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Rev. Heber H, Beadle

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THE

RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD

THE

BESUKKECTION OF THE DEAD

ITS DESIGN, MANNEE, AND EESULTS

IN AN EXPOSITION OP THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER OF
FIRST CORINTHIANS

BY THE
EEV. JAMES COCHRANE, A.M.
MINISTER OF THE FIRST PAROCHIAL CHARGE, CUPAR-FIFE,"
AUTHOR OF * THE WORLD TO COME,' ' DISCOURSES
ON DIFFICULT TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE,' ETC.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXIX

Hpw5o C (.4-

CONTENTS.

PAGE
INTRODUCTION" : GENERAL STATEMENTS AS TO SUBJECT - MATTER
OF ENSUING TREATISE,  1
DISCOOBSE I. THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED, AND IN WHICH THE
CORINTHIANS HAD FOUND SALVATION, . . .14
II. THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST THE GRAND PROOF OF THE
TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY,  33
III. THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD, AND THE ENDS
THEREBY ATTAINED IN THE ECONOMY OF GRACE, . 52
IV. THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, WHAT IT MEANS, AND
HOW IT IS ILLUSTRATED BY THE RESURRECTION OF
CHRIST,  73
V. THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT FOR THE LITERAL RESURREC
TION OF THE BODY,  91
VI. THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE, AND OF RESURRECTION
AS ITS PRELIMINARY,  109
VII. THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL, NOT SIMULTANEOUS, BUT
BY SUCCESSIVE ACTS,  132
VIII. THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION : THE RULE AND GOVERN
MENT OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD  150
IX. THE SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF JESUS CHRIST IN
THE FUTURE KINGDOM OF GOD, . . . .168

VI CONTENTS.
X. REASONS CORROBORATIVE OF THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT
DERIVED FROM BAPTISM AND THE ENDURANCE OF
MARTYRDOM,  186
XI. THE BODY WHICH DIES AND IS BURIED THE SEED OF
THAT WHICH RISES AGAIN,  203
XII. THE RESURRECTION - BODY THE DEVELOPMENT OF THAT
WHICH LIVED AND DIED,  224
XIII. DEATH AND THE GRAVE THE PHYSICAL PREPARATION
FOR THE PERFECT HUMANITY OF THE RESURRECTION
STATE, .  241
XIV. THE CONTRAST BETWIXT THE MORTAL AND IMMORTAL
BODY,  259
XV. NATURAL LIFE CONTRASTED WITH THE SPIRITUAL : THE
LIVING SOUL, THE QUICKENING SPIRIT, . . . 278
XVI. THE RESURRECTION-BODY DIFFERENT FROM THAT WHICH
LIVED AND DIED, AND YET, IN ALL ESSENTIAL PAR
TICULARS, IDENTICAL WITH IT  296
XVII. THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE : IN THE BODY
LIKE TO ADAM BY OUR NATURAL BIRTH : BY REGEN
ERATION, EVEN IN THE BODY, MADE LIKE TO CHRIST, 315
XVIII. THE NATURE/NECESSITY, AND MEANS OF THE GREAT COR
POREAL CHANGE,  334
XIX. THE FINAL VICTORY: DEATH AND THE GRAVE DE
STROYED,  353
XX. RECAPITULATION OF ARGUMENT ; OBJECTIONS STATED AND
ANSWERED ; IMPROVEMENT OF WHOLE ARGUMENT, . 372
APPENDIX I. NEW TRANSLATION AND PARAPHRASE OF THE ENTIRE
CHAPTER,  p _ g92
II. BRIEF COMMENTARY AND CRITICAL NOTES, . ' .401

INTRODUCTION.

All religion is grounded on the truth and certainty
of a future life ; but the characteristic doctrine of the
Christian religion, so far as this matter is concerned, is
the resurrection of the body. Man dies, and his body
is resolved into dust. But restoration, at some future
period, to the conditions of corporeal existence — exist
ence, that is to say, more or less assimilated to our pre
sent state, or identical with it — is a fact in the future to
which every Christian professedly looks forward. It
is evident that the bare statement of this — that is,
the resurrection, regarded as a matter of fact — suggests
several important queries and inferences.
1. Seeing that it is by revelation alone, and in no
other way, that we can arrive at the marvellous doctrine
of bodily restoration, we may very fittingly ask the
question, Whether revelation really teaches that doc
trine 1 and if so, What is the nature and amount of the
Scripture evidence by which so important a doctrine is
supported ?
2. We may very reasonably inquire whether there be
A

2 INTRODUCTION.
any circumstances discoverable by reason, consciousness,
or observation, to corroborate or throw light upon so
wonderful a fact in our future history ? Many of our
ablest logicians are of opinion that even so momentous
a doctrine as that of the divine existence cannot be
proved by any process of reasoning, and that the only
way by which we arrive at it is by intuition ; but none
of them will dispute the fact that, be the means what
they may by which we arrive at a belief in the existence
of God, ten thousand corroborations of that belief are
discoverable in every department of man's being, and of
the universe around him — corroborations which, to every
pious mind, are infinitely satisfactory and gratifying.
Something similar may exist here ; and the analogies of
nature, the suggestions of reason, and the instincts of
the human spirit, may, when inquired after, be found
to utter a voice affirmative and even illustrative of so
extraordinary a doctrine as that of the resurrection of
the body.
3. The question may be asked, Whether it be possible,
in the event of a resurrection being proved, to ascer
tain anything regarding the concrete significancy of the
resurrection of the dead ? What does it literally mean ?
Can we ascertain aught regarding the structure and con
stitution of our resurrection humanity ? What tangible
and other properties will the risen body possess ? what
functions will it be fitted to perform in the great here
after ? If evidence exists anywhere fitted to cast even
the faintest light on questions of this description, it
must needs be most interesting to search out and exam
ine that evidence.

INTRODUCTION. 3
4*. The resurrection of the body being an event in the
distant future, and separated from the epoch of death
by the interval, it may be, of many ages, the bearings
of that intermediate state upon man's eternal condition
— both corporeal and spiritual — constitute a topic of
very interesting inquiry. Is it the fact, as many have
dogmatically affirmed, and endeavoured to prove, that
the intermediate state is one of utter unconsciousness ;
the soul torpid, and, for the time being, extinct — and the
body literally a clod of earth, a mere handful of dust ?
Or, as the orthodox doctrine of most Christian communi
ties affirms, does the soul at death enter some spiritual
region, have its powers developed, and so be further
trained for the condition of immortality ; and are even
the particles of which the resurrection body shall be
constructed undergoing, in their state of disintegration,
some physical process of secret but refining preparation,
to make them also meet for their future destiny ?
5. One question more remains on this subject, and
that relates to the bearings of the resurrection of the
body on man's eternal state. The resurrection is not
so much an end as the means which God employs for
the attainment of another end beyond it. It is the
commencement of a new life; it is the birth of our
humanity into a new world ; it is our inauguration into
a more perfect state of existence; it is the commence
ment of a fresh career of sensation and physical acti
vity, all the more important to us because it is destined
to continue for ever. It is obvious that the most rudi-
mental conception of the resurrection of the body is
suggestive of a whole multitude of facts bearing on

4 INTRODUCTION.
this subject. Were the hereafter a mere domain of
thought and rapturous emotion, there would be no need
of a resurrection of the body at all ; but that body being
a congeries of organs — eyes, ears, hands, feet, and so on
— we are necessarily conducted to the conception of an
external universe, and of active operations amidst its fa
miliar scenery. And if Christian doctrine upon the sub
ject affirms the resurrection of a multitude — the reunion
of friends, and the like— most sublime and spirit-stirring
ideas are suggested regarding the social economies of the
Great Hereafter. The simultaneous resurrection of the
good and holy of all ages can be nothing else than the
gathering together of the population of a new world —
the predestined inhabitants of what Scripture calls the
Kingdom of God ; and who, let them be located in what
dwelling-place they may, must necessarily fall into new
families, communities, and even nations. This is a
most pregnant idea regarding the constitution of the
world of the hereafter. But matters may be carried
even further than this. Take the doctrine of our resus
citated humanity in connection with the equally Chris
tian and momentous fact of the incarnation of Deity
in the person of Jesus Christ, and it is plain a new
field of wondrous speculation is opened up. A portion
of the earth's materialism has been taken into eternal
union with the divine nature. Was not this the very de
sign of the incarnation, or what is called the " mystery of
godliness," that the visible and material creation might
have a material Head ? And if the God of universal
nature has, in Jesus Christ, become our brother man,
does not that fact at once connect both Him and us

INTRODUCTION. 5
with the materialism of the whole universe ? There is
nothing inconceivable, therefore, in the conception that
relations, both intimate and elevating, may yet be estab
lished betwixt the human race, when restored and glori
fied, and even those distant material worlds which people
immensity. A grander career may be before the hosts
of the redeemed than, in present circumstances, they
dare venture on imagining.
Both from its own intrinsic character, therefore, and
the results and speculations to which it conducts us,
the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead demands a
thorough and exhaustive examination ; the more so that
theological literature is comparatively barren in works
and treatises upon most of the questions suggested by
that doctrine. And, assuredly, there is no portion of
Scripture which supplies a more distinct and copious
text for this purpose than the 15th chapter of 1st Cor
inthians. There the fact is explicitly stated ; full and
unchallengeable evidence is tendered in its behalf; at
considerable length the apostle supplies explanations of
its concrete significancy ; objections are answered ; and
the whole subject is commended to the earnest consid
eration of the Christian Church, as involving the very
truth of the New Testament dispensation itself, and the
most blessed results on faith and practice. This chapter,
in fact, may be regarded as an inspired treatise on the
momentous doctrine ; and if the present attempt to
explain the apostle's argument, and, with a minute
ness and at a length somewhat commensurate to
the thrilling importance of the subject, to elucidate
his statements, shall be in any measure successful,

6 INTRODUCTION.
that attempt may well meet with the encouraging
approval both of the theologian and the private be
liever. It has been too much the practice, both with preach
ers and writers on religious subjects, to occupy them
selves with considerations belonging exclusively to the
soul — its spirituality, its immortality, and so on ; ignor
ing, in great measure or altogether, its connection with
the body, and the materialism of the outward creation.
These parties seem to think that they have done all that
was required of them when they affirm, or demonstrate,
that the body is animated by a living principle which
does not perish at death, that there is a future state of
existence, and that the purely mental training of faith
and holiness is of all in all importance. Momentous
truths ! But there are other truths besides, and other
aspects of these very truths, much more consonant with
Scripture ; and, being presented in language less abstract
and indefinite, far better fitted to instruct and impress
ordinary minds. The very abstract language in which
sacred things are commonly presented is unfortunate.
Instead of enlarging on the immortality of the soul, it
would be nearer the truth to affirm the intrinsic immor
tality of the body, for all our thoughts and feelings are
associated with corporeal existence ; and although we
die, or enter upon what is called the intermediate state,
that is a mere interlude, pause, or intercalary period
of suspended animation — religion pointing, all the
while, to a resuscitation of our bodily functions and
powers ; and that resuscitation is associated with the
ideas of perfection and eternity.

INTRODUCTION. 7
The Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body
is, therefore, far from being a dogma of an abstract
nature. Indeed the mere announcement of it clears the
way for a distinct and more comprehensible idea of the
final destiny of man. We are not purely spiritual beings,
and by our Creator were never designed to be so. By
the very law of our existence we constitute part of the
material creation ; over it we are destined to bear sway:
and with the history of that material creation, our own
history, and that for ever and ever, is indissolubly con
nected. Every individual of the human race is, in con
sequence of the essential constitution of his nature, a
portion of the material universe. In the soul, indeed,
he is spiritual, like God ; but in the body he is material,
like the universe which God has created as the grand
exponent of His wisdom, power, and goodness : and if
any inference at all is to be drawn from the resurrection
of the body, regarded as a matter of fact, it is this —
that the connection of man with the material creation
is destined to be eternal.
It is evident that this strain of observation most
naturally conducts us to an inquiry relative to the
ultimate design of human development, and the
place which, in the long-run, man is to hold within
the domain of the material creation.
Now, our present life, regarded as a whole, must be
considered as merely the first stage of our physical and
conscious existence. Birth and death are the limits be
twixt which a process of development is set up and pro
secuted to a less or greater extent. At the first of these
epochs a connection is established betwixt a wonder-

8 INTRODUCTION.
fully organised body and a sentient and intelligent soul ;
but both are in a palpably immature and rudimental
state. Life, growth, enlargement, development, are the
result. There is a singular power or property in the
animating principle to lay hold of and assimilate ma
terial substances, retain them for a season, and finally
reject and part company with them. It eats, drinks,
breathes, digests ; by perspiration and otherwise it ejects
what it has appropriated and assimilated ; but through
out the whole of this process the connection betwixt
mind and matter continues. With truth it may be said
that at no two moments of time is the human body
numerically the same. Now, what does all this imply ?
The body is not to-day what it was yesterday : it will be
different to-morrow from what it is to-day. At the end
of a life, say of fifty or sixty years, the chances are that
the body has been renewed ten times over. But, how
ever numerically diverse the particles may be which
have entered into our bodily constitution, we are con
scious of personal identity throughout the entire process.
Hence the child which prattled on his mother's knee is
identified with the schoolboy and youth at college ; with
the man of mature years, battling with the duties
and anxieties of life ; and the aged senior bowing his
head before nature's last necessity. Corporeal or em
bodied existence does not mean any specific portion of
matter in alliance with mind, but a living principle
taking on and casting off material particles according to
specific laws. Nor can it be denied that mind itself,
even whilst it retains that consciousness of personal
identity of which we have spoken, is in many respects

INTRODUCTION. 9
in a state of constant change — in its domain as fluctua
ting as is the body. It acquires powers and loses them
again ; it accumulates information and forgets it ; it
passes through innumerable different states of joy and
grief, activity and languor, curiosity and indifference,
and so on. Such are physiological facts not to be dis
puted. What, it must be asked, is the conclusion or
inference which we may legitimately draw from these
premises? What but this, that our present life is
merely a process of development whereby this wondrous
human nature of ours, partly spiritual, partly material,
and therefore in very essence connected with both de
partments of the universe, shall be fitted for the high
functions of another and eternal life ? In other words,
we live now and pass through all sublunary changes in
order that every one, whether he lives a day or lives a
century, may acquire a certain personality of his own,
wherewith to start, after the resurrection, on the career
of eternity.
The 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, containing, as it
does, an inspired dissertation on this very topic, is more
than worthy of the special and earnest study of every
Christian mind. No subjects of human inquiry are for
one moment to be compared, in point of personal in
terest, with those which are suggested by the perusal of
this portion of Scripture. Why do I live ? what be
comes of me when I die ? what is the concrete signifi-
cancy of the resurrection of the body ? what design has
the Almighty in carrying me through these preliminary
processes ? in what will they all result ? what sort of life
will commence with the predicted renewal of incorporate

10 INTRODUCTION.
existence ? — these and suchlike questions, if they can be
answered at all, are assuredly deserving of consideration,
and of consideration more careful and protracted than, it
is to be feared, is usually assigned to them. The readers,
accordingly, of the following exposition will have their
minds directed, not to flimsy speculations or theories
about abstract doctrines which have no bearings upon
life and practice. It will be found throughout that the
whole discussions of this volume are conducted as re
lating to matters of fact. The judgment to come — the
resurrection of the dead — the world of the hereafter —
are all, in the mind of the author, and treated by him in
this work as, facts pertaining to the history of the future,
as true, real, and substantial as the flood of Noah, the
death of Jesus Christ, the discovery and settlement of
America, the Beformation of the sixteenth century, are
facts in the histoiy of the past. And whilst, with all
the ability which he can exert, he will endeavour to
present these things in this light, he will also demon
strate their practical -efficacy in promoting the comfort,
happiness, integrity, welfare, and general perfection of
all who acknowledge them.
It is obvious that the discussions of this volume will
supply materials for answering a veiy important ques
tion, and that is, What is Heaven ? When speaking of
a hereafter, or the world to come, it is an easy matter
to accumulate a mighty heap of such words as peace,
tranquillity, bliss, and joy ; or even to proceed further,
and discourse of oceans of rapture, never-ending songs
of praise, an eternity of holiness, ecstasy, glory, and so

INTRODUCTION. 1 1
on. Such language, however, labours under the very
serious defect of being singularly abstract and impalp
able. The question still recurs, What is this Heaven of
which religion speaks ? Surely it must be something
more than a bundle of indefinites : and if Scripture,
reason, and the natural instincts and suggestions of the
human spirit supply any materials by which to deter
mine, in some measure, the problems where and what
we actually shall be when the ages of eternity are
revolving, these sources of evidence may well be in
vestigated with some care. And seeing that the very
idea of a resurrection, or of corporeal resuscitation, on
the part of a vast multitude of human beings, involves
the conception of a life or social existence destined to
follow — a life and social existence which must needs be
determined by the constitution of the resuscitated body
— it will fall to be inquired into whether there be not
some probability in the hypothesis that the heaven of
the hereafter is just this world of ours brought into a
paradisiacal state. It is surely time to seek a more
reasonable and common-sense definition of the term
heaven than the fantastic idea of an elysium in the far-
distant skies, or the still more aerial conception of a
state of purely mental happiness, mystic musing, and
celestial song. If we read the first chapters of the Bible
we shall find that the heaven of the past was, undeni
ably, a portion of this planet beautified by the hand of
God Himself, and inhabited by our first parents ; and
the only fair inference we can draw from this portion of
Sacred Writ is the obvious one that, had not sin entered,

12 INTRODUCTION.
the entire globe of earth would, in time, have become
equally paradisiacal — inhabited throughout all its bor
ders by their posterity, glorious and immortal. May
we not, with some probability, conjecture that the
heaven of the future is also this same world of ours,
redeemed from the curse, delivered from the bondage of
corruption and sin, and inhabited by a human race glori
fied, sinless, blessed, and undying ? May it not be the
province of redemption, or the Gospel dispensation, to
accomplish this wonderful change? Is not this the
palingenesia, or the world's second birth, referred to in
the New Testament ? We cannot forget that Scripture
speaks of a large portion of the human family becoming
outcast, reprobate, and lost ; but it is no part of the
apostle's subject, in this 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians,
to dilate upon the destiny of these wicked persons.
His theme is the final glory of the redeemed ; and these,
although elsewhere spoken of as a "multitude whom no
man can number," are still, after all, but a portion of the
family of Adam. They contain, however, the good and
the holy of all countries and times. For them are reserved
those glories of the resurrection-day to which the apostle
here refers in such thrilling terms. And if an epoch be
indeed approaching at which the Almighty will really
and miraculously interpose to remove the wicked — to
abolish sin, suffering, and death — to resuscitate the
righteous of all bygone ages — to change the living — and
thus on the surface of this globe of earth, restored to
more than its pristine beauty and perfection, to reveal a
multitudinous and blissful population, living to glorify

INTRODUCTION. 1 3
God and to bless one another, — it is difficult to under
stand what ingredient of heavenly perfection will then
be absent. Will it not be the fulfilment of the prayer,
for so many ages, and by so many millions, offered up —
" Thy kingdom come : Thy will be done in earth, as it is
done in heaven " ?

DISCOURSE I.
THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED, AND IN WHICH
THE CORINTHIANS HAD FOUND SALVATION.
1 Cor. xv. 1-4. — Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you, &c.

Text according to Authorised
Version.
" Moreover, brethren, I declare
unto you the Gospel which I
preached unto you, which also
ye have received, and wherein
ye stand ; by which also ye are
saved, if ye keep in memory what
I preached unto you, unless ye
have believed in vain. For I
delivered unto you first of all that
which I also received, how that
Christ died for our sins accord
ing to the Scriptures ; and that He
was buried, and that He rose again
the third day according to the
Scriptures." New Translation.
I beg to remind you, brethren,
of that Gospel which I preached to
you, which also ye received, in

Paraphrase.
Moreover, brethren, I request
you to call to recollection the
Gospel which I preached unto you.
That Gospel ye have received, and
in it ye have now been estab
lished. Thereby, moreover, ye
will continue in a state of secur
ity, provided you steadfastly ad
here to the word which I preached
unto you: although it is a possible
thing for parties to become pro
fessed believers, and yet be none
the better in consequence.
You remember that among the
very first things which in my
preaching I taught you was that
doctrine which I myself had re
ceived by revelation — the doctrine,
namely, of the atoning death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. I
taught you that Christ had died

THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED. 1 5
which also ye were established, for our sins, accordingto the Scrip-
through which also ye remain in tures ; that He had been buried,
safety (provided ye hold fast the and that He had been raised up
word which I preached to you), from the dead on the third day.
unless haply ye have believed in All this I assured you of, and
vain. For I delivered unto you, proved to be in accordance with
amongst the first things, that the Scriptures.
which also I myself had so re
ceived ; that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures :
'and that He was buried, and that
He was raised on the third day, ac
cording to the Scriptures.

Theee is not a more interesting portion of Scripture than
this 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians. It sets before us
one of the most telling and intelligible branches of the
evidence for the truth of Christianity ; and it announces
and enlarges upon that most momentous doctrine of the
Christian faith — the Eesurrection of the Dead. It must
surely be obvious to the very meanest capacity, that if
Jesus Christ — our blessed Lord and Saviour — did liter
ally live and as literally die, and, after lying in the ,
sepulchre, did rise from the dead, possessed of a new life,;
never to die any more, His religion must be true. I
cannot conceive of a more complete and satisfactory '
test of the divine authority of the Bedeemer than His
challenge : " Kill me, and yet I will rise from the dead :
bury me in a sepulchre hewn out of the rock, and leave
me there for three days, and in that time I undertake to
return to my blood-stained and broken body, animate it
again, and render it, for all the future, impassible and
immortal." This is the argument which the apostle
here advances. But, associated with it, there is the no

16 DISCOURSE I.
less important and impressive doctrine of the bodily
resurrection of all Christian believers. Like their divine
Master, they too may live, and have to die ; but here the
apostle, and in language of singular distinctness and
emphasis, proclaims it as a matter of fact, that in due
time they also shall rise from the dead ; nay, sets before
us many particulars regarding the very manner and cir
cumstances of that resurrection. We need not, accord
ingly, wonder if such a portion of Scripture should be
often read and deeply pondered. The Christian, sitting
down to read and to reflect, very often turns, and with
instinctive readiness, to the precious words recorded here.
Often have they been read in the chamber of sickness.
Often have they occupied the thoughtful spirit in the
night-watches, and amidst the tossings of unrest and
bodily pain. Often, as read or recited by the lips of
affection, or in the bedside ministrations of the man of
God, have they shed the glow of heaven on the soul
passing through the dark valley, and entering the eter
nal world.
I purpose, accordingly, to preach a series of discourses
on this very precious portion of the Word of God. I
shall break up the chapter into small parts— handling,
as God shall give me light and ability, the various
topics which are there successively brought under our
notice. It is now many years, as some present are doubtless
aware, since I laid before the congregation,* in a length
ened and somewhat elaborate way, what I have ever
* See author's treatise on the World to Come, or the Kingdom of
God.

THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED. 17
held to be the true definition of the world to come,
— exploding the fantastic and unscriptural notion of
heaven which, even yet, I fear is too common — that it
is some fairy and spiritual elysium in the far- distant
skies, instead of the restoration of the very earth in
which we are living to its paradisiacal state. One of
the points then largely discussed was, of course, the
resurrection of the body ; and frequently, in the interval,
whilst opening up other texts and portions of Scripture,
I have had the opportunity of impressing upon your
minds various interesting views of that important sub
ject, and more especially the relations — there are many
such relations — which subsist betwixt our mortal and
our immortal state, — betwixt our condition and employ
ments in time, and our approaching place and occupa
tions in eternity. But it may be of importance, and to
our mutual edification, to consider the grand doctrine of
the resurrection of the dead more fully and elaborately
still. I accordingly propose for some months — God
giving me health and mental ability — to sit at the feet
of the apostle of the Gentiles, and to ask you to sit with
me there, hearing what the Spirit, by his lips, has here
spoken to the Churches. We have an interest in the
glorious theme. Are we not " baptised for the dead" ? —
that is, sacramentally bound to contemplate death and
the grave as veritable incidents in our future history ?
But, blessed be God, are we not also baptised to the sure
and certain hope of a resurrection ? We shall rise again.
It is the distinct, emphatic, and undeniable promise of
the Gospel, that they who have fallen asleep in Jesus
shall, at His return to this world, return with Him to

1 8 DISCOURSE I.
life and immortality. As there was a time when, at
creation's dawn, God Almighty took of the dust of the
ground, and formed therewith the bodies of our first
parents, so, on the resurrection day, that second epoch
for a wondrous creation, God Almighty has promised to
take of the dust of our churchyards — the contents of the
tombs and burial-places of the world — and, having there
with constructed new and far more glorious bodies, to
animate them with the spirits of the just made perfect,
and so constitute the blessed population of the world of
the hereafter. Surely, if this be a truth — an actual con
crete fact — destined to be realised we do not know how
soon, we may well inquire with deepest interest what
its manner and circumstances will be. And the exposi
tion of this chapter will furnish the opportunity.
This First Epistle to the Corinthians was written by
Paul in the city of Ephesus, and, as we can easily gather
from much of its contents, was designed by the apostle
to rectify certain evil practices which had sprung up in
the Church of Corinth, and to impart apostolic instruc
tion regarding certain doctrines perverted or misunder
stood. He himself had resided for two or three years
in Corinth, during which he had formed a numerous
Christian congregation in the midst of what was then
one of the wealthiest, most populous, refined, and luxu
rious cities of the world. But after his departure from
them, we are given to understand that many lapsed
into grievous errors, both of doctrine and practice. For
one thing, they split into sects and parties, tearing the
Church in pieces with mutual contendings and revilino-s.
Some appeared to have entertained the false imagina-

THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED. 19
tion that they had a Christian liberty to set at defiance
the moral law of God, and publicly, and without scruple,
revelled in the licentious practices common amongst
their heathen neighbours ; and others did not hesitate
to symbolise with idolatry, by frequenting the heathen
temples, and sharing in the feasts and orgies constantly
celebrated there. It would appear, also, that amongst
the doctrinal errors then adopted and maintained, was a
positive denial of the resurrection of the dead. It is to
this consideration the apostle addresses himself in the
chapter before us — affirming, as he does, the absolute
fact of the resurrection of the body, warning us to keep
it in view as the principal object of our Christian hope,
and even condescending on many of the particulars in
that wonderful event in the future history of the world.
The verses now read are the apostle's introduction to
his general discourse. We may divide them into two
parts of (two verses each : the first relating to the recep
tion of the Gospel by the Corinthians, and the use which
they made of it ; and the second, to the subject-matter or
main revelation contained in that Gospel.
1. First, then, let us consider the points referred to
in the first two verses, relating to the reception of the
Gospel by the Corinthians, and the use which they made
of it.
" I declare unto you," says he, " the Gospel which I
preached unto you, which also ye have received, and
wherein ye stand ; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep
in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have
believed in vain."
Paul had come to Corinth, and brought glad tidings

20 DISCOURSE I.
with him. These, as is obvious from the remainder of
the chapter, related to the work of Jesus Christ, and
the hopes of a resurrection. He " preached " this doc
trine, proclaiming it everywhere — in the synagogue of
the Jews, in the workshop of Priscilla and Aquila,
amongst the idlers in the market-place, and the traf
fickers at the seaport of Cenchrea. To every one his
grand topic was the same — Jesus Christ and the Bes-
urrection — a topic with which his heart was so full and
his tongue so fluent, that, very likely in this talkative
and luxurious city, he would be charged by some, as he
had been at Athens, as " a setter-forth of strange gods."
But in that doctrine is the hiding of Jehovah's strength
— the germ of the spiritual life, and of the everlasting
salvation of men. Nor did he preach it without effect.
They " received it." Many might listen to his appeals
incredulously, deeming his words the utterance of fa
naticism ; others might resist and argue against them ;
and perhaps, after all, the vast majority of the godless
and fleshly-minded inhabitants of that notoriously im
moral city lived as they were wont to do before the
apostle's appearance amongst them, and died in a state
of alienation from God. But there were many also who
were otherwise minded, and they "received" his glad
tidings. Aroused to attention by his earnestness, — struck
with his impressive doctrine, and compelled to consider
it — made to feel that a life to come was, if true, the
most startling and momentous fact which the human
mind could take in, and the means of preparing for it
the question of questions, — they listened to his words,
laid them up in their hearts, pondered them with deep-

THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED. 21
est interest, and finally yielded to them acknowledg
ment and obedience. And this attitude of mind con
tinued. When the apostle wrote this epistle, a consid
erable space of time had elapsed since his residence in
Corinth ; and here he states that in that Gospel which
he had preached these Corinthian Christians were now
" standing." From being hearers of the Word they had
now become believers. Their ancient superstitions had
passed away, and they " stood " upon the rock — " Jesus
Christ," and the hope of a resurrection. For holding
this position the apostle evidently congratulated them.
Nay, he did more. " By which also," says he, " ye are
saved." That reception of his apostolic message was
not only the pledge of blessedness in the great hereafter
— the earnest of something awaiting them in the future,
far better and more glorious than aught within their
reach in this sublunary scene — but it indicated their
present security. Now they were safe. The strong
swimmer, battling with the waves of a stormy sea,
which are weltering and breaking in foam upon the
jagged rocks, may be living, and not without hope ; but
he is anything but out of danger. Not until his feet
touch the sandy beach, and he gets upon dry land, and
beyond those roaring billows, may he whisper to him
self, " Now I am safe !" In somewhat of a similar sense
these Corinthian believers had been " saved." They
had received the Gospel message ; and, receiving it, had
been brought to a place of security. But their Christian
work, he intimates, was not then over. No more than
the shipwrecked mariner who has reached a place of
safety, cold, dripping, and exhausted, is the believer who

22 DISCOURSE I.
has appropriated the Gospel message of salvation, and
got therein the pledge of his security, to stand still and
think of doing nothing more, or of proceeding no far
ther. You will notice here a very important " if." In
what in the original is a parenthetic clause, we find the
words which are here translated " if ye keep in memory
what I preached unto you." The word translated " keep
in memory " has, however, a considerably stronger sig
nification than such an expression denotes, and might
rather be translated by the words — adhere to, hold by,
or firmly maintain. However important the act was" of
listening to the apostle's message — however much more
important the reception and belief — here was the most
important ingredient of all, the earnest and steadfast
adherence of the inner man to the doctrine which had
been taught. Without this they had " believed in vain."
Steadfastness in the faith was that quality in the regene
rated man which at once indicated how deep an impres
sion the Gospel had made on conscience and heart, and
gave promise of its producing the appropriate fruits of
righteousness here, and of glory hereafter.
In these verses, then, we are presented with the
apostle's ideas of evangelical conversion. If we have
any desire to know through what process the converts
of the apostle Paul proceeded, we will find that process
described in the words before us. It was a process of
preaching on his part, followed by these steps on theirs
— reception, belief, steadfast adherence. In whatever
way he proclaimed the Gospel — and the glorious truths
of salvation may be made known in many different
ways — whether it was in set addresses, as we would

THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED. 23
say, from the pulpit, in argumentative discussions on
the floor of the synagogue, or in familiar conversation
in the house or in the street ; whether it was in rhetori
cal addresses, as to the Sophists of Athens — in awakening
appeals, as to Felix, regarding temperance and a judg
ment to come — or in tender admonitions to the Ephesian
elders, — his uniform aim was to put into the heart of his
hearers, and to get established there, the knowledge of
Jesus Christ and of a judgment to come. This, you ob
viously see, was identified in his mind with salvation.
We infer that so it must be still. The grand process of
conversion, or the turning of immortal souls to God and
eternal life, must in every instance be the same. What
ever else changes, the Gospel does not and cannot change.
The grand objects, laws, and processes of nature do not
alter. The sun which pours its radiance on our fields is
identical with that which shone upon the heads of our
first parents in Paradise ; the atmosphere which we
breathe is that which was inhaled by the Son of God
when he was a denizen of our lower world ; that won
drous law of gravitation which binds in one harmonious
whole the entire universe of being, and keeps everything
in its place, was in full operation when the ark of Noah
floated on the waters of the great inundation, and the
children of Israel heard the voice of God in thunder
claps from the summit of Sinai. In Like manner the
way of life, the method of salvation, the means by which
sinners obtain peace with God, and that strong confi
dence which will fit them for a dying hour, cannot pos
sibly alter by any lapse of time. The process is, and must
necessarily be, precisely that which the apostle Paul

24 DISCOURSE I.
has here described. In these latitudinarian times our
ears are getting dinned with big swelling words of vanity
from the lips of sundry theological pretenders who talk
about " modern thought," and " free inquiry," and " Libe
ral ideas," and " emancipation from the trammels of an
cient creeds and confessions," — as if, forsooth, these windy
declaimers were worthy of a single moment's compari
son with the mighty theologians of other days, against
whom they presume to sneer, and utter their empty plati
tudes. And so we are treated to-day with the notable
discovery that the ten commandments of the moral law,
uttered by the lips of God Himself, and by His fingers
carved on tables of stone, are intrinsically no more bind
ing on the Christian Church than are the ceremonial
washings of the Jews, or the rite of circumcision — are,
in fact, Judaistical and Pharisaic ; and to-morrow we
are informed, and in no less pretentious style, that there
is much reason for considering that the time-honoured
doctrines of our national faith, embodied in our Cate
chisms and national Confession, which have been the
spiritual food and stay of successive generations of the
wisest and holiest and best of men, are but the notions
and crude fancies of the noisy polemics of a period of
controversy, and therefore quite unworthy of our calm,
learned, and enlightened age ! In these circumstances
one is apt to wonder what is to be the next bid for the
applause and commendation of modern infidels and lati-
tudinarians. Will no one — no one, I mean, having a
religious standing in the country — arise, and boldly pro
claim the Age of Beason ; and that we profoundly-learned
moderns have no need of a God, of a Saviour, and of a

THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED. 2$
life to come ? I trust none of us will be led astray by
the frothy and pretentious declamations now getting so
abundant. Stand on the good old ways. The Gospel of
God changes not. The saving doctrines of religion are,
like God Himself, immutable, and must of necessity be
so. -' Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day,
and for ever." What Paul taught, that must we min
isters of the Gospel teach still, if we would be faithful
to God and our solemn ordination vows. What the
Corinthian Christians "received," "stood upon," and
" adhered to " — that, and nothing else, must we in like
manner receive, stand upon, and adhere to, and that
under no less a penalty than the salvation of our souls.
There are not two Gospels, one for apostolic times and
another for these days of conceit and self-complacency.
If we are not willing to be saved in precisely the same
manner as all who have gone before us, the chances are
we shall fall short of eternal life altogether.
2. Having thus, in the first place, described the pro
cess of evangelical conversion through which the apos
tle Paul conducted his Corinthian disciples, I proceed,
in the second place, to consider what the main truth or
revelation was with which he desired that their minds
should be especially occupied.
This is contained in the third and fourth verses. " I
delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also re
ceived, how that Christ died for our sins according to
the Scriptures ; and that He was buried, and that He
rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."
In these words we have plainly an epitome of the
Gospel or glad tidings of which the apostle speaks in

26 DISCOURSE I.
the first verse. This was the sum and substance of all
Paul's sermons, controversial discussions, and private
conversations on religious topics. He himself, it seems,
had " received " this Gospel, and felt it to be the power
of God unto his own personal salvation ; and now he
declared that he had " delivered " it to them as equally
available for theirs. Nay, he did so " first of all " — i. e.,
as the chiefest and most important statement in the
Gospel message — the essential and indispensable truth
which, being cordially received, imparts to the soul the
principle of eternal life. What was the all-important
truth ? It was, that " Christ had died for our sins."
There was something in that death which possessed an
atoning virtue. God Almighty, who, from the very-
holiness of His character and the justice of His moral
government, was bound to punish every infringement of
the divine law, and therefore the whole transgressions of
the human race, saw in those agonies of Gethsemane and
* Calvary something meritorious enough to satisfy all the
requirements of His law, and enable Him to pardon
sinners. This is the information which Paul declares
he communicated to the Corinthians. The death of
Christ, he affirms, took place " for the sins of men ; "
and this was " according to the Scriptures," — alluding,
evidently, to the passages of the Old Testament writings
which speak so plainly of a suffering Bedeemer — such,
for instance, as that passage of Isaiah in which Messiah
is represented as led " like a lamb to the slaughter," and
as being " wounded for our transgressions, bruised for
our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace laid
upon Him." In token of the reality of Christ's death,

THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED. 2?
Paul continues to affirm that He was "buried;" and
in token also that His atoning work was completely
effectual, and that from a dead He has become a living
Eedeemer, he goes on to say that he taught the Corin
thians that "He rose from the dead the third day,"
also " according to the Scriptures " — evidently alluding
to such texts as these : " Thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see
corruption ;" and again, " Thy dead men shall live ; to
gether with my dead body shall they arise." In a word,
Paul preached to the Corinthians a Gospel of salvation,
and that Gospel had for its basis the death, burial, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is obvious, then, that if we attach any importance
to this deliberate and most emphatic utterance of so dis
tinguished a preacher of the Word as the apostle Paul,
we need be under no difficulty as to knowing what the
Gospel means. That man must be wilfully obdurate who
shuts out the light from his understanding, and the
warmth of Gospel emotion from his heart. The central
object of all evangelical Christianity is a once suffering
but now exalted Eedeemer. The Gospel brings the lis
tening soul into contact with the Saviour, and leaves him
there. If you ask me what that is in the death of Christ
which confers upon it this wonderful atoning virtue, I
may not be able adequately to convey an explanation of
the deeply mysterious subject. I may, indeed, direct your
minds to the undeniable fact that suffering is universal,
and death the destiny of every human being ; and I
may add, that unless you acknowledge in all this the
penalty of sin — a penalty, too, inflicted by the very

28 DISCOURSE I.
principles of eternal justice which rule the universe—
the existence of suffering and death in the world is an
inexplicable enigma. Having obtained the recognition of
this principle, I may then point to a pure, innocent, and
holy Eedeemer, made to suffer, although sinless — made
to die, although no law involving death had been violated
by him. In other words, I may point to His sufferings
as vicarious — that is, endured not for Himself, but in
the room of others. I may affirm, with some, that the
whole life and sufferings of Christ, culminating in the
agonies of Gethsemane and Calvary, were — whatever
their intrinsic character — accepted of by God Almighty
as a substitutionary atonement or satisfaction to the
divine law for all the redeemed ; or, as I think, with
much greater reason and conformity to the utterances of
Scripture, I may maintain that the whole and entire
amount of hell-agonies which the sins of all His people
merited were literally by Christ endured: but what
ever the literal explanation of the mystery may be,
Christ Crucified and Eisen from the dead is the
sum and substance of the Gospel. This is the truth
which the apostle here inculcates : this is the fact for
which he would effect a lodgment in every mind. It
was a fact in which the whole Christian community was
interested, and no one could with safety be ignorant of it.
In that city of Corinth there were as many different ranks
in society, and as many different orders of intelligence
and disposition, as amongst ourselves ; but this fact it
was which determined the spiritual condition and wel
fare of them all. Amongst his hearers there will be
some high in rank, influential from worldly position,

THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED. 29
possessed of much wealth ; to these, doubtless, he would
say : " Trust not, my brethren, in your fleeting riches, or
in the honours you bear amongst your fellow-men, for
the world and all it contains will. soon pass away from
you for ever ;" but know the crucified and risen Ee
deemer, and in that knowledge you have something
that will enrich you for ever and* ever. He might be
brought into contact with some occupying a high place
amongst the refined, the learned, and the wise, who
could relish and criticise the sculptures of a Phidias and
Praxiteles, or the paintings of a Zeuxis or Apelles, — men
who were familiar with the philosophisings of a Plato
or an Aristotle — who were deeply read in the poems of
a Homer or Sophocles, in the histories of a Herodotus
and Thucydides, — and to them he would say: " Brethren,
it is well to know these things, but here is a wisdom
and refinement that excelleth — the knowledge of God
Almighty propitiated, and of a world redeemed." He
might have to converse M'ith other tentmakers in the
workshop of Aquila, with seafaring men in the ports of
Lechteum or Cenchrea, with loungers in the streets or
market - place of the busy metropolis ; and how could
he address such parties but to warn them that, however
important it was to labour for the meat that perisheth,
there really was a meat that endureth unto life eternal ;
and that, however they might talk and gossip about the
topics of the day, there was one theme of surpassing
excellence, and that was the crucified and risen Lord.
This was the one topic in which all mankind were in
terested : and as in every human frame — high and low,
rich and poor, wise and ignorant, young and old together

30 . DISCOURSE I.
*
— the circulation of the blood and the inhaling of the
vital air are indispensable not merely for health but for
life itself; so in the soul — the living, indestructible
soul — there is a species of knowledge essential to salva
tion, and that is the knowledge of Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. Let us in these latter days be aware of the
fact ; for the rationale or procuring cause of eternal life
is the same now that it has ever been. The inhabitants
of this place must be saved on precisely the same terms
as the men of Corinth ; and ye who occupy these pews,
if you reach the better land at all, will do so just as
these ancient Christians have done before you. How
important, then, to hear with all your ears, and to pon
der with all your hearts, the momentous words before
us : " I delivered unto you, first of all, that which also
I received, how that Christ died for our sins accord
ing to the Scriptures ; and that He was buried, and
that He rose again the third day according to the Scrip
tures." It is the blessed privilege of every preacher of God's
Word to invite all to the appropriation of this know
ledge. Let me, in conclusion, exhort you to do so.
Appropriate the knowledge, I say, with a willing and
believing heart. From the moment you do so, you are
safe. You get at once upon the Bock of Ages : you pass
at once from the weltering waves of destruction to the
ark of security and peace. But I not only ask you to
appropriate this knowledge as the pearl of great price,
the one thing needful : I ask you also to reject and put
away from you every other ground of confidence. If
ever there was a time when men had itching ears, and

THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED. 31
displayed an insatiable appetite for the most daring
novelties, and on the most sacred of subjects, it is in
this epoch of steam - engines and penny newspapers.
The world, yea the Church itself, is fast becoming a
Babel — nothing but the clatter of tongues, and the
broaching at once of a thousand theories contradictory
to one another, not a few of them impious. And the
worst feature of all is to notice how the world rings, and
the plaudits of multitudes follow, when anything start
ling from its impiety, or wild in its recklessness, emanates
from an unexpected, that is, a religious, quarter. Who
does not remember how, a few years ago, two so-called
Doctors of Theology, but really atheists with a Christian
name, gained a world-wide celebrity by the publication
of treatises whose object was to prove the Gospels a
fable, and our blessed Lord Himself a myth — that is, a
character purely fictitious ? Who has not heard of one
Bishop at least in a neighbouring establishment, with
not a few subordinate clergymen, making themselves
notorious, and getting the whole country to speak of
them, because they were daring enough to deny the
inspiration of the Scriptures, and classify the miracles
of patriarchal and apostolic times with the fairy tales
which may amuse childhood, but do not impose upon
grown men. Never, without some such expedient,
would these men have ever emerged from their native
obscurity. " 'Tis the trick of the times." Ventilate
blasphemy, and the world will wonder after you, and
multitudes will be mad enough even to applaud. But,
to my mind, the most offensive thing of all is the con
stant, the invariable practice of these men to appeal to

32 DISCOURSE I.
the God of truth as to the purity of their intentions: they
are lovers of truth — calm, serene, peaceful inquirers —
maintainers of the supremacy of conscience — true reform
ers — men of enlightened, advanced, and liberal ideas —
purifiers of the faith and of religion. Beligion indeed !
a religion without a Saviour — without a Bible — without
a moral law — without any settled doctrine on which the
conscience of man can set the foot and feel secure !
Are we, indeed,. to come to this? and is it religious men,
or men calling themselves religious, who are to bring us
to it ? Surely all this is more like Satan's latter-day
temptation, against which we are warned by the voice of
prophecy to be on our guard ? There is such a thing
as making shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.
Possess your souls in patience. Bemember the words
of the prophet, as valuable here as they were twenty-
five hundred years ago : " Thus saith the Lord, stand
ye in the ways, and see and ask for the old paths, where
is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest
for your souls."

