his life, vitally united to his soul. But according to this account, his body at the resurrection being, as your lordship seems to limit it, near the same size it was in some part of his life; it will be no more the same body, in which the things were done in the distant parts of his life, than that is the same body, in which half, or three quarters, or more of the individual matter, that then made it up, is now wanting. For example, let his body, at fifty years old, consist of a million of parts; five hundred thousand at least of those parts will be different from those which made up his body at ten years, and at an hundred. So that to take the numerical particles that made up his body at fifty, or any other season of his life; or to gather them promiscuously out of those which at different times have successively been vitally united to his soul; they will no more make the same body, which was his, wherein some of his actions were done, than that is the same body which has but half the same particles: and yet all your lordship's argument here for the same body is, because St. Paul says it must be his body, in which these things were done; which it could not be, "if any other substance were joined to it," i. e. if any other particles of matter made up the body, which were not vitally united to the soul, when the action was done.

Again, your lordship says, "that you do not say the same individual particles [shall make up the body at the resurrection] which were united at the point of death; for there must be a great alteration in them, in a lingering disease, as, if a fat man falls into a consumption." Because it is likely your lordship thinks these particles of a decrepit, wasted, withered body would be too few, or unfit to make such a plump, strong, vigorous, well-sized body, as it has pleased your lordship to proportion out in your thoughts to men at the resurrection; and therefore some small portion of the particles formerly united vitally to that man's soul shall be re-assumed, to make up his body to the bulk your lordship judges convenient: but the greatest part of them shall be left out, to avoid the making his body more vast than your lordship thinks will be fit, as ap

pears by these your lordship's words immediately following, viz. "that you do not say the same particles the sinner had at the very time of commission of his sins; for then a long sinner must have a vast body."

But then pray, my lord, what must an embryo do, who, dying within a few hours after his body was vitally united to his soul, has no particles of matter, which were formerly vitally united to it, to make up his body of that size and proportion which your lordship seems to require in bodies at the resurrection? or must we believe he shall remain content with that small pittance of matter, and that yet imperfect body to eternity; because it is an article of faith to believe the resurrection of the very same body? i. e. made up of only such particles as have been vitally united to the soul. For if it be so, as your lordship says, "that life is the result of the union of soul and body," it will follow, that the body of an embryo dying in the womb may be very little, not the thousandth part of an ordinary man. For since from the first conception and beginning of formation it has life, and "life is the result of the union of the soul with the body;" an embryo, that shall die either by the untimely death of the mother, or by any other accident presently after it has life, must, according to your lordship's doctrine, remain a man not an inch long to eternity; because there are not particles of matter, formerly united to his soul, to make him bigger; and no other can be made use of to that purpose; though what greater congruity the soul hath with any particles of matter, which were once vitally united to it, but are now so no longer, than it hath with particles of matter which it was never united to, would be hard to determine, if that should be demanded.

By these, and not a few other the like consequences, one may see what service they do to religion and the Christian doctrine, who raise questions, and make articles of faith about the resurrection of the same body, where the Scripture says nothing of the same body; or if it does, it is with no small reprimand to those who make such an inquiry. "But some man will say, how are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou

fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain; it may chance of wheat or some other grain: but God giveth it a body as hath pleased him" Words, I should think, sufficient to deter us from determining any thing for or against the same body being raised at the last day. It suffices, that all the dead shall be raised, and every one appear and answer for the things done in this life, and receive according to the things he hath done in his body, whether good or bad. He that believes this, and has said nothing inconsistent herewith, I presume may, and must be acquitted from being guilty of any thing inconsistent with the article of the resurrection of the dead.

But your lordship, to prove the resurrection of the same body to be an article of faith, farther asks," how could it be said, if any other substance be joined to the soul at the resurrection, as its body, that they were the things done in or by the body?" Answ. Just as it may be said of a man at an hundred years old, that hath then another substance joined to his soul than he had at twenty, that the murder or drunkenness he was guilty of at twenty were things done in the body: how, by the body" comes in here, I do not see.

