422 RESURRECTION or THE SAME BODY. would humbly enquire, whether all the differences of these dis- putants, which I have endeavoured briefly to set in their strongest light, may not be compromised in this mariner. I. It is granted that it cannot be the very same body in all the particles Or atoms of it which were united to the soul in this world, that shall be raised and united to it in the resurrection : (L) Because all the atoms that ever belonged to the animal body of Methuselah in nine hundred and sixty-nine years would make a most bulky and disproportionate figure at the resurrec- tion : And for the same reason all the antidiluvians, who lived so many hundred years, would beraised as giants in comparison of us in later days. And on the same account also, every man at the resurrection would be so much larger than his contempora- ries and neighbours, as he lived longer on earth ; which is a vain and groundless conceit. (2.) All the same particles, even of the body when it died and was buried, can hardly be raised again and united to the soul of any man, because several of the particles that made one man's body at the time of his death are very probably turned to grass or plants, and so become food for cattle, or other men, and are become part of the bodies of other men several times over. And thus there might be great confusion, because the self- same particles would belong to the bodies of several men. Be- sides, here's one pious man perhaps died of a dropsy, or exces- sive fat and unwieldy ; must he be raised in that unwieldy bulk and those extravagant dimensions? Another was worn out to a mere skeleton by a consumption ; must his raised body be of this slender and withered shape or size? Others it may be from their very birth were in some part defective, or redundant ; and in these cases must not some particles be left out or added in the resurrection to form a proper body for the glorified soul ? All these considerations prove that all the precise number of atoms that ever made up a man's body here on earth, or even those that belonged to it at the hour of death, are not necessary to be summoned together to form the same man at the re- surrection. II. It is also granted, that it must be in some sense the same body raised which was buried, in order to answer several expres- sions both of Jesus Christ, and of the apostle Paul in their dis- courses of the resurrection. And we may allow without any difficulty, that so many of the same particles of any man's body which were buried may go to constitute the new- raised body, as justly to denominate it the same body, and which being united to the same soul, do render the new-raised man the same man and the same person who died : For it is evident that a very few of the same atoms or particles which were laid in the grave are sufficient for this purpose, if we consider these two things :
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