barbarous idolaters to address, we have withhold? "Shall he not with him, also, the devotees of a more dangerous idolatry. freely give us all things?" O Christian Self and Christ are every where opposed. parents! if you have never felt that blessIf Satan reigns by means of an ignorant ing as yet, may He, who has given his own idolatry, he reigns also by means of a Son for us, give you that faith to-night, corrupted refinement. An "ambassador which, in surrendering your children to for Christ" is alike needed: the qualifica- God, divests you of all painful anxiety for tion is the same both for ministers at them, and makes your happiness secure. home, and for missionaries abroad;-they must put on the Lord Christ." 4. I must address the young. We look chiefly to you for our supply of Missionaries. Christ has conferred this chief honour upon you. How infinitely is this beyond all the other objects that can stimulate your ambition! In all the others, you are useful for time: in this you la bour for eternity. Is holiness the truest happiness? is usefulness the brighest honour? is the work of saving souls from sin, and guilt, and wrath, the most worthy zeal and energy? Then is this work of a Missionary superior to all others. How poor are the achievements of Greek and Roman youths, recorded on the page of history, and celebrated by poets, compared with the labours of Paul! and may we not say of Brainerd, of Martyn, and of Heber also, who sought, above all besides, the good of others and the glory of their God? 3. I address parents. If we have a Missionary College, we want a Missionary nursery also. If you are Christian parents, you have already devoted your children to God; "to fight under the banner of Christ, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ's faithful soldiers and servants unto their lives' end." In the teeth of this engagement, are you seeking for them wealth, honour, distinction? Are you seeking the gratification of what you have vowed to renounce, or coveting what you have promised to suppress? or are you withholding them from God, to whom you professed to devote them? We want not examples of such resignation. "Oh, man!" said the dying Haliburton to his son, "if I had as many sons as there are hairs in your head, I would bestow them all to God. I would rather have you a Missionary and a martyr than a monarch!" And said the mother of the Wesleys, "Had I twenty sons, I should be glad to see them going as Missionaries, and should rejoice that they were so employed, though I should never see them more!" And what is said in commendation of Abraham? "Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me." And what are we who are now here but the fruits of that very act of faithful obedience; for we are part of his spiritual seed, and blessed in him. Or shall we carry the example still higher? "God so loved the world, that"-what? he made it? maintained it? blessed it? No; neither of these, nor all of these, were the "so," the intenseness of his withheld-missionaries are offering themlove. He "so loved it, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And if He "spared not his only Son," what can his love now VOL. I.-43 5. I address the great congregation. Remember how you are encouraged to support this great work. I speak not of Bible Societies or translations—or Missionary colleges-or of agents sent out to Mahommedans and Jews; I speak not particularly of any institutions established to benefit the bodies or the souls of men, and to spread the name of Christ throughout the world: but I speak of the union of all these at the present moment, as auguring better and more glorious days at hand. The prophecies are accomplishing-the prayers of the church for six thousand years are receiving their answer-prayer is still presenting, that Jerusalem may be made the praise of the whole earth-evangelical principles are spreading-amidst the pressure of the times, funds are not selves for the work-reconciliation to God is proclaimed, and the world listens to it; and success is by no means wanting. The heathen are crying out for help; and, remembering that "the weapons of 2 F 66 But is this all? Do we not want a greater manifestation of faith—of Christian holiness-of humility—of love-of deadness to the world-of less display in person, in furniture, in habits, in dress? Is all, in these respects, as it should be in men of God? Let the consciences of all reply! our warfare are not carnal, but mighty | pared with the cause of Christ, and his through God," let us take courage, for glory in the earth. surely "the Lord is gone out before us." Let us remember also our obligations. Freely we have received, freely let us give." Remember what you were; among the darkest of the nations: remember what you are; perhaps the most enlightened in the world. Six hundred millions of human beings are still sunk in darkness, and cry, "Come over, and help us!" Among these are more than a hundred millions of your fellow-subjects. Remember the value of but one soul, possessed of an eternal duration, and deprived of the glories of salvation during that eternity! Remember how little has been done, and how much remains to be done! Remember where you live, and when you live-in England, and in the middle of the nineteenth century of Christianity: remember, too, why you live; and aim to honour Christ, and glorify God. Remember that "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God." And remember that, with abundant promises of the Spirit's influence, God has eminently committed to you the gospel of reconciliation to a lost world. But are we prepared for this holy work? Allow me here to speak plainly and unequivocally. We want a bolder avowal in our personal religion-in the family—the social circle—the magistracy-the legislature the cabinet-but, above all, in the pulpit, "I am for Christ!" We want that zeal, that boldness, for the glory of Christ crucified, which shone in Cranmer, and Ridley, and Latimer, and Bradford, and Philpot, and others, the martyrs of the Reformation. Let us live and preach as they, and their success shall be ours. We want unity also; both in the Established Church, and in the church of God at large. I should hail the union of all the efforts of the people of God, as a proof that God was indeed at work. The love of Christ can alone effect this. Let the love of Christ be paramount to human selfishness, and all seeming differences would appear "trifles, light as air," com We want a Christian education also. Here is the root of all our mischief! We have virtually forsaken the Bible," the fountain of living waters; and have hewn out for ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." We give six days to Mythology, and scarcely one to the Bible; and then wonder that things are as they are. At the baptismal font we vow regard to the souls of our children, and then devote the whole of our attention to their temporal interests! And then, of course, We want Missionaries. Why? Only consider the wants we have already named-a bolder avowal of the gospelunity among the people of Christ-a Christian conversation-a Christian education. If we had these, we should have Missionaries, and the world might soon rejoice in the salvation of God. In one word, brethren, are you “reconciled to God?" If so, you have given your hearts to God; and if he has your hearts, he has your all; your affections, your children, your money, your talents, your faculties of body and soul, are all His. Your prayers, your praises, your aspirations-all in nature, all in grace—are His. Do you love mankind, your friends, your children, yourselves? Love Christ, and you show the best love to them-serve Christ, and you serve them-advance the cause of Christ, and you advance their interests also. Christ, and all connected with Him, are alone immortal. Your money must pass away-your friendsyour children-your estates-yourselves must pass away-"the world passeth away, and the lust thereof:" "But fix'd his word, his saving power remains; Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns." Church SERMON XXXVII. THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEA D. BY THE REV. C. BENSON, AT TEMPLE CHURCH. “But some men will say, How are the dead raised? and with what body do they come ?" 1 Cor. xv. 35. Or all the doctrines which the gospel | will be hereafter-a compound of matter has brought to light, when making known and spirit; and that the same being who to us that life and immortality which is on earth is faithful to his Saviour will, purchased by the merits of the sacrifice in heaven, be glorified by that Saviour; of Jesus Christ, the most inexplicable to that he who disbelieves or disobeys his human reason is that of the resurrection Lord's will, in the same form in which from the dead, the reunion of the body he sinned in this state of pilgrimage, be and soul in another and a better world, condemned to everlasting and unavailing where there will be no disease to weaken, anguish in the appointed state of retribuand no death again to dissolve the con- tion. This was the promise of Jesus to nexion which will then be once more his followers; and to illustrate and conformed. The Grecian and Roman philo- firm that promise, he himself burst the sophers might have some faint notion of bands of death, and showed himself alive a future state, in which the soul would after his passion to his various disciples, either be happy or miserable for ever, and after forty days ascended visibly according to the merits of the being in with his body into the heavenly regions. whose vile tabernacle it dwelt on earth. He had declared to them, not only that But that future state was to consist, in where he was they should be also, but their view, not of another union to the as he was they also should become. body, but in a complete and permanent Now, they had beheld him mounting up separation from the bondage of the flesh, into heaven; into heaven, therefore, they from pain, and suffering, and decay. themselves, also, were to obtain an enThey looked upon the body as the prison trance. They had beheld him carrying and the degradation of the soul; and con- up thither the body in which he had ceived its only hope of felicity to be walked with them, and talked with them, placed in an emancipation from its dun- during the course of his earthly ministry: geon of earthliness. Nor have the deists, with the same body therefore with which in the latter days, ever conceived a doc- they had accompanied him-with the trine of a different kind: they have deem- same eyes which had looked on himed it necessary to disembody the spiritual with the same ears that had heard him part of man in order that it might be happy for ever. But the doctrine of Christianity is of a different character; it promises to man a perfection and an eternity of happiness both in body and soul: it tells the disciple of the gospel that as he is now so he and with the same hands that had handled him, they themselves were to follow him into the heavenly places, and become the companions of angels, princi. palities, and powers. It was a glorious doctrine; and, convinced of its truth by every necessary testimony to their senses, and every reasonable reliance upon the Saviour's words, they went forth and preached Jesus and the resurrection, as the two fundamental principles of the religion of the gospel. But it was one of the most wonderful and unexpected doctrines, and many who embraced the faith of Christ were yet often dwelling on its singularity; and, with a vain and useless effort to clear up the whole mighty mystery, were often asking the questions of the text, and confounding both themselves and their teachers, by demanding how the dead shall be raised up, and with what body shall they come. It is not to presume to answer these inscrutable questions in the fullest extent that I have chosen these words for the subject of our present consideration. The event alone can tell us the means and the mode by which God will operate this astonishing renovation of the whole human race and, in a question so confessedly beyond the reach of man's present faculties, it is far better to leave the solution of the wonder to the appointed time. But there is one sense in which every Christian may be allowed to adopt the questions of the text; and that is in the scriptural sense. Every one may, and, if he duly esteem and make it his study and delight, he will and ought naturally to inquire what the Scriptures themselves have taught us concerning the manner and the order in which the dead shall be raised up, and the nature of that body with which they will come out from their graves. This is the information which we may legitimately seek; and I will, therefore, in the remainder of this discourse, endeavour to lay before you a few of the leading and undoubted circumstances which may be gleaned from the different