The body is also gathered up into glory, but not simply for its own sake, or because it is capable of itself to know and understand the glories of its Maker, but that it has been a companion with the soul in this world, and has also been its house, its mantle, its cabinet, and tabernacle here:  it has also been that by which the soul hath acted, in which it hath wrought, and by which its excellent appearances have been manifested; and it shall also there be its copartner and sharer in its glory.

In this world the soul of the regenerate is a gracious soul; and in that world it shall be a glorious one.  In this world the body was conformable to the soul as it was gracious, and in that world it shall be conformable to it as it is glorious.  Yea, it shall have an additional glory to adorn and make it yet the more capable of being serviceable to and with the soul in its great acts before God in eternal glory.

If a man receive the mercy of the resurrection of the body, what a bundle of mercies will be received as wrapt up in that.  He will receive perfection, immortality, heaven, and glory.  And what is folded up in these things, who can tell?

As to the manner of the change of the body in its rising, this similitude also doth fitly suit:  as, 1.  It is sown a dead corn, it is raised a living one. 2.  It is sown dry, and without comeliness; it riseth green and beautiful. 3.  It is sown a single corn, it riseth a full ear. 4.  It is sown in the husk, but in its rising it leaveth that husk behind it.

Further, though the kernel thus die, be buried, and meet with all this change in these things, yet none of them can cause the nature of the kernel to cease; it is wheat still.  Wheat was sown, and wheat arises; only it was sown dead, dry, and barren wheat, and riseth living, beautiful, and fruitful wheat.  “God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him; but to every seed his own body.”

All the glory that a glorified soul can help this body to, it at this day shall enjoy.  That soul that has been these hundreds or thousands of years in the heavens, in the bosom of Christ, it shall in a moment come spangling into the body again, and inhabit every member and vein of the body, as it did before its departure.  That Spirit of God also, that took its leave of the body when it went to the grave, shall now in all perfection dwell in the body again.  I tell you, the body at this day will shine brighter than the face of Moses or Stephen, even as bright as the sun, the stars and angels.  “When Christ who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory.”

Christ has showed us what our body at the resurrection shall be, by showing us in his word what his body was at and after his resurrection.  We read that his body after he was risen from the dead, though it yet retained the very same flesh and bones that did hang upon the cross, yet how angelical was it at all times, upon all occasions!  He could come in to his disciples with that very body, when the doors were shut upon them.  He could at pleasure, to their amazement, appear in the twinkling of an eye in the midst of them.  He could be visible and invisible, as he pleased, when he sat at meat with them.  In a word, he could pass and repass, ascend and descend in that body with far more pleasure and ease than the bird by the art of her wing.