observable that some of the analogies, from the consideration of which we have derived our idea of the transit, allow the notion of loss, although they forbid that of essential loss. In the seed there are particles which fall off when the germ is developed. In the insect there is a husk shed in the process of transmutation.

We see, then, how the true notion of the Resurrection process meets the error of those who imagine in man's future condition nothing save a spiritual subsistence, and, in short, conceive of Resurrection as if it were identical with Death. We might naturally expect to find that such would be the views of those who recognised in matter an inherent evil, and therefore regarded the soul's disenthralment from the bonds of matter as the great consummation which awaits Humanity. Accordingly, the Gnostics,' in the early period of Church history, and the Cathari of a later date, rejected altogether the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body. Apelles, the Gnostic teacher, in direct opposition to that passage of Holy Writ which speaks of the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the Body, maintained that the work of Christ had reference only to the Soul of man. It does not appear, however, that the charge brought against these

1 See Appendix to Lecture I. Note F.

heretics, of altogether denying the Resurrection, is just. They probably admitted the term," and explained it as the disenthralment of the soul (in whose immortality they believed) from its bodily fetters.

(c.) And lastly. According to the view of the process which we have endeavoured to establish, Resurrection, even as Birth, must be entirely differenced from Creation. It is an operation upon the previously subsisting rudiments of an old nature-not, in strictness of speech, the formation of a new. And yet the change involved in this operation may be so total and entire-it may embrace such a complete revolution of our circumstances, and such an exaltation and enhancement of our faculties-and may be effected by a species of spiritual energy so foreign to anything we have hitherto experienced, that in ordinary and popular parlance, with the tenour of which the Scripture uniformly complies, it need surprise us nothing to hear that which is strictly a Resurrection process described as a Creation process. "Behold, I create new heavens "and a new earth," is only another mode of expressing the sentiment, "Behold, I make all "things new." It will be well to bear this remark in mind when studying, in connection with our m See Appendix to Lecture I. Note G.

present subject, the earlier verses of the 5th chapter of St. Paul's second Epistle to the Corinthians. The Resurrection Body is there spoken of in a manner which, if the passage stood alone, might induce us to conceive of it as a wholly new creature, having no connection whatever with the present bodily structure-a notion which many other sentences from the pen of the same Apostle would assuredly serve to correct. Nor is it hard to account for the peculiar tone of language in which this passage is couched. An examination of the context shows us that the Apostle is groaning under a sense of the infirmities attaching to the present earthen vessel. What wonder if, in anticipating his exchange of the natural for the spiritual body, he should dwell exclusively upon the glorious peculiarities by which the latter is differenced from the former, and omit to glance at the relation subsisting between them? The uppermost thought in his mind being the diverse constitution of the two, rather than the development of one from the other, what wonder if he speak of the house which is from heaven as something essentially distinct from the earthly house of this tabernacle-distinct in its sphere, in its properties, and in the period of its duration? It may be added, that the imagery which in this passage hé adopts did not, consistently with its being main

tained, allow a reference to the identity of the Risen with the Natural Body. So far as we can gather from the history, the frames and curtains of the tabernacle of witness, which had accompanied the journeyings of Israel, had waxed old and vanished away previously to the construction of the Temple, so that none of the old moveable materials could be applied again in the erection of the new and stationary structure. An allusion therefore to the Tabernacle" and Temple, as emblematical, respectively, of the Natural and Risen Body, would only bring out the difference between the two, dropping the point of connection and relationship. To render full and complete the idea of Resurrection, we need the analogy (already considered) of the seed and the flower, which brings out no less the latter aspect of identity than the former of difference and distinctness and which, therefore, in his more formal discussion of the subject, the Apostle himself employs.

We have now, I trust, formed as definite a notion of the Process of Resurrection, as the Scriptures will permit us to gain from a close examination of the terms which they employ and the analogies which they propose. What subjects shall undergo this Process will be matter for future consideration. Our aim in this "See Appendix to Lecture I. Note H.

discourse, technically speaking, has been to define the Predicate of the Proposition that the body shall rise again, leaving to a future Lecture the definition of its subject. Let us close these remarks by reflecting practically on the dormant and undeveloped faculties probably possessed by man, for the exercise of which his present condition of existence affords no scope. Man resembles an actor who plays his part on a stage too cramped to exhibit his powers in their full dimensions. This low, shifting, transitory scene is evidently inadequate to evoke the full strength of human affections, and presents to those sublime emotions which sweep across the heart no objects of corresponding dignity. And as there are certainly faculties which are only half developed in our present state, may there not be others, both moral and physical, which are wholly undeveloped-destined to remain entirely dormant (even our own consciousness not recognising their existence) until a new œconomy-an œconomy of things unseen and eternal, calls them forth into exercise? The child that to-day crawls across the nursery, and can utter only inarticulate sounds, may in process of time become the traveller who makes the circuit of the globe, acquires the knowledge of many tongues, and returns home laden with the fruits of a large experience and an extensive observation. And