3. Do not spare the body to do God service. A believer, if he look backward or forward, upward or downward, seeth no reason to spare the body. Backward, what pains did Christ endure in his body? his face spit upon, his hands and feet nailed to the cross, his head crowned with thorns ; in his lifetime neglected : ' he bore our sins in his body on the tree;' and shall we be so tender and delicate of our bodies as not to endure a little pains for Gods sake ? Forward : 2 Cor. v. 1, ' For we know if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved,
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we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' A poor house of clay, though that be crumbled into dust, it is better to be worn out with labour than eaten out with rust : Acts xxvi. 7, ' Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come.' At the day of judgment it will be no grief of heart that we have lived faithfully, painfully, in the exercise of godliness, in fasting and praying, and labouring for God. ; though it have deprived your bodies of some pleasures which others take, that live a life of pomp and ease, and in carnal delights; when they are full of horror and amazement, you will have your reward. These eyes which are often lifted up in prayer shall see your Eedeemer ; those knees which are made hard like a camel's hoof by your daily addresses to God shall be softened ; those spirits which are wasted in godly exercises shall amply be repaired. Upward, I hope one day my body shall be in heaven, and there is the place of my rest : Rev. xiv. 13, ' Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, that they may rest from their labours.' The soul will remember the body, as Pharaoh's butler did Joseph : I had strength, and was willing to spend it for God. Downward : ' Fear him that is able to cast both body and soul into hell,' Mat. x. 28. There are pains inflicted immediately on the body ; how much better is it to take a little pains now !
Use 2. Is to put us upon self-reflection. How shall we know that this will be our condition, that our bodies shall be raised up to the fellowship of this glory ?
1. If we be partakers of the first resurrection. There is the resurrec- tion of the soul from the power of sin, and the resurrection of the body from the power of death. They that have part in the first resurrec- tion, over those ' the second death hath no power,' Rev. xx. 6. The resurrection to the life of holiness and the resurrection to the life of glory have an intimate connection the one with the other ; and the life of grace is put as the remedy against our death by sin : Rom. iii. 10, 'The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of right- eousness.' The sting and hurt of death is taken away when, upon account of Christ's righteousness, we are made partakers of his Spirit. Our conversation is one sort of quickening and resurrection, and maketh way for the other, the quickening and raising of our bodies. Therefore, is the life of grace begun ? is the body and soul made a temple of the Holy Ghost, the place where he manifesteth his power and presence ? Rom. viii. 11, 'If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in you.' He that hath once honoured the body by his presence will not suffer corruption always to remain upon it.
2. How doth this life discover itself? Are you like Christ? 1 John iv. 17. If you are such in the world as he was in the world. The change of a christian beginneth in his soul, first changed there into the image and likeness of Christ, and then his body is made like unto his glorious body. Christ beginneth with the soul, but he endeth with the body. Therefore that a christian should look after, to be like Christ in holiness, and then he will be like him in glory, to be such as he was, and to walk as he walked, to be humble, useful, and fruitful, and then
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God will take care for other things which belong to our happiness. Is our soul ennobled with his image ? do we resemble Christ here more and more?
3. You may know that your bodies shall be raised to the fellowship of this glory by the use you put your bodies unto. If we pamper the body, altogether provide for the satisfying its lust, you choose your heaven here, and slight the happiness which God hath intended for it in another world. Some proclaim their atheism, 'Let us eat and drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we shall die.' But you secretly cherish it while you serve your lusts in a more cleanly manner, withhold your hearts from nothing that can satisfy and please your lusts. Will you know whither you shall go, to heaven or hell ? Rom. viii. 13, ' If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die ; but if ye through the Spirit do mor- tify the deeds of the body, ye shall live;' and Gal. vi. 8, 'He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.' Do you gratify or crucify the flesh ? Flesh-pleasers are flesh-destroyers. For the present you dishonour the body, which should be the temple of the Holy Ghost, and which one day he will make so glorious ; and for the future you destroy the happiness of the body. Well, then, if for love to your body you follow only its present lusts, and care only for the things of the body, you act the greatest enmity and hostility against your own bodies that is imaginable ; for fleshly lusts do not only war against the soul, but the body also, and destroy that part which they seem to gratify.