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"Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests; worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing :" "blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever."

impressive, and yet continue always the same? He possesses life and motion long before he begins to breathe; he lives, moves, and breathes long before he begins to reflect and reason. The dawnings of his reason are not greatly superior to the instincts of some of the brute creation. Arrived, at length, at fulness of stature and of understanding, his faculties, like the tide at full, are instantly on the decline. Accident destroys them, vice deranges, disease impairs, age wastes It is now a vile body; composed of gross them. All the while it was one and the elements, subsisting on gross aliment, subsame being who struggled in the womb, who jected to the same laws which govern the crawled in infancy, who tottered in child-beasts that perish. It may be rendered loathhood, who flew on the wings of the wind in some by sloth, by infirmity, by disease, by youth, who stately walked in the majesty of vice, by death. The loveliest form is in one manhood, who again stooped, bended, totter-hour so altered, so disfigured, that we are ed, crept under the pressure of old age, who sunk in death. It was the selfsame individual who now blazed in all the lustre of talents, station, and success, who strutted the envy and wonder of mankind, and who now moped and blinked in premature second childishness, the pity and scorn of the world. Explain to me wherein consisted the sameness which ran through all the successive changes of a short and transitory life of threescore years and ten, and you will teach yourself to conceive what it is that constitutes the identity of that which was sown "a natural body," and which shall be raised "a spiritual body."

obliged to turn from it with horror and aversion. Abraham must hasten to bury his Sarah out of his sight. Remove that transparent veil of skin which the hand of nature has so curiously spread over the sinews and the flesh, and what a frightful spectre instantly appears! Imagination shrinks from the hideous apparition. It shall rise a glorious body composed of the purer elements which fly upward, living on incorruptible food, a pellucid wall of fire through which every emotion of the soul is distinctly visible, but which no sword of the adversary can penetrate, unsusceptible of wound, unsusceptible of depression, of weariness, of pain, of decay. In Instead of vainly attempting to account for this world of wo the body has a glory not bethe sameness, is it not rather the part of wis-longing to it, a glory that is its disgrace, its dom to contemplate, and endeavour to improve the difference of the one from the other, as it stands displayed in the person of Christ the first-fruits, on the hallowed page of inspiration? The temple of his body was both before and after his passion free from stain and blemish; but every other human frame has in it radical pollution and corruption. It is earthly, a mass of clay, taken from the earth, dependant upon it, chained down to it, and ready to be swallowed up of it again. It shall be heavenly, spiritual, impassive; endowed with the capacity of moving with That we may not seem all this while to the expedition of thought, the celestial ve- have been retailing a fond man's dream, we hicle of an immortal spirit adapted to the recur to the history of the wonderful changes vigour and activity of that spirit, subservient which the bodies of some men have already to its will, on the wing at pleasure up to its undergone, and from which we may connative seat, with the velocity of lightning include what future changes, through the althe east, at the west, according as the command of the Most High, or the desire of surveying his ways and his works may determine the choice. Roused by that voice which awakens the dead, behold the human body arrayed in light; it attempts a region, it mingles with elements untried before; it spurns the tomb, it mounts on high, it springs up "to meet the Lord in the air," it mixes with angels, it checks the aspiring flight, and presents the first-fruits of eternal bliss before the throne, it joins with adoration, love, and joy in the song of the Lamb:

misery; the unnatural, ruinous glory of holding the immortal spirit in thraldom, of leading its sovereign, captive at its will, of bending the heaven-born mind to the ignominious drudgery of the flesh. In the world of bliss, the real order of nature shall be restored, the spirit shall resume its just empire, the body shall be invested with its proper glory, shall descend into its subordinate station; shall feel its highest gratification in becoming the ministering servant of intelligence, of rectitude, of benignity.

mighty power of God, the human frame is capable of undergoing. "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death: and was not found, because God hath translated him:" his body, without being resolved into its principles, without tasting death, was quickened into newness of life, and entered into the kingdom of heaven without passing through the grave. Moses subsisted for forty days together in the mount with God, and neither did eat nor drink. On his descent, the skin of his face shone, so as to dazzle the eyes of the beholder, and to render the in

white as the light." This however was to undergo an eclipse. The scripture must be fulfilled which saith, "His visage was so

terposition of a veil necessary. At the age of one hundred and twenty years, his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." After a lapse of fifteen centuries he revisit-marred more than any man, and his form ed our earth in a glorious form, to do homage on the mount of transfiguration. Elijah undismayed mounts on fiery wheels to meet his God. His body, in an instant of time, acquires the power of resisting, of repelling the flame, or becomes assimilated to it, and burns unconsumed. The three children of the captivity fall down bound in the midst of the burning fiery furnace, but arise and walk through the flames uninjured. Paul is "caught up to the third heaven," carried out of himself, transported into Paradise, and made to hear "unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter."

