and therefore cannot possibly be, even by the divine power itself; the proper answer to this ought to be by an inversion of the same terms after this manner, namely, that God has declared that he will, and therefore can, raise the same numerical body at the last day. So that the sum of the whole matter turns upon this point, to wit, whether that which we judge to be or not to be a contradiction, ought to measure the extent of the divine power; or, on the other side, the divine power to determine what is or is not to be accounted by us a contradiction. And the difficulty on either side seems not inconsiderable. For if we take the first of these methods, this inconvenience will attend it,

that the measure we make use of is always short of the thing we apply to, as a finite must needs be short of an infinite; and sometimes also false, and thereby not only short of it, but moreover disagreeable to it; it being very possible, (because indeed very frequent,) that the mind of man, even with its utmost sagacity, may be mistaken, and judge that to imply a contradiction which really does not so. But, on the other hand, if we make the divine power the measure whereby we ought to judge what is or what is not a contradiction, we make that a measure which we do not throughly understand or comprehend; and that is contrary to the very nature and notion of a measure; forasmuch as that by which we would understand another thing ought to be first understood itself. But how shall we be able to understand the extent of an infinite power, so as to know certainly how far it can go, and where it must stop, and can go no farther? As if we should argue thus: This or that implies in it no contradiction, because God, by his divine power, can effect it; I think the inference very good; but for all that it may be replied, How do you know what an infinite or divine power can or cannot do? Certain it is, that it cannot destroy itself, or put an end to its own being; and possibly there may be some other things, unknown to us, which are likewise under an incapacity of being done by it. And how, then, shall we govern our speculations in this arduous and perplexing point? For my own part, I should think it not only the safest, but in all respects the most rational way, in any doubtful case, where the power of Almighty God is concerned, to ascribe as much to him as his divine nature and attributes suffer us to do; that is to say, that we rather prescribe to our reason from his power, than to his power from any rule or maxim taken up by our reason. And since there is a necessity of some rule or other to proceed by, in forming a judgment of God's power, no less than of his other perfections, let God's word or revelation, (in the name of all that pretends to be sensible or rational,) founded upon his infallible knowledge of whatsoever he says or reveals, (and confirmed by his essential veracity inseparably attending it,) be that great rule for us to judge by; for a better, I am sure, can never be assigned, nor a safer relied upon. And accordingly, when our Saviour was to answer the Sadducees, disputing upon this very subject, the resurrection, he argues not from any topic of common reason or natural philosophy, but wholly from the power of God, as declared by the word of God. "Do ye not therefore err," says he, (Mark, xii. 24,) "because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God?" or, in other words, the power of God, as declared in

Scripture. Our Saviour went no farther with them, as knowing this to have been home to the point, and sufficient for their conviction. And upon the same account, those remarkable passages in the evangelists cannot but be of mighty weight in the present case; as that particularly in Matt. xix. 26, and in Mark, x. 27. In both which it is plainly and positively affirmed," that with God all things are possible;" and yet more particularly in Luke, xviii. 27, where Christ, speaking of some things accounted with men impossible, tells us, "that the things impossible with men were possible with God." The antithesis, we see here, is clear and full enough; and yet even with men nothing uses to be accounted impossible, but what is judged by them one way or other to imply in it a contradiction; and if so, it is evident, that the divine power may extend to some things, which, in the judgments of men, pass for contradictions; and consequently, that what, according to their judgments, implies in it a contradiction, cannot be always a just measure of what is impossible for God to do. Nevertheless, in order to the better understanding of this matter, I conceive it may not be amiss to distinguish here of two sorts of contradictions.

can or cannot do. As for instance, if we should say, "That for a body having been once destroyed, and transmuted into other human bodies, or some parts thereof successively, to be restored again, with all the parts of it complete, and numerically the same, is a contradiction;" it is certain, however, that the contradiction here charged does not manifestly appear such from any evidence of the terms, but is only gathered by such consequences and inferences as men form to themselves in their discourses upon this subject; and therefore, though possibly a truth, yet can be no clear proof, that it is impossible for an infinite power to do that which is here supposed and said to be a contradiction. But, on the other side, touching the first sort of contradictions mentioned by us, and shewing themselves by the immediate self-evidence of the terms; these, no doubt, ought to be looked upon by us out of the sphere or compass of omnipotence itself to effect; or otherwise, that old and universally received rule, namely, that the divine power extends to the doing of every thing, not implying in it a contradiction, must be exploded, and laid aside by us, as utterly useless and fallacious.