DISCOURSE II.
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST THE GRAND PROOF OF
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY.
1 Cor. xv. 5-8 — "And that He was seen of Cephas," &c.

Authorised Version.
"And that He was seen of Ce
phas, then of the twelve : after
that, He was seen of above five
hundred brethren at once ; of
whom the greater part remain
unto this present, but some are
fallen asleep. After that, He was
seen of James ; then of all the
apostles. And last of all He was
seen of me also, as of one born out
of due time."
New Translation.
And that He was seen of Cephas,
then of the twelve : then He was
seen of above five hundred breth
ren at once, of whom the greater
number remain till this present,
but some also have fallen asleep.
Then He was seen by James, then
by all the apostles. Last of all,
He was seen of me also, as of one
born out of due time.

Paraphrase.
Moreover, I told you that He
had been seen of Cephas, then of
the twelve apostles, and after
wards by above five hundred
brethren at once. Of these par
ties the greater number are alive
at the present moment, although
some have fallen asleep. Then He
was seen by James ; then by all
the apostles. And, last of all,
I myself beheld Him, being in my
own estimation of little value,
and no better than what my ene
mies may call me, a worthless
after-birth.

34 DISCOURSE II.
As the apostle Paul in these verses does so plainly
intimate that the religion which he taught was possessed
of evidences of its divine origin, we may, each of us,
with much propriety, ask himself the question, What is
the Christianity which Paul preached, and what is it to
me ? And these questions are answered in the verses
going before. Christianity is the Gospel or glad tidings
of salvation, addressed in the name of God to all man
kind. In the plainest terms it speaks of another life — i
a resurrection from the dead — a gathering together of
the good and holy of all ages — a constituting of them
into the inhabitants or population of a new world of'
blessedness, glory, and deathless enjoyment. The Head, j
King, and Lord of this mighty multitude of human
beings is Jesus Christ, who, by His atoning sufferings,
has purchased this eternal life for all His followers ;,
and the bond of connection betwixt them and Him is
simply their faith, their loyal loving attachment to His
person and cause. Salvation or eternal blessedness ik
the burden of the Gospel : faith in Jesus Christ is the
hand which grasps it, the means by which it is indi
vidually appropriated.
Grand and glorious words, it may be said ; but are
they true? When I look at this body and see how
readily it is apt to pine away in sickness, to be broken
and wounded by accident, to sink into age and decrepi
tude, and finally die and become fetid and loathsome, so
that nearest friends are in haste to bury it out of their
sight, am I indeed at liberty not merely to imagine
but to cherish the sure and certain hope of its resusci
tation in a state of perfect health and vigour, never to

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 35
know frailty and death any more ? If I look at my
present sphere of life and activity, and find it very
humble and perplexed with cares, — a merchant nervously
excited about his speculations, or impoverished by losses
in trade — a shopkeeper wearied with the dry details of
business — a labourer toiling daily with hammer and
spade till the big drops of perspiration glitter on the
brow — a humble maid-servant overwrought, and per
haps little esteemed after all, — am I authorised by God's
own promise, and through so simple a process as faith
in Jesus Christ, to anticipate a time when angels shall
be my ministering servants, all the powers of nature
ready and willing to do my bidding, and this wondrous
and boundless universe of God, yea the whole riches of
universal being, the domain wherein I may expatiate,
and for ever and ever ? Is not this a fairy tale ? Is it
not a fond and air-drawn picture of the fancy — a dream
of enthusiasm ? Oh ! if it be not, but, on the contrary, a
sober reality, the Gospel is gladder tidings than I ever
thought it, and religion is the pearl of great price, to pos
sess which I may sell all in order to purchase it, and
become a mighty gainer by the exchange. But again I
ask, Is it true ? Have we any means of knowing that it is
true? Can the momentous truth be established ? Dull
we are in the understanding, warped by prejudices,
easily led astray by the maniac impulses of passion, our
minds clouded with a thousand delusions. But surely this
is a topic of thought worthy of commanding a little con
sideration, and some degree of candour and patience. If
there be any evidential proof, we surely ought to be
ready to inquire what it is, to test its quality, and esti-

2,6 DISCOURSE II.
mate its worth. If Christianity be a false religion, it is
assuredly a religion of a very amiable kind, and it will
do us no harm at least to believe it — nay, rather, it will
do us good, for it teaches us to love and do good to one
another ; but if it be true, no words of mine can ade
quately describe the necessity of listening to its appeals,
or the folly of neglecting them.
Now, the truth which is contained in the words be- -
fore us is substantially this — that Christianity is a thing
of evidence. When the apostle came to Corinth and
there preached, he did not take up the attention of his
hearers with disquisitions about the notions and opinions
of men. He did not discourse, like the Greek Sophists,
on the doctrines of the Stoics and the Epicureans ; nor,
like the Jewish rabbis, about meats and ceremonial
washings. It was his mission to proclaim matters of
fact. He told every one that a glorious personage,
whom he announced as the incarnate Son of the living
God, had died at Jerusalem and been buried ; and that
that death and burial of His had procured salvation for
men. Moreover, he told them that, after lying in the
grave till the third day, He had risen from the dead.
This, it is evident, was not a doctrine — an opinion — a
philosophical or ceremonial notion ; it was a fact — an
event — an incident. No one who heard it could doubt
that, if the fact was real, it supplied the imprimatur of
heaven to the whole doctrines and precepts of Jesus
Christ ; and, with a certainty not to be impugned, de
clared that Jesus Christ was at this moment alive, and,
according to His oft-repeated announcement, was now
the appointed and exalted Judge of the quick and the

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 37
dead. But it was reasonable in the Corinthians to ask
the apostle Paul — and it is no less reasonable in us,
and in all men everywhere and in every age, to ask with
the same earnestness and urgency — for the fullest
amount of proof of so remarkable an incident. The
Corinthians in their day, and we in ours, have a fair
claim to have the fact established as such by a reason
able amount of evidence ; and that evidence, it is plain,
must needs be identical with what we are accustomed
to in all other questions of a historical kind. Dogma
tising here is altogether out of the question. Precisely
as we would prove the reality of any other historical
event — as, for instance, that Brutus slew Caesar in the
Senate-House of Eome, or that Eobert Bruce fought at
Bannockburn — let the fact of the Eedeemer's resurrec
tion be examined, and, if possible, established. This is
the principle of the text. This is the task which wil
lingly the apostle undertakes, and, as we shall endeav
our to show, most fully succeeds in accomplishing.
1. First, then, let us consider the evidence actually
adduced by the apostle in behalf of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead.
This evidence, when fairly weighed, will be found in
itself, and especially when accompanied with those cor
roborations which we can easily supply, to be altogether
overwhelming. We are to remember that the apostle
wrote this epistle when residing in Ephesus — that is, in
the year 56 or 57 ; and that his ministry in Corinth took
place three or four years previously — that is, in a.d. 53, or
exactly twenty years after the alleged incident to which
he refers. It is not unlikely that he himself was living in

38 DISCOURSE II.
Jerusalem at the very time of our Lord's crucifixion :
certainly he was there two years afterwards, and wit
nessed the martyrdom of Stephen. Shortly after this
he was miraculously converted to the faith of Jesus, and
during the twenty years I have spoken of he not only
himself believed, but constantly was preaching the doc
trine of Christ's resurrection. These twenty years con
stituted the first part of the epoch of the apostolic evan
gelisation, and were of most momentous consequence
in the history of the Christian Church. During that
period three at least of the four gospels were written,
all of them giving very minute details relative to the
circumstances of the resurrection ; and, what is remark
able about these narratives, they are plainly independ
ent of one another, for there are some apparent contra
dictions and discrepancies — contradictions and discre
pancies, however, which learned men have satisfactorily
removed — which never would have occurred at all had
anything like collusion existed amongst the sacred his
torians. In all directions, and with the utmost earnest
ness and energy, hundreds of persons were, during those
years, proclaiming the fact throughout the world that
Jesus Christ who had been crucified was risen from
the dead — proclaiming it as vigorously in the city of
Jerusalem itself as in Asia Minor or the more distant
city of Borne. All this is matter of simple and noto
rious fact. Nothing could have been more easy for
the Jewish scribes and high priests than to have dis
proved the statement, had it been false ; but all they did
was to persecute and murder the Christians, with the
result of only spreading more widely and rapidly the

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 39
belief in this grand doctrine. The multitude of wit
nesses, therefore, who could give direct testimony, either
in the first or second degree, to the resurrection of
Christ — that is, who had either seen the Lord themselves,
or had seen those who had seen Him — must have been
absolutely incalculable. It is only to part of these that
the apostle alludes in our text, and his reason for doing
so must have been that such testimony was sufficient ;
that no unprejudiced mind could challenge its sufficiency;
and that, whilst ample enough for all practical purposes,
it was yet so limited that any one might have the oppor
tunity of making inquiries for himself. The first witness
he names is " Cephas," that is, Peter — the most notable
and distinguished of the original twelve, and in some
respects their leader, who, it seems, on the very morning
of the resurrection, had a personal interview with the
Saviour. The second is the whole group of the apostles
— the entire twelve — who, not once or twice merely, but
again and again, had interviews with Him ; for during
the interval of forty days betwixt the resurrection and
the ascension He was continually in the habit of meet
ing with them, and discoursing in their presence of
" things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven." The
third is a group larger still, consisting of five hundred
brethren, who must have been gathered together for the
express purpose of seeing and hearing their risen Lord,
and who had therefore the evidence of their senses that
Jesus Christ, whom previously they knew, was really risen
from the dead. Some of these the apostle tells us had
" fallen asleep," or were dead, when he wrote his epistle ;
but the " greater part of them," he says, were still re-

40 DISCOURSE II.
maining to that present — that is, were still alive. A
fourth testimony is adduced in the person of the apostle
James — that is, James the Less, or the author of the
epistle which bears that name — a person who must have
been alive when Paul wrote, and to whom reference
could easily have been made ; it being probable that
although this interview is not mentioned in Scripture, it
must have been a remarkable one, and much talked of
amongst the early Christians. And he winds up this
array of testimonies by stating his own personal experi
ence. He himself had seen Jesus Christ ; had spoken
to Him ; had heard His voice, and received from His
own lips the designation to the apostleship. I ask you
if you can conceive of any evidence, depending on
human testimony, which is stronger or more indisput
able than this. That Jesus Christ lived and died the
whole world acknowledges : that He rose from the dead
is either a falsehood or a matter of fact. If the former,
then one of two things must have happened : either
this multitude, consisting of hundreds of persons, all
living when Paul wrote these words, had been cheated
by some spectral illusion, or they had knowingly and
designedly combined to practise upon the world one of
the wildest and grossest of impositions. The idea of a
spectral illusion misleading such a multitude, and in so
many different times, ways, and manners, and without
any one being able to detect it, is altogether preposter
ous. The notion that so vast a body of persons could be
simultaneously got to construct and disseminate so gross
a cheat, and so circumstantially, too, is totally inadmis
sible. Only think of it a little. During those first

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 41
twenty years of apostolic evangelism, hundreds upon
hundreds of men were going about into all the cities
and villages of the Eoman Empire, teUing everybody
they met that they had seen with their own eyes and
heard with their own ears Jesus Christ, the crucified
One, after He had risen from the dead ; and yet all the
while they must have been conscious that they never
had seen or heard anything of the sort, but that the
whole was a falsehood and delusion ! And so far from
receiving any advantage from making this statement,
their labours everywhere only exposed them to derision,
hatred, persecution, bonds, imprisonments, scourgings,
and even death itself ! Did the world ever witness such
a phenomenon before ? No. It is impossible. These
earnest and enthusiastic preachers of the Word pro
claimed only what they knew to be true ; and Jesus
Christ, who had died for the world's sins, must really, as
they represented Him, have risen again from the dead.
Such, my friends, was the apostle's argument for
Christianity, derived from the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Nor has that argument lost any of its force by
the lapse of ages since Paul preached in Corinth. The
witnesses, indeed, are all dead : we cannot, as was com
petent for any doubter amongst the Corinthians, refer
to the living men whom Paul mentions. But we can
corroborate the testimony thus left on record by reasons
of a different sort, and which, I conceive, do more than
make up for any defect of this description. We can
refer to the workings of Christianity in the world dur
ing the last eighteen centuries. It is historically cer
tain that, before the first century of the Christian era

42 DISCOURSE II.
had expired, millions upon millions had confessed the
faith of Jesus— many of them although that confession
brought them only suffering and a cruel death. Surely
this must needs give us the deepest and most convinc
ing proof that the fact of Christ's resurrection was
universally believed, and that the evidence for it must
have been felt to be irresistible. But in those early
ages the progress of Christianity was absolutely astonish
ing. Before the second century had run its course,
Christian Fathers could boast, without fear of being
challenged, that the Gospel had entered and become
dominant in regions never penetrated by the Eoman
arms ; and in a century more it had mounted the throne
of the Caesars themselves. Nor has Christianity ceased
to win triumphs, even to the days in which we now
live. It is still going forth •' conquering and to con
quer : " and although I presume there is no one now
living upon earth who can say, I have seen the Lord
Jesus with the bodily eye, or heard His voice, yet there
is a multitude whom no man can number who, from the
converting and sanctifying influences of the Gospel on
their hearts and consciences, feel far more powerfully
than even intellectual demonstration could make them
do that the Gospel is a reality, and that Jesus Christ is
literally at this moment living and reigning at God's
right hand in heaven. The whole history, therefore,
and the very existence of the Christian Church, is a
testimony to the resurrection of the Saviour.
I ask you now, What fact in the whole history of the
human race can produce in its behalf a millionth part
of the evidence which exists of the reality — the his-

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 43
torical reality — of our Lord's resurrection ? The cam
paigns of Alexander the Great — the battles of Marathon,
Salamis, and Cannae — the desolations of the Goths and
Vandals — nay, the more modern events of the French
Eevolution and the wars of Napoleon — are all myths in
comparison. The historical critic who withholds his
assent from this incident is a thousand times more
forcibly bound to withhold his assent from every other
historical statement whatsoever. It is not from the want
of evidence that infidels deny or dispute the fact of our
Lord's resurrection from the dead; motives of a less
creditable kind easily suggest themselves, and are some
times offensively apparent. If we will take the state
ments on this subject contained in the sacred writings,
and deal with them in the spirit of candour — just as we
would deal with the statements of Livy regarding
Hannibal's crossing of the Alps, or Eobertson's account
of Columbus's voyage across the Atlantic, or Gibbon's
description of the siege and taking of Constantinople — we
shall arrive at this conclusion, and no other, that Jesus
of Nazareth who was crucified on Calvary's cross, and
buried in the stone sepulchre, did on the third day, and
just as literally, rise from the dead, and for forty days
thereafter converse with His disciples, preliminary to
His ascension into heaven.
2. So much, then, for the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
regarded as a matter of fact — an historical incident,
capable, like other historical incidents, of being estab
lished by evidence. But the text requires us, in the
second place, to consider the effect of that matter of
fact upon Christian doctrine and faith.

44 DISCOURSE II.
Of course it is easy to understand that Christ's resur
rection from the dead is the most complete proof of His
divine mission. If it really be the fact that, having
beforehand warned both friends and foes that, though
violently put to death, He would triumphantly be re
stored to Life, that restoration to life is the most com
plete and resistless proof of the whole Gospel dispensa
tion. Think of what is involved in that incident. Go
in thought to Jerusalem at the time when the events
mentioned in the evangelical history are represented to
have taken place. On the evening, or rather the after
noon, of the crucifixion day, the body of the Eedeemer
is deposited in the sepulchre. Before removal from the
cross it was pronounced by the proper authority to be
truly dead ; but to put the matter beyond a doubt, the
heart was pierced through and through, and cloven with
the soldier's spear. We can conceive of the friendly
hands of a Joseph, a Nicodemus, and others — especially
the women, who, to their eternal credit be it spoken,
never ceased to love their Lord even at the lowest point
of his debasement — taking down from the cross, amidst
the rays of the setting sun which that day had suffered
preternatural eclipse, the lifeless, pale, broken, and
blood-stained body of their Master. We can picture
to ourselves the two friends swathing it in the linen
clothes, and, either personally or with help, bearing it to
its resting-place — providentially quite close at hand — a
chamber hewn out of the solid rock — a sepulchre de
signed by the wealthy Joseph for his own burial, but
really by God, who orders all things for His own glory,
for the reception of a nobler guest. When was there

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 45
ever so solemn, so reverential, so melancholy a funeral ?
What corpse was ever carried to the grave by mourners
so downcast, depressed, and heart-broken ? The Teacher
whom they reverenced, the friend whom they had loved,
the Son of David who they trusted would have proved
Himself to be King Messiah, had suffered a felon's death
— there was His blood-stained body — and it was only
by the singular coincidence that the garden-tomb of
Joseph was so nigh to Calvary that He escaped a felon's
grave. Were not their once bright hopes now dead, and
about to be buried in that silent tomb ? But onwards
they move, and, amid the twilight of that terrible day,
deposit their burden in its cold and dark receptacle,
covering the door with the broad and heavy slab of
stone appointed for the purpose. And now Jesus is
buried — an inmate of the prison-house of death. And
Satan and the powers of darkness will do their best
to keep Him there. The authorities of the city will,
voluntarily, take every precaution that the tomb shall
not be tampered with. Behold official persons visiting
the place to see that all was secure, and actually sealing
the stone with the municipal seal — for any one to
violate which was a crime entailing the highest penal
ties ! Nay, who are these, with sword and spear, issuing
from yonder gate of the city, and marching towards the
garden ? Who but a company of Eoman soldiers, told
off by Pilate himself to keep watch during the night —
men who will not fail to do their duty — men who would
not shrink from bands armed with weapons of war, and
much less from all the attempts of the affrighted and
unarmed disciples of this crucified malefactor ? If it is

46 DISCOURSE II.
in the power of earth and hell combined to retain the
imprisoned captive, surely that result will be effected.
But thirty hours passed by, the regular changes of
the guard customary under Eoman discipline take
place, and the first faint streaks of the fated third day
are beginning to appear on the eastern horizon, and
over the towers and ramparts of the slumbering city.
And now the momentous hour has come. The moun
tain on which Jerusalem is built vibrates beneath the
shock of an earthquake, which doubtless aroused the
attention of the guards occupying the garden ; and, with
appropriate accompaniments of terror, the resurrection
is effected. With " countenance like lightning, and
raiment white as snow," the angel emerges from the
unseen, and through the dim twilight flashes terror and
alarm into the hearts of the whole band, who shook, and
" became as dead men." The stone is rolled from the
door of the sepulchre — the dead arises — with perfect
deliberation He divests Himself of all the adjuncts of
death and the grave— the very body that was wounded
and slain, and with all the marks of Calvary upon it, is
resuscitated — and He comes forth from the dark abode,
amidst the still feeble rays of morning — the Sun of
Eighteousness arisen before the natural lord of day
has emerged from the eastern skies. No wonder the
affrighted guards fled in panic from so terrible a spec
tacle, leaving the garden to be speedily entered by Mary
Magdalene, who first beheld the risen Saviour— by the
other women— by Peter and John— and doubtless by
many others, whom the fame of so extraordinary an
event would not fail to attract throughout the day, and

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 47
other days also, to the remarkable spot. And whilst all
Jerusalem would be talking about and canvassing the
astonishing reports, again and again, on that first day of
restored animation, Jesus appears and converses with
various of His disciples — an intercourse which is con
tinued for forty days to come. Surely an event accom
panied by so many details — and testified to by so many
witnesses — is the most public and complete proof which
the mind of man can desire of the divine commission of
Jesus Christ. All that He ever spoke must be possessed
of divine authority — the commission which He gave to
the apostles must have the sanction of heaven — the
Gospel dispensation, in all its parts and throughout all
its details, is the will of God revealed to man.
But the resurrection of Jesus Christ does a great deal
more than merely establish the truth of Christianity.
It illustrates what Christianity means. It is Christianity
embodied in action. That resurrection of Christ is at
once the exemplification of what restored humanity is
destined to be, and the pledge to every believer of all
that enters into our faith and hope. By our religious
profession we are bound to live as Jesus lived before
us : in such an event as this you behold the very
grounds upon which we consider Him entitled to such
high esteem. He, though the Son of God, died and
was laid in the grave ; but, seeing He rose from it a
conqueror, we too, having faith in Him, may consent —
should that be the will of God — to lie in the grave too,
for in due time we shall come forth from it conquerors
in our turn. What reason, indeed, have we to be afraid
of anything, seeing He who died for our sins is alive

48 DISCOURSE II.
again for our justification ? Salvation is the burden of
the Gospel offer ; but that offer is made to us in the
name of the risen Christ, and through that atoning
death of which the resurrection is the preliminary. All
are invited to share in the Gospel banquet. It is " to
you, 0 men, I call, and my voice is to the children of
men." And wherever the Spirit of God touches the
heart, and awakens spiritual convictions, it begets in us
faith — true faith — the faith which justifies, sanctifies,
and makes meet for the kingdom of God. But this
faith is really nothing else than reliance on the friend
ship, the love, the favour of a risen Lord. It carries us
to heaven, and presents us there with the glorious ideal
of the divine man, once crucified and slain, but in token
of the completeness of His sacrifice, and the entire satis
faction He has rendered to the divine law, exalted to
the right hand of God, there to make intercession for
us. The idea of our brother man in heaven — nay, the,
if possible, still grander idea of the God of universal
nature being also our brother man, is that central fact
in the Gospel system which, like the sun in the midst
of his retinue of encompassing worlds, maintains every
thing in its place, and lightens up every object with
splendour and glory. The resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead is therefore the very embodiment of the
Gospel, the pledge of the Christian's peace, the assur
ance of his salvation.
In conclusion, then, let us rejoice not only that Christ
our Lord is risen from the dead, but that so important
an incident is demonstrated by such an amount of ir
refragable evidence. Our faith and hope thus rest on

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 49
a foundation as stable as the universe of God itself.
Cleave to it, therefore, and rejoice. We have been in
formed of a very beautiful custom, common throughout
the Eussian Empire, and I suppose in all other coun
tries too where Christianity exists under the forms of
the Greek Church. On the morning of Easter-day — for
in these countries this day is celebrated as a very great
festival — the ordinary salutation with which one friend
meets another is superseded for the very Christian ex
clamation, "Christ is risen !" — a salutation to which the
appointed and appropriate reply is, " Yes, Christ is risen
indeed ! " This is, in my opinion, a touching ceremony,
and one worthy of a Christian people, reminding all
who use it of that wondrous morning at Jerusalem
when the strange rumour began to spread amongst the
many and disheartened disciples of Jesus that the
stone-covered, and sealed, and guarded sepulchre had
given up its captive, and that the crucified One was alive
again. It is a way of ' re-enacting what doubtless took
place in thousands of instances in Palestine — both in
southern Judea and in northern Galilee — during the
days which followed the crucifixion, when, with trem
bling joy, each disciple, as he met a brother, breathed
forth the exclamation, " The Lord is risen !" — to be re
sponded to by the words, " Yea, the Lord is risen
indeed !" It seems to me that, in such an expression,
the very essence and sum and substance of Christianity
is contained. Our present acceptance with God, our
right to mental peace, and all the blessings which life
can bestow, our hopes of a peaceful death and a glorious
immortality, all depend on this one momentous inci-
D

50 DISCOURSE II.
dent. Well may we therefore embrace it. " The Lord
is risen !" — ''- Yea, the Lord is risen indeed ! "
But there is more connected with this important
event than merely our individual welfare. It has a
typical value. That resurrection of the Son of God is
the pledge of what I may call the resurrection of both
the moral and the physical creation. It is plain as
demonstration can make it, that as sin is the law of the
moral world at present, death is the law of the physical.
We see it on all sides of us. The law of death is
absolutely universal. The tree which flourishes and
decays, the animal that lives and dies, the very moun
tain-chain which is ever wasting away, and whose sub
stance is continually being carried by streams to the
bottom of the ocean, are all exemplifying this universal
law of death. Nay, all these things die just that others
may live ; for the mouldering dust of tree, and ani
mal, and even mountain-chain, supplies the materials
by which new forms of life are sustained. Why should
we not think it possible that a higher and grander ex
emplification is awaiting us of this most sublime and
majestic law ? What, if out of this universal death the
epoch of universal and eternal life is destined to emerge,
the palingenesia, the regeneration, the glorious restitu
tion of the latter day ? When winter chills our skies,
and covers the earth with its mantle of snow — when the
groves are silent, and the streams are stagnant with
frost— when the drifting sleet sweeps through the leaf
less trees, we are apt to think that nature is dead. But
wait a little. Underneath those cerements of death the
energies of life are reposing, and with the return of

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 51
spring they will burst forth in aU their verdant glories.
How touchingly beautiful are the smallest indications of
the coming change — the pendulous snowdrop hanging
its modest head — the bright saffron crocus pushing its
way through the snow-wreath ! How vast and glorious
are the changes of which these things are the harbingers
— forests clothed with exuberant foliage — millions of
flowers expanding on every side — all nature green and
luxuriant again ! So is the resurrection of Jesus Christ
a small event in the eyes of the world, and apt to be
passed by, or thrust aside by the more engrossing pur
suits of time ; but it is associated with all that the
Christian heart holds dear, and especially to the eye of
faith is it the certain pledge that life and immortality
have been brought to light in the Gospel.

DISCOURSE III.

THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD, AND THE ENDS
THEREBY ATTAINED IN THE ECONOMY OF GRACE.
1 Cor. xv. 8-11. — "And last of all, He was seen of me also,'' &c.

Authorised Version.
" Last of all He was seen of me
also, as of one born out of due
time. For I am the least of the
apostles, that am not meet to be
called an apostle, because I per
secuted the Church of God. But
by the grace of God I am what I
am : and His grace which was he-
stowed upon me was not in vain ;
but I laboured more abundantly
than they all : yet not I, but the
grace of God which was with me.
Therefore whether it were I or
they, so we preach, and so ye
believed." New Translation.
Last of all He was seen of me
also, as of one born out of due
time. For I am the least of tho
apostles, who am not worthy to
be called an apostle, because I

Paraphrase.
And last of all I myself beheld
Him, being in my own estimation
of little value, and no better than
what my enemies may call me — a
worthless after- birth. Indeed I
am the very least of the apostles :
I am not worthy to bear the name
of an apostle, because I persecuted
the Church of God. Yet by the
grace of God I am what I am.
And His grace which He showed
to me did not prove an unprofit
able gift, for it led me to labour
far more abundantly than they
all : not I, indeed, but the grace
of God which was with me. From
all this you may understand that,
whether it was I or others who
preached, in these terms we did
preach, and such doctrines ye did
believe.

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 53

persecuted the Church of God.
But by the grace of God I am
what I am : and His grace which
He shotved to me was not in vain,
for I have laboured more abun
dantly than they all : not I, in
deed, but the grace of God which
was with me. Whether, then, it
were I or they who preached,
such was our preaching, and so ye
believed.

In my last discourse upon this chapter, I directed
your attention to the evidence in behalf of Christianity
derivable from our Lord's resurrection from the dead.
I showed you — the proofs of the fact amount, I think,
to absolute demonstration — that the acknowledgment of
this one historical incident binds us over to the recep
tion, as divine truth, of the whole Christian revelation.
Our holy religion is identified with its Author. If we
understand aright what that one fact means — " Christ is
risen from the dead " — we cannot fail to see in it at
once the proof of all that which, as Christians, we ought
to value, and the obligation lying on us to perform all
that which the Gospel requires at our hands.
The burial of Jesus Christ was the lowest step of His
humiliation ; the resurrection was the first of His exal
tation. Both incidents are closely connected with that
mystery of mysteries — the incarnation and meritorious
debasement of the Son of God. Faith bids us look
through the veil of flesh in which the Eedeemer was
revealed to man, and discern Deity incarnate — the Se
cond Person of the adorable Trinity clothed in the like-

54 DISCOURSE III.
ness and very nature of man. This awful truth is held
by the Church universal, and may be discovered in all
parts of Scripture ; in the 1st chapter of John's Gospel,
in the 2d of the Philippians, in the 1st of the Colossians,
and elsewhere, with especial emphasis. We may well
inquire into the meaning of this tremendous mystery —
the mystery of God becoming man ; for surely this is
one of the very things into which the angels themselves
desire to look. But beyond a very faint and imperfect
explanation of the subject, I fear it is not permitted to
human reason, at least in our present state, to look ;
yet there are two or perhaps three things which may
be said upon this momentous theme, and at present
I would endeavour, in a very few sentences, to say
them. If we take Scripture as our guide, we are bound to
believe that the material universe is not only the handi
work of God, but a handiwork of comparatively recent
origin. I am perfectly aware that philosophers — whe
ther astronomical, geological, antiquarian, or what not —
are in the habit of giving the universe of matter a most
prodigious antiquity ; speculating on millions of cen
turies as having necessarily elapsed before the world
assumed the appearance in which it is now clothed.
And, for my part, I would not throw the smallest bar
or impediment in the way of these very speculative
persons. Let them amuse themselves to their hearts'
content with their castles in the air. Time was when
cycles and epicycles were the fond dreams of theorisers
in astronomy, and geologists talked learnedly of Nep
tunian and Plutonian hypotheses ; but what is called

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 55
modern science has blown all these theories to the
winds. We may rest assured that if man is spared in
this world for a few generations more, a modern science
will arise to blow into the void of nothingness and con
tempt the whole of those theories also which are now
in vogue, and the veriest babes of the philosophy of the
future will look upon the theory-builders of our day
with the same compassion with which we regard the
Ptolemies and the Tycho Brahes of a former age. It
does not become Christians to be imposed upon by the
big swelling words of vanity which go to constitute what
the apostle Paul has well named " vain babblings, and
oppositions of science falsely so called." For the truth
of Scripture — that is, its divine origin — we have a thou
sand times better evidence than for any philosophical
theory whatsoever. Now, the Scripture, I say, speaks
of the universe of matter as having had a comparatively
recent origin ; and surely common-sense, as well as
science, must acknowledge that if there be a Creator-
God, it was within His almighty competency to make
the world just as we see it, even although one particle
of what we call matter did not exist six thousand years
ago. But without entering upon any speculation re
lative to the age of the world of matter, one thing is
obvious to the senses of us all : there is a material uni
verse, and we ourselves form part of it — are, in fact, by
the constitution of our nature, essentially connected
with it, and capable of enjoying the intensest happiness
from that connection. So far as we can see or know,
that material universe is, like God Himself, absolutely
boundless. Is it unreasonable, then — is it not, on the

56 DISCOURSE III.
contrary, a doctrine intrinsically fit and most probable
— that the visible and material universe should have a
visible and material Head ; and that some expedient
should be resorted to, upon the creation of material
things, or shortly after, whereby it might be possible
for rational creatures such as man — and other races,
perchance, within the domain of the visible — to con
verse with their Maker, and see and feel that, Like
themselves, He too is connected with the material cre
ation ? To my mind this hypothesis is very beautiful,
satisfactory, and even blessed. Every child of Adam
can say, '' I am cast into the mould of Him who is King
of kings and Lord of lords; the God of universal
nature is my brother man. To some extent, at least,
this seems to me to explain the mystery of the in
carnation. But, again, I have a testimony in my own bosom, and
that testimony is in closest harmony with all that I find
in Scripture, that love, compassion, kindness, and con
descending benevolence, are the attributes which best
befit that moral nature with which I am clothed. In
the event of a social life being set up within the bound
aries of this material creation — a social life which is to
last for ever — it seems to me to be the plain inference
of a single step that love must needs be the cement to
bind together the entire mass of all such social creatures.
Animosity, hatred, and variance must be absolutely ex
tinguished. Love must be enthroned. Not merely
benevolence, or the heart within loving, but benefi
cence, or the hand without benefiting and blessing,
must become the rule of society. When heaven is set

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 57
up on earth this must be its principle, or there will be
no heaven at all. When, accordingly, you contemplate
the worldly career of Jesus Christ — His birth, life, and
death — and are told that this is the human life of One
who, in His essential being, is the Son of the living
God, you can explain or account for the phenomenon
on no other principle than love. Acknowledge the
truth — it is a Scriptural expression — that from all eter
nity the Son dwelt in the bosom of the Father, and that
from thence, at the time appointed, He emerged upon the
domain of the visible creation to live, and in human life
to do good to men, and you certainly, in the very terms
of your acknowledgment, point to the benevolence of the
divine nature as the explanation of the fact. But from
the nature of the life you infer also the nature of the love.
Think what the nature of a love must be which not
only brought the Son of God from heaven to earth —
from that glorious region of psalmody and bliss where
angel and archangel dwell with God — to the darkness of
this fallen world, but actually clothed Him in mortal
flesh, subjected Him to sorrow and pain, exposed Him
to hatred and persecution, and finally to crucifixion and
a grave ! If in our wanderings we should fall upon a
colony of some insignificant insects amongst the ruins
of a dilapidated house, or the ooze and slime of a
damp wood, and, somehow or other, loving these insects,
and desirous of promoting their welfare, we should con
sent to lay aside our humanity or keep it in abeyance,
and become like one of them — voluntarily stooping to
grub and wriggle for their sake amidst the ten thousand
pollutions of their miserable existence— there would be

58 DISCOURSE III.
condescension on our part — vast condescension; yet
it would be limited, the interval betwixt what we are
and what we would become being a measurable quan
tity. But for God to become man — the Creator to
assume a creature-form — the Lord of glory to become a
servant, and consent, for our good, to struggle with the
inconceivable woes of His atoning life and death — this
is a fact so awfully mysterious as almost to transcend
belief. In my view of it, it is so awful that the human
mind never could have formed the conception of it
unless it had been true. And yet, if we bear in mind
that the end of this incarnation was to exhibit the love
and beneficence which resides in the divine character,
we can see the mystery, in some smalL degree, explained.
The love of God is as infinite as His power and wisdom.
It embraces the whole universe of being; nay, it is
enthroned as the very chiefest of the divine attributes.
This universe is, throughout eternity, destined yet to be
the domain and empire of love, and this world of ours
its palace or chief seat. There is an intrinsic fitness,
therefore, in Deity becoming incarnate, that He might
strike the grand key-note of the moral creation; and
the more He humbled Himself — and is it possible to
conceive of a greater debasement than that of the cross
and the sepulchre? — the brighter exemplification did
He afford of that principle which is destined, for ever
and ever, to be at the root of all the blessedness to be
found in the visible universe of God. Oh ! is it possible
that God's moral creatures can fail to love one another,
since God the Saviour has loved us so much ?
But, yet again, we must not forget that obedience to

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 59
God lies at the very foundation of all order and happi
ness. Without submission — cordial, implicit submis
sion — to the divine will, there can be no blessedness
whatever. It is the very principle of gravitation in the
moral universe. Hence, I apprehend, is the explanation
of the origin of evil. God permitted such a thing to be,
and did so at the very beginning of the history of our
race, just in order to teach us, and to teach every order
of intelligence that exists, where the secret of this con
tentment and joy is to be found. Obey, and you have
life and blessedness ; disobey, and you end in death and
misery. Hence the importance of the moral law. It is
absolutely the image of God — the description or delinea
tion of that on which the happiness of the universe is to
depend for ever and ever. Now, we ask, is it possible
to conceive of a better way of exhibiting this import
ant truth than for Deity Himself to become incarnate ?
The Son of God, as all Scripture affirms, allied Himself
to our humanity expressly for the purpose of being
obedient to the will of God, His Father. " Lo, I come,"
the Psalmist says in His name; "I delight to do Thy will,
0 my God : yea, Thy law is within my heart." He was
" obedient," adds Paul, " unto death — even the death of
the cross." " I came not," was the Saviour's exclamation
at the very outset of His ministry, " to destroy the law
and the prophets : I came not to destroy but to fulfil."
And it is plain that in His case this was no holiday
work. It was such a task that divinity only enabled
Him to achieve it. He must work out an active and
passive righteousness — be submissive to the will of His
Father through life, although this imposed upon Him

60 DISCOURSE III.
poverty, hunger, thirst, the contradiction of sinners,
scourgings, mockings, crucifixion, and death — yea, and
added to all this, the expiatory sufferings of Gethsemane
and Calvary, the very tasting of the pains of heU, for all
whom, in the covenant of grace, He represented. Surely
the principle of obedience to God could not find a more
perfect and complete exemplification ; and knowing
how essential to the happiness of the creature, through
out the entire eternity of the future, this obedience must
necessarily be, we need hardly wonder at the pains
which have been taken to inculcate it. To some ex
tent it seems to me to explain the mystery of the in
carnation. I do not know if it is in my power to point out a
theme more worthy of occupying your thoughts than
that upon which I have now been discoursing. It may
be called the mystery of Christ. It is the very founda
tion upon which rests the Gospel edifice. We live in
the midst of a visible and material creation, and very
glorious is that creation in the midst of which we are
living. Look in whatever direction you may — to the
blue dome of heaven, whether lighted up with the sun's
meridian glow, or glittering at midnight with ten thou
sand stars ; to the earth below, clothed in its mantle of
verdure, and adorned with its varied scenery of moun
tain, woodland, and stream ; to the wide ocean, with its
multitudinous waves singing evermore their anthem of
praise — you do behold a spectacle of glory and beauty,
satisfying to the intellect, exhilarating to the imagina
tion, and congenial to the heart of the children of men.
We can quite understand and sympathise with that

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 6l
glowing sentence in the Book of Job, where, at creation's
birth, " the morning stars " are represented as " singing
together, and all the sons of God shouting for joy."
What a sublime truth to be instructed in, that within
this universe — this boundless domain, with all its ex-
haustless modes of being, and infinitely varied means of
occupation and delight — moral, thinking, active crea
tures such as man, are to find their eternal home and
blessedness ! But, alas ! there is a heavy cloud upon
our horizon. Suffering and death are the undeniable
destiny, at present, of all the children of Adam. What
matters it then to us that the heavens glitter with their
ten thousand stars, wheeling their everlasting circles in
immensity; that the earth blooms in beauty, and the
ocean waves are ever singing their hymn of praise ?
Are we not dying — nay, as good as dead ; our heart, as
the poet says, ever "beating its funeral march to the
grave ; " and the house of silence and cold obstruction
awaiting us all ? But, blessed be God, it is only a cloud.
The mystery of godliness is in process of development ;
and we shall yet see how God can bring light out of
darkness, and good out of evil. The fall of man, the
desolations of the world, the machinations of the wicked
one, who has striven his utmost to make earth a hell,
will all be proved, in the long-run, to have been means
in the hand of an overruling Providence to promote
and bring about the glorious consummation of an eter
nity of bliss. In this momentous scheme, the incar
nation and consequent sufferings and death of the Son
of God constituted an indispensable part. To be head
of the visible and material creation, He Himself must

62 DISCOURSE III.
become visible and material ; to exemplify the laws of
love to man and of obedience to God, the incarnate Son
must submit Himself to the will of His Father in all
things, and so qualify Himself to be the centre of love
and obedience throughout all the eternity of the future.
0 sublime and surpassingly glorious truths ! To under
stand them a Little more fully, carry your minds onwards
to the judgment-day. Suppose it past and gone, sin and
misery abolished, and the final glory revealed ! What
have you now ? There is Jesus Christ revealed ; God
in our flesh incarnate, the Euler and King of the wide
creation, literally forming a part of that creation which
He had brought into being, and, in consequence of this,
accessible and in some degree comprehensible by His
creatures — not, as now the Almighty is, infinitely re
moved from our ken and apprehension. Nay, there
will the multitude of the redeemed be also — a nation of
kings and priests — the subordinate rulers of the uni
verse, — every individual amongst them being, both in
body and in soul, assimilated to his Lord ; and in
whatever part of the universe he may be, on whatever
mission or employment engaged, exhibiting in his per
son a copy or counterpart of Him who is King of kings
and Lord of lords. But there are other things besides
this. Those principles of love and obedience which are
embodied in Christ's life of humiliation and suffering,
and which, to a greater or less extent, are exhibited in
the life and history of every one of His disciples, will be
the grand principles of morality for all the orders of
intelligence in the eternal future, and the very procuring
cause of all their blessedness. The population of the

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 6^
world of the hereafter will all be blessed, because, like
their prototype, exemplar, and Saviour, they will love
one another, and be obedient to God. Here, I believe,
we have the great moral lever by which the apostle
Paul upheaved the minds of men — startled, aroused,
converted, and saved them. Deity becoming incarnate,
in order that He might suffer and die : Deity suffering
and dying in order that He might live again, and be
come King and Head of the redeemed universe for ever
and ever — all His people now, like Himself, humbled
even unto death, raised up again to share with Him in
that eternal glory — assuredly, if these be truths, none
others like them can occupy the attention of the human
spirit. Could we apprehend them — could we realise
them — could we feel that we are personally interested
in them — could we understand this simple, evangelical
fact, that, by so easy a process as our believing accept
ance of Christ, we are consecrated to so high a destiny
— our religous profession would surely become a little
warmer, a little more earnest and sincere.
I may have occasion at a subsequent part of my ex
position of this chapter to enlarge still further on
thoughts suggested by this sublime topic. The verses,
however, more immediately before us, and which are
still of an introductory character, relate to the personal
ministry of the apostle, and are not without their bear
ing upon the Christian evidence — the very purpose for
which the resurrection of Jesus Christ was introduced
in this place. When Paul was converted, a conquest
was made to the faith of a far more than ordinary char
acter and value. This personage was no common man.,

64 DISCOURSE III.
On the contrary, whether we consider his wonderful in
tellectual powers, his learning and eloquence, his obvious
integrity and straightforwardness, and the very circum
stances of his early life, his position and prospects, we
cannot but acknowledge that the adoption by such a
man of the Christian faith was, in no small degree, a
guarantee to the world of its truth and certainty. What
motive but an overwhelming conviction of its truth and
importance to the human race could have led such a
person not only to embrace the Gospel, but to become a
preacher of it ? Born in a respectable family, mingling
in the best society, honoured by the leading men of the
nation, possessed of the highest talents, learning, and ac
complishments, he must have been a madman to sacrifice
all his prospects of an honourable, yea, splendid career,
unless he had been convinced of the truth of the Gospel.
But all this he did sacrifice, — wealth, rank, and worldly
distinction, — and for three-and- thirty years was a poor,
persecuted, homeless wanderer from city to city — count
ing, to use his own touching language, "all things but
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
his Lord." On what other ground can you explain this
phenomenon except on the hypothesis that Paul knew
that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead, and become
Lord of all ; and that faith in Him was salvation ? Ac
cordingly, one distinguished writer has actually, and, of
course, at much greater length, used the conversion, life,
and ministry of Paul, as in itself a demonstration of the
truth of Christianity .* This may be called the subject-
* See Lord Lyttleton's 'Observations on the Conversion and Apostle-
ship of St Paul. '

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 65
matter of the verses now specially before us. But every
clause brings the truth home to us under a particular
aspect. In the first of the verses before us, Paul declares that
although, in comparison with the other apostles, some
might call him an abortion, or a worthless after-birth,
yet he too had actually and personally seen the Lord
after His resurrection from the dead. " Last of all he
was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time."
Paul was not addicted to boasting. He had no wish to
lay claim to a prestige and honour which did not belong
to him. He could not say with the Peters and Johns
that he had companied long and familiarly with the
•Saviour, listened to His teaching, and stored up Christ's
blessed words in his memory. He had been called to
the apostolic office in a miraculous way — out of the
common order — and at a time, too, when he knew little
of Jesus Christ, — only enough, indeed, to lead him to
regard both the Saviour and His cause with hatred and
aversion. And yet with his eyes he had seen the Lord,
and with his ears he had heard him. He could not
deny the testimony of his own senses. He had gone to
Damascus with the resolution of exterminating Chris
tianity, and the Lord of the Church had absolutely ap
peared to him by the way, and from a proud persecutor
converted him into a humble and loving disciple. Why
should he not proclaim the fact ? And why should he
not be believed ? Was it at all likely that, in the cir
cumstances in which he was placed, he would impose
upon others, or could practise that imposition if he
would. " Born," though he had been, " out of due time,"
E

