But though we are called Christians, and, by the grace and mercy of God through Christ, the name is not always bestowed in vain, a dreadful prospect must open to the general view on the great resurrection-day. It is impossible to conceal, nay, it is necessary to disclose what God has revealed, and has revealed as a matter of personal interest, to every man living. Our Lord concludes his description of the day of judgment with this most piercing sentence on the final destination of the whole human race, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal '." Interpret everlasting and eternal as you will, they must refer to the same immeasurable length of time. The lukewarm and the wicked will find the contrary interpretation a wretched twig to support them. And let every man in his contemplation revolve deeply these words of Jesus. "Marvel

not at this for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation "."

This subject must not hastily be dismissed. It is applicable to every age. We may rejoice in our youth and dream in our latter days, but the wise course is to transfer the sober thought of age to the prime of life, and the elasticity of the young to the declining years

1 Matt. xxv. 46.

2 John v. 28, 29.

of the hoary head. Nature may make some resistance, but the moral transfer is both practicable and easy. I do not recommend repelling tempers on either side; a judicious management, under religious impressions, will neither deprive youth of its amiable cheerfulness, nor age of its veneration: for a due consideration that there will be a resurrection of the dead, is a monitor that stands by the cradle of infancy, the couch of manhood, and the bed of the most aged and most venerated patriarch.

It is the Gospel which accomplishes this: it is Christ the first and the last, who declares himself to be the resurrection and the life: his word is the pledge of our immortality. "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him':" for "he was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead"."

III.-The Resurrection of the Body.

WHATEVER difficulties may occur in the subject of a general resurrection, a firm belief in the doctrine, as applicable to individuals, will remove them all: for if the Scriptures be true to themselves, we may be assured

1 1 Thess. iv. 14.

2 Rom. i. 4.

that God hath revealed nothing that he is not able to accomplish. The fact of our Lord's resurrection is sufficient for that purpose. The argument for this fact constitutes the evidence; and leaves conjecture far behind. I will not say that there are no difficulties; but human imagination must always submit to Divine knowledge. Had a future state been in itself untrue, the strongest minded man could not have asserted it for though heathen philosophers have described Elysium, and sent thousands to the shades of Tartarus, if they believed the truth of what they wrote, it might be the reflected image of a tradition, unknown in its origin, and corrupted in its passage, and more truly to be ascribed to a primitive revelation.

:

But it is not necessary here to discuss this question. Even a pious Christian meditating on the resurrection, may see philosophical difficulties which he is unable to solve; and yet not one of them sufficient to stagger his belief. For instance, the identity of the resurrection-body may not be easy to define. But why define it? The very circumstance of a restoration from the dead implies it. There can be no restoration of that which has never been. This is self-evident, and it admits of no other explanation. If "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad," how can it be under the circumstances of a just retribution, that he which sinned in one body should be

punished in another, or, that he who pleased God in his own flesh, should see God with other eyes'?

2

The Apostle Paul argues this point in the most beautiful and conclusive passage, read with so much awful interest in the service at the interment of the dead. "But some man will say, How are the dead raised up ? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body "." The celebrated Erasmus illustrates this passage with great beauty and propriety. In the old language of his paraphrase it is said:"Into the earth is cast a lytle, vyle, blacke, and drye graine, which being by continuance of tyme putrified there, in due season groweth up, and becometh first a tender grasse, and then a stalke, and so at the last an eare. there appeared none in that small before didest cast into the earth. power, which, when it is growen up, appearth, so that it may now seme utterly to be an other, where thou in dede knowest it to be the same, save that it is chaunged into a better forme. Seest thou not, of a lyttle kernel, how greete a tree groweth? how myghtye a stemme there is, how the rootes spreade, how large boughes, what a noumber

Of all whiche three grayne, which thou Every sede hath his

1 See Pearson on the Creed.

21 Cor. xv. 35.

of braunches, how pleasaunte blosomes, and plentefulness of fruyte there is? of all which there was nothing when thou dyd cast that saelye small kernell into the grounde. And yet at that time all these thinges didest thou hope for, upon trust conceived of the workes of nature: and darest thou not upon trust of God's Almyghtye power, surely looke for the lyke to be done by God? A kernell it was that thou sowedste and not a tree, and yet geveth God to that kernell once quickened, a body, such as his pleasure is, which geveth every kynde of sede a special property, that whereas all growe againe, yet have they not in all poyntes the same forme they had before.”

One solemn lesson is learnt from this doctrine-the pure preservation of our mortal bodies; not for the sake of that which perisheth, but for the imperishable part which will last for ever. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Purity is the effect of holiness, and holiness is that child of paradise which sprung from the bosom of the Almighty. "Be ye holy, for I am holy 2. But this is not all. "The pure in heart shall see God." Alas! no man can purify himself. They only are represented as pure, "who are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple, who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb "." Therefore we are required as an indispensable mark of our Christian character, to "bear about in our body

1 Matt. v. 8.

21 Pet. i. 16.

3 Rev. vii. 14.