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Your lordship adds, "and St. Paul's dispute about the manner of raising the body might soon have ended, if there was no necessity of the same body." Answ. When I understand what argument there is in these words to prove the resurrection of the same body, without the mixture of one new atom of matter, I shall know what to say to it. In the mean time this I understand, that St. Paul would have put as short an end to all disputes about this matter, if he had said, that there was a necessity of the same body, or that it should be the same body.

The next text of scripture you bring for the same body is, "if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ raised t." From which your lordship argues, "it seems then other bodies are to be raised as his was." I grant other dead, as certainly raised as Christ was; for + 2 Cor. xv. 16.

* 1 Cor. xv. 35, &c.

else his resurrection would be of no use to mankind. But I do not see how it follows that they shall be raised with the same body, as your lordship infers in these words annexed; "and can there be any doubt, whether his body was the same material substance which was united to his soul before?" I answer, none at all; nor that it had just the same distinguishable lineaments and marks, yea, and the same wounds that it had at the time of his death. If therefore your lordship will argue from other bodies being raised as his was, that they must keep proportion with his in sameness; then we must believe, that every man shall be raised with the same lineaments and other notes of distinction he had at the time of his death, even with his wounds yet open, if he had any, because our Saviour was so raised; which seems to me scarce reconcileable with what your lordship says of a fat man falling into a consumption, and dying.

But whether it will consist or no with your lordship's meaning in that place, this to me seems a consequence that will need to be better proved, viz. that our bodies must be raised the same, just as our Saviour's was? because St. Paul says, "if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ risen." For it may be a good consequence, Christ is risen, and therefore there shall be a resurrection of the dead; and yet this may not be a good consequence, Christ was raised with the same body he had at his death, therefore all men shall be raised with the same body they had at their death, contrary to what your lordship says concerning a fat man dying of a consumption. But the case I think far different betwixt our Saviour and those to be raised at the last day.

1. His body saw not corruption, and therefore to give him another body, new moulded, mixed with other particles, which were not contained in it as it lay in the grave, whole and entire as it was laid there, had been to destroy his body to frame him a new one without any need. But why with the remaining particles of a man's body long since dissolved and mouldered into dust and atoms (whereof possibly a great part may have under

gone variety of changes, and entered into other concretions even in the bodies of other men) other new particles of matter mixed with them, may not serve to make his body again, as well as the mixture of new and different particles of matter with the old, did in the compass of his life make his body; I think no reason can be given.

This may serve to show, why, though the materials of our Saviour's body were not changed at his resurrection; yet it does not follow, but that the body of a man, dead and rotten in his grave, or burnt, may at the last day have several new particles in it, and that without any inconvenience. Since whatever matter is vitally united to his soul, is his body, as much as is that which was united to it when he was born, or in any other part of his life.

2. In the next place, the size, shape, figure, and lineaments of our Saviour's body, even to his wounds, into which doubting Thomas put his fingers and hand, were to be kept in the raised body of our Saviour, the same they were at his death, to be a conviction to his disciples, to whom he showed himself, and who were to be witnesses of his resurrection, that their master, the very same man, was crucified, dead, and buried, and raised again; and therefore he was handled by them, and eat before them after he was risen, to give them in all points full satisfaction that it was really he, the same, and not another, nor a spectre or apparition of him: though I do not think your lordship will thence argue, that because others are to be raised as he was, therefore it is necessary to believe, that because he eat after his resurrection, others at the last day shall eat and drink after they are raised from the dead; which seems to me as good an argument, as because his undissolved body was raised out of the grave, just as it there lay entire, without the mixture of any new particles, therefore the corrupted and consumed bodies of the dead at the resurrection shall be new-framed only out of those scattered particles, which were once vitally united to their souls, without the least mixture of any one single atom of new matter. But at the last day, when all men are raised,