volved; it is therefore an object for the work of Omnipotence. Of the manner of this wonderful operation we cannot have the most distant idea. We have the power neither to create, nor the power to raise again; nor have we the power to comprehend the mode either of creation or resurrection. For our belief in the possibility of this stupendous miracle we trust to our reason; for the certainty of it we trust to revelation; for the performance of it we trust to Omnipotence. It hath pleased the Almighty to confirm our faith in this momentous doctrine by the resurrection of our blessed Lord from the gates of the grave, and the dominion of corruption. Christ burst the barriers of the tomb, not only as the seal of our justification and pardon; not only as a mighty victim over the powers of darkness and death, but as "the first-fruits of them that slept." His resurrection, as it was the type, so it was the earnest, of our own. "If therefore Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among ye that there is no resurrection ?” At that awful and tremendous period, when the grave shall deliver up its victims, and those long mouldered away in dust and ashes shall revive again, when the mighty voice of the last trumpet shall awake the dead, not only shall our mortal bodies rise again and be united to their souls, but "this corruptible shall put on incor 66 ruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." Our vile bodies shall in a wondrous and incomprehensible manner be changed, and shall become like the glorious body of our heavenly Saviour; not according to the laws of nature, not by the power of man, but by that mighty working of the Almighty arm, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself." But that which is sown is not quickened except it die;" as in every grain of corn there is contained a minute, insensible, seminal principle, which is itself the entire future blade and ear, and in due season unfolds itself into that form; so this mortal and corruptible body, retains in itself the seed and material principle of that which is immortal, and incorruptible. "As it has borne the image of the earthy, so it shall also bear the image of the heavenly." The resurrection from the dead is not revealed from on high to man as a source of idle argument, as a theme of barren speculation; but as an awful and influential principle of action, as the anchor of our hope under all the pains and afflictions of this chequered scene of misery and woe, as our comfort in life, our consolation in the pains and horrors of death. "We must all appear at 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 then shall he F commit a cool and deliberate sin, when in that body in which he sinned, he must arise, at the last day before the judgment-seat of Christ to render an account of his works, and in that very body to receive a just retribution. How shall he defile that body, which in the sight of men and of angels, shall rise again, the living testimony of its pollutions in the flesh. How shall this earthly tabernacle awake to glory hereafter, except it be sanctified as the temple of the Holy Spirit here. They that have glorified God in their body and spirit, which are God's, here, shall be glorified by God in the same, hereafter, for they are both" bought with a price," even with the blood of our Redeemer. Sickness and trouble, misery and affliction, are the inheritance of the sons of corruption. Every hour are they liable to the torments of the acutest pain, the lingering irritations of prolonged disease, the sinkings of a shattered frame; yet, even here, in the sharpest agonies which our wounded nature can bear, how animating is the hope, how vivifying and powerful the consolation, that in these very bodies, now groaning under the torments of pain and the afflictions of corruption, we shall rise again the heirs of immortality, emancipated from every power of disease, delivered from the bonds of pain and corruption: that, in these very bodies, we shall receive the fulness of joy and pleasure, unalloyed with any admixture or idea of pain, at that blessed period," when sin and sorrow shall be no more, and all tears shall be for ever wiped from every eye." Here then, as upon a rock, the Christian takes his stand, in sure and certain hope, that the same Almighty arm, which, in the revolution of light and darkness, in the resuscitation of the vegetable world around him from the wintry grave, restores every thing to man, shall restore also man to himself. He rests assured that when his earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved into dust, and return to the ground from whence it came, that by the mighty power of God the same shall rise again, and appear before the judgment-seat of Christ to receive its doom, and being washed and made pure in the blood of the Lamb, shall admit a glorified and an incorruptible form. In the season of temptation, this powerful thought shall raise him above the sink and pollutions of the flesh; in the day of disease and anguish, this shall sustain his fainting heart, this shall cheer and support his sinking spirits. In the hour of impending dissolution, will he resign with humble and unabated assurance his mortal frame to the power of death, and the corruption of the tomb. With his last breath will he join in the comforting voice of the suffering Patriarch, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall |