LXXX sermons preached by that learned and reverend divine, Iohn Donne, Dr in Divinity, late Deane of the cathedrall church of S. Pauls London.

SERMON XIX. Preached at S. Pauls, upon Easter-day, in the Evening. 1624.

APOC. 20.6.

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection.

IN the first book of the Scriptures, that of Genesis, there is danger in de∣parting from the letter; In this last book, this of the Revelation, there is as much danger in adhering too close to the letter. The literall sense is alwayes to be preserved; but the literall sense is not alwayes to be discerned: for the literall sense is not alwayes that, which the very Let∣ter and Grammer of the place presents, as where it is literally said, That Christ is a Vine, and literally, That his flesh is bread, and literally, That the new Ierusalem is thus situated, thus built, thus furnished: But the literall sense of every place, is the prin∣cipall intention of the Holy Ghost, in that place: And his principall intention in many places, is to expresse things by allegories, by figures; so that in many places of Scripture, a figurative sense is the literall sense, and more in this book then in any other. As then to depart from the literall sense, that sense which the very letter presents, in the book of Genesis, is dangerous, because if we do so there, we have no history of the Creation of the world in any other place to stick to; so to binde our selves to such a literall sense in this book, will take from us the consolation of many spirituall happinesses, and bury us in the carnall things of this world.

The first error of being too allegoricall in Genesis, transported divers of the ancients beyond the certain evidence of truth, and the second error of being too literall in this book, fixed many, very many, very ancient, very learned, upon an evident falshood; which was, that because here is mention of a first Resurrection, and of raigning with Christ a thousand years after that first Resurrection, There should be to all the Saints of God, a state of happinesse in this world, after Christs comming, for a thousand yeares; In which hap∣py state, though some of them have limited themselves in spirituall things, that they should enjoy a kinde of conversation with Christ, and an impeccability, and a quiet ser∣ving of God without any reluctations, or cōcupiscences; or persecutions; yet others have dreamed on, and enlarged their dreames to an enjoying of all these worldly happinesses, which they, being formerly persecuted, did formerly want in this world, and then should have them for a thousand yeares together in recompence. And even this branch of that error, of possessing the things of this world, so long, in this world, did very many, and very good, and very great men, whose names are in honour, and justly in the Church of God, in those first times stray into; and flattered themselves with an imaginary intima∣tion

of some such thing, in these words, Blessed and holy is he, that hath part in the first Resurrection.

Thus far then the text is literall, That this Resurrection in the text, is different from the generall Resurrection. The first differs from the last: And thus far it is figurative, allegoricall, mysticall, that it is a spirituall Resurrection, that is intended. But wherein spirituall? or of what spirituall Resurrection? In the figurative exposition of those places of Scripture, which require that way oft to be figuratively expounded, that Expositor is not to be blamed, who not destroying the literall sense, proposes such a figurative sense, as may exalt our devotion, and advance our edification; And as no one of those Exposi∣tors did ill, in proposing one such sense, so neither do those Expositors ill, who with those limitations, that it destroy not the literall sense, that it violate not the analogy of faith, that it advance devotion, do propose another and another such sense. So doth that preacher well also, who to the same end, and within the same limit, makes his use of both, of all those expositions; because all may stand, and it is not evident in such figurative speeches, which is the literall, that is, the principall intention of the Holy Ghost.

Of these words of this first Resurrection (which is not the last, of the body, but a spi∣rituall Resurrection) there are three expositions authorized by persons of good note in the Church. First, that this first Resurrection, is a Resurrection from that low estate, to which persecution had brought the Church; and so it belongs to this whole State, and Church, and Blessed are we who have our part in this first Resurrection. Secondly, that it is a Resurrection from the death of sin, of actuall, and habituall sin; so it belongs to every particular penitent soul; and Blessed art thou, blessed am I, if we have part in this first Re∣surrection. And then thirdly, because after this Resurrection, it is said, That we shall raign with Christ a thousand yeares, (which is a certain for an uncertain, a limited, for a long time) it hath also been taken for the state of the soul in heaven, after it is parted from the body by death; for though the soul cannot be said properly to have a Resurrection, be∣cause properly it cannot die, yet to be thus delivered from the danger of a second death, by future sin, to be removed from the distance, and latitude, and possibility of tentati∣ons in this world, is by very good Expositors called a Resurrection; and so it belongs to all them who are departed in the Lord; Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection. And then the occasion of the day, which we celebrate now, being the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, invites me to propose a fourth sense, or rather use of the words; not indeed as an exposition of the words, but as a conveni∣ent exaltation of our devotion; which is, that this first Resurrection should be the first fruits of the dead; The first Rising, is the first Riser, Christ Jesus: for as Christ sayes of himself, that He is the Resurrection, so he is the first Resurrection, the root of the Resurrection. He upon whom our Resurrection, all ours, all our kindes of Resurre∣ctions are founded; and so it belongs to State and Church, and particular persons, a∣live, and dead; Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection.

