I need not fear, but that as oft as I eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood,' I shall effectually obtain the pardon and remission of my sins, the sanctifying influences of his Holy Spirit, and a certain interest in the kingdom of glory.” See further, Treatise of the Sacrament.

ARTICLE XI.

I believe that after a short separation, my soul and body shall be united together again, in order to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, and be finally sentenced according to my deserts.

I KNOW this body, which, for the present, I am tied to, is nothing else but a piece of clay, made up into the frame and fashion of man; and therefore, as it was first taken from the dust, so shall it return to dust again: but then I believe, on the other hand, that it shall be as really raised from the earth, as ever it shall be carried to it; yea, though perhaps it may go through a hundred, or a thousand changes, before that day come. There are, I confess, some points in this article, which are hardly to be solved by human reason; but, I believe, there are none so difficult, but what may be reconciled by a divine faith: though it be too hard for me to know, yet it is not too hard for God to do. He that should have told me some years ago, that my body then was, or should be a mixture of particles fetched from so many parts of the world, and undergo so many changes and alterations, as to be

come in a manner new, should scarce have extorted the belief of it from me, though now I perceive it to be a real truth; the meats, fruits, and spices, which we eat, being transported from several different places and nations, and, by natural digestion, transfused into the constitution of the body. And why should not I believe, that the same almighty power, who made these several beings or particles of matter, by which I am fed and sustained, can as easily, with his word, recall each particle again from the most secret or remote place that it can possibly be transported to? Or, that he who framed me out of the dust, can with as much ease gather all the scattered parts of the body, and put them together again, as he at first formed them into such a shape, and infused into it a spiritual being.

And this article of my faith, I believe, is not only grounded upon, but may, even by the force of reason, be deduced from, the principles of justice and equity; justice requiring that they who are co-partners in vice and virtue, should be co-partners also in punishments and rewards. There is scarce a sin a man commits, but his body hath a share in it; for though the sin committed would not be a sin without the soul, yet it could not be committed without the body; the sinfulness of it depends upon the former, but the commission of it may lawfully be charged upon the latter: the body could not sin, if the soul did not consent; nor could the soul sin, especially so oft, if the body did not tempt to it. And this is particularly observable in the sins of adultery, drunkenness and gluttony, which the soul of itself cannot commit, neither would it ever consent unto them, did not the prevalent humours of the body, as it were, force it to

do so. For in these sins, the act that is sinful is wholly performed by the body, though the foulness of that act doth principally depend upon the soul.

Neither is the body only partner with the soul in these grosser sins; but even the more spiritual sins, which seem to be most abstracted from the temperature of the body, as if they depended only upon the pravity and corruption of the soul: I say, even these are partly to be ascribed to the body. For instance, an atheistical thought, which, one would think, was to be laid upon the soul, because the thought takes its rise from thence; yet if we seriously weigh and consider the matter, we shall find, that it is usually the sinful affections of the body that thus debauch the mind into these blasphemous thoughts; and that it is the pleasures of sense that first suggested them to us, and raise them in us. And this appears, in that there was no person that ever was, or indeed ever can be, an atheist at all times; but such thoughts spring up in the fountain of the soul, only when mudded with fleshly pleasures. And thus it is in most other sins; the carnal appetite having gotten the reins into his hand, it misleads the reason, and hurries the soul, wheresoever it pleaseth. And, what then can be more reasonable, than that the body should be punished, both for its usurping the soul's prerogative, and for its tyrannizing so much over that, which, at the first, it was made to be subject to?

But further, it is the body that enjoys the pleasure, and therefore, good reason, that the body should likewise bear the punishment of the sin. Indeed, I cannot perceive, how it can stand with the principles of justice, but that the body, which

both accompanies the soul in sin, enjoys the pleasures of it, and leads the soul into it, should bear a share in the miseries which are due to, and inflicted upon it. For what doth justice require, but to punish the person that offends, for the offence Whereas if the soul only, and not the body, were to suffer, the person would not suffer at all, the body being part of the person, as well as the soul, and therefore the soul no person without the body.

he commits?

2

Hence it is, that though the Scriptures had been silent in this point, yet methinks I could not but have believed; how much more firm and steadfast, then, ought I to be in my faith, when truth itself hath been pleased so expressly to affirm it? For thus saith the Lord of hosts, Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.'' 'And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.' And thus saith the Saviour of the world, who is the way, the truth, and the life: the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.'3 The same hath it pleased his, divine Majesty to assert and prove with his own mouth, Matt. xxii. 31, 32, and by his Spirit, 2 Cor. xv., and in many other places from all which, I may, with comfort and confidence, draw the same conclusion that holy Job did, and say, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Isaiah, xxvi. 19.

3 John, v. 28, 29.

2 Dan. xii. 2.

earth; and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me.'1

And, as I believe my body shall be thus raised from the grave, so I believe the other part of me, my soul, shall never be carried to it; I mean it shall never die, but shall be as much, yea, more alive, when I am dying, than it is now; so much my soul shall be the more active in itself, by how much it is less tied and subjected to the body.

And further I believe, that so soon as ever my breath is out of my nostrils, my soul shall remove her lodging into the other world, there to live as really to eternity, as I now live here in time. Yea, I am more certain, that my soul shall return to God who gave it,' than that my body shall return to the earth, out of which I had it. For I know, it is possible my body may be made immortal, but I am sure my soul shall never be mortal. I know, that at the first, the body did equally participate of immortality with the soul, and that had not sin made the divorce, they had lived together, like loving mates, to all eternity. And I dare not affirm that Enoch and Elias underwent the common fate; or, suppose they did, yet, sure I am, the time will come, when thousands of men and women shall not be dissolved and die, but be immediately changed and caught up into heaven, or to their eternal confusion, thrust down into hell; whose bodies, therefore, shall undergo no such thing as rotting in the

Job. xix. 25, 26, 27.

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