saw them. I believed that Christ was risen, before I saw the empty Sepulchre; and though (I thank God for it) I lost none of my faith at Jerusalem, yet I increased it not there. Si perverse vivas; live Christianly, or thou art as far from Christ in the Sepulchre, and from all benefit of his resurrection, as they that were hired to watch the Sepulchre, and to seal the Sepulchre to prevent the resurrection, or as if he that lay in the Sepulchre had never died. When we have remembered you of that which St. Chrysostom (of the same time with Jerome and Nyssen) says, that there were some so vain, as to go to Arabia to kiss that dunghill where Job sate to be visited by his impertinent friends, you have testimony enough, concurrence enough for the detestation of these hypocritical pilgrimages, and the manifold superstitions that grow from this tree; and grew to a far greater inexcusableness, when all was transferred to Rome, where both the indulgences were larger, and the pestilent infections of the place more contagious than at Jerusalem.

also

seen,

that you

Now, to bind up our sheaf, and lay it so upon you, may easily carry it, you have seen, that women, though weak, are capable of religious offices; no understanding so weak, but it may believe, no body so weak, but it may do something in some calling. You have seen too, that these women were early in their religious work, they begun betimes; we have but one parable that tells us, they that came late to the labour were as well rewarded as the earliest. So have you that as they were early and forward, so were they earnest, and sedulous; Cursed be he that doth the work of God (that is, any godly work) negligently. You have likewise seen upon what their devotion was carried; upon things which could not entirely be done; yet God accepted their devotion; where the root and substance of the work is piety, God pretermits many times errors in circumstance. You have heard the angel's information to them, non hic, that Christ was not there, and yet comfort in that; God raises comfort out of all things, even out of discomfort itself to the godly. You have heard the reason added, quia surrexit, for he is risen ; and if this be a good reason, there is no transubstantiation, no ubiquitism, for then Christ might have been there, though he were risen. He is risen, not only raised, and therefore the Son

of God; and risen for our justification, therefore we are risen in him. And this, Sicut dixit, As he had said before; no word is certain, not in the mouth of an angel, but as it is referred to the former word of God. And it is Sicut dixit vobis, As he had said to you; though all Scriptures be not proposed to all, and God's secret purposes proposed to none, yet the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith are proposed to all, the weakest of all, these women had heard Christ. Him, this angel calls the Lord, his Lord; how rebellious is that man of sin, that makes Christ his servant, and pretence of religion his instrument? He avows him to be the Lord, then when he lay dead in the grave; be truly a Christian, and in the grave of persecution, in the grave of putrefaction thou shalt retain the same name, and even thy dust shall be Christian dust. And lastly, for the establishment of their comfort, the angel directs them to consider the place, ecce locus, not to incline them to superstitious pilgrimages, but yet to a holy reverence, and estimation of places consecrated to God's service. And if these meditations have raised you from the bed of sin, in any holy purpose, this is one of your resurrections, and you have kept your Easter day well. To which, he, whose name is Amen, say Amen, our blessed Saviour Christ Jesus, in the power of his Father, and in the operation of his Spirit.

SERMON XXIV.

PREACHED UPON EASTER DAY.

1 THESS, iv. 17.

Then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord.

In this epistle, our apostle (according to his manner in all his epistles) first establishes those to whom he writes, in those matters of faith, in which he had formerly instructed them; and then,

rectifies them in matter of manners, of holiness of life, and the ways and fruits of sanctification. In this last part of this chapter, he involves, he wraps up both together; a fundamental point, the resurrection of the dead, and then, an instruction for manners arising out of that, that they mourn not intemperately for the dead, as they do, saith he, which have no hope of seeing them again, who are gone. For we know, that they which are gone, are gone but into another room of the same house, (this world, and the next, do but make up God a house) they are gone but into another pew of the same church, (the militant and the triumphant do but make up God a church.) If we believe that Jesus died, and rose again (says our apostle') even so, them also, which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him with him; for, howsoever they have lain ingloriously in the dust all this while, all this while they have been with God, and he shall bring them with him. But the Thessalonians were not so hard in believing the resurrection, as curious in inquiring the order of the resurrection. And as among the Corinthians some inquired de modo, How are the dead raised, and with what body do they come?

