2d. The body will be raised under circumstances, and with properties suited to the new state of being and action on which the saints shall enter. God shall bring them with the Lord Christ.

They shall be found in Christ's train. He will set them on his right hand in the face of heaven. He will present them to his Father, as the sons whom he was appointed to bring unto. glory, saying, Here am I and the children whom thou hast given me.

They shall be adorned with Christ's likeness. Beloved! it does 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. The change requisite for this exaltation shall pass upon their body without destroying its sameness-as flesh and blood, it cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But every obstacle shall be surmounted. If it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption-if it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory—if it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power-if it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body-fit for the occupations and enjoyments of the heavenly world.

Finally, believers, in their raised bodies, shall be partakers of Christ's glory in the judgment of the quick and dead—

Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world? shall judge angels? They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and shall sit down with him on his throne, even as he also overcame, and is set down with his Father on his throne.

But how are these transformations to be effected? How? By that same power which calleth things that be not as though they were. God shall bring his risen ones with Jesus Christ. This is our short answer. I cannot open my ears to the objections of unbelief. We are upon too high ground to stoop to the caviler who marshals his ignorance and imbecility against the knowledge and might of God. Let him puzzle himself with his theories about personal identity-Let him talk about one part of the body interred in Asia, another in Africa, and a third in Europe-Let him ask as many questions as he can devise about limbs devoured by ravenous animals, and become, by nutrition, part of their bodies; which bodies again have passed, by the same process, into the flesh of other animals; and these, in their turn, consumed by man, and incorporated with the substance of a new human body-Let him ask such questions, and ten thousand like them. Has he done? Dost thou not therefore err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God? It will be time enough to plead thy difficulties when God shall commit to

thee the raising of the dead. For us it is sufficient that he who rears up the the living blade from the rotted grain, will be at no loss to rear up an incorruptible from a corrupted body, through what forms and varieties soever it may have passed.

The main question, however, is not what Omnipotence can but what it will perform.That God should raise the dead, if so it please him, will not appear incredible to any sober man. But what proof have we that our faith on this head is not fancy; and that our hope shall not perish? The best of all possible proof.

We have, in the first place, the divine promise. God has engaged to raise his people up by Jesus, and to present them together with him. Jesus himself has said, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth on me shall never die. A thousand scientific demonstrations are not equivalent, as the ground of our confidence, to one word of Him who cannot lie. And so we shall find it in our last extremity.

We have, moreover, the accomplishment, in part, of the promise already. For there are upon the sacred record many instances of resurrection from the dead.

We have, as a sure pledge of its full accomplishment in due season, the resurrection of our

Lord Jesus himself. The fact is indisputable, and its consolation full.

(1) By his resurrection he VANQUISHED Death. He took away whatever gave to Death not only his sting but his empire. Therefore, saith the scripture, he ABOLISHED Death; and brought LIFE AND IMMORTALITY to light through the gospel.

(2) As the Lord Jesus died, so he rose again, the head and representative of his redeemed. He bought them unto God by his blood; and he came back from the grave to show that the ransom was accepted, and to prosecute the claim which he presented to the throne of God, as he was about offering his soul in their souls' stead -Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. His resurrection, therefore, is a pledge from the living God to his church, to the universe, that all who die in faith shall rise in glory. Christ is the first fruits-His people, the harvest that shall follow-But every one in his own order, Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming. For this hour of joy and triumph is reserved the fulfillment of his gracious promise-Thy dead shall live-my dead body shall they arise. He owns them as his body even in their state of death; They shall hear his voice, Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust! They shall answer him from

their graves, and shall come forth, the sons and daughters of immortality; resplendent in beauty, worthy of his kingdom. For he shall change their vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. This is Christian consolation; this is Christian hope; hope which all the crowns and treasures of earth are infinitely too poor to purchase or to balance. And it is hope that maketh not ashamed. For I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

In this faith the apostles labored, and the martyrs bled. Ages have elapsed and it is still the same. It is not a distant wonder; not a brilliant vision; but a solid and present reality under the power of which at this moment, while the words are on my lips, Christians, in various parts of the world, are closing their eyes to sleep in Jesus. It has come home to our own business and bosoms. It has chosen our houses to be the scene of its miracles. But rarely does it fall to the lot of human eyes to witness so high a display of its value and virtue, as was witnessed in that blessed woman whose entrance into the joy