And these foure considerations of the words; A Resurrection from persecution, by deliverance; a Resurrection from sin, by grace; a Resurrection from tentation to sin, by the way of death, to the glory of heaven; and all these, in the first Resurrection, in him that is the roote of all, in Christ Jesus, These foure steps, these foure passages, these foure transitions will be our quarter Clock, for this houres exercise.

First then, we consider this first Resurrection, to be a Resurrection from a persecution for religion, for the profession of the Gospell, to a forward glorious passage of the Go∣spell. And so a learned Expositor in the Romane Church carries the exposition of this whole place (though not indeed the ordinary way, yet truly not incommodiously, not improperly) upon that deliverance, which God afforded his Church, from those great persecutions, which had otherwise supplanted her, in her first planting, in the primitive times. Then sayes he (and in part well towards the letter of the place) The devill was chained for a thousand yeares, and then we began to raign with Christ for a thousand yeares; reckoning the time from that time, when God destroyed Idolatry more fully, and gave peace and rest, and free exercise of the Christian religion, under the Christian Empe∣rours, till Antichrist in the height of his rage shall come, and let this thousand yeares prisoner Satan loose, and so interrupt our thousand yeares raign with Christ, with new persecutions. In that persecution was the death of the Church, in the eye of the world;

In that deliverance by Christian Emperours was the Resurrection of the Church; And in Gods protecting her ever since is the chaining up of the devill, and our raigning with Christ for those thousand yeares.

And truly, beloved, if we consider the low, the very low estate of Christians in those persecutions, tryed ten times in the fire, ten severall and distinct persecutions, in which ten persecutions, God may seem to have had a minde to deale eavenly with the world, and to lay as much upon his people whom he would try then, as he had laid upon others, for his people before, and so to equall the ten plagues of Aegypt, in ten persecutions, in the primitive Church; if we consider that low, that very low estate, we may justly call their deliverance a Resurrection. For as God said to Jerusalem, I found thee in thy blood, and washed thee, so Christ Jesus found the Church, the Christian Church in her blood, and washed her, and wiped her; washed her in his own blood, which washes white, and wiped her with the garments of his own righteousnesse, that she might be acceptable in the sight of God, and then wiped all teares from her eyes, took away all occasions of complaint, and lamentation, that she might be glorious in the eyes of man, and chearefull in her own; such was her Resurrection.

We wonder, and justly, at the effusion, at the pouring out of blood, in the sacrifices of the old Law; that that little countrey scarce bigger then some three of our Shires, should spend more cattle in some few dayes sacrifice at some solemnities, and every yeare in the sacrifices of the whole yeare, then perchance this kingdome could give to any use. Seas of blood, and yet but brooks, tuns of blood, and yet but basons, compared with the sacrifices, the sacrifices of the blood of men, in the persecutions of the Primi∣tive Church. For every Oxe of the Jew, the Christian spent a man, and for every Sheep and Lamb, a Mother and her childe; and for every heard of cattle, sometimes a towne of Inhabitants, sometimes a Legion of Souldiers, all martyred at once; so that they did not stand to fill their Martyrologies with names, but with numbers, they had not roome to say, such a day, such a Bishop, such a day, such a Generall, but the day of 500. the day of 5000. Martyrs, and the martyrdome of a City, or the Martyrdome of an Army; This was not a red Sea, such as the Jews passed, a Sinus, a Creek, an Arm, an Inlet, a gut of a Sea, but a red Ocean, that overflowed, and surrounded all parts; and from the depth of this Sea God raised them; and such was their Resurrection. Such, as that they which suffered, lay, and bled with more ease, then the executioner stood and sweat; and em∣braced the fire more fervently, then he blew it; and many times had this triumph in their death, that even the executioner himself, was in the act of execution converted to Christ, and executed with them; such was their Resurrection.