So among So among the Thessaorder, for precedency,

lonians some. inquired, de ordine, in what shall the last scene of this last act of man, be transacted? What difference between them that were dead thousands of years before, and them whom Christ shall find alive at his second coming?" Them the apostle satisfies; We that are alive, shall not prevent them that are asleep, we shall not enter into heaven before them; The dead in Christ shall first rise, says he; and then, (then enters our text) Then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall be ever with the Lord.

Then. When? This then in our text, is an apprehensive, and a comprehensive word. It reaches to, and lays hold upon that which the apostle says before the text, in the fifteenth and sixteenth verses. Then, when the dead in Christ are first risen, and risen by Christ's coming down from heaven, in clamour, in a shout, in the voice of the archangel, and in the trumpet of God, then, when that is done, We that are alive, and remain, shall be

1 Ver. 14.

1 Cor. xv. 35.

fwrought upon, and all being joined in one body, they, and we together, shall be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we be ever with the Lord. So that, in these words we shall have three things to consider, which will constitute three parts in this exercise. First, the raising of those that were dead before; secondly, the changing of them who are alive then; and lastly, our union in our exaltation, and possession of the kingdom of God, we, together with them, shall be caught up.

Neither of these three parts will be swallowed down in a generality; there must pass a mastication, a re-division into more particular branches upon them all. For, in the first, which the first word of our text, then, induces, which is the raising of them who were dead before, we shall consider first, that the dead are not forgotten, though they have dwelt long in the house of forgetfulness, nor lost, though they have lain long in the dust of dispersion, nor neglected, nor deferred, that others might be preferred before them, which shall be alive then, for, says the apostle, We shall not prevent them, but they shall rise first; how shall they rise? For that is also a second consideration, induced by our first word, then, then when they shall be raised in virtute Christi, in the power of Christ, for, says the text, The Lord himself shall descend from heaven to raise them. And how shall he exercise, how shall he execute, and declare his power in their raising? It shall be in clamour, with a shout, and in the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God. And in these three branches, that the dead shall rise first, that they shall rise in the power of Christ, that that power shall be thus expressed, In a shout, in the voice of the archangel, in the trumpet of God, we shall determine that first part. When that is done, and done so, we shall be wrought upon, We that are alive and remain then; where we shall first see, that some shall be alive, and remain then, when Christ comes, and then consider their state and condition, how they being then clothed with bodies of corruption shall be capable of that present entrance into glory; and in that disquisition we shall end our second part. And then, in our third and last part, the glorious union of these two armies, those which were dead, and those which are alive, we shall consider

first, that here is no mention at all, of any resurrection of the wicked, but only of them that sleep in Christ; they shall rise; and then, those that are to partake of this glory, are thus proceeded with; They are caught up; caught up in the clouds; exalted into the air; there to meet the Lord; and so to be with the Lord for ever. We shall be, and be with the Lord, and be with the Lord for ever; which are blessed and glorious gradations, if we may have time to insist upon them; which we may best hope for this day of all others; for, this day, we have two days in one. This day both God's sons arose; the sun of his firmament, and the Son of his bosom. And if one sun do set upon us, the other will stay, as long as our devotion last. God went not from Abraham, till Abraham had no more to say; no more will Christ from us.

First then, for our first branch of our first part, the rising of the dead, the first man that was laid in the dust of the earth, Abel, loses nothing by lying so long there; he loses nothing, that men of later ages gain; for, if we live to the coming of Christ to judgment, we shall not prevent them, we shall have no precedency of them, that were dead ages before. No man is superannuated in the grave, that he is too old to enter into heaven, where the Master of the house is The ancient of days. No man is bedrid with age in the grave, that he cannot rise. It is not with God, as it is with man; we do, but God does not forget the dead; and, as long as God is with them, they are with him. As he puts all thy tears into his bottles, so he puts all the grains of thy dust into his cabinet, and the winds that scatter, the waters that wash them away, carry them not out of his sight. He remembers that we are but dust; but dust then when we lie in

the grave; and yet he remembers us. But his memory goes farther than so, He remembers that we are but dust alive, at our best; They die, says David, and they return to their own dust". It is not an entering into a new state, when they die, but a returning to their old, They return to dust; and it is not to that dust which is cast upon them, in the grave, (for that may be another man's dust) but to that dust which they carried about

3 Gen. xviii. ult. 4 Psal. Lvi. 9.

5 Psal. ciii. 14.

6 Psal. civ. 29.