nothing can draw it from the allegiance of my God; and caro mea, my flesh, so, as that nothing can divest me of it. Here a bullet will ask a man, where's your arm; and a wolf will ask a woman, where's your breast. A sentence in the Star-chamber will ask him, where's your ear, and a month's close prison will ask him, where's your flesh? A fever will ask him, where's your red, and a morphew will ask him, where's your white? But when after all this, when after my skin worms shall destroy my body, I shall see God, I shall see him in my flesh, which shall be mine as inseparably, (in the effect, though not in the manner) as the hypostatical union of God, and man, in Christ, makes our nature and the Godhead one person in him. My flesh shall no more be none of mine, than Christ shall not be man, as well as God.

SERMON XCVI.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

1 CORINTHIANS XV. 50.

Now this I say brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom

of God.

ST. GREGORY hath delivered this story'; that Eutychius, who was bishop of Constantinople, having written a book of the resurrection, and therein maintained that error, that the body of Christ had not, that our bodies in the resurrection should not have, any of the qualities of a natural body, but that those bodies were, in subtilitatem redacta, so rarefied, so refined, so attenuated, and reduced to a thinness, and subtleness, that they were airy bodies, and not bodies of flesh and blood; this error made a great noise, and raised a great dust, till the emperor, to avoid scandal, (which for the most part arises out of public conferences) was pleased to hear Eutychius and Gregory dispute this point pri

1 Moral. xiv. 29.

vately before himself, and a small company; and, that upon conference, the emperor was so well satisfied, that he commanded Eutychius his books to be burnt. That after this, both Gregory and Eutychius fell sick; but Eutychius died; and died with this protestation, In hac carne, in this flesh, (taking up the flesh of his hand in the presence of them that were there) in this flesh, I acknowledge, that I, and all men shall arise at the day of judgment. Now the principal place of Scripture, which in his book, and in that conference Eutychius stood upon, was this text, these words of St. Paul; (This I say brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.) And the directest answer that Gregory gave to it was, Caro secundum culpam non regnabit, sed caro secundum naturam; sinful flesh shall not, but natural flesh; that is, flesh indued with all qualities of flesh, all such qualities as imply no defect, no corruption, (for there was flesh before there was sin) such flesh, and such blood shall inherit the kingdom of God.

As there have been more heresies about the humanity of Christ, than about his divinity, so there have been more heresies about the resurrection of his body, and consequently of ours, than about any other particular article, that concerns his humiliation, or exaltation. Simon Magus struck deepest at first, to the root; that there was no resurrection at all; the Gnostics, (who took their name from knowledge, as though they knew all, and nobody else anything, which is a pride transferred through all heretics: for, as that sect in the Roman church, which call themselves Ignorantes, and seem to pretend to no knowledge, do yet believe that they know a better way to heaven, than all other men do, so that sect amongst them, which called themselves Nullanos, nothings, thought themselves greater in the kingdom of God, than either of the other two sects of diminution, the Minorites, or the Minims did) these Gnostics acknowledged a resurrection, but they said it was of the soul only, and not of the body, for they thought that the soul lay dead (at least, in a dead sleep) till the resurrection. Those heretics that are called the Arabians, did (as the Gnostics did) affirm a temporary death of the soul, as well as of the body, but then they allowed a resurrection to both soul, and body, after that death, which the Gnostics did not, but to

VOL. IV.

R

the soul only. Hymeneus and Philetus, (of whom St. Paul speaks) they restrained the resurrection to the soul, but then they restrained this resurrection of the soul to this life, and that in those who were baptized, the resurrection was accomplished already. Eutychius, (whom we mentioned before) enlarged the resurrection to the body, as well as to the soul, but enlarged the qualities of the body so far, as that it was scarce a body. The Armenian heretics said, that it was not only corpus humanum, but corpus masculinum, that all should rise in the perfecter sex, and none, as women. Origen allowed a resurrection, and allowed the body to be a natural body; but he contracted the time; he said, that when we rose we should enjoy the benefits of the resurrection, even in bodily pleasures, for a thousand years, and then be annihilated, or absorpted, and swallowed up into the nature, and essence of God himself; (for it will be hard to state Origen's opinion in this point; Origen was not, herein, well understood in his own time; nor do we understand him now, for the most part, but by his accusers, and those that have written against him.) Divers of these heretics, for the maintenance of their several heresies, perverted this Scripture, (Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God) and that occasioned those fathers who opposed those heresies, so diverse from one another, to interpret these words diversely, according to the heresy they opposed. All agree, that they are an argument for the resurrection, though they seem at first too oppose it. For, this chapter hath three general parts; first, Resurrectionem esse, that there shall be a resurrection, which the apostle proves by many and various arguments to the thirty-fifth verse. And then Quali corpore, the body shall rise, but some will say, How are the dead raised, and with what body, do they come in that thirtyfifth verse and lastly, Quid de superstitibus, what shall become of them, who shall be found alive, at that day? We shall all be changed, (ver. 51.) Now this text is the knot, and corollary of all the second part, concerning the qualities of the bodies in the resurrection; now, says the apostle, now that I have said enough prove that a resurrection there is, now, now that I have said enough what kind of bodies shall arise, now, I show you as much