66 DISCOURSE III.
he was yet competent to declare that he had personally
seen the Lord, and knew Him to be the Saviour of the
world. In the second of the verses before us, Paul declares
his apostleship. An apostle, let me remind you, is an
official person. The very name implies a commission
received, directly and immediately, from Jesus Christ :
and no one, it is historically certain, received that com
mission save the eleven and this apostle Paul. But as
in the case of our blessed Lord Himself we find the most
unparalleled humility, so in His representative we find
a vivid reflection of the same characteristic grace. " I
am the least of the apostles." " I am not worthy to be
called an apostle," seeing " that once I was a persecutor
of the Church of God." The consciousness, as if he had
said, of this littleness, this unworthiness, might have
shut his mouth altogether, and driven him into silence ;
but silent he could not be. Not from any worth of his,
but by the absolute designation of, God the Saviour,
he had been constituted an apostle — his mouth opened
— the duty imposed upon him to " declare among the
heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ." It was not,
therefore, the feeling merely that it was right to preach
the Gospel — that it was a charitable, good, and pious
work — which actuated him ; such a feeling, in short, as
may be experienced amongst ourselves, and is experi
enced by all faithful servants of the Eedeemer. It was
something far higher and holier than this. It was the
consciousness of an apostolic vocation. He had not
only seen the Lord, but received from him personally
his divine commission. Of this he was certain. Just as

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 67
when some high minister of state has been summoned
into the presence of the sovereign, and actually obtains
from the royal hand itself the seals of office, must know
ever thereafter the absolute certainty of such royal de
signation to his office, so did the apostle Paul know his
vocation, and, with all his humility, proclaim it to the
world. Unworthy I am, he was ready to exclaim:
still, apostle I am. I have seen the risen Saviour, and
received from Him the message to deliver, that through
faith in the Son of God there is life eternal.
The third of the verses before us proceeds a step
further, and describes not only the manner in which he
had discharged the duties of his apostolic office, but the
spiritual power which enabled him to discharge them.
He had received his divine appointment — the grace of
the apostleship — from the hands of Jesus Christ Him
self, and at the same time a singular amount of spiritual
ability for the work which it imposed upon him. But
having now for many years been invested with that
character, he could appeal to the whole of his bygone
life and ministry in proof of the truthfulness, sincerity,
and consistency of his conduct. He had toiled, he had
suffered, he had spent and been spent in his Master's
glorious cause. Let me, my friends, direct your special
attention to this. Enthusiasm may do a little, and
often does it in a dazzling, imposing, pretentious way.
A cause is taken up : it is advocated with a thousand
arguments, and for a while the trumpets are made to
blare on every side, deafening the world with the claims
and the praises of the wonderful theme. But then comes
a lull ; then ominous indifference and silence ; and,

b

68 DISCOURSE III.
finally, the uproarious zeal expires, never to be resus
citated more. So have I seen a group of children at
nightfall gathering together dry twigs and withered leaves
and straw, and any thing that was easily combustible,
and having kindled the heap, leap and dance and gesti
culate around the mighty blaze. Only for a few mo
ments ! The more fiercely it burned, the sooner it went
out, and the succeeding darkness was greater than ever.
Not so was the heaven-born zeal of the apostle Paul.
He "laboured" — nay, he "laboured more abundantly"
than all the other apostles, that just as if he had in him
not only an energy greater than that of a Peter, a John,
a James, and so on, but as if he had combined within
himself the concentrated energies of all those who held
with himself the apostolic office. And this zeal never
flagged. It accompanied him throughout all his wan
derings, and operated as powerfully on the day of his
martyrdom as it did three-and-thirty years before, when
it impelled him to say, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me
to do?" Behold the true test and proof of Christian
zeal ! It lies in persevering, unwearied, continuous labour.
Give up a good cause, and you thereby do your best to
prove that all your procedure in the past had much in it of
mockery and sham, and that your faith owed Little to the
influences of the Spirit of God. There is light, brilliant
and dazzling light, in the flashes which leap at mid
night from the thunder-cloud ; but all the flashes in the
world of this description will never make the corn to
grow or the flower-buds to expand their beautiful petals.
It requires the sunlight — the steady, persevering sun
light—from day to day, to educe the vegetative powers of

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 69
nature, and to cover the earth with verdure and beauty.
It is to this principle the apostle appeals in the verse
before us. " The proof," as if he had said, " of my truth
fulness and sincerity you may behold in my laborious
steadfastness. Had this cause which I maintain been
false and groundless, I would have tired of it long ago.
But tire of it I cannot. I labour and must labour more
abundantly than they all ; yet not I, but the grace of
God which has ever been with me."
The last verse before us proclaims the apostle's suc
cess. This was the culmination and very apex of his
pyramid of proofs. Whether he or his fellow-apostles
had been the agent of conversion, converted the Corin
thians had been ; and he appeals accordingly to their
Christian consciousness as to the truth and power of the
Gospel. " We preached, and ye believed." And after all,
this species of evidence — an evidence which has been
called the internal and self-evidencing power of the Gos
pel — is to ordinary minds far more satisfactory than any
other. It is not every one, indeed it is but a small per
centage of the mighty multitude who lovingly embrace the
Gospel, who are qualified to deal with questions of evi
dence at aU. Probably not one person in ten is fitted,
either from knowledge or reasoning habits, to discourse
about miracles, or prophecy, or the historical proofs of
our holy faith. But really this is not needed. There is
an evidence arising from the adaptation of the Gospel to
the felt wants of every human heart ; and if we will
only condescend to listen to the Gospel's appeals— to
hear what the Spirit of God has to say to every human
conscience — we shall soon realise the truth that nothing

70 DISCOURSE III.
more is needed to convince us that this religion is from
God. When the light streams in at our windows, we
need no demonstration that that light must come from the
sun : when a letter reaches us, written in the well-known
hand of a dear and absent friend, and touching upon
incidents of which we are mutually cognisant, we need
no other evidence than the letter itself to convince us
of its authorship. So is it with the faith as it is in
Jesus. Christians believe because in their hearts they
feel and know that such truths can come from God
only — that this is light from heaven — that here is the
knowledge which, as dying yet immortal beings, they
most require.
Blessed be God for the fact that the Gospel has such
copious evidence of its divine origin and authority ! But
after all, our salvation depends on our reception and use
of the Gospel itself. It matters comparatively little that
we acknowledge its claims, and profess to believe that
Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, unless we per
sonally appropriate the grace which it offers — unless
individually and truly we are converted to God. It is
not any kind of faith — it is true faith alone — which
justifies and saves. What mattered it to those hundreds
of miserable men, women, and children, of whom during
these few days past we have all been reading, that they
were in a ship,* if that ship was sinking, and totally
unable to battle with the' winds and waves ? The
women and children, and all the infirm and unworking
ones, might be ordered into their separate cabins, the
* The foundering of the London in the Bay of Biscay, Jan. 11,
1866.

INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 7 1
doors shut, the hatchways battened down, and they left
in horrible darkness amidst the roar and wild tossings of
the tempest ; but what mattered all this if the ship was
doomed to destruction? What signified it that for five
terrible days — foodless, sleepless, restless — every man
capable of the labour toiled at the pumps, whilst every
plunge of the fated vessel amongst those broken waves
shipped another sea, and sank her deeper in the water ?
What signified all this exertion if the ship was sinking ?
What mattered it that captain and crew, and a few of
the stronger passengers, stood on that small fragment of
the deck yet uncovered with the waves — all below decks
being doubtless dead — and looked into that frightful
sky and over that hurricane-rent ocean — 19 persons
alone of 239 getting into the only boat — the gallant
commander refusing to accompany them, in very preg
nant words exclaiming, " There is little hope of the boat,
there is none at all of the ship ; my duty is to perish
here ! " — what mattered all this if the ship was sinking ?
What signifies it that people are now saying the decks
and hatchways must have been finished in an insecure
and unworkmanlike manner — or it was rash in the cap
tain to set sail at all in the face of a storm which both
telegraph and barometer declared was raging in the very
quarter whither he was going? — what signifies this now
to those at least who went down in the sinking ship ?
Ah ! many a bright fancy doubtless filled the imagina
tion of those 200 emigrants to distant Australia, as they
left the shores of Old England — hopes of employment,
of comfort, of usefulness, perhaps of fortune, and the
brilliant anticipations of worldly glory ! Alas ! alas !

72 DISCOURSE III.
what are they now ? Buried in the deep, deep sea with
the sunken ship, the waves of the broad Atlantic sing
ing the conqueror's song over their watery grave ! Let
us all remember that we ourselves are on a voyage to a
distant shore — that we too, if by profession Christians,
have a prospect of a welcome, a home, a glory yonder !
What if we shall perish by the way? What if we
should go down to perdition when the next tempest
blows ? Oh ! when the sea begins to welter around us —
when the hurricane roars, and wave after wave with piti
less iteration washes over us — when the last five days
of our mortal agony have actually arrived, and we are
battling with their terrors, it will be little consolation
to us to discover that we have trusted our all to a sink
ing ship !

DISCOURSE IV.
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, WHAT IT MEANS, AND
HOW ILLUSTRATED BY THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.
1 Cor. xv. 12-15— "Now if Christ be preached that He rose," &c.

Authorised Translation.
" Now if Christ be preached
that He rose from the dead,
how say some among you that
there is no resurrection of the
dead ? But if there be no resur
rection of the dead, then is Christ
not risen : and if Christ be not
risen, then is our preaching vain,
and your faith is also vain. Yea,
and we are found false witnesses
of God ; because we have testified
of God that He raised up Christ :
whom he raised not up, if so be
that the dead rise not."
New Translation.
Now if Christ be preached that
He rose from the dead, how say
some among you that resurrection
of the dead there is none ? If re
surrection of the dead there be

Paraphrase.
Now, if the grand doctrine
which we preach be the fact that
Christ has risen from the dead, how
comes it to pass that some among
you are affirming that resurrection
of the dead there is none ? Were
such a statement correct— that is,
were the resurrection of the dead
an impossibility — it is plain that
Christ cannot, as we affirm, have
risen from the dead : and in that
case, both our preaching and your
faith are utterly groundless and
vain. I may even go further and
affirm that we deserve to be pro
claimed false witnesses of God,
seeing we affirm a falsehood — de
claring, as we do, in God's name,
that God bath raised Him from the
dead — a statement totally untrue,
if there be no resurrection at alL

74 DISCOURSE IV.
none, neither is Christ raised: and
if Christ be not raised, vain indeed
is our preaching, and vain is your
faith. Besides, also, we are found
to be false witnesses of God, be
cause we testified, in the name of
God, that He raised up the Christ,
whom He raised not, if indeed the
dead are not raised.

In the preceding verses of this chapter we are presented
with an epitome of the Gospel as Paul preached it, and
of the evidence which he was in the habit of adducing
in order to commend that Gospel to the rational accept
ance of his hearers. He had come to Corinth a poor
man, but he was charged with a mission whose intrinsic
value exceeded the wealth of the whole world. He
brought with him the glad tidings of salvation. He told
all who would listen to him that the germ of eternal
life was found in the believing acceptance of the truth
which he announced — namely, that Jesus Christ having
died for our sins, was alive again for our justification.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead being
thus the corner-stone of the Gospel edifice, and that a
matter of fact, susceptible of proof on the very same
principles as any other event recorded in history, he
does not hesitate to affirm the fact as resting upon the
fullest evidence, and he virtually challenges all deniers
of it to disprove the fact if they could. He himself
declares that he had seen, heard, and received an apos
tolic commission from Jesus Christ after His resurrection
from the dead. Hundreds of persons, also, he alleges,
were even then alive who had also seen and heard the

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 75
risen Saviour. There was accordingly no reasonable
ground for doubt. The faith of the Corinthian Chris
tians rested on a sure foundation. The Eedeemer of
mankind had appeared on earth, and life and immor
tality were brought to light in His Gospel.
But, in the verses now before us, we come within
sight of the reason which led the apostle, in this place,
to refer so emphatically to the resurrection of Christ.
Errors regarding the great doctrine of the resurrection
of the dead, as affecting the whole Christian Church,
had begun to appear amongst the believers in Corinth.
They seem to have been misled by the teaching of cer
tain spiritualisers amongst them. They saw many of
the most serious and earnest-minded of the followers of
Jesus sickening and dying : when buried they observed
that their bodies, just like those of the heathen, moul
dered into dust ; and compelled, in consequence, to
abandon the* notion which, in those early times, was
fondly entertained in some quarters, that true faith in
Jesus would prevent a man from dying at all, they took
refuge in the idea that the resurrection, so often referred
to in the religious appeals which were made to them,
was not a literal but a spiritual thing. Notwithstand
ing all they had heard of the work of redemption by
Jesus Christ, death's reign was still universal. With
their very eyes they saw that, as man was dust, to dust
he was constantly returning ; and they felt it to be an
unlikely, improbable, and even impossible thing to
anticipate a literally corporeal resurrection. From the
entertainment of this notion to the idea of a spiritual
resurrection was but a single step. What so easy as to

y6 DISCOURSE IV.
consider that the natural man was dead, even whilst
bodily alive — dead in trespasses and sins ; and that
regeneration, or the assumption of Christian discipleship,
was the great resurrection, or the entering of the soul
upon its career of eternal life ? Were not all heathen
nations spiritually dead, and did not men rise from this
spiritual death when they heard, believingly, the voice
of the Son of Man ? In all this there is a certain degree
of plausibility ; but with the utmost emphasis, both in
this chapter and elsewhere, the apostle enters his solemn
protest against it. Nothing, indeed, can exceed the
earnestness with which, in his 2d Epistle to Timothy —
an epistle written within a month or two of his martyr
dom — he put that distinguished preacher of the Word,
and the whole Church together, on their guard against
the insidious error. " Shun," said he, " profane and vain
babblings : for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
And their word will eat as doth a canker : of whom is
Hymenaeus and Philetus ; who concerning the truth
have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already;
and overthrow the faith of some."
I fear that, even to the present day, a tendency may
be discerned towards this ultra-spiritualism. In ancient
and medieval times it was considered a positive merit
to mortify and punish the body. They tore it with
whips — they starved it with hunger, thirst, and cold —
they forced themselves to eat and drink all nauseous
things, and to exhaust their strength in all sorts of
absurd and useless labours — and this with the view of
glorifying God, as they said, and promoting the welfare
of the soul. The enlightenment and common-sense of
modern days may have got rid of a great deal of this

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. "J"J
monkish austerity, but I suspect that either the tradi
tional teachings of the past or the natural superstition
of the human heart leads not a few to the untenable
and foolish fancy that the soul is the only good thing
about us, and that it is no small part of Christian piety
to undervalue or neglect the interests of the body. To
talk of bodily cleanliness as a Christian virtue ; to
insist, as a matter of duty, upon everybody bestowing
a reasonable amount of attention upon such things as
their ordinary food, and the best manner of preparing it;
their dress, both with respect to warmth and adorn
ment ; their dwelling, with respect to light, ventilation,
drainage, and even amenity ; the best means of main
taining health, when we have it, by the due admixture
of employment, sleep, and recreation — and restoring it,
when lost, by judicious medical treatment ; — to speak of
such things, much more to insist upon them, is by some
regarded as scarcely a religious thing, certainly by no
means spiritual. How it has happened I do not stop
to inquire ; but undeniably evangelical religion has, in
the minds of not a few, come to be identified — and that
exclusively — with the soul, and such matters as the
proper definitions of faith, sin, atonement, and the like.
One is reminded by this of the very ancient controver
sies in the Church regarding the heresies of the Gnostics
and Zoroastrians, and their favourite doctrine respect
ing the eternal contest between good and evil — matter
being the very principle of evil ; and every material
thing, just because it is material, being instinct with
corruption, mischief, wickedness, and death — to be hated
now, and to be regarded as doomed to extinction here
after. This groundless fancy of the inferiority of matter

78 DISCOURSE IV.
to mind, and of the exclusive spirituality of doctrines,
and the relations of doctrines to one another, has been
greatly injurious to Christianity, whether we regard
that as a system of divine truth, or as a method of
promoting practical godliness. There are people who
read the Scriptures, but refuse to take them in their
plain and literal significancy, converting what God
intended to be a simple testimony to the nations into
a bundle of enigmas which none but the initiated can
explain. We need not wonder, accordingly, if on such
subjects as the resurrection of the body and the future
judgment of the world, we should meet with a great
deal of this bastard spiritualising. There are so-called
Christians who actually maintain the doctrines that
there will be no literal resurrection of the dead at all
— that resurrection, in the very words of the apostle,
being a purely spiritual thing, and therefore " past
already ; " and I suspect a very large number of those
who are not tainted by the heterodoxy of such senti
ments have very extraordinary ideas as to what that
resurrection of the body means. It is anything but a
bodily or material resurrection. To be properly spiritual
the body must then have a very airy, flimsy, unsub
stantial constitution — in short, be divested of all those
properties which any ordinary mind associates with
materialism. And as for the universe at large — this
grand and majestic creation, with all its wondrous hosts
of living beings and departments of material existence —
that is fast posting onwards to the abyss of annihilation !
Whatever is to follow the judgment-day, the judgment-
day itself is the extinction and utter obliteration out of

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 79
being of the very last remnant of material things ! So
speak the spiritualisers, in accordance with what some
consider the very sublime, but which every Bible
Christian must declare to be the very unscriptural,
language carved, somewhere more than a century ago,
on Shakespeare's monument in Westminster Abbey : —
"The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ;
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind."
Very poetical words, truly, and very imaginative ; but
what matters it that they are so, if they be not true ?
For my part, I cannot think that the almighty Archi
tect of creation should have built up so vast and so
goodly, a structure, only to blow it again into the
void of annihilation: nor do I find in Scripture one
word to justify the foolish and profane supposition.
It is the product, evidently, of the unsound spiritualism
of which I have been speaking ; and against that we
ought now to be on our guard.
When, in the first of the verses before us, the apostle
refers to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the grand
leading topic of Gospel preaching, and asks the ques
tion, " How say some among you that there is no resur
rection of the dead?" he manifestly teaches us to consider'
the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of Christ's
people as facts identical in character. He affirms that
they are substantially alike. And as a head or hand
ful of wheat taken from a field of a hundred acres in
extent may be regarded as a specimen of all the heads

80 DISCOURSE IV.
and handfuls which may be gathered out of that field,
so Jesus Christ — so far as the fact is concerned that He
rose from the dead — must be regarded as an illustration
of each resurrection on the part of His people. This
practically affirms the truth of the resurrection, and
defines the meaning of the term. Let us go, then, in
the spirit, to the sepulchre of Joseph, and behold the
Eedeemer rising from the dead. What took place then
and there ? It is obvious that it was the very body
which was crucified which rose from the dead. That
very body, and no other, whose hands and feet had been
pierced with the nails, whose heart had been cloven with
the soldier's spear, whose head had been crowned with
thorns, whose shoulders had been lacerated with stripes,
whose cheek had been buffeted, whose ears had been
dinned with the cries of " Crucify Him, crucify Him ! "
came forth from its stony prison-house, and was again
seen of men. Not one limb or organ, not so much as
one hair of the head, was left behind — nothing, indeed,
but the bloody cloths in which the sacred person was
wrapped as He was taken down from the cross. And
although it appears from the inspired history that cer
tain remarkable changes had been superinduced, yet in
all material points the resurrection-humanity was as
similated to the humanity worn before death. It con
sisted of flesh and bones, and could be handled : it had
the same features and voice, and by eye and ear could
be recognised. It moved to and fro on the earth's
surface : it breathed, it spoke, nay, ate and drank. If
all these particulars be set down in Scripture — and by
the apostle's words in this place we are authorised to

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 8 1
consider them as a specimen or exemplification of the
resurrection-humanity of Christ's disciples — we may very
easily form to ourselves an idea regarding our own
resurrection-humanity. Changes remarkable, extraor
dinary changes, will be effected ; but in all material
points the principle of identity will be maintained.
Every bone, muscle, and sinew will retain its accustomed
place, so far as required by the exigencies of the new life ;
every organ will perform its appropriate functions, the
eye seeing, the ear hearing, the hands handling, the feet
walking, the tongue discoursing, the teeth masticating
food, the stomach digesting it. I see not how such con
clusions are to be evaded, if it be a truth which is in
timated by the apostle in the words before us, and often
elsewhere, that Christ risen is the model of every risen
disciple. Are we not, indeed, entitled to suppose that
it was one of the reasons why Jesus Christ continued
so short a time in the grave, that this identity might be
clearly demonstrated ? Had His body mouldered into
dust, been scattered by the winds, or diffused through
the earth, it might have been doubted whether the
same body that was buried did also rise again. But as
things were actually arranged, there could be no doubt
upon the subject. As He went to the grave He came
out of it : and whatever changes were thereafter effected
— as, for instance, with respect to the clothing in which
He appears — they must have come in the shape of mo
difications or additions to what He had before, and not
in the way of extinguishing or annihilating any of His
former properties or powers. There is no room for
spiritualising here. The resurrection body is identified
F

82 DISCOURSE IV.
with the body which dies. " If we preach," that is, if
the Gospel declares, " that Christ rose from the dead," no
Christian person who understands the meaning of that
expression will ever deny the resurrection of the dead.
Indeed it would be folly, and a contradiction in the
very terms, to call that a resurrection in which every
particular thing was changed into something totally and
essentially different from what it was before.
The second, third, and fourth of the verses before us
are just the converse of the first, and are evidently add
ed by the apostle with the view of still more distinctly
and still more dogmatically teaching the doctrine of the
resurrection — that is, the bodily resurrection — of the
people of God. Words cannot be conceived of whereby
such a doctrine could be affirmed with greater clearness
and emphasis. The apostle tells us that to deny the
resurrection of the dead is virtually to deny the Gospel
altogether, and to bring a charge of false-witness-bear-
ing against the entire company of apostolic preachers.
" If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ
not risen : " a statement tantamount to this — that if, in
the future, we are not to anticipate a literal rising from
the grave of the body, with all its bodily powers intact
and complete, our religion is a fable and a delusion.
Death is not a conquered enemy ; the prison-house of
the tomb has not been opened, and never will ; Jesus
Christ is still in the grave ; and salvation for man — that
is, his rescue out of the hands of the great destroyer —
has been proved to be an impossibility. '' If Christ be
not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is
also vain." Another statement tantamount to this, — that

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 8^
in the event of a resurrection similar to that of Jesus
Christ not taking place in the case of all Christ's peo
ple, the preaching of the Gospel, and the reception of it
on the part of those to whom it is offered, are equally
groundless and unmeaning. "Yea, and we are found
false witnesses of God ; because we have testified of
God that He raised up Christ : whom He raised not up,
if so be that the dead rise not." Yet another statement
tantamount to this, — that apart from the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body, the whole Gospel system is
a hypocrisy, and the entire multitude of apostles and
New Testament evangelists no better than impostors,
blasphemously using the name of God whilst palming
their falsehoods upon men. There are two facts, in
short, in the economy of the Gospel dispensation, co
equal in importance — the resurrection of Christ and the
resurrection of His people ; and you can neither affirm
nor deny the one without at the same time affirming or
denying the other. This one topic is the sum and sub
stance of all Gospel teaching. It is the distinctive pecu
liarity of what we call the Gospel. Jesus Christ died
and rose from the dead. His people have, many of
them, died already, and many more are dying every
day, and will continue to die so long as the world en
dures ; but a time is coming when, like their Master,
they will all be raised from the dead, to enter upon a
new corporeal life. Here, I sajr, is the very essence or
characteristic feature of the Christian religion. It may
teach the existence of God, and our duty to worship
Him. It may inculcate the moralities of human life,
and tell us how to observe them ; but in order to accom-

84 DISCOURSE IV.
plish such ends, it was not necessary that Christ should
become incarnate, die, and rise again. A mere reve
lation of God's will was fully competent to effect that,
without any life and death of Jesus Christ whatsoever.
It was because the divine purpose embraced a resurrec
tion of the dead — a coming forth again out of their graves
of a multitudinous and chosen people — that the events
came to pass of the death of Calvary, and the resurrec
tion from Joseph's sepulchre.
Here, then, our minds are directed to a perfectly
simple and intelligible proposition, and yet one of sur
passing sublimity. The apostle, not once or twice, but
over and over again, proclaims the faet of the resur
rection of the dead. Let us endeavour to comprehend
what that expression really means ; and seeing the
apostle does so fully in this chapter profess to furnish
the evidence or proof of its reality, let us calmly address
ourselves to the task of estimating that evidence.
The resurrection of the dead ! What does it mean ?
Millions of people have lived in this world before us,
played their part in the drama of life, figured even in
those thrilling incidents which go to constitute the
world's history : but one and all of them died in their
turn, and in their own special time and way. Not a
few have been buried beneath the waves of the mighty
deep ; some have mouldered to dust, lying on the earth's
surface, and that dust has been scattered about by the
winds ; the fire has consumed others ; and multitudes
upon multitudes were long since entombed in sepulchres
and graves, and have there been assimilated, centuries
ago, to the earth itself in which they were deposited.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 85
What a place of woe, and depression, and almost despair,
is a churchyard filled with the relics of buried thou
sands ! What reminiscences of the past, what histories of
love and hatred, passion and prejudice, good and evil, are
buried there ! To wander there and come upon a broken
skull, a fragment of bone, or even a piece of the decaying
coffin which once contained them, and which plainly
tells, yea, in no unmistakable terms, that time mocks
even the efforts and loving pains of friendship, and will
not suffer the buried dead to slumber in peace ! — is not
all this the triumph of death ? the jubilee and festival
of man's utter destruction ? The sickbed, with its pains
and anxious forebodings — the icy stillness when death
has come — the funeral procession, and the lowering into
the grave, and the rattle of the clods on the coffin-lid,
and the filling in of that grave with earth composed in
no small degree of the constituent parts of former gene
rations and bygone funerals, are really not the end after
all. Death revels in his victory, insulting over his vic
tims, and, as it were, resorting to every expedient where
by to make contemptible all that was mortal of the
highest, the wisest, and, it may be, the best beloved of
men. Can these dvy bones live again? Is any par
ticular wanting whereby to demonstrate the utter hope
lessness of such a consummation ? And yet here is the
affirmation to that effect of the apostle in this chapter,
an affirmation made in every variety of form. In the
same sense, and after the very model of Jesus Christ
Himself, every dead person, it is affirmed, will live again.
The power of God will gather together those moulder
ing fragments ; bone will return to his bone, and every

86 DISCOURSE IV.
sinew and muscle again occupy its appropriate place.
By the word of God the chaotic confusion of our church -
yards will be reduced to order and harmony; and every
individual man will be so restored to the integrity of his
corporeal being that he will be able to say, This is the
very body which in such a place lived and laboured,
moved and died. It will be possible for the resusci
tated Christian to say, as his Lord said before him —
" Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and
bones as ye see me have." Marvellous announcement !
What evidence can be produced to establish a fact in
our future destiny to the natural reason so surpassingly
wonderful, almost incredible ?
The apostle, in subsequent verses, sets before us a
statement of this evidence, and, in next discourse, we
shall have an opportunity of considering it. In the
mean time, however, we may be reminded of certain
facts in our corporeal constitution, and in the physical
laws of creation, which go a great way towards the
lessening of the idea of impossibility associated with the
doctrine of a corporeal resurrection. It is obvious that
man's body is literally a handful of earth, curiously
constructed and put together by some power higher and
wiser than himself. That wonderful organ the human
eye, its humors so skilfully arranged, and on principles
of the highest optics adapted for seeing — the bones of
the ear so wonderfully constructed for hearing, those
of the hand for grasping, those of the dorsal vertebrae
for securing the stability and yet the flexibility of the
human frame — the various and singularly varied tissues
of the brain, the tongue, the heart, the lungs, the muscles

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 87
large and small, the intestines, the skin, with all their
absolutely astonishing properties — are really identified
in intrinsic constitution, and in no respect differ from a
shovelful of earth which we may lift up in any of our
gardens. If, accordingly, we acknowledge — and this
is the plain affirmation of the 2d chapter of Genesis — ¦
that there was a time when man did not exist, — that,
previous to his existence, the Almighty God formed the
resolution of making him, constituting man male and
female, with a view to the peopling and replenishing of
the earth which He had made — and that out of the
earth, or, as it is said, the dust of the ground, He
actually did make him, — there is surely nothing contrary
to reason, and still less to what with our very eyes we
sea and know to be the constitution of the human body,
to suppose that a process which has manifestly taken
place already may take place again, and even on a wider
scale. The Almighty Creator must, at some period of the
past, have taken earth, and therewith constructed at
least one man and one woman. If this took place in
one locality — say the garden of Eden — what is to hinder
it from being repeated in a thousand millions of localities,
and simultaneously, when the proper time comes ?
May not this be the definition of the resurrection-day ?
There have been certain epochs in the past in which the
Almighty has interposed in a miraculous way. Creation
was one of these epochs ; the Flood another ; the giving
of the law at Sinai another; the ascension of Christ
another. And so may the resurrection be. God has
been for the last six thousand years, as it were, prepar
ing the materials for it. In the birth, by ordinary gene-

88 DISCOURSE IV.
ration, of innumerable human beings, in their life and
death, and in the entombment, whether in earth, sea, or
air, of the constituents of their bodies, He has been lay
ing up an ample store of materials for this most astonish
ing of all the predicted operations of God. Unquestion
ably at this moment the earth and sea are filled in every
part with the dust and constituents of human bodies :
and if it was a thing within the divine competency to
take earth which had never been animated at all, and
therewith make the original human pair, why not take
dust which once had been animated, and restore it to
animated existence again ? Wonderful fact this, but no
less reasonable than wonderful ! It is a physical fact
that it is utterly impossible to destroy so much as one
particle of matter. You may expose it to the intensest
heat — you may cut and crush it to its very atoms — you
may alter its appearance by combining it with all sorts of
chemical agents, but you cannot annihilate it. The ulti
mate atoms which once formed part of the bodies of all the
dead, — the Pharaohs of Egypt — the Alexanders, Caesars,
and Hannibals — the armies that fought in the wars of
Greece and Eome — and all others, the millions of depart
ed men — are literally at this moment existing somewhere.
Nay, the souls which once animated these bodily frames
are now as literally existing in the spirit-world as their
bodies are in the earth. It is an actual matter of fact,
therefore, that the quarries and storehouses are extant, and,
so to speak, before our eyes, which will supply what we
may calL the stones and timber of the temple of every
. one's body ; and the inhabitant himself is waiting and
ready to take possession when the fiat of Omnipotence

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 89
is pronounced. The continents, islands, and seas of our
globe are filled in every quarter with the materials of
this wonderful operation of God. Let it take place —
let it do so simultaneously everywhere, — let the first re
surrection be of God's redeemed, the blessed ones over
whom the second death has no power, — and in every
several part of earth's convexity the population will ap
pear, ready to form themselves into the nations of the
redeemed and glorified world, the children of the first
and also of the second Adam, who, according to the
primitive plan of creation, will " people and replenish
the earth," and reveal therein " the kingdom of God."
But there are many natural processes with which we
are all familiar, furnishing analogous illustrations of the
resurrection, hinting it to us, as it were, in no uncertain
way, and demonstrating its possibility. What a multi
tude of flowers, lovely in summer, die down to the
ground as winter comes, but their seed of life is buried
in the earth, and when summer comes they are as
luxuriant and beautiful as ever. The trees which are
stripped of their foliage when the icy winds blow, are
green again in the returning spring. The mighty clouds
which break in deluges of rain on the rocky heights of
the Andes and the Himalayas, are apparently thereby dis
sipated, and disappear. But it is only that in the shape of
the waters of gigantic rivers they may flow to the ocean,
there to be raised again in clouds of similar constitu
tion and magnitude, and so repeat over and over again
the majestic cycles of nature. You may take the golden
or silver vase, estimated in value at thousands of pounds
sterling — there are chemical agencies which in brief space

90 DISCOURSE IV.
can reduce it to an almost transparent liquid; and, when
other chemical agencies have restored the metal again,
without one particle of it being lost, there is skLU ex
tant also in the world by which the vase may be recon
structed, perhaps even more beautiful than what it was
before. The piece of putrid flesh which is cast into our
dunghills, or lies unnoticed by the roadside, is speedily
flyblown ; and the crawling things thus engendered,
when their foul repast is over, do actually bury them
selves in the earth, and, after months have passed over
them, come forth from their dark and damp graves to
sport in the sunshine of the summer's day. The egg is
deposited on the appropriate leaf — it becomes a cater
pillar, daily enlarging in dimensions, till, the feeding
process being over, it seeks a sequestered nook, spins
its shroud or makes its own coffin, and then it lies
torpid and apparently lifeless till spring returns. And
what a change is then apparent ! The creature, once a
wriggling caterpillar, and afterwards the torpid denizen
of some crevice in an outhouse or ruinous wall, bursts
from its cerements, and in the radiant hues of a gorgeous
insect flutters in the sunlight, and visits every flower of
the garden in its turn. In innumerable cases, therefore,
apparent death is but the preparation making for new
forms of life, and it may be life of a far more elevated
and glorious type. For aught we can tell, therefore, the
death of the human body, so far from being its extinc
tion, may be only the early stage of the majestic process
of its elevation to the predestined dignity of being the
masterpiece and glory of all creation. But the proofs
of this will be given in a future discourse.

DISCOURSE V.
THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT FOR THE LITERAL
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.
1 Cor. xv. 16-18.—" For if the dead rise not, then is not," &c.

Authorised Version.
"For if the dead rise not, then
is not Christ raised : and if Christ
be not raised, your faith is vain ;
ye are yet in your sins. Then
they also which are fallen asleep
in Christ are perished."
New Translation.
For if dead persons are not
raised, Christ has not been raised :
and if Christ has not been raised,
foolish is your faith ; ye are yet
in your sins : yea, also those who
have fallen asleep in Christ have
perished.

Paraphrase.
It is surely an obvious truth
that if dead persons cannot be re
suscitated, then, in point of fact,
Christ is not raised from the dead.
But what are the inferences which
flow from that? Nothing less
than these : your faith is ground
less, or rather foolish ; ye are yet
under the condemnation of sin ;
and the whole body of believers
who, by dying, have fallen asleep
in Christ, have absolutely per
ished.

In my last discourse on this chapter I endeavoured
to a certain extent to define what is meant by the re
surrection of the body, and to state some of those rea
sons on account of which we may regard such an inci
dent in our future history as neither impossible nor

92 DISCOURSE V.
improbable. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
are plainly in the words before us declared to be, in
some sense, a pattern and model of the death and re
surrection of His people ; and as we know, from the
history of Christ's return from the sepulchre, that it
was literally and absolutely the very body which bled
and died which also rose again, so we argue that the
thing meant by the resurrection of the body is really
nothing else than the restoration of man's material
framework to substantially what it was before. I re
minded you that the dust of all bygone generations of
men was literally at this moment lying in or upon the
earth ; and that the same power of God which, at some
period of the mighty past, as indeed is affirmed in the
Book of Genesis, must have taken earth, and thereof
made the first parents of our race, was competent to do
the like again on even a wider scale, and reanimate that
dust to be the inhabitants of the glorious world of the
hereafter. I also endeavoured to show — and this I did
much more shortly than I might have done — that there
is a whole host of analogies to be gathered from the
material, animal, and vegetable worlds corroborative of
the doctrine before us, and the fact of a resuscitation
after death.
Of course, in connection with this subject there is
absolutely a multitude of curious but what I may call
petty questions which may easily be raised — some phy
sical and some metaphysical. A number of these ques
tions are connected with the subject of personal identity.
Physiologists tell us that the body is renewed every
seven or at least every ten years — that is to say, that

THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. 93
there is not one atom about us, from the hair of the head
to the soles of the feet, which was there or anywhere else
about us ten years ago. And we are conscious of this fact,
without needing physiologists to tell us, that every living
person has a body possessed of appetencies for meat and
drink, organs of mastication and digestion, and powers
of assimilation by which the meat and drink which is
consumed is converted into the various tissues and other
parts of the human frame ; in short, that the body has
been constantly growing ; that by food and breathing we
are continually receiving matter into it, and that by
breathing, perspiration, and otherwise, we are as con
tinually expelling it. And accordingly, such trivial
inquiries as these have been made : What portion or
portions of matter which have thus at one time or other
been incorporated with us will go to form the resurrec
tion-body ? Is it the body we had in youth, or in mid
life, or the sick, broken-down, and emaciated frame
which is encoffined and entombed at last ? Or is it a
selection of particles taken from the whole, and in some
occult way gathered together and built up into the
new resurrection-body ? To such questions we can give
no answer at all, and we would not be much the wiser
if we could. The matter is one of singularly little con
sequence. Such of us as are somewhat advanced in
years may be perfectly conscious that, although the
material of our bodies has been continually changing —
yea, has changed three or four times over already, and
may change three or four times more before we die — yet
throughout the whole of this process our personal iden
tity has been maintained. The fact we may hold as

94 DISCOURSE V.
certain ; but the explanation of the fact perhaps tran
scends the power of all the philosophers in the world.
If, however, they think they can throw light upon the
mysterious subject, they are of course at perfect liberty
to make the attempt ; but we need not, and we cannot
deny this fact of conscious identity, although we cannot
furnish the explanation. Why, however, should we
not extend this principle of continued identity in the
midst of continued fluctuation and change a little fur
ther, and acknowledge that as a man at sixty years of
age is the same person he was at twenty years of age, so
when raised from the dead, even after an interval spent
in the grave of twenty centuries, he may say, and say
with truth, I am the same identical person — identical
both in body and mind — that I was when living in the
former state of existence ? We do not scruple to say,
just now, this is the same head which I carried on my
shoulders twenty years ago, these are the same eyes
with which I then saw, this is the same hand with which
I then laboured ; and yet it is a physiological fact that
there is not so much as a single atom in any of them
which was there twenty years ago. So wiU it be when
the resurrection is accomplished. We may not be able
then, any more than we are able now, to explain the
essence or physiological rationale of the process through
which our bodies have passed ; but, as a fact, it may be
plain and obvious to every consciousness. It is the duty
of limited creatures such as we are to receive and ac
knowledge truth when it comes to us under competent
authority ; and if we cannot explain difficulties, simply

THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. 95
to let them alone. We are very far from being perfect
in our intelligence. Modesty and true science ever go
together: dogmatism and obstinate self-sufficiency are
the attributes of the fool. The present is but the baby
hood of our existence, and we are not yet able to sit in
judgment on the grand mysteries of creation. Who has
a right to dogmatise on nature's laws — to affirm that he
fully understands them, or that he adequately compre
hends the meaning and drift of even the simplest pheno
mena occurring in the world around him ? May not
this death of the human body, and its resurrection in a
more perfect state, be only the exemplification of another
of the grand laws of the universe — a law on which, from
our inexperience and the undeveloped condition of our
faculties, we are as yet unable to speculate ? We see
that death is written on every animal and vegetable — yea,
also and even on every material — thing ; but we see life
existing too — intense vitality prevailing in every de
partment of nature ; and we may accordingly ask, in the
spirit of the wonderful speculation which existed in the
ancient Platonic school, May not this death and life be
connected together, and future phenomena be the Literal
resuscitation of the past ? We may look at and admire
a noble tree. There it stands on the grassy bank by
the river's side. It towers aloft in its majestic beauty,
its broad arms waving in every breeze, its foliage green
and exuberant. The wanderer with satisfaction reclines
under its shadow ; the schoolboy climbs and sports
amongst its branches. Now it is a splendid object ; the
vegetable creation cannot supply a grander or more

96 DISCOURSE V.
magnificent. But we know that when a century or two
have run their course, that tree will decay, will abso
lutely die, will pass away, and for centuries more be as
though it never existed at all. But do not the atoms
exist which went to constitute that tree when it bulked
before our view in all its goodliness and glory ? and will
any one venture to affirm that it is impossible, in the
nature of things, that those identical atoms may not, at
some period in the mighty future, come together again
and constitute once more not only a tree but the tree,
with all its ancient foliage, by that river's side ? Our
geological philosophers, in the days in which we live,
are singularly fond of speculating upon the boundless
flux of ages, and what may thereby be produced. Give
us, say they, millions of millions of centuries, and we
shall show you very wonderful results. Well, I ask
only the same liberty, and I produce, in consequence,
the literal resurrection of the tree. And if this be the -
case, who has a right to affirm that the principle at
least of man's bodily resurrection is not already exem
plified in the operations at this moment going on in the
natural world ?
But another of the petty questions which have been
asked in connection with this subject, and with a view
to disparage the doctrine itself, relates to the numerical
amount of the resurrections which must needs be accom
plished on the great day. Is not the number incalcul
able ? Will there be room in the world to hold them ?
Will there be so much as standing-ground for the vast
multitude when the day of doom arrives ? These ques
tions have been gravely asked, and I have no doubt that

THE APOSTLES ARGUMENT. 97
the vague notions which the answers sometimes given
to them have suggested, have led to the spiritualising
fancies to which I have already referred. But we may
get rid of a 'great deal of this vagueness by simply
affirming the principle of a progressive resurrection.
There is no Scripture text which, in my opinion, affirms
the literal simultaneousness of the resurrection of all the
dead. Men have been born, and they have lived and
died progressively: why not be raised again progres
sively too ? Independently of this, however, I may
ask, What are the grounds upon which it is affirmed
that the human race, since its creation, is so enor
mously great? If we take the Bible account of the
matter as correct, the human race has not been in
existence so much as 6000 years ; and it is a notori
ous fact that, at the present rate of mortality, a gener
ation lasts considerably more than twenty-five years.
Now scientific geographers tell us that the total pop
ulation of the globe, at the present moment, is some
where about a thousand millions of young and old. It
is obvious, therefore, that if this had been the number
of persons that died in every twenty-five years during
the last 6000 years, the total of persons that have ever
lived are two hundred and forty thousand millions. But
this estimate is plainly a great deal too great. The
germ of the human race in Paradise consisted of only
two persons, and it would be many centuries before they
could be numbered by millions. The probability is, that
at the Flood the number of all mankind did not exceed
the present population of the British Isles, and at that
period they were reduced again to eight persons — again
G

98' DISCOURSE v.
requiring many centuries before they reached the num
ber of millions. Making, therefore, necessary deduc
tions, and taking into consideration many of the histori
cal and geographical facts of ancient times, I consider
that we are giving a high estimate of the entire human
race, if we suppose that from Adam down to the 6000th
year of the world's history, the entire number of persons
that live or have lived does not exceed fifty thousand
millions — that is, fifty times the present population of
the globe. It is evident, therefore, that, on the simple
ground of arithmetical calculation, there is no room what
ever for dreading a want of space for the children of
men, at least so far as the history of the world has yet
proceeded, even supposing that bodily resurrection ex
tended to the whole of mankind. But the Bible theory
is palpably this : not all mankind, but only an election
according to grace shall be saved — that is, be raised to
share in the glories of the resurrection-day, and become
the blessed and immortal population of the happy world
of the hereafter. And who knows or can deny but that
the world shall be allowed to endure under present con
ditions only until the entire household of faith, the
people of God, the heirs of the future inheritance, the
predestined inhabitants of the kingdom of God, are born
and made meet for their eternal state, and not one mo
ment longer ?
But it is time to consider a little more closely what I
may call the apostle's evidence for the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body.
His first argument is that to which allusion has already
been made, and is derived from the resurrection of

THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. 99
Christ. " If the dead rise not, then is not Christ
raised." He evidently affirms that Christ's resurrection
and that of His people must stand or fall together. They
are facts both equally true, or both equally false : he
who denies or affirms the one must deny or affirm the
other. But Christians affirm the resurrection — the
bodily resurrection of Christ ; therefore, he concludes,
they are equally bound to believe the bodily resurrec
tion of all His people. This manner of reasoning is
universal in the common affairs of life. No man has,
or can have, personal knowledge of all the individuals
which compose vast classes of objects ; but from a few
instances, or even a single particular, he can draw in
ferences regarding whole classes. It may be that not a
single person present has seen the starry constellations
which encompass" the southern pole of the earth ; but
we are familiar with the stars in our own heavenly
canopy, and on competent testimony, we believe that
the stars on the other side of the globe shine, and just
as they do here. Few of us may have seen an Oriental
pearl, and still fewer a collection of such gems, but we
have no difficulty in believing when we see one, that
such also are the others, whether in the repositories of
the wealthy, or even within the shells of the pearl-pro
ducing animals living at this moment at the bottom
of the eastern seas. We hold in our hands a golden
sovereign coined in the royal mint, and from its obvious
appearance and properties we infer the facts of its
origin and value, and never question, or think of ques
tioning, the statement when made to us, that there are
millions of such coins stored up in the cellars of the

100 DISCOURSE V.
Bank of England. So, says the apostle, we ought to do :
and so will every mind do that is unwarped by pre
judice with respect to the doctrines of the resurrection.
The resurrection of Christ is not a solitary instance ; it
is one of a class. It never was intended to be solitary.
Nothing could have been more unnecessary or destitute
of meaning if it had been solitary. It is evident that,
if Christ has been raised from the dead — if that very
body of His which bled and died on Calvary has been
resuscitated, and exercises the functions of corporeal
existence — if His head, His hands, His feet, His flesh
and bones, are identical with what He possessed in His
natural lifetime — there can be no likeness or congruity
between Him and His people, unless, in these respects,
they are assimilated to Him. The stock must be like the
sample — the coins in the Treasury to those in circulation
— the stars hid, it may be, behind a cloud, similar to
that which shines brightly in the clear heavens. The
great hope which Christianity holds out to us is the hope
of the resurrection of the dead : Christ's resurrection is
declared to be the pledge and exemplification of it : and
if the former of these propositions be not a simple
matter of fact, the latter must also be a delusion. " If
there be no resurrection of the dead," it is folly to sup
pose that Christ is raised."
The apostle's second argument is taken from the in
trinsic character of the Gospel dispensation. " If Christ
be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your
sins." This is virtually declaring that the whole evi
dences of Christianity as a system of truth are evidences
also for the bodily resurrection of the followers of Christ.

THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. IOI
Our faith in the Gospel, our conscious apprehension of
the pardon of sin — in a word, the entire privileges of our
religious position, are essentially connected with the
doctrines before us. Christianity comes to us with the
claim of being received as a message from God. It tells
us many facts in the history of the past ; it announces
many truths regarding the being, attributes, and pro
vidential procedure of God ; it speaks of redemption
through a Saviour, the forgiveness of sins, the believer's
right to mental peace, the duty of obedience to the
divine law, the necessity of holiness, a judgment to
come. But as all these things come to us through the
channel of Jesus Christ, set forth as the great Teacher
sent from God, and appointed by Him to teach the
world, it is obvious that what affects His credibility as
a divine Teacher must necessarily affect the credibility of
the message which He has delivered. It is undeniably
true, that if Christ has not risen from the dead, any
doctrine or promise whatever which is made to us in
His name, is totally unworthy of credit. Those, there
fore, the apostle concludes, who deny the resurrection
of the body, and deny, by implication, the resurrection
of Christ Himself, do cast overboard and utterly repu
diate the entire Gospel. If Christ be not risen, He
must either never have died; or if died He has, He
must be still in the grave. The atonement for sins has
never yet been made — nay, rather, it may be regarded as
a proved impossible thing, seeing the Son of God — if Son
of God He be — attempted the task and utterly failed.
It is not a small matter, accordingly, to deny the resur
rection of the dead. It is virtually the denial of the

102 DISCOURSE V.
whole Gospel system, and the utter consignment of the
human race to darkness, hopelessness, despair. There
is no Saviour and no salvation, if so be that the dead
rise not. But, of course, all this is merely hypothetical.
In all reasoning, when the premises assumed are false,
the conclusions drawn from those premises must be
false also. If you assume the false proposition that two
and two make five, it will also be a false inference or
conclusion that twice two and two make ten. So is it
as regards other' things. The assumption that Christ is
not risen is false ; and the contrary, therefore, of all the
other assumptions must be true. Christians are not in
their sins, for Christ has died for them ; their faith is
not vain, but resting on the sure foundation ; Christ has
risen from the dead, and all His people have virtually
risen with Him. The resurrection of the dead is accord
ingly one of the surest facts brought under our notice in
the Gospel dispensation. To its truth and reality that
entire dispensation is a perpetual witness, and with the
same confidence with which we acknowledge the divine
mission of the Eedeemer, and the preciousness of all
Gospel teachings, must we value and believe in the
resurrection of the dead.
The third argument of the apostle is derived from the
condition of departed saints. If there be no resurrection
of the dead, " they also which are fallen asleep in Christ
are perished" — that is to say, are destroyed, annihilated,
and non-existent. The very object of the Gospel, as if
he had said, is to save men from destruction ; but that
object is defeated unless they rise from the dead. This
is a very remarkable argument — an argument remark-

THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. 1 03
able on various accounts. It is a very common idea that
the separated spirits of departed saints are in a state of
perfect bliss — of bliss so perfect that no addition can be
made to it ; and accordingly devotional literature is
full of expressions of high-toned enthusiasm upon this
subject, going, indeed, so far as to represent the joys of
this spiritual world as the very end and acme of our
Christian hopes. But this is not justified by the
apostle's language here — the condition of departed
saints being represented by him as that of destruction
when viewed apart from the doctrine of the resurrection
of the body. And we will find the same language else
where in Scripture. They are represented as resting, as
sleeping, as reposing, as being comforted or refreshed —
all words, indeed, expressive of existence and of blissful
enjoyment, but very far from amounting to the ideal
of perfection. Even the Book of the Eevelation — that
singularly grand and glorious manifestation of things
pertaining to the spirit-world — teaches us always to look
forwards into the future : the souls of martyred saints
beneath the altar exclaiming, " How long, 0 Lord, holy
and true;" and even the crowned elders before the
throne, anticipating the time when they, restored to
corporeity, shall " reign upon the earth." Whatever,
accordingly, be the blessedness of separated spirits, it is
evident that the apostle here regards it as falling very
far short of that salvation which he and his fellow-
evangelists were in the habit of preaching. In order
that departed saints might become perfect, they must
come in the body out of their graves : and not till then
would perfect bliss be realised. His argument, then, is

104 DISCOURSE V.
to this effect, that Christians who believe that departed
saints have died in a state of salvation are bound by
that very fact to anticipate their restoration to bodily
functions. In the spirit -world they are not perfect.
One thing is evident, they are deprived of all bodily
powers, and of all the blessedness and joy which cor
poreity can bestow ; and why should we esteem this as
of little consequence ? What intercourse one separated
spirit can carry on with another must necessarily be by
spiritual means — that is, apparently, by thought, and
just as we who are in the body commune in prayer with
God. How different from seeing face to face and being
seen ! Have our departed friends gone into a region,
whither indeed we may follow them, but where the ut
termost we can expect is to commune with them in
thought, somewhat, indeed, as we can do at present in
our secret chamber, or in the dreams of the night, only
perhaps somewhat more clearly and undistractedly ? Is
this all we are to hope for ? Is a purely mental Para
dise sufficient to satisfy us ? Surely, then, we may say,
Farewell to our friends for ever ! So far as we are con
cerned, they are perished. Never shall we see them
more. We may think of them, we may dwell on the
memories of the past with affection unutterable ; but
reunion, in the only sense which human beings, con
stituted as we are, can comprehend, is an utter impos
sibility. They have fallen asleep, and from that sleep
there is no awakening : their bodies have perished, and
with that destruction has perished the very possibility
of restored communion. But this cannot be. Chris
tianity would be a mockery if it were so. The dead,

THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. 1 05
then, must rise again. They that have fallen asleep in
Jesus shall God bring back again with Him.
You will notice the apostle's evidence in these verses
is of an inferential kind — that is, drawn from the fact
of Christ's resurrection, and those other facts and prin
ciples which, as Christians, we are bound to acknow
ledge. His principle is this : you may as well deny
Christianity altogether as deny the resurrection of the
body. But if we receive the Bible as a record of truth,
and the recorded utterances of Jesus Christ as oracles
from heaven, we arrive at precisely the same conclusion.
Manifold statements are contained in the Old Testament
Scriptures which point in that direction. The transla
tions of Enoch and Elijah were evidently a pledge to the
ancient Church of the immortality of the body, seeing
that, without dying, they passed into the glorified state.
Not a few passages in the writings of the prophets and
of the Psalms positively mention a resurrection. " Thou
wilt not leave my soul in hell " — that is, the grave —
was the language of the Psalmist ; and again, " I shaU
be satisfied when I awake" — that is, from the slumber of
the grave — " with thy likeness." Job seems to point
to a resurrection when, declaring the dissolution of his
body by natural death, he professes his faith, notwith
standing, that in " his flesh he will see God ; " Ezekiel's
vision of the dry bones points to a similar conclusion ;
and Isaiah appears absolutely to affirm it when he uses
the remarkable words, — " Thy dead men shall live, to
gether with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and
sing, ye that dwell in dust; for your dew is as the dew
of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth her dead." But

106 DISCOURSE V.
all uncertainty is removed by the words used by our
blessed Lord during his public ministry. Not only did
He exemplify His power to raise from the dead by a
word, in the case of the ruler's daughter, the widow of
Nain's son, and his friend Lazarus ; not only are such
facts to be taken as illustrations of what the resurrec
tion of the dead literally means, but we have numerous
utterances dogmatically teaching the same momentous
doctrine. " I am the resurrection, and the life : he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live :"
and again, " Marvel not at this, for the hour cometh
when all who are. in their graves shall hear the voice of
the Son of Man, and shaU come forth." What believer,
then, in Scripture can be in doubt concerning either the
fact of the resurrection or the true definition and signi-?
ficancy of that term ? From the very beginning of the
world, when death first entered it, and throughout all
the ages of the past, the faith of God's people cherished
the idea of deliverance and restoration ; and with this
their great hope the conception of a resurrection of the
dead was ever mingled.
Let us receive then, my friends, as a matter of ac
tual and undoubted fact, the doctrine of the resurrec
tion of the body. It is entwined with all those truths
and principles which, as Christians, we are bound to
value. Salvation is unmeaning without it ; and if it
comes not to pass, it must be because the testimony of
apostles and apostolic men to the resurrection of Christ
is utterly false, and the glorious Author of Christianity
has died like other people, and must needs be still in
the grave. But how hopeful is our condition — how

THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. 107
blessed are our prospects — if a resurrection - day be
literally approaching ! It is not only a grand truth in
itself, but it necessarily involves in it the certainty of a
thousand other truths besides, and sheds a flood of light
on the future destinies of the human race. A resurrec
tion implies the restoration of the body in its integrity,
and in possession of all its functions and powers. Its
eyes will then see, and no dimness will ever impair
vision ; its ears will hear, and no dulness affect the
acuteness of that important organ ; the hands will
handle, the feet walk, the lungs breathe the atmosphere
of the glorified earth, into which suffering, disease, and
death shall enter no more. Whatever injuries the body
may have sustained in this world will then be repaired,
whatever defects it has laboured under will then be
supplied. New powers may be added, of which at
present we know nothing ; but the very idea of a re
surrection implies that, mainly and especially, there
will be a restoration and reconstruction of our ancient
bodily frame. Does not this very idea put to flight the
thousand foolish fancies which to this hour occupy the
minds of, I fear, the generality of devout Christians, who
cannot, for the life of them, banish from their minds
the notion that the bliss of heaven consists in sitting
amongst clouds, singing interminable songs of praise,
and flying about in an atmosphere of rapture belonging
to some vague dreamy region, millions of miles away
from this world, and in which their bodies, having in
some extraordinary way lost all material properties,
are thin, airy, and what they are pleased to call spirit
ual ? Are we not aware that the materials for a resur-

108 DISCOURSE V.
rection, and for the corporeal life of millions, are lying
at this moment on the surface of every part of the
earth, and at the bottom of every sea ? Who does not
perceive that when the life-bestowing word of God shall
issue forth from heaven, it must necessarily take effect
in those very places where these materials are lying ; and
that the necessary result of such a resurrection will be
the reconstruction of society on a nobler basis than the
heart of man has ever yet conceived of ? What ingre
dient fitted to secure the happiness of human beings,
made as we are, will then be wanting ? This goodly
world filled in every quarter — not, as at present, with
the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked,
the wheat and the tares, indiscriminately, but tenanted
by the best specimens of humanity gathered from all
nations and times — will surely be a spectacle over which
the very angels of God may expatiate with satisfaction,
and sing for joy. The meek will then inherit the earth ;
it will be a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness.
Surely a portion in such blessedness is well worth the
seeking after ! Surely we may be content to suffer and
labour a little beforehand, if this is to be the consum
mation ! Surely, if through faith in Jesus Christ we
have already become the children of God, we may long
for the coming glory, saying, as our Lord has taught us
to do, " Thy kingdom come ; Thy will be done in earth
as it is done in heaven."

DISCOURSE VI.
THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE, AND RESURRECTION
AS ITS PRELIMINARY.
1 Cor. xv. 19-21 — " If in this life only we have hope in Christ," &c.

Authorised Version.
" If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we are of all men
most miserable. But now is Christ
risen from the dead, and become
the first-fruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, by
man came also the resurrection
of the dead."
New Translation.
If only in this life we are hopcrs
in Christ, we are more pitiable
than all men. But now Christ
has been raised from the dead, the
first-fruits of the sleepers there.
For since by man has been death,
also by man there is a resurrection
of the dead.

Paraphrase.
If it is only in Christ that in
the present life we can cherish
hope, and if it be a fact that Christ
has not risen from the dead, it
may well be said that of all men
we are in a very pitiable condi
tion; for Christianity does not
free us from worldly troubles, but
rather increases them, and beyond
the present there is no hereafter.
But it is now our privilege to
know that Christ has been actually
raised from the dead, and that He
is the first-fruits of those who are
sleeping in the grave. For here
we have one of the great provi
dential arrangements of God — a
man brought death into the world,
a man also brings in the resurrec
tion of the dead.

In the preceding verses of this chapter, and as in former
discourses I have sufficiently shown, the great hope of

1 10 DISCOURSE VI.
the Christian is associated with the resurrection of the
body. Again and again, with emphatic earnestness
and much variety of expression, the apostle Paul an
nounces that fact, constituting the denial of it a denial
of the Gospel altogether. The verses now read are a
continuation of the same theme, but presenting it in a
somewhat different point of view. The first verse
raises the question, Why do I become a Christian at
all ? and suggests that that question, or something
analogous to it, must have been present to the mind of
the apostle himself. The profession of the Christian
faith — the uniting of ourselves to the spiritual body of
Christ — must needs be a voluntary act; and, like all
other spontaneous acts on the part of reasonable crea
tures, must take place in virtue of the operation of a
motive sufficient to explain it. Now the- apostle here
affirms that the only sufficient reason why he, or any
other of his fellow-believers, had adopted the Christian
name, was the hopes they were thereby authorised to
entertain of another life than the present. He and they
might die ; but, like their divine Master, they would
rise again from the dead. There was a present life, but
that was altogether unsatisfactory. It was so unsatis
factory that, apart from the hopes which a Christian is
entitled to entertain in the great hereafter, Christians
were of all men most miserable. The reason or motive
for becoming a follower of Jesus Christ must be sought
for either in the advantages realised in the present life,
or in those of a life to come. But what advantages did
the apostle or his fellow-Christians possess in conse
quence of their Christianity ? That Christian profession

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. Ill
of theirs entailed upon them no worldly advantages
whatever. On the contrary, it brought upon them trials
and afflictions manifold. Their life was a perpetual
misery : hunger, and thirst, and weariness ; persecu
tions, hatred, and the world's contempt ; scourgings and
imprisonments; perils by land and sea. A career of
this sort, terminating in the martyr's bloody death, did
surely present to the eye of any reasonable man a
spectacle the very reverse of desirable or advantageous.
There must be, therefore, a life to come. Without this
the religion of the apostolic martyrs and confessors was
altogether unintelligible. The thing is implied in their
Christian profession. " If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable."
But the next two verses connect these hopes of a life
to come with the idea of a resurrection. Christ himself
is there described not only as "risen from the dead,"
but, in that capacity, as having " become the first-fruits
of them that slept." All mankind, in short, are repre
sented in the embrace of death. Dead or dying is a
character applicable to them all. But out from amongst
that mass of sleepers in the tomb one Personage has
come already in a representative capacity — the first-
fruits of a general restoration. As when one plucks an
ear of corn out of a field not yet ripe for the sickle, or a
fruit from a tree where hundreds of similar fruits are
obviously coming forwards to the same maturity, we
argue from such a specimen what the general harvest
or ingathering is destined to be; so does the apostle
intimate, we may infer, regarding the general resurrec
tion from the single instance of Jesus Christ. He rose

112 DISCOURSE VI.
from the sleep of death ; so will believers. He reas-
sumed all the functions of humanity — hands handling,
feet walking, eyes beholding, ears hearing, tongue
speaking, teeth masticating food — every organ and
function precisely and identically the same as before ;
so will it be with those whom He represented. He re
entered upon vital existence — it may be in a higher
phase, and with the super-addition of functions not com
petent for Him in His previous state, but still of exist
ence in which He associated and sympathised with
others ; and so, when the resurrection is effected, will it
be with all of whom He is the representative and fore
runner. And still more distinctly is this intimated by
the last of the verses before us. By man came death,
and so by man must also come the resurrection of the
dead — that is to say, as our first parents were identi
cally the same in bodily structure and constitution be
fore the Fall, when they lived in immortal bodies, and
after the Fall, when they had lost this immortality, so
Christ and His people, living for a season in a state of
mortality or liability to death, will pass thence into the
immortal state again. It is life and social existence in
both cases. The first man sinned, and thereby intro
duced a life of misery and ruin ; the second man, by
His intercessory work, has introduced another Life of
salvation and eternal blessedness.
It strikes me, my friends, that at this part of my
exposition of the chapter before us, and most appropri
ately as the development of the doctrine contained in my
present text, I may attempt something in the shape of a
condensed description or summary of my ideas regard-

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 1 13
ing the theory of a future life. As the resurrection of
the dead is the preliminary of this, and as the whole of
the apostle's statements and reasonings in the remainder
of the chapter are more or less connected with it, such
a brief summary may very fitly prepare our minds for
the discussions which are to follow. I have, indeed,
explained my views on this subject at considerable
length in my book on the World to Come — a work
which I daresay is in the hands of some of you, and
which contains statements and views from which I
have seen no reason to depart even in the smallest de
gree, although it was published many years ago. What
I shall aim at now is a brief epitome of these views,
with the understanding that they will be brought to
bear on the illustration of the doctrine contained in
the chapter before us relative to the resurrection from
the dead.
My theory, then, of a future life — that is, a life after
the resurrection — utterly repudiates two ideas which
mingle in the conceptions of many upon this subject.
I utterly reject the notion that the future world is
purely spiritual — that is to say, a state of dreamy sub
sistence, wherein human beings are divested of material
properties, and have nothing else to do, throughout
eternity, but to muse, and cherish rapturous emotions of
love, piety, and praise. I also utterly reject the idea
that, when the resurrection comes, the mighty multitude
of the redeemed are to be gathered together, and then to
set out on some magnificent procession towards a locality
imagined to exist in the far-distant realms of space, and
which parties designate by the name of the heavenly
H

114 DISCOURSE VI.
world. I do not see in Scripture — and deeply have I
examined its statements on this very subject — and still
less in the deductions of reason and the reports of
science, the most infinitesimal grounds upon which to
rest either of these suppositions. But both Scripture
and reason, according to the best of my judgment, point
to a very different conclusion. Heaven will be set up
on earth. Alterations may be wrought in its physical
structure hj the convulsions of the day of doom — changes
which may give it a very different aspect, in many re
spects, from what it wrears at present, and which may
qualify it for being brought thereafter into a state of
beauty, grandeur, fertility, and perfection of every sort,
of which, in the present life, we have no conception.
But, substantially, the globe will then be what it is at
present. The great thing will be this : heaven will be
revealed upon its surface, and amongst the millions of
its then glorified inhabitants. Like Christ Himself on
Mount Tabor, it will be the same subject, only trans
figured — glorified. In short, the plan of redemption is
a remedial dispensation. When God Almighty, as re
corded in the 3d chapter of Genesis, undertook the cure
of the human race, fallen into sin and its punishment,
death, He never intended, as the consummation of that
cure, to annihilate the bodies of mankind or the material
world in which they dwelt : a strange way of curing a
patient, indeed, not only to kill him, but absolutely to
annihilate him, the house in which he dwelt, and all his
belongings together ; — but what He intended to do was,
to annihilate the sin and misery and death which had

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 1 15
entered the world, and restore man to that condition in
which he would have been had sin never entered the
world at all. For my part, I cannot read the history
of creation set before us in the Word of God — when to
Adam and Eve, amid the beauties of Paradise, the com
mission was given to people, replenish, and subdue the
earth — without comingtothe conclusion that the primeval
design of the world was this : that by Adam and Eve's
posterity, and that through the developments of ordinary
generation, the world in which we are living should be
peopled and possessed in all its borders. This world,
filled from pole to pole, and throughout aLL its continents,
by the children of Adam — holy, happy, and immortal —
was obviously the end contemplated in the original
commandment given to our first parents in Paradise.
Are we to suppose for a moment that because sin and
death have entered the world, the primeval design of
creation has been abandoned ? Is it not a supposition
so intrinsically likely, that it carries a large amount of
self-evidencing power along with it, that what original
creation did not do, by redemption shall be effected —
that is to say, when a few more years have passed, and
when the mystery of God in the preaching of the Gos
pel is ended, we shall see the world, throughout all its
borders, peopled and possessed by the spiritual children
of Jesus Christ, the second Adam — holy, happy, and
immortal ?
This is the fundamental idea of my theory of a future
life. I look for heaven upon earth, and nowhere else.
I look for the extinction of sin, sorrow, suffering, and

Il6 DISCOURSE VI.
death ; and when that is accomplished, as accomplished
I believe it will be in this very world of ours and in the
course of time, we shall then have before our very eyes
the concrete embodiment of all referred to in Scripture
under the words heaven, world to come, kingdom of
God, and so on ; and understand more perfectly what
we have all along been praying for in the words, " Thy
kingdom come ; Thy will be done in earth as it is in
heaven." I have no quarrel whatever with the mate
rialism of this globe, or with the material structure of
this body of mine in which it has pleased the Almighty
Creator to clothe my thinking, sensitive, immortal
spirit ; nor do I find in Scripture or in reason the very
smallest atom of ground upon which to rest any such
quarrel. On the contrary, Scripture describes the hu
man body and the very world itself as God's master
pieces of creative power and wisdom — so startlingly
beautiful that, when first they emerged upon the stage
of existence, " the morning stars sang together, and all
the sons of God shouted for joy." I cannot, for my part,
conceive why good and rational people should have
ever yielded to the imagination that the possession of a
material body is either something intrinsically sinful,
or, at any rate, a mark of imperfection and debasement.
For aught I know, there may be people who suppose
that they have attained to the very acme of celestial
bliss when their bodies are attenuated to the consist
ency of watery vapour or of airy gas, and that it is the
very consummation of eternal glory to sit upon a cloud
and sing hallelujahs for ever and ever ; but, for my
part, I am free to declare that such things would be no

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 1 17
heaven to me. I cannot for the life of me understand
wherein lies the perfection of God's saints in a future
world, fluttering about infinite space like golden-winged
insects in a mighty void ; and still less, how their joys
should be enhanced by their walking, not by streams
of bright sparkling waters such as we have in this
lovely world of ours, but, as some love to say, by rivers
filled to overflow with a torrent, here of milk, and there
of honey. Give me, I say, the world which we now
have, and aU its picturesque and familiar scenery — only
improved and brought by God into a perfect and para
disiacal state ; restore to me this body, should I die,
and by this restoration, or the changes to be effected
when the Saviour reappears, make it like Christ's glo
rious body — liable no more to infirmity, sickness, acci
dent, death — and methinks I could find heaven far
nearer at hand than in the dog-star, or any fairy and
fantastic elysium supposed to exist above the skies.
Banish all wicked people out of the earth, — let none be
suffered to inhabit its islands and continents but per
sons spiritualised, loving, righteous, and holy — in one
word, the justified and sanctified people of God, happy
and immortal, — and I really do not know what higher
heaven we could wish, or what ingredient of heavenly
bliss would be awanting ; and this, substantially, is my
fundamental idea of the world of the hereafter. I enter
not at present upon many questions which might easily
be raised — questions relative to those mighty convulsions
which will usher in the day of God, the actual and con
crete particulars which go to constitute the last judg
ment — the means by which the great separation shall

Il8 DISCOURSE VI.
be effected of the wicked from amongst the righteous,
and the literal significancy of that doom which will over
take the reprobate. With these points I have at present
nothing to do. My speculation relates to the life of
the hereafter. Conceive the resurrection past and over ;
the judgment of the quick and the dead, to its last par
ticular, accomplished ; and all the grand preliminaries
gone through which are destined to herald the age of
perfect bliss ; the question is, Can we ascertain any
particulars, either by legitimate inference from Scrip
ture doctrines, or accurate quotation of Scripture texts,
which are fitted to give us a definite and satisfac
tory conception of the nature of social existence in
that world to come ? Our knowledge on such a topic
may be very imperfect, but, so far as it goes, that know
ledge ought to be interesting and acceptable ; and it
appears to me that there are several particulars which
we may affirm with considerable confidence.
1. The first of these is what, indeed, I have already
affirmed, — the earth restored to its paradisiacal state.
The first and second chapters of Genesis describe the
orderly and miraculous way in which God Almighty
created the world, and established in it the elements of
human society in the persons of our first parents. Eden,
a limited portion of the earth's surface, was beautified and
rendered inconceivably lovely by the hand of God Him
self ; and whilst it was the privilege of our first parents
to inhabit that Eden and rejoice in all its physical de
lights, it was also their mission to " people and replen
ish" the whole of the rest of the world — in fact, convert
the entire surface of the earth into a mighty paradise,

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 119
filled with their happy and immortal descendants. The
third chapter tells us how this plan was interfered with
by the machinations of Satan and the introduction of
evil ; but intimates, at the same time, the coming of
deliverance, and of a Deliverer to be manifested in due
time. Surely if this implies anything at all it is this,
that when the deliverance is effected, the primitive plan
of creation is carried out, and the whole world is revealed
as a paradise. Accordingly, if we look to the last
chapters of the Book of the Eevelation — that remarkable
winding up and peroration of the volume of prophecy —
we shall find a description highly figurative and sym
bolical indeed, but, as it appears to me, perfectly in
telligible, which can have no other significancy but this
fulfilment of the primeval promise. The whole events
of that apocalyptic prophecy take place upon earth :
and as the end, there is what is called a " first resurrec
tion" — the " dead, small and great, standing before God"
— the " sea giving up the dead which were in it ;" and
whilst it is said that there is " a new heaven and a new
earth," with " the holy city, the new Jerusalem," in the
latter, the voice out of heaven exclaims : " Behold, the
tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with
them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself
shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be
no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall
there be any more pain : for the former things are passed
away." Thus, as it appears to me, the end of the world
is the renewal of the earth, or its restoration to the
paradisiacal state.

120 DISCOURSE VI.
2. A second element in the life of the hereafter is the
complete and eternal removal from society of all wicked
and unholy persons. This is so often asserted in Scrip
ture that it is almost unnecessary to dwell upon it. We
have nothing to do just now with questions relative
to the final destroying of the ungodly ones ; but there
surely need not be any hesitation in admitting that the
thing done at the judgment-day is the casting out, and
carrying to their own place, of the entire company of
the reprobate who, in all ages, have been infesting the
earth with violence, mischief, and depravity of all kinds.
Thus the Psalmist affirms that the " wicked shall be
turned into hell, and all the nations which forget God : "
the apostle speaks of the day of judgment being " the
day of the perdition of ungodly men." Our blessed Lord,
in the parable of the tares, not only speaks of the tares
and the wheat growing together until the harvest, but,
in explanation of it, positively affirms that " the Son of
Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather
out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them
which do iniquity." And the Book of the Eevelation, in
its last chapter, and after the glowing description of the
righteous in the New Jerusalem, tells us that " without"
— that is, in some other receptacle provided for them, —
"without are dogs" — that is, violent and quarrelsome
persons — " and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and mur
derers, and idolaters; and whosoever loveth and maketh
a lie." Society, then, in the life of the hereafter, will
be very different from what it has been ever since the
Fall ; it will not contain a single ungodly, unkindly, un
holy person. Of course this is tantamount to the affir-

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 121
mation that the entire population of the world to come,
whether these shall be amongst the number of those
"changed" at Christ's coming, or those who are "raised
from the dead," will be all holy, loving, and pure.
3. The third element in the life of the hereafter is the
rule or government then to be exercised by Christ and
His saints. It is one of the ultimate facts of human
nature — a principle inherent in the very essence of
humanity and of all social existence — that rule and
government shall be set up amongst men. The thing
is indispensable. We cannot do without it. At the
present moment we may see in the world kings and
supreme rulers, as well as the subjects ruled over by
them, and this authority descends through a whole host
of subordinate functionaries, down to the humblest
justice of the peace, or even the obscurest police con
stable, and has, in consequence, its ramifications spread
over all society. Now, when raised from the dead, and
confederated anew over all the redeemed and glorified
earth into nations of blessed and happy human beings,
rule and government will still be required. There will
still be, and there will still need to be, the two classes
of the rulers and the ruled over ; indeed, whatever sub
ordinate rule some will hold, all will be subjects, save
Him who is " King of kings, and Lord of lords." If
you look narrowly into the utterances of New Testa
ment inspiration, you will find two classes spoken of —
. the " saints" and the " saved" — the former being more
limited in numbers, the latter described as amounting
to " nations." Does not this convey the idea of ruler
and subject, especially when we hear of such expressions

122 DISCOURSE VI.
as these : " Sitting on twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel ; " " Know ye not that we shall judge
angels ? " Thou " hast made us unto our God kings and
priests ; and we shall reign on the earth " ? And is it
not a fact, so plain that any child may perceive it, that
amongst the professed followers of Jesus Christ in this
world, and wherever followers of Jesus Christ are to be
met with, there are two broadly defined classes. There
is the great body of nominal Christians, who content
themselves with little more than a profession — sincere
enough in their way, and really entitled to the name of
believers, because in Jesus Christ they do believe. But
there are others who go far beyond this, and who, in
addition to all the faith and holiness which characterise
the former, and, indeed, far higher attainments in these
perfections, are distinguished by ten thousand labours,
sacrifices, and sufferings in the cause of God, of Christ,
and of philanthropy. Is there not here a palpable
preparation for an ultimate display of the distinction
betwixt the " saved " and the " saints," the " ruled
over" and the " rulers," in the kingdom of God ? Be
this, however, as it may, the government of the kingdom
of God will be the very perfection of government ; and
no wonder, for incarnate Deity Himself will preside over
all. Long has the earth languished under a rule that
is selfish and unspiritual — folly, partiality, and passion
have, in myriads of instances, filled the seat of judgment
and authority — often have the nations groaned under
the rod of the oppressor. But when He comes whose
right it is to take the kingdom and be Lord of all, and
when He sends forth His saints to be noble princes in all

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 1 23
the earth, the very perfection of blessedness will be real
ised and everywhere. Is not this the object of the pe
tition in the Lord's prayer, where it is said, " Thy king
dom come" ? Is it not this which our Shorter Catechism
teaches us to expect when it bids us desire " that the
kingdom of glory may be hastened" ?
4. But a fourth element in the life of the hereafter
will be found in the universal ascendancy of truth, right
eousness, holiness, and love. It is the very object of the
teachings of Christianity to convert men — that is, to put
into men's hearts a true and earnest love to God ; and,
after conversion, to train them in every department of
faith and holiness. When once we are justified by the
act of faith in God our Saviour, the work of sanctifi-
cation begins to make progress in our souls. But it
is evident that death overtakes the Christian at various
stages of his spiritual career, and it must be that that
stage which ends the present life becomes the starting-
point in the life of the world to come. Conceive, now,
the resurrection effected, and the whole world filled in
all its borders by the nations of the redeemed, the indi
viduals composing them being necessarily, although all
holy, in different stages of moral and spiritual develop
ment ; and conceive, also, that from the very constitu
tion of man's nature, he is progressive as to his know
ledge and moral perfections ; — conceive all this, and
what a grand and glorious prospect is opened up
before us ! All the nations of the earth knowing
something of God and of the universe to begin with,
but, from the infinite diversities both of capacity and
attainment, in very different degrees; nothing less

124 DISCOURSE VI.
than the ages of eternity wherein to speculate, think,
and make advances, bewildering the very soul with
the idea of the giddy heights of knowledge attain
able then by some ! All the individuals of the human
race loving God and loving one another, but being
diverse in character and in spiritual development,
manifesting these emotions in ten thousand different
ways — benefiting, blessing one another, and enhanc
ing the happiness of all ! Even the physical pursuits
of mankind, being then prosecuted without exhausting
toil, will in themselves be a pleasure, and the means of
still further enhancing the pleasure and enjoyment of
the whole community. In short, the end of the Gospel
is attained ; society appears in its state of perfection ; the
" will of God is done on earth," as, by the blessed angels,
it has ever " been done in heaven."
5. The fifth element in the Life of the hereafter will
be found in the fact of every individual occupying, re
latively to his fellows, that place precisely for which,
by his natural constitution, he is specially fitted. The
disorders and discontents, the unhappiness and even
miseries experienced in this world, are in no small de
gree owing to malarrangement and maladjustment in
this respect. Things are often ordered in a strange and
mysterious way. Some occupy stations far too high
and influential for their limited capacities ; others, from
their mental and moral character, qualified to deal with
concerns of the very highest sort, are cramped and con
fined by the circumstances of their worldly lot : some
there are belonging to the very lowest grades of society
who, from generosity of spirit and inborn dignity, both

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 125
of feeling and demeanour, have been well denominated
" nature's own noblemen ; " and others, born or thrust
into a high position, prove themselves in the long-run
to be persons of very small capacity — contracted, sus
picious, ignoble. All such anomalies will be put an
end to in the kingdom of God. Poverty will not then
cramp or dishearten the noble-minded ; the churl, no
longer called "generous," will sink to his appropriate
level. Many people in this world are, by the events of
providence or the circumstances of their lot, driven into
situations, alliances, relationships, which are productive
to them only of unhappiness — a sore, and it may be a
long, trial of their faith and temper. But death ends all
this — dissolves every relationship — relieves from every
burden ; and at the day of judgment all the sons and
daughters of God will obtain a new patent or deed of
investiture from the hands of the Supreme Sovereign of
the universe, entitling them to claim and to hold that
position in the reconstructed society of the hereafter for
which they are fitted, and in which for them, there will
be the largest amount of distinction, honour, and hap
piness. Surely when every individual fills the place
for which he is fitted, and in which alone he can be
perfectly happy, heaven will be revealed to him : surely
when this is done over the entire domain of the hu
man species, the heavenly world itself must needs be
revealed. Such, then, in a variety of particulars, is a view or
sketch of my ideas regarding the life of the hereafter.
Of course I have not, or only in very small measure,
supplied the evidence of my theory — to do so not being

126 DISCOURSE VI.
my object at present. But I may ask any thinking
man who knows what human nature is, and what must
necessarily be the principles upon which social happiness
depends, whether such ideas do not carry with them a
large amount of evidence derived from their own in
trinsic probability ? Of what materials can man's future
happiness consist, if it be not of such ingredients ? And,
as to Scripture, I shall do no more at present than quote
a few passages bearing upon the final destiny of the
earth and the completed hopes of the Church, asking
you merely, and without any comment at all, how they
are to be interpreted, if not in consistency with the
above-mentioned particulars. Hear the prophet Isaiah :
" It shall come to pass in the last days, that the moun
tain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top
of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ;
and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people
shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob:
and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in
His paths : for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall
judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people:
and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and
their spears into pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift
up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war
any more. 0 house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk
in the light of the Lord." Hear the prophet Micah
repeating these very words, with this addition : " But
they shall sit every man under his vine and under his
fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 1 27
mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it." Hear
Isaiah again proclaiming: "The wilderness and the
solitary place shall be glad for them ; and the desert
shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. Then the eyes
of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf
shall be unstopped : then shall the lame man leap as
an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. And the
ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion
with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads : they
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing
shall flee away." Hear him yet again proclaiming :
" Then the moon shall be confounded and the sun
ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount
Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients glori
ously." " The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and
kings to the brightness of thy rising." " Thy sun shall
no more go down ; neither shall thy moon withdraw
itself : for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and
the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people
also shall be all righteous ; they shall inherit the land
for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my
hands, that I may be glorified." And yet again : " Be
hold I create new heavens and a new earth ; and the
former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I
create ; for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and
her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and
joy in my people : and the voice of weeping shall be
no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. And
they shall build houses, and inhabit them ; and they
shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They

128 DISCOURSE VI.
shall not build and another inhabit ; they shall not
plant and another eat : for as the days of a tree are the
days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the
work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain,
nor bring forth for trouble ; for they are the seed of the
blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And
it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will an
swer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the Lion
shall eat straw like the bullock : and dust shall be the
serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all
my holy mountain, saith the Lord." " For the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea." Hear, again, the words of
Daniel : " In the days of these kings " — that is to say,
during the reign of certain sovereigns of this world
mentioned in the preceding prophecy — " in the days
of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom
which shall never be destroyed : and the kingdom shall
not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces
and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for
ever." " And the kingdom, and dominion, and the
greatness of the kingdom under the whole, heaven, shall
be given to the people of the saints of the Most High,
whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all do
minions shall serve and obey Him." " Many of them
that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to
everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting con
tempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the bright
ness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to
righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." " Blessed

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 1 29
is he that waiteth." " Go thou thy way till the end be :
for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of
the days." Hear the Book of Psalms : " I will declare
the decree : the Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My
Son ; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and
I shall give the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession." " Our
God shall come and shall not keep silence : a fire shall
devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous
round about Him. He shall call to the heavens from
above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people.
Gather My saints together unto Me ; those that have
made a covenant with Me by sacrifice. And the hea
vens shall declare His righteousness : for God is judge
Himself." " In His days shall the righteous flourish ;
and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from
the river unto the ends of the earth. His name shall
endure for ever : His name shall be continued as long
as the sun : and men shall be blessed in Him : all na
tions shall call Him blessed." " Arise, 0 God, judge
the earth : for Thou shalt inherit all nations." " Let
the field be joyful, and all that is therein : then shall all
the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord : for He
cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth : He shall
judge the world with righteousness, and the people with
His truth."
All these are surely passages bearing upon the final
hopes of the Church and the consummation of all things.
If they be not, it is vain to search in all God's Word for
one single glimmer of light on the important subject of
1

130 DISCOURSE VI.
our eternal hopes. But if they do describe the kingdom
of God, then, it appears to me, the right definition of the
heavenly state is sufficiently obvious. Cast out from
the world which now is all its wickedness : abolish the
law of death ; and let misery, infirmity, and pain be
unknown: let God and His heavenly government be
revealed, not to the faith merely, but, so to speak, to
the very sight and living apprehension of His people :
. let His love and glory be made known to them, and
let them feel that danger, death, and evil are things
to be dreaded no more : let the laws of nature then
operate, in all respects, just as we see they are now
doing — save, of course, as our Lord Himself distinctly
affirms, that there is no more marrying and giving in
marriage, and no more additions made to the species —
the inhabitants of the world being, and destined to be,
for ever and ever, a fixed numerical quantity : let sun
and moon shine just as they do now ; the winds blow ;
the sea roar; the seasons change : and what more would
you reasonably desire to secure the largest amount of
blessedness competent for that nature you possess ?
Surely this hypothesis has reason to justify it. Surely
the ordinary notions of the heavenly state, with all their
pretentious spirituality, are in comparison no better than
dreams and fantasticalities. Having such a conception
before him of the real and substantial blessedness
of a life to come, our apostle might well disregard the
humiliation, troubles, and persecutions to which for a
while he was subjected. Knowing what was to come,
he was willing to give up all expectations of joy and
contentment in the present world — nay, submit, in his

THE THEORY OF A FUTURE LIFE. 131
own name, and in the name of his brethren, to be " of
all men most miserable." But he saw that Jesus Christ,
his Lord and Master, after for a while being persecuted,
had actually risen from the dead, and, in the body,
trod the earth again and mingled with men ; and Jesus
was only " the first-fruits of them who were now sleep
ing " in the dust. He saw, moreover, that into this world
man had brought death ; but death was to be destroyed :
and into this world, also, the God-man was destined to
bring a " resurrection of the dead." That is to say,
millions upon millions of people would be raised from
their graves over all the world, and in those very places
where their bodies had been lying, would, like their
divine Lord, manifest again the powers of human life,
speech, locomotion, and social intercourse. What is
this but the restoration of the integrity of man's nature
and primeval destiny — the commencement of that new
life of social blessedness for which he was fitted, and of
which by the persecutions of the ungodly he had been
defrauded ?

DISCOURSE VII.
THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL, BUT BY SUCCESSIVE ACTS
OF DIVINE INTERPOSITION.
1 Cor. xv. 22, 23. — " For as in Adam all die, even so," &c.

Authorised Version.
" For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive.
But every man in his own order :
Christ the first -fruits; afterward
they that are Christ's at His com
ing." New Translation.
For as in Adam all die, so also
in the Christ all shall be made
alive again. But every one in his
own order : Christ the first-fruits;
then they who are Christ's at His
coming.

Paraphrase.
In the first man Adam all hu
man beings die : in the second
man, the Christ, all shall be made
alive again. But in the resurrec
tion every one shall occupy a place
in the division or band to which
he has been assigned : Christ the
first-fruits ; then those who are
Christ's at His coming.