When the State of the Jews was in that depression, in that conculcation, in that con∣sternation, in that extermination in the captivity of Babylon, as that God presents it to the Prophet in that Vision, in the field of dry bones, so, Fili hominis, Son of man, as thou art a reasonable man, dost thou think these bones can live, that these men can ever be re-colle∣cted to make up a Nation? The Prophet saith, Domine tu scis, Lord thou knowest; which is, not only thou knowest whether they can, or no, but thou knowest clearly they can; thou canst make them up of bones again, for thou madest those bones of earth before. If God had called in the Angels to the making of man at first, and as he said to the Pro∣phet, Fili hominis, Son of man, as thou art a reasonable man, so he had said to them, Filii Dei, as you are the Sons of God, illumined by his face, do you think, that this clod of red earth can make a man, a man that shall be equall to you, in one of his parts, in his soul, and yet then shall have such another part, as that he, whom all you worship, my es∣sentiall Son shall assume, and invest that part himself, can that man made of that body, and that soul, be made of this clod of earth? Those Angels would have said, Domine tu scis, Lord thou must needs know, how to make as good creatures as us of earth, who madest us of that which is infinitely lesse then earth, of nothing, before. To induce, to facilitate these apprehensions, there were some precedents, some such thing had been done before. But when the Church was newly conceived, and then lay like the egge of a Dove, and a Gyants foot over it, like a worm, like an ant, and hill upon hill whelmed upon it, nay, like a grain of corn between the upper and lower Mill-stone, ground to dust between Tyrans and Heretiques, when as she bled in her Cradle, in those children whom Herod slew, so she bled upon her crutches, in those decrepit men whom former persecu∣tions and tortures had creepled before, when East and West joyned hands to crush her,

and hands, and brains, joyned execution to consultation to annihilate her; in this wane of the Moon, God gave her an instant fulnesse; in this exinanition, instant glory; in this grave, an instant Resurrection.

But beloved, the expressing the pressing of their depressions, does but chafe the Wax; the Printing of the seale, is the reducing to your memory, your own case: and not that point in your case, as you were for a few yeares under a sensible persecution of fire, and prisons; that was the least part of your persecution; for it is a cheap purchase of hea∣ven, if we may have it for dying; To sell all we have to buy that field where we know the treasure is, is not so hard, as not to know it; To part with all, for the great Pearle, not so hard a bargaine, as not to know that such a Pearle there might have beene had; we could not say heaven was kept from us, when we might have it for a Fagot, and when even our enemies helpt us to it: but your greater affliction was, as you were long before, in an insensiblenesse, you thought your selves well enough, and yet were under a worse persecution of ignorance, and of superstition, when you, in your Fathers, were so farre from expecting a resurrection, as that you did not know your low estate, or that you needed a Resurrection; And yet God gave you a Resurrection from it, a reforma∣tion of it.

Now, who have their parts in this first resurrection? or upon what conditions have you it? We see in the fourth verse, They that are beheaded for the witnesse of Iesus; that is, that are ready to be so, when the glory of Jesus shall require that testimony. In the meane time, as it followes there, They that have not worshipped the Beast; that is, not applied the Honour, and the Allegiance due to their Soveraign, to any forraign State; nor the Honor due to God, that is, infallibility, to another Prelate; That have not worshipped the Beast, nor his Image, sayes the Text; that is, that have not been transported with vain imagina∣tions of his power, and his growth upon us here, which hath been so diligently Painted, and Printed, and Preached, and set out in the promises, and practises of his Instruments, to delude slack, and easie persons: And then, as it is added there, That have not received his mark upon their foreheads; That is, not declared themselves Romanists apparently; nor in their hands, sayes the Text; that is, which have not under-hand sold their secret endea∣vours, though not their publique profession, to the advancement of his cause. These men, who are ready to be beheaded for Christ, and have not worshipped the Beast, nor the Image of the Beast, nor received his mark upon their foreheads, nor in their hands, these have their parts in this first resurrection. These are blessed, and holy, sayes our Text; Blessed, because they have meanes to be holy, in this resurrection; For the Lamb hath unclasped the book; the Scriptures are open; which way to holinesse, our Fathers lack∣ed; And then, our blessednesse is, that we shall raigne a thousand yeares with Christ; Now since this first resurrection, since the reformation we have raigned so with Christ, but 100. yeares: But if we persist in a good use of it, our posterity shall adde the Cypher, and make that 100. 1000. even to the time, when Christ Jesus shall come againe, and as he hath given us the first, so shall give us the last resurrection; and to that come Lord Jesus, come quickly; and till that, continue this.

This is the first resurrection, in the first acceptation, a resurrection from persecution, and a peaceable enjoying of the Gospell: And in a second, it is a resurrection from sin; and so it hath a more particular appropriation to every person. So S. Augustine takes this place, and with him many of the Fathers, and with them, many of the sons of the Fathers, better sons of the Fathers, then the Romane Church will confesse them to be, or then they are themselves, The Expositors of the Reformed Church. They, for the most part, with S. Augustine, take this first resurrection, to be a resurrection from sin. Inter abjectos abjectissimus peccator: No man falls lower, then he that falls into a course of sin; Sin is a fall; It is not onely a deviation, a turning out of the way, upon the right, or the left hand, but it is a sinking, a falling: In the other case, of going out of the way, a man may stand upon the way, and inquire, and then proceed in the way, if he be right, or to the way, if he be wrong; But when he is fallen, and lies still, he proceeds no farther, inquires no farther. To be too apt to conceive scruples in matters of religion, stops, and retards a man in the way; to mistake some points in the truth of religion, puts a man for that time in a wrong way; But to fall into a course of sin, this makes him unsensible of any end, that he hath to goe to, of any way that he hath to goe by. God hath not re∣moved man, not with-drawne man from this Earth; he hath not given him the Aire to

