First, That the bodily life is frail and transitory, and within a little •while will surely come to an end. The circumstances of the text explained will represent it to you.
1. The body of man is called an house. (1.) For the beauty and comely proportion that is between the parts, as set up by line or rule. There is an admirable piece of architecture in building and raising up the body of man, story after story, and room after room, contrivance after contrivance, so compact and set together, that the most curious piles in the world are but rude heaps compared to it : Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16, ' I am fearfully and wonderfully made,' &c. The serious contem- plation of God's workmanship in our very bodies will force us to acknowledge his unspeakable wisdom ; all things are so well disposed and ordered for profit and use. The greatest miracles are to be seen in God's common works. We wonder when we hear of any work exceeding the force of nature, or done beside the order of second causes. We wonder when we read that iron did swim, as 2 Kings vi. 6. Yet his hanging the world upon nothing is a greater miracle. There is nothing but the fluid air to sujiport this vast body and con- sistence of earth that we tread upon. We wonder at the curiosities of art, whereas the Lord's ordinary works look very common-like in our eyes ; as, to go no farther, the frame of our own bodies is very curious and exact ; so many bones, arteries, veins, and sinews, &c. And all disposed in such a comely proportion ! Well, then, the body in regard of the frame and structme of it is fitly called an house. (2.) With respect to an inhabitant. The soul dwelleth in the body, as a man in a house. It guideth and ordereth the body, as the inhabi- tant ordereth the affairs of the house, or as the mariner and pilot directs the motions of the ship. Not that the soul is in tiie body accidentally ; we must not strain it so far. There is a formal union between the soul and the body. But the soul is the man, that is, the inhabitant. God began man at his body. He first built the house, and then put in the dweller : he formed and organised the body out of the dust of the earth, and tlien breathed into him the breath of life ; and so man became a living soul, Gen. ii. 7. Well then, the immortal soul is the man, and that which should be chiefly regarded.
VeR. 1.] SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. 425
Most men are like those that take care to deck and adorn the liouse, hut never regard the inliabitant ; all then- care is for the body, whilst the poor neglected soul hath cause to complain of hard usage. This is as if a man should trim his house and starve himself. In a body over cared for there ever dwell eth a neglected soul.
2. Tiie specification of this notion, or what kind or sort of house it is : oIkm tov (TKijvov^, our earthly house of this tabernacle. A taber- nacle or tent is a movable dwelling set up for present use, such as hath a roof or covering, but no foundation. Tectum habet, fundamen- timi non habet; a poor, sorry habitation, either left when the use ceaseth, or taken down, or suffered to fall a-pieces of its own accord. Paul himself was a tent-maker, and spiritual men converse with cor- poral things spiritually ; they are improving common occasions to an holy use, and therefore doth he so often consecrate this notion of a tent, to signify our frail and flitting condition here. (1.) A tent or taber- nacle is easily raised up, and as easily taken down. So men are described : Job iv. 19, ' They dwell in houses of clay; their foundation is in the dust ; they are crushed before the moth ;' a moth is but a handful of enlivened dust. (2.) A tent is set up for a short time of use, not for a fixed habitation. As there are principles of corruption in our bodies, so our use and end is but for a while ; when we have done our part, and served our generation, according to the will of God, the stage is shifted, and the world furnished with a new scene both of acts and actors. (3.) A tent is destroyed by taking the parts asunder. Death is nothing but a dissolution of the parts whereof man is com- posed, a taking asunder of the soul from the body. Well then, if the body be but a tabernacle, always decaying of itself, though it should be preserved from external injuries; and if its use be short, and when that is over, the soul shall be plucked from the embraces of the body, let us do all the good that we can in this little time that we have to spend here : 2 Peter i. 13, 14, ' I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that I must shortly put off this tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus hath showed me.' This should make us bestir ourselves while time and strength lasteth. Yea, the nearer our journey's end we are, the faster should we run. Natural motion is in princi'pio tardior ; when death is near, the best will think the great part of their business undone ; while we are here, we have a cottage rather than a house, a ruinous cottage, yea, a tent ; we spend all our time almost in i-epairing and keeping it up, and supplying the necessities of the body ; so it is an impediment to us from better things. The body hindereth the operations of the life of grace for the present, and the manifestation of the life of glory. It hindereth the life of grace. The body, if it be Bound and well, it kicketh against the spirit, 1 Pet. ii. 11 ; if ill, it afflicts and discomposeth the spirit, and then the life of glory. For till this shed be taken down, that glorious house which we expect from above will never be raised up.