more than the sons of men." But after the resurrection from the dead, this occasional and transient glory became permanent and immutable. Behold, he bursts asunder the bars of the grave. On the third day he raises up again the temple which the hands of wicked men had destroyed. Earth and heaven feel and acknowledge a present Deity. The sons of light descend from their thrones to announce his revival, to minister at his feet. The solid globe is thrown into convulsions. "There was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from But even those illustrious instances "have the door, and sat upon it. His countenance no glory, by reason of the glory that excel- was like lightning, and his raiment white as leth." The glory to be conferred on every snow: and for fear of him the keepers did believer's vile body is, that it "shall be fash- shake, and became as dead men." Early in ioned like unto his glorious body according the morning of the first day, he appears unto to the working whereby he is able even to Mary, but "her eyes were holden that she subdue all things unto himself." Let us, should not know him;" she supposes him to therefore, take our ideas of the future "ex-be the gardener, and in the bitterness of her ceeding and eternal weight of glory," from soul exclaims: "Sir, if thou have borne him what we know it was in him. What must hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and have been the majesty of his person, and the! dignity of his deportment when he expelled the profaners of the temple, and they answered him nevera word? With what energy and eloquence must he have expressed himself, when a multitude under the influence of violent prejudice against him, over- At a more advanced period of that same come by force of truth, exclaimed, "Never day, we behold him on the road which leadman spake like this man." Behold him in eth from Jerusalem to Emmaus, on which he the midst of the sea; the yielding waves be- found two of his disciples, "talking together come a pavement of adamant under his feet. of all these things which had happened." He speaks the word, and the wind ceases to He joins himself to them, as they walked on rage, and the tempest subsides into a calm. their way in sadness. He enters into conMoses endured, supported a fast of forty days versation with them; he expounds to them and forty nights in communion with God; the Scriptures concerning himself. They Jesus underwent a similar period of absti- are deeply affected, they are edified, their nence in the wilderness, being tempted of hearts burn within them, as he talks with the devil. Mark that band of ruffians, as- them by the way, and while he opens to them sembled to apprehend him in the garden: the Scriptures. But all the while his body they are lost to decency, lost to shame; they is concealed under a veil through which are ready to rush upon their He prey: their arrays eyes cannot pierce. In a moment the himself in mildness, he simply demands, veil is withdrawn, as he blesses the bread, "Whom seek ye?" They instantly feel breaks it, and gives it to them; they recog how awful goodness is, they shrink from the nise their much-lamented, greatly-beloved lustre of his eye. When with native, irre- Master, he has resumed his form, and in an sistible majesty he meets the inquiry, "I am instant disappears: their eyes were opened, he," they went backward, and fell to the and they knew him; and he vanished out of ground. their sight.

Such was the glory of that sacred body while as yet it had not invested itself with immortality; while as yet it was liable to pain, and sorrow, and death. But he displayed an anticipated view, even in a state of humiliation, of that splendour which he could assume and lay down at pleasure. On Tabor his whole form was altered; "his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was

I will take him away." In the twinkling of an eye, his voice, his appearance changes, and as his lips pronounce, in their well-known accent, the name of Mary, he stands confessed to the astonished mourner as her Lord and her God.

In the evening of that same memorable first day of the week, the eleven and their companions being assembled to worship, and the doors carefully shut for fear of the Jews, lo, he is in the midst of them speaking and dispensing peace. And yet it is the same body which was crucified. It bears the print of the nails which pierced his hands and his feet. His side presents the scar of the

that celestial body is no longer subject to the laws of matter. Walls of stone can neither exclude nor confine a spiritual substance.Gates and bars have no power of coercion, they are passed without being opened. Behold the first-fruits of them that sleep. Behold the proof, the pledge, the model of the resurrection from the dead. Behold the glory which awaits all the redeemed of the Lord, in that day when he maketh up his jewels.

