"unto his glorious body." The Consolation-the great antidote which enfolds within itself all lesser solaces-is yet to come. The great refreshing cannot find place while the Bridegroom tarries. It must flow from the personal advent and bodily presence of Him, through whom alone descends to man whatever of hope has brightened his lot since the Fall, whatever of good is to be realised by him "in the Consolation at the last 'day."

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II. We now turn to the second branch of our subject, the consideration of the analogies under which the Resurrection is proposed to us in Scripture. The study of the words employed to denote the process has at most only given us some hints as to its nature: it has not yet put us in possession of that characteristic and differential idea of which we are in search. For although the word ȧváσtaσis is (as we have seen) appropriated to the Verity of the Resurrection, this appropriation is of an arbitrary and conventional character, not founded in the inherent meaning of the term: so far as its etymological significance goes, it might be applied to the miraculous reanimation of the natural body with as much propriety as to its Resurrection; it might denote the raising of Lazarus as appropriately as that of Christ. We have yet to seek,

then, some idea of Resurrection which shall difference it wholly from mere animal resuscitation. And this we shall find in the analogous processes which the sacred writers propose, and particularly in that which is pointed at in our text.

(1.) The first of these which shall be noticed is one which, when examined, introduces no new element into the idea which the words have led us to form. The perception of a resemblance between sleep and death is so natural and familiar among men as to have expressed itself in the phraseology of almost every nation under heaven, whatever be the stage of civilisation at which they have arrived. The inspired writers often adopt this phraseology, speaking of death in its every form as a falling asleep, whether it be death judicially inflicted by God, like that of the irreverent Corinthians who profaned the Eucharistic Festival,-or the death of martyrdom, attended with every circumstance of cruelty and horror, like that of St. Stephen, or the ordinary death of the true believer, which is termed a sleep in Jesus. Awakening Awakening being the correlative of sleep, the phraseology in question implies and involves a further analogy between awakening and Resurrection. But we are not left to discover this analogy by implication;—it is

expressed in sundry passages of Holy Writ, of which the following are specimens: "Many of "them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall "awake;"—" Man lieth down, and riseth not: till "the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, "nor be raised out of their sleep." &

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The change from a state of unconsciousness and inactivity, during which, however, the energies although undeveloped are not extinct, and the faculties are wrapt in a temporary trance, to one of life and movement and exertion, calling faculties and energies into play,-supplies a daily and a beautiful parable of that awakening out of the death trance which shall find place when the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God thrill through the vaults of every sepulchre. And well may we be thankful that God's providence has so constituted man's daily life and common intercourse with nature as to furnish to the understanding heart continually recurring emblems of those spiritual truths which most concern us. But the analogy in question throws no light upon the difference between Resurrec

8 I might add, perhaps, if this application of it were sufficiently certain-" Then all the virgins arose and trimmed their lamps." Matt. 25, 7. The slumbering or sleeping of all the virgins is by many ancient expositors (see Trench on the Parables in loco) taken to denote death, which is the uniform lot of all. If so, their arising or awakening will denote the Resurrection.

tion and animal resuscitation.

Indeed it is

applied indiscriminately to both-if to Resurrection in the passages quoted from Job and Isaiah, so also no less certainly to resuscitation in those words of our Lord-" Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, "but I go that I may awake him out of sleep."

(2.) Let us next examine a figure of Resurrection, supplied not indeed by the constitution of Nature, but by that which proceeds from the same Author, the constitution of Grace. It is a figure pointed at in those words addressed to the Colossians-"Buried with him in Baptism, wherein also ye are risen." There can be no doubt that Baptism as it is a means, when duly received, of spiritual Resurrection, so, when it is administered in the primitive and most correct form, is a divinely constituted emblem of bodily Resurrec

tion. And it is to be regretted that the form of administration unavoidably (if it be unavoidably) adopted in cold climates, should utterly obscure the emblematic significance of the rite, and render unintelligible to all but the educated the Apostle's association of Burial and Resurrection with the Ordinance. Were immersion

(which is the rule of our Church, in cases where it may be had without hazard to the health) universally practised, this association of two at present heterogeneous ideas would

become intelligible to the humblest. The water closing over the entire person would then preach of the grave which yawns for every child of Adam, and which one day will engulf all of us in its drear abyss. But that abyss will be the womb and seed-plot of a new life. Animation having been for one instant suspended beneath the water (a type this of the interruption of man's energies by death) the body is lifted up again into the air by way of expressing emblematically the new birth of Resurrection.

The new idea which we gather in from the examination of this type is that a change of sphere is involved in the process of Resurrection. The upraising of the person from the element of water into the element of air points at such a change of sphere. And the indication is one which we shall do well to bear in mind. The sphere in which the natural body lives and moves and has its being is that of the earth. Earth is the element in which it exists, and to which its present constitution is adapted. But not so the spiritual or risen body. It moves in a sphere which transcends the limited range of our present faculties, and of which human senses can take no cognizance, except by miracle. has moreover a constitution conformable to the high and supersensual sphere which it occupies.

It