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sions of the Pfalmift: For thy fake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the flaughter (b). And now he folemnly records his protestation, that he was in daily hazard of death for preaching the gofpel. And he refers to a special inftance of perfecution, well known to the Corinthians, which had overtaken him in Afia, and is detailed in the nineteenth chapter of the book of Acts; and is again mentioned by St. Paul in his fecond Epiftle to the Corinthians (c), as a danger in which he was preffed out of measure, above his ftrength, infomuch that he despaired even of life, regarded the sentence of death as about to be executed upon him, and had no hope remaining except the fure and never-failing confidence that God would raise the dead. If, faith he, after the manner of men, to adopt a proverbial form of expreffion in ordinary ufe among you, I have fought with beafts at Ephefus: if I have dared the ungovernable fury of a frantic multitude, outrageous and cruel as favage beafts: What advantageth it me, if the dead rife not? What poffible benefit could I derive from all the labours and afflictions, which I bring upon myself by preaching Chriftianity; by what poffible inducement could I be impelled to incur them

(6) Rom. viii. 36. (c) 2 Cor. i. 8, 9.

if there were no refurrection? If after this short scene of existence, there were no future life; we, the apostles of Chrift, fhould employ our perfonal exertions, we fhould recommend it as the only rational object of the exertions of others, to make the most of the present state of being. We should not exhort you to fet your affections on things above, to be crucified unto the world, to be dead unto its pleasures. Our language would be the language prevalent in the mouths of your unbelieving and fenfual philofophers. Let us eat and drink, we should say; for to-morrow we die. Life is fhort; life is uncertain. Seize every gratification of the paffing hour. Lose not present enjoyment in the hope of future blifs for beyond the tomb no futurity remains.

But be not deceived, the apoftle continues: evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness and fin not: for fome bave not the knowledge of God. Ifpeak this to your fhame. He admonishes the Corinthians to rouse themselves from their fpiritual lethargy, to be ever upon their guard against the deceit ful influence, the enfnaring fociety, and the corrupting conversation of their false teachers, who maintained that there was no judgement nor life to come. He excites them to a vigilant felf-examination, to an unshaken adherence

herence unto found doctrine, to an abhorrence of unfcriptural principles, and of fin, to which unfcriptural principles neceffarily conduct. He reproves them for that want of the knowledge of God, that shameful deficiency in religious information and attainments, to which alone could be afcribed their endurance for a moment of a doctrine fubverfive of the very foundations of Chriftianity. The reproof, as St. Paul well remarked to the Corinthians, was to their fhame. My brethren, if we remain ignorant of any of the great doctrines of our religion; it is to our shame. The Scriptures and the house of God are open to every one of us. Whatever is requifite to falvation is placed before the humble enquirer diftinctly, and within his reach. : The nature of God; the corruption of man; the office of our Redeemer; the unceafing neceffity of divine grace; the imperfection and the attendant, finfulness of all human works; the confequent impoffibility of pardon and falvation except through faith in the atoning blood of Chrift; the indifpenfable obligation to ftedfaft holinefs and good works as the fure fruits and only evidences of juftifying faith; the certainty of a future judgement, of a refurrection of life or of damnation : these are truths fo plainly, fo energetically

ftated

ftated in that volume which, if we fincerely. love God through Chrift, will be our conftant ftudy, that, if we continue ignorant of them, we fhall defervedly be covered with confufion, we fhall awake from the duft of the earth to fhame and everlasting contempt.

The apoftle, in the next place, exposes the abfurdity of those cavils against the poffibility of the refurrection of the body from its duft, which by the unconverted heathen were frequently brought forward. But fome man will Jay; How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? The folly of this objection St. Paul manifefts by directing the thoughts of the person represented as urging it to a fimilar example of the power of God displayed before the eyes of all men every day an example which our Saviour had already applied to illuftrate a parallel truth (d). Thou fool! That which thou foweft is not quickened, except it die.. O blind and proud felfdeceiver! Why should it be thought a thing impoffible with thee that God fhould raise the dead? In every feed which thou foweft a change is wrought of the fame nature with that transformation, which fhall take place in the refurrection of the human body. The corruption and decay of the original feed are neceffary to

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the developement of the future plant. In that which thou foweft, in every feed which thou committeft to the earth, thou foweft not that body which shall be, but bare grain; it may chance of wheat, or of fome other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him; and to every feed its own body. Thou sowest a naked lifeless feed wholly different in outward appearance, in organization, in sensible qualities, from the living herb, which by experience thou knoweft shall spring from its diffolution. But God beftoweth on it a new body, provided for it by Him conformably to its kind: He raifeth it up into a beautiful plant furnished with powers and endowed with properties fuited to the new and more noble state of existence, which He appoints it to fill. The hand which, from a buried and perishing grain of wheat can raise up the blade and the ear; can call forth from the duft into which man's mortal body is diffolved a frame fit to partake of the inheritance of the faints in light. Do you require additional arguments and illuftrations? God has abundantly supplied them. He has already written them in His works. He has already manifefted Himself able to create bodies of flesh severally differing according to their generic diftinctions; and bodies of other natures, varying each from the other in glory.

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