raised, your faith is in
vain, you are yet in your sins, and they that are asleep are perished."
Religion were nothing but a number of empty words of show, preaching were
a vanity and imposture, faith were a mere fancy, if this be not laid down
as the ground stone,--Christ raised, not as a natural person, but as a
common politic person, as the first-fruits of them that sleep, ver. 17-20,
where he alludes to the ceremony of offering the first-fruits of their
harvest, Lev. xxiii. 10. For under the law they might not eat of the
fruits of the land till they were sanctified. All was counted profane till
they were some way consecrated to the Lord. Now, for this end, the Lord
appointed them to bring one sheaf for all, and that was the representative
of all the rest of the heap, and this was waved before the Lord, and
lifted up from the earth. Now, according to the apostle's argument, Rom.
xi. 16, "If the first fruits be holy, so is the lump," for it represents
all the lump, and therefore Jesus Christ, the chief of all his brethren,
was made the first fruits from the dead, and lifted up from the grave, as
the representer of all the lump of his elect, and so it must needs follow,
that they shall not continue in the grave, but must in due time partake of
that benefit which he has first entered in possession of, in their name,
and for them. For if this first fruits be holy, so the whole lump must be
holy, and if the first fruits be risen, so must the lump. You see then the
force of the present reason, "If the Spirit that raised Christ dwell in
you," he shall also raise you, namely, because he raised up Christ the
very first fruits of all the rest, so that Christ's resurrection is a sure
pledge and token of yours, and both together are the main basis and ground
work of all our hope and salvation, the neglect and inconsideration
whereof makes the most part of pretended Christians to walk according to
that Epicurean principle, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall
die." As if there were no life to come, they withhold nothing from their
carnal minds that can satisfy or please their lusts. But for you who
desire a part in this resurrection, and dare scarcely believe so great a
thing, or entertain such a high hope, because of the sight of your
unworthiness, as you would be awakened by this hope to "righteousness, and
to sin no more" verse 34th of that chapter, so you may encourage
yourselves to that hope by the resurrection of Chri