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the dead shall be raised, and every one appear and answer for the things done in his life, and receive according to the things he has done in his body, whether good or bad. He that believes this, and has said nothing inconsistent here with, I presume may and must be acquitted from being guilty of any thing inconsistent with the article of the resurrection of the dead.

But your lordship, to prove the resurrection of the same body to be an article of faith, farther asks, * How could it be said, if any other substance be joined to the soul at the resurrection, as its body, that they were the things done in or by the body? Answ. Just as it may be said of a man at an hundred years old, that hath then another substance joined to his soul, than he had at twenty; that the murder or drunkenness he was guilty of at twenty, were things done in the body: how 'by the body' comes in here, I do not see.

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Your lordship adds, and St. Paul's dispute about the manner of raising the body, might soon have ended, if there were no necessity of the same body.' Answ. When I understand what argument there is in these words to prove the resurrection of the same nody, without the mixture of one new atom of matter, I shall know what to say to it. In the mean time this I understand, that St. Paul would have put as short an end to all disputes about this matter, if he had said, that there was a necessity of the same body, or that it should be the same body.

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The next text of scripture you bring for the same body is, If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ raised.' From which your lordship argues, It seems then other bodies are to be raised as his was.' I grant other dead, as certainly raised as Christ was; for else his resurrection would be of no use to mankind. But I do not see how it follows, that they shall be raised with the same body, as Christ was raised with the same body, as your lordship infers in these words annexed. And can there be any doubt, whether his body was the same material substance which was united to his soul before?' I answer, None at all; nor that it had just the same distinguishing lineaments and marks, yea, and the same wounds that it had at the time of his death. If therefore your lordship will argue from other bodies being raised as his was, That they must keep proportion with his in sameness; then we must be lieve, that every man shall be raised with the same lineaments and other notes of distinction he had at the time of his death, even with his wounds yet open, if he had any, because our Saviour was so raised; which seems to me scarce reconcileable with what your lordship says, || of a fat man falling into a consumption, and dying.

But whether it will consist or no with your lordship's meaning in that place, this to me seems a consequence that will need to be better proved, viz. That our bodies must be raised the same, just as our Saviour's was: because St. Paul says, if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ risen. For it may be a good consequence, Christ is risen, and therefore there shall be a resurrection of the dead; and yet this may not be a good consequence, Christ was raised with the same body he had at his death, therefore all men shall be raised with the same body they had at their death, contrary to what your lordship says concerning a fat man

* 2d Answ. + 1 Cor. xv. 15, 16. +2d Answ.

|| Ibid.

dying of a consumption. But the case I think far different betwixt our Saviour, and those to be raised at the last day.

1. His body saw not corruption, and therefore to give him another body new moulded, mixed with other particles which were not contained in it as it lay in the grave, whole and intire as it was laid there, had been to destroy his body to frame him a new one without any need. But why with the remaining particles of a man's body long since dissolved and moulded into dust and atoms, (whereof possibly a great part may have undergone a variety of changes, and entered into other concretions, even in the bodies of other men) other new particles of matter mixed with them, may not serve to make his body again, as well as the mixture of new and different particles of matter with the old, did in the compass of his life make his body, I think no reason can be given.

This may serve to show, why, though the materials of our Saviour's body were not changed at his resurrection; yet it does not follow, but that the body of a man dead and rotten in his grave, or burnt, may at the last day have several new particles in it, and that without any inconvenience: since whatever matter is vitally united to his soul is his body, as much as is that which was united to it when he was born, or in any other part of his life.

2. In the next place, the size, shape, figure, and lineaments of our Saviour's body even to his wounds, into which doubting Thomas put his fingers and his hand, were to be kept in the raised body of our Saviour, the same they were at his death, to be a conviction to his disciples, to whom he showed himself, and who were to be witnesses of his resur rection, that their master, the very same man, was crucified, dead, and buried, and raised again; and therefore he was handled by them, and eat before them after he was risen, to give them in all points full satisfaction that it was really he, the same, and not another, nor a spectre or apparition of him: though I do not think your lordship will thence argue, that because others are to be raised as he was, therefore it is necessary to believe, that because he eat after his resurrection, others at the last day shall eat and drink after they are raised from the dead; which seems to me as good an argument, as because his undissolved body was raised out of the grave, just as it there lay entire, without the mixture of any new particles; therefore the corrupted and consumed bodies of the dead, at the resurrection, shall be new framed only out of those scattered particles which were once vitally united to their souls, without the least mixture of any one single atom of new matter. But at the last day, when all men are raised, there will be no need to be assured of any one particular man's resurrection. It is enough that every one shall appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to receive according to what he had done in his former life; but in what sort of body he shall appear, or of what particles made up, the scripture having said nothing, but that it shall be a spiritual body raised in incorruption, it is not for me to determine.

