St Paul then in these words, and in the verse before, sets down three reasons why his course is opposite to the course of wicked men in his time.
1. First, My city is in heaven, and my conversation is answerable. I take a contrary course, for I am a citizen of another city.
' 2. And then another reason is, his hope and expectation of a Saviour from heaven, the Lord Jesus. Hope, and faith, which is the ground of hope, carry up the soul where the thing hoped for is. ' Our conversation is in heaven : we hope for a Saviour from thence.'
3. The third reason is, from the condition of the body. However it was now for the present, ' he shall change our vile body, that it may be like his glorious body.'
' Who shall change our vile body.'
You see here the apostle, having set himself upon a holy and heavenly meditation, he could not satisfy himself, but goes from point to point, setting down his present holy conversation, grounded upon his future hope of a blessed state to come. ' Christ shall change our vile body.' Our bodies are vile, and our bodies. Here is the point then, that
The best men's bodies in this ivorJd are vile.
' Vile in regard of the matter ivhence they are taken, the earth, from the dust. The fairest body is but well-coloured dust ; base and vile from the beginning, from the womb ; base in the whole life, base in death ; most base after death. They are base, I say, in the beginning.
But especially, base in our life. Our bodies are base in regard of labour. ' Man is born to labour' — in this world — ' as the sparks fly upward,' Job V. 7. God would humble the body of every man with labour ; or else those that have not the labour of men here shall have the labour of devils here- after. The best body of the best saints are condemned to labour.
Vile likewise in regard of sickness and diseases, which grow out of the body ; so that be it kept never so warm and tenderly, yet as the worms grow out of the very wood, and consumes the wood that breeds it, so dis- eases grow out of and come from the body. There is a fight and conflict between moisture and heat, till the one prey upon the other and consume it. In regard of sickness therefore they are vile bodies.
In regard likewise of disptosing the soul the ivorst way; for take all tempers of the body, they incline the soul to some sin or other, to some ill disposi-
THE REDEMPTION OF BODIES. 103
tion or other. Choler inclines it to intemperate anger, melanchnhj to dis- trust and darkness of spirit. The san/ftdne inclines it to liberty and loose- ness, &c., phlef^in to deadness and dulness of spirit. So our base bodies make the soul dull. It becomes an unfit instrument, whereby the soul cannot work as it would ; an unfit house. The body is ofttimes a dark house ; sometimes a house that drops in with moist diseases ; a house that lets in water, and so consumes it to rottenness. Sometimes it is a house fired by hot diseases. It is thus indisposed, and therefore a vile body.
A vile body likewise, that when it is thus indisposed, there is no com- fort in the earth that can comfort it; for all the foundation of comfort in this world is the health of this poor body. A kingdom, nay, all the kingdoms in the world, will not comfort a man if his body be not in tune ; and, alas, how soon is this body out of tune ! An instrument that hath many strings is soon subject to be out of tune,* and there are many strings in the body. How many turnings, how many instruments, doth the soul use ! If any be out of tune, the music is hindered. It becomes an unfit instrument. In this regard it is a vile body.
In regard likewise of the necessities of nature, this body is vile in this world. I speak not of what comes from the body, in which respect it is base and vile. But how many things doth this vile body stand in need of! Man, in that respect, is the basest creature in the world. He is beholden to the worms ; he is beholden to nature to feed him in health, and in sickness the body needs patching up and piecing by this creatm-e and by that. So it is a vile body in regard of the necessities of it, in health, in sickness, in youth, in age. It is vile in life. I need not stand on this.
It is more vile in death. In the hour of death, then it is base and vile indeed. Can we endure the sight of our dearest friends ? How noisome is their presence after death ! And the most exquisite temper f is the most vile and noisome of all. Those that are most dehcately fed, and most beautifully faced, are most ofi'ensive ; and this is the condition of all. That head that wore a crown, those hands that swayed a sceptre, those brains and that understanding that ruled many kingdoms, all are subject to death, yea, and to baseness after death, as well as those that are poorer. And then they are vile bodies, because they are subject to all manner of deaths. The bodies of God's saints have been cast out to the fowls of the air. The poor martyrs, how many ways have they tasted of death ! These bodies are subject to all manner of deaths, to variety of deaths ; therefore they are \i\e bodies.