The Sinners Sanctuary, Sermon 31
SERMON XXXI.
Rom. 8.11.
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead, &c.
AS there is a twofold death, the death of the soul, and the death of the body; so there is a double resurrection, the resurrection of the soul from the power of sin, and the resurrection of the body from the grave: as the first death is that which is spiritual, then that which is bodily; so the first resurrection is of the Spirit, then the second of the body, and these two have a connexion together, therefore saith the Apostle Iohn, Blessed are they who have part in the first resurrection, for on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be Priests to God, &c. Rom. 20.6. Although death must … their bodies, yet the sting wherein the strength of it lyes, is taken away by Christ, that it hath no power to hurt him whose spirit is raised out of the grave of sin: and truly it is hard to tell which is the greatest change, or the most dificult to raise, a Body out of corruption to life, or to to raise a Soul out of sin to grace. But both are the greatest changes that can be, and shadowed out under the similitude of the greatest in nature, for our conversion to God is a new birth, a new creation, and a resurrection in Scripture style; and so both require one and the same power, the almighty power of his Spirit, you who were dead in sin hath He quickned, &c. O what a notable change! it maketh them no longer the same men, but new creatures; and therefore it is the death of sin, and the resurrection of the soul: for as long as it is under the chains of darknesse, and power of sin, it is free among the dead, it is buried in the vilest sepulchre: old graves, and these full of rottennesse and dead mens bones, are nothing to …xpresse the lamentable case of such a soul; and yet such are all by nature: whatsoever excellency or endowment men have from their birth or education, yet certainly they are but apparitions rather then any real substance, and which is worse, their bodies is the sepulchre of their souls, and if the corruption of a soul were sensible, we would think all the putrifactions of bodily things but shadows of it. And therefore no sooner is there any inward life begotten in a soul, but this is the very fi…st exercise of it, the abhorrency of the soul upon the sight and smell of its own loathsomnesse.
Now, there is no hope of any reviving, though all the wisdom and art of men and Angels were imployed in this businesse, there is nothing able to quicken one such soul, untill it please the Lord to speak such a word as he did to Lazarus, Arise, come forth, and send his Spirit to accomplish his word, and this will do it: when the Spirit cometh into the soul, he quickeneth it, and this is the first …esurrection: O blessed are they who have part in this! whose souls are drawen out of the dungeon of darknesse and ignorance, and brought …orth to behold this glorious light that shineth in the Gospel, and raised out of the grave of the lusts of ignorance, to live …nto God henceforth; for such they have their part in the second resurrection to life, for you see these are conjoyned, If the Spirit dwell in you, He shall raise you, &c. You see here two grounds and reasons of the resurrection of the body, Christs rising, and the Spirits indwelling; now I find these in Scripture made the two fountains of all Christianity, both of the fi…st and second resurrection.
The …esurrection of Christ is an evidence of our Justification, the the cause of our quickening or vivification, and the ground and pledge of our last resurrection: and all these are grounds of strong consolation. The first you have, Rom. 4.25. Christ died for our sins, and rose for our Iustification, and the vers. 34. of this Chap. Christ is dead, yea rather that is risen again; who then shall condemn? Here is a clear evidence that He hath payed the debt wholly, and satisfied Justice fully: since He was under the power of death, imprisoned by Justice, certainly he would not have won free, if he had not payed the uttermost farthing; therefore his glorious resurrection is a sure manifestation of his present satisfaction, it is a publick acquittance and absolution of him from all our debt, and so by consequence duplicate page duplicate page of all he died for; for their debt was laid upon him, and now He is discharged, and therefore the believing soul may tremblingly boast, who shall condemn me! for it is God that justifieth. Why? because all my sins were laid on Christ, and God hath in a most solemn manner acquited and discharged him from all, when he raised him from the dead; and therefore he cannot, and none other can sue me, or prosecute a plea against me, since my Cautioner is fully exonered of this undertaking, even by the great Creditor, God himself. But then, his resurrection is a pawn or pledge of the spiritual raising of the soul from sin: as the death of Christ is made the pledge of our dying to sin, so his rising, of our living to God, Rom. 6.4, 5. These are not meer paterns and examples of spiritual things, but assured pledges of that divine vertue and power which he being raised again should send abroad throughout the world: for as there are Coronation-gifts, when Kings are solemnly installed in office, so there are Coronation-mercies, triumphal gifts, when Christ rose and ascended, he bestowed then on the world, Eph. 4. And certainly these are the greatest, the vertue of his death to kill the old man, and the power of his resurrection to quicken the new; and by faith, a believer is united and ingra…ted into him, as a plant into a choice stock, and by vertue and sap coming from Christs death and resurrection, he is transformed into the similitude of both: he groweth into the likenesse of his death, by dying to sin, by crucifying these inward affections and inclinations to it; and he groweth up into the similitude of his resurrection, by newnesse of life, or being alive to God, in holy desires and endeavours after holinesse …nd obedience. And thus the first resurrection of the soul floweth from Christs resurrection.
