Exposition of the Apostles Creed, Part 2 · Sermon 21
Of Christs Resurrection.
Rom. 4.25.
Who was delivered for our offences, but raised again for our justification.
WHO is a Relative, and therefore in Grammer it must have an Antecedent; it hath so; It relates here to Jesus uur Lord; view him where you left him three dayes since, and you shall see him delivered to the Jews, to the Cross, to the Grave, Crucified, Dead and Buried; and this is the third day since that was done, which from that time to this, the whole Christian world hath and doth keep holy in memory that the Lord of life, being loosed from those fetters of death, rose as he had foretold.
That he was delivered, was a sad and heavy spectacle; that day is past, and I am past that, which was fit for that day, the day of his Passion, Death, Burial; I list not to repeat it. Now I shall present you with a more pleasing discourse; the Resurrection of Christ, which is the very matter of our hope; for when in the hour of death, Friends, Physitians, Wife, Children will all prove miserable comforters, this one word will revive our spirits; Christ is risen.
Two Points there are, that in the last Clause of this verse offer themselves to our consideration. 1. The Act. 2. The End.
1. The Act. Christ is raised.
2. The End. For our justification.
1. foreign, He was raised.
Which yet we must not so mistake, as if any other had raised him besides himself. For as Bernard, alios credimus resuscitatos, Christum resurrexisse. The Angels sermon to the women is,Mar. 16.6. He if risen; Elizeus restored a child; Peter Tabitha; but others, not themselves. The Saints which rose after the resurrection were patients while the act was done upon them;2 Reg. 4.35, 36. Act. 9.40. whereas Christ rose not virtute aliena & precaria, but propriâ, not by other or any precarious, but by his own might and power. Power he had to lay down his life, Joh. 10.18. Joh. 2.19.and power to take it again: and therefore he bade the Jews, Destroy, &c. but know yet, that I will raise it.
The Scripture I know speaks sometimes passively, He is raised; sometimes actively, He rose. And that you marvel not at it, St. Paul hath lent us a distinction to remove the scruple; He was crucified through weakness, but he lives by the powor of God. 2 Cor. 13.4.Christ was an extraordinary person, composed of two Natures, God and Man, and therefore he did participate of the properties of both. What so proper to man as weakness? what so peculiar to God as power? He was then a weak man, and a powerful God; as he was crucified, so he was weak; but as he rose to life, so he was powerful. His Deity was never parted from his Humanity, no not when his body lay breathless in the grave. The body is lay'd in the grave, the soul is resigned; the God is eternally united to them both without any possibility of divorce. The soul in his agony feels not the presence of the Godhead; the body in the grave feels not the presence of the soul;Concil. Chalced. yet as the Fathers of Chalcedon say truely, foreign, indivisibly, unseparably is the Godhead with both these still, and ever one and the same person: He was then raised, and yet did rise: The power of his Godhead did raise the weakness of his Manhood from those uncomfortable sorrows of the grave. He riseth as God, and is raised as man. Deitas quae ab utrâque hominis substantiâ non recessit, Leo. Ser. 1. de Resur.quod potestate divisit, potestate conjunxit; The Deity which never departed from his body nor soul, what it divided by power, conjoyned again by the same power.
2. And how easie might this be, since his Grave was but his Bed? thither he went to take his rest, and when he had slept there, he prefixed time, he rose from thence, according to the Prophesie that went of him, I laid m… down and slept, Psal. 4. ult.and rose again, for thou Lord makest we dwell in safety. When he was to dye, no man took his life from him, for he gave up the ghost, foreign,Joh. 19.30. he gave it up. Quis quando vult tam facili dormit? he dyed as easily as we go to sleep, and therefore raised himself more easily than we wake. As the Passion of Christ was, as I may so say, the sleep of his Deity, so also the death of Christ was the sleep of his Humanity.
Two priviledges belong to sleepers. One is Incorruption; The other is hope of Resuscitation, In those that sleep, though Morpheus binds all the senses, and restrains their operations, yet in sleep there is an immunity from corruption. For when this sister of death is pleased to unloose her bonds, every sence and part is in the self same integrity, if not better than what it was when we lay down. Thus was it with our Saviour; he lay'd himself down to rest in his grave indeed,Psal. 88.5. but he was free among the dead; he had a liberty that never any dead man had besides himself. For whereas other dead bodies are resolv'd into dust, God would not suffer his holy one to see corruption. He rose as entire from the bed of his grave as when he lay down: Otherwise death should have had dominion in part over him.
