righteousness if enriched with the jewels of the Spirit thy body shall be everlastingly beautifull and glorious for the happiness of the body depends upon the souls happiness If when thou diest thy soul goeth to hell thy body at the resurrection must go thither also If to Heaven thy body will follow it thither also according as thy soul is beautifull or deformed so shall thy body be happy or miserable So much in answer to the five Questions Vse 1. To you that are the Saints of the most high God who have your conversation in Heaven while you are upon earth who are reall members of Christs mysticall body whose souls are adorned with the robe of Christs righteousness To beseech you to consider the blessed and happy condition that your bodies shall be in at the resurrestion for then your vile bodies shall be made like unto the glorious body of Christ {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} shall be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} then shall you shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of your Father All sinne and all sorrow and all bodily deformities shall be utterly removed you shall be as the Angels of God in heaven your bodies shall be honourable glorious powerfull spirituall perfectly beautifull lovely and majesticall and as Aquinas saith transparent like glass Let the consideration of this 1. Comfort you against the fear of death As God said to Jacob Gen. 46. 3 4. Fear not to go down into Egypt for I will go down with thee and I will also surely bring theo up again c. So let me say to you Feat not to go down to the house of rottenness fear not to lay down your heads in the dust for God will certainly bring you out again and you shall come out in a most glorious manner Fear not to have this house of your body pulled down for God will rear it up again and make of it a most glorious structure 2. Let this comfort you against the death of your godly friends for when a godly man dies nothing dies totally and finally in him but sinne Death to a Saint is nothing else but sepultura vitiorum a burying of his sinne Non homo sed peccatum hominis moritur the man dies not but his sinne for the soul doth not die at all but is immediately taken up into the bosome of God and the body though it be turned into dust yet even this dust is pretious in Gods sight this dust is part of Gods elestion this dust is united to Jesus Christ and therefore when a Saint dies he is said to fall asleep in Christ 1 Cor. 15. 18. and to be dead in Christ 1 Thes. 4. 16. and at the last day it shall be raised up again It is sown in corruption but it shall be raised in incorruption It is sown in dishonour it shall be raised in glory it is sown in weakness it shall be raised in power it is sown a naturall body it shall be raised a spirituall body There is a Text in Job which our Reverend Brother did mention often in his sickness and with which he did seem to be much refreshed it is Job 21. 33. The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him Which words though spoken of the wicked yet are in a more eminent manner applicable to the true Saint who sleeps quietly and sweetly in his grave as in his bed free from all trouble and molestation 3. Let this comfort those that have diseased or deformed bodies that are troubled with the Stone Gout Strangury disiness in the head or any other disease whereby they are made unserviceable or at least not able to do that good they would there will a day come wherein they shall be perfectly healed and cured The Resurrection is the Saints best Physitian 4. Let this encourage you to be willing if God call you to it to part with your ears eyes leggs hands or head it self for the keeping of a good conscience for you shall have all your limbs restored to you again at the great day of restitution of all things Famous is the story that Josephus tells of one of the seven Children in the Maccabees who when he was to have his tongue cut out and his ears cut off he said to his Mother These members I have received from Heaven and for the Law of my God I despise them and trust that I shall receive them again I shall have a better tongue at the resurrection of the just 5. Let this exhort you especially that are true Saints whose bodies by grace are become the Temples of the holy Ghost to labour to glorifie God in your bodies as well as in your spirits for they are Gods and they are bought with a price as well as your souls To labour to keep under your bodies and to bring them into subjection To yeeld your members as instruments of righteousness unto God and as servants of righteousness unto holiness Let me beseech you by the mercies of Jesus Christ who hath redeemed your bodies that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service Think not any service too much for God with those bodies which shall one day be made so beautifull and glorious Let godly Ministers be encouraged to wear out their bodies in their Ministeriall imployments for they that turn many unto righteousness shall shine as starres for ever and ever Vse 2. To you that are wicked that is who are members of the devil whose souls are beleapred with sinne who minde earthly things whose God is your belly whose glory is your shame To beseech you to consider the sad and miserable condition you shall be in at that day Your bodies indeed shall rise but they shall rise unto everlasting cindemnation Joh. 5. 24. and unto everlasting shame and contempt Dan. 12. 