The marrovv of the oracles of God. Or, diuers treatises containing directions about sixe of the waightiest things can concerne a Christian in this life. by N. Bifield, late preacher of Gods Word at Isleworth in Middlesex.

CHAP. XIII.

Comfort against the losse of the body in death.

OH! but in death a man is destroyed, hee loseth his body, and it must bee rotted in the earth.

Sol. 1. It hath bin shewed be∣fore, that the separation of the soule from God, is properly Death; but the separation of the soule from the body, is but the shadow of Death: and we haue no reason to be a∣fraid of a shadow.

2. The body is not the man: the man remaines still, though hee be without the body. Abra∣ham, Isaac, and Iacob, are proued to be liuing still, by our Sauiour Christ, though their bodies were consumed in the earth; and God was their God still. It is true, Death seizeth on thy body; but a Christian, at the most, suffers

but aliquid mortis▪ a little of death.

Death is like a Serpent; the Ser∣pent must ea•…•…e dust: now death therefore can feed vpon no more but our dust, which is the body, it cannot touch the soule: where∣as wicked men suffer the whole power of death, because it sei∣zeth both vpon body and soule too; and in their case onely it is true, that death destroyes a man.

3. Grant▪ that we lose the bo∣dy in death, yet that, ought not to be terrible; for what the body is, it hath beene before shewed: It is but a Prison to the Soule, an old rotten House, or a ragged Gar∣ment; it is but as the Barke of a Tree, or the Shell, or such like: now what great losse can there be in any of these?

4. This separation is but for a time neither; we doe not for eu•…•…r lose the body, we sh•…•… haue our bodies againe, they are kept safe for vs till the day of Christ. Our

graues are Gods Chest's, and he makes a precious account of the bodies of •…•…is Saints, they shall be raised vp againe at the last day. God will giue a charge to the earth to bring forth her dead, and make a true account to him, Re∣uel. 〈◊〉〈◊〉. And God hath giuen the assurance of this, not onely in his Word, by promising it, but in his Sonne, whom hee hath raised from the dead. If any say, What is that to vs, that Christs body is raised? I answer, it is a full assu∣rance of the safety, and of the resurrection of our bodies: for Christ is our Head. Now cast a man into a Riuer, though all the body be vnder water, yet the man is safe, if the head be aboue water; for the head will bring out all the body after it. So it is in the body of Christ: though all we s•…•…nke in the riuer of death, yet our Head is •…•…isen, and is a∣boue water, and therefore the whole body is safe.

5. It should yet more satisfie vs, if we throughly consider, that we shall haue our bodies againe much better then now they are. Those vile bodies we lay downe in death, shall be restored againe vnto vs glorious bodies, like the body of Christ now glorified, Philippians 3. 21. And therefore death loseth, by taking away our bodies; we haue a great victory ouer death: The graue is but a furnace to refine them, they shall come out againe immortall and incorruptible.

Notes

• Ob. 2.
• 1.
• 2.
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• 4.
• 5.