The second priviledge is Resuscitation. Men go to bed with a purpose to rise again; so did our Saviour go to his grave, not to lye there beyond a set time, but when he had sweetned and perfumed that bed for us, to take his leave, and return to life. For
2. foreign. He was raised.
And that Christ is again risen from the dead, there is evidence enough to perswade any man, except him who is possest with obstinacy, and the spirit of conrradiction. The books are open; and if ether the Praedictions of the Prophets, the witness of Angels, his own Apparitions, the opening of the graves after he rose, the malicious tales of his very enemies, the testimonies of many men and women, the valour and constancy of those who dyed for the witness of it, the multitude of those who quickly embraced and believed it will satisfie, he that runs may read and hear enough to confirm him in this truth. Et quid testium satis, si non hoc satis? Heb. 12.1.And if this cloud of witnesses be not enough, men deserve to be under a cloud of error still.
1. First, what evident Praedictions are there of our Saviours resurrection, both by others, and himself! His holy Ptophets foretold it, Job was assured of it;Job. 19.15. Psal. 16.10. I know that my Redeemer liveth. David saith it plainly, Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither shalt thou suffer thy holy One to see corruption. Isaiah foretelleth it, He was taken from prison, and from judgement. Jonah was a Type of it; and the Prophet Hosea confidently avoucheth it;Isa. 53.8. Matth. 12.40. Hos. 6.2. He shall quicken us again after two dayes, in the third he shall raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
Thus much was promised and hoped for by the Prophets before his appearance in the flesh, and while he lived he averred as much. How often did he tell his Disciples that he should go to Jerusalem, be crucified;Matt. 20.19. and that he would rise again the third day? he plainly did affirm to the faces of his greatest enemies, that if they destroyed, the …emple of his body he meant,Joh. 2.19. he would raise it up again in three dayes. The incredulous Jews would needs have from him a sign, and none they should have, and none he would yield to,Mat. 12.40. but that of Jonah; three dayes the Prophet in the whales belly, and he three dayes only in the heart of the earth. Had he assigned some long time for his return from death to life (as Mahomet promised his Sarracens after 800. years) the falshood might have been hid by length of time. But taking no longer to make good his promise then three dayes, 'tis evident he meant to perform; for otherwise the fraud would soon have been detected. And it seems that his intentions and promises were well enough known, not only to his friends, but even to the Jews his enemies.Matth. 27.63. Why is it else that they presse Pilate, and put him in mind of his words? Sir, we remember that this deceiver, (so they blasphemed) said, while he was yet alive, after three dayes I will rise again; they could you see, call it to mind and remember it. Et ut praedixit, sic revixit; he gave warning that it should be so, and he fulfilled it. Come hither thou malicious Jew, and see how thou art taken in thine own snare! Why dost thou with so much diligence secure the Tomb?Ver 64, 65. Christ will prove to thee a deceiver indeed, sed pius non malitiosus; deceive thee he will, but out of power and love, not out of malice and cunning. For all thy seals, and stone, and watch, deceive thee he will; for he will rise as he foretold. Where's the man that but now said, if he would come down from the Cross,Ver. 42. he would believe in him! for whether is it a greater miracle for a living man to descend from a tree, or for a dead man to descend from a grave? Behold, the Sepulchre is open, you may stoop down and enter if you please, but there you shall not find him, for he is risen as he said.
2. He had said it, and at that time two Angels came from Heaven to witness that he said true; so is the Text, As Mary stooped into the Sepulchre she saw two Angels in white sitting, Joh. 20.12.the one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had layn. Their words, their place, their habits, their site, their order are all ample testimonies of the resurrection.
Luk. 24.5.Their words were reprehensive, Why seek ye the living among the dead? every thing is to be sought in its proper place; and a grave is no proper place for a living man. Oh you devout women, carry back those sweet Odours which you prepar'd for your Masters body; for your and our Lord lyes not here dead, but doth triumph in life. Let your eyes be your judges, Come and see the place where your Lord lay: Mat. 28 6.He lay there, but now we sit here to witness that he is gone.