to

22 Tim. ii. 17, 18.

in the negative as I have done in the affirmative, now I teach you what to avoid, as well as I have done what to affect, now this I say brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, though those words be primarily, principally intended of the last resurrection, yet in a secondary respect, they are appliable in themselves, and very often applied by the ancients, to the first resurrection, our resurrection in this life. Tertullian hath intimated, and presented both together, elegantly, when he says of God, Nobis arrhabonem Spiritus reliquit, et arrhabonem à nobis accepit, God hath given us his earnest, and a pawn from him upon earth, in giving us the Holy Ghost, and he hath received our earnest, and a pawn from us into heaven, by receiving our nature, in the body of Christ Jesus there. Flesh and blood, when it is conformed to the flesh and blood of Christ now glorified, and made like his, by our resurrection, may inherit the kingdom of God, in heaven. Yea flesh and blood being conformed to Christ by the sanctification of the Holy Ghost, here in this world may inherit the kingdom of God, here upon earth; for God hath a kingdom here; and there is a communion in arms, as well as a communion in triumph. Leaving then that acceptation of flesh and blood, which many think to be intended in this text, that is, animalis caro, flesh and blood that must be maintained by eating, and drinking, and preserved by propagation and generation, that flesh, and that blood cannot inherit heaven, where there is no marrying, nor giving in marriage, but Erimus sicut angeli, We shall be as the angels, (though such a heaven, in part, Mahomet hath proposed to his followers, a heaven that should abound with worldly delights, and such a heaven the disciples of Origen, and the Millenarians, that look for one thousand years of all temporal felicity, proposed to themselves; and, though amongst our latter men, Cajetan do think, that the apostle in this text, bent himself upon that doctrine, non caro, non animalis caro, flesh and blood, that is, no carnal, no worldly delights are to be looked for, in heaven,) leaving that sense, as too narrow, and too shallow for the Holy Ghost, in this place, in which he hath a higher reach, we shall determine ourselves at this time, in these two acceptations of this phrase of speech; first, non caro, that is, non caro corrupta, flesh and blood cannot,

sinful flesh, corrupt flesh, flesh not discharged of sinful corruption here, by repentance, and sanctification, and the operation of God's Spirit, such flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God here. Secondly, non caro, is non caro corruptibilis, flesh and blood cannot, that is, flesh that is yet subject to corruption, and dissolution, and natural passions and impressions, tending to defectiveness, flesh that is still subject to any punishment that God lays upon flesh, for sin, such flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God hereafter; for our present possession of the kingdom of God here, our corrupt flesh must be purged by sanctification here, for the future kingdom, our natural corruptibleness must be purged by glorification there. We will make the last part first, as this flesh, and this blood, by divesting the corruptibleness it suffers here, by that glorification, shall inherit that kingdom; and, not stay long upon it neither. For of that we have spoken conveniently before, of the resurrection itself. Now we shall look a little into the qualities of bodies in the resurrection; and that, not in the intricacies, and subtilties of the school, but only in that one pattern, which hath been given us of that glory upon earth, which is the transfiguration of Christ; for that transfiguration of his was a representation of a glorified body in a glorified state. And then in the second place, we shall come to our first part, what that flesh and blood is that is denied to be capable of the inheritance of that kingdom here, that is, that earnest of heaven, and that inchoation of heaven which may be had in this world; and in that part we shall see, what this inheritance, what this title to heaven here, and what this kingdom of God, that heaven which is proposed to us here is.

First then, for the first acceptation, (which is of the later resurrection) no man denies that which Melanchthon hath collected and established to be the sum of this text, Statuit resurrectionem in corpore, sed non quale jam corpus est; The apostle establishes a resurrection of the body, but yet not such a body as this is. It is the same body, and yet not such a body; which is a mysterious consideration, that it is the same body, and yet not such as itself, nor like any other body of the same substance. But, what kind of body then? We content ourselves with that, Transfiguratio specimen appositissimum resurrectionis, The trans

" Musculus.