Your lordship asks, Were they [who saw our Saviour after his resurrection] witnesses only of some material substance then united to his soul?' In answer, I beg your lordship to consider, whether you suppose our Saviour was to be known to be the same man (to the witnesses that

* 2d Answ.

were

were to see him, and testify his resurrection) by his soul, that could neither be seen nor known to be the same; or by his body, that could be seen, and by the discernible structure and marks of it, be known to be the same? When your lordship has resolved that, all that you say in that page, will answer itself. But because one man cannot know another to be the same, but by the outward visible lineaments, and sensible marks he has been wont to be known and distinguished by, will your lordship therefore argue That the Great Judge, at the last day, who gives to each man, whom he raises, his new body, shall not be able to know who is who, unless he give to every one of them a body just of the same figure, size, and features, and made up of the very same individual particles he had in his former life? Whether such a way of arguing for the resurrection of the same body, to be an article of faith, contributes much to the strengthening the credibility of the article of the resurrection of the dead, I shall leave to the judgment of others.

Farther, for the proving the resurrection of the same body, to be an

article of faith, your lordship says, *But the apostle insists upon the re

;

surrection of Christ, not merely as an argument of the possibility of ours, but of the certainty of it; + because he rose, as the first-fruits Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming.' Answ. No doubt, the resurrection of Christ is a proof of the certainty of our resurrection. But is it therefore a proof of the resurrection of the same body, consisting of the same individual particles which concurred to the making up of our body here, without the mixture of any one other particle of matter? I confess I see no such consequence.

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But your lordship goes on: St. Paul was aware of the objections in men's minds about the resurrection of the same body; and it is of great consequence as to this article, to show upon what grounds he proceeds.

But some men will say, how are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? First, he shows, that the seminal parts of plants are wonderfully improved by the ordinary Providence of God, in the manner of their vegetation.' Answer. I do not perfectly understand, what it is for the seminal parts of plants to be wonderfully improved by the ordinary Providence of God, in the manner of their vegetation:' or else, perhaps, I should better see how this here tends to the proof of the resurrection of the same body, in your lordship's sense.

It continues, They sow bare grain of wheat, or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. Here, says your lordship, is an identity of the material substance supposed.' It may be so. But to me a diversity of the material substance, i. e. of the component particles, is here supposed, or in direct words said. For the words of St. Paul taken altogether, run thus, That which thou sowest, thou soweft not that body which shall be, but bare grain;' and so on, as your lordship has set down in the remainder of them. From which words of St. Paul, the natural argument seems to me to stand thus: If the body that is put in the earth in sowing, is not that body which shall be, then the body that is the grave, is not that, i. e. the same body that shall be.

put in

* 2d Answ.

+ 1 Cor. xv. 20, 23. + 2d Answ.
§ V. 37.

Ibid.

But

But your lordship proves it to be the same body by these three Greek words of the text, rò idio oμa, which your lordship interprets thus

That proper body which belongs to it.' Answer. Indeed by those Greek words to do oupa, whether our translators have rightly rendered them, his own body,' or your lordship more rightly that proper body which belongs to it,' I formerly understood no more but this, that in the production of wheat, and other grain from seed, God continued every species distinct; so that from grains of wheat sown, root, stalk, blade, ear, grains of wheat were produced, and not those of barley; and so of the rest, which I took to be the meaning of to every seed his own body.' No, says your lordship, these words prove, That to every plant of wheat, and to every grain of wheat produced in it, is given the proper body that belongs to it, which is the same body with the grain that was sown. Answer. This, I confess I do not understand; because I do not understand how one individual grain can be the same with twenty, fifty, or an hundred individual grains; for such sometimes is the in

crease.

