So that the very best desire is but comparative, and it is but few who find the love of this animal life sub-acted and over-powered by high-raised acts of faith and love. The generality, even of good souls, feel strong renitencies, and suffer sharp conflicts at their dissolution ; all which discovers with what lothness and unwilling- ness the soul unclasps its arms to let go its body. Now, as divines argue the frame of Christ's heart in heaven towards his people on earth, from all those endearing passages and demonstrations of love he gave them at parting; so we here argue the continued love and inclination of the soul to its body after it is in heaven, from the
94 A TREATISE OT THE SOUL OF MAV.
manifold demonstrations it gave of its affection to it in this world, especially in the parting hour. No considerations in all the world, less than the more full fruition of God, and freedom from sin, could possibly have prevailed with it to quit the body, though but for a time, and leave it in the dust. Which is our third argument.
Arg. 4. And as the dolorous parting hour evidenceth it, so doth the joy with which it receives it again at the resurrection. If it part from it so heavily, and meet it again with joy unspeakable ; sure, then, it still retaineth much love for it, and desires to be re- espoused to it in the interval. Now, that its meeting in the resur- rection is a day of joy to the soul, is evident, because it is called the time of refreshment^ Acts iii. 19. and they awake with singing out of the dust, Isa. xxvi. 19. If the direct and immediate scope of the prophet jx>ints not (as some think it doth) at the resurrection, yet it is allowed by all to be a very lively allusion to it, which is suf- ficient for my purpose : And, indeed, none that understand and believe the design, and business of that day, can possibly doubt but there was reason enough to call .it a time of refreshment, a singing morning ; for the souls of the lighteous come from heaven with Christ, and the whole host of shouting angels, not to be spectators only, but the subjects of that day's triumph : They come to re-assume, and be re-espoused to their own bodies, this being the appointed time for God to vindicate and rescue them from the tyrannical power of the grave, to endow them with spiritual qualities, at the second marriage to their souls, that in both parts they may be completely happy. O the joyful claspings, and dear €mi3races, betwixt them ! who but themselves, can understand ! And, by the way, this removes the objection before-mentioned, of the miseries and prejudices the soul suffered in this world, in, and from the body ; for now it receives it a spiritual body, (i. e.) so subdued to, and fitted for the use of the spirit, as never to impede, clog, or obstruct its motions and inclinations any more, 1 Cor. xv. 44. In this hope it parted from it, and with this consolation it now receives it again.
Arg. 5. There are many scriptures which very much favour, if they do not positively conclude for the sours inclination to, and desire to be re-united with its own body, even whilst it is in the state of its single glorification in heaven : Certainly our souls leave not their bodies at death, as the ostrich doth her egg in the sand, without any further regard to it, or concernment for it ; but they are represented as crying to God to remember, avenge, and vindicate them. Rev. vi. 10, 11. " How long. Lord, how long '• wilt thou not avenge our blood ?'''' Our blood, speaks both the continued relation, and the suitable affection they have to their absent bodies.
A TUEATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 95
And to the same sense * a judicious and learned pen expounds that place, Job xiv. 14. (whicli is commonly, but I know not how fitly accommodated to another purpose) " All the days of my ap- " pointed time will I wait till my change come."*' Which words, by a diligent comparing of the context, appears to have this for their proper scope and sense.
* Job in the former verse had expressed his confidence by way of < petition, that at a set and appointed time God would remember
* him so as to recal him out of the grave ; and now, minded to
* speak out more fully, puts the question to himself. If a man die,
* shall he live again?" and thus answers it, ' All the days of my
* appointed time, (that is, of the appointed time which he mention-
* ed before, when God should revive him out of the dust) ' will I ' wait till my change come ;' that is, that glorious change, when the ' corruption of a loathsome grave should be exchanged for immor-
* tal glory : AVhich he amplifies, and utters more expressly, ver. 15. ' Thou shalt call, and I will answer ; thou shalt have a desire to ' the work of thy hands :' Thou wilt not always forget to restore
* and perfect thine own creature. And surely this waiting is not
* the act of his inanimate sleeping dust, but of that part which
* should be capable of such an action : q. d. I, in that part which
* shall be still alive, shall patiently wait the appointed time of re-
* viving me in that part also, which death and the grave shall insult
* over in a temporary triumph in the mean time."*
Upon these grounds I think the inclination of the separated spi- rits of the just to their own bodies to be a justifiable opinion. As for the damned, we have no reason to think such a re-union to be desirable to them ; for alas, it will be but the increase and aggra- vation of their torments ; which consideration is sufficient to over- power and stifle the inclination of nature, and make the very thouglits of it horrid and dreadful. To what end (as the prophet speaks in another case) is it for them to desire that day .? It will be a day of darkness and gloominess to them ; re-union being designed to complete the happiness of the one, and the misery of the other.
But before I take off my hand, and dismiss this question, I must remember that I am a debtor to two objections.
Object. 1. The soul can both live and act separate from the body, it needs it not ; and if it do not want^ why should it desire it ?
Sol. The life and actings of the glorified are considerable two ways, (1.) Singly and abstractedly for the life and action of one part : And so we confess the soul lives happily, and acts forth its own powers freely in the state of separation. (2.) Personally, or
* Mr. Howe's blessedness of the righteous, p. 170, 1"1.
96 A TllEATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAX.
consecrately, as it is the life and action of the whole man, and so it doth both need and desire the conjunction or re-union of the body ; for the body is not only a part or Christ's purchase, as well as the soul, and to have its own glory, as well as it, but it is also a con- stitutive part of a complete glorified person ; and so considered, the saints are not perfectly happy till this re-union be effected, which is the true ground and reason of this its desire.