to set our wits right in the knowledge of things, and cleanse us not enough to come to God. The like judgment he gives of purging by theurgy, and by the mysteries of the sun; because those things extend but to some few, whereas this cleansing ought to be universal for the benefit of all mankind: in the end resolves, that this cannot be done but by one of the three In-beings, which is the word they use to express the Trinity by. Let us see what the divinest of the heathens (and his master Plato) delivers to admiration, and as it were prophetically, to this purpose. That a truly just man be shown (saith he) it is necessary that he be spoiled of his ornaments, so that he must be accounted by others a wicked man, be scoffed at, put in prison, beaten, nay, be crucified; and certainly for Him that was to appear the highest example of patience, it was necessary to undergo the highest trial of it, which was an undeserved death.
Concerning the Resurrection, I conceive the difficulty to lie not so much upon our Lord as us, it being with easy reason imagined, that He, which can make a body, can lay it down and take it up again. There is something more that urges and presses us; for in our estate we promise ourselves hereafter, there will be no need of food, copulation, or excrement: to what purpose should we have a mouth, belly, or less comely parts? it being strange to imagine God to have created man, for a moment of time, a body consisting of particulars which should be useless to all eternity. Besides, why should we desire to carry that along with us which we are ashamed of here, and which we find so great a trouble, that very wise men (were it not forbidden) would throw it off before it were worn out? To this I should answer that, as the body is partner in well or ill doing, so it is but just it should share in the rewards or punishments hereafter; and though by reason of sin we blush at it here, yet when that shall cease to be, why we should be more ashamed than our first parents were, or some in the last discovered parts of the world are now, I cannot understand. Who knows but these unsightly parts shall remain for good use, and that, putting us in mind of our imperfect estate here, they shall serve to increase our content and happiness there? What kind of thing a glorified body shall be, how changed, how refined, who knows? Nor is it the meanest invitement to me now to think that my estate there is above my capacity here. There remains that which does not only quarrel with the likelihood of a resurrection, but with the possibility; alleging that man, corrupted into dust, is scattered almost into infinite, or
