The Practice of Piety

4 All the bodies of the Elect being thus made alive, shall arise in that ^fperfection ⟨p. 153⟩of nature, whereunto they should have attained by their natural temperament, if no impediment had hindered: and in that vigour of age, that a perfect man is at, about three and thirty years old, each in their ^*proper sex. Whereunto Divines think the Apostle alludeth, when he saith, ^gtill we all come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age (or stature) of the fullness of Christ. Whatsoever imperfection was before in the body (as blindness, lameness, crookedness) shall then be done away. Jacob shall not halt, nor Isaac be blind, nor Leah blear-eyed, nor Mephibosheth be lame: for if David would not have the blind and lame to come into his ⟨p. 154⟩house, much less will Christ have blindness and lameness to dwell in his heavenly Habitation. Christ made all the blind to see, the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, &c. that came to him, to seek his grace on earth: much more will he heal all their imperfections, whom he will admit to his glory in Heaven. Among those Tribes there is not one feeble: ⁴but the lame man shall leap as an Hart, ⁵and the dumb mans tongue shall sing. And it is very probable, that seeing GOD created our first Parents, not infants or old men, but of a perfect age or stature: the [Greek or Hebrew], or new creation from death, shall every way be more perfect ⟨p. 155⟩then the [Greek or Hebrew] or first frame of a man from which, he fell into the state of the dead. Neither is it like that Infancy being imperfection, and old age corruption can well stand with the state of a perfect glorified body.