A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

1. A thing may be said to be immortal absolutely and essentially, having no principles of death within, nor cannot be destroyed by any cause without. Thus 1 Tim. 6. 16. God is said only to have immortality. This is that comfortable attribute which the people of God make use of under all changes and vicissitudes, God is always the same. Though father die, though mother die, yet God doth not; as one in the Ecclesiastical Story said, when word was brought him, that his father was dead, Desine (saith he) blasphemias loqui, pater enim meus immortalis est, Cease to speak blasphemy for my father is immortal.

1. A thing may be said to be immortal absolutely and essentially, having no principles of death within, nor cannot be destroyed by any cause without. Thus 1 Tim. 6. 16. God is said only to have immortality. This is that comfortable attribute which the people of God make use of under all changes and vicissitudes, God is alwayes the same. Though father die, though mother die, yet God doth not; as one in the Ecclesiastical Story said, when word was brought him, that his father was dead, Desine (saith he) blasphemias loqui, pater enim meus immortalis est, Cease to speak blasphemy for my father is immortal.

2. That may be said to be immortal, which is so by some singular dispensation of God, either in respect of mercy, or of justice; and thus it is with the glorified bodies of the Saints, and the damned bodies of wicked men; for the Saints their vile bodies shall be made like Christs glorious body, they are raised to incorruptibility and glory; and as for the bodies of damned persons, though they be raised to reproach and dishonour, yet by Gods justice they are preserved immortal; so that the fire cannot consume them to ashes, neither shall length of time ever destroy them. For if God could make the Israelites clothes and shoes to last so many years without being consumed, no wonder if he do a greater matter upon the bodies of men.