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physics, but by the proportions of holiness: and when all books are read, and all arguments examined, and all authorities alleged, nothing can be found to be true that is unholy. "Give yourselves to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine," saith St Paul. Read all good books you can ; but exhortation unto good life is the best instrument, and the best teacher of true doctrine, of that which is according to godliness.'

And let me tell you this, the great learning of the fathers was more owing to their piety than to their skill; more to God than to themselves : and to this purpose is that excellent ejaculation of St Chrysostom, with which I will conclude: "O blessed and happy men, whose names are in the book of life, from whom the devils fled, and heretics did fear them, who (by holiness) have stopped the mouths of them that spake perverse things! But I, like David, will cry out, Where are thy loving-kindnesses which have been ever of old? Where is the blessed quire of bishops and doctors, who shined like lights in the world, and contained the word of life? 'their very memory is pleasant.' Where is that Evodias, the sweet savour of the church, the successor and imitator of the holy apostles? Where is Ignatius, in whom God dwelt? Where is St Dionysius the Areopagite, that bird of Paradise, that celestial eagle? Where is Hippolytus, that gentle sweet person? Where is great St Basil, a man almost equal to the apostles? Where is Athanasius, rich in virtue? Where is Gregory Nyssen, that great divine? And Ephrem the great Syrian, that stirred up the sluggish, and awakened the sleepers, and comforted the afflicted, and brought the young men to discipline; the looking-glass of the religious, the captain of the penitents, the destruction of heresies, the receptacle of graces, the habitation of the Holy Ghost?" These were the men that prevailed against error, because they lived according to truth: and whoever shall oppose you, and the truth you walk by, may better be confuted by your lives than by your disputations. Let your adversaries have no evil thing to say of you, and then you will best silence them: for all heresies and false doctrines are but like Myron's counterfeit cow, it deceived none but beasts; and these can cozen none but the wicked and the negligent, them that love a lie, and live according to it. But if ye become burning and shining lights; if ye do not detain the truth in unrighteousness; if ye walk in light, and live in the Spirit; your doctrines will be true, and that truth will prevail. But if ye live wickedly and scandalously, every little schismatic shall put you to shame, and draw disciples after him, and abuse your flocks, and feed them with colocynths and hemlock, and place heresy in the chairs appointed for your religion.

I pray God give you all grace to follow this wisdom, to study this learning, to labour for the understanding of godliness; so your time and your studies, your persons and your labours, will be holy and useful, sanctified and blessed, beneficial to men and pleasing to God, through him who is the wisdom of the Father, who is made to all that love him wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: "To whom with the Father," &c.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.

But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming-1 Cor, xv. 23.

THE Condition of man, in this world, is so limited and depressed, so relative and imperfect, that the best things he does, he does weakly, and the best things he hath, are imperfections in their very constitution. I need not tell how little it is that we know: the greatest indication of this is, that we can never tell how many things we know not; and we may soon span our own knowledge, but our ignorance we can never fathom. Our very will, in which mankind pretends to be most noble and imperial, is a direct state of imperfection; and our very liberty of choosing good and evil is permitted to us, not to make us proud, but to make us humble; for it supposes weakness of reason and weakness of love. For if we understood all the degrees of amability in the service of God, or if we had such love to God as he deserves, and so perfect a conviction as were fit for his services, we could no more deliberate: for liberty of will is like the motion of a magnetic needle toward the north, full of trembling and uncertainty till it were fixed in the beloved point; it wavers as long as it is free, and is at rest, when it can choose no more. And truly what is the hope of man? It is indeed the resurrection of the soul in this world from sorrow and her saddest pressures, and like the twilight to the day, and the harbinger of joy; but still it is but a conjugation of infirmities, and proclaims our present calamity, only because it is uneasy here, it thrusts us forward toward the light and glories of the resurrection. For as a worm creeping with her belly on the ground, with her portion and share of Adam's curse, lifts up its head to partake a little of the blessings of the air, and opens the junctures of her imperfect body, and curls her little rings into knots and combinations, drawing up her tail to a neighbourhood of the head's pleasure and motion; but still it must return to abide the fate of its own nature, and dwell and sleep upon the dust so are the hopes of a mortal man ; he opens his eyes, and looks upon fine things at distance, and shuts them again with weakness, because they are too glorious to behold; and the man rejoices because he hopes fine things are staying for him; but his heart aches, because he knows there are a thousand ways to fail and miss of those glories; and though he hopes, yet he enjoys not; he longs, but he possesses not, and must be content with his portion of dust; and being a worm, and no man,' must lie down in this portion, before he can receive the end of his hopes, the salvation of his soul in the resurrection of the dead. For as death is the end of our lives, so is the resurrection the end of our hopes; and as we die daily, so we daily hope: but death, which is the end of our life, is the enlargement of our spirits from hope to certainty, from uncertain fears to certain expectations, from the death of the body to the life of the soul; that is, to partake of the light and life of Christ, to rise to life as he did; for his resurrection is the beginning of ours; he died for us alone, not for himself; but he rose again for himself and us too. So that if he did rise, so shall we; the resurrection shall be universal; good and bad, all shall rise, but not altogether: first