2. your vile bodies shall then be cursed bodies and your sinfull bodies shall be tormented for ever with the worm that never dieth and the fire that never goeth out Vse 3. A divine project how to make your bodies beautifull and glorious If there were a Physician here upon earth that could cure all your bodily diseases and deformities and make them immortall how would you prize him I have told you this day of such a Physician even the Lord Jesus Christ who shall one day come from Heaven on purpose to make our vile bodies like unto his glorious body Oh that this word were mingled with faith Methinks if any Motive could prevail with you that are Gentlewomen and great Ladies this should Behold a way how to make your bodies eternally beautifull What trouble and pain do many women that are crooked endure by wearing Iron bodies to make themselves strait What vast expences are many at for the beautifying of their rotten carcasses Hearken unto me thou proud dust and ashes thou guilded mud that labourest to beautifie thy body by vain foolish and
splendour It is sown in dishonour but it is raised in glory 1 Cor. 15. 43. The body is not so miserable under the curse as it is blessed in the promise As in the state of corruption it is abased lower then all created bodies so in the state of glory it is exalted higher then all other bodies For the righteous shall shine forth as the Sunne in the Kingdom of their Father Not that they shall not out-shine the Sunne but because there is no more shining body visible to us therefore are the bodies of the Saints in glory compared thereunto The glory of the body saith one will exceed all the beauty and splendour of Gems Pearls Heavens Sunne Moon and Starres yea even the Heaven of Heavens though all were put together This Text tells us that our vile bodies shall be made {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} conformable to the glorious body of Christ This is abundantly sufficient to set out the glory of our body at that day for the body of Christ now in Heaven is unexpressibly glorious We have a specimen of this in the transfiguration Matth. 17. 2. Peter James and John were not able to bear the sight of the glory there manifested which yet was but a glimpse of that glory which he now hath in Heaven Some Divines are of opinion that the brightness which Paul saw when he was strook blinde and fell to the earth was the brightness of the body of Jesus Christ Sure I am that Christs body is the light of Heaven And if Stephens face in this life was seen as the face of an Angel if Moses his face did so shine in being fourty dayes with God that the people could not behold it how glorious shall our bodies be when we shall be for ever with the Lord and when our bodies of vileness shall be fashioned like unto the glorious body of Jesus Christ 4. The fourth endowment is beauty and comeliness The bodies of the Saints shall be perfectly compleat in all their parts if maimed and defective here it shall be suppâ—ied at that day which is a day of restitution of all things Acts 3. 21. And not only so but all crookedness lameness and ill-favouredness which are the fruits of sinne shall be removed Jacob shall halt no more nor Mephibosheth complain of lameness nor Isaac of dimness As the body of Adam in innocency was lovely and beautifull compleat in all its parts so shall ours be at the resurrection 5. The fift is majesty Great shall be the majesty of the body at the resurrection If a good man in this life hath such a majesty in his countenance as to cause men to fear to sinne in his company If Valens the Emperour said of Basil That he never looked upon him but his countenance strock an awe and terror into him oh what majesty will be in the faces and countenances of the Saints in that day 6. The sixth is spirituality It is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body 1 Cot. 15. 44. Not spiritual for substance but for qualities For 1. It shall have no need of meat or sleep c. but shall be as the Angels of God Matth. 22. 30. Non quoad Angelicam essentiam sed Angelicas proprietates Tertullian saith That the Saints shall have corpora reformata Angelificata If Moses was fourty dayes upon the mount without meat and without sleep upheld by the power of God in the state of mortality much more shall we be upheld for ever in the state of immortality 2. It shall be a spiritual body because it shall be absolutely subject to the spirit In the state of glory the soul shall not depend upon the body but the body upon the soul In this life the soul is as it were carnall because so serviceable to the flesh but then the body shall be spiritual because so serviceable to the spirit 7. The seventh is Agility and nimbleness It shall be able to move upwards and downwards like a bird in the aire Luther saith That the body shall be able to move up and down like a thought Austin saith It shall move to any place it will as soon as it will The Scripture saith some such thing 1 Thes. 4. 17. We shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre as so many AEgles flying up to their blessed Carcass Upon this account also it is said That we shall be as the Angels because we shall be able to move as they do If the Saints shall be like the Sunne in its brightness why not saith one in its motion also which the Learned allow to move a Million and one hundred sixty thousand miles in an hour If so swift may be the motion of natural how swift the motion of glorified bodies shall be we shall know when we come to make use of it The eighth endowment is Powerfulnes It is sown in weakness but it shall rise in power 1 Cor. 15. 