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ists after death, as truly as the soul, and therefore that it is raised in the resurrection?

b. When he spoke of his own resurrection, he referred to that of his body, saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' But the Evangelist adds: "He spoke then of the temple of his body."-JOHN ii. 19, 21.

c. The manner in which the terms, "raise the dead." and other similar phrases, are used in the Scriptures, clearly implies the resurrection of the body.

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When Christ said to his disciples, "heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out devils," (Matt. x. 8,) certainly the idea is, that their bodies shall be raised. The same is true of those messages he sent to John the Baptist, as answers to his inquiry: Art thou he that should come?" "The deaf hear, the dead are raised." (Matt. xi. 5; Luke vii. 22.) And when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, in a passage already cited, that "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 ;" and then adds, "we which are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet them in the air," can he mean anything other than that the bodies of all shall arise?

Indeed, if all those texts applicable only to the resurrection, in which these words "raise," "raised," with their otheir derivatives, are used, be compared with the great number of cases in which the same verb is used in the gospel, with respect to other things, it will be very clear that the meaning must be, that in some sense and form, the bodies once buried shall arise.

The very term "resurrection" itself, although it is affirmed to suggest only, as usual in Scripture, the idea of "reviviscence," or restoration to life, yet, taken in connction with such passages as have been already cited, cannot well mean anything less than the raising up again of that which was laid in the grave, and which must refer, if it has any appropriate meaning, to the resurrection of the body that was recumbent in the tomb.

What pensive mourner, or serious stranger, as he walks in the silent shades of that still resting-place for the dead, near our city, would not think, as he passed by that simple but wellconceived monument of plain granite, and read upon its base the single, but immpressive word, "Resurgemus," (we shall rise again,) would not spontaniously associate it with the thought of the resurrection, in some form, of the sleeping dust beneath?

4. But, leaving verbal criticism, we conclude our review of the direct scriptural evidence for the resurrection of the body, by remarking, that this doctrine best explains those very frequent declarations of scripture, which attribute the resurrec tion of the dead to the special and almighty power of God.

Thus Paul affirms of Christ, that "he shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." (Philipp. iii. 21.) It is recorded as one of the special prerogatives of God, that he " quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.' (Rom. iv. 17.) And the apostle, in his epistle to the Ephesians, writes of "the exceeding greatness of God's power, to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead. (Eph. i. 19, 20.)

There can be no doubt, that in the bare rising of a spiritual body, from the fleshly one, destroyed by death, without any special accompanying circumstances, silently and unobserved, there would be, as in the operation of many similar natural laws, a strong and interesting illustration of the power of God. But, such an event, great and glorious as it would intrinsically be, would fail to meet and answer to those remarkably strong expressions and descriptions used and given in the Bible touching the resurrection of the dead. How inadequately would it correspond, for example, with those short but sublime words of the apostle Paul: "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!" (1 Cor; xv. 51, 52.)

Such expressions convey to every mind something more than the silent fulfillment of an ordinary law of nature. They imply a special act; an act so mysterious and so grand, that it is done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and is at once nounced and accompanied by the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God.

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Such an act is not met by the theory of a silent, unobserved rising of the dead. It implies wonder as well as power; and a rapidity of execution, and a sublimity of accompanying events, only in keeping with such ideas as are awakened by Jesus, in the text, "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth !"

II. But to all this scriptural evidence for the final resurrection of the bodies of the dead, it is objected: first, that it is unreasonable and unphilosophical; secondly, that no one can presume to contend that the same particles once buried shall rise again and thirdly, that it fails to meet the analogy of the dying grain of wheat used by Paul, as he treated of the resurrection, in his epistle to the Corinthians.

1. On the first point-its unreasonableness-the utter absurdity is alleged, of our even imagining that parted limbs and

empty frames shall be ever seen, literally, flying through the air, each to meet its proper body, and its former soul. And the imaginings of poetry are cited to enhance the grossness of the thought, in the words of one, who, in the description of the last day, has sung :

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2. The second objection urges that it is impossible to conceive that the same particles which once composed the buried body. rise; since science teaches us, beyond all reasonable doubt, that they have mingled with their kindred dust, and entering into vegetation have united with the rank grass of the sepulchre; and even through varied and traceable combinations have become incorporated with the flesh of other animals, and possibly, yea, even probably, in some cases, with that of man himself.

3. And then, in the third objection, it is argued, that we cannot adduce any good evidence that there is any living germ of life, in the decaying body of man, after the spirit has left it; and therefore we cannot reasonably maintain that the dead body shall spring up as Paul affirmed the wheat or other pro duct grew from its dying grain; because in that grain, though it did die, there was a living germ, untouched by decay-and we have no evidence of such a germ in the buried body.

1. To the first of these objections, we reply, that it forms no part of our doctrine of the resurrection. The same Bible that teaches us the reality of this great event, has also taught us, that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." And therefore we have no idea whatever that parted limbs and frames shall ever literally fly, in the resurrection, each to its appropriate body and soul.

