uses, the bodies of the buried dead? In this view, as well as in others, according to the words of our Savior, in immediate connection with the text: "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live!" (Ver. 25.)

III. The next two parts of our subject: the time of the resurrection, and its connection with the last judgment, are so closely and necessarily connected with the fact and the reasonableness of the resurrection of the body--they may be said to be so dependent, as consequents, upon these, that we shall need to consider them but briefly.

1. A future, appointed time for the resurrection, is specified by our Saviour. in the text. "The hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice." The apostle Paul fairly and fully implies the same truth, when he writes in the future tense : "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." It is the future tense; not the trumpet is sounding; but the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.

2. That the last judgment will be connected with this future and fixed time for the resurrection, is also implied by Jesus, in the text. "They that are in the graves shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." The awards of life and damnation, we know, are ever declared in the Scriptures, to be the results of that last judgment, in which the son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, and shall sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations and when, after having separated them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats, he shall say to" them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" and unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." (Matt. xxv. 41-46.)

In strict accordance with this time of future judgment, as being connected with the resurrection of the bodies of the just and of the unjust, (Acts xxiv. 15,) is Paul's declaration to the men of Athens, in immediate connection with his preaching to them the resurrection of the dead, that God "hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom he hath ordained: whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." (Acts xvii. 31.)

And is there not a congruity, let me ask, before leaving

these points, in this resumption of their raised bodies by departed souls, and these results of the judgment, with the proceedings of a holy government, and our own moral feelings?

Does it not seem just and proper, that, being judged, and rewarded, and condemned, for the deeds done in the body, should appear in the body, before the judgment seat? May it not be really necessary for them in entering both into the blessedness of the righteous, and the punishment of the wicked, to have intercourse with things outward, and with other beings, whether in heaven or in hell. thongh raised and spiritual bodies, adapted in their qualities to their respective states?

So strongly indeed have such considerations commended themselves to the opposers of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and of judgment yet to come,--from whom the objections to them considered in this discourse, have been principally taken, that even he has said, in words which I quote from his treatise on the subject:-"We do not question, that ends worthy of infinite wisdom may dictate the ordainment of some grand crisis in the moral history of the universe, for the purpose of revealing-of making manifest-in some il lustrious way, the righteous grounds of a judgment already passed. Nor, as we have before intimated, do we see anything incongruous in the idea, that the word of inspiration may be so framed as to create the impression that both the resurrection and the final award may concentrate themselves to this great epoch, simply from the fact that their realized results shall then be more signally divulged to all orders of intelligences." But, if the "word of inspiration be so framed as to create this impression," is it not the true impression,-the most important impression? And must not whatever other views we may arrive at, respecting a spiritual body, and a judgment of any kind, carried on in any sense, in this world, preparatory to that which is to come, be wholly incidental and subordinate to the first impression made by the word of God?

IV. The religious uses of the truth we have considered are many and various. We can now attend only to those which seem most important and appropriate.

I. The resurrection of our bodies is ever represented in the Scriptures as resulting from the resurrection and power of Christ, and as connected with his work.

It is through Christ that men shall rise. He has risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that sleep. Not in the sense that he was, literally, the first being who, in any form, rose from the dead, but that it is through his power, as one with the Father, that any have risen or shall rise. It is with reference to his work of redemption, and on account of it, that the doors of death and the grave have been opened for any.

*Bush, on the resurrection, p. 278, chap. ix.

He bas abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. It is to meet him as judge, that our bodies shall rise. Of his resurrection, the apostles were ordained to be the wit1nesses. This, in the beginning of the proclamation of the Gospel, with its necessary associated truths, was the great theme of their preaching. They founded the divine truth of his religion on the fact. It still rests on that fact. No one can deny it, even though he be a professed preacher of the Gospel, without proclaiming another gospel than that which Paul preached unto men.

The testimony of Jesus, therefore, is the spirit of this, as of all other parts of prophecy. In this, as in all other parts, we bknow nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. It is through faith in him alone, that we can be prepared to meet death or rise to judgment. For the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ,"

2. The resurrection, too, is ever represented in the Scriptures as at once a motive and, an illustration of that spiritual rising from the death of sin, to the life of holiness required in "the Gospel.

It was, in speaking of this spiritual renovation, absolutely ineedful in all and every one, that our Saviour was led to atter the text. And he said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Dhe that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life." And then he added--as if intentionally combining the spiritual and bodily resurrection, as mutually illustrating one another-" Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." (vs. 24, 25.)

