idolatry and preached Jesus and the resurrection, “certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection." He taught a new doctrine, and spake of "things not dreamt of in their philosophy." In writing to those who had turned from darkness to light, in another city of Greece, he delineated the resurrection—as the doctrine still stands long after the Parthenon has fallen-with a sublimity that Attic genius could not surpass; while he spake too in great plainness of speech of things which—if untutored and unsubdued by the word and Spirit of the Lord—even Grecian imagination could never reach. Whether, in giving heed to the word of the Father of lights concerning the resurrection as well as other truths, different parts of the same epistle, or different epistles of the same apostle, be compared together, or the writings of one apostle with those of another, or the Old Testament Scriptures with the New, or all of these with the things recorded in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the testimony is uniform when combined: and when all its parts are thus united, it is, however enlarged, still one and the same. Nay, as some examples have been already seen, the different parts not only fit respectively into each other, and show the identity of the things thus revealed, but the apostolic testimony is thrice conjoined with the prophetic in that single description of the resurrection. Thus, in writing it, an apostle's heart and hand were used by the Spirit to join together what men would put asunder; and to show believers in Jesus, who rest on him as the sure corner stone, that their faith can not here be built upon the foundation of apostles, except it be also built upon that of prophets. Ye are built, as the apostle elsewhere says, upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." Moses was admonished of God to make the tabernacle of witness according to the pattern he had seen, as was shown him in the Mount. The temple of Solomon was built after the pattern which Zion's wisest of kings had given. The word of the Lord is perfect work. As justice shall be laid to the line, and equity to the plummet, so the testimonies of the Lord are very faithfulness and truth; and 1 Acts xvii. 18. 2 Eph. ii. 20-22. there is no other pattern of things unseen as yet but that which they supply. Perfect in all its parts, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony shall be seen to be, when the mystery of God shall be finished, as He hath declared to his servants the prophets. The greater that is the blindness of an idol-devotee, the more lowly does he bend his bared head in the dust before the temple of the god of his idolatry; and then goes away as blind as when he came. The more that any man is enlightened by the sure word of prophecy, and the more lowly that in all things he casts down imaginations and every high thought before the unerring word of the living God, the more clearly-in lifting up his hands to the holy oracles, with the helmet of salvation on his headdoes he see the highest pinnacles of the temple, all pointing as they do to heaven, while he contemplates in all its parts, and in the light which they themselves reflect, that perfect word and workmanship of God. When the clouds of dust which obscure the blissful vision, and which men raise up around it, are cleared away, and heaven opens as that temple is seen, then is it beheld as fitly framed together, built, graven, and burnished, the word of the Creator of the universe, who spake and it was done, and whose gift it is, as it belongs to the man who thus beholds it. Thus only can it be seen, when looked at as it is, without a cloud, and without a vail. Works of mortals are often fitly framed together. The carved wood and polished stones, all wrought and made ready, were raised up, when brought to Mount Moriah, into the temple of Solomon-a fitting receptacle for the ark in which the testimony was kept-without the sound of a hammer, or any shaping or forcing by the hands of the builders but stone was laid to stone, and beam to beam, as they fitted into each other by a perfect pattern.-Nay, the ruins of heathen temples, which have fallen before the word of the Lord, which planted the thistles that grow where idols were once worshiped, still show, as in that of Baalbec for example, the wondrous art and power with which they were constructed, so as to furnish a problem even to modern engineers. Though strewed upon the ground, and now asunder, each figured stone shows to a certainty which of the rest was its fellow, and must needs have been united unto it. Each separate stone of the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice is clearly distinguished in the midst of heaps; The Scriptures and shows what part it once formed of an unfallen temple. Sometimes a part of all these was formed of a single block, cut into the form of each, so as to render obvious to sight, from the graving thereon, what place it occupied in the entablement, and that which in the loftiest position once formed the head-stone may be known as such, though broken and only partly seen, as it lies buried among heaps of ruins. The counsel of the Lord, it shall stand. can not be broken. Not a word can fail. ple of the tabernacle of the testimony less perfect, or less fitly framed together, than the proudest temple that ever displayed its finished glory, when the head-stone was brought forth with shoutings. They who constructed that temple, of which the Revelation of Jesus Christ is the head-stone, and which was brought out with shoutings of the heavenly hosts-formed it not merely after the pattern, but of the very word of the Lord as it came unto them. By the same infallible authority they show the fashion of it; and tell, if men will not see, how different parts of it are riveted into a common testimony, so that no power of man can ever disunite them from it, or force them asunder by any art or invention of his, any more than he could put his frail fingers of flesh, where he can not force the point of the sharpest knife, between massive and polished stones that lie as they were built, in the wall of a ruined temple, of which only fragments remain. Blocks there are in these which a thousand men could not move: and the only question here is, what is the weight of the testimony, when the words are the Lord's, and when apostles and prophets are at once his witnesses. Of the testimony concerning the resurrection of the saints, it may next be seen whether text not only here fits but fixes itself to text, as stone to stone, even in the crowning entablement of a temple. He who laid the foundations of the testimony, also finished it, which kings on earth have often failed to do, in building temples in honor of their gods. This is the first resurrection. "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 in Christ shall rise first." In 1st Corinthians, fifteenth chapter, it is written, Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 23-26.-Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all 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. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. SO WHEN this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, THEN shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 50-55. The inspired writer here expressly testifies that when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, then shall be brought to pass that which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. His reference to this scripture is direct: the testimony he bears concerning it is positive, viz., That this prophecy shall then be accomplished. His next words are a triumphant invocation of " death" and the "grave," in which the apostle's voice is here, too, the echo of that of another prophet, as if both made a mockery of such foes, when the matter they indited touched the resurrection, and the King who is that to all who look for him. "Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through Christ Jesus our Lord," is at once the language of faith, and an evidence of its power. In these few verses there is still another obvious appeal to words of prophecy in the quotation from the 110th Psalm, "He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet." Before adverting to these repeated appeals to the Old Testament Scriptures, as Paul by the Spirit mingles what was spoken by the prophets with what was written by himself as an apostle, it is well to keep here in view also another fact, as recorded in the New Testament; whereby it may be seen how ample is the testimony which it unfolds, how sure the foundation on which faithful men may here be built up, and how well it is to give heed to the sure word of prophecy, as this precept was practically illustrated as well as inculcated by the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom He sent forth to preach the Gospel of the kingdom. Ye shall be brought before rulers and kings, said the Lord to his disciples, for my sake, and for a testimony against them. But-take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. The ministers of Jesus are not here commanded to preach without premeditation. Timothy was exhorted by Paul to preach the word, to give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine-not to neglect the gift that was in him, which was given him by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, but to meditate upon these things, and give himself wholly to them, and to take heed unto himself and unto the doctrine. But when called to suffer, or to bear reproach and wrong for Jesus's sake, the vindication of them and of his own cause rested with the Lord; and without their taking thought beforehand, they were to speak what the Holy Ghost would give them to say in the needful hour. In thus answering for himself before Agrippa, when that king with his rulers, or chief captains and principal men of the city had come with great pomp into the place of hearingPaul said, Now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come for which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead? —“ As touching the resurrection of the dead," said Jesus to the Sadducees, who thought that they could try an argument with him, "have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. The hope of the promise made unto the fathers, for which hope's sake the apostle then stood in bonds before the king, is identical with the resurrection of the dead, for so the apostle identified it; and rise they must ere that promise be fulfilled, or the faithful sit down, in another guise than Paul the prisoner then pleaded the promise, with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God. "Why," asked the believing Jew of the unbelieving Gentile, why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that |