flie in, as to Birds, nor Spheares to move in, as to Sun and Moone; he hath left him upon the Earth; and not onely to tread upon it, as in contempt, or in meere Dominion, but to walk upon it, in the discharge of the duties of his calling; and so to be conversant with the Earth, is not a falling. But as when man was nothing but earth, nothing but a body, he lay flat upon the earth, his mouth kissed the earth, his hands embraced the earth, his eyes respected the earth; And then God breathed the breath of life into him, and that raised him so farre from the earth, as that onely one part of his body, (the soles of his feet) tou∣ches it, And yet man, so raised by God, by sin fell lower to the earth againe, then before, from the face of the earth, to the womb, to the bowels, to the grave; So God, finding the whole man, as low as he found Adams body then, fallen in Originall sin, yet erects us by a new breath of life, in the Sacrament of Baptisme, and yet we fall lower then before we were raised, from Originall into Actuall, into Habituall sins; So low, as that we think not, that we need, know not, that there is a resurrection; and that is the wonderfull, that is the fearfull fall.

Though those words, Quomodo cecidisti de Coelo, Lucifer, How art thou fallen from hea∣ven O Lucifer, the Son of the morning? be ordinarily applied to the fall of the Angels, yet it is evident, that they are literally spoken of the fall of a man: It deserves wonder, more then pity, that man, whom God had raised, to so Noble a heighth in him, should fall so low from him. Man was borne to love; he was made in the love of God; but then man falls in love; when he growes in love with the creature, he falls in love: As we are bid to honour the Physitian, and to use the Physitian, but yet it is said in the same Chapter, He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hands of the Physitian; It is a blessing to use him, it is a curse to rely upon him, so it is a blessing to glorifie God, in the right use of his creatures, but to grow in love with them, is a fall: For we love nothing that is so good as our selves; Beauty, Riches, Honour, is not so good as man; Man capa∣ble of grace here, of glory hereafter. Nay as those things, which we love, in their na∣ture, are worse then we which love them, so in our loving them, we endeavour to make them worse then they in their own nature are; by over-loving the beauty of the body, we corrupt the soule, by overloving honour, and riches, we deflect, and detort these things, which are not in their nature ill, to ill uses, and make them serve our ill purpo∣ses: Man falls, as a fall of waters, that throwes downe, and corrupts all that it embraces. Nay beloved, when a man hath used those wings, which God hath given him, and rai∣sed himselfe to some heighth in religious knowledge, and religious practise, as Euti∣chus, out of a desire to hear Paul preach, was got up into a Chamber, and up into a window of that Chamber, and yet falling asleep, fell downe dead; so we may fall into a security of our present state, into a pride of our knowledge, or of our purity, and so fall lower, then they, who never came to our heighth. So much need have we of a resurrection.

So sin is a fall, and every man is affraid of falling, even from his temporall station; more affraid of falling, then of not beeing raised. And Qui peccat, quatenus peccat, fit seipso deterior: In every sin a man falls from that degree which himselfe had before; In every sin, he is dishonoured, he is not so good a man, as he was; impoverished, he hath not so great a portion of grace as hee had; Infatuated, hee hath not so much of the true wise∣dome of the feare of God, as he had; disarmed, he hath not that interest and confidence in the love of God, that he had: and deformed, he hath not so lively a representation of the Image of God as before. In every sin, we become prodigals, but in the habit of sin, we become bankrupts, affraid to come to an account. A fall is a fearfull thing, that needs a raising, a help; but sin is a death, and that needs a resurrection; and a resurrection is as great a work, as the very Creation it selfe. It is death in semine, in the roote, it produces, it brings forth death; It is death in arbore, in the body, in it selfe; death is a divorce, and so is sin; and it is death in fructu, in the fruit thereof; sin plants spirituall death, and this death produces more sin, Obduration, Impenitence, and the like.

Be pleased to returne, and cast one halfe thought upon each of these: Sin is the roote of death; Death by sin entred, and death passed upon all men, for all men have sinned. It is death because we shall dye for it. But it is death in it selfe, We are dead already, dead in it; Thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead, was spoken to a whole Church. It is not evidence enough, to prove that thou art alive, to say, I saw thee at a Sermon; that spirit, that knowes thy spirit, he that knowes whether thou wert moved by a Sermon, mel∣ted by a Sermon, mended by a Sermon, he knows whether thou be alive or no.

That which had wont to be said, That dead men walked in Churches, is too true; Men walk out a Sermon, or walk out after a Sermon, as ill as they walked in; they have a name that they live, and are dead: But the houre is come, and now is, when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God: That is, at these houres they may heare, if they will, and till they doe heare, they are dead. Sin is the root of death, the body of death, and then it is the fruit of death. S. Augustine confesses of himselfe, that he was Allisus intra parietes in celebritate solemnitatum tuarum, that in great meetings upon solemne dayes, in the Church, there, within the walls of Gods house, Egit negotium procurandi fructus mortis, he was not buying and selling doves, but buying and selling soules, by wanton lookes, cheapning and making the bargaine of the fruits of death, as himselfe expresses it. Sin is the root, and the tree, and the fruit of death; The mother of death, death it selfe, and the daughter of death; and from this death, this threefold death, death past in our past sins, present death in our present in sensiblenesse of sin, future death in those sins, with which sins God will punish our former, and present sins, (if he proceed meerly in justice) God affords us this first resurrection.

How? Thus. Death is the Divorce of body and soule; Resurrection is the Re-union of body and soule: And in this spirituall death, and resurrection, which we consider now, and which is all determined in the soule it selfe, Grace is the soule of the soule, and so the departing of grace, is the death, and the returning of grace is the resurrection of this sinfull soule. But how? By what way, what meanes? Consider Adam; Adam was made to enjoy an immortality in his body; He induced death upon himselfe: And then, as God having made Marriage for a remedy against uncleannesse, intemperate men make even Marriage it selfe an occasion of more uncleannesse, then if they had never married; so man having induced and created death, by sin, God takes death, and makes it a means of the glorifying of his body, in heaven. God did not induce death, death was not in his purpose; but veluti medium opportunum, quo vas confractum rursus fingeretur, As a means, whereby a broken vessell might be made up againe, God tooke death, and made it serve for that purpose, That men by the grave might be translated to heaven.

So then, to the resurrection of the body, there is an ordinary way, The grave; To the resurrection of the soule, there is an ordinary way too, The Church. In the grave, the body that must be there prepared for the last resurrection, hath wormes that eat upon it: In the Church, the soule that comes to this first resurrection, must have wormes, The worme, the sting, the remorse, the compunction of Conscience; In those that have no part in this first resurrection, the worme of conscience shall never die, but gnaw on, to desperation; but those that have not this worme of conscience, this remorse, this com∣punction, shall never live. In the grave, which is the furnace, which ripens the body for the last resurrection, there is a putrefaction of the body, and an ill savour: In the Church, the wombe where my soule must be mellowed for this first resurrection, my soul, which hath the savour of death in it, as it is leavened throughout with sin, must stink in my no∣strils, and I come to a detestation of all those sins, which have putrified her. And I must not be afraid to accuse my selfe, to condemne my selfe, to humble my selfe, lest I become a scorne to men; Nemo me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari, à quo sibi praestitum est ne aegrotaret, Let no man despise me, or wonder at me, that I am so humbled under the hand of God, or that I fly to God as to my Physitian when I am sick, since the same God that hath recovered me as my Physitian when I was sick, hath been his Physitian too, and kept him from being sick, who, but for that Physitian, had been as ill as I was: At least he must be his Physitian, if ever he come to be sick, and come to know that he is sick, and come to a right desire to be well. Spirituall death was before bodily; sinne before the wages of sin; God hath provided a resurrection for both deaths, but first for the first; This is the first resurrection, Reconciliation to God, and the returning of the soule of our soule, Grace, in his Church, by his Word, and his seales there.

Now every repentance is not a resurrection; It is rather a waking out of a dreame, then a rising to a new life: Nay it is rather a startling in our sleep, then any awaking at all, to have a sudden remorse, a sudden flash, and no constant perseverance. Awake thou that sleepest, sayes the Apostle, out of the Prophet: First awake, come to a sense of thy state; and then arise from the dead, sayes he, from the practise of dead works; and then, Christ shall give thee light: life, and strength to walk in new wayes. It is a long work, and hath many steps; Awake, arise, and walke, and therefore set out betimes; At the last day, in

those, which shall be found alive upon the earth, we say there shall be a sudden death, and a sudden resurrection; In raptu, in transitu, in ictu oculi, In an instant, in the twinck∣ling of an eye; but do not thou trust to have this first Resurrection In raptu, in transitu, in ictu oculi, In thy last passage upon thy death-bed, when the twinckling of the eye, must be the closing of thine eyes: But as we assign to glorified bodies after the last Resurrecti∣on, certaine Dotes, (as we call them in the Schoole) certaine Endowments, so labour thou to finde those endowments, in thy soule here, if thou beest come to this first Resur∣rection.