But now, with reference to the foregoing distinction of prime and consequential con1. Such as appear immediately and self-tradictions, if it should be here asked, whether evidently so, from the very terms of the pro- a contradiction of the latter sort be not as position wherein they are expressed; the really and as much a contradiction as one of predicate implying in it a direct negation of the former, I grant that it is, (there being no the subject, and the subject mutually of the magis and minus in contradictions;) but neverpredicate; so that, upon the bare understand-theless, not so manifestly nor so evidently ing of the signification of the terms or parts of the proposition, we cannot but apprehend and see the contradiction couched under them, and the utter inconsistency of the idea of one with the idea of the other; as if, for instance, we should say, that light is darkness, or that darkness is light; or that a piece of bread of about an inch in breadth, and of an inch in length, is a man's body of about a yard and a half in length, and of a proportionable size in breadth: each of these propositions or assertions would import a direct and evident negation of the other, upon the very first sight or hearing, without any farther examination of them at all. But then,

2. There is another sort of contradictions, which may not improperly be termed conse quential. That is to say, such as shew themselves, not by the immediate self-evidence of the terms, but by consequences and deductions drawn from some known principle by human ratiocination or discourse, and the judgment which men use to pass upon things in the strength and light thereof. In all which, since men may be deceived, (nothing being more incident to common humanity than mistake,) such contradictions cannot be so far relied upon, as to be taken for a perfect and sure measure of what the divine power

such, nor consequently of so much force in argumentation, nor equally capable of having a conclusion or inference drawn from it, as the other is. For we are to observe, that, in the case now before us, a contradiction is not so much considered for what it is barely in itself, as for its being a medium to prove something else by it; and for that reason, we allow not the same conclusive force (though the same reality, could it be proved) to a consequential contradiction, which we allow to a prime and self-evident one, and such as shews itself to the very first view, in and by the bare terms of the proposition wherein it is contained.

Upon the whole matter, therefore, if by true and sound reasoning I stand assured, that God has affirmed or declared a thing, all objections against the same, though never so strong, (even reason itself, upon the strictest principles of it, being judge,) must of necessity fall to the ground. Forasmuch as reason itself cannot but acknowledge, that men of the best wit, learning, and judgment, may sometimes take that for a contradiction, which really is not so; but still, on the other side, must own it utterly impossible for a being infinitely perfect, holy, and true, either to deceive or be deceived in any thing affirmed

or attested by it. And moreover, to carry this point yet something farther; if a proposition be once settled upon a solid bottom, and sufficiently proved, it will and must continue to be so, notwithstanding any after-arguments or objections brought against it, whether we can answer and clear off the said objections, or no; I say, it lessens not our obligation to believe such a proposition one jot. And if the whole body of Christians, throughout all places and ages, should with one voice declare, that they could not solve the foregoing objection urged against the resurrection, and taken from the continual transmutation of bodies into one another, or any other such-like arguments, it would not abate one degree of duty lying upon them, to acknowledge and embrace the said article, as an indispensable part of their Christian faith; nor would they be at all the worse Christians, for not being able to give a philosophical account or solution thereof; so long as, with a non obstante to all such difficulties, they steadfastly adhered to and acquiesced in the article itself. For so far as I can see, this whole controversy depends upon, and ought to be determined by the Scriptures, as wholly turning upon these two points, namely, 1st, Whether a future general resurrection be affirmed and revealed in the Scriptures, or no? And 2dly, Whether the said Scriptures be the word of God? And if the matter stands thus, I am sure that none can justly pretend to the name of a Christian, who in the least doubts of the affirmative in either of these two points. And consequently, if this article stands thus proved, all arguments formed against it, upon the stock of reason or philosophy, come too late to shake it; for they find the thing already fixed and proved; and being so, it cannot, by after-allegations, be disproved. Since it being also a proposition wholly founded upon revelation, and the authority of the revelation upon the authority of the revealer, all arguments from any thing else are wholly foreign to the subject in dispute; and accordingly ought by no means to be admitted, either as necessary proofs of it, or so much as competent objections against it. For whatsoever is contrary to the word or affirmation of a being infinitely knowing and essentially infallible, let it carry with it never so much show of truth, yet it certainly is and can be nothing else but fallacy and imposture. And upon this one ground I firmly do and ought to believe a general resurrection, though ten thousand arguments from the principles of natural philosophy could be opposed to it. But may it not then, you will say, upon the same terms, be here argued, that Jesus Christ (who is God blessed for ever) having expressly said of the bread in the holy sacrament," this is my body," we ought to believe the said piece of bread to be really