If, on the question of man's being and destiny, we guide
ourselves by the light of reason and observation alone,
we shall be forced to assign him a very limited sphere
indeed. Birth and death, the cradle and the grave—

THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL. 133
these are the boundaries of man's existence. He comes
into being a helpless infant ; he plays his part in the
drama of life ; he dies, is buried, and is speedily for
gotten. Eeason and observation, I say — that is, all the
powers of the natural man — give us no information
beyond that, unless we add some faint surmises —
sundry longings, anticipations, and reasonable likeli
hoods, of which, in all ages, philosophic minds have
made a great deal, and which really may be regarded as
furnishing a certain amount of evidence in behalf of
what is called the immortality of the soul. If we look
into our own hearts, or gather up the experiences of
others, all we can say of man is this : he is every mo
ment liable to death ; his ultimate dissolution will cer
tainly come, and within a period of years which we can
all specify ; and the uttermost that can be said beyond
this is a probability, felt by different persons more or
less strongly, that when death overtakes the body the
soul continues to live on.
But Christianity introduces another and higher ele
ment — the element, namely, of a revelation from God.
If we acknowledge the existence of a God at all, we
must surely be prepared to admit the possibility of a
Eevelation. God who is really, although spiritually,
present in every point of space, and from the very con
stitution of his nature is self-existent and from everlast
ing to everlasting God, is surely competent in some
fitting way to reveal truth to the understanding of His
rational creatures. Is there any intelligible impedi
ment to hinder Him from conveying information — and
upon any topic He pleases — to this individual or that of

134 DISCOURSE VII.
the human race, or to the whole species, if so He be dis
posed ? Why should not He, if so inclined, absolutely
speak out of the unseen, or by other means intimate His
will to parties whom He deems fit to be the repositories
of such a revelation ? And this is what, as Christians,
we acknowledge. " God, at sundry times and in divers
manners, has spoken unto the fathers by the prophets,
and finally by his Son." We hold by the fact of a
divine revelation, and rejoice in it. Nay, we receive
the Bible as that revelation, and believe that its utter
ances are authoritative declarations of the divine will —
oracles from the sanctuary of heaven — to teach us
truths we would never otherwise become acquainted
with. When, accordingly, we come to search that
sacred record, we find that man occupies a far more im
portant place in the universe of being than what reason
and experience would indicate. Scripture asserts in
hundreds of texts man's intrinsic immortality, and the
whole framework of religion turns upon the truth of
that doctrine. Nay, it is an immortality of a peculiar
kind — not an immortality of the soul merely, as the
ancient classical and many other philosophers used to
represent it, but really and substantially an immortality
of the body also. The permanent existence of which
the Bible speaks has a relation to the outward and
material part of our constitution as well as to the in
ward and spiritual. Man, in short, is destined to be for
ever substantially what we now see him, that is, a
creature connected with both worlds — the spiritual and
the material. And although we cannot penetrate very
far into the secrets of the awfully distant eternity, yet

THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL. 1 35
Scripture undeniably authorises us to contemplate as
certain three distinct stages of existence as those with
which we are immediately concerned. The first, of
course, is our present and mortal stage, in which we are
born, grow, attain to a greater or less amount of bodily
and mental development, and finally die. And then
comes the second or purely spiritual stage of our exis
tence. Body and soul are sundered ; to use our apostle's
figure, in 2d Corinthians, the soul is "unclothed;" it
ceases to have the use of corporeal organs — eyes to see,
ears to hear, a tongue to speak, and so on ; and so enters
into the spirit-world to exercise functions, of which, at
present, we can have, at best, only a very dim and
shadowy conception. This is sometimes called our in
termediate state ; but, like the first stage of our being,
it is temporary, and comes to end. And now the third
stage of our wondrous humanity is at length attained.
The body is recalled from the dust. The soul, with all
the changes and impressions made upon it by its per
haps long residence in the region of the spiritual,
resumes its connection with outward and material
things. A new life commences. With the powers and
properties of the ancient body greatly modified, doubt
less, and changed, and, in all probability, new powers
and properties added, of which we now know nothing,
every individual human being will enter upon the third
stage of his existence. Such are plain and undeniable
inferences from Scripture declarations upon the subject.
One striking and very awful revelation is also made ; that
the setting up in the hereafter of what so frequently bears
the name of the Kingdom of God is accompanied by

136 DISCOURSE VII.
an act of judgment upon all ungodly and wicked per
sons. From the blessedness of the kingdom of God they
are excluded. We enter not at present on the momentous
question of the doom of these reprobate ones — the whole
doctrine of this chapter relating to the resurrection and
glory of God's redeemed, and them alone. But with re
gard to these, the people of God, I think we are entitled to
affirm, not only the resuscitation of corporeal existence
— a corporeal existence free from all the discomforts,
imperfections, miseries, and woes of this world — but
an existence in the redeemed and glorified earth — Para
dise being therein restored. We are thus, by means of
Scripture, enlightened with regard to the destinies of the
human race, yea, of every human being, to an extent far
beyond the inferences of mere reason and observation.
We come now to the important statement contained
in the 22d verse, "For as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive."
This, you will notice, is but an explanation of the
verse immediately going before, in which the apostle
accounts for the existence of death at all — informing
us that it came into the world through human instru
mentality, and not as an original institution or arrange
ment in the providence of God. Man sinned, and
thereby rendered himself liable to death. The eating
of the forbidden fruit introduced, as it were, a virus or
poisonous taint into the bodily frame of our first parents ;
nay, for aught I can tell, the operation of this deadly
virus may be the result of something physical as weU as
moral — a literal poisoning on the part of the forbidden
fruit ; and so a debilitated and dying body has been

THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL. 1 37
transmitted to each and all of their descendants. And
as the death has been universal, so, the apostle now in
forms us, the resurrection will be universal also. He
looks back to Adam ; he manifestly points to the rela
tion subsisting betwixt him and all his posterity ; the
entire race of mankind constitute, in his mind, a unity
or aggregate body of persons, every one of whom, in
respect of liability to death, is like another — and that
mortal condition is the result of Adam's sin. "In
Adam all die." But the coming restoration to life is
affirmed to be coextensive with the death. " Even so,
in Christ, shall all be made alive." The Eedeemer, in
short, is declared to hold towards the entire human
species a relation which is the exact counterpart of
our first father, Adam ; only the influence which will
emanate from Him is life, not death. When the day
arrives He will restore to corporeal existence every in
dividual that ever lived and died. This is the plain,
undeniable meaning of the words before us. And it is
in entire consistency with the words of our Lord Him
self during His public ministry : " I am the Eesurrection
and the Life ;" "The hour cometh when all who are in
their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and
shall come forth."
It is obvious that in all this we have an illustration
of what is implied in the old theological expressions —
"federal relation" and "covenant head." We live in
times when certain parties do not scruple to despise and
repudiate such venerable and quite intelligible expres
sions. But let us look at the words before us. If these
words are capable of meaning, they do affirm that Adam

138 DISCOURSE VII.
on the one hand, and Jesus Christ on the other, stand
in a very special attitude towards the whole human
race. The one, by his sin, has entailed the sentence and
the fact of death upon the entire species ; the other, by
His righteousness, has attained such a position in the
moral universe that He has but to speak the word, and
every individual who has lived, and breathed, and died
will again assume the functions of corporeal life. These
things are here affirmed, not as matters of doctrinal
opinion, but as realities or ultimate facts ; and better
phrases can surely not be found to describe these
actually existing realities than "federal relation" and
" covenant head."
The important circumstance, however, to be noticed
here, is the fact of a universal resurrection destined to
be yet accomplished by Jesus Christ. If there is truth
in these words, a resurrection from the dead is as much
a matter of fact in the future history of each individual
man, woman, and child, as is their birth or their life.
When death comes to us aU, it is but the going forth of
the soul into the spirit-world, leaving the body behind
to be reduced to dust or its constituent elements ; yet
that taking down of the body, or its reduction into its
constituent elements, is just like the taking down of an
old house, where the resolution has been come to, to
build it up again, it may be in a somewhat different form,
with many additions and improvements, yet to no small
extent of identically the same materials. The house
reappears, and to subserve — of course more perfectly
than before — substantially the same purposes for which
it was originally built. I look upon the instances re-

THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL. 1 39
corded in the Gospels of raising from the dead, as actu
ally intended by our blessed Lord, who effected these
miracles, to illustrate the truth set before us in the
words on which we are now commenting. They consti
tute a specimen both of the fact of a bodily resurrection,
and of the manner in which that will be effected on the
far grander scale of the judgment-day ; a sort of hand
ful of the first-fruits from which we may draw infer
ences regarding the nature of the general harvest. In
this way these miracles may be considered as occupy
ing a very interesting place in the Evangelical nar
rative. They are three in number — the Daughter of
Jairus, the Son of the Widow of Nain, and Lazarus, the
brother of Martha and Mary. By the word of Jesus
they were all resuscitated. He had but to utter the
commandment : " Damsel, young man, arise" — " Lazarus
come forth ;" and instantaneously the heart began to
beat, the eye opened to the light of day, and the whole
powers of corporeal existence were restored. So, we are
entitled to argue, will it be on the great resurrection
morning. Jesus Christ will speak the word, or, com
missioned by Him, chosen servants may speak it for
Him over all parts of the earth — illustrations of which,
again, we have in Scripture history, in the cases of
Dorcas raised by Peter, and of Eutychus by Paul ; and
the result will be a universal resurrection of the dead.
But the three resurrections I am speaking of were of
three different persons — male and female — the first in
childhood, the second in youth, the third in mature age.
So, methinks, we are entitled to argue, will it be in the
resurrection of the future. As human beings die of all

140 DISCOURSE VII.
ages, and in all stages of growth and development, so
from such instances we may infer will they reappear
when delivered from the embrace of death — the child
as a child, the youth as a youth, the full-grown man in
the maturity of his being. Once more, we are informed
that the first of these miracles was performed in the
chamber of death itself, and very soon after it had hap
pened; the second on the public highway, and in the
midst of the funeral procession ; the third at the mouth
of the tomb, whose inmate had been for some time de
posited there. Will not this be the counterpart of the
final resurrection ? When the Eedeemer returns from
the skies, and the work of resuscitation commences,
there will be found, in one quarter, the chamber of death
and the great change only that moment consummated ;
in another, a funeral procession will be passing alongst
the street ; in a third, the grave which has long closed
over the inhabitant imprisoned within it ; but one and
all will hear the voice of the Son of God, and in that
hour of merciful visitation will be restored to life and
bodily consciousness. The fact is distinctly and empha
tically affirmed : "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall
all be made alive."
Such are the truths suggested by the 22d verse.
The 23d, however, introduces several new and very
striking ideas. " But," says the apostle, " every man in
his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they
that are Christ's at His coming." The expression used
is a military one. The words " every man in his own
order," contain an allusion to the fact that each indivi
dual soldier occupies his own place in the cohort, band,

THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL. 141
or regiment, and are virtually a declaration that the
whole of those who will finally rise from the dead will
do so in an orderly and consecutive way. The whole
transaction will be like the mustering of an army, or its
issuing, in diverse and successive bands, upon the field
of action for which it has been prepared. As when a
regiment, composed it may be of a thousand men, and
these divided into companies — every man having his
own number and place — issues from the streets and
alleys of a town to appear on the field of review : so
will it be on the resurrection day. The transaction will
take place in the very perfection of order. First goes
forth the commanding officer ; Christ, the leader, indeed,
he tells us, has gone forth already, and is as it were the
pledge of the whole regiment who are to follow ; but,
after a brief interval, as it may happen, the entire body
of troops, company after company, and man after man,
defile through the city gates and occupy their place in
the field. "Every man in his own order or rank;"
Christ the leader — a better word, in the circumstances,
than "first-fruits," although that expression is also
intelligible enough; and then, "they who are Christ's"
— that is, "those who have been the true soldiers of
Jesus — at His coming."
To my mind, whilst pondering these words, various
very striking ideas are suggested, introducing light and
order into a topic upon which the common notions of
even religious persons are singularly dark and chaotic.
If I wish to form to myself a conception of what the
resurrection of the dead shall literally be, and take, as
my guide, the ordinary teachings and opinions which

I42 DISCOURSE VII.
are current upon the subject, nothing can be more con
fused, unintelligible, fanciful, and, in many respects,
even absurd. I think of the round world, with its
millions of graves in every continent, island, and pro
vince ; of the sludge and ooze that fill the deep recesses
of old ocean, and the muddy channels of earth's mighty
rivers, with myriads of human remains mingled with
them ; and these, I know, must necessarily constitute
the materials upon which the divine power of the
Almighty Eedeemer has to operate His wondrous re-
suscitatory work. But the process of restoration is
supposed to be somewhat after this fashion : The arch
angel's trumpet resounds over the whole world, rever
berating from continent to continent, and shaking the
very earth's foundations. Instantaneously the sleepers
in earth and sea are awakened — instantaneously they
resume corporeal forms ; and as the surface of the globe,
even supposing the seas and rivers were solidified for
the purpose, is imagined to be inadequate to supply
standing ground for the whole multitude, they must
needs betake themselves to the air, and there they are
grouped into one prodigiously vast congregation, righte
ous and wicked together, with, of course, the Throne of
the Great Judge revealed before them all The earth is
either annihilated altogether, or, in obedience to the
ordinary laws of mundane motion, it roUs peacefully
away through infinite space, leaving the tremendous
assembly of its former inhabitants millions of miles
behind it.
This, I believe, is substantially the notion which
many people entertain; and I am not sure but some-

THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL. 143
thing very like it may be found in books. But surely
the picture is singularly fanciful. I think it is prodigi
ously unscripturaL And who that has any idea of the
laws of nature can for one moment acquiesce in an
hypothesis which so fantastically sets at nought a whole
host of the most essential and commonplace principles
in the physical economy of the universe ? Of course, it
is an easy thing to say that the Almighty power of
God can do anything, and that a miraculous interven
tion of these vast dimensions, and setting all physical
laws at defiance, is quite competent for Him. But
surely, it is desirable that some evidence be produced —
some positive announcement of Scripture, for instance —
to justify so wild an hypothesis ; and anything of the
sort I declare there is none. It is not God's way to
depart, unless in very exceptional instances, and for
very sufficient cause, from the ordinary routine of
nature ; and certainly to make a grand scenic show
in the vacant amplitudes of space can scarcely be called
one of those instances. How tremendous are the diffi
culties which encompass such a supposition ! Changes,
we say, or rather must admit, will take place in the
constitution of the body ; and one of these may be to
confer upon the animating spirit the power of over
coming the ordinary force of gravitation, and enabling
the body to remain suspended in the air, or to move
through it — for we find our risen Lord doing this ; and
the apostle Paul tells us in 1st Thessalonians that, at
the coming of Christ, some of the saints shall meet Him
" in the air." But to suppose that the entire population
of the globe — nay, the whole human race from Adam

144 DISCOURSE VII.
downwards — are simultaneously to rise above the earth's
surface and remain suspended in empty space, whilst
the round world rolls away on its career amongst the
stars, is a notion much more fanciful than either feas
ible or possible. Will they be able to breathe, to speak,
to hear, where there is no atmosphere, that portion of
the earth's equipments having been removed to the dis
tance of millions of miles ? Will bodily functions be
able to go on, the heart to beat, or a single limb to
move, every physiologist knowing that all the bodily
operations, without a single exception, are dependent on
the connection subsisting betwixt them and the gravita
tion, magnetism, and so forth, of the earth ? Supposing
we could conceive the vast assemblage to remain sus
pended in vacuo for a season, could not the law of
gravitation, plainly subsisting over the whole universe,
make them collapse, ere long, into one vast undistin-
guishable mass ? Nay, have we not reason for thinking
that the removal from the earth of so large a portion of
matter as must necessarily be contained in the bodies of
all the millions of the human race would absolutely
affect, or even overturn, the orderly movements of the
planetary system itself? Far be it from me to say,
that all this may not take place — the laws of nature
notwithstanding — should God Almighty be pleased to
put forth His miraculous power. But why should we
suppose, without any adequate authority, that so extra
ordinary a scene is to be transacted? Can we not
explain the doctrines of a resurrection and a judgment
to come in a way more consistent with reason and the
stable economies of nature ?

THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL. 145
It seems to me that a great, perhaps the greatest, part
of the common error upon this subject arises from the
notion that the resurrection is destined to be a simul
taneous act — that is to say, that all who shall rise from
the dead will do so at the same instant of time, the
righteous and the wicked together. But surely there is
no intrinsic fitness or propriety in this taking place, still
less any positive reason demanding it. The utmost
that all the texts of Scripture affirm on the sub
ject is the certainty of the fact, " AU who are in their
graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and
come forth." But these words, it is quite plain, are
compatible with the idea of successive resurrections.
We constantly use the expressions, all men are born, aU
men live, all men die ; but who imagines, when we
so speak, that we intend to affirm that the births, the
lives, the deaths of all men are each of them and
literally simultaneous ? Now, the words before us are
certainly at variance with any such idea of simultan-
eousness. They affirm that there is an order, a pro
gression, a consecutiveness in this resurrection — every
individual person occupying his own place in that pro
gression, just as the individual soldiers do in their
regiments or companies as they march out of a city's
gates. For aught we can teU, they may come in bands
with intervals between. The words, moreover, evi
dently point to three distinct parties : first, our Lord
Himself ; second, they who are Christ's ; and, thirdly,
by implication, all others of the human family. The
first party raised from the dead is our Lord Himself, the
second party are " they that are Christ's at His coming"
K

146 DISCOURSE VII.
— a remarkable phrase, which may have a more limited
meaning than people usually attach to it, but certainly
cannot have a signification which includes in it a single
individual of the reprobate, or of those who will be de
barred from entering the kingdom of God. The plain
meaning of the words is this, that when Christ returns
to this world He wiU raise from the dead His own
people, and them exclusively — possibly, indeed, only a
portion of them — the more distinguished saints, those
who, like Paui and his fellow - labourers, were the
martyrs, confessors, and earnest - minded servants of
Jesus. Does not this explain that remarkable expres
sion, " The first resurrection," of which it is said that
he is blessed and holy who shaU be found worthy to
have part in it — an expression which involves in it
the idea that there are other resurrections to follow ? I
think, however, that there can be no doubt whatever,
if we look at the actual words of this 23d verse, that
the doctrine affirmed is a plurality of resurrections. Not
at once, but in successive bands, and it may be with
vast intervals between, will the world's population, after
they die, be restored to corporeal existence.
This idea, to my mind, is very striking and import
ant. It is tantamount to a declaration that the future
resurrection of the dead is not so much an act as an
epoch. If we believe the Scriptures, there was once an
epoch of creation — the mundane week of the first chap
ter of Genesis— during which God Almighty by succes
sive acts brought into being and constituted aU the
various departments of the mineral, vegetable, and ani
mal worlds. If we will be guided by our senses, we see

THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL. 1 47
at present, and know that for wellnigh six thousand
years, at least, there has been an epoch of births and
deaths — an epoch of generation, during which the
reproductive powers of both the animal and vegetable
creations have been continuaUy supplying the vacan
cies occasioned by what is called natural death. Why
should we think it unlikely, stiU more deem it impos
sible, that another epoch, and diverse from the former,
should yet dawn upon the world? The wonderful
resources of God's wisdom and beneficence are far from
being exhausted. There are no creative acts now — the
epoch of creation is past and over. What is to hinder
the epoch of generation, with aU its births and deaths,
to pass also away altogether, and be replaced by an
epoch during which successive resurrections shaU take
the place of the dead of bygone ages ? Many parts of
Scripture speak of the present world, or dispensation,
ending in very frightful judgments — in the shaking of
the earth's foundations, in the throes and agony of
universal nature, in the great baptism of fire, in the
melting of the very elements with fervent heat. Isaiah
speaks of the "earth being burned, and few men left
in it ; " and the apostle Peter enlarges on the idea, and
discourses of the earth and the works that are therein
being burned up and dissolved. All this, however,
as I endeavoured to show in my last discourse, as weU
as on former occasions, are but the means provided by
God to purify the earth and bring it into its paradisiacal
state — this round world of ours being yet destined to
be the glorious abode of nations redeemed, blessed,
and immortal. But there is no reason for supposing

I48 DISCOURSE VII.
that this is to be accompUshed by a sudden and instan
taneous act ; it is far more like the ordinary dealings
of the Almighty that it should be effected by a process
of considerable duration. And may not this be by
successive acts of resurrection ? This really seems to
be the doctrine of the verses before us. The 22d
makes the general statement, that a resurrection is
preparing for every human being; but the 23d posi
tively warns us that we must not suppose that this is
to take place simultaneously, or at one specific period.
" As in Adam aU die, even so in Christ shaU aU be
made alive. But every man in his own order : Christ
the first-fruits ; afterwards they that are Christ's at His
coming ; '' and, as the words which follow these mani
festly imply, it is not until a considerable interval, even
after that, that it is added, " then cometh the end " — that
is to say, the glorious consummation of the "new heavens
and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." Put
ting aU these things together, it seems to me that the
revealed ¦ design of God with respect to the future is
somewhat as follows: The desolations of the day of
God will leave the world comparatively tenantless — in
the words of Isaiah, "the Lord maketh the earth empty
and maketh it waste " — a world of the dead. But, by
the first resurrection, that is, Christ and His saints, the
work of re-peopling its broad continents wUl commence,
and the work wiU continue by successive resurrections
until every one who is found worthy shaU be instaUed
in his own place in the glorious world of the hereafter.
In short, not by creation as in the beginning, not by
ordinary generation as now, but by successive resurrec-

THE RESURRECTION UNIVERSAL. 149
tions, which also will virtually be successive acts of
judgment — every individual that has ever Uved, Jew
and Gentile, Christian and heathen, will find the place
prepared for him.
It may be said that in all this there is much specu
lation. Be it so ; consider it as a speculation, if so you
are inclined. Far be it from me, however, to dogma
tise, or to use any other language than that of modesty,
whilst handUng so lofty a theme; yet, surely, whUst
retaining the profoundest veneration for the Word of
God, it is lawful to draw our inferences, and every
scintillation of light ought to be welcomed. But on
the general theme there need be no dubiety — there is
a resurrection of the body awaiting each of us, and a
life to come in the dread hereafter. 0 let us by
faith and holiness prepare for it. Now is our time of
merciful visitation. Does it not become us to utter
the prayer of Moses, " I pray Thee let me go over and
behold that good land which is blessed indeed" ?

DISCOURSE VIII.
THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION: THE RULE AND GOVERNMENT
OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
1 Cor. xv. 24-26. — " Then cometh the end, when He shall have," &c.

Authorised Version.
" Then cometh the end, when He
shall have delivered up the king
dom 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 de
stroyed is death."
New Translation.
Then is the end, when He de-
livereth up the kingdom to God,
even His Father ; when He shall
put down all rule and all authority
and power. For it is necessary
that He reign until He hath put
all enemies under His feet. The
last enemy whom He shall put
down is death.

Paraphrase.
Finally the end is revealed,
when Christ shall deliver up the
kingdom to God, that is, to His
Father ; and shall have succeeded
in bringing into subjection to God
all government and all authority
and power. For it is necessary
that He retain that kingly power
which He now holds in heaven,
until He has put all His enemies
under His feet. The last enemy
whom He is destined to bring un
der subjection and utterly abolish
is death.

THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION. 15 1
We have now arrived at a surpassingly interesting part
of our apostle's disquisition. Very sublime are his
words ; very mysterious. Sublime, because descriptive
of some of the grandest events in the history of provi
dence and the economy of grace ; mysterious, because
of our incapacity, with our feeble and erring minds, to
grasp their full significancy. He has told us that Jesus
Christ did literally and corporeaUy rise from the dead —
yea, that the whole Gospel would have been vanity
and a delusion without it ; he has told us that the com
pleted work of the Eedeemer involves the tremendous
fact of a Uteral resurrection from the dead as awaiting
every human being; and now we are carried along
with the stream of Paul's glowing and inspired elo
quence, to contemplate the glorious consummation for
which aU that went before supplied only the prelim
inary steps. It is the Pisgah view of eternal things.
It is the Church of God, Moses-Uke, looking across the
valley and beholding the very form and substance of the
kingdom of God.
In my last discourse I suggested an idea which I sup
pose would be novel to many who then listened to me.
The common notion of the general resurrection is one
isolated and simultaneous act. The imagination is, that
at the sounding of the archangel's trumpet, the sleepers
in the dust will, one and all of them, awrake, returning
in one identical moment to the functions of corporeal
Ufe. People do not stop to ask such simple questions
as these, Is such a simultaneous resurrection possible in
the very nature of things ? — would it not be a scene of
inextricable confusion? Where would they all find

152 DISCOURSE VIII.
standing-ground on the surface of the earth ? And sup
posing they did, how is it possible to conceive of those
transactions taking place by which the last judgment is
consummated, and the preparation made for setting up
the Kingdom of God ? Now the 23d verse describes the
resurrection as taking place in a very orderly way — in
fact with military precision — just like an army defiUng,
the general at the head, and every soldier occupying his
own position, out of the gates of a city. The only way,
as it appears to me, of bringing these future and solemn
transactions within the domain of intelUgibleness, and at
the same time of harmonising aU Scripture declarations
upon the subject, is to adopt the principle of a Eesurrec-
tion Epoch. It is plain, from the announcements of the
Book of Genesis and other parts of Scripture, and indeed
the thing is plain from reason also, that there has been an
epoch of creation — a period, that is to say, during which
the Almighty, by successive creative acts, brought into
being the heavens and the earth, with all the animal
and vegetable tribes. It is obvious, also, that creation
has now ceased, and that it is by generation, or the re
productive powers, that the world has continued to be
replenished during the last six thousand years. Is there
anything to hinder us from adopting the hypothesis
that there is a time, an epoch, coming, when there will
be neither creation nor generation, but when the world,
after the desolations or fiery baptism of the judgment-
day, wiU be re-peopled, and by successive acts of divine
power, resuscitating the dead of bygone generations?
Let us, striving to keep in view all that we have been
taught in Scripture on the subject, endeavour to picture

THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION. 1 53
before our minds the grand outlines of this future dispen
sation. The world goes on, as it is doing at present, tiU
Jesus Christ, the great Judge, returns " in the clouds of
heaven with power and great glory." He is " revealed
in flaming fire, taking vengeance " on aU His enemies,
and the enemies of His Church and people. The effect
of this will be the utter destruction and overthrow of
things as now existing — a state of matters paraUeled
only by the watery deluge of the days of Noah — per
haps leaving but a very small remnant of human beings
on the earth. 'Tis the day of God's vengeance against
the wicked — a day, as I conceive, of twenty-four hours'
duration — often referred to in Scripture in terms of
dreadful significancy. On that day the ungodly living
wiU be destroyed in the fires of Jehovah's wrath, and
the righteous living, spared by some miraculous means,
like the three children in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar,
will undergo the final change, and without dying wUl
pass into the eternal state. The ensuing morning wUl
witness the dawn of the resurrection-day — the com
mencement of the Kingdom of God. Christ, and those
glorified ones of His who are found worthy to share
with Him in the blessedness of the first resurrection,
will resume the functions of corporeal existence in the
now redeemed and glorified earth, the second Eden, the
heavenly Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven
— an expression which seems to denote its miraculous
construction — with its sun-bright walls and golden
streets. And the resurrection epoch having thus begun,
perhaps locaUy in the land of Palestine, the work will
continue over aU the earth, from province to province,

154 DISCOURSE VIII.
from land to land, tiU aU the good and righteous of all
countries and times are resuscitated to take their place
in the promised inheritance, and to enjoy it for ever.
Not, as it appears to me, until all the righteous are re
suscitated, wiU the wicked be recalled into physical
existence, and then only " to die the second death " —
whatever be the concrete significancy of that mysterious
and awful expression. Thus, by considering the resurrec
tion as an epoch, and not merely as an act, a great deal
of light, as I conceive, is shed upon the events of the
coming hereafter, and on the proper interpretation of
the words, " Every man in his own order : Christ the
first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His
coming." Having, as I consider, announced the doctrine of a
resurrection epoch — a period of successive and progres
sive resurrections — the apostle, in the words now before
us, describes more fuUy the transactions of that period,
and the great end or purpose which is served by it in
the providence of God. But in order that we may per
ceive this with sufficient clearness, it will be necessary
for me to lay before you a translation of the words more
closely, conformable to the original Greek. You will
notice that the word cometh is printed in itaUc letters ;
and this, as it always does, implies that there is nothing
corresponding to it in the original, but that our transla
tors put it in, in order to complete what they supposed
the sense. Now the best critics, instead of cometh, use
the word is; and, instead of saying, "then cometh the
end," say, " then is the end." To this remark I must add
that, to speak in the language of grammarians, the verbs

THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION. 1 55
of both clauses, in the 24th verse are not translated with
sufficient precision, the words " shaU have " in both cases
scarcely sufficing to exhibit the true meaning. The verse
may be more simply and more correctly translated thus :
" Then is the end, when He deUvereth up the king
dom to God, even the Father ; when He shall put down"
(i.e., abrogate or abolish) " aU rule and all authority and
power." The object of the apostle, without any dubiety,
is this, to describe the constitution of things as it wiU
exist when the resurrection epoch commences its career.
It is the end — the consummation ; that very economy
of mundane perfection for which all providential deal
ings, and all miraculous interventions recorded in Scrip
ture, were intended to prepare. First, the apostle teUs
us, Jesus Christ rose from the dead ; then, after the Gospel
era has terminated, He returns from heaven ; then they
who are Christ's — that is, the Eedeemer's pecuUar people,
His true and most distinguished followers — obtain "the
glorious boon of the first resurrection. This is the com
mencement of the kingdom of God. The end after which
God in providence has been constantly labouring is
finally attained. God the Father, in the person of Jesus
Christ His Son, is Lord and supreme Euler of aU: no self-
power — that is to say, no creature authority antagonistic
to heaven, such as so abundantly we see in the world at
present, but aU living in subjection to Him who is King
of kings, and Lord of lords. Paraphrasing a Uttle the 24th
verse, the whole passage before us may then be consid
ered to read as foUows : " When Christ shaU come from
heaven, the end of the economy of grace wUl be revealed
in the setting up of the kingdom of God the Father,

156 DISCOURSE VIII.
whose will shaU be universally done on earth, as always
it has been done in heaven, and aU power and authority
inconsistent with His shall be subdued and overturned.
This will be accomplished by the direct ministration of
Jesus Christ, of whom it is written in the 8th and 110th
psalms, that He must reign until He hath put all things
under His feet, including even death itself, which by
Him is destined to be utterly abrogated and destroyed."
Under this view of the words before us, our attention
is here directed to a topic of transcendent importance
— nothing less than the very constitution of that rule
and government under which the world of the future is
destined to be placed. As I endeavoured to explain in
a former discourse, the world of the future, or what we
call heaven, is just the present world, purified by the
judgments of God, and restored to its paradisiacal state,
inhabited in every part by the good and holy of all
tribes and generations raised from the dead. Here,
under three particulars — the direct government of God
the Father, the subjugation of aU things to Christ, and
the abolition of death — the rule or government of the
future is set before us.
I. The direct government of God the Father.
Man was made to be governed. The constitution of
his nature is such that one of the greatest of his neces
sities is to find a ruler who will superintend and guide
him in accordance with the principles of rectitude,
truth, goodness, and wisdom. But the grand problem
ever has been, where is such a ruler to be found, and

THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION. 1 57
according to what organisation wiU these principles
best be secured? AU generations have been panting
after this ; and now, after six thousand years' experience,
we are surely entitled to say that the wisdom of man
has never yet been able to furnish a satisfactory prac
tical solution of the problem. History can point to
individuals who have filled the despot's throne, and
ruled nations of men by their arbitrary will ; and such
government has invariably ended in caprice, tyranny,
and oppression. Sometimes the conspicuous, it may
be the talented and influential few, have swayed the
destinies of miUions ; sometimes the democratic many,
generally very ignorant, always conceited and wilful,
have converted nations into a weltering sea of human
passions ; and sometimes God, in his providence, has so
ordered it, that a combination of all these principles has
given to commonwealths a stability that has endured
for ages. But it is notorious that, under them all, there
is want of fixity ; that intestine disputes, troubles, and
contentions are continually taking place over the whole
world ; and that many revolutions even have been
effected in governments, and will be effected again, so
long as the world continues in its present state. Men
have never been content with what they have ; many,
for the sake of mere change, would imperU the advan
tages which they actually enjoy ; and, whUst aiming at
visionary perfection, land themselves in practical evUs
of the most serious kind. AU this, however, implies a
conviction in man's bosom that rule and government ab
extra is indispensable to him, and yet by no amount of

158 DISCOURSE VIII.
human effort and wisdom can the state of optimism on
the subject be realised.
Now, I apprehend that one of the great purposes of
Eevelation is to intimate the coming of a time when
this optimism will be reached. This, indeed, is what is
meant by the kingdom of God. When God Himself, in
the person of His Son, is the supreme and visible Euler
of the visible creation, and when the principles of this
rule and government are the exact counterpart of the
divine nature, it is as plain as demonstration can make
it, that a more perfect poUty, or one which is better
fitted to secure the blessedness of all who Uve under its
sway, could not be imagined. Conceive the scene which
will then be exhibited on earth. The world fiUed
throughout aU its borders with the good and righteous
of every age, all animated by the same spirit of Christian
love ; aU living in willing subjection to the same divine
Euler ; aU seeking conformity to the divine wUl. Does
not the teaching of the Gospel — the whole training and
discipline of the Christian economy — point in this
direction ? What else are we all, by our reUgious pro
fession, called upon to do, but to submit our own way
ward and selfish wiU to that of Almighty God ; and
what, accordingly, are we learning this lesson for, if it
be not that we have to practise it for ever and ever in
the future kingdom of God, and find our blessedness in
so doing ? The social life of the heavenly world will be
perfect, just because there will be perfect holiness and
absolute conformity to the wiU of God. Nay, by a Uttle
consideration we may readily discover how each indivi
dual of the redeemed will then know the divine wiU for

THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION. 1 59
himself, and as regards every incident in which he will
be concerned. A great part of the Christian's unhappi-
ness in the present world arises from the circumstance
that God is not positively revealed to him ; and that,
accordingly, he is in perpetual doubt as to whether this
matter and that be in conformity with his Father's wiU.
But if the Spirit of God literally fiUed him ; if all he
had to do was to pray, and a voice from the unseen
immediately responded, and gave the direction and
guidance petitioned for, surely the consciousness of pos
sessing so glorious a privilege would in itself be heavenly
bUss, and no one who possessed it could ever go astray.
But is not this destined yet to be a concrete matter of
fact ? In the kingdom of heaven no one will need to be
further from God than another ; for the omnipresent
One wiU guide every individual alike, and with equal
certainty. In this fact wiU in no smaU degree consist
our heavenly blessedness. We shall see God face to
face ; distance and doubt will be removed ; before we
call He wUl answer us ; we shall be satisfied with perfect
communion with our Father in heaven.
Here, then, we may ascertain the important doctrine
contained in the 24th verse. When the " end " — that is,
the consummated kingdom of God — is revealed, the whole
of those powers and influences which at present regulate
society are exchanged for the direct government of God
the Father Himself. No more caprice on the part of
individual despots ; no more subjection to the maniac
impulses of democratic passion ; no more liabiUty to be
driven hither and thither by the strifes of contending
factions. Every individual has the Spirit of God dweU-

160 DISCOURSE VIII.
ing within, and access without, by prayer to an imme
diately prayer-answering God. The powers of the world
— those influences of which we are all conscious, and
which so seriously affect our welfare amidst the inter
changes of our mundane life — will be put down and
annulled, and in their room wiU come the Uving and
bUss-imparting grace of the living God and Father of
all. To this consummation the mediatorial work of
Jesus Christ has now brought the world. He has, by
word and ordinances, and the indwelUng of His Spirit,
taught those who now constitute the world's glorified
population to be, what Adam and Eve were not in the
primeval Paradise, and what mankind generaUy are not
up to this present hour — that is, the willing, submissive,
obedient subjects of the King of kings. Glorious epoch !
Our first parents disobeyed and brought misery upon
themselves and their unhappy descendants ; but Jesus
has taught again the lesson of obedience, and the world
resumes its aspect of universal blessedness and peace.
II. The subjugation of all things to Christ.
The 25th verse announces it as a matter of undoubted
certainty and scriptural promise that Christ " must reign
until he hath put all enemies under his feet." These
words remind us of the remarkable language of the 8th
Psalm, in which man is described as invested with glory,
honour, and dominion — language which, in the 2d of the
Hebrews, is appUed speciaUy to the Messiah. They also
remind us of the 110th Psalm — a psalm which, you wiU
recoUect, our Lord, in his reasonings with the Pharisees,
appUed to himself — and in which it is written, "The

THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION. l6l
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand
until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool." The 25th
verse is therefore an inspired declaration of the Saviour's
mediatorial sovereignty. He is King — King over all
things. The universe is material, and the ultimate
object of the incarnation of the Son of God seems to be
that that material universe should have a material head,
and that for ever and ever. But although the apostle
is mainly describing, in the words before us, the state of
things which Christ wiU set up at His second advent,
the words themselves are broad enough in signification
to take in the entire Gospel era which went before. It is
the wiU of heaven that Christ reign, — spiritually now,
or by the influences of His Word and of the Holy Ghost
— and literaUy, in open manifestation, when He returns
again to this world at the judgment-day. But who are
the enemies destined to be thus subjugated ? Of course
it is easy to understand that there is a sense in which
even the most perfect of Christian disciples may be said
to have been at one time the enemies of the Saviour.
So was Paul before his conversion, and so indeed are
all whUst in the natural,. worldly, unregenerate state.
These are subdued by the influences of divine grace,
and made a wiUing people in the day of the Eedeemer's
power. Beholding the glory of God, impressed in their
inmost hearts by the beauty of divine things, and born
again by the Holy Spirit, they not only recognise the
kingly sovereignty of the Eedeemer, but to love and
serve Him become the engrossing objects of their hearts
and Uves. This, however, is not the case with aU man
kind. The offers made to aU are openly and deUberately
L

1 62 DISCOURSE VIII.
rejected by many, and with coldness and indifferency
passed by and neglected by not a few. What is to be^
come of them ? In what way wUl the kingly supremacy
of the Eedeemer be glorified over them ? And there can
be no doubt whatever as to the manner in which Scrip
ture answers these questions. They who will not ac
knowledge Christ as the compassionate Saviour, must
prepare themselves to meet Him as the avenging Judge.
LiteraUy He returns to this world; Uterally wiU He
raise them from the dead, and, as we have shown, there is
reason for thinking, in successive bands ; and amongst
these dead wiU be the very men who despised and re
jected Him. Pilate who condemned Him ; the priests
who denounced Him ; the soldiers who platted the
thorny crown and smote Him on the head ; the multi
tude who shouted Crucify Him, crucify Him ! — aU these
will in succession be sisted before His tribunal. Nay,
aU who, in every country and age, treated His servants
in any way approximating to the manner in which He
was treated Himself, wiU share in the condemnation, and
discover that the crime is not a Ught one to assail the
earnest foUowers of Jesus with reproach, contumely, and
persecution. The proud ones, who in their little day of
vainglory insulted over either the Master or the dis
ciple, wiU be brought down to the dust at length and
absolutely put under their feet. Better, then, wiU it be
for many that they had never been born. The reign of
Christ, in the resurrection epoch, will be one of right
eous retribution. Men will receive according to their
works. In the words of the 2d Psalm, " the decree " of
the Almighty constitutes the Messiah Son of the Uving

THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION. 163
God, and assigns to Him "the heathen for His inheri
tance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His posses
sion." " He will strike through kings in the day of His
wrath." His position in this visible universe is to assign
to every human being that ever lived his eternal por
tion ; and that He will do in accordance with the prin
ciples of truth and justice. The righteous will be
rewarded ; the wicked receive the punishment which
their crimes have merited. Throughout the resurrection
epoch He will reign as King ; nor will that reign ter
minate until the very last individual of the human
race has, directly or virtually, received his sentence
from the lips of the great Judge. "He must reign,"
says the apostle, " tiU He hath put all enemies under
His feet." Universal subjection to Christ is the decree
of God.
III. The abolition of death.
The prevalency of the law of death is one of the most
mysterious facts in the history of the human species.
Men who are contented with looking merely at the sur
face of things — who contemplate external phenomena
alone, and classify and speculate about them just as they
find them — are apt to look upon death as an inherent or
essential principle of human nature. They see that aU
animals die — human beings amongst the number — and
they rush at once to the conclusion that man was
created in order to die, and that mortaUty or the certain
destiny of death forms one of the conditions of our very
being. And yet every one is conscious, in his own
bosom, of a feeling that Ufe, and not death, is man's

1 64 DISCOURSE VIII.
natural destiny; that dissolution and its horrible ac
companiments are uncongenial, at variance with our
natural wishes, and indeed involving something penal.
Moreover, the entire language of Scripture concurs
with man's natural feelings. The history of the Fall
in the early chapters of Genesis represents death as
the consequence of man's eating the forbidden fruit;
and again and again, in the doctrinal announcements of
New Testament inspiration, we are informed that the
very existence of death in the world is attributable to
the sin of our first parents. " By one man's disobedi
ence sin entered into the world, and death by sin : and
so death passed upon all mankind, for that aU have
sinned." There is accordingly no doubt whatever, if
we are willing to be guided either by the instinctive
feelings of the human heart or by the utterances of
Scripture, that death is an accident which has befaUen
us, and that our mortaUty or liabiUty to dissolution,
involving, of course, everything which leads to these
horrible results — accident, disease, pain, suffering, and
so on — is the consequence of our fallen or sinful condi
tion. In short, man in the beginning, and at the dawn
of the creation day, was duly informed by his Creator
that death could not happen to him save by his own
fault. Other animals, for aught I know, might be dying
around him ; but from this law of animal existence his
case was to be an exception ; and did he maintain his
aUegiance or obedience to the God of heaven, he would
continue to live for ever.
Whilst, therefore, universal experience proclaims the
unexcepted prevalency of the law of death, Scripture

THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION. 1 65
with equal distinctness accounts for the phenomenon.
It does more. It holds out the prospect of man's resto
ration to his primeval state. Had Adam and Eve not
sinned, they and their posterity would have peopled
this round world of ours, fiUing all its continents and
islands with their descendants — glorious, happy, and
immortaL But, in the room of the entire posterity of
our first parents, we are informed in Scripture that an
election according to grace wUl be taken — the loving and
ransomed people, that is to say, of Jesus Christ ; and in
them the primeval destiny of our race wUl be accom
plished — this round world restored to the paradisiacal
state, and peopled by myriads of human beings, glorious,
happy, and immortal. Nay, aU the rest of mankind wiU
be resuscitated, too, or restored to the integrity of their
physical constitution ; restored, indeed, only to brook
that awful destiny — dying the second death — glorifying
thereby the justice, as the salvation of the redeemed will
glorify the mercy and grace, of the eternal God. Whether,
accordingly, we look to the righteous or the wicked, the
redeemed or the reprobate, the resurrection which is com
ing, and which it is the object of the apostle in this chap
ter to describe and illustrate, will prove that death is a
conquered enemy, that its ravages are of temporary dura
tion, and that the hour is coming when death's law, now
absolutely universal, wiU be abrogated for ever. A
lengthened period may have to elapse before this is
accomplished. Ages in the resurrection epoch may have
to revolve before it is finally realised. But the result is
announced in the words before us, which proclaim the
purpose of the Almighty utterly to abolish death, and

i66 DISCOURSE VIII.
banish it from creation for ever. " The last enemy that
shall be destroyed is death."
Striking and momentous words ! What desolations:
death has accomplished — what countenances it has sad
dened — what hearts broken — what happy households it
has filled with mourning and woe — what wide regions
of the earth it has covered with graves and the moulder
ing relics of all that was lovely, good, and noble ! But
death, it seems, is destined to die. A time — blessed
epoch it wiU be ! — is appointed to come, when such
a thing as death will be found no more within the
precincts of the universe of God. Its destruction is
doomed. Notice the emphatic words before us : " The
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." De
stroyed! — not curbed, restrained, and kept within bounds,
but absolutely destroyed ! Such a thing as death no
longer anywhere existing! What a glorious consum
mation — the fullest blessedness that human nature is
capable of — and an eternity, undimmed by the shadow
of death, wherein to enjoy it !
The whole subject referred to in these verses is, there
fore, about the most sublime and momentous which
can engage the thoughts of men. Any one who thinks
and believes that there is a God, must often have felt it
to be a strange thing that in this beautiful world there
should be so much vexation, suffering, and death — must
have often wondered, in utter amazement, at the un-
satisfactoriness, disappointing providences, and cease
less agitations of this our mortal state. Do we never
ask the question, Can such things last for ever ? Is it to
be eternal misery and woe? No, by no means. There

THE EPOCH OF RESURRECTION. 1 67
is a glorious world of the hereafter ; and the faith of
the Christian anticipates the coming of the Kingdom of
God. 0 the visions of rapture which rise before the
imagination of the beUever, Ughted up by the Word of
God, like a glorious landscape when the sun, from
behind a dark cloud, bursts upon it in aU his splendour !
Have a share, brethren, in these hopes. Hold fast the
beginning of your confidence steadfast to the end. Be
lieve me, no worldly possession can ever equal a place
and a portion in the coming Kingdom of God. Be
united to Jesus. Cherish His spirit ; continue to do
His work. What say you yet to hear the very accents
of His voice, and saying to you, " Enter ye into the joy
of your Lord" ?

