your living bodies;" or, if the resurrection be not referred to, as Professor Bush maintains, then, as the words are addressed to Christians, i. e., those already quickened, our author's theory must make Paul say, "God will raise to life your spiritual bodies, which are already alive, and which can never die, because they shall be eliminated at death."

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But as to the assertion, in the former part of this objection, that "ovηtà owμara, cannot fairly be interpreted to mean the same as vexgà owμata," it is copied from Mr. Locke's paraphrase, and is worth about as much as the generality of his profound exegetical remarks. Mr. Locke did not produce any proof whatever of his assertion, and Professor Bush imitates him so closely as even to imitate him in this. But our author contradicts his own exposition. The phrase oua vexgòv occurs in ver. 10, and in expounding it, as we have seen above, he gives it the same meaning that he here attaches to oμa vntòv-making them both mean a body that is truly living.

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νεκ

He also copies from Mr. Locke the criticism, that evrov supposes the thing joined with it to be living; and hence he has translated the phrase, "living dead bodies," taking for granted that Mr. Locke's authority settles the point. But, 1. I remark that when this term, as in this place, refers to a body to be quickened, it never means any thing else than a dead body. Professor Stuart, (against whose authority in a matter of Greek usage even Professor Bush would hardly venture to bring that of Mr. Locke,) plainly allows, that the phrase here means the same thing as oμa νεκρὸν. Vorstius remarks, that “ θνητά is here put for gwoevra," i. e., datum neci. But, 2. So far from evntòv never meaning that which is truly dead, we find Paul, in 1 Cor. xv., twice applying it as descriptive of the state of the body in the day of its resurrection from the grave. At that time, says he, this mortal, (that is, the bodies of men, whether they shall be then living, or shall have previously died,) to Ovntov Touro, shall put on immortality; and that, when this mortal shall have put on immortality, death shall be swallowed up in victory. 3. The analogous passage in 2 Cor. iv. 14, also clearly implies that such must be the import of the phrase: "He which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall pre

sent us with you." See, also, Cudworth's excellent criticism, Works II., 605.

The last exception of Professor Bush is the following:

(3.) This interpretation destroys the continuity and coherence of the apostle's discourse. It supposes him abruptly to break off from a connected series of remarks relative to walking not after the flesh, but after the spirit, to leap onward to the resurrection of the dead, and, having simply glanced at this, to return as suddenly and resume the thread of his argument. This is, to say the least, a very violent supposition." p. 257.

This, too, is taken from Mr. Locke; and a careful viewing of the passage will show it to be altogether unfounded. Paul is discoursing of the benefits and advantages of those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit-they shall have life and peace here through the Spirit; and though the body is destined to death because of sin, yet it shall not perish; but as God raised up Christ's body, so, also, shall the bodies of believers be raised by the Spirit, and thus, their salvation be complete. And hence we are not debtors, to live after the flesh, for they who do so shall die, (penally,) but those who by the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body shall live. There is no "leaping," nor "abrupt breaking off," here; but the argument is logical and conclusive.

II. The next passage is v. 22, 23 of the same chapter. "For we know that the whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together until now: for not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adop tion, to wit, the redemption of the body: rv aлokÚTgWOIV Tov σωμάτος ἡμῶν.” p. 258.

Professor Bush offers but a very few remarks on this passage; and to discuss it fully in its connexion, would require many more pages than can be here occupied for such a purpose. We shall therefore dismiss it with a brief remark or two upon his exposition of the latter part of it; for it is to this that his criticisms are wholly confined. The sum of what he offers is the following:-After remarking that the adoption here mentioned is undoubtedly the manifestation of the sons of God, he adds, "The redemption of the body' evidently indicates a state identical with that of this acknowledged adoption which is in reserve for the heirs of the

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kingdom. This is to be the realized consummation of the Christian's hopes, that to which they are all to come as one redeemed, regenerated, sanctified body. It is their common inheritance; and as the church is often spoken of as a body, of which Christ is the presiding head and the pervading life, we perceive nothing incongruous in the idea that this collective body of the saints is here intended by Paul. Certain it is, that there is a difficulty, on every other explanation, of accounting for the use of the singular number in this connexion. Why, if the common view be well founded, does he not say 'redemption of our bodies' instead of redemption of our body?' This may appear at first blush a criticism of little weight, but we are persuaded it is one of prime importance, and that we are entitled to demand some rational solution of the problem involved in the phraseology. Nothing certainly would be more natural than the use of the plural if he were speaking of the physical resurrection of believers. As it is, we cannot doubt that the term is to be taken in a collective sense, for the spiritual or mystical body of Christ, the whole aggregate of believers; so that our body,' in this connexion, is merely another phrase for the body to which we belong."