43. The power that the body shall have will be wonderfull Luther saith That it shall have a power to be able to tess the greatest mountains in the world like a ball Anselme saith They shall be able to shake the whole earth at pleasure How true this is we shall know hereafter Sure I am for the present That the weakest in glory shall be stronger then Sampson in his greatest strength and that the bodies power shall be so great as to be able to be the souls instrument in the enjoyment of God in all the highest operations without intermission In this life when the soul is busied about high and sublime matters the body presently faints Dan. 8. 27. but then it shall attend without any faintness or weariness In this life the eye is dazeled at the brightness of the Sunne but then it shall be strengthened to behold glorious sights and not be dazeled at it the body shall be elevated and strengthened by God to bear that exceeding eternal weight of glory that shall be put upon it Unto all these glorious perfections and excellent indowments I might add An admission to behold with our bodily eyes the sight of Christ as man That we shall see Christ as man with these eyes Job manifestly testifieth Job 19. 25 26 27. And that this sight will add much to our happiness is easily evinced For the sight of Christ as man is the next object unto the beatificall vision it self For the fullness of the Godhead dwels in him bodily and this doth as it were radiate through his body hence there must needs arise as one saith great joy unto the beholder both from the eminency of and our interest in this object Christ in glory and Christ in glory ours As much of the Creator as is possibly visible in the nature of man will be to be seen in Christ as much contentation as the creature can be made partakers of by the sight
THE Saints Transfiguration OR The Body of Vilenesse changed into a Body of Glory A SERMON Preached at Martins Ludgate October 19. 1654. At the Funerall of that Reverend and faithfull Minister of JESUS CHRIST Dr SAMUEL BOLTON late Master of Christs Colledge in Cambridg With a short account of his Death By EDMUND CALAMY B. D. Pastor of Aldermanbury in London To which are annexed Verses upon his Death composed by divers of his Friends and Acquaintance The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart and mercifull men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Isa. 57. 1. Your fathers where are they and the Prophets do they live for ever Zach. 1. 5. London Printed for Joseph Cranford at the Sign of the Phoenix in Pauls Churchyard M.DC.LV. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ROBERT EARL OF WARWICK BARON OF LEEZE Right Honourable IT hath pleased God to take unto himself a Reverend Learned and Pious Minister Dr BOLTON one who feared God above many who was not without just cause highly esteemed by your Lordship whose memory is very pretious to you and who was very dear to a Religious Daughter of yours now with God whom I mention for Honour sake the Lady Lucy Roberts The ensuing Sermon preached at his sad Funerals I crave leave to dedicate to your Lordship as a publike acknowledgement of the many and great favours I have received from you The design of it is to wean Christians from the overmuch love of their bodies All men by nature are prone curare cutem magis quà m animam to take more care and spend more time for their bodies then for their souls Hence it is that they think no cost too much that is laid out for the feeding and cloathing of their bodies no gift too great that is given to the Physitian to heal them when diseased but any thing too much which is given to a godly Minister for the good of their souls Hence it is that the working dayes are too few and too short for their bodily profits and pastimes but the Lords day which is the Queen of dayes because it is the Souls Market-day for Heaven is burdensome to them and very tedious Hence it is also that they are willing to lay out Nine parts of their Estate for their bodies but unwilling to part with the Tenth for soul-advantages The scope of this Sermon is to shew the vanity and sinfulness of these and such like practises It tells your Lordship That the Body is the worst half of man the boxe the shell the carcasse That the Soul is the Jewel the life the man of man That the Body is a Vile body made of vile materials subject to vile diseases and to vile abominations and that he that provides for his body and not for his soul is like unto a husbandman that in harvest time gathers in his stubble and leaves his Corn to be devoured by his Hoggs or like unto a Goldsmith that weighs exactly his dross but disregards his gold And also He that provides for his Body with the neglect of his Soul is like unto a Merchant that overloads his Ship so as to drown himself or to a man that makes so great a fire to warm himself by as to burn his house and himself in it It sheweth your Lordship also That this vile body will never be changed into a glorious body till the great day of the resurrection and that then the Lord JESUS will come from Heaven on purpose to fashion our vile bodies like unto his glorious body That this life is not the time appointed for the good of our bodies only or chiefly but of our souls principally and especially That the only way to make our bodies glorious is by getting our souls to be made gracious That the happiness of the body depends upon the happiness of the soul If the soul be adorned here with Christs righteousness the body will be cloathed with glory unexpressible hereafter If the soul when separated from the body be polluted and belepred with sinne the body and soul will both of them be eternally miserable at the resurrection These Lessons are very suitable and seasonable for all sorts and degrees but especially for you Right Honourable