2 The second objection-which affirms that the same particles of matter that composed the body cannot rise, because they have mingled with other bodies after death; and even while living changed, as science has taught us, once in every seven years; we affirm to be strongly in favor of the resurrection of the body.

For, the fact that even while living, the particles of the frame of every one change repeatedly in the course of his life; so that, as it respects the mere substance of which he is composed, the man of thirty is an entirely changed being from the youth of eighteen, shows indisputably, that personal identity

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does not consist in a body composed of the same particles of matter, but in a form assumed from ever-varying and distinct particles, by the inward spirit of a man, acting according to its own laws of organization, ordained of God.

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So that, as the wheat, or any other grain, by which the apostle illustrated the reality of the resurrection, consisted of particles wholly different from the blade, and ear, and full corn in the ear, which sprung from its decaying body, and lifting the earth, took for its sustenance and changing form, the rain, and dew, and air of heaven--at once another, and yet the same, (aller et idem,) so also the resurrection body, though it consist not of precisely the same particles once laid in the grave, may yet be as truly the body which once enveloped the soul according to the laws of its organization, ordained of God--as the blade, and ear, and corn in the ear, have a body at once another, yet the same with the grain once sown. Aud thus the process of the apostle if met and realized: "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1st Cor. xv. 42-44.)

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3. To all this, the third objection alleges the difficulty, that in the dying grain of wheat, there was a germ of life, which was from the first unaffected by destruction; that there was thus in it a continuance of life, in the midst of death; established and sustained by the power of that God who "beautifully mingles life and death;" but there is no evidence of any such germ in a dead and decaying human body.

To this I reply, first, in the words of Scripture, that "the body without the spirit is dead ;" and again it is recorded of one whom Christ raised from the dead, that "her spirit came again, and she arose straightway," (Luke viii. 55.) And also of the son of the widow of Zarephath raised by Elijah, that the prophet "cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord, my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived," (1 Kings, xvii. 21, 22.)

From such passages, are we not warranted in believing that the SOUL, or spirit of man, is the germ, from which his body shall receive life? That the soul, like the germ of the grain, or plant, or flower, at the appointed time, and by the command of God, who "quickeneth the dead, and calleth the things that be not, as though they were," shall take to itself from the surrounding elements, the very materials, it may be, of which its former body was composed, however scattered they may have been by distance, or by time, and, like the grain that grows into the blade, and ear, and corn, form to itself, agreeably to the law of its organisation, a body, in the words of the apostle, "changed," from corruptible to incorruptible-from mortal

to immortality-yet the same? God giving it such a body as it pleased him. Indeed, who shall say, on the very principles urged against our doctrine, by our opponents themselves, that the particles of the bodies of the dead having all been long since mingled into innumerable other bodies, of either animals or plants, and mixed with the waters of the sea, or dust of the earth, and been scattered by the four winds of heaven, it may be into far distant lands from the place in which they originally laid-who shall say that these very elements into which they have been changed, may not be conveying them, as the down of the thistle bears its seed, to the very spirit which is hereafter to assume them as its clothing? Already the stormy 'wind, fulfilling God's word, may be bearing on its wings the elements of resurrection bodies to their destined use!

Surely, that God, in virtue of whose mysterious natural law the magnet, dropped in the sands, causes the grains which it affects, to assume positions agreeably to their respective polarity, can cause the immortal spirit so to affect the elements that surround it, as to clothe itself with its final spiritual body.

I say, its final spiritual body, because the suggestions now made, founded, as we have seen them to be, on plain declarations in the word of God, showing the necessity of the pres ence of the spirit to give vitality to the body, afford, I think, when compared with some other passages, reasonable ground for another, to say the least, probable conclusion, namely, that as Christ said to the dying thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise;" and of the rich man, that after " he died, and was buried, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment ;" and specially as Moses and Elias appeared to the awe-struck disciples on the mount of transfiguration, conversing with Christ; we are warranted in conceiving, that in the intermediate state of departed souls-between death and the general resurrection-they may assume bodies suited to that state, which, like the stem, and the leaf, and the bud, before the flower has blown in all the richness of its beauty, wait the power when, at the voice of Christ, and for the purposes of the judgment, and the final state of rewards and punishments, they shall resume the bodies in which they dwelt on earth, now changed, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump" the corruptible putting on incorruption-the mortal, immortality?

Why then should it be thought a thing incredible with us, that God should raise the dead? (Acts xxvi. 8.) Are we not warranted in saying, that the resurrection of the body is as philosophical as it is scriptural? Has not enough been said to show, that God can make-and may be even now makingthe rank grass moaning in the melancholy breezes, over the obscurest grave: the very animals that may erop it, or the birds that may consume its seeds, vehicles to bear to their destined

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