The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

To deny that it is possible, after the body is dead, and burnt, and all carried away in smoke and vapor and exhalation—and suppose it be diffused clear round the globe, some of it mixed with clouds and rain water, and some into falling stars, some into the matter of thunder, and some drawn in by the breath of animals and so into the lungs, and thence part goes into the blood; and supposing it gets into the matter of all the plants on the globe, and part of the matter of it is propagated in the seed from plant to plant; and supposing some is in the constitution of every animal, some converted to earth, some to air, some to water and some to sunbeams, and by some means or other some shall get down into the center of the earth; and let some of it, if it will, be converted into the substance of some of the plants or animals in some of the planets of the star Alcor,A small star in Ursa Major. and in short, some of it be mixed in every inch square of matter in the great universe—let it be so, and then I say: 'tis just the same thing to deny the possibility of the resurrection of that body, as it is to say that Almighty God could not, if he never so much desired it, take three stones that lie together and separate them asunder, one in Europe, another in Africa, and another in America, and after that bring them together again to their old places and order. For the thing is exactly the same and there is no difference; only the atoms of man's body are less, and more in number, and more scattered; but we all know God can scatter, and again bring together and order in their same places, twenty bodies as well as three, small bodies as well as great, distant as well as near.

The resurrection of the same atoms is not absolutely necessary, but only for these two things, the order and pomp of the Day. So some shall rise out of the seas, some out of the earth, some out of the grave; some shall rise up in one place and some in another. If it be not so, doubtless all the bodies will be made out of one heap of ground at once without more ado, perhaps all out of one mountain.

Another reason [is that this] will be in compliance with human nature (and doubtless so is the nature of all intelligent beings), in compliance with that nature in him, whereby a murderer is more affected with the same knife with which he killed a man, more than he is at the sight of one exactly like it; and why the wicked will be more affected to think, "In this same body I committed sin," than "I committed sin in a body like it"; and the martyrs to think, "This same body was burnt at the stake," and "With this body I did and suffered such and such

things." Why is there not the same kind of reason why the same body shall rise, as that Eve should be made of Adam's rib?

As to the objection of man-eaters, it is no objection at all; for this is all that can be objected, put the case how you will, that an exceeding small part of the substance of one body that died, may again die the substance of another body. For if my body is devoured entirely, bones and all, by men, and it all digests as well as other meat, there will [be] but an exceeding small part of my body will convert into the substance of their bodies; and it is a thousand to one, if all of them shall die with the hundreth part of that which at first was converted into their flesh. And I believe never any man holds that the body should arise with exactly the same number of atoms to one, as were in him when he died (suppose it be of a man that died in a consumption, or of one that died with the dropsy), but that it should be the same body in general. That little part of Eve that was made of the atoms of Adam's rib, was sufficient to make it be said that she was made of the rib.

But we are only now disputing for the possibility of the resurrection of the same [body], and not that it will really be so. Everyone is left at his liberty of thinking as he pleases. I am not disputing for anything that is uncertain about it but that which is most certain, and that is, that there is no need of believing that the body that shall rise will not be the same that fell.