whose body now begins to wax old and will shortly go down to the house of rottenness and be crumbled into dust I doubt not but God hath sufficiently taught you the vanity and emptiness of all earthly greatness That greatness without goodness is like the greatness of a man with a Dropsie which is his disease not his happiness That Riches without Righteousness are but heaps of dung And that nothing but Grace will make you truly and eternally honourable God hath taken you off out of love to your pretious soul from all publike employments and thereby hath lent you much time to provide for eternity He hath given you a Noble Countess a pretious Consort a beloved Companion a dear Yoak-fellow united to you not only by marriage relation but by true love and most entire affection who will be glad to go hand in hand with you in heavens way To both of you my obligations are very many and very great the characters of your Love are visible and legible by all All that know me know my relation to you My prayers to God for you both shall be That God would give you more of himself and of those mercies which cannot stand with damnation That he would keep you good in bad times and constant to your principles in Apostatizing times That he would lengthen out your dayes for his glory and that this Sermon may be instrumentall to make you minde your bodies lesse and your souls more that when the great day of judgement shall come your vile bodies may be changed into the likeness of the glorious body of JESUS CHRIST So prayeth My Lord your servant in all spiritual things EDM. CALAMY A SERMON PREACHED AT Dr BOLTONS Funerall PHIL. 3. 20 21. From whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself WE are here met to perform the last office of love for a worthy reverend and godly Minister of Jesus Christ Dr SAMUEL BOLTON late Master of Christs Colledge in Cambridge And this Text that I have chosen will afford us many suitable and seasonable meditations and considerations for such a meeting For here you have 1. The Condition that the bodies of men even the best of men are in in this life they are vile and contemptible Our vile body The Greek words are very emphaticall {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the body of vilenesse a corpus humilitatis nostrae or b corpus nostrum humile The word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} signifieth vilem abjectam conditionem
qualis est vilium servorum a vile and abject condition such as is of slaves and vassals The same word is used Luk. 1. 48. He hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} It is is also used James 1. 10. 2. The condition that the bodies of the Saints shall be in at the glorious resurrection They shall then be changed and made like unto the glorious body of the Lord Jesus Christ {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} shall then be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The body of vildnesse shall then be a body of glory 3. The Persons whose bodies shall be thus changed and they are such who have their conversation in Heaven But our conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for a Saviour who shall change our vile body Not every vile body but our vile body The bodies of the wicked shall be ugly and loathsome but the bodies of those whose dispositions and actions are heavenly shall be beautifull and glorious 4. The Person that shall make this great change in our bodies and he is the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour 5. The time when this great transfiguration shall be made and that is at the great day of judgment when our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ shall come from Heaven for this very end and purpose to fashion our vile bodies like unto his glorious body 6. The means by which all this shall be accomplished and that is According to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself and therefore able to make this glorious transfiguration and transformation of our bodies 7. The use we are to make of all this and that is To wait and expect to long and look for the coming of our Lord Jesus to judgment for the accomplishing of this glorious Metamorphosis From whence we look for a Saviour By what hath been already said you may perceive that this Text is a pretious Cabinet full of many excellent Jewels for here is The doctrine 1. Of the bodies vility fragility and mortality 2. Of the resurrection of the just 3. Of the bodies immortality and glorification at the resurrection 4. Of the great and dreadfull day of judgment 5. Of the great errand and message for which Christ shall come to judgement and that is to glorifie our bodies Now all these Doctrines are very suitable to such an Assembly as this is the Lord make them as profitable to you as they are seasonable for you My purpose is to pick out only two of these Jewels and to shew you 1. What is the condition of our bodies for the present 2 What our bodies shall be at the resurrection First To speak of the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} then of the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} first of the body of vilenesse then of the body of glory Doct. 1. That the bodies even of the best of Saints for the present are vile bodies Doct. 2. That the Lord Jesus Christ at the great day of judgment shall raise these vile bodies and charge them into the likenesse of his own glorious body Doct. 1. That the bodies even of the best of Saints for the present are vile bodies The holy Apostle foresaw how prone men and women would be to be proud of their bodies to pamper them to spend all their time and lay out all their strength to provide for their bodies even with the neglect of their more pretious souls And therefore that he might wean people from the immoderate love of their bodies he purposely calls them vile bodies and 1 Cor. 15. 