Amongst those Endowments we assigne Subtilitatem, Agilitatem; The glorified bodie is become more subtile, more nimble, not encumbred, not disable for any motion, that it would make; So hath that soule, which is come to this first Resurrection, by grace, a spirituall agility, a holy nimblenesse in it, that it can slide by tentations, and passe through tentations, and never be polluted; follow a calling, without taking infection, by the ordinary tentations of that calling. So have those glorified bodies Claritatem, a brightnesse upon them, from the face of God; and so have these soules, which are come to this first resurrection, a sun in themselves, an inherent light, by which they can pre∣sently distinguish betweene action and action; what must, what may, what must not bee done. But of all the endowments of the glorified body, we consider most, Impassibilita∣tem, That that body shall suffer nothing; and is sure that it shall suffer nothing. And that which answers that endowment of the body most in this soule, that is come to this first resurrection, is as the Apostle speaks, That neither persecution, sicknesse, nor death, shall sepa∣rate her from Christ Iesus. In Heaven we doe not say, that our bodies shall devest their mortality, so, as that naturally they could not dye; for they shall have a composition still; and every compounded thing may perish: but they shal be so assured, and with such a pre∣servation, as they shall alwaies know they shall never dye. S. Augustine saies well, Assit motio, absit fatigatio, assit potestas vescendi, absit necessitas esuriendi; They have in their nature a mortality, and yet be immortall; a possibility and an impossibility of dying, with those two divers relations, one to nature, the other to preservation, will consist to∣gether. So in this soule, that hath this first Resurrection from sin, by grace, a conscience of her owne infirmity, that she may relapse, and yet a testimony of the powerfulnesse of Gods Spirit, that easily she shall not relapse, may consist well together. But the last seale of this holy confidence is reserved for that, which is the third acceptation of this first Resurrection; not from persecutions in this world, nor from sin in this world, but from all possibility of falling back into sin, in the world to come; and to this, have divers Ex∣positors referred these words, this first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he, that hath part in this first Resurrection.

Now, a Resurrection of the soule, seemes an improper, an impertinent, an improba∣ble, an impossible forme of speech; for, Resurrection implies death, and the soule does not dye in her passage to Heaven. And therefore Damascen makes account, that he hath sufficiently proved the Resurrection of the body (which seems so incredible) if he could prove any Resurrection; if there be any Resurrection at all, saies he, it must be of the body, for the soule cannot dye, therefore not rise. Yet have not those Fathers, nor those Expositors, who have in this text, acknowledged a Resurrection of the soule, mistaken nor miscalled the matter. Take Damascens owne definition of Resurrection: Resurrectio est ejus quod cecidit secunda surrectio: A Resurrection is a second rising to that state, from which any thing is formerly fallen. Now though by death, the soule do not fall into any such state, as that it can complaine, (for what can that lack, which God fils?) yet by death, the soule fals from that, for which it was infused, and poured into man at first; that is, to be the forme of that body, the King of that Kingdome; and therefore, when in the generall Resurrection, the soule returnes to that state, for which it was created, and to which it hath had an affection, and a desire, even in the fulnesse of the Joyes of Heaven, then, when the soule returnes to her office, to make up the man, because the whole man hath, therefore the soule hath a Resurrection; not from death, but from a deprivation of her former state; that state, which she was made for, and is ever enclined to.

But that is the last Resurrection; and so the soule hath part even in that last Resurrecti∣on; But we are in hand with the first Resurrection of the soule; and that is, when that soule, which was at first breath'd from God, and hath long suffered a banishment, a close imprisonment in this body, returnes to God againe; The returning of the soule to him,

from whom it proceeded at first, is a Resurrection of the soule. Here then especially, I feele the straitnesse of time; two considerations open themselves together, of such a largenesse, as all the time from Moses his In principio, when time began, to the Angels Affidavit, in this booke, That shall say and sweare, that time shall be no more, were too narrow to contemplate these two Hemispheares of Man, this Evening, and Morning of Mans everlasting day; The miseries of man, in this banishment, in this emprisonment, in this grave of the soule, the body, And the glory, and exaltation of that soule in her Re∣surrection to Heaven. That soule, which being borne free, is made a slave to this body, by comming to it; It must act, but what this body will give it leave to act, according to the Organs, which this body affords it; and if the body be lame in any limme, the soule must be lame in her operation, in that limme too; It must doe, but what the body will have it doe, and then it must suffer, whatsoever that body puts it to, or whatsoever any others will put that body to: If the body oppresse it selfe with Melancholy, the soule must be sad; and if other men oppresse the body with injury, the soule must be sad too; Consider, (it is too immense a thing to consider it) reflect but one thought, but upon this one thing in the soule, here, and hereafter, In her grave, the body, and in her Resur∣rection in Heaven; That is the knowledge of the soule.

