set us, by him who is the exemplary cause of our resurrection.

Of these I shall speak in their order.

Of all the arguments that are brought for the proof of a resurrection, that which is drawn from our Saviour's being raised from the dead is both the shortest and the fullest, the easiest to be apprehended, and the most difficult to be withstood. Those reasonings that are by some ancient fathers made use of to facilitate the belief of this article are rather illustrations of it, to make it better conceived by those who do already believe it, than arguments sufficient to convince those who doubt of it. Sleep is so apposite an image of death, and waking, of arising from the dead; the setting of the sun answers so well to our being buried in the grave, and its rising again hath so just a correspondence to our rising from the darkness of death, that some have represented our frequent awaking from sleep, and the diurnal revolution of darkness and light, as plausible arguments of our resurrection from the dead. Now true it is, that these are fit and apposite resemblances of a resurrection, and those to whom this great article of our faith is revealed, may make a proper use of these images, by thinking of death as often as they either see the sun set, or compose themselves to sleep; and by meditating on the resurrection whenever they awake, or behold the day breaking forth. But those to whom this doctrine was not revealed, though they perceived very well the likeness there is betwixt death and sleep; though they observed the vicissitudes of day and night, and were aware of the analogy these had to life and death; yet they could not, or at least they did not, collect from hence that men should rise from the dead. They were so far from making this inference, that on the contrary

we find them complaining, that though the sun set, and rose again; though they slept, and awaked out of sleep; yet when the day of life was once spent, they were thenceforth to sleep on for one long, perpetual, eternal night.

All the other arguments that ever have been or ever can be brought from the principles of mere reason, in confirmation of this momentous point, are of no further force than to prove a resurrection not utterly impossible, or, at most, not very improbable, but are not of sufficient, not indeed of any weight, to prove it undoubtedly certain. From the power of God it may be inferred, that he can raise the dead; from his other attributes it may, with some show of reason, be gathered, that probably he may raise them; but from the word of God only we can have a full and infallible assurance, that what he unquestionably can, and what peradventure he may do, that he certainly will accomplish. Nor are all the proofs brought from revelation to confirm our faith in this article equally convincing; those fetched from the Old Testament have not all that strength and evidence which shines forth with full lustre in those with which we are furnished from the New; and, even amongst the gospel proofs, this of our Saviour's resurrection hath a singular weight and clearness above the rest.

It hath been disputed by some, whether the Jews had any notices at all of a resurrection. This dispute, it is true, could never have been started by Christians, had they paid that deference which they owe to the authority of our Saviour, who hath determined this point by proving the resurrection against the Sadducees from the books of Moses. But although this truth was revealed to the Jews, yet was it wrapped

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up in such dark terms, that the very revelation itself wanted to have the veil removed which was cast over it. Intimations of a future state, and of a resurrection from the dead, are scattered through several parts of the Old Testament; but then it must be acknowledged, that there are also some passages which, at first view, seem to overthrow what those texts establish; which carry with them in the first appearance a suspicious meaning; and which, though they may be fairly reconciled with those other passages which assert a future state, yet require some deeper penetration than vulgar readers are ordinarily endued with to reconcile them. Thus, when we find Job with great solemnity asserting, that he knows that his Redeemer Job xix. liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and that though after his skin worms destroy his body, yet in his flesh he shall see God; that he shall see him for himself, and that his eyes should behold him, and not another, though his reins be consumed within him, we cannot rationally doubt of his firm and steadfast belief of a resurrection; but yet, when the same Job declares, that his days are spent without Job vii.6-9. hope; that his life is wind; and that his eye, that very eye which he said should behold his Redeemer, shall no more see good; that as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more; these seemingly desperate expressions might stagger a Jew's faith, as far as it was built upon Job's testimony, concerning the certainty of a

resurrection.

In the like manner, when holy David declares his hope, and distinguishes himself from sensual men, who live without any thoughts of another world, by saying, As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; IPs. xvii. 1 shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness, we

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cannot well doubt but that he looked upon death only as a short sleep, and that he was assured of awaking again at the resurrection. But when the Ps. xxx. 9. same David puts these questions to his Maker, What profit is there in my blood, when I go down into the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy Ps. lxxxviii. truth? Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? When he seems to answer these questions in the negative, by Ps. cxv. 17. saying that the dead praise not the Lord, neither any Ps. Ixxviii. that go down into silence; that man is as a wind, which passeth away and cometh not again; these expressions of the Psalmist, by an unconsidering and carnal Jew, might be thought to argue David as much an unbeliever of this weighty article, as the very Sadducees themselves.

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7.

So again, when the preacher Solomon doth plainly distinguish betwixt the body and the soul; when he goes back to the first origin of each, and leads us forward to the several portions which shall be allotted to them in congruity to their respective oriEccles. xii. ginals; when he in express terms declares, that the dust, or the earthy and material part of us, shall return to the earth as it was; but that the spirit shall return unto God who gave it, we cannot desire a more positive and direct assertion, if not of the resurrection of the body, yet at least of a future state and of the soul's immortality. And yet, when the same Eccles. iii. preacher observes, that that which befalleth the sons of men befalls beasts, even one thing befalls them; that as one dieth, so dieth the other, yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no preeminence above a

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beast; that the living know that they shall die, but Eccles. ix. that the dead know not any thing, neither have they 5. any more a reward; a voluptuary and sensualist, one who is resolved to live like a beast, and therefore would be glad to die like one, may distort these seemingly loose expressions of the preacher, which are capable of a sound and good meaning, to countenance his lewd and irreligious notions concerning our total extinction by death, and our being consigned by it to a state of perpetual oblivion and utter annihilation.

It would be easy, if requisite, to instance in several other passages of the Old Testament, which to a thoughtless and superficial considerer might seem rather to weaken than strengthen the credibility of a future resurrection; which though they cannot, without great impiety, be brought to prove that this doctrine was not at all taught under the law, since our Saviour in the gospel hath declared that those who denied it erred, not knowing the scriptures, nor the Matt. xxii. power of God, yet they do manifestly prove, that this 29. truth was not so clearly revealed to the Jews in the Old Testament as it is to us Christians in the New, but that our Saviour hath brought life and immortality 2Tim. i. 10. to at least greater light through the gospel. What a learned Pharisee could attain to by the utmost reach of thought from his revelation, that each vulgar Christian may read, as he runs, in almost every page of ours; what was darkly hinted in the Old Testament, is, in terms not capable of being misunderstood, declared in the New; what was here and there intimated in the books of the law, is repeated and inculcated over and over again throughout the gospel; nor are there here any passages which may favour a contrary opinion, or counterpoise the weight of those plain texts that are