[1.] The happiness of his person, and there both of his body and his soul.
(1.) Of his body. It is good to consider that. It is now a temple of the Holy Ghost, and he cannot leave his mansion, and quit his ancient dwelling-place, and therefore he raiseth it up, and formeth it again into a complete fashion, like to Christ's glorious body : Phil. iii. 21, ' Who shall change our vile body, that it may be like to his glori- ous body,' for clarity, agility, strength and incorruption. Solomon's temple was destroyed, but the latter temple was nothing so glorious as the former. Men wept when they saw it : Ezra iii. 12, ' But many of the priests and Levites, and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men which had seen the first house, when the foundations of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice.' But it is not so here ; what is raised shall be quite another body. For the present there is to be seen a beautiful fabric, wherein God hath showed his workman- ship ; every member, if it were not so common, would be a miracle, all is so ordered for the service and comeliness of the whole ; but now it is a vile body, subject to diseases, fed with meat, humbled with wants, many times mangled with violence, dissolved by death, and crumbled to dust in the grave, like a dry clod of earth. This is the body that we carry about with us, a mass of flesh, dressed up to be a dish for the worms. Men labour with a great deal of do by embalming it with spices to keep it from putrefaction, but all will not serve the turn ; it moulders at last. But this vile body shall rise in another manner, like to Christ's glorious body. When the sun appeareth the stars vanish, their lustre is eclipsed and darkened ; but the Sun of righteousness, when he appears at the last day, doth not obscure but perfect our glory. But wherein shall our bodies be like to Christ's glorious body ? The apostle will tell us that in another place : 1 Cor. xv. 42-44, ' It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonour,
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it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body,' Let me single out three expressions ; it is raised in incorruption, it is raised in glory, it is raised a spiritual body.
(Isf.) It is an incorruptible body. Now it yieldeth to the decays of nature, and is exercised with pains and aches, till at length it droppeth down like ripe fruit into the grave ; but hereafter it shall be clothed with immortality, wholly impassible. What a comfort is this to them that are racked with stone and gout, humbled with diseases, or withered with age, to think they shall have a body without aches and without decays, that shall be always in the spring of youth ! The trees of paradise are always green.
{2d.) It is a glorious body. Here it is many times deformed, at least beauty, like a flower, is lost in sickness, withered with age, defaced by the several accidents of life ; but then we shall be glorious like Christ's body. The naked body of man at first was so beautiful that the beasts of the field admired it, and thereupon did homage to Adam ; but we shall not be conformed to the first Adam, but the second Adam. When Christ was transfigured in the Mount, it is said. Mat. xvii. 2, ' His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.' There was such strong emissions of the beams of glory that they could not endure the shining of his garments, but it astonished the disciples ; his garments could not veil, nor their eyes endure those beams of glory. Paul could not endure that light that shined on him when Christ appeared to him from heaven, but was utterly confounded and struck blind: Acts ix. 3, 4, 'And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus ; and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven ; and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? ' By this you may guess a little what the glory of our bodies shall be, for we shall be like him. Moses, by conversing with God forty days, the complexion of his face was altered, so that he was forced to put a veil upon it. In this low estate in which we are, we must make use of these hints. If we lose a limb or a joint, he that healed Malchus' ear will restore it again.
(3c?.) It is a spiritual body, either for agility, caught up into the air to meet the Lord, not clogged as now ; or rather, because more disposed for spiritual uses, for the enjoyments and employments of grace. Here it is a natural body, a great clog to us ; it is not a dexterous instrument to the soul ; we are not in a capacity to bear the new wine of glory ; there it is made more capacious, as wide vessels, to contain all that God will give out. The disciples fainted at Christ's transfiguration : Mat. xvii. 6, ' And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces, and were sore afraid.' We cannot receive such large diffusions and overflowings of glory as we shall then have ; every strong afi"ection and raised thought doth overset us, and causeth ecstasy and ravishment ; eminent objects overwhelm the faculty. But there it is otherwise ; God maketh out himself to us in a greater latitude, and we are more able to bear it.