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blessed and everlasting acts of love, praise, and adoration, to the ever-blessed and glorious Godhead. The soul, then, being of a heavenly disposition, and the body of a heavenly form, they are mutually fitted to enjoy the heavenly life to all eternity.

3. From passive and weak, they shall be changed into active and powerful bodies; that which was sown in weakness shall be raised in power. The bodies which we now have are weak and infirm, subject to disease, sickness, and pain, and at last to dissolution and death; but our resurrection bodies shall be strong, active and vigorous; we shall then know health without sickness, pleasure without pain, and experience a life that will never sink away in death.

4. From corruptible and mortal, they shall be transformed into incorruptible and immorta! bodies. That which was sown in corruption will be raised in incorruption. The bodies we are now clothed with have in them the seeds and principles of decay, insomuch, that from the very first moment of life, we are continually travelling towards death, and must sooner or later feel the fatal blow; but our resurrection bodies will be perfectly refined and purified from all the seeds of corruption and mortality; death shall have no more dominion over them; they shall last as long as the soul to which they shall be united, and both together shall live and flourish in youth, strength, vigour, beauty, dignity, and glory, throughout the ages of eternity.

The bodies will rise up with different degrees of glory; hence our apostle says," there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory: so also is the resurrection of the dead." The great luminaries of heaven shine with various degrees of lustre and magnificence: the sun is more glorious than the moon, the moon than the stars, the stars also differ from each other. So, in the resurrection, our bodies will shine forth with various degrees of beauty and splendour; all, indeed, will spring up with vast advantage and great refinements in point of dignity and glory; yet some will far outshine others; the bodies of the saints will then excel in glory, in proportion as their souls excel in grace. The more holy

and heavenly we are here, the more magnificent and divine will be our glorified bodies hereafter. Blessed, inconceivably blessed, are they, who in the lowest degree are made partakers of this glorious resurrection; the exalted Saviour will then display the richest manifestations of light, purity, love, and joy; and his glorified bumanity will then be the medium, through which all the uncreated glories of the Godhead everlastingly shine forth! We shall then be as the angels themselves; our happiness will then be complete, each will possess a fulness of bliss, and God in Christ Jesus will be all in all.

Who can express the immense felicity that we shall then enjoy? Human language fails-angels themselves could not express the infinite fruition, the boundless and everlasting glories of that happy Dr. Andrews.

state.

The bodies of the faithful shall be raised out of the grave in glory, and at the general judgment owned by Christ, received into his favour, and fully enjoy God for ever.

1. There shall be a resurrection of the body; the saints shall be raised out of their graves into eternal life and happiness. John v. 28, 29. "The hour is coming, in the which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." If any should ask, How can these things be? it must be answered, How can it be thought incredible, that God, who made the world of nothing, should be able to raise the dead? With God nothing is impossible.

If it be asked, How shall the dead be raised? With what body shall they come? It must be answered, With the same numerical body that lived here on earth. Job xix. 27. The same body shall be raised, and the same soul re-united to it, jointly to receive their glorious reward.

2. The bodies of believers shall be raised up in glory. Their glory is set forth by the apostle in this general phrase-they shall be like the glorious body of Christ. 1 Cor. xv. 42. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

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3. There shall be a general judgment, when believers shall be owned by Christ, acquitted from all their sins, and their integrity and sincerity shall be made known to all.

The angels having gathered the saints, and carried them to Christ, with joy and gladness will they appear before him, for then will he solemnly receive them into his favour, and in the view of all the world own and acknowledge all their holy obedience to his will, and in special, all their acts and offices of love, which they showed to him or his, saying unto them, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was an hungry, and ye gave me meat; thirsty, and ye gave me drink; naked, and ye clothed me," &c. Matt.

XXV.

4. After their resurrection, believers shall be blessed in the full enjoyment of God for ever; dwell in his presence, being beloved. The immediate fruits of the blessed vision will be fulness of satisfaction; Psalm xvii. 15. Fulness of glorious and ravishing joy; Psal. xvi. 11. This is the blessedness of believers, and in this blessedness shall they abide to all eternity, wherein shall be everlasting praises, adoring and admiring ballelujahs to him that sits on the throne, and to the Lamb for ever. Amen.