DISCOURSE IX.
THE SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF JESUS CHRIST
IN THE FUTURE KINGDOM OF GOD.
1 Cor. xv. 27, 28. — " For He hath put all things under His feet," &c.

Authorised Version.
" For He hath put all things
under His feet. But when He
saith all things are put under
Him, it is manifest that He is
, excepted which did put all things
under Him. And when all things
shall be subdued unto Him, then
shall the Son also Himself be sub
ject unto Him that put all things
under Him, that God may be all
in all." New Translation.
For ail things hath He put un
der His feet. But when He saith
that all things are put under Him,
it is manifest that this means with
the exception of Him who put all
things under Him. And when all
the things which exist are sub-
jected to Him, then also the Son

Paraphrase.
For in the divine decree all
things are put in subjection to
Christ — that is to say, to Christ
as the Mediator or God-man, the
Son and Representative of the
Father. For when the decree is
proclaimed that all things are sub
jected to Him, it is plain that
there must needs be an exception
of the supreme God the Father
who issued this decree in favour
of His Son. It will accordingly
come to pass when all the things
which exist — that is to say, the
whole universe of being — shallhave
been subjected to God the Father,
or in other words, shall have ac
knowledged the Headship of the
supreme God, then the Son him
self, the visible Head of the visi
ble universe, shall be subject to

SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. 1 69
Himself shall be subjected to Him the Father, and God shall be all
who did thus subject all the things in all,
which exist to Him, so that God
may be the all in alL
The subject-matter of these, as well as of the preceding
verses, is the rule and government of the kingdom of
God. No one will dispute the fact, that the social wel
fare and happiness of mankind depend upon the manner
in which they are governed ; and the Christian mind
easUy acknowledges the principle that, were God Al
mighty directly to guide and control every separate
individual of the human species, the result would be
the greatest amount of happiness of which they are sus
ceptible. Various forms of government have been called
into existence in the world ; law, in all nations, is con
stantly saying, do this, or abstain from doing that ; and
the result is more or less of the contentment, peace,
and enjoyment which spring from wisdom and orderly
behaviour. But if we could conceive such a state of
things as that every individual person was privileged to
hold direct and conscious communion with God; not
merely, that is to say, having access to Him in prayer,
as at present we aU have, but possessing the glorious
privilege of evoking an immediate response to our
prayers whenever we made them — in short, were cir
cumstanced like Moses, of whom it is written, that he
conversed with God face to face, as a man doeth with
his friend ; — if, in consequence of this, we had at our
command, so to speak, the goodness, the love, the
wisdom, the very omnipotence of God, surely a society,
a nation, a world, in which eveiy person was thus

170 DISCOURSE IX.
situated, would be in a state as nearly approaching per
fection as it is possible to conceive of. I ask, therefore,
may not this be what is actually meant by the apostle
when he informs us that, in the glorious hereafter, the
Eedeemer " delivers up the kingdom to God, even the
Father" ? At the present time, even the natural, that
is, the unregenerated man, must necessarily be some
what aware of an abyss of darkness and distance exist
ing betwixt him and God : the new birth, when it is
effected, to a very great extent supplies a remedy for
this, opening the spiritual eye, reveaUng the love of
God, filling with the Holy Ghost, enabling us to com
mune with our Father in heaven. But still the work
of restoration is incomplete. Not until glory comes
will the end be accomplished. And if, in the way we
have pointed out, every individual person, and there
fore, far more exhaustively than we have as yet had
any conception of, the whole company of the redeemed,
are Uving under the direct control of the Almighty,
assuredly it wiU be possible to say, " the kingdom is
delivered up to God, even the Father," and with it
infinite bUss is secured for the whole Israel of God.
It is to be noticed that the three verses which con
stituted the subject of our last discourse, as weU as the
two on which we propose to discourse at present, iden
tify, in a remarkable way, the rule and government of
God the Father with that of our blessed Lord. The
Son delivers up the kingdom to the Father, and yet He
continues to reign, putting down all authority and
power, bringing His enemies under His feet, and even
abolishing the law of death itself; and aU this in the

SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. 171
exercise of His intrinsic power. And if, in the second
of the verses before us, mention is made of the Son
being subject to the Father, it is stiU with the reserva
tion that the Godhead, in which, of course, the Son is
a partaker, is " all in all." This is one of the loftiest,
most mysterious, most glorious doctrines in the whole
system of theology. And yet there is a simplicity, and,
as I may say, intelligibleness in it quite in harmony
with its intrinsic grandeur. Endeavour, if you can, to
form to yourselves a concrete idea of what is meant to
be conveyed to us in these most wonderful verses. Cast
away abstractions and aim at an apprehension of realities.
The present world, or dispensation, is ended ; heaven is'
revealed upon earth ; the nations of the world are com
posed entirely of the saints and the redeemed ; death is
abolished, and all its frightful accompaniments existing
only in reminiscences of the past; that which is perfect
is come ; the eternal kingdom of God is set up. Now,
in the midst of this spectacle of transcendent glory, two
objects are here presented to our view ; God the Father,
in the awful sublimity of His spiritual power and
majesty — and God the Son, incarnate in human flesh, in
the person of Jesus Christ. The latter has been long
working — -first on earth, when, in sorrow and humilia
tion, He bore the griefs of our mortal state ; second, in
the spiritual or heavenly world, when, as our High
Priest, He prosecuted for ages the work of intercession.
But now He has returned to the world ; the very
object of that return is to put the copestone on the
buUding He has been so long engaged in erecting, com
pleting, by His own act, the wondrous work of -His

I72 DISCOURSE IX.
mediatorial commission. That commission was under
taken long long ago, and in accordance with the decrees
of the Godhead — in fact, in the eternity of the past.
Throughout the whole course of time it has been gra-
duaUy evolving, and will eventuate in the salvation of
a multitude whom no man can number ; but it is only
in the eternity of the future, the very epoch described
in these subUme verses, that the consummation, the
grand and completed results of redemption, wiU be dis
played before the whole universe of God. It wiU be
the epoch of infinite and eternal bliss. Before the hosts
of heaven, in the midst of the amplitudes of creation, in
the centre of the whole universe of being, demonstra
tion wiU be made why the world was created and man
constituted its chief inhabitant — why moral evU was
permitted to enter it — why so many ages of sorrow and
suffering were ordained to revolve ; and that the incar
nation of Bethlehem, the crucifixion of Calvary, the
ascension into the most holy place of the universe, were
all effected in accordance with the hidden purposes of
God. Then God and man, the spiritual and the mate
rial, the unseen and the visible, wiU again be in unity
and perfect accord. No more jars, disruption, disorder,
and misunderstanding. On the part of the Godhead,
infinite satisfaction and joy; on the part of men, as
individuals, as communities, as nations, absolute and
cloudless bliss. God the Father, the omnipresent One,
in the reign of the spiritual, exercising a loving and
blessed control over every one of His people, and there
fore filling the whole world with His spiritual glory ;
God the Son, incarnate in human flesh, the visible Head

SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. 173
of the visible creation, Umited indeed by the conditions
of His corporeity to the occupancy of one single locality
at a time, but also, from these very conditions, in nature
related to every material object, and casting the reflec
tion of His glory upon every human being and every
material thing.
We thus see how, in the future world of blessedness,
the universal rule of God the Father can coexist with
the universal rule of God the Son, and be identified
with it. On this principle the language of our text
admits of an easy interpretation.
When we come to examine the verses more espe-
ciaUy before us, we shall find a recapitulation of these
truths, the apostle setting them before our minds in
different points of view; but as there is some smaU
measure of obscurity in the language employed by him,
it is good for us to weigh deUberately every expression
which he employs. Keep, then, distinctly in view the fact
that the topic upon which he is enlarging is the rule and
government of the hereafter. Now there are obviously
three things involved in this — the ruler, the ruled over,
and the authority from which the rule or authority eman
ated. . The ruler is plainly here declared to be Jesus
Christ — the God-man ; the ruled over, or the subjects
of that government, are " all things," or the entire and
universal creation ; the source of the rule or authority
is the Godhead, represented by the person of the Father,
but, of course, not excluding a reference to the Son and
the Spirit. Having these, as it appears to me, unques
tionable facts before our minds, we will not be much at
a loss in interpreting the verses before us, or under-

174 DISCOURSE IX. :
standing what the doctrines are which the apostle is
here teaching us. " He hath put aU things under His
feet" — that is to say, the Godhead represented by the
Father, the supreme and Almighty Jehovah, has sub
jected aU things to the dominion of the incarnate Son.
Formerly — that is to say, from the creation onwards to
the judgment-day — it was only a purpose or decree of
heaven that this dominion should be exercised by the
Son; but now the fact itself is revealed. With the
coming of the eternal kingdom, Christ Jesus is formaUy
and openly installed as the visible Head of the visible
creation, and by the authority of the entire Godhead.
Having made this affirmation, the apostle immediately
introduces a very singular explanatory remark, "But
when He saith aU things are put under Him, it is mani
fest that He is excepted which did put all things under
Him." One might have supposed that such an obser
vation was totally unnecessary; for no ordinary reader
would imagine that the supreme Godhead— the grand
ruling power in the universe — can in any circumstances
abdicate that prerogative of rule, stUl less make Him
self a subject and dependent being, by conferring
sovereignty on the man Christ Jesus. A Pharaoh
might constitute a Joseph the chief man in the king
dom, a Darius proclaim a Daniel the first of the
presidents, without ceasing themselves to be sovereigns,
still less without becoming subjects ; and yet Paul
thinks it necessary to tell us that when Godhead
conferred supreme sovereignty on the Son, Godhead
was exempted from that control ! Strange statement I
What can it mean if it be not this, that the whole uni^

SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. 1 75
verse, God alone excepted, is destined yet to be put
under the power and authority of Jesus Christ ? It is
tantamount to an announcement that, with the single
exception of the living God Himself, who is essentially
spiritual, and in the spirituality of His being permeates
and fills the whole universe, aU created things wUl
then and for ever and ever be subjected to His kingly
control. But in the verse which follows, our attention is
directed to another truth connected with this subject
no less striking and remarkable : the result of these
sublime arrangements on the part of all the persons
of the Godhead is to place every created thing under
the sovereignty of incarnate Deity. The lengthened
process of subjugation terminates in this result. What
ensues ? A phenomenon, if possible, still more striking
and sublime : " Then shaU the Son also Himself be
subject unto Him that put aU things under Him, that
God may be all in aU." Words of tremendous import !
At length the visible universe possesses a visible Head.
Incarnate in human flesh, Deity is actuaUy, visibly,
tangibly revealed to the senses of aU creatures through
out the universe. But the unity of aU things must
be maintained, and the principle of subordination to
the highest authority of aU. This was the principle
which was violated by our first parents in Eden, and
whose violation brought upon mankind all their subse
quent woes. Now it is set up again, and in a manner
which demonstrates the utter impossibUity of its ever
being violated again. The incarnate Son becomes vol
untarily subject to the omnipotent and omnipresent

176 DISCOURSE IX.
Father, and " God is aU in all." The harmony of the
moral universe is restored. The wiU of God is once
more the acknowledged law of the entire ampUtude of
creation ; the visible is subject to the invisible ; the
material to the spiritual ; the Son to the Father. 'Tis
the culminating glory of the plan of redemption — the
mystery of godliness complete.
These two doctrines are intrinsically so grand and
glorious, and have at the same time such important
bearings, both of a theoretic and practical kind, that I
consider it will be for edification that we examine them
at somewhat greater length.
I. The first doctrine is the supreme sovereignty of
the Son of God over the visible creation.
The truth which the apostle announces in the first of
the verses before us is substantiaUy this : " AU things
in the universe, God the Father excepted, are destined
yet to be placed under the authority of the incarnate
Eedeemer." Again, let me remind you, it is not the
present dispensation of which he is speaking — it is
the dispensation which is to dawn with the Ught of
the resurrection-day, and which, we have reason for
thinking, will endure for ever and ever. Then the uni
verse will be substantiaUy what it is at the present
hour. Whatever changes may have to be brought
upon the material or physical structure of the globe —
and changes, doubtless, very great and remarkable wiU
be effected — the globe itself wiU stiU be a planet re
volving on its axis, and wheeling its annual circle
round the sun. The tremendous amplitudes of space

SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. 1 77
wiU stiU be filled up with those starry worlds which
the telescope of the astronomer reveals in such mul
titudes, and in such infinite variety of magnitude,
constitution, and position — multitudes which science
compares to the motes which dance in the sunshine, or
the particles of sand that lie on the sea-shore. Doubt
less the tribes of animated, and, for aught we can tell,
of rational beings, which have their abodes upon their
surfaces, are of infinite variety at this moment, and
wUl always continue to be so — glorifying the Creator
in their respective places as fully as those objects do
which are within the sphere of our present conscious
ness. We cannot conceive of the boundless universe
of matter ceasing to exist. The old-fashioned and pre
posterous ideas which, perhaps, some parties may even
yet entertain, that the day of judgment is the day .of
the dissolution of matter and the extinction of created
things, are, I trust, for ever exploded. The material
universe is a glorious temple, worthy of the divine
Architect who planned and erected it; and in every
department of this house of many mansions, God's
wisdom, power, and goodness will in an infinite vari
ety of ways be revealed. There are two infinites —
boundless space and eternal duration — and these con
stitute the wide domain wherein expatiates the Al
mighty Creator and Preserver. Now the words before
us admit but of one interpretation. With the exception
of God Himself, the whole of this mighty empire is
placed under the authority of the divine Eedeemer.
The incarnate Son of God must be Lord of aU things.
It is a doctrine often mentioned elsewhere, "Thou
M

178 DISCOURSE IX.
hast crowned Him," says the Psalmist, "with glory
and honour. Thou madest Him to have dominion over
the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put aU things
under His feet." " AU power," said the Saviour Him
self, "is given unto me in heaven and in earth:" a
truth which the apostle Paul, in the first chapter of
the Ephesians, thus expounds — "He raised Him from
the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the
heavenly places, far above all principality, and power,
and might, and dominion, and every name that is
named, not only in this world, but also in that which
is to come ; " and also the apostle Peter, in his first
Epistle, when he describes Him as "gone into heaven,
and being on the right hand of God; angels and
authorities and powers being made subject to Him."
Our mind quails before the conceptions which this
tremendous doctrine must necessarUy suggest. How
limited and even unworthy are the ideas we are apt to
entertain of the glorious person and prerogatives of the
Saviour! Contemplating Him as the babe of Beth
lehem, the humble denizen for thirty years in the town
of Nazareth, the man of sorrows and the crucified of
Calvary, we cannot take in the sublime conception of
this man Christ Jesus being Uterally the Lord of
universal nature. Yet here is the apostle's word for
it. Surely there is more meaning than, at first sight,
appears, in that statement of the Book of Genesis which
is descriptive of the Abrahamic covenant. The Al
mighty commanded the patriarch to look to heaven,
gUttering with ten thousand stars ; and as, standing
beneath that wondrous canopy, the thoughts of the

SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST, 1 79
man of God were occupied with the brilliant and sug
gestive spectacle, what must he have felt as the words
feU upon his ears, " So shaU thy seed be " ? Behold, as
if He had said, the mighty empire, not only of Abra
ham's Lord, but of Abraham's son ! In that wide
domain there is surely room enough for all thy spirit
ual descendants, however numerous they may be. How
vast ! how multitudinous ! how glorious ! " So shaU
thy seed be."
The empire of Jesus Christ over creation is a doctrine
which ought to be very precious to the Christian's
heart. It bears, in fact, with infinite force upon every
truth and principle which speciaUy characterise the
economy of grace. The very essence of faith Ues in
our loving adherence to the Son of God, and com
munion with Him — a glorious privilege held out for
the acceptance of every child of Adam, and which, just
because of God's free offer, may by any one be appro
priated. That faith unites us to Christ — makes us one
with Him — living members of His spiritual body.
Now, if it really be a fact that the relationship sub
sisting betwixt Christ and the believer is of this close
and intimate description, is it possible to over-estimate
the consideration that He with whom we are so united
is literaUy the Lord of heaven and earth ? What an
honour to our species, that the God of universal nature
should also be our fellow-man! With what respect
ought we to regard the very body in which we are
clothed, and which is worn by even the humblest of
the children of men, if we would only consider that
that very humanity of ours is at this moment in union

l80 DISCOURSE IX.
with Godhead, is exalted to the right hand of the
Majesty in the heavens, and must throughout eternity
be worn by Him who is " King of kings and Lord of
lords." The consciousness of sins that are past need
not overwhelm us with despair, when we reflect that
the price of our salvation — the fuU and sufficient atone
ment — has been paid by One who, in token of the
completeness of His mediatorial work, has been exalted
to universal empire over heaven and earth. We need
not anticipate any danger in aU time to come ; for who
can pluck us out of the hand of Him " who upholdeth
aU things by the word of His power " — whose word,
indeed, is the law of the boundless creation ? We
have a wondrously constituted nature ; a mind capable
of almost universal knowledge ; a curiosity that pries
into the secrets of creation, and would fathom even
" the deep things of God ; " social powers and propen
sities, in the exercise of which we expatiate over aU
things, and especially deUght in cultivating intercourse
with our feUows; an impulse that leads us to seek
happiness, and every one that happiness for which he
is speciaUy fitted. Surely in this wide domain there
is room enough wherein the entire people of God, how
ever multitudinous, may find each his appropriate
sphere, and yet always in communion with a sympa
thising Eedeemer and Friend. Not in vain has the
apostle said elsewhere : " He hath given Him to be
Head over aU things to the Church, which is His body,
the fulness of Him that fiUeth all in aU." Every
beUever, in short, is destined, in body and soul, to
wear the Ukeness of the divine Eedeemer for ever and

SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. l8l
ever. 'Tis the end of all Gospel teaching and discipUne
to mould us into the character of Jesus Christ. The
result of the resurrection of the body wiU be to make
us, in our corporeal constitution, the counterpart of the
Saviour ; for we are to be " made Uke to His glorious
body, and to see Him as He is." What a surpassingly
glorious destiny, to be identified in nature with Him
who is the Lord and Sovereign of aU creation ! We
cannot realise it. We are ready to be appaUed at the
entertainment of the very conception. Yet may not
this account for the language of royal magnificence
in which the blessedness of the saints in eternity is
uniformly described in Scripture — a language in which
aUusion is continually made to crowns, and palms, and
thrones, and robes of royal majesty ? If immensity is
the Eedeemer's empire — if eternity is the period of His
glorious reign — if every individual saint is the exact
counterpart in body and soul of the " King of kings ''
— we seem to come very near to the concrete interpre
tation of the words, " Ye are a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood — kings and priests unto our God " —
and destined to rule for ever and ever.
II. The second doctrine is the subjection or obedience
of the Son to the Father.
As the doctrine of the Eedeemer's sovereignty over
heaven and earth, on which we have just been enlarg
ing, is the very capital and copestone of the Gospel as
a system of divine truth, so this second doctrine of the
subjection or obedience of the Son to the Father is the
most fuU and glorious illustration of the principle of

1 82 DISCOURSE IX.
obedience to God — the principle, in short, that God
must be "aU in aU." Both reason and Scripture
conduct us to the conclusion that all the evU and dis
order we see in the world are owing to an interfer
ence with this principle. Moral creatures disobeyed
God; they set up their own selfish wiU — their own
personal desires and incUnations — against the mind of
the Most High. The result has only been misery to
themselves. From the history of the FaU, contained in
the Book of Genesis, we have no other course but to
conclude that moral evU or sin existed in the universe
anterior to the creation of man ; for it is plainly
announced there that the ruin, misery, and death now
prevalent amongst the human race are all traceable, as
their root, to the machinations of Satan — that is, of
a faUen being, a maUgnant creature — who evidently
existed previously to the creation of man, and who
actually intended to bring evil upon newly -created
humanity by tempting to disobedience. But scarcely
had the first sin been committed, and the consequent
doom of misery pronounced, than a promise of de
liverance was voluntarily made by God. The woman's
seed was to be revealed as the deliverer ; and the result
of the deliverance was not only to be the removal of
the physical evils, but the restoration to that moral
state upon which aU physical good in this universe
necessarily depends. Jesus Christ, the Saviour, did
accordingly assume our nature into union with His
divinity, for the express purpose, amongst other things,
of placing himself at the disposal of the Father, and
submitting to Him in aU things. " He came not to do

SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. 1 83
His own wiU, but the wUl of Him who sent Him."
The very essence Ues here of the meritoriousness of the
Eedeemer's work. He who, in the very constitution of
His nature, was " the equal of the Father " — in the
words of the apostle, "thought it not robbery to be
equal with God" — " became of no reputation, and took
upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of man " — humbling Himself, and becoming
obedient unto death. I say it was of the very essence of
the Eedeemer's mediatorial work that He should thus
obey the Father ; and when, accordingly, we point to
His atoning sufferings, His sacrificial death, His spot
less and holy life, remembering all the while who it
reaUy is who 'furnished this exempUfieation of obedi
ence, we behold the most marvellous illustration of
the necessity of such a spirit to every moral and de
pendent creature. Is it possible that disobedience to
the authority of the God of heaven can be tolerated in
any one when such a terrible test of subjection was
exacted of the Son of God Himself? To the law and
will of God, Jesus was obedient in aU things whilst a
denizen of this world ; and the words of the text com
municate the important intelligence that the same
thing, but on a far wider scale, must endure for ever
and ever. Our thoughts are here carried forward to
the consummation of all things. The kingdom of God
is set up. The disorders now so palpably prevalent in
the world are ended ; and in token that disorder and
strife, mischief and evil, are utterly and for ever
abolished, the incarnate Son of God — that is to say, the
visible Head of the material creation — is, and means to

1 84 DISCOURSE IX.
be, subject to His Father, and that in order that " God
may be all in all." Words of momentous import!
Could anything more vividly indicate the necessity of
the doctrine of obedience ? In this harmony betwixt
God the Father and God the Son, we have the pledge
and assurance of eternal peace and blessedness through
out the whole universe — the very embodiment and
exemplification of that principle upon which the happi
ness of every moral creature depends.
Such are the two subUme doctrines which constitute
the subject-matter of the verses now speciaUy under
our notice. I feel that I have very imperfectly de
scribed the meaning and bearings of those doctrines.
At the same time, what has been said may suffice to
shed some measure of Ught upon the two great charac
teristic principles of Christianity — namely, faith and
hoUness. Our faith unites us to Him who is destined
yet to be King of kings and Lord of lords ; and upon
the resistless power and majesty which that title implies
Him to be in possession of, we reaUy do rest all our
hopes of eternal salvation. But the faith which we re
pose in Him impUes also that we are animated by the
same spirit, and that is the spirit of hoUness, or con
formity to the wiU of our Father in heaven. BeUevers
in Jesus ! cleave then to the Lord your Eighteousness.
Worthy is He of your highest esteem. In His nature
He is God over aU, blessed for ever. In that very hu
manity which identifies Him with yourselves, He is
exalted to supreme dominion in heaven and earth. His
name is Love ; and communion with Him is blessed
ness and peace. Through faith in the Son of God you

SOVEREIGNTY AND OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. 1 85
are brought very nigh to the hoUest of aU. But remem
ber that He is not less the object of faith than He is
the pattern and exemplar of holiness. Because you be
long to Him, you must also be Uke Him. He came to
do the wiU of His Father, and to finish His work. Feel
that this is your mission also. To bear, in this world,
what the Father shaU lay upon you ; to execute the
designs which plainly, in His providence, have been
prescribed as your lot ; to fight the good fight of faith,
and prosecute to its close the ofttimes very painful war
fare of the Christian soldier ; to toil at your reUgious
caUing — doing good to aU as you have opportunity —
even in the face of ingratitude, heartless discourage
ment, and malignant opposition; — behold your com
mission. Jesus Christ trode this path before you ; and
surely it is enough for the servant to be as the Master,
the disciple as the Lord. He is now in glory, and you
wiU soon foUow Him thither. Nay, His visible and
glorious kingdom is coming; and as with Him you
wiU then be encompassed with the glorious splendours
of the city of God, you wiU discover that in that har
mony betwixt your will and His, in which for so long a
period you have been training yourselves, you have the
pledge and fundamental cause of your eternal peace.

DISCOURSE X.
REASONS CORROBORATIVE OF THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT
DERIVED FROM BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MAR
TYRDOM.
1 Cor. xv. 29-34. — "Else what shall they do," &c.

Authorised Version.
" Else what shall they do which
are baptised for the dead, if the
dead rise not at all ? why are
they then baptised for the dead ?
And why stand we in jeopardy
every hour ? I protest by your
rejoicing which I have in Christ
Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If
after the manner of men I have
fought with beasts at Ephesus,
what advantageth it me if the
dead rise not ? let us eat and drink,
for to-morrow we die. Be not
deceived : evil communications
corrupt good manners. Awake
to righteousness, and sin not;
for some have not the knowledge
of God : I speak this to your
shame." New Translation.
Else what shall those do who are
baptised with death only before

Paraphrase.
As another argument to prove
a literal resurrection, let me allude
to the ordinance of Christian bap
tism. Dying men are baptised,
and receive that ordinance in the
midst of a world where all are
dying around them. In such cir
cumstances, what is the use or sig
nificancy of such an ordinance ?
Why should dying men be bap
tised ; and that, too, in the midst
of dying men ? Evidently as a
pledge or assurance that though
men die, to life they will be raised
again. As yet another argument
in favour of a resurrection, let me
point attention to the life of per
secution to which we apostles and
other earnest Christians are con
tinually exposed. We risk our
lives every day. W"e hourly and
voluntarily subject ourselves, in
consequence of our Christianity,

BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MARTYRDOM. 1 87

their eyes, if the dead are not at
all raised again ? Why are they
baptised with death before their
eyes? Why also do we expose
ourselves to danger every hour ?
I protest by your rejoicing, which
also I have iu Christ Jesus our
Lord, I die daily. If, as a man,
I have fought with beasts at
Ephesus, what profit is there
thence to me ? If the dead rise
not again, let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die. Be not de
ceived : good manners are cor
rupted by evil communications.
Awake at the call of righteousness,
and sin not ; for some of you have
nothing but ignorance of God : in
rebuke I say this to you.

to the most violent persecutions.
What other consideration but the
hope of a resurrection and another
life could induce us to do so ? For
myself I protest that this persecu
tion is so continuous and severe,
that I pass through the pains of
death every day that I live. If,
as a man would say, I have had
to fight with beasts in this very
town of Ephesus, what advantage
do I obtain from submitting to
such persecution ? Why ? If the
dead rise not again, and there be
no hope of resurrection and a
world beyond it, the maxim of
the Epicureans must needs be
sound wisdom, Letuseatand drink,
for to-morrow we die. I beg of
you not to wander into error. Be
ware of holding communication
with deceivers, lest your good man
ners become corrupted. Awake
to spiritual sensibility ; prac
tise righteousness ; swerve not
from the path of rectitude. There
are some amongst you who are
absolutely ignorant of God. I
grieve to be compelled to address
you in such terms of rebuke and
animadversion.

These verses are the winding up of the apostle's argu
ment relative to the doctrine of the resurrection, accom
panied by a practical improvement of that doctrine.
He has demonstrated that it is of the very essence of
Christianity to anticipate a resurrection of the dead.
He has pointed to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as at
once the grand proof and iUustration of what that doc-

1 88 DISCOURSE X.
trine means ; for he carried the thoughts of his readers
forwards into the mighty future, and described some of
the sublimest results of the entire plan of redemption —
nothing short, indeed, of the kingly rule and dominion
of the Son of God over the whole material creation. And
now he concludes the discussion on this branch of his
glorious theme by two corroborative reasons and a word
of practical admonition. StiU seeking to convince the
Corinthian Christians, and of course aU other believers
through them, that it is the Christian's privilege and
duty to expect a Uteral resurrection from the dead, he,
first of aU, points to the ordinance of Baptism and the
Martyr persecutions of the Church as almost of necessity
involving such a faith, and then concludes with an
exhortation to maintain the righteousness and spiritu-
aUty of the Christian life. The further exposition of
this wiU be the subject of the present discourse.
1. I observe, then, that the first corroborative reason
made use of by the apostle is derived from the ordi
nance of Christian Baptism. " Else," says he, " what
shaU they do which are baptised for the dead, if the
dead rise not at aU? why are they then baptised for
the dead ?" — a text of singular obscurity, whether we
consider the meaning of the words, or the argumentative
weight of the proposition which they were intended to
convey. Several strange, I might caU them fantastical, inter
pretations have been proposed of this baptism for the
dead. Thus, some have imagined that it refers to a
supposed practice of baptising dead persons — a calling
in of the officers of the Church to bestow the rite of

BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MARTYRDOM. 1 89
baptism on parties who may have professed their Chris
tianity, but who had not actuaUy been initiated in the
ordinary way into the Christian congregation : a prac
tice which I do not believe to be sanctioned by any his
torical evidence whatsoever. Others, again, suppose the
aUusion to be to representative baptism — living per
sons receiving that ordinance in the name and on be
half of others who were either dead or on the point of
dying. It is unnecessary, I conceive, to discuss these
or any other hypotheses so palpably mystical and erro
neous. I consider the expression "baptised for the
dead" to signify, baptised in the prospect of death;
baptised with death impending over our heads, or, to
use a colloquial expression, "with one foot in the
grave." Under such an interpretation, its argumen
tative force becomes at once obvious. People may be
baptised — that is to say, may obtain the great initiatory
ordinance which signifies their engrafting into Christ
— at any age and in any circumstances. It may be,
with respect to some, or even many, that they wiU not
have long to live after they are baptised. The old man
may have attained his threescore and ten or even four
score years ; or the person of far less advanced Ufe may
be on the bed of mortal disease, and looking for dissolu
tion only, and that at an early day ; or the times may
be those of persecution, and the pubUc profession of
Christianity may be the very next step to a bloody mar
tyrdom. If you baptise such individuals, it is plain
you baptise them in the prospect of death ; they are
baptised for or over the dead. Now, the apostle asks,
Where is the use or benefit of such a baptism ? Those

190 DISCOURSE X.
who confer that ordinance, and those who receive it,
must surely contemplate the fact of some great good
being associated with the ordinance. But this, he in
forms us, can only be on the hypothesis of a resurrec
tion of the body and a life to come. He whose body
is by the ordinance of baptism consecrated to Jesus
Christ, obtains, in that very rite, the pledge of its resus
citation from that death which is impending, or the
assurance that he will Uve again. " What shaU they
do that are baptised for the dead, if the dead rise not at
aU ? why are they then baptised for the dead ?"
We thus learn that the ordinance of baptism, and,
by parity of reasoning, aU other Christian ordinances
together, are witnesses to a life to come — pledges of a
hereafter, and more especiaUy of the resurrection of the
dead. In this way we are here directed by the apostle
to improve them aU. This is more especially the case
with the sacraments, which our fathers were in the habit
of designating by the title of " seaUng ordinances " — an
expression which intimated that those admitted to them
hold before God, and in view of the hosts of heaven, a
special designation. We read in the Book of the Eeve
lation of an angel being sent forth, holding in his hand
"the seal of the Uving God," and therewith, in due
course of time, " seaUng the servants of our God in their
foreheads." This, and some other such expressions found
elsewhere, seem to imply that, under the Gospel, there
is not only an ordinance of preaching, but an ordinance
of sacramental dedication : in other words, we are
" sealed." And I look upon that as something a great
deal more than a mere notional thing — a metaphor or

BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MARTYRDOM. 191
figure of speech. When moistened with the waters of
baptism, duly and authenticaUy performed by those who
have a right to administer that ordinance— when we
have received the emblems of Christ's propitiatory sacri
fice from the hands of the appointed office-bearer, that
is, the angel or messenger whose office it is to bear the
" seal of the living God " — a deed is performed of a holy
and sacramental kind, which actually impresses a char
acter on the recipient of the ordinance. It is the stamp
of heaven. As the writing of our name upon a book
proclaims that book to be our property ; as manufac
turers are in the habit of imprinting their name, their
cipher, or trade-mark, upon the articles they dispose of
with a view to identify their workmanship, so, both
without and within, our bodies are by the sacraments
impressed by the seal of God. We should improve this
fact in our spiritual history. Is it the fact that in early
infancy, or, in the case of some, in maturer years, water
was poured upon us by the duly ordained servant of
God, and God's name solemnly pronounced over us ? a
deed was then performed which no power in heaven or
earth can undo — the act of consecration to God, and,
under Gospel conditions, to the hopes of immortal bless
edness in the great hereafter. It is a deed as valid and
effectual in spiritual things, as in temporal things the
signing and seaUng of a document, with a view to give
vaUdity to the transfer, or holding, it may be, of a large
estate. Assuredly, if we valued heaven and the things
of eternity as they ought to be valued by us, we would
know how to estimate these Christian ordinances. Very
blessed to our own souls would be the consciousness of

192 DISCOURSE X.
this spiritual consecration to God; and, although we
may have sleeping in the dust many a dear relative and
friend — husband, wife, brother, sister, or chUd, taken
from us, alas ! at too early a date — we would understand
that they have gone to their last resting-place marked
with the seal of God, and therefore sure to be reclaimed
on the resurrection morning. " What shaU they do who
are baptised for the dead, if the dead rise not at aU ?
why are they then baptised for the dead ? "
2. The second corroborative reason which the apostle
employs is taken from the persecutions and other afflic
tive dispensations to which Christians are exposed in
this world. "Why stand we," he asks, "in jeopardy
every hour ?" It is a time, as if he had said, of persecu
tion. We are daUy exposed to it ; nay, every hour of
the day brings us into jeopardy of our very Uves. So
far as this world is concerned, there is Uttle profit or
benefit in a Christian confession ; but, on the contrary,
much actual suffering, and constant danger of more. If,
accordingly, there were nothing better in prospect — that
is to say, no hereafter, no resurrection of the dead, or
restoration of life, under better conditions than the pre
sent — the faith of apostles and apostolic men would be
little better than insanity. It is this Ufe to come — this
future world of eternal bUss — provided for aU the fol
lowers of the suffering and crucified Son of God, which
not only explains that faith, but converts what would be
madness into the highest wisdom. But, in illustration
of the same truth, the apostle refers more particularly
to his own case, and speaks of his having had, in conse
quence of his Christianity, to fight with beasts at Ephe-

BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MARTYRDOM. 193
sus. By this strong expression he may be stating a
literal matter of fact ; for we know that Christians, in
those days of martyrdom, were actuaUy compeUed by
their bloody persecutors to fight with lions, panthers, and
other wUd animals, in order to amuse the giddy crowds
of the large Eoman cities gathered in the capacious am
phitheatres. Or the words may be metaphorical, and an
allusion to such scenes as the uproar in Ephesus, de
scribed iu the Acts of the Apostles, whilst Paul's life
and that of his companions were in jeopardy in conse
quence of the fury of Demetrius the silversmith and his
feUow-craftsmen. But be this as it may, the apostle,
referring to his own personal trials and persecutions,
uttered a very telling and significative question when
he asked, " If after the manner of men I have fought
with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the
dead rise not ? " His religion was worse than vain' — it
was a positive mischief and evil ; for if this life were all,
true wisdom suggested compliance with the Epicurean
maxim, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."
There is surely no great difficulty in understanding
the apostle's language in this place. Christians are
persecuted in this Ufe, and voluntarily submit to that
persecution rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season ; they must, accordingly, be looking for the re-
compence of the reward in a life to come. Their volun
tary submission to martyrdom rather than abandon
their faith, was not only a token of the firmness of their
religious convictions, but a pledge that they antici
pated better things in an after state of existence. And
this is the explanation of aU Christian martyrdoms.
N

194 DISCOURSE X.
Every age in the history of the Christian church, and
every form of Christianity, has had its martyrs. The
cry of the sufferer for conscience' sake has been heard
under every sky, and the dust of the murdered disciples
of Jesus Christ mingles with the soil of every land.
This is an undeniable fact, and the words before us con
strain us to inquire, What does it mean ? We may say
such men were foolish to run such risks, and expose
their lives to jeopardy, when there was more than a per-
adventure that a death of violence would overtake them.
We may charge them with overweening obstinacy in
holding by their principles when a little compliance
would secure safety, and, it may be, the favour of the
rich and powerful. Be it so. Call them, if you please,
foolish and obstinate; one thing is obvious, they had
faith — faith in a hereafter, when it would be shown that
they were in the right, and their persecutors in the
wrong. From the King of martyrs Himself, down to
the very humblest disciple who had foUowed in His
train, there was one thing which distinguished them aU,
and indeed explained their sufferings, and that was the
hope of a resurrection and a life to come.
It will be readily understood that this argument, or, as
we have called it, corroborative reason of the apostle, is
of force only amongst Christians. The voluntary endur
ance of persecution has no necessary connection with
the resurrection of the body, and cannot, therefore, in
itself, be regarded as a proof of it. It is quite conceiv
able that horrible agonies might be willingly, yea, proudly
endured, when no such faith was entertained as that
of a resurrection to glory. False reUgions have their

BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MARTYRDOM. 195
martyrs as weU as Christianity. Nay, motives of a far
more insignificant sort than the high hopes of the Gospel
have stimulated the soul of man to deeds of heroic en
durance, and sufferings beyond measure agonising. We
have heard of men who, probably, for the sake of
religion, would not take a walk to the neighbouring
village, leaving home and country, and for years sojourn
ing amidst the damp woods and pathless swamps of
Western America, or under the burning sun and pesti
lential jungles of Central Africa ; and their motives for
encountering all this danger were nothing better than
sport, or the enterprise of travel. The brave soldier will
march up to the cannon's mouth, and rush without a
thought on the levelled bayonets of a thousand men :
nay, though he may be bleeding from more than one
severe wound, will still fight on, and help to win the
day. We are told, indeed, of the untutored Indian —
"the Stoic of the woods, the man without a tear" —
absolutely provoking his enemy, when he has fallen into
his power, to inflict upon him every refinement of
cruelty, in order that he may discover how unflinchingly
he can endure every torture that ferocity can inflict.
The placid endurance of persecution, therefore, is in it
self neither a proof of the truth of Christianity nor yet
of a life to come. I say in itself : but there can be no
doubt that the endurance of such sufferings by Christians
is explainable on no other grounds. They are enUght-
ened. Their religion is one of love and of goodwill to
man. It has no pleasure in human suffering. It would
make everybody contented, happy, joyful. Its normal
condition is that of an influence which gladdens and re-

196 DISCOURSE X.
freshes the heart— prompting us to take aU the blessed
ness within our reach, and make others equally blessed
around us. When such a religion, and such a body of
religionists, prefer suffering to gladness, bodUy anguish
to enjoyment, hatred and malignity to the plaudits of
men, the damps of the dungeon to the hilarity of the
banqueting-haU, there must of necessity be a motive to
account for such a preference — and that, be it remem
bered, on the part of so great a multitude of sufferers —
far higher and more powerful than any of a merely
worldly sort. Now, the avowed motive is the hope of a
hereafter. Christians know and are persuaded that
there are better things to come — a crown of righteous
ness that fadeth not away. To them this is the highest
of aU motives. In the words of their blessed Lord, it is
more profitable for them to lose the whole world, and
even life itself, than be a castaway in the day of God.
The cordial and voluntary endurance of suffering for
Christ's cause on the part of such holy, truth-loving, and
earnest-minded men as the apostle Paul, is therefore
an evidence, far from destitute of weight, on the side of
the reality of the Christian's hopes. Such men wiU not
suffer in vain. Never would they prop up a delusion by
such a testimony. But the patient endurance of evil —
of reproach, and the malignant actions of men — on the
part of individuals far inferior to these apostolic martyrs,
is no less a testimony in behalf of a future life ; for who
would endure them unless he was convinced that a time
was coming when every wrong wiU be righted, and
suffering for Christ rewarded by the participation of
Christ's crown and glory ? Let us not, however, in this

BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MARTYRDOM. 197
matter commit a mistake. It is not the ordinary
afflictions of life that are spoken of, nor yet such per
secutions for religion as might be avoided. It is quite
possible to be martyrs by mistake ; and not less possible
is it — the thing has been exemplified a hundred times
in the history of the Church— to seek the martyr's
crown, or the prestige of suffering for Christ, in a boast
ful, conceited, unchristian spirit. Our blessed Lord
never counselled His disciples to throw themselves in
the way of martyrdom; on the contrary, He desired
them to do their best to escape it; and when "perse
cuted in one city they were to flee to another." The
meaning of such an advice seems to be, that the
Christian suffers just because he cannot help it. He
fain would avoid the sad necessity ; he would much
rather be let alone, and even possess the favour and love
of those who without a cause do him evU : but as this
cannot be done, nothing remains for him but to do his
duty, let what may be the result. His good may be
evil spoken of, his person or character may be assailed ;
but it may often happen that he has no other defence or
shelter but the assurance that justice wiU be done him
on another day. The Christian suffers, and bides his
time. Persecutors, therefore, of every sort, incur a fear
ful responsibility. It is not human passion, but the
Spirit of God which has said, " He who troubleth you,
toucheth the apple of God's eye ; " it is not uninspired
man, but Incarnate Deity Himself, who has uttered the
tremendous words, " Woe unto him that offendeth one
of these little ones : better for that man would it be that
a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he cast

198 DISCOURSE X.
into the sea, than that he should offend the least of these
Uttle ones !" All this, however, is corroborative of the
doctrine just stated, that sufferings endured for Christ's
sake are a standing protest in behalf of a judgment to
come. Christians, in one shape or another, must suffer ;
nay, suffer for their religion. It is the appointment or
ordination of God, and the design seems to be, as laid
down by the apostle in this place, to keep the minds of
men fixed on the certainty of a hereafter and the re
tributions of the day of God.
3. In the third place, the apostle concludes this,
which may be called the first part of his dissertation on
the resurrection of the body, with some words of practi
cal admonition. With Paul this is an habitual practice.
Doctrine and duty with him are constantly and closely
associated : and so, having laid it down as one of the
most certain truths of the Christian faith that another
life is coming, he fails not to admonish of those duties
which constitute the one and only preparation for it.
" Be not deceived," he tells us ; "evil communications cor
rupt good manners." That is to say, human nature, as at
present constituted, and not a little in consequence of
the position we severally hold in connection with our
feUow-creatures, is liable to a thousand delusions. We
are apt to be led astray. We may readily become the
victims of deception ; and holding evil communications
— that is, famiUar intercourse and fellowship with wicked
and worldly persons — may forget our Christian disciple-
ship and fall into deadly error. Our business is to re
member a hereafter, to think of the resurrection of the
dead and the life which must •ensue, and to resist those

BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MARTYRDOM. 199
propensities and practices of evU which issue in corrup
tion, the displeasure of God, and a total disqualification
for that holy existence our religion teaches us to antici
pate. Better practise self-denial now than lose the
crown of glory hereafter : better resist the allurements
of vice, and the fascinations of an unholy and worldly-
minded society — nay, better welcome even persecution
and suffering — than fall short of a place and portion in
the kingdom of God. "Awake," he adds, "to righteous
ness, and sin not ; for some have not the knowledge of
God : I speak this to you shame." This apostolic man
had been teaching the Corinthians for years. With all
the fervour of a recent convert to the Gospel of the
cross of Christ, with aU the zeal of a Heaven-commis
sioned and inspired missionary of Jesus, he had been
inculcating upon them his lessons of faith and holiness ;
and yet there were some in that highly favoured com
munity destitute of the " knowledge of God." Strange
statement ! But is it not paralleled amongst ourselves ?
We too have had an open Bible ; ceaseless admonitions
"in season and out of season;" the Spirit of God in a
thousand different ways striving with our ignorance and
natural depravity. And yet have we not reason to fear
that many amongst us have not the knowledge of God —
a practical acquaintance, that is to say, with the very
rudimentals and first principles of the religion which we
profess? Would the drunkard revel in his debauch
eries ; would the haunts of vice be frequented ; would the
proud be oppressive, and the dishonest chuckle with in
ternal glee when he has managed to overreach and im
pose upon his victim ; would the, Sabbath-breaker find

200 DISCOURSE X.
any pleasure in profaning the holiest day of all the
seven, or the blasphemer take an insane delight in oaths
and vile execrations, — if those guilty of such things
really knew and felt that, as religion tell us they do, be
fore God and the blessed angels, strip every responsible
being of the last relic of grace, and prove a meetness
only for the region of condemnation and woe ? There
are many reasons stiU — extant amongst ourselves, in
our own society, and even congregation — which might
almost prompt the expression of the fear that the Gos
pel is preached amongst us, and the ordinances of God
dispensed, in vain. Peradventure, however, words of
apostolic warning addressed to the Corinthian church
may not be unavailing to us. It is the Spirit of God
speaking to aU times which is here addressing us. " Be
not deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners.
Awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not
the knowledge of God ; I speak this to your shame."
With these words the apostle concludes the first part
of his subject — the demonstration of the truth and reality
of the Eesurrection of the Body. The remainder of the
chapter is occupied with the no less important, perhaps
even more interesting, questions relative to the nature
of our resurrection - humanity, and the circumstances
in which that resurrection is effected.
Here, however, let us pause for a moment, and reflect.
The doctrine thus formally announced, yea established
by a lengthened series of arguments, is one of the most
momentous and suggestive in the whole compass of
Christian truth. The resurrection of the dead ! Think
what that means, and to what consequences it necessarily

BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MARTYRDOM. 20l
points. Ancient philosophy might and did arrive at
the conviction of the soul's immortality; that appeared
quite natural, and in accordance with reason, just as the
human heart very readily takes it in still. We have
not much difficulty in conceiving that when the body
dies the soul should continue to live on. But that the
body should live again : this is the astounding fact of
the apostle's revelation. We see it dying, and that at
aU periods of its growth. Feeble infancy, mature life,
decrepit age, are daily sending their representatives to
the tomb. The gatherers of what are called vital sta
tistics tell us that a death happens absolutely in every
second of time. This in itself is a striking fact. But
the body is palpably not preserved after death. It
decays, becomes offensively putrid, eventuaUy is reduced
to dust ; its constituent particles scattered about in ten
thousand directions, part, it may be, combined with the
very stones and mortar which compose the houses of
living men ; part absorbed into the trunks and branches
of trees and other plants ; part into the bodies of hun
dreds of other animals, it may be, in succession. To
preserve so much as one human body, seems to be a
physical impossibility. The embalmers of ancient Egypt
expended all their skiU in making the attempt; but
every visitor of our museums can tell how fast the well-
swathed mummies of priests and kings are crumbUng
into dust, European curiosity helping the process not a
little. In our affectionate regard for departed relatives,
or esteem for the wise and noble of earth's sons, we dig
deep sepulchres, hew out the ponderous sarcophagus,
build walls almost of adamant to hinder, if it were pos-

202 DISCOURSE X.
sible, their mingling with earth again. But aU is
vain. The primeval sentence must needs be executed —
" Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return ; " and
at this advanced period in the world's history we may
defy the universe to produce, out of all the millions of
the dead, so much as one single exception to the aU-
comprehending sentence. Yet here, in this wonderful
chapter, the apostle Paul proclaims the startling, sur
prising, tremendous fact of the resurrection of the dead.
It is not the immortality of the soul of which he is
speaking. There is a sense in which he affirms the
immortality of the body. This body of ours may at
present be frail and dying, but the elements of an
immortal life are in it too ; and by-and-by, even after
centuries of disintegration in the grave, it wiU reappear
in its integrity and live for ever. Such is the apostle's
declaration. Nor is that a single and merely isolated
fact in our history. It is a fact which carries with it a
whole host of other facts no less teUing and wonderful.
If I rise from the dead, restored to corporeal functions,
it is plain that this must be to brook the casualties of
another life — this time destined never to end. If others,
yea multitudes upon multitudes, are to be restored alongst
with me, what is this but the reconstruction of human
society — the setting agoing again, over a vast territory, of
aU the habitudes and interchanges of human life? And
if there be such a thing as a judgment to come — and
Scripture also declares that fact, and makes it coincident
with the resurrection-day — then, it appears to me, the
very problem of human life is resolved ; the grand pur
pose revealed to the universe which God has had in

BAPTISM AND ENDURANCE OF MARTYRDOM. 203
view in His moral government of the human race. There
is a hereafter. There is a world to come. The earth,
subsequently to the judgment of. the great day, is to be
inhabited throughout all its borders by the good and
holy of aU bygone generations and lands ; and that act
of judgment, separating the righteous from amongst the
wicked, and giving them alone the kingdom and the
glory, is virtually and substantially the Almighty review
ing the character and deeds of every human being, as
these have been indicated in the present world. 0
awful, yea appalling, consideration ! Would to God we
could lay it to heart ! We are now busUy laying up the
materials for the decision of the great day. Do we ever
think seriously of that ? It is not our condition in this
world, but our character, which will then determine, not
merely the fact of our salvation, but our place amongst
the saved. Now is the golden opportunity of fleeing
from heU and rising to heaven ; of winning the crown
of righteousness ; of earning the title to be addressed in
the blessed words, " Well done, good and faithful ser
vant." What are you doing, then, my brethren ? Believe
me, there is nothing transcendental — that is, extravagant
or out of the way — in the essential ingredients of the
Christian character. It is simply to live the life of
Christ in that sphere where God has cast your lot. Are
you doing this? Believe me, amongst the common
place duties and occupations of your respective calUngs*
you have the most precious and abundant opportunities
to make fuU proof of your Christianity ; in the humblest
paths of human Ufe you may pick up the gold of the
kingdom of heaven. Go forth, then, I beseech you in

204 DISCOURSE X.
God's name, and do it. 0 pray to God that He may be
pleased to enable you to lead a useful life. Shrink from
living in vain. Be loving towards your fellow-men; be
faithful to the cause of God your Saviour; seek out
opportunities of doing good, and do not weary in such
exercises. You will then find in the resurrection-day,
and when the rewards of eternity are going, that such
things will not be forgotten.

DISCOURSE XI.
THE BODY WHICH DIES AND IS BURIED THE SEED OF
THAT WHICH RISES AGAIN.
1 Cor. xv. 35-38 — " But some man will say, How are," &c.

Authorised Version.
" But some man will say, How
are the dead raised up ? and with
what body do they come ? Thou
fool, that which thou sowest is
not quickened except it die : and
that which thou sowest, thou sow
est not that body that shall be,
but bare grain, it may chance of
wheat, or of some other grain :
but God giveth it a body as it
hath pleased Him, and to every
seed his own body."
New Translation.
But some one will say, How are
the dead raised up ? and in what
body do they come ? Inconsider
ate man, what thou sowest is not
quickened unless it die. And as
to what thou sowest, not the body
that shall be dost thou sow, but a
naked seed, as, for example, of

Paraphrase.
But some one will be ready to
ask the questions, By what means
are the dead raised up ? In what
manner will that extraordinary
event take place ? And when the
resurrection is completed, what
sort of body will man possess ?
These questions may be asked in
the spirit of captiousness and un
belief, and as though it were im
possible for God to find a body in
which to present the risen man.
But this proceeds from the want
of consideration. The phenomena
of vegetation may teach a lesson
on this subject. Every seed that
is sown first dies, and then springs
into a new life. Moreover, it does
not appear at once what the re
sulting plant shall be. We sow a
naked seed, as, for instance, of
wheat or of some other grain ; and

206 DISCOURSE XI.
wheat or of some other grain : and God causes to spring from that
God giveth it a body as He hath seed a plant having a special as-
pleased, and to each of the seeds pect and constitution — every seed,
its own body. indeed, its own peculiar plant.
The apostle now enters upon the second branch or divi
sion of his great subject. He has hitherto been con
sidering the resurrection of the dead as a doctrine to be
proved, or a matter of fact included in the divine decree,
whose reality was to be established by evidence. Ac
knowledging, therefore, at once, the apostle's authority
to affirm the doctrine, and the validity of his arguments,
we are now bound to lay it down as a matter of con
crete certainty that the dead shall rise again. This is
the position at which we have now arrived. The resur
rection of the dead is a fact in the future history of the
human race. But it is plain, from the remainder of the
chapter before us, that the apostle is not inclined to
stop there, contenting himself with the mere announce
ment of the fact. He will go a great deal farther, and
answer some very natural but most important questions
connected with that subject. We know with absolute
certainty that the bygone generations of men have all
not only died, but been so reduced to dust that no
human eye can detect the difference betwixt common
earth and what was originally the constituent materials
of which a human body was composed : and we know
that, in due course of time, unless the changes of the
great day arrive aU the sooner, we ourselves into dust
must be reduced. But, it seems, we shall rise again, or
be restored to corporeal existence. The questions, then,
are singularly natural, and such as come home to every

THE BODY THE SEED OF THAT WHICH RISES. 207
reflective heart. What can the means be, the instru
mentality and the circumstances, by which so marvel
lous an effect will be produced ? and after the effect is
produced — that is, the resurrection accomplished — what
sort of bodies shall we and our fellow-creatures be in pos
session of? This is the subject-matter of the remainder
of the chapter — a discussion prefaced by the words of the
first verse now read, " But some man will say, How are
the dead raised up ? and with what body do they come ?"
1. Let us, in the first place, consider the full signifi
cancy of the questions which the apostle here proposes
to answer.
" How are the dead raised up ? " Most probably
this is the interrogation of an unbelieving objector,
put for the purpose of challenging the very possibiUty
of a resurrection ; and, assuredly, if we look to natural
probabilities, it is difficult to conceive of anything in
the shape of an intelligible proposition which carries
with it so large an amount of intrinsic unlikelihood.
Millions upon millions of the human species have lived
and died. They played their part on the stage of time,
and then passed away. What has become of their
bodies, once so well known and conspicuous amongst
their fellows ? Millions of the human species are
dying every year. What will their bodies be in a very
brief period of time ? The various agencies of fire, air,
earth, and water are let loose upon them, and the whole
chemical powers of the universe, without a single
exception, are combined in hostile array against them.
To preserve a human body from corruption and decay
is an absolute impossibility. If a few of the fathers of

208 DISCOURSE XI.
our race — Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, or the like —
had been preserved in the integrity of their persons ;
still more, if a considerable number of earth's sons were
in this condition ; and could we go and look upon
them, we might have less difficulty, at least so far as
they are concerned, in believing that by-and-by the
spirit would return to these now inanimate frames and
effect a resuscitation. But there is nothing of the sort.
I repeat it : the whole powers of nature seem to be
combined in a settled purpose and resolution — is not
this the decree of God ? — to prevent even so much as
one single instance of incorruption on the part of a
dead body. The bones and muscles, the humours and
tissues of the human frame, are all instinct with the
elements of their own dissolution. No sooner does a
man die than he begins to rot ; and the process of
disintegration does not end untU he is reduced to dust
— not, indeed, even then. " Dust thou art, and unto
dust thou shalt return," was the sentence promulgated
long ago ; and from the execution of that sentence not
a single exception can be produced. The Egyptians
embalmed their dead at enormous expense, swathing
them with bituminous cloths, saturating . them with
antiseptic medicaments, and depositing them often in
a granite sarcophagus besides, and by these means
managed to preserve them for centuries. But what
multitudes of these sarcophaguses are now empty —
their contents long ago scattered to the winds — used as
cisterns for holding water — or, in consequence of their
exquisite carvings, conveyed to other and distant parts
of the world, to contain the bones of sundry other rich

THE BODY THE SEED OF THAT WHICH RISES. 209
persons there, and to be, doubtless, emptied again in
due course of time ! And everywhere, the long-pre
served bodies of Egyptian Pharaohs and priests of lofty
rank, though carefuUy taken care of as curiosities in
our museums, are, notwithstanding, manifesting tokens
of decay. The populous and once powerful nations of
Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and the East generaUy, were
in the habit of burying their dead in commodious
sepulchres hewn out of the soUd rock, and thousands
of these sepulchres are to this day to be met with over
aU the East ; but the singular fact is, that not so much
as one solitary fragment of a human body is now to be
found in them all. The natural progress of decay did
first of all reduce the body to a mere handful of dust,
and either the moisture which from time to time
penetrated into such recesses, or currents of air, have
actually removed that dust itself, and niche and
sepulchre are literally unconscious of a single fragment
that man could say entered into the constitution of a
human body. The ancient Greeks and Eomans were
in the habit of burning their dead, the remains of
classical literature testifying in many passages to the
funeral-pile as a well-known institution of those
countries and times ; and aU that was preserved of the
bodies of heroes, statesmen, warriors, and other mighty
men, was a handful of the ashes, preserved as a relic
of the deceased in some vase of glass or porcelain,
which has either long ago been broken, or emptied of
its contents, or converted into an ornament of our
museums. The IJarsees of North- Western India have
the curious custom of buUding lofty towers in some
0

210 DISCOURSE XI.
exposed situation, and on the summit laying out their
dead to be devoured by birds. The adherents of the
Brahminical faith either burn their dead or cast their
bodies into the Ganges and other sacred rivers. In
Christian and Mohammedan countries — and the same
thing may be said generaUy of the vast populations of
China and the far East — burial in the earth is the mode
resorted to for disposing of the dead. But whatever
be the method of disintegration, the result is every
where the same — a total resolution of the body into its
constituent elements. Some interesting and affecting
discoveries were recently made at Pompen, a city over
whelmed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius towards
the end of the first century of the Christian era. A
torrent of mud had obviously overtaken numbers of
persons — soldiers, ladies, children, fleeing from the
dreadful calamity ; and the result has been that their
bodies all decayed, leaving casts of their respective
forms on the mud, which, of course, in process of time
hardened, and which modern skill, having fiUed up with
plaster-of-Paris, has been able to use as the means of
restoring the outward shape and appearance of persons
who perished in the great catastrophe. But Uttle or
nothing of the bodUy frame has been preserved, little
else being found in those empty casts but perhaps a
spear-head, a ring, a chain, or a bracelet. The conse
quence of all this universal process of corruption is the
obviously universal diffusion of human remains. The
waters of the ocean have dissolved, and its fishes
devoured, miUions upon millions of human beings.
Fires have sent into the atmosphere the constituent

THE BODY THE SEED OF THAT WHICH RISES. 211
particles of millions more ; and millions upon millions
buried in the earth have supplied nutriment for the
grass and flowers and trees which grow near their
place of sepulture. The result of all this is quite plain
to every mind. The water which we drink, the air
which we breathe, the food which we eat, the clothing
which we put on, the walls and furniture of our houses,
the earth on which we tread, the crops which grow in
our fields, are all composed in no small degree of
material once part of human bodies. On the hypothesis
of a resurrection it well may be asked, " How are the
dead raised up ?" By what means is the extraordinary
confusion so plainly existing to be extricated? It
requires little ingenuity to devise puzzling questions,
and to start inexplicable difficulties on such a subject.
It is well known that at no two moments are our
bodies, precisely and numerically, the same as to the
particles of which they are composed. A thousand
persons who have lived before us may each lay claim
to parts of us, and there may be not so much as one
particle which is exclusively our own. Name any
human being who died a thousand years ago : in that
interval the particles of his body may have been carried
by the waves of the sea, or the waters of rivers, over aU
the coasts and provinces of the world, or blown by the
winds to the summits of ten thousand different moun
tains, and there they may be lodged at this moment.
How are they to be got together again? These and
other similar ideas very readUy suggest themselves ;
and an objector may use them in disputing the reality
of such a doctrine as that of the resurrection, or even

212 DISCOURSE XI.
in maintaining it to be a physical impossibility. Such
seems to be the significancy of the first question before
us — " How are the dead raised up ? "
But there is another question suggested in the text —
" With what body do they come ? " The first question
which we have already considered, seems to refer to the
mode and circumstances of the resurrection ; but this
to the ultimate and resulting effect. It is as if the
objector had said, Let us imagine that all the difficulties
have been surmounted which stand in the way of a
resurrection ; let us conceive the infinitely scattered
fragments of the human body to be brought together,
bone to his bone, sinew to his sinew, muscle to his
muscle — what will be the concrete appearance and con
stitution of the resuscitated frame ? WiU the risen and
immortal body be identified, in any particulars, with
that which lived and died ? And, if so, what are those
particulars ? Will the distinctions of age, sex, and phy
sical structure be maintained ? Will the child that has
died in infancy be restored as a child ; and will it have,
thereafter, powers of growth and bodily development ?
Will the marks of age distinguish those who, with grey
hairs, a wrinkled forehead, and stooping form, tottered
into the grave ? Many such questions may very easily
be asked, some of them exceedingly idle and unneces
sary, any answer to which, even if we had materials to
furnish it, would only gratify curiosity and contribute
nothing whatever to the true enlightenment and edifica
tion of the soul. But one thing is sufficiently clear
from the very fact of the apostle himself suggesting the
question, and that is, that when the resurrection is

THE BODY THE SEED OF THAT WHICH RISES. 213
accomplished, a true, literal, tangible, material body
wul be in the possession of every one who shares in the
transactions of that important period. He prompts an
inquiry on our part, " With what body do they come ? "
What is this but saying, A body they have — a corporeal
constitution — a framework of material substance — taken
out of the earth — moulded as Adam's body was from the
dust of the ground, a wonderful structure, with organs,
parts, powers, and functions ? The very question, there
fore, dissipates for ever those spiritualising views of the
resurrection -humanity which, I fear, are still popular
with many. The absurd and groundless fancy that our
future heaven is an elysium in the far-distant skies, and
not this solid world of ours restored to its paradisiacal
state, finds a very fit accompaniment in the fancy, as
baseless and preposterous, that the human body, after
the resurrection, is to be a gigantic globule of gas — a
thin and airy vehicle, to float through infinite space,
like a bubble on the stream, and not, as was the risen
body of our Lord, a solid structure of bone, muscle, and
sinew, capable of walking the surface of the earth, of
eating and drinking, seeing, handling, and being handled
by others. It is with a " body " that these children of
the resurrection come, and that term involves, as a con
sideration absolutely essential to its meaning, the con
ceptions of solidity, tangibility, and multiplicity of parts
and functions. Body and spirit are contrasted with and
in constitution antagonistic to one another ; and it is
literally a contradiction in terms, and an absurdity, to
speak of .the one becoming the other. As well, indeed,
speak of light becoming darkness, whilst all the while

214 DISCOURSE XI.
it continues luminous ; or life becoming death, whilst
all the functions of life are in active exercise. When
we die we become spiritual ; but when we rise again,
the thing which takes place is the clothing of that spirit
with a material body, made out of the substance of the
earth. This is the fact obviously announced by the
apostle, when he asks the question — " With what body
do they come ? "
2. Having thus endeavoured to explain the meaning
of the questions suggested by the apostle, I proceed to
consider, in the second place, his answers : these he
gives in the remainder of the chapter — at considerable
length, very distinctly, and each in order.
His first statement in Teply to these questions is an
allusion to the common and well-known phenomenon of
the growth of vegetables from seeds. " Thou fool," he
says, " that which thou sowest is not quickened except
it die." Here I may mention, in passing, that the term
translated " fool " in this place has nothing disrespectful
in it ; it merely signifies thoughtless or inconsiderate,
implying that the party who is inclined to regard the
resurrection of the dead as an impossible thing, is in
error, not from incapacity but from carelessness, and
failing to take in the instruction which many of the
commonest phenomena of nature are obtruding upon
his notice on every side of him. The allusion to vege
table growth from a seed cast into the ground and
dying in the process, is taken from one of the utterances
of our blessed Lord Himself. In the Gospel according
to John we find Him saying, with reference to His own
death, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of

THE BODY THE SEED OF THAT WHICH RISES. 2 1 5
wheat faU into the ground and die, it abideth alone : but
if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Very striking
and instructive is our Lord's metaphor. If you take a
seed — as, for instance, a grain of wheat — and carefuUy
preserve it in a dry place, and in some secure reposi
tory, you may retain that seed for a considerable length
of time. But it is evident that " it abideth alone ;"
nothing more than a single seed will be secured by this
process of careful preservation. But let it die ; bury it
in the earth, and let that individual seed never more be
heard of : what is the result ? There is a principle of
growth in it ; its apparent death is only a conversion
into another sort of life, and that, too, a far more ex
panded life, which grows, enlarges, and finally produces
" much fruit" — an absolute multitude of seeds aU simUar
to that from which they sprang. The lesson which the
Saviour meant us to learn from the similitude is this :
the dying Jesus is the seed of the Church, the means
ordained of bringing many sons unto glory. And not
less expressive is the similitude as employed by the
apostle. FamUiar are we with the fact to which he
refers. We may hold a seed in our hand ; so long as
we keep it thus, or in any of our repositories, it remains
unchanged; there it is, a dry, not very sightly, and
apparently a lifeless, thing. But let us consent, as it
were, to its death : let us bury it in the ground, and
what an extraordinary effect ensues ! The dry and sap
less seed becomes an animated thing. Its apparent
death and burial are the preliminaries and procuring
cause of enhanced and very wonderful vitality ; a green
and growing shoot issues from that seed, visiting again

2l6 DISCOURSE XI.
the light of day, and in due course of time developing
into the full-grown plant. Is the seed a grain of wheat ?
there is first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn
in the ear. Is it an acorn ? there is the shoot, enlarg
ing into the sapling, and finally becoming a mighty
tree, the monarch of the forest. Is it a tulip-root, or the
seed of some other flower ? there is the lengthened and
lengthening stem, crowned at last with its radiant dia
dem of many colours. Nothing can be more wonderful
than these changes, and yet they all depend upon the
death, or apparent death, of the seed. "That which
thou sowest is not quickened except it die."
The obvious meaning of these words is this : the
death and burial of the human body are but divine pre
liminaries for a more glorious life in the hereafter.
They are steps taken in Providence — arrangements on
the broad scale of the universe — for bringing about the
epoch of life and immortality. Had we no experience
of the growth of seeds, we might be totally at a loss
to understand how the acorn is the preUminary of the
majestic tree, or a field with a handful of grains scat
tered over it becomes a plot of ground covered with a
waving crop of corn ; so, not having yet seen how death
and the grave are the appropriate and appointed ante
cedents of a future life, we are apt to consider the thing
an impossibility. And yet, for aught we can tell, that
process of disintegration may have some physical power
about it to effect the end sought for by the resurrection
from the dead. The human body, in its present state,
is infirm, and liable to disease ; is it not a possible thing
that it is compelled to die, and that it is scattered about
in the wide dissolution we see, for the express purpose

THE BODY THE SEED OF THAT WHICH RISES. 217
of purging out of it all traces of imperfection ? This,
literally, seems to be the meaning of the words before
us. The Eesurrection is a physical thing. Its object
is the restoration of the body, but in a perfect and
incorruptible state ; and the breaking down, dissolu
tion, and scattering of its parts after death, is neither
more nor less than a physical process by which that
great change may be more readily effected. We may
not be able to explain the process any more than we
can tell how the rugged seed becomes a gorgeous flower,
or a piece of charcoal is converted into a diamond ; but
it is something to be told the fact, and we can afford to
await the explanation, which perhaps may come in
good time. Be content, therefore, the apostle virtually
tells us here — be content to wait a little. We shall yet
see and be convinced that there are good physical reasons
for death, that there is a higher sense in which the
words may be. employed — " That which thou sowest is
not quickened except it die."
Surely this is a doctrine full of instruction as to
the dealings of God in nature and providence; surely
it is rich in consolation to those ' who, it may be,
again and again have felt themselves bereaved by the
stroke of death. It is at present the law of God that
disintegration shall overtake the body — dissolution of
the entire frame, and dispersion of its parts abroad in
every direction ; but just as truly as the death of the
seed is the life of the plant, so is it the law of God that
this process of dissolution and disintegration shall issue
in a restored and still more wonderful vitality. Our
friends, therefore, are not lost because they die. We
may have seen the coffin issuing from our dweUing — a

2l8 DISCOURSE XI.
dwelling that will never more be lighted up with the
smile of the loved one taken from us ; with a heavy
heart we may have followed the melancholy procession
alongst our streets ; and as we heard the clods rattle on
the coffin-lid, and looked into that narrow house ap
pointed for all living, we may, in our foUy or inconsi-
derateness, have been ready to give up our hearts to
despair, imagining that death's triumph was destined to
be eternal. But it is not so ; we are but planting
another seed whose product will appear on the resurrec
tion morning. In order that the seed may be quickened
into immortal life, it must die. This is not the winter
of death, it is rather to be regarded as the spring-time
of hope. " He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing
precious seed, will doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him." Think of what takes
place in spring. Over a thousand fields the husband
man is scattering his seed into the ground he has
ploughed and prepared for the puipose with no Uttle
violence, and as it were disregard of the precious grain,
trampling it and burying it in the dust; in many a
goodly parterre the gardener is plying the spade, and
burying thousands of seeds. All this is done in faith,
in confidence that summer and autumn are coming; and
when the season is sufficiently advanced you behold the
result. No less certainly will you yet behold the con
sequences of the seed-planting of the grave. Why did
your friends die at aU ? Did not old age bring down
one to the dust, and accident remove another ; did not
the rasping cough, or the heavy expectoration, tell of a
mortal consumption long before the crisis came ; did
not rheumatic pains torture and debilitate, or paralytic

THE BODY THE SEED OF THAT WHICH RISES. 219
affections consign to helpless debility ; was not the eye
of one dim, and the ear of another dull ; and is it not
the dictate of reason that means should be taken — and
physical means they must be, for they aU relate to phy
sical subjects — for clearing from the human body all
these ailments, and rendering defect and disease for ever
thereafter an impossibility ? Mourn 'not, therefore, at
the death of friends, as if God -were unwise and knew
not what He was doing, or as if you yourselves had no
hope. The old building is taken down to remove a
thousand inconveniences and defects, and by-and-by it
will reappear in a nobler form. Death is the prelimin
ary of a better life. " Thou fool, that which thou sowest
is not quickened except it die."
The next statement of the apostle is to the effect
that the connection subsisting betwixt man's mortal
and man's resurrection humanity is as much a matter
of physical and divine arrangement as the connection
betwixt the seed and the plant which grows from it.
" That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body
which shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat
or of some other grain : but God giveth it a body as it
hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body."
This language appears quite intelligible. When a man
buries a seed in the earth he does not intend to dig it
up again — hiding it, as the unfaithful servant did his
one talent — in precisely the same state in which it was
deposited. He knows there is in that seed a principle
of vitaUty, and that the power of God will produce in
it a very wonderful development. Instead of one grain
of wheat he wiU have an entire plant, many heads it
may be, and a whole multitude of grains : instead of

220 DISCOURSE XI.
the rough and rugged flower-seed he will have the stem
and branches of a most conspicuous foliage and an
absolute mass of brilliant flowers. Nay, this process
takes place in accordance with natural laws — laws
universally operative and to be depended on. A field
sown with oats will not grow up and in harvest be
covered with a crop of wheat, nor will a nursery-plot
sown out with firs be transmuted into oak saplings.
The power of God operates in every individual seed,
and according to special laws ; and whilst there is an
idiosyncrasy in every plant which grows from every
seed, so much so that no two plants are precisely alike,
yet there is no confusion or intermingling of species.
God, indeed, "giveth it a body as it hath pleased
Him," and yet it is the fact, that to each seed He
allotteth " its own body." All this, the apostle very
plainly affirms, is but the symbol or emblem of most
mysterious things connected with the resurrection of
the dead. The body which dies is plainly affirmed to
be the seed of the body which rises again. I say, the
body — that is to say, this material framework of muscle,
sinew, and bone — for to the soul there is no aUusion
here whatsoever. A body, or corporeal structure, is
carried to the grave at its burial ; and a body, or struc
ture equaUy corporeal, comes out of the grave again at
the resurrection-day. And what the apostle affirms is
this, that that body, apparently so inert, or rather in
such haste to be corrupted, and pass absolutely into
dust, has a principle of vitality in it — as much so as
the grain of wheat or the acorn from the oak. The
decay and corruption are a stage, a necessary stage,
towards the incipient and sure-to-be-completed resus-

THE BODY THE SEED OF THAT WHICH RISES. 221
citation. And why should we doubt this ? When we
see the myriad forms of Ufe aU existing around us, is
it wonderful that the body of man — that masterpiece
of creative power and wisdom — should furnish an
exemplification of that life or vitaUty even beyond
what the senses enable us at present to perceive?
ShaU that be affirmed of so insignificant an object as
a grain of wheat, and be denied to the nobler structure
of the human body? shall that be true of an acorn,
of which a child may make a plaything, and false of
the grandest and most wonderful of all the works of
God? We have here, therefore, under the hand of an in
spired apostle, an affirmation of the important fact, that
this body of ours which we carry about with us — which
dies — which our friends are in haste to bury out of
their sight — which goes into dust and apparent disso
lution — is only undergoing a process of transmutation.
The grain of wheat dies, but reappears again as the
headed and flourishing stem of corn : the acorn dies,
but the grand oak springs from its corrupting integu
ments : the seed dies, but only to bulk again before
the view as the flower-plant loaded with a thousand
blossoms. So man dies, but it is a physical fact — a
fact which people dispute simply because they have as
yet no experience of it — that the man who has thus
died will appear again before the light of the sun and
in the face of the visible creation, more developed,
more advanced, more glorious than he was before.
And surely, when we see so many imperfections about
him — aU, as we are told in Scripture, the result of the
Fall — we ought only to be too thankful that the

222 DISCOURSE XI.
Almighty has made provision for the complete removal
of every such imperfection, and his reconstruction on the
primeval pattern — that is, the image of God.
The apostle in these verses resorts to what logicians
call the method of reasoning from analogy. The an
alogy which he uses is that of the seed, and the plant
growing from it. But in nature there are thousands
of analogies besides ; and even the operations of provi
dence and the proceedings of human art are constantly
reminding us of this remarkable fact, that nothing
whatever in the whole universe perishes or becomes
extinct. It is only our ignorance which rushes to that
conclusion. To this round world of ours there has not
been added since the creation so much as one particle
of matter, nor yet so much as that taken from it. It
utterly transcends the power of any chemistry known
to man either to make or to destroy one single material
atom. But change, and what we must caU develop
ment, are universal laws. The frost crumbles our
granitic mountains into dust, and the waters of our
rivers bear that dust in the shape of mud to the ocean,
where new strata are ever forming, in due course of
time to become dry land, perhaps granitic mountains
again. Man selects a quarry of stone which God has
provided him with, and with much labour he digs
away and apparently destroys it; but in reality he
only converts that quarry into the castellated mansion,
the humble cottage, the streets and tenements of the
mighty metropoUs. Or he goes to the ancient forest
and hews down ten thousand trees, sweeping them, as
it were, from the face of the earth ; but the result of his
labour is the conversion of those trees into a fleet of

THE BODY THE SEED OF THAT WHICH RISES. 223
ships bearing the traffic of the world from shore to
shore. There are chemical mixtures which can dis
solve the most magnificent vases of gold and silver,
and the resulting product is but a gallon or two of
water, turbid and unsightly. Is the gold or sUver lost ?
No — not one particle of it. The whole, to the last
atom, may be recovered, and the vase restored in good
lier and more perfect proportions than before. So with
perfect confidence may we leave man in the hands of
his Maker. He who, like the potter in the Prophecies
of Ezekiel, has found the vessel he purposed to manu
facture marred in the making, can, like him, also crush
it into a lump of clay, only to make it over again and
more beautiful than ever.
But, in conclusion, let me remind every one now
hearing me, that as there is a resurrection unto life, so
also is there a resurrection unto death. Pray then, my
friends, that your lot — in that day — may be found amongst
the people of God. Only to them is the resurrection a
boon. 0 how dreadful to be raised from the dead — to
see with our eyes the King in His beauty, the glories
of the new Jerusalem, and the blessedness of the
redeemed, only to hear the sentence of eternal exclusion,
and to brook the agonies of the second death ! Pray
then, my friends : commune in the spirit with God :
believe, labour, and live the Christian Ufe, that so you
may " be found worthy to escape the things which are
coming on an ungodly world, and to stand before the
Son of Man." 0 better you had never been born than
to hear on that day the tremendous words, " Cast ye the
unprofitable servant into outer darkness : there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth."

DISCOURSE XII.
THE RESURRECTION-BODY THE DEVELOPMENT OF THAT
WHICH LIVED AND DIED.

1 Cor. xv. 39-41— " All flesh is not the same flesh,'' &e.

AUTHORISED VERSION.
"All flesh is not the same flesh :
but there is one kind of flesh of
men, another flesh of beasts, ano
ther of fishes, and another of birds.
There are also celestial bodies, and
bodies terrestrial : but the glory
of the celestial is one, and the
glory of the terrestrial is another.
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." NEW TRANSLATION.
Not all flesh is the same flesh ;
but there is one flesh of men, an
other of cattle, another of fishes,
and another of birds. There are
also bodies heavenly, and bodies
earthly; but the glory of the
heavenly bodies is one, and that
of the earthly another. There

is one glory of the sun, and an
other glory of the moon, and an
other glory of the stars ; for star
differeth from star in glory.
PARAPHRASE.
Or, we may take an illustration
from animal life. What extraor
dinary varieties do you find exist
ing in this department of nature !
Men, cattle, fishes, birds, are all
clothed in flesh, but vastly dis
tinguished from one another. We
may even go further. There are
heavenly bodies, and there are
earthly bodies, both glorious ; but
the glory of the one is very differ
ent from the glory of the other.
The sun exhibits one form of
glory, the moon another, the stars
another, and even one star differs
from another star in glory. It is
evidently, therefore, the will of
God that variety should prevail
amongst His works.

DEVELOPMENT IN THE RESURRECTION BODY. 225
In my last discourse upon this chapter I directed
your attention to the significancy of the two questions
which the apostle proposes to consider, and to part, at
least, of his answer to these questions. When the in
quiry is made, " How are the dead raised up ?" the ques
tion seems to relate to the means and processes by
which the great resurrection of the latter day is effected ;
and when it is asked, " With what body do they come?"
we are evidently carried beyond the resurrection itself
into the world which succeeds it, and are called upon
to contemplate the very constitution and character of
that humanity in which the glorified will then be
clothed. Now, in answering these questions the
apostle institutes an analogy betwixt the human body
and ordinary seed — a very singular, a very striking and
frequent, and yet, at the same time, a very intelligible
iUustration of the doctrine upon which he is enlarging.
The human body in its present state is the seed of the
human body as it will appear at the resurrection day.
In our folly or inconsiderateness we may suppose that,
when that body dies — still more when it is dissolved,
and its elements scattered to all the winds of heaven — it
is literally destroyed, annihUated, and destined in no
shape whatever to appear again on the stage of being.
This, however, is a mistake. The moment that a seed —
let it be a grain of wheat, or an acorn from the oak —
dies and is buried in the earth, it really begins to grow ;
a new life is developed within it, and the result is a
vigorous plant, a green and growing sapling ending in
the gigantic tree. So does the apostle lead us to infer
that the human body, although instinct with the seeds

226 DISCOURSE XII.
of corruption and decay, is instinct also with the prin
ciple of vitality. I say, deUberately and with special
emphasis, the human body ; for there is no question here
about the soul at aU — every word that is spoken relating
to man as a being of flesh and blood, of bones, sinews,
and muscles. That body, apart altogether from the
soul, has vitality about it. It would not even rot if it
wanted this vitality. Its decay and disintegration are
proofs of the living energies extant within it ; and we
are, accordingly, taught to anticipate that something
will grow out of this vast amount of disintegrating
activity. Part of the human body that is buried may go
to feed the grass or plants which grow beside the grave,
part to feed animals, part in the shape of moisture to rise
to the clouds and be deposited in rain upon the earth,
part consolidated into the stony strata of the earth's
crust. Be it so ; but what of aU that, if, notwithstand
ing, part also is taken to be the germ, the nucleus, the
main or essential constituents of another, a more perfect,
a more glorious body, destined yet to be the temple and
eternal abode of the glorified spirit ? A great part of the
germinating and vital grain which is scattered upon our
fields in spring goes to add to the soil where the crops are
growing ; perhaps half, or more, of the acorns and other
seeds of trees mingles as earthy matter with the ground
in which they are planted ; but that does not hinder the
living principle in each of those seeds, or the part of
those seeds which is necessary to the new plant, from
growing, nay, from extracting nourishment from earth
and air, from sunshine and shower, until the fuUy-de-
veloped plant appears. In like manner we are here

DEVELOPMENT IN THE RESURRECTION BODY. 227
taught, and as Christians we ought to understand the
momentous revelation, that the great Creator has so con
stituted our bodies that a principle of Ufe is contained
in them, and that the processes of death, corruption, and
the grave, are only the means provided for awakening
that life and producing its fullest development. Singular,
astonishing, most comforting doctrine! "Thou fool,
that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die ; "
and as with respect to the seed, God " giveth it a body
as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed its own body"
— so there is not a death and burial of a single human
being, but it is the preliminary of another and more
wonderful life. Our present humanity is sin - ruined,
death-doomed, full of imperfections and liabilities to pain
and evil. 0, if we only knew all, we might discover
that the death and the grave, which we aU so much
dread, are sovereign specifics in the hand of our most
merciful Creator, to purge out all imperfections, and
effect or bring to maturity the perfect humanity of the
resurrection day !
In the verses which we have now read, the apostle
continues his striking and most wonderful exposition.
" All flesh is not the same flesh ; but there is one kind
of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes,
and another of birds ; " " so also," he adds, in the 42d
verse — " so also is the resurrection of the dead." The
meaning of this statement does not appear to be far to
seek. The apostle mentions a variety of animated
beings — men, cattle, fishes, and birds. He caUs our
attention to the fact that they are aU fleshly, and yet
diverse from one another in the very constitution and

228 DISCOURSE XII.
character of that flesh in which they are, so to speak,
clothed. He touches, indeed, upon the principle which
manifestly guided the Almighty in the construction
of tHe whole animated creation — a principle which is
patent to even the most superficial observation; and
that is, unity in combination with variety. Whether
the animated beings be men, cattle, fishes, or birds,
there is at once a wonderful amount of similarity and
dissimilarity about them. They are all flesh, they have
all. fleshly bodies ; and as they came from the earth, so
to the earth they ultimately return. And yet how
diverse are they from one another ! Man, beast, fish,
fowl, each constitutes a species of flesh of its own. This
is the work of God, and illustrative of His power, wisdom,
and goodness. Such is the constitution of nature as we
now find it ; and ten thousand perfections, beauties, ex-
ceUences flow from that constitution. Why, the apostle
leads us to infer, should we not conceive of an extension
of the operation of this principle ? Why not carry it into
another life ? Has God expended all His strength upon
the universe as we now behold it ? Has He exhausted
all the resources of His power, wisdom, and goodness ?
The very idea is preposterous, and carries with it its own
refutation. It is surely, therefore, within the compet
ency of Almighty power to make the disintegration of
man's body, after death, the preliminary of its restora
tion in a more beautiful and perfect condition. We see
what man's body is in its present fallen and mortal
state, and how infinitely superior man is, even in that
faUen and mortal state, to the beasts, fishes, and fowls,
aU of which, like himself, are only animated portions

DEVELOPMENT IN THE RESURRECTION BODY. 229
of earth. Surely, then, we may easUy understand that,
without violating present arrangements, man may be
clothed again in flesh at the resurrection day — and in
flesh both similar and dissimilar to what he possesses in
his present state ; similar, inasmuch as it will have the
same structure as before, and substantiaUy subserve the
same purposes of Ufe and physical occupation, and yet
dissimilar, inasmuch as in every respect it will be won-
drously and gloriously improved.
We have thus, in the verse more especially before us,
a pretty plain announcement that the design of man's
death and dissolution in the grave is to prepare the way
for his reappearance in a more perfect condition. And
this is stiU more distinctly the meaning of the two verses
which immediately follow. " There are also celestial
bodies, and bodies terrestrial ; but the glory of the celes
tial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the
moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one star differ
eth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrec
tion of the dead." You wiU not fail to perceive that
the eye of the apostle here expatiates over the whole
universe ; and not only does he discover the existence
there of that principle to which I have already adverted
— the principle, namely, of unity in combination with
diversity — but he positively affirms that the glory of
created things, in no small degree, is dependent upon it.
He speaks of bodies celestial, and also of bodies terres
trial ; but not only is there all the difference between
them which the terms celestial and terrestrial imply,
but there is a glory in which they are contrasted with

230 DISCOURSE XII.
one another ; both, that is to say, are glorious in their
respective ways. And to make this the more apparent
he bids us look to sun, moon, and stars — all luminous
bodies, but singularly contrasted with one another in
the nature and extent of that luminousness — the fiery
splendour of the noonday sun, the silver radiance of the
silent moon, the subdued and infinitely varied glitter of
the stars. They are all glorious, but in diverse ways ;
and to that glory the diversity he speaks of gives an in
comparable charm. It is easy indeed to conceive how
destitute of beauty and attractiveness to the human
senses every object around us would become, if deprived
of this quality. How unsightly even the grandest land
scape would become, if there happened to be in nature
only one single shadeless colour, and not that variety of
tints and hues by which the world is now clothed in
beauty — how absolutely intolerable and offensive the
exercise of sight would become, if aU forms around us
were cast into identically the same mould, and exhibited
precisely the same shape. God in creation has acted on
a different principle. There is uniformity, and there is
diversity ; and man's nature being so constituted as to
relish these in combination together, God has adapted
things that are to that constitution. It is notorious that
all mountains are Uke one another, so are all rivers, so
are all trees, so are all human beings ; and yet it is a
fact not to be disputed, that no two mountains, no two
trees, no two leaves of a tree, no two human faces, are
precisely and mathematically similar. Why is this the
fact, unless it be that the divine Creator meant thereby
to iUustrate the wondrous riches of His wisdom, and

DEVELOPMENT IN THE RESURRECTION BODY. 23 1
sought to impart additional glory to every created thing,
and to aU the departments into which created things
may be divided ? Now, let us carry out this principle
and apply it to the resurrection of the dead. The effect
of that wondrous incident wiU just be to add another
department of glorious variations to the already widely
varied sphere of being. There will be identity betwixt
man mortal and man immortal — man in this world and
man in the world to come ; and yet there will be variety,
and such variety too as will exceedingly enhance His glory
and perfection. The principle of uniformity and diver
sity in combination will obtain another and most strik
ing iUustration. Nor must we limit this to the indivi
dual. The resurrection is an event in which a whole
multitude will be partakers — a multitude which no man
can number. In other words, the vast improvement
which wiU then take place in the bodily structure and
constitution of each individual man wiU lead, as a matter
of course, to similar improvement on the wide scale of
human society itself. It is surely but the inference of
a single step, that if each individual person rises from
the dead in this state of glory and perfection, the society
composed of the entire company of the risen redeemed
must enter then upon a phase of enhanced and extra
ordinary glory. Society is nothing else than the aggre
gate of individuals ; and when, accordingly, on the re
surrection day, all who are then restored to animated
existence find themselves treading again the surface of
the redeemed earth, and breathing once more its vital air,
what can they do but subside into famUies, provinces,
nations — to run a new career on a far grander scale, and

