The Body Resurrected
The poet Robert Aylett articulates the belief that only the bodies of the dead (not their souls) reside in the grave. In the passage below, Aylett describes the processes that purify the body before reconstitution at the resurrection:
- As Golden Ore, in Finers fier cast,
- Is not consum’d, but cleans’d from drosse, and tride;
- So substance of the body doth not waste,
- Onely by Death is purg’d, and purifide
- Should Soules heere in their Tabernacles ’bide,
- With all infirmities till Day of Doome,
- How weary would they be, of rest denide,
- And wish their Bodies sleeping in their Tombe,
- Untill the joyfull Day of Resurrection come?
- So long as heere our Bodies doe remaine,
- They have like Wooll one tincture naturall,
- But Death them dyeth all in purple graine,
- To make them Robes for Sprites Celestiall,
- For we in heav’n like Kings and Princes all
- Shall reigne in new Hierusalem for ay,
- The Grave us like each side of Red Sea wall,
- From cruell Egypts bondage on our way,
- Doth to the Land of heavenly Canaan convay.
…
- As water-drops, which fall in Fountaine pure,
- Die not, but are preserv’d incontinent,
- So Bodies perish not, but ay indure,
- Onely resolv’d to their first Element:
- Our spirits fly to heav'n whence they were lent.
- As drops of raine which from the heav’ns descend,
- Are all into the wombe of Tethys sent:
- So Saints dead Bodies to Earths bowels tend,
- Whence drawn up by Sonnes heate, to heav’n they re-ascend.
Wenceslaus Hollar’s print “Doomes-day” provides a detailed visual representation of the dead, in their various states of decomposition, awakening on this final day of resurrection and reckoning. A clear division between the chosen and the damned has been drawn.
Issac Ambros, Prima & Ultima the First & Last Thinges, or Regeneration and Meditation Sermo[n]s (London: Printed by John Okes for Samuel Brown, 1640), p. 218. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 549.5. CCBY-SA 4.0.