It is with reference to this view, the righteous are said in the Scriptures to rise in a peculiar sense-a sense in which the wicked do not. Thus our Saviour is recorded in the Gospel of Luke, as having spoken to the Saducees, who questioned him of the resurrection, that they might entrap him, of those who ishall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurbirection from the dead." (Luke, xx. 35.) And it is in this sense, probably, that the apostle Paul affirmed to the Philipians, that he counted all things but dung, and suffered the loss of all things, that he might know Christ, and the power of this resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death; if by any means he might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. (Philip. iii. 8-11.)

Enough is said in the Bible, to show that the wicked as well as the righteous, the unjust as well as the just, shall rise, and rise to enter on the second death. But, in comparison with that of the righteous, their rising again is barely mentioned, as if the sacred Penman dreaded to write of it!

Not improbably, their very bodies, though immortal, shall be different from those of the righteous, and be adapted to their character and state!--being inlets to the unhappy influences of that world of woe into which they shall depart.

3. This doctrine is strongly adapted to encourage all Christians to stability, and persevering zeal in their Christian duty.

This, indeed, is the great use made of it by the apostle Paul, in that celebrated chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, in which he directly treats of the resurrection.

There, after having shown, with great power and beauty, the reality of the resurrection of Christ, and the connected and consequent reality of our own resurrection; and having, in the most sublime and eloquent words, exulted in man's entire freedom from the sting of death, and triumphant victory over the grave, through Christ, he sums up all he had been saying with one of his own characteristic and emphatic expressions, and says: "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." (1 Cor. xv. 58.)

He had before declared, that, "if Christ be not risen, his preaching was in vain, and their faith was vain:" and that he and his fellow-apostles were false witnesses of God. He had said also, with reference, doubtless, to the self-denial and even suffering, to which true Christians in the performance of duty would, in this world, ever be exposed, that if in this life only we have hope, we are of all men the most miserable.

But raising his eye of faith beyond the grave, and looking into the eternal world, and remembering that we shall rise again, he animated himself and others by the conviction that he and they should not labor in vain; but that, in eternity, they should receive, through grace, a glorious and eternal reward! So should Christians now, and ever, comfort one another with these words. Our natural desire of immortality, and a true frame, requires thus to be sustained.

4. Our subject also gives great comfort to all Christians, in the death of pious relatives and friends. A Christian friend once said to me, being troubled in thought, respecting the form assumed by departed souls, previous to the resurrection of their former bodies, How, on your theory, can I satisfac torily conceive of one whom I love, who has left me, and gone hence, to be here no more?

But our subject, presented in the light of the word of God, need not, and will not, exclude the idea of form, as connected with departed souls, adapted to their present state of being, even as form must have appertained to Moses and Elias as they talked with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, to the eyes of Peter, and James, and John. (Matt. xvii. 2; Mark, ix. 2.)

It is form, we have reason to believe, therefore, suited to their state, but not yet so developed or exhibited as to be fully adapted to ours, nor to be thus developed or exhibited until the resurrection; even as the brilliant bud, sweet to think of, and beautiful to behold, and fragrant to the senses, may not have yet bloomed into the splendid flower.

But, it is beginning to bud, and it shall soon bloom and blossom. And so each lonely Christian mourner, "concerning them which are asleep," must "sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even to them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." (1 Thess. iv. 23, 14.)

Yes! yes! may each mourner confidently say :-Thou par ent! husband! wife! brother! sister! child! relative! an d friend! thou art not lost, but gone before me! I can, by faith in Jesus, think of thee now! I shall hope to see thee then, "in that day." And when I meet thee, no embarrassment shall arise to oppress us, from any kind of past relations, necessary to our present state, for among them who shall be accounted worthy of that resurrection, they neither "marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God." Every such mourn er may appropriately exclaim, in the words, which in seasons of death among us, are often cited :

"Break from his throne, illustrious morn!

Attend, O earth! his sovereign word;
Restore thy trust, a glorious form

Shall then arise to meet the Lord!"

5. In conclusion, this subject adds to the solemnity of the day of Judgment, and increases our obligation to prepare for it.

And here I would especially allude to the theory of the judgement's being carried on in this life, and solemn y recog nize its truth, in a proper sense, as I would avoid it in a false

one.

There is a sense-a most solemn and important one-in which the judgment of this world is now. As old Simeon blessed the parents of Jesus, and said unto Mary, his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Is rael; and for a sign which shall be spoken against," "that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed," (Luke, ii. 34, 35 ;) so now the exhibition of Christ in his Gospel, as the Redeemer perpersonally present, died aforetime, tries the human heart. And the preaching of his Gospel, in every congregation-in this con gregation now-is a savor of life unto life or of death unto death. So that,

"Tis not the whole of life to live."

Each one of us, under the Gospel, is preparing a character for eternity is being tried-yes, in this sense, is being judged.