For what have Angels else to do in a grave? for to see those immortal spirits in the house of the dead, was but a strange sight a sight never seen before; never till Christs body had been there; this the first news of Angels in such a place. Blessed Angels never but in a blessed place: And such was this since Christ lay there, even this house of death blessed. There was a voice heard from Heaven,Rev. 14.13. Psal. 116.15. Blessed are the dead; precious the death, glorious the memory of those who dye in the Lord. 'Tis not then without a great mystery, that the Angels descend and sit here, that that should be the place for Angels, that was the place for worms: Their errand is to declare, that their Lord as well as ours is risen from the grave, and upon it a great change was like to ensue in that place,Rom. 6.9. to wit, That death should no more have dominion over him, nor over his.
And as the place in which they were, so also the colour in which they appear'd, was an evidence of this. I suspect, shou…d a man have seen an Angel upon the day of Christs passion, he should have seen him in a black mourning weed: the habit which the Sun wore that day for three hours, makes me judge so: But this of white is a fit Easter-day colour,Matth. 27.45. for it is the colour of those that must rise to glory;Rev. 3.4, 5. Mar. 9.3. Greg. Hom. 21. whom therefore Tertullian calls resurrectionis Candidati. Which when Christ would represent on the Mount; His rayment was all white, no Fuller on earth could come near it. Candida Angelorum stola, resurrectionis gaudia demonstrat: The Angels white stole, puts us in mind of those whi…e robes, in which the Saints at their rising shall walk.
Farther yet, their sight was a position well beseeming the resurrection; for they were sate to take their rest, as we ordinarily say, Sit down and rest: Such is a grave now become to Gods servants, a place of rest; of rest, not from our labours only,Psal. 16.9. so the beasts rest when they dye; but as the Psalmist, a rest in hope; hope of rising again to the members, by vertue of the head, whom the Angel said was risen,Matth. 8.11. and hope to enter into the rest above, And sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God.
Lastly, the Angels order in sitting is not without a Mystery, one at the head, the other at the feet; Such a thing there will be at the resurrection of the just; difference of places,Matth. 25.33. 1 Cor. 15.41, 42. difference of glory then, some set on the right hand, and some on the left in his kingdom; All shall have glory enough, though not all an equal degree of glory.
3. But that which exceeds all testimony of Angels, was the frequent manifestation of himself after he was alive to his appall'd,Mar. 16.9. Mat. 28.9. 1 Cor. 15.5. Luk. 24.13. Mat. 28.16. 1 Cor. 15.6. dismay'd, forlorn, afflicted followers. This he did twelve several times; First to Mary Magdalen apart, then to the other women with her, after to his Disciples, sometimes to one or two alone, sometimes to the whole body together, and at last to five hundred brethren at once; all which apparitions are able to resolve any spirit that sets not himself on purpose to resist the truth.Matth. 27.52, 53. Joh. 20.26. Act. 10.41. I had almost said he appeared to the dead; sure I am his power did; for after his resurrection, many of the bodies of the Saints ar se and came into the holy City, and appeared to many. The women saw him, the men touch him; one puts his fingers into his wounds; he eat, he drank, he conversed with his Disciples often, and for many dayes; why then should any man deny that he is risen? Of which St. Luke, Luk. 1.2. 1 Joh. 1.1.and Saint John were so confident, that the one writes, That which we have heard and seen, we deliver unto you; and the other, That which we have looked on, and our hands have handled of the Word of life, that we declare. Credible facit videntium certitudo: In a matter of fact can there be any testimony surer than his who is an eye witness? These they were, and that their witness be the less doubted, they were not credulous men, easie of belief, such as would take up any thing and report it at the first bound: But slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets had spoken.Luk. 24.25. Never was matter carried on with more scruple and slowness of belief, with more doubts and difficulties (I mean not by the world, but by the Disciples themselves) than this of Christs Resurrection.Mar. 16.11, 13 Mary Magdalen saw him alive, and reported it, but they believed her not; the two that went to Emmaus saw him and reported it,Luk. 24.11. them they believed not neither; divers women together saw him, and came and told his Disciples, but their words seemed unto them foreign a very gossips tale; they all saw him,41. Joh. 20.21. and yet seeing him they doubted. When they were put but of doubt, and told it to one that was absent, Thomas by name, 'tis known what his stifness and peremptoriness was: He believe it? no not he, he would believe ner'e a one of them all, except he might not only see with his eyes, but feel with his fingers, and put his hand into his side, he would not believe. The testimonies of so many eye-witnesses, so cautelous, so wary, so incredulous till confirm'd, makes the matter past all doubt. And this their suspence was profitable to posterity, for dubetatum est ab illis, ne dubitaretur à nobis; God suffer'd them to doubt, that we hereafter should never doubt more of it: their incredulity so dispelled should confirm our faith.
