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tifmal Profeffion an infignificant and fruitlefs Thing; a 4. D. 57. Thing that involves them in present Miseries and In

conveniences, without the leaft Profpect of Recom

pence or Advantage.

30. And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?

30. And then, what a weak Thing is it for Chriftian People to expose themselves to fuch Dangers and Perfecutions, in Defence of a Religion that leaves them at laft without all Hopes of any future Recompence?

31. I proteft by 31. Efpecially I* that am an * 'Eyw, [ your rejoycing which Apostle of this Religion, muft then emphatiI have in Chrift Jefus be ftill more foolish and unac- cally. our Lord, I die daily. countable; for I may fafely proteft by all that joyous Hope which you and I have in our Chriftian Profeffion, that I hardly pass a Day but in Danger of Death for the Sake of it.

32. If after the 32. And should not I have actmanner of mented a wife Part, think you †, in have fought with expofing myself to the wild Beafts beafts at Ephefus, upon the Theatre at Ephefus, if what advantageth me, it be true, that Death makes a final End of us? Verily, if it be for to morrow we die. fo, the Epicureans are in the Right, whofe Maxim is, Life is fhort, let us take as much of the Pleasures of it as ever

if the dead rife not?

let us eat and drink,

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+ Ver. 32. 'Enerouάxnoa-I have fought with Beasts at Epbefus. A Latitude of the Tenfe fo natural to the Hebrew and Hellenistick Languages; and making the Conftruction if I had fought, faves the Criticks all their needlefs Pains of recurring to another Fight and miraculous Deliverance of St. Paul at Ephesus, grounded only on uncertain Traditions; and fhows this Paffage plainly to refer to Ads xix. 30, 31. See abundant Inftances of this Change of Tenfes in Glaffius, Lib. 3. Tract. 3. de Verbo, pag. 642, &c.

A. D. 57.

34. Awake to righteousness, and fin not; for fome have not the knowledge of God: I fpeak this to your fhame.

34. Rouze up your Faculties to a more juft and exact Way * of Reafon and Confideration, and avoid fuch Principles as tend only to a fenfual and debauched Life. For I must tell these your new

Teachers, to their Shame, they argue as if they knew nothing of God † and Religion.

35. But fome man will fay, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?

35. Your philofophical Teachers, I know, have been. ufed to think the Refurrection of the Body an abfurd, needlefs, and impoffible Thing; and are apt to ask, how a corrupted, perifhed, and scattered Mafs of Matter, can ever be raised into a Body fine and beauteous enough for a glorified Soul? Or what Sort of Bodies (fay they) is it that we can expect at the Refurrection?

36. Thou fool, that which thou foweft is not quickned, except

it die.

36. Thou Fool of a Philofopher that canft argue thus! Is this fo abfurd and incomprehenfible a Thing, which the very Appearable to account for? The Grain you fow in the Earth is rotten, and putrified foon after it comes there, and yet it afterwards fprings up into perfect Corn.

ances of Nature are

37. And that which thou foweft, thou fow eft not that body that fhall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain.

37 & 38. You throw in nothing but naked Grain, fuppofe Wheat or Barley. But out of that very corrupted little Mafs, doth the divine Power produce a fullgrown Corn, with Stalk, and Ear, 38. But God giv. and Seeds; and fo from every o

eth

ther

Ver. 34. Awake to Righteoufneft, and fin not: Dixálas here is very hardly to be conftrued to Righteousness; and tho' un aμaslávele may be render'd fin not, that is but the fecondary Sente of that Word. Awake to right Reason, and do not grofly mistake, feems to be the natural Conftruction. And as the 33d Verfe countenances our Tranflation, fo the latter Part of this Verfe feems to favour this latter rendring of the whole Period.

1. See Matth. xxii. 29

eth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every feed his own body.

39. All flesh is not the fame flefh: but there is one kind of Alesh of men, another flesh of beafts, another of fishes, and another of birds.

40. There are alfo celestial bodies, and bodies terreftrial: but the glory of the celeftial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

ther Seed, a Plant in its proper
Size and Figure. Though you
no more able to know how,
than how God can raise the Dead.

are

39. Look into the Make and Contexture of Animals; that of Men, Fifhes, Beafts, and Birds, what a vaft Variety there is in them; and yet they all proceed from one and the fame original Matter*.

