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nefes at the beginning of the Chapter, S ER M. then the Apostles doctrine, of which that his refurrection was the evidence, must also be true; and if the Apostles preaching, and the promises of God made known by the Gofpel, be true, then shall the dead certainly rife again. That is: As certain as the refurrection of Christ is true, as certain as the Chriftian Religion is a revelation credibly attefted to be from God; fo certain is it, that there shall be a refurrection of the dead: If Christ, who is our Head, be rifen; then shall we also rife with him unto glory. I am the refurrection and the life, faith our Blessed Saviour, Joh. xi. 25; and this is the Will of him that fent me, that every one which feeth the Son and believeth on him, may have everlasting Life, and I will raise him up at the last day, Joh. vi. 40; which last words, that there might be no room for doubt concerning them, are repeated no less than four times in that Chapter. Now, that this promise fhall certainly be fulfilled, God hath given us affurance by raifing up him before-hand to be the first

fruits

SER M. fruits from the dead: He hath appointed X. a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he bath ordained; whereof he hath given affurance unto all men, in that he hath raifed him from the dead, Acts xvii. 31. The Refurrection of Chrift is fuch an earnest and pledge of our refurrection, as not only demonstrates the poffibility of the thing, but gives affurance alfo of the certainty of it: For, that the fame power that raifed up him, can alfo raise up us, is evident; and that it will do fo, we are affured by his promife, who raised up Chrift to that very end, that he might give us affurance that he would also raise up us. But here fome man will fay, How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? Which is the

2d Thing I propofed to speak to, namely, the manner how the dead fhall be raised; and to this question we may answer in the Words of St Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 36. Thou fool, that which thou foweft is not quickened except it die; And that which thou fowest, thou foweft not that body that shall be, but bare grain,

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grain, fuppofe of wheat or of fome other S ER M. grain; But God giveth it a body as it hath pleafed him, and to every feed his own body. From which fimilitude of the Apostle, we may fafely collect these two things; ift, That in the whole the fame body which died, fhall be raised again; 2dly, That yet it shall rife with very great alterations. ft, That in the whole, the same body which died, fhall be raised again, appears in general from the Apostle's ufing the fimilitude of Corn: For as Corn groweth not indifferently out of any ground, but there must be feed fown out of which it may spring, and therefore every fort of grain produceth Corn of its own likeness and peculiar form; So at the refurrection, the bodies of them that arife, shall not be formed indifferently out of any matter, but the bodies that die, those mortal and corruptible bodies, fhall be in a figurative sense as it were the feed and material principle of those immortal and incorruptible ones, into which we shall then be quickened. Indeed whether in equity, and in order to a juft retribution, it be neceffary VOL. V. abfo

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SER M. abfolutely in the nature of the thing, that the fame Body should be raised again, we cannot certainly tell; becaufe we know not distinctly how far the fame body is neceffary to constitute the fame person. But though it cannot be proved that God is abfolutely bound in justice to unite the Soul to the fame body from which it was separated by death, yet that in fact he will do fo, the expreffions of Scripture concerning this matter do fufficiently intimate: When the Apostle affures us, that the body fhall rise again, and that He that raifed up Chrift from the dead fhall also quicken our mortal bodies, he does not say only that the Soul fhall be again united to matter, but also that the body which died fhall be quickened or made to live again; For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and This mortal must put on immortality; which is not faying only that the Soul, which was before united to a mortal and corruptible body, fhall at the refurrection be clothed with an immortal and incorruptible one; but that This fame body, which is now mortal and corruptible,

X.

ruptible, shall then put on immortality and SER M. incorruption. To which purpofe 'tis affirmed in Scripture, that the fea fhall give up the dead that are in it, and death and the grave fhall deliver up the dead that are in them, and they that fleep in the duft of the earth fhall bear the voice of Chrift and rife: And indeed, having one example of it in the refurrection of Christ, and knowing that in all cafes 'tis as easy for God to raise the same body as to frame a new one, no reason can be imagined why it should not be fo. But 'tis true, the parts of one body may poffibly be so scattered and perhaps incorporated among the parts of another body, that it shall not be poffible for every particular body to arife with just the fame parts, of which it confifted at the time of its diffolution: Neither is there any neceffity at all either in nature or Scripture that it fhould do fo. How far therefore each body shall confift exactly of the fame matter, or what change of parts may be admitted, is a vain, empty and needless fpeculation; a nicety, which as it is not Q 2

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poffible