portions of the apostolic writings concerning the resurrection of the dead. The first point which is most forcibly laid down is, The universality of this reunion of the body and soul. It is not a favour reserved only for the redeemed who will be called out from the chambers of the dead to enjoy, in body and spirit, the reward of that obedience which they have paid to God both in body and spirit; while the faithless and impenitent, the extortioner and adulterer, the worldly-minded and the lover of pleasure and folly, will be left to slumber on for ever in the unconsciousness of the grave. The wicked sometimes hope that, but they cannot hope with any foundation in the Scriptures. All that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall awake; some, indeed, to everlasting glory, but some to everlasting shame and contempt. "There will be a resurrection," says the apostle, "both of the just and of the unjust." And while the bodies of the saints shall in herit the kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of the world; the flesh of the ungodly shall rise to live for ever likewise, and living to find for ever the worm that dieth not, and burn for ever in the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Whatever be the meaning of these similitudes, doubtless they are similitudes of an anguish of a most fearful nature; and doubtless it is an anguish which will fall at the resurrection both upon the bodies and upon the souls of the ungodly. Remember the recompense due for the misdeeds of the body when united to the spirit. It is well that we should ever bear engraven on our memories this thought: because the Bible, when it speaks of the resurrection, speaks so constantly, and so much more copiously, of what will be the fate of those who are saved through Christ, than of those who are lost and condemned, that we may be liable to lose the awakening recollection of what horrid sufferings will then fall upon the wicked. The second assurance which we derive from the word of God concerning the manner of the resurrection is this—that it will be instantaneous as well as universal. At one time-at one sound-by one act of almighty power, the whole mass and multitude of sleepers shall awake. Death does his work of desolation by successive changes: his conquests are slow and gradual; and generation after generation, and man after man, are bowed down at his unwelcome bidding. But the Lord of life will declare his superior and irre and remain when the general resurrection takes place-shall none of them sleep, as other men have done, in the dumb forgetfulness of the grave; but they shall all be changed; a change will pass over them equivalent to death and the resurrection, but death and the resurrection they will not literally know. Nor will even this wondrous and momentary change happen to them until all the rest of mankind have been revived into everlasting existence. The whole process of this singular operation is distinctly recorded in the last "This we verses of the fourth chapter of the first Epistle to the Thessalonians. say unto you by the word of the Lord"— mark how solemnly he brings forward this statement-"This we say unto you sistible might, by breaking at once the | of rising again. Those who are alive bonds of all who have been the conquer- and remain on the earth as its inhabitants or's captives. It is not because the first-and it is clear that some must so live parents of the human race were the earliest who tasted the bitterness of dying, that they will therefore be the earliest to taste the sweetness of reviving. It is not because Abraham and Isaac, and the prophets, are dead, and have mouldered some thousands of years ago, that they will therefore spring up from the dust with a proportionable priority of time, before all their children who have since fallen victims to the same law of mortality. There is one-and but one-hour appointed for the sea to give up the dead that are in it, and death and hell to give up the dead that are in them, and the forest and the wilderness, and the sepulchre to restore the bones of the bodies which were intrusted to their keeping. In that hour the patriarchs and prophets of the world, before and after the flood-by the word of the Lord, that we which the kings and the subjects of Babylon are alive and remain unto the coming of and Rome-the disciples of Moses and the Lord shall not prevent," or go before, of Christ, however separated from each other by the difference of time and place, by the first birth, will spring up in this second generation the sons of the same day, contemporary children of the gene-in Christ shall rise first: then we which ral resurrection. "For the trumpet shall sound," says the apostle," and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the whole valley of dry bones will be revived; bone will come to his bone, and sinews bind them, and flesh cover them, and spirit be breathed into them; and they shall all become, what they once were, living, moving things-all at the last trump, and not one shall be wanting. them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead are alive and remain shall be caught up together, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." It is a wonderful scene which those men will behold-it is a wonderful thing to which they will be subject. And an imagination, even of the dullest cast, can scarcely help forming unto itself some picture of the strangeness of the event, and the awfulness of the feelings with which it will be contemplated. We are in search of truth and profit, But "behold," says the apostle, to not of ideal representations: and having, whom we are indebted for almost all our therefore, seen in some measure how the dim conceptions of the future world, dead are raised-having seen that there "behold, I show you a mystery," a cir-will be a contemporaneous resurrection cumstance which reason could not have of the bodies of all the dead, both of the attained, and for which we are wholly just and of the unjust, in one appointed indebted to the revelation of the Spirit of God. That mystery is this:-All will not sleep; all who are dead will rise at but all will not die, and, therefore, all will not be placed under the necessity once, day; and that, after all the dead have been raised, there will next pass a change on the bodies of the living; let us proceed to examine with what bodies the dead will rise, and with what bodies the 2 F2 |