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But your lordship proves it. For, says your lordship, + Every seed having that body in little, which is afterwards so much enlarged; and in grain the seed is corrupted before its germination; but it hath its proper organical parts, which make it the same body with that which it grows up to. For although grain be not divided into lobes, as other seeds are, yet it hath been found, by the most accurate observations, that upon separating the membranes, these seminal parts are discerned in them; which afterwards grow up to that body which we call corn.' In which words I crave leave to observe, that your lordship supposes, that a body may be enlarged by the addition of an hundred or a thousand times as much in bulk as its own matter, and yet continue the same body; which, I confess, I cannot understand.

But in the next place, if that could be so; and that the plant, in its full growth at harvest, increased by a thousand or a million of times as much new matter added to it, as it had when it lay in little concealed in the grain that was sown, was the very same body; yet I do not think that your lordship will say, that every minute, insensible, and inconceivably small grain of the hundred grains, contained in that little organized seminal plant, is every one of them the very same with that grain which contains that whole seminal plant, and all those invisible grains in it. For then it will follow, that one grain is the same with an hundred, and an hundred distinct grains the same with one: which I shall be able to assent to, when I can conceive, that all the wheat in the world is but one grain.

For I beseech you, my lord, consider what it is St. Paul here speaks of: it is plain he speaks of that which is sown and dies, i. e. the grain that the husbandman takes out of his barn to sow in his field. And of this grain St. Paul says, 'that it is not that body that shall be.' These two, viz. that which is sown, and that body that shall be,' are all the bodies that St. Paul here speaks of, to represent the agreement or difference of men's bodies after the resurrection, with those they had before they died. Now, I crave leave to ask your lordship, which of these two is that little invisible seminal plant, which your lordship here speaks of ? * 2d Answ. + Ibid.

Does

Does your lordship mean by it the grain that is sown? But that is not what St. Paul speaks of; he could not mean this embryonated little plant, for he could not denote it by these words, ' that which thou soweft,' for that he says must die: but this little embryonated plant, contained in the seed that is sown, dies not; or does your lordship mean by it, the body that shall be?' but neither by these words, the body that shall be,' can St. Paul be supposed to denote this insensible little embryonated plant; for that is already in being, contained in the seed that is sown, and therefore could not be spoke of under the name of the body that shall be. And therefore, I confess, I cannot see of what use it is to your lordship to introduce here this third body, which St. Paul mentions not, and to make that the same, or not the same with any other, when those which St. Paul speaks of, are, as I humbly conceive, these two visible sensible bodies, the grain sown, and the corn grown up to ear; with neither of which this insensible embryonated plant can be the same body, unless an insensible body can be the same body with a sensible body, and a little body can be the same body with one ten thousand, or an hundred thousand times as big as itself. So that yet, I confess, I see not the resurrection of the same body proved, from these words of St. Paul, to be an article of faith.

the

Your lordship goes on: *St. Paul indeed saith, That we sow not that body that shall be; but he speaks not of the identity, but the perfection of it.' Here my understanding fails me again: for I cannot understand St. Paul to say, That the same identical sensible grain of wheat, which was sown at seed-time, is the very same with every grain of wheat in the ear at harvest, that sprang from it: yet so I must understand it, to make it prove, that the same sensible body, that is laid in the grave, shall be very same with that which shall be raised at the resurrection. For I do not know of any seminal body in little, contained in the dead carcase of any man or woman, which, as your lordship says, in seeds, having its proper organical parts, shall afterwards be enlarged, and at the resurrection grow up into the same man. For I never thought of any seed or seminal parts, either of plant or animal, so wonderfully improved by the Providence of God,' whereby the same plant or animal should beget itself; nor ever heard, that it was by Divine Providence designed to produce the same individual, but for the producing of future and distinct individuals, for the continuation of the same species.

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Your lordship's next words are, + And although there be such a difference from the grain itself, when it comes up to be perfect corn, with root, stalk, blade, and ear, that it may be said to outward appearance not to be the same body; yet with regard to the seminal and organical parts it is as much the same, as a man grown up, is the same with the embryo in the womb.' Answer. It does not appear by any thing I can find in the text, that St. Paul here compared the body produced, with the seminal and organical parts contained in the grain it sprang from, but with the whole sensible grain that was grown. Microscopes had not then discovered the little embryo plant in the seed: and supposing it should have been revealed to St. Paul (though in the scripture we find little revelation of natural philosophy) yet an argument taken from a thing perfectly unknown to the Corinthians, whom he writ to, would be of no + Ibid.

* 2d Answ.

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