The idea here asserted, and which runs through this whole extract, is that rov owμáros ýμv, our body, here, as a collective noun, refers to the Church of Christ, redeemed and saved by him; and the criticism designed to sustain this view, and which Professor Bush thinks "is one of prime importance," and which justifies him in "demanding some rational solution of the problem (!) involved in the phraseology," is that if oua here refers to the physical body of the Christian, why should not the phrase be "redemption of our bodies, instead of redemption of our body?" We shall attend to each of these in their order.

Professor Bush, in introducing the former of these ideas, has confused his own mind more than a little, by not having noticed that the New Testament clearly announces a twofold adoption or filiation. The first takes place in regeneration, when the believer is born again. See John i. 12, 13, and iii. 3-5. And hence he is said to have the spirit of filiation, лveйμа violeσías, whereby he cries Abba, Father. Rom. viii. 14, 15. See also 1 John iii. 1, 2. This takes place while the believer is in the present world. But there is another and more glorious and manifested adoption, and which is

referred to in v. 23 of the passage before us, at which glori ous period the believer is raised from the dead, and thus being a "child of that resurrection" to immortal life and bliss, which is alone the prerogative of those who on earth had been the children of God, he is made " like to the angels." Luke xx. 36. This manifestation of adoption is immediately consequent upon the resurrection; (and hence this is the period for which believers are looking with groaning and anxious expectation;) nor is there any where a statement of the promise of this glorious adoption, unless in this connexion. But Professor Bush makes the resurrection of believers (which is itself a part of this very manifestation) to occur at the death of each believer, and the manifestation of adoption to occur at some vast and indefinite period afterwards. And thus, instead of the believer's spirit, by virtue of his adoption at regeneration, retiring at death to a region of rest, and there expecting his full redemption, which shall be when the body is raised and changed into a spiritual body; at which period it will be gloriously manifested to all orders of holy beings that he is a son of God; Professor Bush would have the be liever raised at death, and enter into the fullest and highest fruition of heaven's joys, before it has been manifested that he is a son of God: and thus he frustrates the very object of such manifestation; reverses the whole order of the divine economy in this matter, and renders the great and glorious event, for the occurrence of which the whole creation groans, an unmeaning and uninteresting ceremony.

As to the assertion that oμa uv is here a collective noun, it is an assertion that cannot be sustained. Lightfoot entertains the same view (Works, II. 1149, 1150,) but offers no proof to support it. The idea originated with Origen, who says that "our body here means the whole church:" to which Pareus shrewdly replies that the sentiment "is pious, but not solid; for the church is not our body." Comment. in loco. Piscator correctly remarks, that the singu lar is here put for the plural, our bodies, by an enallage of the number. Grotius favours the same view, and Osiander also, in loco. But the remarks of Crellius are so pertinent, though plainly militating against his own view of the resurrection, that I will present a quotation. "The redemption of our body," says he, "is the liberation of our body (corporis nostri) from all evil and corruption; which shall be effected when our bodies are made like to the glorious body of

Christ," in loco. Slichtingius gives the same view: "The apostle explains by apposition what he understands by adoption in this place; to wit redemption, that is, by a synec doche of the species for the genus, the deliverance or liberation of our body. The soul is now redeemed and delivered from vice; but our body is not yet redeemed and liberated from death and corruption, and from those things which bring death and corruption. But so long as our body remains in this servitude, so long shall our blessedness be incomplete and imperfect; but it will continue therein until it is delivered from it by being gloriously changed." (in loco.) But yet, as Professor Hodge remarks, "The redemption of the body is not so in apposition with the adoption that the two phrases are equivalent. The adoption includes far more than the redemption of the body. But the latter event is to be coincident with the former, and is included in it as one of its most prominent parts. Both expressions, therefore, designate the same period." See in loco.

This exposition of the phrase, our body, as presented by these writers, and to whose testimony that of Professor Stuart may be added, is clearly the true idea. Never is the church called our body; but in its collective capacity it is always declared to be the body of Christ. See 1 Cor. xii. 27; Eph. i. 23, and iv. 12; Col. i. 18, 24.

But secondly, what is the weight of the "criticism of prime importance" by which Professor Bush endeavours to sustain this view? Unfortunately for him, it is at direct variance with the usage of the apostle, and therefore it can afford the Professor no assistance whatever. The very next passage which he quotes (2 Cor. v. 2-4,) contains no less than three refutations of this prime criticism: "For in this (Tour to wit, in our earthly house of this tabernacle, ἐπίγειος ἡμῶν οἰκία του σκήνους. ver. 1.) we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house (not houses, τὸ οἰκητήριον ἡμῶν,) which is from heaven. For we that are in this tabernacle (not tabernacles, iv re oxve) do groan being burdened." Would it, therefore, be a criticism of prime importance to ask why Paul did not here say houses, and tabernacles instead of house and tabernacle, when he clearly referred to the earthly and heavenly bodies of all believers? So also in Phil. iii. 21, he says, "Who shall change our vile body;” (τὸ σῶμα τῆς ταπεινώσεως ἡμῶν.) Here is the same "collective noun" according to Professor Bush.