according to the saying of Paul, was crucified for us (1 Cor. ii. 8); for we do reverently and religiously receive and use the communication of properties drawn from the Scripture, and used of all antiquity in expounding and reconciling passages of Scripture which at first sight seem to disagree one from another.
We believe and teach that the same Lord Jesus Christ, in that true flesh in which he was crucified and died, rose again from the dead; and that he did not rise up another flesh, but retained a true body. Therefore, while his disciples thought that they did see the spirit of their Lord Christ, he showed them his hands and feet, which were marked with the prints of the nails and wounds, saying, ‘Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have’ (Luke xxiv. 39).
We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, in the same flesh, did ascend above all the visible heavens into the very highest heaven, that is to say, the sea of God and of the blessed spirits, unto the right hand of God the Father. Although it do signify an equal participation of glory and majesty, yet it is also taken for a certain place; of which the Lord, speaking in the Gospel, says, that ‘He will go and prepare a place for his’ (John xiv. 2). Also the Apostle Peter says, ‘The heavens must contain Christ until the time of restoring all things’ (Acts iii. 21).
And out of heaven the same Christ will return unto judgment, even then when wickedness shall chiefly reign in the world, and when Antichrist, having corrupted true religion, shall fill all things with superstition and impiety and shall most cruelly waste the Church with fire and bloodshed. Now Christ shall return to redeem his, and to abolish Antichrist by his coming, and to judge the quick and the dead (Acts xvii. 31). For the dead shall arise, and those that shall be found alive in that day (which is unknown to all creatures) ‘shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye’ (1 Cor. xv. 51, 52). And all the faithful shall be taken up to meet Christ in the air (1 Thess. iv. 17); that thenceforth they may enter with him into heaven, there to live forever (2 Tim. ii. 11): but the unbelievers, or ungodly, shall descend with the devils into hell, there to burn forever, and never to be delivered out of torments (Matt. xxv. 41).
We therefore condemn all those who deny the true resurrection of the flesh, and those who think amiss of the glorified bodies, as did