Christ, then we that are Christ's; and yet there is a third resurrection, though not spoken of here; but thus it shall be: "The dead in Christ shall rise first;" that is, next to Christ; and after them, the wicked shall rise to condemnation.

2.

So that you see here is the sum of affairs treated of in my text: not whether it be lawful to eat a tortoise or a mushroom, or to tread with the foot bare upon the ground within the octaves of Easter. It is not here inquired, whether angels be material or immaterial; or whether the dwellings of dead infants be within the air or in the regions of the earth? the inquiry here is, whether we are to be Christians or no? whether we are to live good lives or no? or whether it be permitted to us to live with lust or covetousness, acted with all the daughters of rapine and ambition? whether there be any such thing as sin, any judicatory for consciences, any rewards of piety, any difference of good and bad, any rewards after this life? This is the design of these words by proper interpretation: for if men shall die like dogs and sheep, they will certainly live like wolves and foxes; but he that believes the article of the resurrection, hath entertained the greatest demonstration in the world, that nothing can make us happy but the knowledge of God and conformity to the life and death of the holy Jesus. Here, therefore, are the great hinges of all religion: 1. Christ is already risen from the dead. We also shall rise in God's time and our order. Christ is the first fruits. But there shall be a full harvest of the resurrection, and all shall rise. My text speaks only of the resurrection of the just, of them that belong to Christ; explicitly, I say, of these; and, therefore, directly of resurrection to life eternal. But because he also says there shall be an order for every man and yet every man does not belong to Christ; therefore, indirectly, also he implies the more universal resurrection unto judgment: but this shall be the last thing that shall be done; for, according to the proverb of the Jews, Michael flies but with one wing and Gabriel with two: God is quick in sending angels of peace, and they fly apace; but the messengers of wrath come slowly God is more hasty to glorify his servants than to condemn the wicked. And, therefore, in the story of Dives and Lazarus, we find that the beggar died first; the good man, Lazarus, was first taken away from his misery to his comfort, and afterwards the rich man died; and as the good, many times, die first, so all of them rise first, as if it were a matter of haste: and as the mother's breasts swell, and shoot, and long to give food to her babe, so God's bowels did yearn over his banished children, and he longs to cause them to eat and drink in his kingdom. And at last the wicked shall rise unto condemnation, for that must he done too; every man in his own order: first Christ, then Christ's servants, and, at last, Christ's enemies. The first of these is the great ground of our faith; the second is the consummation of all our hopes the first is the foundation of God, that stands sure; the second is that superstructure that shall never perish by the first we believe in God unto righteousness; by the second we live in God unto salvation : but the third, for that also is true, and must be considered, is the great affrightment of all them that live ungodly. But in the whole, Christ's resurrection and ours is the Alpha and Omega of a Christian; that as Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and the same for ever," so may we in Christ become the morrow of the resurrection, the same or better than yesterday in our natural life; the same body and the same soul,

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tied together in the same essential union, with this only difference, that not nature, but grace and glory, with an hermetic seal, give us a new signature whereby we shall no more be changed, but, like unto Christ, our Head, we shall become the same for ever. Of these I shall discourse in order. 1. That Christ, who is "the first fruits," is the first in this order: he is already risen from the dead. 2. We shall all take our turns, we shall die, and, as sure as death, we shall all rise again. And, 3. This very order is effective of the thing itself. That Christ is first risen, is the demonstration and certainty of ours; for because there is an order in this economy, the first in the kind is the measure of the rest. If Christ be the first fruits, we are the whole vintage; and we shall all die in the order of nature, and shall rise again in the order of Christ: "They that are Christ's," and are found so 66 at his coming," shall partake of his resurrection. But Christ first, then they that are Christ's: that is the order.

