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SERMON X.

How Chrift has given us the Victory over Death.

[Preached on Easter-Day.]

I COR. XV. 56, 57.

The Sting of Death is Sin, and the
Strength of Sin is the Law; But
Thanks be to God which giveth us the
Victory, through our Lord Jefus Chrift.

X.

Proceed now to the third and SER M. laft Thing I proposed, which was to show how Christ gives us the Victory over Death, which is the last enemy to be deftroyed, 1 Cor. xv. 26. Death is either natural

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SER M. tural and temporal, which is the Death of the body; or eternal, which is the Death and the Destruction of the Soul In the Old Teftament, Death generally fignifies that temporal Death, which is the diffolution of the body; tho' when it is threatened as the punishment of Sin, it præfigures and includes in it eternal Death. Which is also sometimes exprefsly threatned even in the Old Teftament; thus Ezek. xviii. 26. When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquities, and dieth in them, for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die; the manner of expreffion is very obfervable: If he repent not of his iniquity but dieth in it, then for the iniquity that he hath done fhall he die. In the New Teftament, Death, when 'tis threatened to Sinners, fignifies almost always eternal Death; the Gofpel containing, as a more clear difcovery of life and immortality, fo also a more express revelation of the wrath of God from Heaven, against all unrighteousness and ungodlinefs of men. Now over both these kinds of Death, Death

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X.

temporal and eternal, Chrift gives us the S ER M. victory, or delivers us from the power of them: The power of temporal Death is universal, as the punishment threatened to Adam's tranfgreffion was extensive; and the deliverance from it fhall be alfo univerfal; For as in Adam all die, all are become fubject to mortality; even fo in Chrift fhall all be made alive, 1 Cor. xv. 22. Eternal Death is the punishment of unrepented Sin, and from This all those who repent and obey the Gospel, fhall be delivered by Christ.

I SHALL confider ft the victory that Chrift gives us over temporal Death; and for the clearer explaining the nature of this victory, shall indeavour to show it, That there shall be a refurrection of the body, and 2dly, in what manner the body shall be raised.

Ift,THAT there fhall be a refurrection of ! the body. That the foul fhould furvive the diffolution of the body, and be capable of receiving in a future State the rewards or punishments due to the good or evil it had done in this life, was clearly enough deducible from the light of nature, and proved

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SER M. proved by undeniable reasonings: But that

X.

the body should be again formed out of
the duft, and reunited to the Soul, from
which it was separated by Death, was a
Doctrine, which as it could not be proved
merely by reason and argument, fo the
Philofophers, who pretended to be the
great masters of reafon, looked upon
it as
the most impoffible thing in nature. Some
of them reckoned it among those things,
which they thought were not in the pow-
er even of their Gods themselves to effect;
and we read of certain Philofophers, A&t.
xvii. 18. who incountered St Paul, and
when they heard of the refurrection, they
mock'd him, faying, that he feemed to be
a fetter forth of frange Gods, because be
preached unto them Jefus and the Refur-
rection. Yet is there nothing in any wife
impoffible, or contrary to reafon, in this
great Mystery: For why should it be thought
a thing impoffible that God should raife
the dead? Why should it be more impof-
fible for God to gather together the dif
perfed parts of a corrupted body, and re-
unite them to their former Soul, than to

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create matter at firft out of nothing, and SER M. then form it into a humane body, and X. breath into it the breath of life? Why should any man be fo weak as to imagine, that he, who at the creation feparated the confused mass of matter into fo many different forts of bodies, cannot with the fame ease at the general Refurrection separate again the fame confused matter, and affign to each particular body its own parts? If it is not difficult for him to number the Stars of Heaven and call them all by their names; it can be no difficulty to him to keep an exact account of all our scattered parts; and to recollect and reunite them when he pleases. 'Twas not therefore because the thing is in itself at all impoffible, but only because the manner of it is a mystery not discoverable barely by the light of nature, that the Heathen World was utterly ignorant of the Refurrection from the dead. The proof therefore of this great truth must be founded in Revelation, and fought for only in the Holy Scriptures. And here it must be confeffed, that the Jews had not a clear

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