But add unto this, that Christs rising is the pledge and pawn of the second resurrection that is of the body; for He is the head, and we the members; now it is most incongruous that the head should rise and not draw up the members after him, certainly he will not cease till He have drawen up all his mem…ers to him: if the head be above water, it is a sure pledge that the body will win out of the water; if the root be alive, certainly the branches will shoot out in Spring-time, they shall live also. There is that connexion betwixt Christ and believers, that wonderful communication between them, that Christ did nothing, was nothing, and had nothing done to him, but what He did, and was, and sufferd personating them, and all the benefi…e and advantage redounds to them. He would not be considered of us as a person by himself, but would rather be still taken in with the children: as for love, he came down and took flesh to be like them, and did take their sin and misery off them, and so was content to be looked upon by God as in the place of sinners, as the chief sinner; so he is content and desirous that we should look on him as in the place of sinners, as dying, as rising for us, as having no excellency or privelege incommunicable to us: And this was not hid from the Church of old, but presented as the grand consolation, Thy dead men shall live, …ogether with my dead body they shall rise: and therefore may poor souls awake and sing, though they must dwell in the dust, yet as the dew and influence of Heaven maketh herbs to spring out of the earth, so the vertue of this resurrection shall make the earth and sea and air to cast out and render their dead, Isa. 26.19. Upon what a sure and strong chain hangs the salvation of poor sinners! I wish Christians might salute one another with this, Christ is risen, and so comfort one another with these words; or rather, that every one would apply this cordial to his own heart, Christ is risen: and you know what a golden chain this draweth after it, therefore we must rise and live.
The other cause which is more immediat, and will actively accomplish it, is the Spirit dwelling in us; for there is a suitable method here too: as the Lord first raised the Head Christ, and will then raise the Members, and he that doth the one cannot but do the other; so the Spirit first raiseth the soul from that woful fall into sin which killed us, and so maketh it a Temple, and the body too, for both are bought with a price, and therefore the Spirit possesseth both: but the inmost residence is in the soul, and the bodily members are made servants of righteousness, which is a great honour and dignity, in regard of that base imployment 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 Ghost, therefore it will be repaired and built again, for he that once honoured it with his presence, will not suffer corruption alwayes to dwell in it: for what Christ by his humiliation and suffering purchased, the Spirit hath this Commission to perform it▪ a…d what is it but the restitution of mankind to an happier estate in the second Adam,then 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 humane 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; therefore the Spirit of Christ will also quicken the mortal bodies of believers, and make them like Christs glorious body.
This must be done with divine power, and what more powerful then the Spirit? for it is the spirits or subtil 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 it elegantly expressed, Psal. 107. and doth not the grains of seed die in the …lods, be…ore they rise to the harvest, 1 Cor. 15. 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 infinit distance and difference in the nature and ends o… their resurrections! there is the resurrection of life, and the resurrection of condemnation, Joh. 5.29. 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 immortality of the souls was infinit misery, because it is that which eternizes their misery; but when this overplus is added, the incorruptibility of the body, and so the whole man made an inconsumable subject for that fire to seed upon perpetually, what heart can conceive it without horrour! and yet we hear it often without any such affection. It is a strange life, that death is the only refreshment of it; and yet this may not be had, they shall seek death, and it shall flee from them. Now, my beloved, I would desire this discourse might open way for the hearty and cordial intertainment of the Gospel, and that you might be perswaded to awake unto righteousness, and sin no more, 1 Cor. 15.34. Be not deceived, my brethren, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Certainly if you have no other image then what you came in the world withall, you cannot have this hope to be conformed one day to the glorious Body of Christ: What will become of you in that day, who declare now by the continued vent of your hearts, that this holy Spirit dwells not in you? and alas, how many are such? Oh pity your selves! your souls and bodies both. If for love to your bodies, ye will follow its present lusts, and care only for the things of the body, you act the greatest enmity and hostility against your own bodies. Consider, I beseech you, the eternal state of both, and your care and study will run in another channel. And for you who have any working of the Spirit in you, whether convicing you of sin and misery, and of righteousness in Christ; or sometimes comforting you by the word applyed to your heart; or teaching you another way then the world walks into, I recommend unto you that of the Apostles, 1 Cor. 15.58. Wherefore my brethren, be stedfast, &c. alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing your Labour is not in vain.