Here saies S. Augustine, when the soule considers the things of this world, Non veri∣tate certior, sed consuetudine securior; She rests upon such things as she is not sure are true, but such as she sees, are ordinarily received and accepted for truths: so that the end of her knowledge is not Truth, but opinion, and the way, not Inquisition, but ease: But saies he, when she proceeds in this life, to search into heavenly things, Verberatur luce veritatis, The beames of that light are too strong for her, and they sink her, and cast her downe, Et ad familiaritatem tenebrarum suarum, non electione sed fatigatione convertitur; and so she returnes to her owne darknesse, because she is most familiar, and best acquainted with it; Non electione, not because she loves ignorance, but because she is weary of the trouble of seeking out the truth, and so swallowes even any Religion to escape the paine of deba∣ting, and disputing; and in this lazinesse she sleeps out her lease, her terme of life, in this death, in this grave, in this body.

But then in her Resurrection, her measure is enlarged, and filled at once; There she reads without spelling, and knowes without thinking, and concludes without arguing; she is at the end of her race, without running; In her triumph, without fighting; In her Haven, without sayling: A free-man, without any prentiship; at full yeares, without any ward∣ship; and a Doctor, without any proceeding: She knowes truly, and easily, and immediate∣ly, and entirely, and everlastingly; Nothing left out at first, nothing worne out at last, that conduces to her happinesse. What a death is this life? what a resurrection is this death? For though this world be a sea, yet (which is most strange) our Harbour is larger then the sea; Heaven infinitely larger then this world. For, though that be not true, which Origen is said to say, That at last all shall be saved, nor that evident, which Cyril of A∣lexandria saies, That without doubt the number of them that are saved, is far greater then of them that perish, yet surely the number of them, with whom we shall have com∣munion in Heaven, is greater then ever lived at once upon the face of the earth: And of those who lived in our time, how few did we know? and of those whom we did know, how few did we care much for? In Heaven we shall have Communion of Joy and Glory with all, alwaies; Vbi non intrat inimicus, nec amicus exit, Where never any man shall come in that loves us not, nor go from us that does.

Beloved, I thinke you could be content to heare, I could be content to speake of this Resurrection, our glorious state, by the low way of the grave, till God by that gate of earth, let us in at the other of precious Stones. And blessed and holy is he, who in a re∣ctified conscience desires that resurrection now. But we shall not depart far from this consideration, by departing into our last branch, or conclusion, That this first Resurrecti∣on may also be understood to be the first riser Christ Jesus; and Blessed and holy is he that hath part in that first Resurrection.

This first Resurrection is then without any detorting, any violence, very appliable to Christ himself, who was Primitiae dormientium, in that, that action, That he rosc again, he is become (sayes the Apostle) the first fruits of them that sleep: He did rise, and rise first; o∣thers rose with him, none before him: for S. Hierome taking the words as he finds them in that Euangelist, makes this note, That though the graves were opened, at the instant

of Christs death, (death was overcome, the City opened the gates) yet the bodies did not rise till after Christs Resurrection. For, for such Resurrections as are spoken of, That women received their dead raised to life again, and such as are recorded in the old and new Testament, they were all unperfect and temporary resurrections, such, as S. Hierome sayes of them all, Resurgebant iterum morituri; They were but reprieved, not pardoned; They had a Resurrection to life, but yet a Resurrection to another death. Christ is the first Resurrection; others were raised; but he only rose; they by a forraine, and ex∣trinsique, he by his owne power.

But we call him not the first, in that respect onely; for so he was not onely the first, but the onely; he alone arose by his owne power; but with relation to all our future Re∣surrections, he is the first Resurrection. First, If Christ be not raised, your faith is in vaine, saies the Apostle; You have a vaine faith if you beleeve in a dead man. He might be true Man, though he remained in death; but it concernes you to beleeve, that he was the Son of God too; And he was declared to be the Son of God, by the Resurrection from the dead. That was the declaration of himselfe, his Justification; he was justified by the Spi∣rit, when he was proved to be God, by raising himselfe. But thus our Justification is also in his Resurrection. For, He was raised from the dead, for our Iustification: how for ours? That we should be also in the likenesse of his Resurrection. What is that? that he hath told us before; Our Resurrection in Christ is, that we should walke in newnesse of life.

So that then Christ is the first Resurrection, first, Efficiently, the onely cause of his owne Resurrection; First, Meritoriously, the onely cause of our Resurrection; first, Ex∣emplarily, the onely patterne, how we should rise, and how we should walke, when we are up; and therefore, Blessed and happy are we, if we referre all our resurrections to this first Resurrection Christ Jesus. For as Iob said of Comforters, so miserable Resurrections are they all without him.

