the glorious body of the Son of God.”  When our bodies shall be raised to a new life, they shall become incorruptible; “for this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality; and then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.”  When this last enemy is conquered, there shall be no “fleshly lusts” nor brutish passions “to fight against the soul; no law in our members to war against the laws of our minds”; no disease to torment us; no danger of death to amaze and terrify us.  Then all the passions and appetites of our outward man shall be subject to the reason of our minds, and our bodies shall partake of the immortality of our souls.  It is but a very little while that our spirits shall be crusht and clogged with these heavy and sluggish bodies; at the resurrection they shall be refined from all dregs of corruption, and become spiritual, and incorruptible, and glorious, and every way suited to the activity and perfection of a glorified soul and the “spirits of just men made perfect.”

2.  For the encouragement of obedience and a good life.  Let the belief of this great article of our faith have the same influence upon us which St. Paul tells it had upon him.  “I have hope toward God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust; and herein do I exercise myself always to have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man.”  The firm belief of a resurrection to another life should make every one of us very careful how we demean ourselves in this life, and afraid to do anything or to neglect anything that may defeat our hopes of a blest immortality, and expose us to the extreme and endless misery of body and soul in another life.

Particularly, it should be an argument to us, “to glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits”; and to use the members of the one and the faculties of the other as “instruments of righteousness unto holiness.”  We should reverence ourselves, and take heed not only how we defile our souls by sinful passions, but how we dishonor our bodies by sensual and brutish lusts; since God hath designed so great an honor and happiness for both at the resurrection.

So often as we think of a blest resurrection to eternal life, and the happy consequences of it, the thought of so glorious a reward should make us diligent and unwearied in the service of so good a Master and so great a Prince, who can and will prefer us to infinitely greater honors than any that are to be had in this world.  This inference the apostle makes from the doctrine of the resurrection.  “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord; for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Nay, we may begin this blest state while we are upon earth, by “setting our hearts and affections upon the things that are above, and having our conversation in heaven, from whence also we look for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.”