4. Long it was you see before they believed; but they were not so incredulous before, as confident now: they averr'd it boldly and, unanimously before the whole world: Dye they would rather than deny it, nay dye they would rather then they would be silent, and not publish it; commanded they were to the contrary; had they but he'd their tongue all had been well,Act. 4.18. but this they would not do: foreign, Be it known unto you, saith Peter, that Jesus of Nazareth whom ye have crucified, is by God raised from the dead. 10.And what got they by being so forward? nay, what did they not lose? Their life, their liberty, their Country, their livelyhood, all they had to lose; all they might have sav'd, and said nothing; but their mouth could not be stopt, even to the last drop of blood, to the last gaspe they expired with this Article, Jesus is ris n. Credibile facit morientium fortitudo. The courage of them who died for his Name, may make an infidel believe it: tell me what comfort had it been to these men to have devised all this? what encouragement could they have had in those doleful afflictions in a manifest untruth? Their sorrow would have been the greater, their constancy the lesse, when their own heart should have given their tongue the lye. That then they thus persisted in it, that unanimouslly, not one, but all, and persisted ro death, is an argument beyond controle.Act. 3.6, 7. Act. 5.16. and 8.7. and 16.18. Act. 2.13. Matt. 26.73: Act. 6.7. Act. 19.19.
5. But to proceed; By whose power was it that they cast out Divels; by whose power was it that the… healed the Criple; by whose power was it that they who were un…etterd men, that could speak but one language, and scarce that well, should convert so many Priests, so many Philosophers and wise men to the Faith? It is a senseless thing to say, that a dead man should have the power to move and stir in the hearts of the living; that a Jew or a Grecian should forsake his old religion, and casting away his gods, worship one that was crucified, is beyond belief, had the evidence been to be contradicted. Who will ever believe, that a man forsaken of life, and able to do nothing, should be able to hinder, or alter the actions of living and active men? And yet thus it fell out, By the testimonies of those poor men bearing witness to the world, that Christ was risen; the adulterer left his adulteries, the murtherer his cruelties;Plutarch. nay, which is beyond all reason, the feigned gods of those times forsook their Te…ples and Oracles, the devils having no longer power to delude the world with their ambiguous answers.
Hear, O you despisers, and wonder! How could the ashes of a dead man ever prevail so much with the living, that upon the confidence of life therein contained, they should willingly forego wife, children, goods, good name, and life it self, with such alacrity and magnanimity, that their enemies held it for a ruled and resolved case? there is no Christian living that feareth death. This strange alteration in the world, these silly men could not have effected, had their witness been any way loose or controlable; for force they had none to do it. I read not of any one of the Apostles that went to preach with a sword by his side; That's for Mahomet and his followers.
Farther yet, they to whom they preached this Truth, were no Babes; the Cities where they delivered it no obscure places. Rome was caput orbis, gentiumque; the Queen of Nations; Corinth among the great Mart-Towns of Europe; Athens the famous School and Seminary of Learning; Eph…sus well known and frequented for the great Deity of Diana. In these places were the wisest men for Counel, the subtilest for traffique, the wittiest for disputes; and the most accomplisht for their irreligious mysteries. Here, if any where, these poor silly men, tha… believed in a crucified God, whom they reported to be alive, were most likely to find contradictions and opponents, and yet so confident they were of this Truth▪Act. 19.19. Act. 17.17. that Jesus was risen, that they durst publish it in their Schools, in the Synagogues, in the streets.
And the success of this their declaration, is an evident argrment of the Truth, that without any humane motives (for what could they promise, or did they, except poverty, scorn, contempt, afflictions) whole Nations quickly were of their judgement. Had it been otherwise, to what purpose had it been for Saint Paul to have written Epistles to the Churches of Rome, of Corinth, of Ephesus? 1 Pet. 1.1.&c. Why did the other Apostles write to the dispersed in Asia, had not they, to whom they wrote, been convinced in their consciences, that what they wrote, was true?