43 he calls them dishonourable bodies or bodies of dishonour {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Qu. But you will demand In what respects may the body be said to be a vile body Ans. The body may be said to be a vile body 1. In reference to its primitive constitution even before it was defiled with sin for it was made of dust of the earth the and not of dust simply but of dust mingled with water of clay and muddy dust ex pulvero limoso lutoso The body was not made of coelestiall materials of the Sunne Moon or Starres nor of pretious materials of gold or silver but of the worst and lowest of the elements ex fragili vili materiâ of frail and perishing of ignoble and contemptible materials and therefore may fitly be called a vile body 2. Since the fall of Adam our bodies are called vile bodies because subject to vile diseases therei 's no disease so vile but the body of man is subject unto Job was a man eminent in godliness yet his body was full of soars and biles â—â—om the crown of his head to the sole of his foot and he saies of himself Job 7. 5. My flesh is cloathed with worms and clods of dust my skin is broken and become loathsome Who can reckon up all the diseases that mans body is liable unto The Stone the Govt Leprosie Plague Colick Strangury Diabolicall possession Madness Sciatica and small Pox are not the tithe of them and therefore it may fitly be called a vile body 3. Because subject to vile abuses by Tyrants and cruell Persecutors A Tyrant cannot hurt the soul of a child of God but he can torture and kill his body It is said of the blessed Martyrs of whom the world was not worthy Heb. 11. 37. They were stoned they were sawed asunder were slain with the sword They wandred about in Sheep-skins and Goat-skins destitute afflicted and tormented All these sufferings were bodily and therefore it may well be termed a vile body 4. Because subject to vile abominations and wickednesses For since the fall of Adam our bodies are instruments of unrighteousness unto sinne Rom. 6. 13. they are servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity Rom. 6. 19 In some to drunkenness in others to adultery theevery and murder in others to sodomy by which the bodies of men are made vile and dishonourable according to the saying of the Apostle Rom. 1. 24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonour their own bodies between themselves 5. Because even in the best of Saints it is a great impediment and hindrance to their immortall souls and therefore called sepulchrum animae and vinculum animae The sepulcher of the soul the fetters and manacles of the soul For the most pretious soul 1. It is hidden in the body as a man in a dark dungeon or as a bright candle in a dark lantern the excellent nature beauty and glorious operations of it cannot be seen For it may be said of the soul as Plato saith of vertue that if a man could but see it he could not but love it but it is hidden in the body as in a prison 2. It is hindred by the body in three respects 1. It is hindred from Heaven
of any one visible object will be the portion of the beholders of Christ as he is man All this is in answer to the second Question 3. How is it possible that ever these bodies of ours should rise again and these vile bodies be made like unto the glorious body of Christ With man this is impossible but with God nothing is impossible My text tells you how this shall be done even according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself The Lord Jesus Christ is almighty and therefore he is able to do it He that can make a man being nothing out of the dust of the earth can certainly repair him out of that dust when he is something It is as easie to God to give a body to a soul at the resurrection as to breathe a soul into a body at the first creation Both Philosophers and Divines write of the Phoenix that first she is consumed to ashes by the heat of the Sunne and that afterwards of her ashes ariseth a young one which is the same Phoenix risen from the dead The Apostle tells us That the corn must first be cast into the ground and there die and rot before it will spring up which sheweth that a resurrection from the dead is possible even in nature What is every night but the grave as it were of the dayes light What is the morning but the resurrection of the day What is winter but the death as it were of fruits and what the spring but the resurrection of them What is death but a pulling down of the house of our bodies and what is the resurrection but the building up of the same house more gloriously And cannot the Almighty God do this We see by experience that our most curious glasses are made by art even of ashes and cannot the omnipotent and everliving God raise mens dead bodies out of ashes The earth and sea are Gods stewards with whom he hath betrusted the bodies of men and when God shall call them to give an account of their stewardship they will faithfully discharge their trust and will not keep back one dead body The grave is but the bodies withdrawing-room or sleepiâ—g-place and the time will come when they that are asleep in the dust of the earth shall awake c. Dan. 12. 