If therefore thou need and seeke this first Resurrection, in the first acceptation, a Re∣surrection from persecutions, and calamities, as they oppresse thee here, have thy re∣course to him, to Christ. Remember that at the death of Christ, there were earthquakes; the whole earth trembled; There were rendings of the Temple; Schismes, Convulsions, distractions in the Church will be: But then, the graves opened in the midst of those commotions; Then when thou thinkest thy selfe swallowed, and buried in affliction, as the Angell did his, Christ Jesus shall remove thy grave stone, and give thee a resur∣rection; but if thou thinke to remove it by thine owne wit, thine owne power, or the favour of potent Friends, Digitus Dei non est hic, The hand of God is not in all this, and the stone shall lye still upon thee, till thou putrifie into desperation, and thou shalt have no part in this first Resurrection.

If thou need, and seek this first resurrection, in the second acceptation, from the fearfull death of hainous sin, have thy recourse to him, to Christ Jesus, & remember the waight of the sins that lay upon him: All thy sins, and all thy Fathers, and all thy childrens sins, all those sins that did induce the first flood, and shall induce the last fire upon this world; All those sins, which that we might take example by them to scape them, are recorded, and which, lest we should take example by them, to imitate them, are left unrecorded; all sins, of all ages, all sexes, all places, al times, all callings, sins heavy in their substance, sins aggra∣vated by their circumstances, all kinds of sins, and all particular sins of every kind, were upon him, upon Christ Jesus; and yet he raised his holy Head, his royall Head, though under thornes, yet crowned with those thornes, and triumphed in this first Resurrecti∣on: and his body was not left in the Grave, nor his soule in Hell. Christs first tongue was a tongue that might be heard, He spoke to the Shepheards by Angels; His second tongue was a Star, a tongue which might be seene; He spoke to the Wisemen of the East by that. Hearken after him these two waies; As he speakes to thine eare, (and to thy soul, by it) in the preaching of his Word, as he speakes to thine eye, (and so to thy soule by that) in the exhibiting of his Sacraments: And thou shalt have thy part in this first Resur∣rection. But if thou thinke to overcome this death, this sense of sin, by diversions, by worldly delights, by mirth, and musique, and society, or by good works, with a con∣fidence of merit in them, or with a relation to God himselfe, but not as God hath mani∣fested himselfe to thee, not in Christ Jesus, The stone shall lye still upon thee, till thou putrifie into desperation, and then hast thou no part in this first Resurrection.

If thou desire this first Resurrection in the third acceptation, as S. Paul did, To be dis∣solved,

and to be with Christ, go Christs way to that also. He desired that glory that thou doest; and he could have laid down his soul when he would; but he staid his houre, sayes the Gospel. He could have ascended immediatly, immediatly in time, yet he staid to descend into hell first; and he could have ascended immediatly of himself, by going up, yet he staid till he was taken up. Thou hast no such power of thine own soul and life, not for the time, not for the means of comming to this first Resurrection by death; Stay therefore patiently, stay chearfully Gods leasure till he call; but not so over-chearfully, as to be loath to go when he cals. Reliefe in persecution by power, reconciliation in sin by grace, dissolution, and transmigration to heaven by death, are all within this first Resurrection: But that which is before them all, is Christ Jesus.

And therefore, as all that the naturall man promises himself without God, is impious, so all that we promise our selves, though by God, without Christ, is frivolous. God, who hath spoken to us by his Son, works upon us by his Son too; He was our Creati∣on, he was our Redemption, he is our Resurrection. And that man trades in the world without money, and goes out of the world without recommendation, that leaves out Christ Jesus. To be a good Morall man, and refer all to the law of Nature in our hearts, is but Diluculum, The dawning of the day; To be a godly man, and refer all to God, is but Crepusculum, A twylight; But the Meridionall brightnesse, the glorious noon, and heighth, is to be a Christian, to pretend to no spirituall, no temporall blessing, but for, and by, and through, and in our only Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus; for he is this first Resurrection, and Blessed and holy is he, that hath part in this first Resurrection.

Notes

• Divisio.
• Alcazar.
• August. & nostri.
• Ribera.
• 1. Part. From perse∣cution.
• Mat. 13.44.
• 2 Part. Apeccato.
• Aug.
• Grego:
• Esay 14.12.
• Ecclus. 38.1. V. 15.
• Acts 29.9.
• M••rs. Clem. Alex.
• Rom. 5.12.
• Apoc. 3.1.
• Iohn 5.25.
• August.
• Resurrectio.
• Cyril. Alex.
• Augus••.
• Ephes. 5.14. Esay ••0.1.
• Rom. 8.
• Aug.
• 3 Part.
• De ortho. sid. l. 4. c. ult.
• Aug.
• 4 Part.
• 1 Cor. 15.20. Hier. in Mat. 27.52.
• Heb. 11.35.
• Hier.
• 1 Cor. 15.17.
• Rom. 11.4.
• Rom. 4. ult.
• Rom. 6.4.