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and substantially his body, how much soever we may apprehend it to contradict the principles of sense, reason, and philosophy? To this I answer, That the words here alleged, as pronounced by our Saviour, are confessedly in the Holy Scripture. But that every thing affirmed by God in Scripture, is there affirmed and intended by him, literally, properly, and not figuratively, this I utterly deny. And since it is agreed to by all, (and even by those whom in this matter we contend with,) that many expressions in Scripture cannot be understood but by a figure; and since, moreover, I grant and assert, that every thing affirmed by God in Holy Scripture ought to be believed in that sense only in which it is so affirmed; I will venture to allow the persons, who are for the literal sense of those particular words against the figurative, till doomsday, to prove that the literal sense only ought to take place here, and the figurative to be exploded and set aside; and if they can but prove this, I shall not fail, as I said before, to believe and assent to the thing so proved, whatsoever that which the world calls common reason and philosophy, shall or can suggest and offer to the contrary.

And this, I hope, may suffice to have been spoken upon the second proposition assigned for the prosecution of this subject, namely, That notwithstanding all the difficulties and objections alleged against the article of a general resurrection, there is yet sufficient reason and solid ground for the belief of it. From whence we should now proceed to treat of the third and last proposition, to wit, That a sufficiency of reason being thus given for the belief of the said article, all the difficulties, and seeming repugnancies to reason, which it is charged with, do exceedingly enhance the worth, value, and excellency of that belief.

But this, as I reckon, having been, in effect, done by us already, and the whole matter set in a full view, partly by clearing off the objections pretended to be brought against it, from natural reason, in the two foregoing propositions, and partly by establishing the proof thereof, upon the sure basis of those three great attributes of God, his omniscience, his omnipotence, and his essential veracity, all of them employed to warrant and engage our assent to it; we shall now at length come to consider the same more particularly in some of the consequences deducible from it. Such as are these two that follow. As,

1. We collect from hence the utter insuffi

ciency of bare natural religion to answer the proper ends and purposes which God intended religion for. And,

2. We infer from hence also, the diabolical impiety of the Socinian opinions; and particularly of those relating to the resurrection. And here,

1. For the first of these, the insufficiency of natural religion to answer the proper ends which religion was designed for. This is most certain, that natural religion exceeds not the compass of natural reason; it neither looks higher nor reaches farther, but both of them are commensurate to one another; and it is every whit as certain, that the soul of man, being the proper seat and subject of religion, must needs be allowed to be immortal; and being withal both endued with and acted by the affections of hope and fear, that it must be supplied with objects proper and adequate to both, which yet nothing under an eternal happiness with respect to the one, and an eternal misery with reference to the other, together with a general resurrection from the dead, to render men capable of either, can possibly be. So that it is manifest, from the very nature and essentials of religion, supposing it perfect, that the particulars now alleged by us necessarily do and must come up to the utmost of what they stand alleged for. But then, on the other hand, can mere natural reason of itself, by full evidence and strength of argument, convince us of any of the aforesaid particulars? As, for instance, can it demonstrate that the soul is immortal? Or can it certainly prove, that there is a future and eternal state of happiness or of misery in another life? And that, in order to it, there shall be a resurrection of their mortal bodies, after an utter dissolution of them into dust and ashes? No, there is nothing in bare reason that can so much as pretend to evince demonstratively auy of these doctrines or assertions. And what then can natural religion do or say in the case? For where the former is at a stand, the latter can go no farther; so that there is an absolute necessity, if we would have any more certain knowledge of these matters, to fetch it from revelation: forasmuch as the great apostle himself assures us, in 1 Cor, ii. 9, that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what things God has prepared for those that love him;" nor, consequently, (by a parity of reason,) what miseries he has prepared for those that hate him. And if both of them are a perfect nonplus and baffle to all human understanding, is it possible for natural reason to comprehend what the heart of man cannot conceive? Nothing certainly can be a grosser contradiction, and that in the very terms of it, than such an assertion. But some perhaps may here say, that though natural reason, by its own strength and light, cannot give us a clear and particular account what these things are; yet it may, however, be able to discover to us, that really there are such things. But, in answer to this also, the same apostle tells us, in 2 Tim. i. 10, that it was our Saviour