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wound inflicted by the soldier's spear. But utility and importance, and human society its being and comfort. Under the addition of another orb similar to that which illumines and animates the world, nature would be oppressed, and mourn, and expire. Withdraw that single, little moon, that speck in creation, that mere attendant minister on our globe, and what a blank is left in the system, what myriads are rendered comfortless, how the harmony is destroyed. Countless as various are the stars in the firmament; but the subtraction, the transposition, the accele Let us take one glimpse more of the Sa- rated or retarded motion of one of the least viour's glorified body. See, he leads out his of them would unhinge the general frame, wondering, delighted train as far as to Betha- unsettle the balance, and introduce confuseen of above five hundred brethren at sion. But arranged as they are, counter;" "he lifts up his hands and blesses poised, sustained by the arm of Omnipotence, them:""and it came to pass while he bless-every one lends its portion of strength, ed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." Into this blessed image, believer in Christ Jesus, thou art going to be transformed. That feeble body which sometimes can with difficulty creep to the house of prayer, to a communion table, "shall mount up with wings as eagles," shall behold the stars under its feet, shall range through unbounded space, shall ascend into the heaven of heavens, shall associate with the Cherubim and with the Seraphim, with the bodies and spirits of just men made perfect, "shall with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Such, Christian, is the end of thy faith, the salvation of the soul, the redemption of the body from the grave. Such is the fruit of the love of God, the effect of Christ's death, the operation of the Holy Spirit. Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth 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."

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The apostle suggests another very interesting idea on the subject of the resurrection. The children of the resurrection shall all be glorious, but the glory of all is not the same: for as in the natural world, "there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds;" as there are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial, each invested with its peculiar and appropriate glory and excellency, as "there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory: so also is the resurrection of the dead." Next to the uniformity and regularity which pervade the system of the universe, the diversity and variety of the proauctions of nature, and of the ways of Providence, claim our attention and excite our admiration. To this diversity the field and the forest, the fragrant earth and the starry heavens are indebted for all their beauty. Hence the brute creation derives

beauty, and stability, to the whole. Each orb reflects lustre on its opposite; an harmonious discord becomes productive of perfect union; every thing differs, and yet every thing agrees. In the present imperfect state of the moral world, we must not look for the harmonious variety which reigns in the kingdom of nature. Society presents not only variety of rank, of talents, of possessions, but differences of opinion, oppositions of interest, the fermentation of passions. Offences will come, peace must be disturbed, blood must flow. But in the resurrection of the dead the harmonies of grace shall correspond to those of nature, for universal nature shall be under the dominion of love. "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish." From what has been said, let us,

1. Bless God for the clear light in which this all-important doctrine is placed. The evidence of it pours into the eye, rushes into the heart every step we take. As often as we walk out into the corn-field, we have the image of death and of the resurrection of the dead. The husbandman casts in the seed that it might die, that it might see corruption. The sight of the springing grain assures us that he sowed in hope, and that his hope maketh him not ashamed. "So also is the resurrection of the dead." Every time the epicure sits down to a feast, he has in the dainties of his table a representation of the varieties which the day of the renovation of all things shall display. Every time that the contemplative man "considers the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which he hath ordained," he perceives an image of the future glory of the redeemed. "As one star differeth from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead." The weariness and wast

ing of the bodily vigour throws the human frame night by night into the semblance of death; the freshness of the dawn restores it to newness of life; "so also is the resurrection of the dead," "them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." “ Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?" Was not that stately oak once a dry acorn? Was not that gorgeous bird of a thousand radiant colours enclosed in a putrid shell? Did not that wonder of every eye, of every ear, once crawl a poor helpless reptile? How grievously do men err, "not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God."

brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." You have been called, it may be, to bury out of your sight what was once youth and beauty, talents and virtue, wisdom and piety. But these were, on earth, necessarily blended with weakness and imperfection. That weakness and imperfection remain in the grave, never to rise again. What are the transient youth and fading beauty of this world? What are the talents and the virtues of the wisest and the best of men, compared to the celestial radiance, the immortal vigour, the unsullied purity, the sublime wisdom of beings shining in their Redeemer's likeness! Were it in your power, could you find in your heart, to bring back a beloved child, a friend dear to you as your own soul, to a state of depres sion, and pain, and sorrow? No, the bitterness of death is past. The last enemy hath done his worst. They were first ready; they have reached home before us. Therefore,

