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" has made our Lord Jefus Chrift the FIRST "FRUITS, raifing him from the dead. Let "us contemplate, beloved, the refurrection "that is continually made before our eyes. "Let us behold the fruits of the earth.

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Every one fees how the feed is fown. The "fower goes forth, and cafts it upon the "earth; and the feed which when it was "fown fell upon the earth dry and naked, in "time diffolves; and from the diffolution "the great power of the Providence of the "Lord raifes it again; and of one feed many arife, and bring forth fruit."

This paffage is almost a direct comment on the 36th, and two following verses of the 15th. Chapter of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians. St. Clement, it must be confeffed, is not fo happy in his elucidation of the doctrine of the refurrection of the body from the fuppofed death and revivifcence of the Phenix from his own afhes, according to a current opinion in those days; the enlargement on which fabulous wonder has drawn a charge of ungenuineness on the Epistle it

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felf. But the judicious Editor and Translator in his preliminary difcourfe vindicates the good Father, and rescues the work from this imputation in a moft fatisfactory manner; so that "with serious and ingenuous minds,” (to borrow his own words,) this is a matter which will reflect no difcredit on St. Cle ment's doctrine, or on the pious zeal with which he maintained it. The reality of the doctrine is in no wife affected by the whimficalnefs, or the weakness of the illuftration.

"He that raised up Chrift from the dead, "shall also raise up us in like manner, if we "do his will," fays Polycarp to the Philippians.

Ignatius affures the Trallians in the moft pofitive terms, that "as Jefus Chrift was truly "crucified and dead, fo he was alfo truly "raised from the dead by his Father, after "the fame manner as he will also raise up us "who believe in him." (gg)

The following extract from St, Clement's fecond Epistle to the Corinthians is at least as R 2

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full and exprefs as the paffage a little above quoted from the first." Let not any one " among you fay, that this very flesh is not judged, neither raised up. Confider, in "what were ye faved, in what did ye look if not whilft you were in this flesh ? "We must therefore keep our flesh as the temple of God. For in like manner as ye "were called in the flesh, ye shall alfo come "to judgment in the flesh.” (bb)

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And yet all this evidence fhall fhrink into nothing before a little ready confidence, and unceremonious decifion. For thus fays the Author of the Inquiry. "If we pass from the "New Testament, Barnabas and Clemens of "Rome mention no more than the refurrec"tion; and not any particular modus of it, "or the refurrection of the flesh: vide Barna"bas, ch. xxi. Clemens, ch. xxiv. Clemens "indeed, in his fecond Epiftle, mentions the

refurrection of the flesh; but that is allowed "not to be genuine. Ignatius too speaks as "the Scriptures do. Ep. ad Trall. And in "the larger Epiftle to the Ephefians, he speaks

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"of the refurrection ex vexgav, from the dead; "but he never mentions any thing of a refurrection of the flesh."

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Now if the paffages I produced from St. Clement's first Epiftle, and from Ignatius, dó not to all intents and purposes affert the refurrection of the body, or of the flesh; if St. Clement's fecond Epiftle muft absolutely be pronounced fpurious, becaufe the learned world is divided in its fentiments relative to it; if the doctrine contained in this Epiftle cannot poffibly be agreeable to that of the other, or to that of Ignatius, or to that of the Apoftolical and primitive Church, because it is a matter of fome doubt who the author might be; if thefe reverend fathers fpeak in no place of the refurrection of the body because in fome places they fpeak of the refurrection of the dead, or of the refurrection in general, as the holy Scripture itself occafionally does; if this be the cafe, equivocation fhall hereafter pafs for argument, and dogmaticalnefs for demonftration.

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One fhould be apt to think, that the nearer the fountain, the clearer the ftream; or, in plain terms, that the most antient Christians are the most orthodox; that those who lived in, or nearest to the times of the Apoftles, and Apoftolical men, were like to understand their doctrine with readiness, to embrace it with veneration, and to tranfmit it in purity. What can be more clear than the language of Justin Martyr, as it is quoted by Dr. S. himself? Chrift fhall "come a fecond time, when ta oμata avas

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* γερει παντων των γενομενων ανθρωπων, be ball raife "the bodies of all men that have been ?" Well; but fays our author, "this was Juftin's opi• nion, but it was not in any Baptifmal "Creed; he takes no notice of any article "of any Creed as containing the notion of "the refurrection of the flesh, whatsoever his "own philofophical notion of the refurrec"tion might be."

Will it follow then that the doctrine of the refurrection of the flesh was purely the perfonal, or philofophical notion of Juftin Martyr,

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