d dignity, in regard of that base employment they had
once, and so it is most suitable that he who hath thus dwelt in both
repair his own dwelling-house. For here it is ruinous, and, therefore,
must be cast down. But because it was once a temple for the holy God,
therefore it will be repaired and built again. For he that once honoured
it with his presence will not suffer corruption always to dwell in it, for
what Christ, by his humiliation and suffering, purchased, the Spirit hath
this commission to perform it; and what is it but the restitution of
mankind to a happier estate in the second Adam than ever the first was
into? Now, since our Lord who pleased to take on our flesh, did not put it
off again, but admits it to the fellowship of the same glory in heaven, in
that he died, he dies no more, death hath no more dominion over him, he
will never be wearied or ashamed of that human clothing of flesh. And,
therefore, certainly that the children may be like the father, the
followers, their captain, the members not disproportioned to the head, the
branches not different and heterogeneous to the stock, and that our rising
in Christ may leave no footstep of our falling, no remainder of our
misery, the Spirit of Christ will also quicken the mortal bodies of
believers, and make them like Christ's glorious body.
This must be done with divine power,--and what more powerful than the
Spirit? For it is the spirits or subtile parts in all creatures that
causeth all motions, and worketh all effects. What then is that almighty
Spirit not able to do? You have shadows of this in nature, yea, convincing
evidences for, what is the spring but a resurrection of the earth? Is not
the world every year renewed, and riseth again out of the grave of winter,
as you find elegantly expressed, Psalm cvii? And doth not the grains of
seed die in the clods before they rise to the harvest, 1 Cor. xv. All the
vicissitudes and alterations in nature give us a plain draught of this
great change, and certainly it is one Spirit that effects all.
But though there be the same power required to raise up the bodies of the
godly and ungodly, yet, O what infinite distance and difference in the
nature and ends of their resurrections! There is the resurrection of life,
and the resurrection of condemnation, John v. 29. O! happy they who rise
to life that ever they died! But, O miserable, thrice wretched are all
others that they may not be dead for ever! The immortali
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