new capacity of suffering For the Apostle assures us if we live after the Flesh and make Provision to fulfil the Lusts thereof we shall die for to be carnally or sensually minded is death and that we cannot expect to live hereafter except we mortify the deeds of the Body Rom. 8. 6 13. Secondly We ought to be contented with the trouble the present infirmities of our Bodies may put us to God hath made our Bodies of a frail Constitution and liable to many inconveniencies that we might aspire after a higher and more confirmed happiness and not place it in the satisfaction of our sences which are so easily made unacceptable to us by diseases or quickly stupified and worn out with Age. Besides upon the account that our Bodies make us liable to pain and diseases we have thereby an occasion of exercising many virtues which otherwise we could not have If we were not liable to pain and uneasiness there could be no such thing as a contented Poverty and an humble Resignation to providence in affliction and distress the essence of these virtues would be lost in such impregnable circumstances For to be contented when a man neither feels nor fears any evil is not so much a commendation as a necessary action it being as impossible to be troubled when we have what we have a mind to as to be perfectly pleased when we have not I confess to be thus fortified against injury and want argues a great happiness of nature but a moral perfection it is not and consequently deserves admiration but not reward The Honour of our Christian warfare consists in the laboriousness and hazard of it and the strength of our virtue lies in the weakness of our condition and though we are made a little lower than the Angels yet with all respect be it spoken to those superiour Beings upon this account we seem to have some advantage of them for their station being above the reach of misfortune makes them incapable of suffering upon the score of Virtue and Religion We ought not therefore to complain because God hath made our Bodies liable to many inconveniencies here but to resist the temptations they expose us to with resolution to bear the pains and infirmities of them with submission and contentedness considering that in a discreet and Christian management of these things a great part of our obedience and future reward consists It is not long before we shall be dismist from this service and when death shall be swallowed up in Victory and this mortal shall put on immortality then it will be a pleasure to survey the difficulties of our past life and the very thoughts of our former troubles will be an addition to our happiness Haec olim meminisse juvabit And therefore Thirdly we ought not to be over-timerous lest we should impair the strength of our Constitution but lay it out freely upon Religious and Worthy Actions Health is not chiefly to be desired for the sensual pleasure it affords but because we are then in the best condition to serve God and to be useful to the society we live in Let it not therefore be our great aim to keep our Bodies in Reparation and ingloriously slumber out our time for fear of wearing them out too fast but according to our several Stations and Callings let us diligently employ them for our own real interest and that of others making them contribute to the improvement of Reason and the exercise of Virtue If they decay in such service they will fall with honour and rise with advantage The best way of consulting their future advancement is not to dote upon them now If we would have them flourish in immortal youth and beauty hereafter we must neither be too fond in indulging nor too curious in adorning of them We must not out of an effeminate niceness to preserve their agreeableness decline any proper austerities or opportunity of doing good In short if we expect these earthy Bodies should bear the Image of the Heavenly we must employ them generously and religiously suffer the inconveniencies of them with Patience and Christian Courage and please them with temperance and reservedness FINIS
THE DIFFERENCE Between the Present and Future STATE OF OUR BODIES Considered in a SERMON By Ieremy Collier M. A. LONDON Printed for Sam. Smith at the Prince's Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard 1686. IMPRIMATUR April 23. 1686. Hen. Maurice R mo P. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacris 1 Cor. 15. 29. And as we have born the Image of the earthy so we shall also bear the Image of the heavenly WHether the Soul in the State of Separation acts independently of Matter purely by the strength of her own powers or whether in order to the better understanding her self and other Beings she makes use of a Body of Air shaped out into such Limbs and Sences as she hath occasional employment for whether or no the want of her old companion is supplied this way is uncertain But whatever abatements of happiness the pious Soul may suffer for want of a suitable Body between the time of Death and the General Judgment then we are sure this inconvenience will be removed and it will be repossessed of its antient Seat out of which Violence or Nature had forced it Now this certainty of the Resurrection is a Doctrine which helps the meanest understanding to conceive the Nature of the Happiness of the other World and consequently must needs prove a great and universal encouragement to the practice of our Duty For in regard we have always been used to dwell in these houses of Clay the generality would not have been so well able to apprehend the happiness of pure and uncompounded Spirits but would have been apt to have thought that the loss of their Bodies would have deprived them of no small part of themselves and consequently would not have been so willing to resign them or expose them to hardship and inconvenience upon the account