Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

¹5. That Christ rose again accompanied with others; and the graves were opened, and many ⟨p. 417⟩bodies of Saints w•ich slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy City, and appeared unto many. It may be the graves were opened when Christ was laid down in his grave; yet the spirits came not into the dead bodies till Christ's Resurrection; the Text i• plain, that they came not out of their graves till Christ was raised; Christ is the beginning (saith the Apostle) the first-born from the dead:² how the first-born? I answer, both in time and efficacy. 1. In time; he rose to eternal life the first of all men. This was the sum of Paul's preaching, that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead. It is true indeed,³ that Lazarus and sundry others rose before Christ, but they rose to live a mortal life, and to die again. Christ was the first of all that rose to eternal life; never any in the world rose, before Christ, in this manner. 2. In respect of efficacy, Christ rose first, that by his power all the rest might rise; there is in Christ's resurrection a reviving and a quickening virtue; and herein is a main difference betwixt the Resurrection of Christ, and the Resurrection of any other man; the Resurrection of Abraham avails nothing to the resurrection of Isaac, or of Jacob; but the resurrection of Christ avails to the resurrection of all that have believed, or that shall believe in him: is not Christ called a quickening Spirit? how then should he but quicken all his members?⁴ when a man is cast into the Sea, and all his body is under water, there is nothing to be looked for but present death; but if he carry his head above the water, there is good hope then of a recovery: now Christ is the head unto his Church, and therefore he being raised, all his members must follow in their time; no sooner did Christ arise, but many of the bodies of the Saints arose; not all that were dead, but only some; to show the resurrection of all to come, the time for the whole Churches rising being not yet, till the great resurrection day. It is a question what became of those bodies which now arose: Some think they died again; but it is more probable, that seeing they rose to manifest the quickening virtue of Christ's resurrection, that they were also glorified with Christ;