2. And it is as easie for God to distinguish between dust and dust and to give to every man his own dust as it is for a gardiner that hath divers seeds in his hand to sever them and know them one from another A curious Watch-maker can undo his Watch and put it together again A skilfull Alchymist can extract one mettall out of another much more can Almighty God distinguish one dust from another as well as one man from another In a word It is as easie for God to make our vile bodies glorious as it is for a beggar to put off his raggs and to put on the apparrel of a King Our dear and Reverend Brother did fully beleeve this and therefore he three times in my hearing repeated these words According to his mighty power his mighty power even his mighty power he is able to change this vile body of mine and make it like unto his glorious body 4. Shall all bodies be made thus glorious No The bodies of the wicked shall rise at the last day but it shall be to their everlasting shame ruin and confusion They shall be immortall but they shall be immortall fuell to immortall flames The bodies of the wicked shall come out of their gravos as out of their prisons and as so many malefactors to appear before an angry Judg. They shall come out of their graves as the chief Baker did out of prison to be hung in chains in hell for ever where they shall endure all kind of extremities figured out unto us by the sad condition of Dives who could not get a drop of water to cool his tongue The bodies of the wicked shall be as ugly loathsome carcasses to look upon and their faces shall gather blackness and darkness Isa. 66. 24. They shall arise with great fear and trembling and shall call to the hils and mountains to cover and hide them from the presence of the Lamb Oh the horror and astonishment that shall be at that day when the foul of a wicked man shall come out of hell and be again united to the body How will the body curse the soul and the soul the body How will they befool one another Certainly this greeting will be very terrible the Lord grant we may never come to have experience of it 5. What are the Characters of those men and women whose vile bodies shall be made like unto the glorious body of Christ 1. There is one Character of them in the text If thou art one that hast thy conversation in Heaven then thy body shall be made glorious For our conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for a Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile bodies and make them like to his glorious body c. If thou beest a man that mindest earthly things if ambitious covetous or voluptuous if given over to fulfill the lusts of the flesh thy body shall rise but it shall rise to everlasting condemnation But if heavenly-minded if thy disposition and conversation be heavenly when Christ comes from Heaven he will make thy body heavenly and glorious 2. If a reall member of Christs mysticall body thou shalt be made partakers of the glory of Christs natural body Christ hath a double body a body mysticall and a body naturall If thou beest a reall member of Christs mysticall body I say a reall member not only a member by outward profession but by a holy conversation if truly united by a heart-purifying faith unto Christs mysticall body thou shalt be conformable in glory to Christs naturall body And therefore it is said That at the day of judgment Christ shall be glorified in his Saints Here he is glarified by his Saints but then he shall be glorified in his Saints that is in the glory that the members of his mysticall body shall have at that day For Christ shall then have a double glory 1. A personall glory for he shall come with power and great glory Matth. 24. 30. 2. A sociall glory a glory which he communicates to his Saints and by which glory he shall be glorified For when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we appear with him in glory And the glory of the members shall redound to the glory of the head Therefore the Saints are called the glory of Christ 2 Cor. 8. 23. If a member of Christ though but as the toe in his body thou shalt be filled brim full of glory at the resurrection 3. If thy soul be gracious here thy body shall be glorious hereafter If cloathed with Christs
sinfull deckings and trimmings and thinkest thy self deckt in the want of decking that pamperest thy body in all voluptuousness and makest thy self by thy strange fashions so unlike thy self as that if our civil fore-fathers were alive again they would wonder what strange monster thou wert Hearken unto me I say and consider thy madness and folly by labouring so much to adorn thy body with the neglect of thy soul thou undoest both body and soul The only way to make thy body for ever beautifull is as I have said 1. To have thy conversation in Heaven while thou art upon earth and when Christ comes from Heaven he will change thy vile body and make it like his gloriom body 2. To labour to be a reall member of Christs mysticall body and then thou shalt partake of the glory of his naturall body 3. To get a gracious soul here and thou shalt be sure to have a glorious body and soul hereafter There is a saying of Bernard worthy to be written in letters of gold Christ hath a treble coming Once he came in the flesh for the good of our souls and bodies Now he comes in the spirit by the preaching of his Ministers for the good of our souls At the last day he shall come for the good of our bodies to beautifie them and glorifie them Noli oh homo praeripore tempora do not oh man mistake thy time This present life is not the time for thy body It is appointed for the beautifying of thy soul and adorning it with grace and holiness The resurrection is the time wherein Christ will come from Heaven to make thy body glorious How quite contrary to this do most people live Let it be our wisdom with the children of Issachar