of Religion But now since we are assured that this visible part of us which we are so well acquainted with shall be quitted only for a time and then restored us with all desirable advantages yet Mortality shall be swallowed up of life and we shall exchange the Image of the earthy for that of the heavenly what can we more rationally infer than the last verse of this Chapter Wherefore be ye stedfast immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord in as much as no part of our being is lost and consequently no part of our labour is in vain in the Lord. That by the Image of the earthy is meant that mortal corruptible body which we have derived to us from Adam is plain from the verse before the text The first man was of the earth earthy the second man is the Lord from Heaven and then it follows as we have born the Image of the earthy we shall also bear Image of the Heavenly Now because the nature of opposite qualities is best discovered by their being compared therefore that it may the more plainly appear wherein the advantage of changing the earthy for the heavenly consists I shall in the First place mention those inconveniencies and defects to which our bodies are subject now 2. I shall endeavour to prove that the qualities of glorified bodies will be opposed to those defects and free from those inconveniences we are now sensible of 3. I shall draw some practical conclusions from the consideration of this difference 1. Those bodies we now have are inconvenient upon these following accounts 1. Because of the weakness and uselessness of them when we have them first 2. Because their best condition is but of a short continuance 3. Because our being liable to the disorders of passion proceeds in a great measure from them 4. Because they make us subject to pain 5. Because they hinder the operations of the mind in its pursuit after truth and knowledge 1. They are inconvenient upon the account of the weakness and usefulness of them when we have them first Though our deriving our Beings from those of our own Nature and coming Infants into the World is a great promoter of kindness and good correspondence and tends very much to support of Government and Society yet it must be granted that we lose something tho not so much by it another way For the Soul at her first entrance by reason of the indisposition of the body is uncapable of acting rationally and is forced to wait till she hath fit instruments to work with and when we do begin to judge of objects we measure the good and evil of them by the pleasure of inconvenience which the body receives from thence Now because we are accustomed at first for several years together to make our sences Umpires of the value of things this forestalls our judgment with a good opinion of them which makes us more inclinable to please them afterwards and gives our reason a greater trouble in the managing of them than otherwise it would have had Besides in our Infancy unpleasant and frightful things make a deep impression upon us both because of the fluid and pliable nature of the Brain and because we have not judgment to discover the worst of things nor strength to resist them and therefore through our own weakness and the indiscretion of those we sometimes happen to converse with we are apt to take up odd prejudices and to be possess'd with unaccountable fears which the reason of our whole life often finds impossible to conquer It must be granted therefore that Adam had a great advantage above his posterity by being created a perfect man without running through the weakness and folly of Infancy and Childhood For in regard his Body was prepared for the Soul to act in at their first meeting he was not so liable to be imposed upon by ill customs and senseless imaginations because he was always capable of judging of them And therefore his desires and fears must be better proportioned to the nature of things than they would have been if his reason had come to him byassed and tinctured with those impressions which the long weakness unserviceableness of his body had made upon it A 2d Inconvenience of our Bodies is that the highest condition they are capable of arriving at is but of a short continuance They are a considerable part of our lives a working up into any tolerable degree of usefulness before which time they signifie little more to us than the Bodies of Brutes do and when they are once fitted for the service of the Soul and we begin to understand what they are good for it is not long before they decline into Age and Indisposition and that which seem'd to be a Palace before turns to a Prison and hath little either of pleasure or convenience in it For though our Youth is not placed upon such a precipice as immediately to tumble from its highest station into a decrepit condition yet when life is going down the Hill its motion is not so slow but that it may be perceived in a little time especially if it be pushed forward
his Raiment with the Reflection was white and glistering Mat. 17. Luk. 9. 