XXV.  THE RESURRECTION.

The doctrine of the resurrection, however questioned by heretics and erroneous persons, yet is such a truth, that almost all the holy scriptures of God point at and centre in it.

There is a poor dry and wrinkled kernel cast into the ground; and there it lieth, swelleth, breaketh, and, one would think, perisheth.  But behold, it receiveth life, it chippeth, it putteth forth a blade, and groweth into a stalk.  There also appeareth an ear; it also sweetly blossoms, with a full kernel in the ear.  It is the same wheat; yet behold how the fashion doth differ from what was sown.  And our bran will be left behind, when we rise again.  The body ariseth, as to the nature of it, the self-same nature; but as to the manner of it, how far transcendent!  The glory of the terrestrial is one, and the glory of the celestial is another.

“It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.”  At our first appearance, the world will tremble.  Behold, the gates of death and the bars of the grave are now carried away on our shoulders, as Sampson carried away the gates of the city.  Death quaketh, and destruction falleth down dead at our feet.  What then can stand before us?  We shall then carry such grace, majesty, terror, and commanding power in our souls, that our countenances shall be as lightning.  Then shall death be swallowed up of victory.

Glory is the sweetness, comeliness, purity, and perfection of a thing.  The light is the glory of the sun, strength is the glory of youth, and gray hairs are the glory of old age.  That is, it is the excellency of these things and that which makes them shine.  Therefore to arise in glory, it is to arise in all the beauty and utmost completeness that is possible for a human creature to possess, in all its features and members inconceivably beautiful.  Sin and corruption have made mad work in our bodies as well as in our souls; ’tis sin commonly that is the cause of all that deformity and ill-favoredness that now cleaveth to us, and that rendereth us so dishonorable at our death.  But now at our rising, we shall be raised incorruptible; we shall appear in such perfection that all the beauty and comeliness, sweetness and amiableness that hath at any time been in this world, it shall be swallowed up a thousand times told with this glory.

The body when it ariseth will be so swallowed up of life and immortality, that it will be as if it had lost its own human nature.  You know that things which are candied by the art of the apothecary, are so swallowed up with the sweetness and virtue of that in which they are candied, that they are now as though they had no other nature than that in which they are boiled.  Just thus, at the last day, it will be with our bodies.  We shall be so candied by being swallowed up of life, that we shall be as if we were all spirit; when in truth, it is but this body that is swallowed up of life.