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follow. So while we live, the hurry and agitation of a busy day will often excite a degree of ill humour by no means consistent with the character of a Christian, and over exertion will often produce a degree of languor as little consistent with his bodily comfort: but let him first return to his soothing lamp, and then to a good night's rest, which he is the likelier to have for his previous exhaustion, and in the morning our Christian will be quite a new character, and new man. Just so will it happen to him again, but more permanently in the morn of the resurrection: when God shall give "to every seed his own body;" and to no two alike, except in their general conformity with Christ: being made conformable in iotas as well as in substance, and especially in the point of death as aforesaid, if by any means we might attain unto an happy resurrection. (Phil. iii. 10, 11.)

It may appear by this, how subjects die bodily, and rise again with their bodies spiritually: "being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit," (Pet. I. iii. 18,) as St. Peter says of the First risen. As the First risen himself appeared again in the same body, form or person in which he departed, excepting the liability to corruption, so will the main crop of the resurrection, so will all flesh come on their reappearing: they will all come with the same modes or subsistence, with the same natural proportions, the same lineaments-with which they appeared originally upon earth, but more perfect, and with a more intense expression; the party of Christ will look better, the world, or devil-party, will look worse

-than before; the best or the worst similitude that their distinguishing or characteristic casts will bear being given to each respectively. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father." (Matt. xiii. 48; Dan. xii. 3.) No hand can paint, no tongue can describe, nor heart conceive-the true loveliness, the seraphic charms that will shine forth in the benevolent Christian hereafter, when released from the clouds and

mists with which his mind was obscured, and thoroughly renewed in every sweet affection-he comes forward in the glory of the Son of God-a full resemblance both internal and external of that upright pattern. 66 Behold (says St. John) what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called The Sons of God. THEREFORE THE WORLD KNOWETH US NOT, BECAUSE IT KNEW HIM NOT. Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (John I. iii. 1, 2.) And all this with the further change alluded to may take place without any greater affection of identity in the subject than happens to a seed, which dies on being sown, and reappears in its original shape, and in that of its parent plant, as before intimated.

I should be sorry to encourage any delusive expectation of works to be personally either done or undone in the grave by any man: but what man cannot do God both can and may even there, (Matt. xix. 26,) and give an account too of what he will do for a man before he goes to that place; where, as the Preacher observes, "there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom," (Eccles. ix. 10.) He can in the grave dissolve, we know, the toughest sinews that he ever created, and resolve them likewise from their native dust by I know not how many gradations into their first principles, and annex them by another word either to a divine nature or to an infernal, according as his goodness or their deserts shall be allowed to prevail and such may be his work, his wisdom and device in the grave, where there is none for its inhabitants.

2. The Extent of the resurrection, or the sum of the objects it includes must be determined by its end; which being judgment, as hereafter signified, its objects of course will be both the just and the unjust, as aforesaid: and not only these, but neutrals likewise, I presume, if

any-including those who are born to no purpose, and die as they were born, and rise again as they die-all to no purpose. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ," (Cor. II. v. 10,) if it be only to be judged no subjects for the kingdom, or it may be sometimes-to witness against those who are subjects for the kingdom of darkness. It is not to be supposed, that men who have never lived once in the world, being still born, or imperfect, or murdered in the womb-should rise again, and live hereafter otherwise than before, namely as a "Jegar-Sahadutha," or "Galeed;" (Gen. xxxi. 47;) but as they come dead into the world so they continue: dead born themselves, death is their portion. "For (as our Saviour assures us) there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid that shall not be known:" (Matt. x. 26:) or however there is but one way of hiding these painful secrets that has yet been discovered; which is, strange as it may appear, by confession. "For if we say, that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (John I. i. 8, 9.)

Thus we may conceive somewhat of the extent of the resurrection upon earth, and who are the parties, and how they are interested. Now let us observe

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3. How the said parties are to be apprized of their trial, or, as the disciples of our Lord once inquired privately of him, as he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, saying, Tell us when shall these things be? and what shall be the Sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" (Matt. xxiv. 3.) And that sign is twofold, namely, 1, for the living; 2, for the dead.

1, The sign, or signs rather, of a general resurrection for the living are these, besides the usual plagues-of war, and warlike reports, with famine and pestilence, and earthquakes in divers places-common forerunners of political distress and dissolution; 1, there shall be a great

oppression of the genuine disciples of Christ, with an especial odium for the more exemplary; 2, his doctrine shall be despised, and, as far as possible, suppressed by the ruling powers-that is, not by the legitimate authorities only, but by lots of conspirators, the "many masters;" (James iii. 1;) whose views are as inimical to a legitimate government as to the gospel of Christ, especially when the cause of the gospel happens to be espoused by the government; 3, "many False Prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many;" 4, as the doctrine of charity, which is the doctrine of the gospel, declines, its practice will necessarily decline with it. "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold," but 5, still there shall be those who persevere in the work of the gospel; and when, 6, this shall have been diffused sufficiently for a witness-especially against, 7, the abomination of desolation enjoying its ascendant in the holy place, that is, the church-8, the end shall come, with other signs that our Saviour mentions for the living, and which you may read with the forecited in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew. But,

2, For the dead: what may be their sign or signs? Why, "the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound; and the dead shall be raised incorruptible: and we shall be changed," says St. Paul. "So man lieth down, and riseth not (says Job). Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep," (Job xiv. 12,) says he: that is, not before the change and the call that he speaks of. (Ib. 15.) Whether the apostle means, that our rising with the sound of a trumpet should be understood literally or not, is immaterial: it may be enough for us to know, that we shall be awakened suddenly and with surprise, like hearing a noise in our sleep perhaps. And as in that case the spirit is recalled from wandering amid delusive scenes of happiness or woe; so on this great occasion it will be recalled from its hiding, or rather melting place, to enjoy or suffer a real

and everlasting state of one or the other. A certain author says, "Perchance, to dream :" but there will be no dreaming after death, whatever there may have been before. O awful reality however announced! The apostle says elsewhere it shall be with a shout; (Thess. I. iv. 16;) imagine therefore, if you can, what gave birth in the apostle's mind most likely to this similitude, an idea of the united shout-or shriek, as we should rather call it— which would naturally arise from the surface of the whole earth at one moment, as from a ship full of passengers foundering at sea, when its immediate and inevitable dissolution appears; and that with signs like those also which we read of in other prophets; as for example, "All the host of heaven shall be dissolved; and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their hosts shall fall down as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig-tree.” (Isaiah xxxiv. 4.) Would not the general shout or shriek of the living at that awful moment be of itself well nigh enough to raise the dead?

In other passages the signal for the dead is described as a roaring; and particularly in that of the prophet Joel, "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe, &c. The Lord shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake." (Joel iii. 13, 16.) It is very probable, that the Author of nature, exerting a power similar to electricity, but more acute, will raise for the occasion a blast or continued sound, as far beyond any that was ever heard in the Carribbean seas, as a hurricane is beyond a whisper: "in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, (says St. Peter,) and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up," (Peter II. iii. 10,)-all coming upon the dissevered imagination like the sound of a trumpet. And now the voice or sounding becomes more definite, as the apprehension returns to the hearing: sense succeeds to

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