3. The Bodies of the Saints will be impassible They will then be fortified against all accidents and diseases and be no longer subject to any painful or dishonourable alterations Time and death will have no power over them St. Iohn after he hath described the general Resurrection Rev. 20. in the 21 chap. v. 4. proceeds to mention the unchangeable happiness of the Heavenly Inhabitants where enlarging upon their privative advantages he informs us that there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away that is the states of imperfection and mortality is over Whereas did not all things stand at a stay were not the perfections of the Body permanent and unalterable secured against all injury and decay if there was not pain we may be sure there would be sorrow to lose the least part of so glorious a condition Now which way our Bodies shall be made immortal signifies not much to know possibly they may have such an advantageous change from the Laws of Motion from the Figure of their parts or the temperature of the Climate as may preserve them from suffering any alteration or loss of parts or if the parts do fly off as they do now it 's easie with God to supply them with new ones immediately made fit without the trouble of eating or concoction But whether by any of these ways or which of them they will continue immortal whether by the settled course of Providence or by Miracle is neither material to dispute nor possible to determine that they will continue so we are sure for as with him that hath made this Promise nothing is impossible so likewise he is Faithful and cannot deny himself It is more proper for us to prepare our selves by a vertuous Life for so blessed an immortality than vainly to enquire into the mystery of it The best way of satisfying our curiosity is to endeavour to be accounted worthy to obtain that World and the Resurrection from the dead for we need not doubt but that those who are possessed of this priviledge will understand the causes which make it such and that the goodness of God will enable the Saints to explain the Philosophy of their happiness Now from what we experience here we may in some measure conceive how considerable an addition it will be to our happiness to have our Earthy part refined into such a state of perfection as I have been describing To have the wisdom and experience of Age without the sickness and uneasiness attending it and the sprightlyness and vigour of youth separated from its usual rashness and indiscretion What a glorious change must it be to have these inobsequious and cadaverous Bodies possessed of the three only desirable qualities being made to the height of our wishes suitable illustrious and immortal I shall now in the Third place proceed to draw some inferences from the consideration of the different state of our Bodies here and hereafter Therefore the consideration of the frail condition of our Bodies here and the improvements they will be advanced to hereafter ought to make us entertain a low opinion of the pleasures of sence both because we are permitted but a short enjoyment of them and because they are only fit for us while we are in a state of imperfection We should consider that the Body is not able to provide for it self it's pleasures are not of it's own growth but must be supplied from Forreign Parts and consequently are infallible marks of our want and dependance and therefore to have a strong desire for or high Opinion of these things does but discover our own weakness to be the greater and that we preposterously value our selves upon the Poverty of our condition What are these satisfactions but only short respits from bodily pain and trouble for after the uneasiness of hunger and thirst is over the pleasure of eating and drinking immediately ceases and to continue the action any longer is more a burthen than a refreshment Those therefore who are capable of the greatest bodily pleasure must have the strongest sence of want and uneasiness upon them for unless they are thus prepared it will be flat and unaffecting to them Now who would desire a Fever only for the satisfacton of drinking in it or be in love with extreme poverty because of the unusual pleasure which is then taken in receiving the Charity of others The Body therefore is only so far to be indulged as is necessary to put it into the best condition to be employed by the Soul for as it should not be tyrannized over that being the way to make it both troublesom and unserviceable so on the other side we should be careful to maintain the Soveraignty of the mind that whenever Reason and Religion requires it we may have power to controul our sences and be pleased with the victory But on the contrary to make the Soul a Slave to the Body to employ the powers of Reason the Image of the Glorious God in providing for the gratification of the Animal Life is a most degenerous and dangerous abuse of so great a priviledge And when God hath made us little lower than the Angels ought we not to blush to make our selves less than the Beasts that perish Now that sensuality does degrade us in this manner is apparent it being unquestionably more scandalous and uncreditable to abuse the use of Reason than to want it for the one only argues natural incapacity which because it could not be prevented is no just reproach to any Being but the other besides ingratitude to the Doner implies most egregious folly for what can be more senceless than to be inapprehensive of the Prerogative of our nature and to misapply and squander away the fairest opportunities of being happy A man that makes himself a Beggar by ill Menage and Luxury is in the true estimation of things a much more despicable person than he that is born to that low condition and fixed in it by those impotencies and defects of body or mind which were irresistably forced upon him The rational Brute therefore is most certainly the meanest because he stupidly undervalues the dignity of his Being and employs the highest qualities in the most sordid drudgery Whereas other creatures act according to the Instincts and Appetities which Providence hath put into them it being as impossible for them to rise above their natures as it is dishonourable for us to sink below ours But this practice is not only dishonourable but dangerous for if we give our selves up to the disorders of Appetite and make our Bodies instrumental in sinning besides the diseases which intemperance often exposes them to here we shall find the sad consequence of it in the other World where they will be joined to the Soul only to encrease its misery by putting it into a