Life by Christs passion, though he die a natural death, and remaine dead
for a time; namely, till the Resurrection. For as Death is reckoned from
the Condemnation of Adam, not from the Execution; so life is reckoned
from the Absolution, not from the Resurrection of them that are elected
in Christ.
Ascension Into Heaven
That the place wherein men are to live Eternally, after the
Resurrection, is the Heavens, meaning by Heaven, those parts of the
world, which are the most remote from Earth, as where the stars are,
or above the stars, in another Higher Heaven, called Caelum Empyreum,
(whereof there is no mention in Scripture, nor ground in Reason) is not
easily to be drawn from any text that I can find. By the Kingdome of
Heaven, is meant the Kingdome of the King that dwelleth in Heaven; and
his Kingdome was the people of Israel, whom he ruled by the Prophets
his Lieutenants, first Moses, and after him Eleazar, and the Soveraign
Priests, till in the days of Samuel they rebelled, and would have a
mortall man for their King, after the manner of other Nations. And
when our Saviour Christ, by the preaching of his Ministers, shall have
perswaded the Jews to return, and called the Gentiles to his obedience,
then shall there be a new Kingdome of Heaven, because our King shall
then be God, whose Throne is Heaven; without any necessity evident in
the Scripture, that man shall ascend to his happinesse any higher than
Gods Footstool the Earth. On the contrary, we find written (Joh. 3.13.)
that "no man hath ascended into Heaven, but he that came down from
Heaven, even the Son of man, that is in Heaven." Where I observe by the
way, that these words are not, as those which go immediately before, the
words of our Saviour, but of St. John himself; for Christ was then not
in Heaven, but upon the Earth. The like is said of David (Acts 2.34.)
where St. Peter, to prove the Ascension of Christ, using the words of
the Psalmist, (Psal. 16.10.) "Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell, nor
suffer thine Holy one to see corruption," saith, they were spoken (not
of David, but) of Christ; and to prove it, addeth this Reason, "For
David is not ascended into Heaven." But to this a man may easily answer,
and say, that though their bodies were not to ascend till the generall
day of Judgment, yet their souls were in Heaven as soon as they were
departed from their bodies; which also seemeth to be confirmed by the
words of our Saviour (Luke 20.37,38.) who proving the Resurrection out
of the word of Moses, saith thus, "That the dead are raised, even Moses
shewed, at the bush, when he calleth the Lord, the God of Abraham, and
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the Dead,
but of the Living; for they all live to him." But if these words be to
be understood only of the Immortality of the Soul, they prove not at all
that which our Saviour intended to prove, which was the Resurrection
of the Body, that is to say, the Immortality of the Man. Therefore our