to have understanding of the times Study in this your day to get good and gracious souls and you shall be sure at the great day to have blessed and most glorious bodies Labour to get your souls beautified by Christs second coming with justification and sanctification and Christ at his third coming will make thy body glorious above expression HAving finished my discourse upon the Text I know it is expected that I should speak something of our Dear and Reverend Brother whose sad funerals we now celebrate It hath pleased God within a little space to take to himself many godly and able Ministers which without doubt is a very great judgment and the greater because most people are so little sensible of it And not only a great judgment in it self but a presage of greater to come For the righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart and mercifull men are taken away none cinsidering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come The Rabbins have a saying Quando Luminaria patiuntur Eclipsim malum signum est mundo It is an ill sign to the world when the Luminaries of Heaven are eclipsed God hath extinguished many glorious Lights of late I need not put you of this City in minde of Dr Gouge Mr Walker Mr Whitaker Mr Gataker Mr Strong c. nor you of the University of Dr Hill and now of this godly Minister Dr Samuel Bolton late Master of Christs Colledge in Cambridg If I should enter upon his commendation I may truly say what Gregory Nazianzen doth of his Sister Gorgonia that there is more fear least I should speak too little then that I should speak too much He was a burning and shining light in this our Israel an interpreter one of a thousand a man of excellent Ministerial abilities a workman that needed not to be ashamed dividing aright the word of truth He was one that did study not only {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} not only to preach well but to live well His life was an excellent commentary upon his Sermons As Nazianzen saith of John Baptist who is called The voice of the cryer that he was all voice a voice in his habit a voice in his diet a voice in his dwelling a voice in his conversation as well as in his preaching So may I truly say of our Reverend Brother he was tota vox all voice a voice in his life as well as in his Doctrine he lived his own Sermons and preached louder by his good conversation then by his heavenly doctrine Nam Vita Praedicatorum est vocalissima What Ruffinus saith of Gregory Nazianzen may fitly be applied unto our dear Brother He did those things himself which he taught to others neither did he condemn himself by practising contrary to what he preached He had not only dona honoraria but dona salutifera not only gifts for the good of others but graces for the good of his own soul There are many Ministers that have rare gifts but they are like a Pearl in a Toads-head because their lives give a lye to their Doctrines But this our Reverend Brother had not only gratias gratis datas but gratias gratum facientes he was not only learned but religious and which is his highest commendation he was an humble Saint There are four things saith Luther that make a Minister Prayer Reading Meditation and Temptation Our Christian Brother was not only a man of Prayer Reading and Meditation but a man assaulted with many Temptations with more I beleeve then many hundred of Ministers are He was often buffeted by Satan and therefore more able to comfort them that were in trouble by the comfort wherewith he himself was comforted of God And let me take the boldness to tell you that he hath left a writing behind him wherein he hath recorded all the outgoings of God towards him and all the experiences of Gods shining with the light of his countenance upon him and also of his withdrawings and hiding his face from him He hath written down both the Apogaeum's and Perigaeum's as I may so speak both those times wherein God was at a distance from him and when he approached neerer to him His desire to win souls to Christ by preaching was so great that though he was head of a Colledge in Cambridg and had no Ministeriall charge of his own yet notwithstanding he preached gratis once every Lords day for many years together The like is said in print of that Reverend and godly Minister Dr Hill late Master of Trinity Colledge Here I must not forget what hath been told me since the preaching of this Sermon That our dear Brother in the ordinary course of his Ministry had preached over the third Chapter to the Philippians to the latter end of the verse immediatly before my Text and behold how by the overruling Providence of God unknown to me it hath hapned that the last verse of the same Chapter which he left unfinished was chosen for his Funeral Sermon But though he lived not to preach of this verse yet he now lives in Heaven waiting for that blessed time when his vile
