Obs. 3. God's power reachetli to the grave, and beyond the grave, even to give life to the dead.
God can not only preserve the creatures while they are in life and being, but when life is lost he can restore it again. It is an easier matter to make a vessel out of clay, than when it is dashed into pieces to re- store and set it up in form again. So here God did not only make us at first out of nothing, but when we are broken into pieces again, he can raise us from the dead. Abraham had no experience of the resurrec- tion as we have, yet Abraham concluded thus, Oh, let it shame us! The apostle ai-gues, Acts xxvi. 8, ' Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead ? ' Abraham believed the resurrection at that distance: Christ was not then risen, there were none ever quickened from the dead, yet he believed God was able to raise Isaac out of his ashes ; but we have more reason to believe it. There is no more reason to disbelieve the resurrection than the creation. It is as easy for God to raise us up as it was for God to make us at first ; it is as easy for God to do one as the otlier.
ObJ. You will say, What needs all this ado ? surely we believe the resurrection.
Ans. I doubt you do not as much as you should. For —
1. If you did believe the resurrection, why are you so easily amazed at lesser difficulties ? John xi. 24,25, Christ confutes Martha; Martha said, ' I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live ; believest thou
VeE. 19.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 377
this ? ' Canst thou believe the general resurrection, and canst thou not believe this, that I can raise him up now ? Christians, in every difficult case your faith in the resurrection of the dead is tried when you coiue to depend upon God in extreme danger. So much is inti- mated by Paul : 2 Cor. i. 9, ' We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.' God tries whether you can trust him that raiseth the dead, when the dead are gone and lost as to outward appearance and proba- bility. If you cannot depend upon God, and magnify his power, and refer yourselves to his will in difficult cases, how can you say you believe the resurrection ?
2. If you have such a faith, this will bewray itself in life and death. That hope is worth nothing that is good for nothing. As —
[1.] This faith will discover itself in life. If we believe the resurrec- tion, we will count the faithful fulfilling of Christ's will better than all the pleasures of the world ; that faith will have such an influence upon your life. Faith is discovered in action in the course of your conversation. They that are not such manner of persons do not look for such things, 2 Peter iii. 11. Doth he look for the resurrection that useth his body only as a strainer for meats and drinks ? that pro- stitutes his body to base lusts ? that doth not employ liimself with labour and diligence in the work God hath given him to do ?
[2.] You will know the strength of this faith in death. Can we see life at the back of it ? Can we desire death, and check the fears of it ? Can we triumph over the last enemy, and be constant in Christ's cause to the latter end ? and die cheerfully upon this ground, because we look for a joyful resurrection ? A man goes to bed willingly and cheerfully, because he knows he shall rise again the next morning, and be renewed in his strength. Confidence in the resurrection would make us go to the grave as cheerfully as we go to our beds ; it would make us die more comfortably, and sleep more quietly in the bosom of the Lord.
From luhence also he received him in a figure.
Secondly, the success of his faith is the next thing to be spoken to. There is a great deal of ado about the meaning of that place. Some look backward and refer it to the time past, as if the meaning were, he looked God should raise him from the dead, because from thence he received him in a figure, that is, he had him from the dead before, from a dead womb and a dead body ; but I think that is not so proper. Some look forwards, and refer it to the time to come, either to Christ or the resurrection. To Christ : Isaac was a type or figure of Christ's dying and rising. Or to the resurrection : his being freed from his ])resent danger was an image of the resurrection from the dead, but it is not for a figure or a type, but in a figure ; and therefore I think it is nothing but thus — he was even as good as dead, dead in his father's purpose and in his own thoughts ; and from thence he received him again ; which also was a kind of image of the resurrection from the dead ; he that was just ofiered, and bound to the altar, seemed as it were to rise again.