February 11

Our vile body. - Philippians 3:21.

HOWEVER we may pamper, or adorn, or indulge the body, it is what the apostle calls it:-a vile body,-or, as it is in the margin, the body of our humiliation.” And how humble is it in the lowness of its appetites-in the multitude and importunity of its wants-in the frailty of its frame-in the numerous diseases to which it is exposed, the seeds of which are often in the constitution, and, by external circumstances, ripen and bring forth fruit unto death! How often can an accident dismember or confine us! A few grains of sand, by collecting together in the body, will produce an obstruction that will yield such excruciating torment that the man chooses strangling and death rather than life. “Dropsy is drowning one, fever is burning up another, the palsy is benumbing a third, the ague is chilling a fourth.” “Am I not made to pass months of vanity?” says Job, “and wearisome nights are appointed unto me. When I lie down I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? And I am full of tossings to and fro, unto the dawning of the day.”

Here is another picture: (never were there such painters as the sacred writers:) “He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain, so that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat, and his flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyer.” Admitting that this be not the case, allowing the constitution to be ever so vigorous, age impairs it, and loads it with infirmity, so that the man says, I cannot see, I cannot hear: “those that look out of the windows are darkened, the strong men bow themselves, the voice of the grinding is low, there is fear in the way, the grasshopper is a burden, desire fails because man goeth to his long home.” And we may observe here, also, that these physical evils often becloud the mind; they often lead us to draw the conclusion that we have no part nor lot in the matter, and that our heart is not right in the sight of God himself. They often, also, deprive a Christian of the public means and ordinances of religion. He is the Lord’s prisoner. He can say, “When I remember these things I pour out my soul in me, for I had gone with the multitude that kept holy day.”

“But we,” says the apostle, “look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.”