By the sacrifice which our Lord offered of himself, this technical but sincere and serious enthusiast argues, more than an atonement was made. “And that this superabundancy might not run to waste, God declared that Man should have Eternal Life absolute as Christ himself had it; and hence Eternal Life is called the Gift of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, over and above our redemption. Why then,” he asks, “doth Death remain in the World? Why because Man knows not the Way of Life—‘the way of Life they have not known.’ Because our faith is not yet come to us—‘when the Son of Man comes shall he find faith upon the earth?’ Because Man is a beast of burden that knows not his own strength in the virtue of the Death and the power of the Resurrection of Christ. Unbelief goes not by reason or dint of argument, but is a sort of melancholy madness, by which if we once fancy ourselves bound, it hath the same effect upon us as if we really were so. Death is like Satan, who appears to none but those who are afraid of him: Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. Because Death had once dominion over us, we think it hath and must have it still. And this I find within myself, that though I can't deny one word I have said in fact or argument, yet I can't maintain my belief of it without making it more familiar to my understanding, by turning it up and down in my thoughts and ruminating upon some proceedings already made upon it in the World. “The Motto of the Religion of the World is _Mors Janua Vitæ_; if we mean by this the Death of Christ, we are in the right; but if we mean our own Death then we are in the wrong. Far be it from me to say that Man may not attain to Eternal Life, though he should die; for the Text runs double. ‘_I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that liveth and believeth on me, shall never die; and though he were dead he shall live._’ This very Text shows that there is a nearer way of entering into Eternal Life than by the way of Death and Resurrection. Whatever circumstances a man is under at the time of his death, God is bound to make good this Text to him, according to which part of it he builds his faith upon; if he be dead there's a necessity for a resurrection; but if he be alive there's no occasion for Death or Resurrection either. This text doth not maintain two religions, but two articles of faith in the same religion, and the article of faith for a present life without dying is the higher of the two.