must this be the case, when 'the head is become as the most fine gold, and on it are many crowns ;' when all the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and his Christ;' which Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Saviour of the body.' It is an acknowledged axiom, that as is the root such are the branches. If then the root, though set in dry ground, yet through the influences of heaven, and the water of life, became full of immortality, how shall not the branches partake of that immortality which the root receives, only to bestow it upon them, as it is written :"The Father hath given to the Son to have life in himself, that he should give eternal life to as many as he has given him.' He is the root, we are the branches. He is the first begotten from the dead: therefore others, whom he is not ashamed to call brethren,' shall be begotten from the dead, and declared the sons of God, as he was, by their resurrection, and the power of the Almighty. Many other Scripture illustrations of the same point might be adduced; but these are sufficient. Well then might the apostle argue, as he does, in that truly irrefragable manner: Now, if Christ be preached, that he rose from the dead, how say some among you, that there is no resurrection of the dead? But, if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen; and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God, that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not,

1 John, xvii. 2.

then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. Then they also, which are fallen asleep in Christ, are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.' The first fruits are presented by the great High-priest. The morning

after the sabbath he waved them before Jehovah.' Then the heavens were bowed, and the earth shook. And meet it was, when the sheaf of Joseph thus arose and stood upright, that every sheaf in the field should make obeisance,' that every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord; that he is the first fruits, foreshowing, sanctifying, and insuring that future harvest, which will be at the end of the world; that he is the first fruits of them that slept, and, therefore, that they who are in the graves ‘are not dead, but sleep;' and if they sleep in him, they shall do well.' For yet a little while, and he will call from heaven to his people, saying, in the words of his prophets, Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the dust,' and let the voice of melody be heard through all the chambers of the grave:Awake up, my glory, awake lute and harp; awake, thou that sleepest; shake thyself from the dust; awake, awake, utter a song; break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? I will redeem them from death, I will ransom them from the power of the grave; O death, I will be

thy plagues, O grave, I will be thy destruction. Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. I am Jehovah, and change not.'

But how is this salvation to be effected? The text expresses it by a change; Who shall change our vile body.' And otherwise than by a change from the state in which it is to one very different, the deliverance cannot be wrought; since the subject of it is a body now vile. In the original it is σωμα της ταπεινώσεως ημων, ‘the body of our humiliation.' Humiliation implies a fall from some higher state. And such a fall our nature has sustained for though the body of man was originally formed out of the earth, it was of the earth, before the curse of corruption was inflicted upon it.— 'God created man to be immortal, and made him an image of his own eternity.' Other things were produced by the word of his power, but man by the counsel of the eternal Three, who said, 'Let us make man.' The workmanship ennobled the materials; the hand of the Almighty bestowed perfection as it passed upon them, and the creature rose under it, beautiful in his form, excellent in his glory, the most perfect image of his Maker. There was no seed of corruption within, to cause disease and deformity without; no contending passions in the soul, like moths to fret and wear out its garment, the body. The soul, clothed with the Spirit of holiness, was all glorious within, and could not but communicate some portion of its excellence to its earthly tabernacle, thereby rendering matter a fit companion for an upright spirit, breathed into it from above. God made not sin, neither hath he pleasure in the

punishment of it. But man chose it. And behold what destruction it hath brought upon the earth, and upon our body formed out of it! What dreadful attendants has this ravager of the world introduced! Corruption, and shame, and misery, and trouble, and infirmity, and deformity, and sorrow, and death. The soul is become a sea, whereon the passions, like winds, strive for the mastery, shaking the earthly frame with diverse diseases, and sundry kinds of death. It is now a body of sin;' and what wonder that it should be a 'body of humiliation? Sin has laid it low, even to the dust. Pamper it with the luxuries of sea and land, array it in gold and diamonds, it will be still the same. Only undraw the curtains of affliction, and you view it languishing upon the bed of sickness; unlock the doors of the grave, or enter the secret recesses of the charnel-house, and you behold it stripped of the world's tinsel pomps and vanities, reduced to putrid flesh, mouldering dust, and dry bones; no longer able to disguise or disown its original; brought at last to know itself, and introduced to an acquaintance proper for it :-earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' Here, then, O thou, whosoever thou art, that delightest to contemplate the dignity and rectitude of human nature, here sit down and begin thy meditations. Is it thus that virtue is its own reward? Or say, is the body no part of the man? If it be, why is it in this state; or how is it to be changed? Men talk much of the moral sense. Can the moral sense acquaint us with the resurrection of the dead? Reason is placed on the throne, and her kingdom, it is said, ruleth over all. Can reason discover the change of corruption

into glory? We know she cannot; and when she spake upon the subject at Athens, her language was, 'What will this babbler say?'

Nay, since that time, we have heard her muttering from the dust, by the mouth of certain philosophers, 'How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?' With what body, O man, should they come, but the body with which they went? What body should be raised from the grave, but the body that was laid in the grave? Had we seen Joseph of Arimathea deposit the Redeemer of the world in the sepulchre, and been told that the Redeemer should arise again, could any one have thought of asking, 'with what body he should come?" Whether with the body which he had, when he went with his parents to Jerusalem, at twelve years old; or the body he had at twenty; or the body he had at thirty, when he began his ministry? Upon this subject two men of equal abilities might dispute, if they were to live so long, till Christ came in the clouds to judgment, and found them doubting whether he was risen or not, because they could not conceive with what body he should rise, or how it was consistent with the justice of God to raise and reward one body only, when, as they apprehend, he was born in one body, lived in another, and suffered in a third; because, it is said, the body undergoes a thorough change in a certain term of years. This metaphysical argument therefore, though seemingly no more than a difficulty proposed as to the manner of our resurrection, really strikes at the truth of the article of Christ's resurrection, and is calculated to darken the counsel and revelation of the Most High, by words without knowledge; so much without know