Christ who "brought life and immortality to light through the gospel :" that is to say, cleared off all doubts about the immortal state and being of the soul, the everlasting felicities of the righteous, and the never-dying worm and torments of the wicked in another world. Touching all which, I affirm, that nothing but divine revelation could give any solid satisfaction to the minds of men, either as to the quid sit or the quod sit of these things; that is to say, either by declaring the nature of them, what they are, or by proving the existence and being of them, that they are; besides, that the very expression of "bringing a thing to light," must needs import its being hidden or undiscovered (at least to any considerable purpose) before. But some possibly may here farther object, that the heathens could not but long before the times of our Saviour, have had a competent knowledge of these matters. For did they not, by what they discoursed of the Elysian fields, intend thereby to express the future blessedness of pious and virtuous persons? And by what they taught of Styx, Acheron, and Cocytus, and the torments of Prometheus, Ixion, and other famous criminals, design likewise to set forth to us the future miseries of the wicked and flagitious? No doubt, they meant so : but still all this was built upon such weak and fabulous grounds, that the wiser sort of them did but despise and laugh at all these things. So that Juvenal, speaking of these matters, tells us in plain terms, "vix pueri credunt," that children scarce believed them; though surely, if any thing could dispose the mind of men to an extravagant credulity, one would think that the age and state of childhood should. And then, as for the immortality of the soul, whatsoever Plato and other philosophers might argue in behalf thereof, yet I am abundantly satisfied, that neither Plato, or all of them together, have been able to argue more close and home to this subject, than those wits who have lived in the ages after them, have done. And yet, upon the result of all, I do not find, that any thing hitherto has been so clearly and irrefragably proved for the immortality of it, but that the most that can be done upon this argument is, that the soul cannot be proved, by any principle of natural reason, to be mortal. And that (though it does not prove so much as it should do) is yet, I think, no inconsiderable point or step gained; but, after all, admitting the proof hereof to be as full and convincing as we could wish, then what can natural reason say to a general resurrection from the dead, that main article which we are now insisting upon? Why, truly, nothing at all; and if this be the utmost which is to be had from natural reason upon this point, I am sure there is no more to be had from natural religion, which (to make the very best and

most of it) is nothing but reason, not assisted by revelation. But,

The

2. The other thing, which we shall infer from the foregoing particulars, is, the horrible impiety of the Socinian opinions, and particularly of those relating to the resurrection, and the state of men's souls after death. Socinians, who have done their utmost to overthrow the credenda of Christianity, are not for stopping there, but for giving as great a blow to the agenda of it too, by subverting (if possible) those principles which are to support the practice of it. Amongst which, I reckon one of the chief to be, the belief of those eternal torments awarded by God to persons dying in a state of sin and impeniteuce, one of the most powerful checks to sin, doubtless, of any that religion affords ; forasmuch as where there is one withheld from sin by the hopes of those eternal joys promised in the Scripture, I dare affirm, that there are a hundred at least, if not more, kept from it by the fears of eternal torments. And the reason of this is, because those things by which the joys of heaven are represented to us, do by no means make so quick and lively an impression upon men's minds, as those by which the torments of hell, as they are described to us, are found to do. I am far, I confess, from affirming, that this ought to be so, but as the state of mankind now generally is, there are but too many and too manifest proofs, that actually it is so. And I do not in the least question, but that there are millions who would readily part with all their hopes of the future felicities which the Scripture promises them, upon condition that they might be secured from the eternal torments which it threatens.* And therefore, what a mighty