Dr. Gouge.

The resurrection of the body is a certain and a very glorious fact in the eye of every sincere believer in our Lord Jesus Christ; a fact to which he looks forward as the summit of his bliss, and as the completion of all the exceeding great and precious promises, which have supported him through life, and which console and animate him in the prospect of dissolution.

But it hath long been the inquiry of the philosophic Christian, and it hath, too, been the sneer of the infidel-How are the dead raised, and with what bodies shall they appear? Nor have we any ground to expect a solution to such an inquiry, until the grand event itself shall take place.

So far, in my opinion, is this knowledge from entering into the essentials of the Christian faith, that I cannot but think the inquiry to be an intrusion into things too wonderful for the present state of

the human intellect. It matters not whether the Christian can or cannot philosophize upon the particles which compose the earthly house of the tabernacle which he now inhabits, or whether he can tell any of the properties of that system which shall constitute his nature in the future world. When he departs this life, he rests assured that the morning shall quickly arise, in which his flesh and spirit shall be re-united, and he shall be clothed upon with a body immortal as his soul.

But, though it exceed the province of the buman understanding, to discover the physical properties of the animal frame, either in its present or in its glorified state; if we accommodate the apostle's assertion to our present capacities, it may, by a divine blessing, yield us some useful matter for contemplation.

Anon.

It ought to be no objection to the doctrine of the resurrection, that several particulars relating to it exceed our comprehension. "How the dead are raised," it is sufficient that God knows, and by no means wonderful that we do not for we scarce know how any one part of the course of nature is carried on. And as to the inquiry that follows this in St. Paul, "With what bodies do they come?" we are taught they shall be so far the same bodies, that every one shall have properly his own, and be truly the same person he was before; but so far different, that those of good persons will be subject to none of the sufferings, none of the infirmities, none of the neces sities of this life. For, to use the same apostle's words, "what is sown in corruption, shall be raised in incorruption; what is sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory; what is sown in weakness shall be raised in power; what is sown a natural body is raised a spiri tual body." But the particular nature of spiritual bodies, or the distinction that shall be made in them, between the more eminent in goodness and their inferiors," as one star differeth from another star in glory;" these things we are not qualified in our present state to understand. And it is some degree of weakness, even to ask questions about them: but it would be much greater to attempt to give answers. I shall therefore only add, that such of the good as are found" alive at the coming of the Lord, shall not sleep," or

die, and therefore cannot rise again; "but shall be changed" into the same image with those who do; as the scripture hath plainly taught us. But what the appearance and the condition of the bodies of wicked persons will be at the resurrection, it hath not, I think, afforded us the least knowledge, farther than is implied in the description of their punishment; and let us be so wise as to dread the terrors that are thus concealed from us.

Archbishop Secker's Sermons.

The signification of the word resurrection is, a raising up that which is fallen; the same body which fell by death, is raised by the power of God. This is the proper sense of the word, and the just meaning of it in this article; nor can it have any other; for if the same body be not raised which fell, but another is given, it will not be a resurrection, but a creation.

The resurrection of the body is expressed by such figurative and metaphorical phrases, which evidently show that it will be the same body which will be raised that dies; as when it is expressed by the quickening of seed which is sown in the earth, and by an awaking out of sleep. Now, as it is the same seed that is sown in the earth and dies, that springs up, and shows itself in the stalk, blade, and ear; the same, I say, as to nature and substance; for wheat produces wheat, and not any other grain, though with some additional beauty, verdure, and greenness; it loses nothing that it had, though it grows with that it had not before:-so the same body that dies is quickened and raised, though with additional glories and excellencies; the very same it that is sown in corruption, is raised in incorruption; the same it that is sown in dishonour, is raised in glory; the same it that is sown in weakness, is raised in power; the same it that is sown a natural body, is raised a spiritual body; or else there is no meaning in the apostle's words. Likewise, as death is compared to a sleep, so the resurrection is expressed by awaking out of it. Now, as it is the same body that sleeps that is awaked out of it, so it is the same body that falls asleep by death that will be awaked at the resurrection. Gill's Sermons.

Though now to death I yield, and am his due,
All that of me can die; yet, that debt paid,

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