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1. Christ is the first fruits; he is already risen from the dead for he alone could not be held by death. "Free among the dead."-Death was sin's eldest daughter, and the grave-clothes were her first mantle; but Christ was Conqueror over both, and came to take that away, and to disarm this. This was a glory fit for the Head of mankind, but it was too great and too good to be easily believed by incredulous and weak-hearted man. It was at first doubted by all that were concerned; but they that saw it, had no reason to doubt any longer. But what is that to us who saw it not? Yes, very much: They doubted very much, that, by their confirmation, we might be established, and doubt no more." Mary Magdalene saw him first, and she ran with joy, and said "she had seen the Lord, and that he was risen from the dead; but they believed her not ;-after that, divers women together saw him," and they told it, but had no thanks for their pains, and obtained no credit among the disciples: the two disciples that went to Emmaus, saw him, talked with him, ate with him, and they ran and told it : they told true, but nobody believed them then St Peter saw him, but he was not yet got into the chair of the catholic church, they did not think him infallible, and so they believed him not at all. Five times in one day he appeared; for after all this, he appeared to the eleven; they were indeed transported with joy and wonder; but they would scarce believe their own eyes, and though they saw him, they doubted. Well all this was not enough; he was seen also of James, and suffered Thomas to thrust his hand into his side, and appeared to St Paul, and was seen by "five hundred brethren at once." So that there is no capacity of mankind, no time, no place, but had an ocular demonstration of his resurrection. He appeared to men and women, to the clergy and the laity, to sinners of both sexes; to weak men and to criminals, to doubters and deniers at home and abroad, in public and in private, in their houses and their journeys, unexpected and by appointment, betimes in the morning and late at night, to them in conjunction and to them in dispersion, when they did look for him and when they did not; he appeared upon earth to many, and to St Paul and St Stephen from heaven: so that we can require no greater testimony than all these are able to give us; and they saw for themselves and for us too, that the faith and certainty of the resurrection of Jesus might be conveyed to all that shall die, and follow Christ in their own order.

Now this being matter of fact, cannot be supposed infinite, but limited to time and place, and, therefore, to be proved by them who, at that time,

were upon the place; good men and true, simple and yet losers by the bargain, many and united, confident and constant, preaching it all their life, and stoutly maintaining it at their death; men that would not deceive others, and men that could not be deceived themselves, in a matter so notorious, and so proved, and so seen; and if this be not sufficient credibility in a matter of fact, as this was, then we can have no story credibly transmitted to us, no records kept, no acts of courts, no narratives of the days of old, no traditions of our fathers, no memorials of them in the third generation. Nay, if from these we have not sufficient causes and arguments of faith, how shall we be able to know the will of Heaven upon earth? unless God do not only tell it once, but always, and not only always to some men, but always to all men: for if some men must believe others, they can never do it in any thing more reasonably than in this; and if we may not trust them in this, then, without a perpetual miracle, no man could have faith: for faith could never come by hearing, by nothing but by seeing. But if there be any use of history, any faith in men, any honesty in manners, any truth in human intercourse; if there be any use of apostles or teachers, of ambassadors or letters, of ears or hearing; if there be any such thing as the grace of faith, that is less than demonstration or intuition; then we may be as sure that Christ, the first fruits, is already risen, as all these credibilities can make us. But let us take heed: as God hates a lie, so he hates incredulity; an obstinate, a foolish, and pertinacious understanding. What we do every minute of our lives, in matters of title and great concernment, if we refuse to do it in religion, which yet is to be conducted, as all human affairs are, by human instruments, and arguments of persuasion proper to the nature of the thing, it is an obstinacy as cross to human reason, as it is to Divine faith.

But this article was so clearly proved, that presently it came to pass that men were no longer ashamed of the cross, but it was worn upon breasts, printed in the air, drawn upon foreheads, carried upon banners, put upon crowns imperial; presently it came to pass that the religion of the despised Jesus did infinitely prevail; a religion that taught men to be meek and humble, apt to receive injuries, but unapt to do any; a religion that gave countenance to the poor and pitiful, in a time when riches were adored, and ambition and pleasure had possessed the heart of all mankind; a religion that would change the face of things, and the hearts of men, and break vile habits into gentleness and counsel; that such a religion, in such a time, by the sermons and conduct of fishermen, men of mean breeding and illiberal arts, should so speedily triumph over the philosophy of the world, and the arguments of the subtle, and the sermons of the eloquent ; the power of princes and the interests of states, the inclinations of nature and the blindness of zeal, the force of custom, and the solicitation of passions, the pleasures of sin and the busy arts of the devil; that is, against wit and power, superstition and wilfulness, fame and money, nature and empire, which are all the causes in this world that can make a thing impossible; this, this is to be ascribed to the power of God, and is the great demonstration of the resurrection of Jesus. Every thing was an argument for it, and improved it; no objection could hinder it, no enemies destroy it; whatsoever was for them, it made the religion to increase; whatsoever was against them, made it to increase; sunshine and storms, fair weather or foul, it was all one as to the event of things: for they were instruments in the hands

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