7. Though indeed the welfare
even of the body is then more providently consulted for if its
temporal life and welfare be disregarded for righteousness’ sake,
and its pain or death most patiently for righteousness’ sake
endured. Since it is of the body’s redemption which is to be in
the end, that the Apostle speaks, where he says, “Even we
ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting the adoption of sons, the
redemption of our body.”26352635 Then he subjoins, “For in hope
are we saved. But hope which is seen is not hope: for what a man
seeth, why doth he also hope for? But if what we see not we hope
for, we do by patience wait for it.” When therefore any ills do
torture us indeed, yet not extort from us ill works, not only is
the soul possessed through patience; but even when through patience
the body itself for a time is afflicted or lost, it is unto eternal
stability and salvation resumed, and hath through grief and death
an inviolable health and happy immortality laid up for itself.
Whence the Lord Jesus exhorting his Martyrs to patience, hath
promised of the very body a future perfect entireness, without
loss, I say not of any limb, but of a single hair. “Verily I say
unto you,” saith He, “a hair of your head shall not
perish.”26362636 That so,
because, as the Apostle says, “no man ever hated his own
flesh,”26372637 a faithful
man may more by patience than by impatience take vigilant care for
the state of his flesh, and find amends for its present losses, how
great soever they may be, in the inestimable gain of future
incorruption.