A30238:1531
An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…
An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the second epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians by Anthony Burgess ...An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the second epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians by Anthony Burgesse ...
London: printed by A.M. for Abel Roper, 1661
AN EXPOSITION WITH Practical Observations UPON THE First Chapter of… › Sermon 73
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Of the Expression, God who raiseth the dead, how it is to be understood, and what it implies.
Of the Expression, God who raiseth the dead, how it is to be understood, and what it implyes.
2 COR. 1. 9. Which raiseth the dead.
This last clause is added, as a reason, why we are not to trust in our selves, but in God; he can do that, which no King, no Emperor, no Sovereign power in the world can do, he can raise from the dead. By this instance the Apostle discovereth Gods omnipotency; for none but an infinite power can do this; even as an infinite power is required to create, to make something out of nothing. Therefore the Philosopher speaking according to the ordinary way of nature, saith ex nihilo nihil fit. Thus it is also in regard of raising the dead, nothing but an infinite power can do this, because there is another rule in Philosophy, A privatione ad habitum non datur regressus. We read indeed of Elisha raising the dead Child; and so the Apostles were enabled to work this miracle, but they did these things not authoritativè but adprecativè, not by way of authority but prayer. Christ wrought these miracles at their prayer to him, and therefore they are said to do these things in his name. He only then who hath an infinite power can raise the dead. Neither doth the Apostle say, who can, but who doth raise, signifying not only Gods power, but his will and readiness; and then in the present tense, denoting, God doth this daily and continually to his people. Now when the Apostle describeth God thus as raising the dead, you must understand it of the dead literally. Those that are actually dead, or as good as dead, as to any humane power, which was the case of Paul; and also dead, metaphorically, viz. such who are in those outward calamities and straits, that they have no visible way to escape out of them. In this extent you must understand the expression; and from thence observe,