Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

Wherefore, let the bodies of men be laid in the grave; let them rot there, and be resolved into the most minute particles▪ or let them be burnt, and the ashes cast into rivers, or thrown up into the air, to be scattered by the wind: let the dust of a thousand generations be mingled, and the streams of the dead bodies wander to and fro in the air: let birds or wild beasts eat the dead bodies, or the fishes of the sea devour them, so that the parts of human bodies, thus destroyed, pass into substantial parts of birds, beasts, or fishes; or what is more than that, let man-eaters, who themselves must die, and rise again, devour human bodies; and let others devour them again: and then let our modern Sadducees propose the question in these case•; as the ancient Sadducees did, in the case of the woman, who had been married to seven husbands successively, Matth. xxii. 8. We answer, as our blessed Lord and Saviour did, ver. 26. Ye do e•, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. We believe God to be omni•ctent and omnip•nt: infinite in knowledge and in p•w•r: and hence, agreeable to the dictates of reason we conclude the possibility of the resurrection, even in the cases supposed.

Wherefore, let the bodies of men be laid in the grave; let them rot there, and be resolved into the most minute particles▪ or let them be burnt, and the ashes cast into rivers, or thrown up into the air, to be scattered by the wind: let the dust of a thousand generations be mingled, and the streams of the dead bodies wander to and fro in the air: let birds or wild beasts eat the dead bodies, or the fishes of the sea devour them, so that the parts of human bodies, thus destroyed, pass into substantial parts of birds, beasts, or fishes; or what is more than that, let man-eaters, who themselves must die, and rise again, devour human bodies; and let others devour th•m again: and then let our modern Sadducces propose the question in these case•; as the ancient Sadducces did, in the case of the woman, who had been married to seven husbands successively,