It is the fashion of such as publish an untruth, to betake themselves to some obscure place first, where when they have gained upon the ignorant, then they attempt farther.Alcoran. So Mahomet sowed his blasphemous seeds at a poor obscure village in Arabia. 'Tis known too well what stuffe hath come out of Conventicles; but as Christ rose or Hierusalem, which was the City of the great King,Psal. 48.2. Luc. 24.47. the glory and joy of the whole earth; so also was this doctrine published first at Hierusalem, where the contradiction it found was by the invention of a senseless, incredible and notorious lye. Well therefore hath Calvin observed, as the friends and followers of Christ were preachers of his Resurrection, moriendo, by dying; so also his enemies became proclaimers thereof, vel tacendo, vel mentiendo; the Grecians by their silence, and the Jews by reporting an incredible tale about it.
6. This grand lye was first invented by their Rulers, and after broached by the Souldiers,Mat. 28.12, 13. and this it was, That his disciples came by night and st…le him away while they slept; but what likelihood or possibility can there be in this? do not they who raised the slander, shew themselves the starkest fool…, even in that they purpose to shew their wisdom. Was there not caution and provision enough before hand?Mat. 26.65, 66. Marc. 15.46. was there not a great stone rolled to the mouth of the grave? a seal set upon the stone? and a watch appointed to attend the sepulchre? What probabiliy then was there, that his disciples should come thither, break up the monument, take away the body, and carry it away, never more to be seen or found without the espial of some one or other that attended there? The stone was so grear, that it could not be carried, rolled it was to the mouth of the sepulcher, nothing was like to remove it but some engine; and yet amidst all this heaving and shoving, not a souldier there could observe or hear it!
But youl say they were asleep; rather you should say they were dead,Mat. 26.2. especially the ground shaking and tottering under them by the earthquake. But 'tis strange, that among a guard relieved at set hours, every one of them should be so careless, every eye so heavy; one or two might sleep, but that all should be fast, is miraculous. But grant that it was so, all asleep; The Jews were put to it for a witness, that bring in sleepers, as if such could report what they knew not; would you not deride that man that should bring to the bar a witness to relate what was done while he slept? It is Augustins dil…mma, O mali, Aug. 36. Hom. in Joan.O pessimi; O evil, O wicked fellows, either you were awake, and then you ought to have taken better heed, or else you were asleep, and then knew not what was done; how did you know that they were his disciples, who came and stole him away, rather than any other?
Stands it with reason, that a few, dismayed, heartless men, so afraid,Mat. 26.56. that they fled and left him, while he was yet alive, should on a suddain grow so couragious, as to venture upon a guard of souldiers, and steal a dead body, which to them could bring no profit and less comfort, but serve onelyonly to encrease their grief and sorrow?
Lastly, had they come to have stollen him, who will ever believe, that among a guard they would have staid so long as to unwinde his body,Tertull. Joh. 20.7. loose his feet, unbind his head, and dispose of these exuvias sepulti, these fine linnen cloths in several places! a thief would not have discovered so much folly, as to have been so curious about trifles, stood stripping, and wrapping, and laying them by parcels one by one; he rather would have taken away the whole with him, and disrobed it after; which the Christian Poet Sedulius hath thus excellently expressed:
—Anne beati
Corporis oblator, v…locius esse putavit
Solvere contectum, quam devectare ligatum,
Cum mora sit furtis contraria? Cautius ergo
Cum domino potuere magis sua lintea tolli.
And therefore Pilate the Governor considering what was done, and that it was unlikely that if the body were stollen, it should be taken away without the privity of the guard, calls the souldiers to him, and understood by them the whole Truth. All which and much more of Jesus life and death he wrote to Rome to Tiberius; which information the Emperor receiving, moved in the Senate, that Jesus should be reckoned among their Gods. But the Senators dissenting, he gave license to all to believe in Christ that would, and forbad any Officer or other to molest any one that bare a good affection, zeal, or reverence to that name. Thus much Tertullian testifieth of his own knowledge, who lived 180. years afters Christ; and with him agree Egesippius, Euseb…us, Tertull. Apolog. c. 5. & 21.Ruffin, Nicephorus, Orosius; neither ought this seem so strange, when Josephus, who was young when these things were done, and wrote his history yet extant,Joseph. Antiq. lib. 14. cap. 4. about fourty years after Christ, being no Christian, but a Jew, for ought we know, hath thus written; Christ appeared to them, that is, his disciples, again the third day, his life being assumed.