2. The doctrine has a happy tendency to reconcile the mind to the prospect of our own dissolution. The body, the object of so much anxiety and attention, is after all but a flimsy garment, of feeble texture, and of perishable materials. And is it indeed such a mortification to lay down an old, rusty, galling armour, and go to rest at ease, when the labours and dangers of a hard warfare are at an end? Is it so very humiliating to 4. "Be ye not slothful, but followers of part with worn out raiment, with filthy rags, them who, through faith and patience, inherit to exchange them for robes of immortality? the promises." Be constantly aiming at This is the prospect which the resurrection higher degrees of moral and intellectual exopens to the Christian's hope. This is the cellence; at those qualities which, though of change which passed upon Joshua the high-little estimation in the eyes of men, are in priest in prophetic vision, the emblem of the sight of God of great price, and constifinal deliverance, of unfading glory. "Now tute the glory of the kingdom of heaven. Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him, he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. And I said, let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord stood by." These are words which deserve to be written, to be printed in a book, to be graven with an iron pen and lead, in the rock for ever: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.'

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3. "I would not have you to be ignorant,

Be silently, unostentatiously adding, "with all diligence, to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatso ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things;" seeing that in the resurrection, those "who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,— and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."

HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST.

LECTURE CXXVIII.

So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certam nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum, when he heard that Jesus was come out of Judes into Galilee he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down and heal his son. for he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way, thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday, at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour in the whieh Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed, and his whole house. This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judea into Galilee.-JOHN iv. 46–54.

yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God;"-" the nations of them which are saved walk in his light, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it."

THE most serious businesses of human life | into one focal point, in the person of Jesus make but a sorry figure when they come to Christ. "To him give all the prophets witbe recorded. Interesting to the individual, ness;" "all the promises of God in him are and for the moment, they awaken no general concern, and become to the parties themselves, when the moment is past, "trifles light as air." The avidity with which fresh journals are read, is a perfect contrast to the indifference with which they are treated on the second or the third day. Let a man sit down to write the history of his own life; let him be the busiest and most important of personages, and what has he got to relate? A meagre account of the miles he travelled, of the bargains he drove, of the spectacles he beheld, of the viands which covered his table, and of the guests who surrounded it. Into this little measure shrink the achievements of the great, the splendour, pomp, and pride of kings, as well as the short and "simple annals of the poor." When the pageant has passed by, it is as a vision of the night, it vanishes into air, it leaves no track behind. In vain is the monumental column reared. The hand of time erases the inscription, shakes the fabric, crumbles it into dust. In vain does history promise to save from oblivion, and to confer immortality. The author, his work, his subject, the very language in which he wrote, all perish.

Nevertheless there are illustrious exceptions. There have been persons whose names are dear to every succeeding generation, and who shall be had in everlasting remembrance; who were engaged in pursuits of endless utility, and producing events which shall never spend their force. And there is a record which survives the lapse of ages, the ravages of barbarism, the revolutions of empire, and which shall outlive the dissolution of worlds. There we contemplate the deathless glory of the venerable benefactors of mankind, who "being dead, yet speak," who were and are the light of the world. All those scattered rays of light are collected

In the busiest and most active life there are long and frequent intervals of repose. Much must be allowed to human infirmity, both of body and mind; the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak. One life alone displays an incessant progress in doing good; no word idly spoken, no moment unprofitably spent, no step unnecessarily taken The night itself is made a season of devotion, the hour of social refreshment becomes an occasion of communicating useful knowledge, a walk into the corn-fields or by the shore of the sea, a journey from city to city, an ascent into the mountain, all are sacred to one commanding object, the glory of God and the good of mankind, the instruction of the ignorant, the pardon of the guilty, the relief of the miserable.

The solemnities of the passover being finished, Jesus, according to the wisdom which directed all his proceedings, thought it proper to retire from Jerusalem, and to return into Galilee. The road lay through Samaria. The inhabitants of that country, though descended from the same stock with the Jews, and once members together with them of the commonwealth of Israel, were now cordially hated and despised by them. But they possessed the same "lively oracles of God," they looked for the same Messiah promised to their common fathers, and they gladly received the word when it came unto them. The great Prophet whom they expected takes this opportunity of paying them a visit; they acknowledge him, and believe on his name. Having continued with them two days, sowing the precious seed, expounding from Moses and all the prophets.

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