swift for it to keep pace withal. It is true the apostle tells us of some souls that in an instant shall be fitted for and with these heavenly bodies, 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment: i. e. Those good men who are living just before the resurrection shall suffer no separation of their souls from their bodies; but the beggarly vestment of their flesh, while it is upon them, shall in an instant be transformed into a glorious and immortal robe; which to be sure it would not be, unless in the same instant also their souls were made fit to wear it. But then it is to be considered that both will be miraculous; and, for ought I know, it will be as great a miracle immediately to fit an imperfect soul for a glorified body, as immediately to change a gross and corruptible body into a glorious and immortal one. And therefore, though some souls shall be immediately qualified to operate by glorified bodies without any intermediate space of separation; yet this, being extraordinary and miraculous, is only an exception from the general rule of Providence, which is, to leave things to proceed and act according to the regular course of their natures: and if souls are so left, as ordinarily to be sure they are, it is highly requisite that they should be allowed some space of separation from their mortal bodies before they are clothed with their immortal ones; and consequently, that this mortal body should be corrupted and dissolved before it is quickened and glorified.

III. So is the resurrection of the dead; that is, So is the dead corrupted body to be raised and quickened by the power of God; so ver.. 37, 38.

That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, perhaps of wheat, or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him. In which he plainly intimates, that as a grain of wheat sown in the ground is only the seed or material principle of the stalk and ear that spring up from it; but God is the principal efficient cause that forms the matter, and enlivens it, and causes it to spring up and ripen: so, though these mortal bodies which we sow in the grave are the seed and matter out of which our immortal one shall spring, yet it is God that must recollect this matter, reduce it into a body again, and reunite it to its ancient soul. For this is such a performance as doth require an almighty agent; it is he alone can trace our scattered atoms through all those generations and corruptions wherein they have wandered, and retrieve them out of all those other bodies whereinto they have been finally resolved. It is he alone can separate them into the several masses whereunto they originally appertained, and order, distinguish, and distribute those rude masses into their various parts, and connect and join one part to another. It is he alone that can recognise those undistinguished heaps into human bodies, and reunite them to their primitive souls. And accordingly we find that this great article of the resurrection is in scripture resolved into the power of God: for so our Saviour attributes the Sadducees' denial of the resurrection to their not knowing the scripture, and the power of God, Matt. xxii. 29. which plainly implies that the power of God must be the cause of the resurrection. So, 2 Cor. i. 9. St. Paul tells us, that he was brought into a great extremity, that so

he might not trust in himself, but in God, that raiseth up the dead; and, 1 Tim. vi. 13. I charge thee, saith he, before God, that quickeneth all things. And indeed to quicken our bodies when they are dead requires the same power as it did at first to create and form them. For as at their first creation they were formed out of the preexisting matter of the earth, so at the resurrection they must be reproduced out of the same matter again: and as at the creation all those distinct kinds of beings we behold lay shuffled together in one common mass, till the fruitful voice of God separated this united multitude into their distinct species; so at the resurrection, after these mortal bodies are crumbled into dust, and that dust is scattered through all that confused mass again, it is God alone whose powerful voice can command them back again in their proper shapes, and call them out again by their single individuals: so that as our first existence was only a real echo to God's omnipotent Fiat, so will our return into existence be to his almighty Surge. The scripture indeed seems to affirm that the holy angels will be employed in this great transaction, though what they are to do in it is not expressly related; only, 1 Thess. iv. 16. the apostle seems to intimate that their office will be to collect the scattered relics of our mortality; for there he tells us, that the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; upon which the dead in Christ shall rise first. Which popular description seems to import, that as by a loud voice or a trumpet it was anciently the custom of the Jews and other nations to summon assemblies, and parti

cularly by a trumpet to collect and rally their armies; so at the resurrection our Saviour, by the ministry of his angels, under the conduct of their archangel, will assemble and rally our scattered atoms, and then by his divine power organize them into human bodies again, and reunite them to their proper souls. For so, Matt. xxiv. 31. Christ tells us that his angels shall with the sound of the trumpet gather together his elect from the four winds. Which if you compare with the above-cited text, you will find that this sound of the trumpet, by which the elect are to be gathered, is to precede their resurrection, and consequently that it is not to gather them when they are raised, but to gather them to be raised; that is, to collect their dispersed dust, which hath been blown about upon the wings of the wind, in order to their being redintegrated into human bodies, and reinformed with their pri mitive souls.

IV. So is the resurrection of the dead; i. e. So are our dead bodies to be raised again into the proper form and kind of human bodies: and this is implied in ver. 38. But God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him, and unto every seed his own body: i. e. As to the seed of wheat, which dies in the winter, God gives in the spring the body, or stalk, and ear of wheat; so to this mortal body, which we sow in the grave, God will give at the resurrection its own proper and specific form. For the soul will have the same faculties at the resurrection that it hath now in this mortal state; and the body is only in order to the soul, its parts and members being all purposely contrived into fit instruments for the soul to work withal. These inward faculties therefore

continuing still and for ever the same, it is highly requisite that at the resurrection they should be refitted with the same corporeal instruments of action: for the soul is the same to the body, what the art is to the thing that is formed by the art: and therefore as the thing formed is not perfect, so long as it is any way disproportionable to the art which formed it; so neither can the body be perfect, till in all its parts it is every way apportioned unto the faculties of the soul. And how can the matter of this corrupted body be readapted to the natural faculties of a human soul, unless it be raised again into an human body, and restored to its primitive figure and proportion? For should it be raised with more or fewer parts than those it now consists of, it must either be defective or superfluous in its parts, or the soul must have more or fewer faculties to employ them. It is true, after the resurrection, the scripture plainly tells us, that our souls shall no longer exercise those their animal faculties of nourishing and propagating; that the sons of the resurrection shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but that they shall be equal to the angels of God, Matt. xxii. 30. And indeed since every individual man will then be raised into an immortal state, there will be no need either that they should be nourished themselves, or that they should propagate any more individuals to preserve their kind. But it doth not hence follow, either that the soul shall be deprived of those animal faculties, or, consequently, that the body shall be raised without the organs by which those animal operations are performed. For though our Saviour's body, after the resurrection, had no need of nourishment; yet it is