*They deny the torments of hell, and give this reason for it, -"Quod absurdum sit, Deum irasci in æternum, et peccata creaturarum finita pœnis infinitis mulctare, præsertim cum nulla hinc ipsius gloria illustretur."— Compendiolum Doctrinæ Ecclesiarum in Polonia. Likewise Ernestus Sonnerus, a noted Socinian, has wrote a just treatise, with this title prefixed to it, "Demonstratio Theologica et Philosophica, Quod æterna impiorum supplicia non arguant Dei justitiam, sed injustitiam." And if they be unjust, we may be sure, (as Dr Tillotson, in his sermon on Matthew, xxv. 46, learnedly observes,) that there shall be no such thing. And to shew farther how industrious these factors for the devil are to rid men's minds of the grand restraint of sin, the belief of eternal torments, he sets down at the end of his Demonstration, (as he calls it,) several places of Scripture, where the words eternal and for ever signify not an infinite or everlasting, but only a finite, though indefinite duration. Likewise Diodorus Camphuysen, one of the same tribe, with a frontless impudence, in a certain epistle of his, requires such as should read it, "negare et ridere damnatorum pœnas, et cruciatus æternos;" that is, not only to deny, but also to laugh at the eternal torments and punishments of the damned. And to make yet surer work, (if possible,) Socinus denies the soul even a capacity of being tormented after a man's death. "Tantum id mihi videtur statui posse, post hanc vitam, animam, sive animum hominis non ita per se subsistere, ut præmia ulla pœnasve sentiat, vel etiam ista sentiendi sit capax, quæ mea firma opinio," &c. Socinus in quinta Epistola ad Volkelium. And elsewhere; "Homo, sive anima humana nihil cum immortalitate habet

encouragement must the denial of eternal punishments needs be to all sorts of wickedness in the lives of men! And what shall be able to restrain the progress and rage of it, in the course of the world, when sinners shall be told, that after all the villainies committed by them here, nothing is to be expected or feared by them, when they have quitted this life, but a total annihilation or extinction of their persons, together with an endless continuance under the said estate? And is not this, think we, a sort of eternal punishment according to the sinner's own heart's desire? For since it so utterly bereaves him of all sense, that he can feel nothing hereafter, let him alone to fear as little here. And as for the resurrection from the dead, the same men generally deny, that the wicked shall have any at all; it being, as they affirm, intended by God for a peculiar favour and privilege to the godly, who alone are to be the sons of the resurrection. But then, if these men find themselves pinched by such scriptures as that of the 25th of Saint Matthew, and this of my text, so expressly declaring a resurrection, "both of the just and the unjust ;" in this case, some of them have another assertion to fly to, namely, that the wicked shall indeed be raised again at the last day, but immediately after such a resuscitation, shall be annihilated and destroyed for ever, an assertion so intolerably absurd, and so manifestly a scoff upon religion, that none but an atheist or Socinian (another word for the same thing) could have been so profane as even to think of it, or so impudent as to own or declare it. In fine, such is the diabolical impiety and the mischievous influence of the foregoing opinions upon the practices of mankind, and consequently, upon the peace and welfare of societies and governments, (all depending upon the said practices,) that all sober and pious minds do even groan under the very thoughts of such foul invasions upon religion, and cannot but wonder, even to amazement, that the maintainers of such tenets were not long since delivered over into the hands of civil justice, to receive condign punishment by the sentence of the judge; as likewise, that those who deny the divinity and satisfaction of our Saviour, explode original sin, and revive several of the old condemned blasphemies, have not, long before this, been brought under the

commune." In short, I am so far from accounting the authors or owners of such horrid assertions to be really Christians, that I account them really the worst of men, if profaneness, blasphemy, and the letting loose all sorts of wickedness upon the world, can make them so. For, according to these grand agents and apostles of Satan, wicked men, no less than the very brutes themselves, (whose spirits also they affirm to return to God, as well as those of the other,) being once dead, shall rise no more. And if they can but persuade men, that they shall die like beasts, there is no question to be made, but that most of them will be quickly brought to live like beasts too.

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