40. Look and compare the heavenly and earthly Bodies with each other. There is as much Difference between a Clod of Earth, and the glorious Body of the Sun and Stars, as there can be between the corruptible and the

glorify'd Bodies of Men.

41. There is one glory of the fun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the ftars; from another ftar in glory.

for one ftar differeth

41. Nay, there is as much Difference in fome of the heavenly Bodies from one another, the Sun and Moon, Planets, and fix'd Stars; fome whereof fhine by a borrowed and reflexed Light, others by an innate Light of their own; and are of as different a

Kind as can be, yet out of the fame original Matter did God compose them all.

42. So alfo is the refurrection of the dead. It is fown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption : 43. It is fown in difhonour, it is raised

in glory: it is fown in weakness: it is raised in power:

42 & 43. Now, apply this to the Refurrection, and fee if the fame divine Power that could thus bring Flesh, Fish, Plants, Sun, Earth, Planets, and fixed Stars, out of one and the fame Mafs, and all originally out of nothing, cannot be able to raise an incorruptible out of a corruptible BoDd 2

* See Gen. i. 2.

dy,

A. D. 57.

A. D. 57. dy, and turn a weak and decaying one into one that fhall be glorious and powerful*.

44. It is fown a natural body, it is raifed a fpiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a fpiritual body.

44. The Bodies indeed we now live in, and die here, are mere animal Bodies, fubject to Decays, Sicknefs, and Death; and this makes your philofophical Teachers conclude, that when we have thrown them off, and once got rid of them, we shall never be joined to Bodies more. But this Conclufion proceeds from their Ignorance of this great Truth, that the God who has invefted us at prefent with these animal Bodies, will one Day cloath us with fpiritual and heavenly ones.

45. And fo it is written, The first man Adam was made a living foul, the laft Adam was made a quickning fpirit.

45. And as we read (Gen. ii. 7.) That Adam the firft Man, from whom we all received our weak and animal Bodies, was made a living Soul; fo is it as true that Chrift the fecond Adam, has not only Life, but Life in himself, and a Power to raise others to Life. (Sce John i. 4. and Verse 21, 26.)

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they also that are heavenly.

49. And as we have born the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the 50. Now this I fay, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

alfo partake of the heavenly and A. D. 57.
immortal Qualities of his, and
live eternally without Sickness,
Decay, or Death.

heavenly

50. To thofe then who fcoffingly demand what Sort of Bodies good Chriftians fhall have at the Refurrection? The Sum of my Answer is, that I allow they cannot be fuch mortal and crazy Carcaffes as we now carry about

with us; for a corruptible Body can no Way fuit with an incorruptible State.

51. Behold, I fhew you a mystery; We fhall not all fleep, but we shall all be changed,

51. But the Bodies of all true Chriftians, whether of fuch as are alive at CHRIST's Coming to Judgment (as fome will be) or of fuch as are dead before it, shall undergo, at that Time, a glorious Change; which is a Thing you feem to have had yet no Notion at

all of.

52. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the laft trump (for the laft trumpet hall found) and the dead fhall be raised incorruptible, and we fhall be changed.

52. A Change, I fay, at this grand Summons, that will be as fudden and quick, as it will be great and happy; when the dead Bodies of the Saints fhall be raifed up to a glorious and immortal Conftitution; and thofe that are then alive, fhall be transformed into the fame Brightness and Immortality. 53. For this cor

ruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

it is

these

Bodies

53. For, as I before obferved,
abfolutely neceffary, that
corruptible and mortal
fhould be chang'd for in-
Dd 3

corruptible

Ver. 53. This Corruptible must put on Incorruption, T •Dagliy rio, &c. And fo Jufin Martyr in Epift. 2. §.10. Καὶ μὴ λεγέτω τὶς ὑμῶν ὅτι αὐτὴ σαρξ ή κείνεται, ἰδὲ ἀνί κα]αι — ὃν τρόπον γδ ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἐκλήθηκε, καὶ ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἐλευσεπε ὅπως καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ σαρκὶ ἀποληψόμεθα Toy Kidor.

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