A treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at KidderminsterA treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at Kederminster

Object. If there were but as much likelihood of a Resurrection as there is of the Reviving of the plants in the Spring, I could believe it; for there is a life remaining in the Root or Seed: but the body of man hath neither Root nor seed of life, and therefore it's contrary to nature that it should revive.

Answ. 1. If it be above nature, that is all, it is not contrary to it; Or not so contrary as to be above the power of the Lord of nature. Will you allow no greater works for God than such as you can see a reason of, and can assign a natural cause of? what did Nature in the creation of nature! It was not certainly any cause of it self! If Christ rose without a natural cause, even so shall we. 2. But why may I not say that the dead body of man hath a living Root, as truly as the plants in winter. The soul is the Root of the body, and the soul is still alive: And Christ is the Root of the soul, and he is still alive. For though we are dead, yet our Life is hid with Christ in God: and when Christ who is our life shall appear (at the Spring of Resurrection) then we shall also appear with him in Glory, Col. 3. 3, 4. And though there be no Physical contact between this living soul and the body, yet there is a Relative Union, and a deep rooted Love of the soul to its body, and inclination to it: so that it is mindful of it: and waiteth with longing for that hour when the command of God shall send it to revive that body. It is not incredible that a silly snail should by its natural life and power make for it self a beautiful habitation. Or that the life of a Rose-tree that was buried in the root, should fabricate a sweet and beauteous Rose by which it may make an ostentation of its invisible self to the world. In how small a room doth the life of a silk-worm lie (of which I spoke before) in the winter! That little grain or seed is such as yields no sign of life to the beholder: yet doth it form it self a larger body, and that body spin its silken web out of its own substance, and in that, house it self in a husk, and take to it self another shape, and thence become a winged Fly, and so generate more. But nearer us, in the generation of man, the vital principle in the seed, doth quickly with concurrent ⟨p. 257⟩