may be fit for them that we may cheerfully put up this petition for them That their bodies may prosper even as their souls prosper Let the chiefest part have the chiefest care the best part the best of our strength and dayes 6. Lastly Let us from this Epithete learn a lesson of thankfullness Our bodies are bodies of vileness and therefore if God hath given thee a body more handsome and more healthfull then others have if God hath made any of us ex meliore luto of better earth if he hath made us golden vessels in regard of our outward condition if he hath raised any of us from the dust and set us in high places especially if God hath made us elect vessels vessels of mercy in regard of our eternal condition as I doubt not but there are many such here oh give God a great deal of glory and give him all the glory If he hath made thy vile body an instrument of righteousness unto holiness if he hath sanctified it and made it a Temple fit for the holy Ghost to dwell in then let me speak to you in the language of the holy Ghost Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ will you take the members of Christ and make them members of an harlot God forbid Know you not that your body is the Temple of the holy Ghost which is in you c. And If any man defile the Temple of God him will God destroy Will you abuse that body that is the Temple of the holy Ghost to sinne and iniquity God forbid I shall now pass from the first Observation to the second with which our worthy and dear brother was much refreshed and did often repeat in my hearing and upon that account I made made choice of this Text at this time The Observation is That the Lord Jesus Christ at the great day of judgment shall raise these vile bodies and change them into the likeness of his own glorious body This Doctrine is an Alablaster box full of pretious consolation It was a great comfort and support to our dear brother when he was going out of this world and oh that it might be a like pretious Cordial to us when we shall be in his condition For the better understanding of the Doctrine I shall propound these five Questions 1. What is that change that Christ shall make in our vile bodies at the resurrection The bodies of the Saints when dead and separated from their souls are not separated from Jesus Christ and therefore are said to be dead in Christ while dead they are united to Christ and by virtue of this union Christ as their Head will raise them at the last day and at their resurrection they shall be changed non quoad substantiam sed quoad proprietates the substance of their bodies shall not be altered but only the qualities As wool when it is died into a purple or scarlet die is the same wool for substance though it be made more glorious so the bodies of the Saints at the resurrection shall be the same for substance though made more excellent and more glorious This was Jobs comfort that with those very eyes of his he should see his Redeemer and that he himself should see him and not another The Apostle tells us That this mortall body must put on immortality and this corruptâ—ble body must put on incorruption The ancient Christians when they rehearsed that article of the Creed Credo resurrectioneme carnis I beleeve the resurrection of the flesh were wont to add Etiam hujus carnis even of this my flesh It cannot stand with Gods justice saith Hierom that one body should sinne and another body be damned that one body should serve him and another be crowned this is contrary to the justice of God and to the very nature of the resurrection for a resurrection is when the same body that dieth riseth again otherwise it is rather a new creation then a resurrection As the body of Christ after his resurrection was the same for substance though much more excellent and glorious so shall the bodies of the Saints be at their resurrection As a Goldsmith saith Chrysostome takes a little gold and puts it into a refining pot and melts it and then out of that gold forms a golden vessel fit to be set before Kings so the Lord Jesus Christ melts the bodies of his Saints by death and out of their dead ashes and cinders will form a vessel of gold a glorious body fit to live with God and sing Hallelujahs in Heaven to all eternity 2. What are those transfigurations and transformations that Christ shall make in our bodies at this day what is this metamorphosis wherein doth it consist It is impossible to set out all the glorious excellencies with which Christ will adorn our bodies in the great day of the resurrection Quae sit quam magna spiritualis corporis gloria quoniam nondum venit in experimentum vereor ne temerarium sit omne quod de illâ profertur eloquium How great the glory of our spirituall bodies shall be because we have no experience of it I fear it will be rashness for any man saith Austin to speak peremptorily about it It will be the marriage day between Christ and his Saints and he will endow their bodies with glorious qualities as well as their souls for he assumed their bodies as well as their souls suffered in body as well as in soul died for their bodies as well as for their souls and therefore will glorifie their bodies as well as their souls Give me leave to mention some of those glorious perfections with which our vile bodies shall be beautified at that day 1. The bodies of the Saints at the resurrection shall be free from all sinne Paul shall not then complain of a law in his members rebelling against the law of his minde nor cry out Oh miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death we shall at that day not only have a posse non peccare a possibility not to sinne as Adam had in innocency but a non posse peccare an impossibility of sinning 2. Our bodies shall be made immortall and incorruptible 1 Cor. 15. 53 54. This mortall shall put on immortality as a garment never to be put off again Death shall be swallowed up in victory Adam in innocency as he had a power not to sinne so also not to die but the Saints at the resurrection shall have an impossibility of sinning and of dying Not but that our bodies are naturally corruptible even at the resurrection but by the presence of God filling them they shall be made like the Angels immortall And if embalming the body can preserve it from putrefaction for many years much more will the presence of God preserve it from death for ever 3. The third endowment is brightness and