7. But why do I fight against an unworthy falshood with humane reason, when God gave the very Dead life, and a tongue to testifie that his Son was risen!Mat. 27.53. For after Christs resurrection, many bodies of the Saints, which slept arose, and came out of their graves, and went into the Holy City and appeared to many.1 Cor. 15.20, 23. Joh. 11.44. 2 Reg. 13.21. This was after his resurrection, to shew that he was the first fruits from the Dead; he rose first, they after by his power. When Lazarus was raised, did any other accompany him? when the man was revived by the Prophets bones, did the other graves thereby open, and set at liberty their prisoners? What power ever before this time, or since, hath caused those walls of earth to gape, and split, and redeliver many of her dead at one time? Were there no other argument to prove that Christ was risen, then the reuniting again of these good souls to their cold deaded bodies; yet this one were enough, for the witnesses were holy, and many, Saints, and a multitude of Saints. If Dives thought a Sermon preached by the mouth but of one from the dead, were more effectual for the conversion of his five brethren to repentance,Luc. 16.30. then all the perswasions of Moses and the Prophets: how powerful then should be the tongue of Saints, of many Saints, of many Saints arising at once from the Dead be to perswade men, that Christ is risen?
To collect all, If Angels, men, women, strangers, disciples, frieads, foes, a whole cloud of witnesses: if the emptying of the sepulcher, and leaving the linnen cloths; if the amazement of the watch, subornation of the high Priests and Elders; if the letter of Pilate to Tiberius; if the sending down of the Holy Ghost; if the gifts then and after given; if the miracles wrought in Christs name; if the suddain and miraculous conversion of the world; if preaching, living, and dying in that belief be enough to beget credit: Then Christ is risen from the dead, and now he dyeth no more; death hath no more dominion over him; Rom. 6.9.rather he hath dominion over death; For he is alive, but was dead, Rev. 1.18.and behold he is alive for evermore, Amen: And he hath the keys of Hell and death.
Some man may perchance marveil why I have been so punctual to prove an Article of Faith? Before I be condemned, hear my Apology. First, I have done in it respect of Christs enemies that thereby the mouths of all contradictors might be stopt; and there can be no exception taken against this relation, which will not be as strong to prejudice any Narrative of any matter of fact though never so manifest, which a man hath not seen with his own eyes; to which let a man give way, and a man may almost deny any thing, but the Sun shines. Next, I have taken this pains for the comfort of Christians, because upon the resurrection of Christ depends our chief happiness. For if Christ be not risen,1 Cor. 15.17. our faith is vain, we are yet in our sin.
This is that which Saint Paul in his answer to Agrippa called the hope of the fathers,Act. 26.6. Rev. 14.12. 1 Cor. 15.14. Psal. 58.5. and I may say as properly it is the patience and faith of the Saints; without this our preaching is vain; If Christ be not risen, pull down Temples, destroy your Churches, burn the writings of the Prophets and Apostles, stop your ears at the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely; praise the living more then the dead in the Lord; and practice that Epicurean lesson, Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dye: 1 Cor. 15.32.For as in every action the vertue that moveth the Agent to undertake it, is the hope of good to come; Virtus agendi spes futuri: He that soweth, soweth to reap; and he that fights, fights for victory. So take the hope of the resurrection (which depends upon this of Christs) and all the conscience and care of godliness will fall to the ground. That therefore your faith should be stronger, your hope better assured, and your alacrity in the way of godliness more quick and spriteful and better confirmed, I have laid this for a foundation, that Christ is risen, and proved it I hope very evidently and sufficiently.
The benefits you reap thereby, are so many, and so important, that I will take the next hour to recount them; till then I entreat you,1 Cor. 15. ult. that you would comfort one another with these words, that you would be stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, Col. 3.4.forasmuch as you know your labor is not in vain in the Lord; For when Christ who is your life, shall appear, then also shall you appear with him in glory.