232 DISCOURSE XII.
with far loftier aims and aspirations than they were ever
conscious of before ? The contrast of the future with the
present will be fitly illustrated by that which obtains
betwixt the feeble gUtter of a distant star and the gor
geous splendour of the noonday sun. This is evidently
the apostle's doctrine in the words before us. The hu
man body and human society have a certain glory now,
but it will be infinitely eclipsed by the glory yet to
come. "There is one glory of the sun, and another
glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars ; and
one star differeth from another star in glory. So shaU it
be in the resurrection of the dead."
Let me then at this stage, and before proceeding
further, set before your minds, in a series of propositions,
and as simply and clearly as I can express them, the
doctrinal truths which we are entitled to infer from the
emphatic but highly figurative language of the apostle.
These seem to be the foUowing : —
1. Although the body dies, and after death is, by forces,
both mechanical and chemical, scattered in ten thousand
different directions, that identical body does not perish.
Out of the vast store of material elements which enter
into the composition of man's body during the present
life or otherwise, God will construct a new body, which
the glorified spirit will recognise as substantially the
same with that which it wore in its mortal condition.
Man is corporeal now ; he wiU be corporeal for ever and
ever hereafter.
2. The body which is buried, and goes to corruption
and dust, is all the while instinct with some peculiar
vitaUty which fits it for restoration. The body which is

DEVELOPMENT IN THE RESURRECTION BODY. 233
buried is the seed of the body which rises again, and is
really "quickened by dying." In this there may be
something occult, secret, mysterious, but not more so
than many other things in nature. A piece of steel may
be reduced to filings and scattered in all directions, but
the touch of a magnet may collect those fragments
again ; a golden vase may by chemistry be reduced to a
liquid state, but it can easUy be solidified and manufac
tured into a vase once more. So, the apostle leads us
to infer, every dead body of a once-living man possesses
powers whose tendency is resuscitation.
3. The design of the resurrection is to restore man's
body to the original standard of perfection — a perfection
far greater than we can have any idea of by seeing it in
its present mortal condition. The seed contains in it
the elements of the plant which grows from it ; but what
a contrast betwixt the seed and the plant, the acorn and
the oak ! and yet that seed or acorn, whUst it is the
antecedent of a full-grown plant or tree, is at the same
time the consequent of a plant or tree which went be
fore — just as glorious in all respects as that plant or tree
which springs from it. So man lying corrupt in the
grave is a sad contrast from the first man springing in
strength, glory, and beauty from the hand of his Creator ;
and yet the very analogy of the seed and plant made use
of by the apostle impUes restoration. The bodily per
fection which is involved in the idea of a resurrection,
is a bringing back of man's body to that standard which
was exhibited in the primeval creation. Set before your
mind the conception of a magnificent oak growing on
the hill-side. There, throughout the summer months, it

234 DISCOURSE XII.
stands in aU its grandeur and exuberant foUage, the pro
minent feature in the landscape, the object of admira
tion to the eye of taste. But the frosts of winter come,
and that beautiful foUage is withered ; nay, a tempest or
some other casualty may come, and the grand tree itself
is utterly destroyed. Is it therefore lost? Shall we
never see its like again? Consider what has taken
place. The whole vegetable powers of the tree were, by
the laws of nature — that is, of God — concentrated in the
acorn, which fell from the branch as winter came on ; a
friendly hand picked up that acorn, and being buried in
the earth, it became a tree again, as glorious as its pre
decessor. So is it with man. The glory of the primeval
creation is renewed in the resurrection body.
4 Although the general resurrection wiU be a mira
culous thing — that is, brought about by an extraordi
nary interposition of God's power — yet it wiU be in
full accordance with the laws and principles now in
operation in the universe. This is implied in the
analogies made use of by the apostle. The idea of a
resurrection appears now to be wonderful — yea, so much
so, that some may and have affirmed it to be incon
ceivable, and even impossible. But when the effect
has been actually realised, it will be discovered to be
the result of powers and influences quite in harmony
with those in operation at the present hour. When
the resurrection is past and over, the thing wiU appear
no more extraordinaiy than that an oak should spring
from an acorn and a flower from a seed. And the aston
ishing increase of glory conferred then upon the human
body will be discovered to be as consistent with things

DEVELOPMENT IN THE RESURRECTION BODY. 235
that are, as that the tiny star twinkling in the midnight
skies should, when we get near enough to it, enlarge to
the dimensions and splendour of a noonday sun.
The resurrection, then, of the human body, and in a
state of perfection and glory, is declared by the apostle
to be a matter of fact, and one which is in fullest
harmony with all the operations of God. Let us, then,
as a first practical inference from the blessed doctrine,
strive habitually to realise it. Let us feel its truth, and
bring it to bear on life and character. Of course, it is
of Christian men and women — the redeemed, regene
rated, believing people of God — of whom mainly the
apostle is here speaking. Their resurrection wiU be to
life, immortality, and glory. Did we reaUy believe
this, and lay it to heart, how powerfully it would affect
our whole views and worldly procedure ! We would
not stand aghast, as it is to be feared many of us do, at
the contemplation of churchyards and coffins and fun
erals, horrified at the very idea of being consigned to
the embrace of corruption and the grave. Our faith
would let in the light of heaven upon that region of
darkness and depression, and drive away for ever the
grisly spectres by which it is haunted. And as it would
relieve us in great measure of the fear of death, so it
would also stimulate us more carefully to discharge
the duties of life. A resurrection is in itself a most
marvellous fact — a wonderful end or consummation of
our existence. But it is more : it is the commencement
of a new life ; and the very fact that we rise from the
dead implies a prolonged, yea, eternal, existence there
after. At the period of resuscitation another Ufe

236 DISCOURSE XII.
begins; and it is clear as a sunbeam that the Ufe
which then commences must in great measure be
modified and determined by what we have been in our
mundane state — that is to say, by the deeds we have
done and the character we have formed whilst yet we
were dwelling in our bodies of sin and death. It is
plain that if a man sows his field with wheat he need
not expect to reap a crop of oats ; the thistle root wUl
not produce tulips, nor will the green bay -tree be
covered all summer with roses. So, if the body of a
man, which at his burial has been deposited in the dust,
be that of one who has allowed pride to domineer over
him, or who has been the victim of passion, of sloth, or
o'ther grovelling affections, or who in any of the ten thou
sand ways by which that object is effected, has yielded
himself up to the control of debasing feelings, it would
be the most unreasonable thing in the world to imagine
that his character and standing in the future life — even
in the event of his salvation — wiU not be very much
affected by the character he has been cultivating
throughout all his worldly history. A vessel of silver
wiU not be changed into gold by being melted and cast
into a new mould ; neither wiU a lump of brass be
transmuted into silver by any process of chemical
dissolution. We may rest assured that the character
which we carry with us to the grave will be ours when
we rise again. Nay, the whole utterances of Scripture,
the fundamental principles of Christian and practical
teaching, imply that most awful of solemn truths, that
now is the time for moral renovation. Eeligion implies
that we are candidates for immortality. The Spirit of

DEVELOPMENT IN THE RESURRECTION BODY. 237
God has been given to man, and the end of His divine
operations is to make us meet for an hereafter. It is
time which determines eternity. What the teachings of
God's Word, the trials of God's providence, the inward
thoughts and the outward acts make us in the world,
that we shall be, and nothing else, in the world to come.
Methinks, if we believed this, we would habitually
remember the words of our blessed Lord — "Lay up
treasure in heaven." It would be our conscious and
conscientious life's work to accumulate, so to speak, the
capital with which we are to start on our career in the
great hereafter ; and in order to accomplish this with
effect, we would ever be turning the eyes of the inner
man towards the restitution of all things and the
coming of the kingdom of God.
But, secondly, from what has been said we may learn
to respect that body itself with which God has been
pleased to clothe us. There are some who seem to
make it a matter of religion to despise the body, and to
assaU it with every term of contumely and reproach.
They actually deem it piety and devotion to look upon
it as a vile, corruptible, loathsome, and even detestable
thing, and the more they can heap upon it epithets of
scorn and aversion, the more spiritual they suppose
they are, and the more acceptable to Heaven. There
have even been religionists of the superstitious and
fanatical sort (perhaps there are still) who interpret
Christian mortification to mean, not a wholesome con
trol over fleshly desires and passions, so as to confine
their operation within the Umits of God's law, but a
total abnegation of those passions and desires. Strange

238 ' DISCOURSE XII.
haUucination I It is tantamount to the horrible doctrine
that God made man's body for the express purpose of
entrapping him into the commission of sin. God has
given us eyes to see ; but to use them in the contem
plation of all that is beautiful in nature and art is
wrong and displeasing to Heaven ! We have ears to
hear, but the less we use them, and more especiaUy in
the way of hearing sweet sounds, the hoUer we are !
We have teeth to masticate food, a tongue and palate
that reUsh its savour, and a stomach to digest it, but
aU pleasure in connection with such natural functions
is not only an imperfection, but a species of criminality;
and to eat what is loathsome, and to swaUow what is
excruciating in the digestion, is truest piety ! The body
loves warm clothing, the comfort of the fireside in in
clement weather, and the refreshment of sleep ; but if
you wiU clothe yourself in rags, lacerate your flesh with
whips tiU the blood flows, deny yourself natural repose,
and spend hours kneeling on the flags of a damp ceUar,
or even up to the neck in the waters of a freezing
stream saying your prayers, an approving Heaven wiU
look down with favour and approbation ! Surely such
things are what the apostle Paul elsewhere condemns
as acts of "will-worship and voluntary humility." A
man must fast when he has nothing to eat ; occasionaUy
motives of health may lead him to abstinence from
food ; and there is no doubt, besides, that times do occur
when the ends of spiritual devotion are promoted by
fasting and acts of deliberate and temporaiy self-denial.
But such things are exceptions, and fully consistent
with that respect and honour to which the body is

DEVELOPMENT IN THE RESURRECTION BODY. 239
entitled. I have no hesitation in affirming that the
care of the body is as imperative a duty as the care of
the soul; and to attend to such common things as
comfortable clothing, wholesome food, warmth, shelter,
and necessary sleep, cleardiness, medical treatment, and
even recreation and amusement, is as much incumbent
on every one who has a body, as to believe in Jesus
Christ, love God, keep His commandments, and prac
tise deeds of benevolence, is incumbent on every one
who has a soul. Who that looks at the body with
thoughtfulness and consideration can fail to regard it
with wonder and amazement ? There is no single object
in the whole universe of God that combines within so
small a compass such an infinity of marvels. It has
been compared to a city — its walls the flesh, its senses
the five gates, our powers and passions the inhabitants
dwelling within. It has been caUed a house with
many apartments, each having its own use, and all con
tributing to the happiness of its master and lord. It
has been designated by Scripture itself a "temple,"
built by the special power of the great Architect, and
dedicated to His service and glory. It has even been
likened to the whole universe of being — called the
microcosm, the little world, the universe in miniature
— just as if, however vast and populous creation may be,
wonders equally vast and multitudinous may be dis
covered in man's corporeal constitution. Every part of
man's body is equally wonderful with another. What
a wonderful instrument is the human eye, so delicately
constructed and adapted to its purposes of seeing ! how
wonderfully is the ear fitted for hearing, the tongue

240 DISCOURSE XII.
and throat for speaking, the hands for handling, the feet
for supporting the bodily frame, the lungs for breathing,
the heart and its myriads of ducts for carrying the Ufe-
sustaining blood throughout the whole body, the brain,
that palace of the soul endowed with the amazing
powers of thought and reflection ! and yet aU this com
plicated and infinitely varied mechanism is composed
of the same materials, and, as is seen by the phenomena
of death and the grave, capable of being resolved into
the same materials again. "Dust thou art, and unto
dust shalt thou return." 'Tis the workmanship of God
which constitutes all our glory ; and surely of aU God's
works man's body is the chiefest and most wonderful.
In honouring that, therefore, we are honouring God ;
in neglecting and dishonouring that, we are showing
disrespect to its adorable Creator. He, accordingly,
who, by vice and immorality — to pamper, for instance,
the vitiated tastes of the drunkard and debauchee —
dishonours the body, is, in the sight of God, guilty of
heinous sin. " Know ye not," says the apostle Paul,
" that your bodies are the members of Christ ; " " that
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost ; " " that ye
are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you ? If any man defile the temple of God,
him shall God destroy ; for the temple of God is holy,
which temple ye are." Honour, then, the chiefest of
God's works — that w*ondrous humanity with which you
are now clothed; consecrate it to God's service, so
when the temple is taken down and built up again
after a nobler pattern, you will be found worthy to
dwell therein for ever and ever.

DISCOURSE XIII.
DEATH AND THE GRAVE THE PHYSICAL PREPARATION FOR
THE PERFECT HUMANITY OF THE RESURRECTION STATE.
1 Cor. xv. 41, 42.—" There is one glory of the sun," &c.

Authorised Version.
" 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 re
surrection of the dead."
New Translation.
There is one glory of the sun,
and another glory of the moon,
and another glory of the stars :
for star differeth from star in glory
So also is the resurrection of thi
dead.

Paraphrase.
The sun exhibits one form of
glory, the moon another, the stars
another ; and even one star differs
from another star in glory. It is
evidently, therefore, the will of
God that variety should prevail
amongst His works. We need not
be surprised, accordingly, if the
resurrection of the dead should
furnish another illustration of the
same fact

Among the many aUegories of Oriental poetry there is
one which some of us may have met with in the course
of our reading, and which we could not but feel to be
exceedingly beautiful. It is the Fable of the Dew-Drop.
A dew-drop, it is said, hung on the leaf of a rose. It
Q

242 DISCOURSE XIII.
was a summer morning ; and beneath the serene sky,
the landscape, with its trees and flowers and pictur
esque scenery, lay in beauty, bathed in the glorious
sunshine. Amidst that lovely scene, the dew-drop was
pure and bright and sparkling. Delighted with itself
and the calm loveUness around, it could have hung upon
that brilliant and fragrant rose-leaf for ever. But, alas !
the connection was soon severed, and it feU to the
ground. 0 what a change ! Earth for the bright sky,
and darkness for the ten thousand hues of nature's love
liness ! But did its history end here ? By no means.
Through its dark prison-house in the earth it graduaUy
passed tiU it reached a river, by which it was conveyed
to the ocean at length ; and there, deposited in one of
its rocky cavities, it became a brilliant, costly, and
beautiful gem. In due course of time the hand of man
reached it ; and from its long rest in isolation and dark
ness, it was taken, polished, and set in gold — finaUy ter
minating its career by occupying the place of honour in
the very diadem of majesty itself !
Such is the Oriental fable ; and the use which I make
of it is to illustrate the principle of development so dis
tinctly affirmed in this context. As a fact in the ar
rangements of nature and providence, that principle is
well worthy of special and prolonged consideration;
but when we bear in mind that every Christian person
is destined, in his or her history, to supply one of the
grandest exemplifications of that development, we may
well entertain the subject, and derive from it both com
fort and edification. Our apostle has elsewhere said,
with reference to the great doctrine of another life, that

DEATH A PHYSICAL PREPARATION. 243
" it doth not yet appear what we shall be ;" implying
that that something which we shall be is infinitely glo
rious : and he adds, that when Christ appears the second
time " we shaU appear with Him in glory, being like
Him, for we shaU see Him as He is." Here, then, we
have the decree of God relative to our personal develop
ment. At present we are on our march — our progress
— from corruption and death to glory and immortality.
Our connection with this world is very insecure, and in
a moment that connection may be dissolved. We hang
like the dew-drop on the odorous petals of the rose ;
and some of us, perchance, would be willing to hang
there for ever. But a touch suffices to loosen the at
tachment, and downwards we are carried to the damps
and darkness of the earth. Are we then extinguished ?
Do we then cease to be ? Far from it. God's immor
tal handiwork in the human soul is not so easUy de
stroyed. When death has done its work, we have only
passed from one domain of influence and creative instru
mentality to another. The river of God will bear us to
the ocean at length. There our resting-place shall be
provided ; and, however long the interval may be be
twixt death and the resurrection morning, spent it shaU
be in preparing us for a higher destiny still. From the
secret recesses of the spirit-world we shaU emerge again,
like a gem of purest water and costliest price, from the
dark caves of ocean, that we may be fitted into the
diadem of the King of kings Himself, there to sparkle
and be glorious for ever.
Both in the text and the context the apostle dogma
tically asserts this principle of development, affirming

244 DISCOURSE XIII.
that it universaUy prevails throughout nature, and that
the " glory," that is, the wondrous beauty and perfection
of mundane arrangements, is mainly dependent upon it.
But this principle of development is just an exemplifica
tion of a stiU higher law — the law of variety prevalent
amongst the works of God. " 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." And of this fact there surely can be no doubt.
God has so made us, His rational creatures, as that we
enjoy gratification and pleasure from expatiating amongst
objects of sense infinitely varied amongst themselves ;
and all the objects of nature are accordingly thus glori
ously and infinitely varied. So, it seems, will it be with
respect to what we may call the physical history of
man — yea, of every individual man. The developments
of man's being, whether these relate to the individual
or the species, will aU gloriously illustrate the wisdom,
power, and goodness of God; will Ulustrate these in
different ways, and the fact will be conspicuous even
after the resurrection itself. Childhood has its glory
and beauty ; so has youth ; so has mature manhood ; so
even has old age. Nor are we to imagine that this
process of glorious development is destined to terminate
even at the grave. The apostle informs us that when
man reappears at the resurrection day, it wiU.be to
supply another illustration of the inexhaustible vari
ety in the operations of God's creative power. The
identical man will reappear, but in circumstances of
enhanced glory and perfection. As sun, moon, and stars
all differ from one another in glory, so will the risen

DEATH A PHYSICAL PREPARATION. 245
and immortal man be distinguished from man fallen
and mortal.
In the words of the inspired apostle, now speciaUy
before us, our attention is therefore directed to the very
principle of the resurrection of the dead ; or, as I may
call it, the motive in the divine mind which is bearing
us onwards to that result. That principle is, progressive
advancement towards a state of corporeal existence per
fect and immortal. As in the exercise of our ordinary
senses we see decay and dissolution prevailing over all
sublunary things, from the granite mountain down to the
faUen leaf, and our bodies, in their present state, forming
no exception to what appears to be a natural law, mere
human reason is apt to conclude that, as a physical
being, man's career terminates with the grave. More
over, the common theology affirms, and in perfect con
sistency with Scripture revelation, that man's present
mortality, with all its sad and sickening accompani
ments, is the consequence of sin — the punishment of
his iniquity. But there are other considerations to be
borne in mind besides these, and one of the plainest
and most important is, that the Almighty, having pro
mised a resurrection, has virtuaUy so ordered matters
that all things which go before, become steps towards
the glorious consummation. The physical phenomena
affecting our state in the present life are not ends, but
means, whose tendency is to bring about the concluding
result. Our natural birth ; our continuous bodily and
mental development ; our maturity, decay, death, and
disintegration in the grave, are aU preliminary processes,
whose end is, restored and perfect humanity. As the

246 DISCOURSE XIII.
glory of the sun exceeds that of the moon, and the splen
dour of that luminary again eclipses that of -the stars,
so, the apostle informs us, wiU man resuscitated exceed
in glory man in his present mundane condition, however
glorious in many respects that condition may be. The
apostle's words may, indeed, and I think really do, also
convey the idea that differences in glory, simUar to what
we find existing amongst the luminaries of heaven, wiU
be found to prevail amongst the glorified saints in the
great hereafter. This is very Ukely; but his special
object in the words before us is to state the contrast
betwixt time and eternity — betwixt man mortal and
fallen, and man risen and glorified. That contrast wiU
be as great as betwixt the sun and the moon, or the
moon and the stars, or one star differing from another
star in glory. But all this implies an influential super
intendence on the part of Almighty God, of the events
of our present life, that so they may issue in the pre
ordained consummation. What is this but the affirma
tion of a law so controlling all our mundane operations
and life that they must needs issue in the appointed
end, and in no other ? Perfect hnmanity is the ultimate
result ; the resistless power of God must be recognised
as operating in all the familiar antecedents. Death and
the grave may be, and are, the punishment of sin ; but
through the wonderful grace of God they become the
means of elevating our humanity to a pitch of glory
and perfection they never would have attained without
them. 1. Let us then, in the first place, settle it in our minds
as an unquestionable matter of fact, that all the re-

DEATH A PHYSICAL PREPARATION. 247
deemed are on their journey — a journey every step of
which is superintended by the controUing power of God
— towards perfection, not only mental but corporeal ;
and that all the phenomena of the present life have a
bearing on that, our ultimate destiny. There are two
preliminary stages of human existence — the first begin
ning at birth and ending at natural death, the second
commencing with the dissolution of soul and body, and
terminating at the resurrection. Now, birth is no less
the preUminary of death, and death itself the preUmi-
nary of the soul's temporary emancipation from the
contact and control of matter, than both are the preli
minary of our resurrection-humanity — a humanity whose
perfection could not, we have reason for thinking, be
secured without them. Everything in the universe
proceeds by steps. The acorn does not bound in an
instant to the dimensions of the full-grown oak ; nor
does the trickling fountain, without a lengthened course,
and the aggregation of innumerable additions, arrive at
the stage of a large and navigable stream. Why should
not man, therefore, the most wonderful of aU God's works,
the predestined ruler, indeed, of the whole material
creation — a sort of epitome and condensation in Uttle of
the entire universe of God — be divinely carried through
many preliminaries ? Physiologists, indeed, teU us that
before birth, and whilst yet in the womb, he passes
through stages of development analogous to those of the
lower animals, especiaUy the fish and the bird. Were
it, accordingly, in our power to realise the absolute
certainty of our ultimate arrival at physical perfec
tion, and take, in connection with that, the as absolute

248 DISCOURSE XIII.
certainty that every stage, event, particular, and pheno
menon going before, is made by the power of God to
contribute towards that perfection, we would be much
more patient under trials, much more satisfied with our
worldly lot. How much we are disposed to complain
of poverty, privation, and want! how greatly do we
murmur under the disappointments and afflictions of
Providence! anguish of body is iU to bear; the torturings
of rheumatism ; the heat and restlessness of fever ; the
depression and feebleness of consumption ; the wounds
and bruises and putrifying sores which break forth upon
us we can't teU why, and which no skill can heal or
eliminate from the suffering flesh ; the shock of horrible
accidents, and even the decrepitude of age — aU these
things vex, and it may be wellnigh overwhelm, us. It
requires much faith to bear up against them. And yet
it is a Christian duty to look upon all such things in
the light of eternity ; for Scripture informs us that
whilst such afflictions are in the mean time " not joyous,
but grievous, they yet work out the peaceable fruits of
righteousness to them who are exercised thereby; " and
aU things, indeed, are compeUed " to work together for
good to them who love God, and are the caUed according
to His purpose." In point of fact, it is not difficult for
us to understand, that whereas the trials and afflictions
of the present life, being temporary, wUl soon pass away;
the patience, the resignation, the obedient submission to
the will of God, the compassion for the afflicted, the
skill and sagacity in bringing reUef, and a thousand
other virtues besides, which they have fostered and
brought to maturity, are permanent improvements in

DEATH A PHYSICAL PREPARATION. 249
our character, and may be needed even in eternity. So
may also the personal experience of the deathbed, the
act of dissolution, the disintegration of the grave, the
phenomena of the world of spirit, have all most powerful
and beneficial influences on our state in eternity. This
is the fact which I desire speciaUy to press upon atten
tion. The intermediate state is not a period of inanition.
It is a period of intense activity both for body and soul.
Influences are then at work upon both which bear with
prodigious force on the development and final perfec
tion of our wondrous humanity. What we shaU be in
eternity is as much the result of causes operating in the
interval betwixt death and the resurrection, as the full-
grown man is the product of the causes which carry the
infant from childhood to maturity. Such reflections
ought to mitigate the fear of death, and prepare us for
the stroke of the great destroyer. They should comfort
all mourning friends. The departed, whose absence we
lament, are reaUy in a higher stage of spiritual develop
ment than ourselves, and progressing towards another
stage higher stiU ; far more blessed, perchance, than
our efforts to promote their welfare could possibly make
them in this fallen world.
2. But, in the second place, it is not beyond our power
to arrive at some explanation of the fact itself on which
we are now insisting.
There is a remarkable question bearing on this sub
ject in our Shorter Catechism, to which a no less
remarkable answer has been given. The question is,
"What benefits do beUevers receive from Christ at
death?" And the answer is expressed in these words :

250 DISCOURSE XIII.
" The souls of believers are at their death made perfect
in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory ; and
their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their
graves tiU the resurrection." The doctrine thus taught
in this standard of the Scottish Church, is exceedingly
plain and intelligible. Soul and body, united together,
and acting in unison until death, are then sundered,
but not finally and for ever. Thereafter, they occupy
different spheres, are exposed to distinct and separate
influences, and all this, under divine superintendency,
with a view to the resuscitation and restored life of the
resurrection day. The soul passes into glory — that is
to say, becomes immediately conscious of the objects,
transactions, and blessedness of the spirit-world — that
region of light and ecstasy which we caU Heaven, and
which is so often referred to in Scripture as the dweU-
ing-place of God, the angelic host, and those higher
influences which control immensity. There is a region
within the domain of our senses — that is, the material
universe ; but there is another region beyond the domain
of the senses, what we may call the Spiritual Universe,
co-existent and co-extensive with the material, and by
no means to be confounded with it, or with any portion
of it. This is the third or highest heavens ; and here
that glory of God is revealed to all its spiritual inha
bitants, the separated spirits of the departed amongst
the number. It is obvious that, in such a region, ample
opportunity and means do exist for the soul making
progress in everything fitted to promote its improve
ment and ultimate perfection. But the body, although
left behind to disintegration and decay, is not forgotten.

DEATH A PHYSICAL PREPARATION. 251
It is, even in that state, declared to be " united to
Christ." This is a very remarkable expression. It
must, of necessity, mean a great deal more than merely
that the " dust is precious," or that our Lord, from His
place in heaven, looks down with interest, or even
affection, on the tomb where His saints are reposing.
" United to Christ " must mean a great deal more than
that. It reminds us of the parable of the vine and the
branches, and implies that, although dead and dissolv
ing into dust, there is some species of vitality about it.
The Uving Christ in heaven regards it, even then, as
part of His spiritual body — " not dead, but only sleep
ing," and by that repose preparing for the awakening of
the resurrection day.
This doctrine of our Shorter Catechism is well sup
ported by Scripture. The apocalyptic cry, " Blessed are
the dead which die in the Lord," most evidently implies
that the parties who have so died are, after death, in a
state of blessedness ; and this view of their condition is
confirmed by the words immediately foUowing, which
announce that they are "resting" or enjoying repose,
whilst their works, like the magnificently attired fol
lowers of a prince or nobleman, enhance the splendour
or glory of the state to which they have attained. In
another text the apostle Paul declares himself to be in
" a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to
be with Christ, which is far better;" an averment which
would be totally incomprehensible, were not " absence
from the body," to use a phrase which he also employs
elsewhere, synonymous with being "present with the
Lord" — that is, actually enjoying the beatific vision, and

252 - DISCOURSE XIII.
expatiating in far higher conditions of conscious exist
ence than, up to that period, he had ever experienced.
Moreover, to convince us that the body is not excluded
from this blessedness, even when lying in death, the
righteous dead are represented as "sleeping in Jesus" —
reposing, as it were, on the bosom of the Son of God —
the psalmist describing such repose as the " flesh rest
ing in hope;" and the prophet Isaiah, referring to the
decease of the righteous, representing every one of them
as " entering into peace and resting in their beds, each
one walking in his uprightness." The meaning of this
language must be apparent to every one. The bodies of
the departed righteous are neither cast away nor forgot
ten when they die. They are only sleeping, and so pre
paring for the resurrection morning, the activities of
the new and eternal day. And as, when children or
other loved ones go to rest, care is taken to provide a
place of security for them, and, if need be, a guard set
over their slumbers, so, we may be sure, such language
as we have quoted cannot but imply a special superin-
tendency of the dead, and the forth-putting of divine
power upon them with a view to prepare for what is to
come. Nor is there anything unreasonable in the suppo
sition that important physical results — results of a
beneficial and improving sort, so far as our human con
stitution is concerned — should ensue from man's tem
porary subjection to the laws of death. If the resurrec
tion be a fact in our future history, the interval betwixt
death and its accomplishment may behold as many
operations conducive of the result as there are, during

DEATH A PHYSICAL PREPARATION. 253
the present life, in bringing a man from infancy to full
maturity. There may be a sense in which a man may
be growing or advancing in perfection, even when his
body is in the grave and his soul in the spirit-world.
That intermediate state is a period during which a very
great change is consummated ; but every change im
plies three things — a state out of which, a state into
which, and a cause or causes conducting from the one
to the other. To use the once much -admired Latin
terms of the old logicians, there is the terminus a quo,
the terminus ad quem, and the causa efficiens. Now, so
far as the soul is concerned, all this becomes very plain.
Eeceived at death into the conscious presence of God,
associating with angels and other glorified spirits, and
perchance occupied about transactions and in employ
ments belonging to a far higher type of existence than
in our present state we can form any conception of, the
perfection of the inner man must of necessity be con
tinually advancing. But so also may the body. Death
or dissolution must not be confounded with extinction.
Not so much as one particle. which ever entered into
our corporeal frame has been annihilated, or can be ;
and not one function or power, arising from the aggre
gation or fitting together of those material particles, is,
or can be, banished from the nature of things. Put
them together again, even after a long separation, and
they must needs operate as before. Nay, it is conceiv
able, or much more than conceivable, that there may
be an optimism, or best possible state, of such aggrega
tion of parts and powers. The crooked may be made
straight, the defective supplied, the hideous made

254 DISCOURSE XIII.
seemly and beautiful. And who is to affirm that there
may not be influences in nature quite competent to
produce this result with the human body, even whilst
it is lying in the grave and preparing for the resurrec
tion ? There are thousands of analogies in the processes
of nature as regards other things. The acorn has a
wonderful power of extracting such substances from the
earth as are fitted to constitute an oak; and so is it
with every other seed. Their roots push about in aU
directions, and select precisely those juices and other
materials which are adapted to the nature which God
has conferred upon them. Nay, it is within the com
petency of science and skfll greatly to modify and im
prove the various products of the vegetable creation.
There are chemical affinities also whose operation can
exhibit the most extraordinary changes. What is so
cheap and worthless as a piece of charcoal ; what so
precious as a diamond? — and yet science informs us that
in constitution they are absolutely identical. Now, may
there not be some wonderful power belonging to our
humanity which wiU enable it, even when the body is
lying in the dust, to extract from the elements amongst
which it is scattered the materials of its perfect consti
tution ? and may not those processes of violent, com
plete, universal disintegration, be the very means of
accomplishing or faciUtating that end ? The grave may
thus become the alembic in which the clay of man's
fallen humanity is transmuted into the gold of the
kingdom of heaven ; and the churchyard, the open field,
the weltering sea, the atmosphere itself, through which
particles which were once human have been widely

DEATH A PHYSICAL PREPARATION. 255
diffused and scattered in all directions, the grand manu
factory in which, so to speak, the stones are prepared
whereof that new Living Temple must be built wherein
the glorified spirit is to abide for ever.
There is another thought connected with this subject
which is not unworthy of consideration. The beUever
in this world is not only united to Christ, but the bond
of that union is the Holy Ghost. Just as truly as the
Sheckinah dwelt in the Holy of Holies, does the sancti
fying Spirit of God dwell in the bosom of the regene
rated man. The effect of this is to consecrate the body,
or to make it holy. Hence the apostle Paul does not
hesitate to say, " The Temple of God is holy, which
temple are ye." Conceive, now, that death is an accom
plished fact; — the soul removed to heaven, and the body
consigned to the dust. Why should we imagine that
the Holy Spirit of God should maintain His union
with the soul, and abandon altogether the body, which,
equally with the other, was consecrated to God, is caUed
by the apostle " the members of Christ," and is really
destined yet to a glorious immortality ? The separated
spirit cannot but think much and often of its ancient
and close companion, and, as it were, hover over it and
the place where it lies with fond affection ; and God
the Spirit cannot possibly be divorced from any mem
ber or fragment of that Temple which was dedicated to
His glory, and wherein He had a loved abode. To be
sure, the body is now reduced to dust, is what man
regards as a mass of rottenness and offensive corrup
tion ; whereas once it was compact, Uvely, and seemly
to behold. But surely such physical changes do not

256 DISCOURSE XIII.
affect its relation to God. It is as much the Temple of
the Holy Ghost, in its state of ruin and minute disin
tegration, as it was when, in the condition of manly
vigour or womanly beauty, it walked the surface of this
earth, and mingled in the affairs of the world. And
oh ! if the heart of human affection ofttimes carries the
bereaved husband or the weeping mother to the grassy
mound in the cold churchyard, beneath which slumbers
a form inconceivably dear — if it bedews the ground
with bitter tears — if it wrings from the soul many a sob
of anguish, all the more grievous because in such cir
cumstances we feel ourselves utterly helpless to change
the inevitable, shaU we suppose that the loving Spirit
of God — the heart of the benign Eedeemer — cares little,
and has no regard whatever to show to the body of His
saints, every organ and power of which was once conse
crated to His service ? It cannot be. The love of the
Highest must needs be ever hovering over the relics of
His covenanted people ; their dust is inconceivably dear
to Him ; and no human eye can detect, and no human
sagacity can even imagine, what secret, yet powerful,
influences may be every moment issuing from the Throne
of God — the omnipresent Spirit — to quicken and purify
that materialism, now diffused throughout aU the ele
ments of this earth, which wiU yet go to constitute the
bodies of God's risen saints.
It seems to me, my friends, that the thoughts ex
pressed in this discourse have important bearings on
the great Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the
dead ; but, be that as it may, the ultimate destiny of
all who shall be found worthy to inherit eternal life is,

DEATH A PHYSICAL PREPARATION. 257
beyond doubt, corporeal existence in bodies composed
of the materialism of this world, and for that things
are at this moment in process of preparation. It is
one great mystery of religion that God should be in
carnate in human flesh ; and , I think I can in some
measure explain or account for that mystery. The
universe is material, and there is an intrinsic fitness or
propriety in its possessing a visible and material Head.
The Son of God, accordingly, took up part of the earth's
materialism and united it to His divinity, that so " He
might be Head over all things for His Church — the
fulness of Him who fiUeth all in aU." But there is
another mystery of almost equal sublimity, and I think
I can explain in some measure that mystery also. It
is the exaltation of the blood-redeemed and spirit-
quickened saints of God. Their glorious destiny is " to
sit with Christ on His throne ; " to be " kings and
priests" to the Most High for ever and ever; to be
rulers and visible dispensers of blessings throughout
eternity, and amongst all the populations of the material
creation — for really upon such superintendency and in
tercourse the blessedness of aU inteUigent beings mainly
depends. But God our Saviour, just because He is
incarnate, must of necessity occupy a limited sphere.
Who does not see, however, that this is obviated by
the expedient of " a multitude whom no man can num
ber" being assimUated to Christ's person — clothed in
His humanity, and in all respects made like unto Him ?
Surely, then, into whatever portion of the universe
they carry that humanity of theirs, moulded and model
led as it will be on that of the Son of God, they must
K

258 DISCOURSE XIII.
necessarily be the representatives of Him who is King
of kings and Lord of lords. 0 grand and glorious
conception ! When I stand upon the surface of this
globe of earth, and look abroad into universal space,
peopled with its hosts of rolling and glorious spheres
— when I contrast this little world with their incon
ceivable vastness and multitude, I feel as if earth were
but a grain of sand, and I myself less than nothing.
But small though the world be, it is large enough to
afford a throne and a palace, yea, a metropoUs, for
the great King of universal nature ; and insignificant
although every one of the saints may personally be, yet
in that immortal mind which they all possess, and
whose powers are capable of infinite development,
there are means and preparations making which may
yet issue in benefits and blessings to ten thousands of
these worlds which roU in immensity. This is but the
dawn and infancy of our being. Blessed Jesus, let me
be like Thee, so shall I be a sharer in this glorious
destiny.

DISCOURSE XIV.
THE CONTRAST BETWIXT THE MORTAL AND THE
IMMORTAL BODY.
1 Cor. xv. 42-44. — " It is sown in corruption," &c.

Authorised Version.
" II; 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: it is sown a natural
body ; it is raised a spiritual body.
There is a natural body, and there
is a spiritual body."
New Translation.
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 : it is sown a body ani
mal ; it is raised a body spiritual.
There is a body animal, and there
is a body spiritual.

Paraphrase.
Very different, in many respects,
will the resurrection body be from
that which dies, and is buried.
Like a seed, the dead body is sown
in the earth, and becomes utterly
corrupted ; but when it is raised
again, it will be a living plant free
from all corruption. Its dishonour
will be removed, and it will be
come glorious ; its weakness will
be replaced by strength and power;
and instead of being subject to the
propensities of the animal nature,
it will be under the exclusive
guidance of the spiritual man.
For as there is a body which is
under the control of the propensi
ties of the flesh, and which may,
therefore, be called animal, so
there will be a body, guided and
controlled by the spirit, and which
on that account may be called
spiritual.

260 DISCOURSE XIV.
In my last two discourses on this chapter I have
endeavoured chiefly to lay before you and iUustrate the
principle which, in accordance with the apostle's ex
position, presides over the great doctrine of the resur
rection of the dead. He does not content himself, you
wiU perceive, with affirming the resurrection as a
mere matter of fact, but he condescends upon the
mode in which that wondrous result is destined to be
produced, and the concrete effect in which the process
of resuscitation terminates. The whole matter is fixed
in the divine decree, and in fullest harmony with the
laws and processes already estabUshed in the universe
of God. The body which dies, is buried and passes
into dust — is the seed of the body which rises again.
It may be affirmed that there is a principle of vitality
even in the dead and disintegrating frame which, when
the warm breath arrives of the resurrection spring
time, will cause it to emerge from the earth again in
living greenness, affording the certain prospect of a
grand and glorious development as the ages of the
future eternity will continue to roll on. Or, dropping
this vegetable figure, and using words as plain and
literal as I can employ on such a subject, God wiU
bring out of the decayed and scattered elements of the
body which died, a new body, to live again on the same
earth, under the same sky, in the same atmosphere, and
capable of being seen and admired by the same intelli
gences who beheld its burial, and who will not faU to
perceive that, whilst the new body reaUy derives its
special constitution and vitality from the old, that new
body is a wonderful development and improvement

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL BODY CONTRASTED. 26 1
upon its predecessor. The acorn becomes an oak sap-
Ling ; the tiny star is showing symptoms of enlarging
to the dimensions of a sun ; the body of sin and death
is transmuted into a body of holiness and immortaUty.
Even here, as in the other departments of the creation
and providence of God, there is a very remarkable dis
play of unities and diversities in combination.
You will not faU to observe that the apostle here
dweUs upon this view of the subject just as if it were
speciaUy congenial to his mind, and a theme on which
he loved to expatiate. The verses we have just read
were evidently written for the purpose of still further
explaining the idea which I have endeavoured to
express in words. The subject-matter of his exposi
tion is the contrast betwixt the body that is buried
and the body which emerges from the grave ; and, as
earnest and interested students of his inspired words,
it becomes us with all honesty of aim, and in a prayer
ful spirit, to inquire into his meaning. This we shall
do by examining fuUy, and at adequate length, the
clauses as they appear successively before us.
We shaU not have much difficulty in eliciting the
meaning of the 42d and 43d verses — " So also is the
resurrection of the dead. 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." The words which the apostle here employs to
describe the body which dies and is buried are singu
larly appropriate, and their significancy is palpable to
every understanding, even those the least capable of
reflection. These words are, corruption, dishonour,

262 DISCOURSE XIV.
weakness ; and what words could more adequately or
correctly describe the actual facts ? Even whilst we
are Uving, we are liable to many foul and loathsome
diseases— diseases in which the most important organs,
or even the whole body together, becomes a mass of
festering putridity; and no sooner does death come,
than universal corruption sets in, and those who loved
us best in life must remove us to where the presence of
the dead shaU not offend the living. Such is the
destiny of corruption. And this is followed by dis
honour. With aU the pomp and circumstance of a
glorious funeral we may be carried to the house ap
pointed for aU living ; but the gilding and emblazonry
lavished upon coffin, sarcophagus, or sepulchre, are but
tinsel decorations of a festering corpse — feeble and
temporary honours which do not arrest the certain, the
inevitable advent of dishonour. A funeral conducted
with decorum and solemnity, and, in the case of the
good, the noble, the distinguished, the benefactor of the
species,, with a due measure of outward display and
even ceremony, is not only a thing consistent with
religion, but intrinsically right, becoming, and credit
able to all concerned. In this way our blessed Lord
Himself was deposited in the sepulchre. 0 I think
little of that bastard piety, if piety in any sense it can
be called, which, on the plea that it is but a dead body
that is carried to the grave, withholds or grudges the
honour to be shown to the dead. Yes ! it is but a
corpse that is buried ; but Christians engaged at the
burial should not forget the glorious words, " I am the
Eesurrection and the Life." The living owe respect to

MORT^JP AND IMMORTAL BODY CONTRASTED. 263
the^dead, and honour to the place where the dead are
reposing; and it seems to me that there cannot well
fe anything more repugnant to Christian feeling than
n funeral conducted without solemnity, or more at
{variance with the Christian credit of any community,
phan the churchyard or place of sepulture lying in
/disorder and neglect So far as the living can do it,
they should honour the dead. But, alas ! this hinders
, not the coming of the inevitable destiny of dishonour.
(j)n the temples of ancient Egypt may be seen, at this
v/ery day, elaborate paintings of ancient funeral pro-
cessions, — vast pictures, embracing hundreds of figures,
V,— soldiers, priests, banners, funereal ensigns of various
sorts, the delineation, doubtless, of actual incidents
which happened thousands of years ago, — the pomp
and glory of the burial of kings and other distinguished
personages. But what has now become of the person
ages who were the central figures in these gorgeous
cavalcades ? Alas ! rude Arab peasants have long ago
penetrated into their tombs, torn the mouldering bones
from their resting-places, trampled them under foot,
and turned the sarcophagus that contained them into a
cistern for holding water or a trough for watering cattle.
One of the affecting and discreditable incidents of the
great French Eevolution was an inroad of a wild and
unscrupulous rabble upon the royal tombs in which the
bones of kings, queens, statesmen, and nobles were
scattered about and trampled into mire by the rudest of
the people. Here was the destiny of dishonour come
at last. And so it is universally. Friends and rela
tives may, with aU care and many tears, deposit the

264 DISCOURSE XIV.
loved remains in an honoured grave — nay, society "^r a
lengthened period may respect the burial place ; .ut
as years or centuries roll on, the dead wiU be forgottei,
kings and peoples will arise who "know not " and can
not for the best of Josephs, and so the doom of dis
honour wiU come at last — those loved remains, once so
fondly cherished, and with such honour laid in tht
grave, will be scattered about and trodden on as the
mire of the streets. And in addition to corruption and
dishonour, it is plain that the mortal body is liable to
the charge of weakness. The strongest and most robust
frame is easily broken down. A short period of con
tinuous exertion wiU exhaust, a fever or other malady
will speedily render it feeble as childhood ; and as death
approaches, the strongest arm lies nerveless, and the
whole bodily powers sink into utter inanition— and
when death has obtained the mastery, how thoroughly
helpless it is, incapable of feeUng an injury, or resent
ing the most degrading insult. Behold, then, the tes
timony of the Spirit of God regarding the state of
the dead, and how that testimony is corroborated by
the observation and experience of us aU ! Cast your
mental vision over the whole earth : may we not say
that, in the sight of the angels of heaven, the world is
one universal charnel-house — the decaying fragments
of mortality lying around us here, there, and every
where in corruption, dishonour, and utter helpless
ness. But having set before our minds this picture of the
utter debasement to which death brings down every
child of Adam, the apostle turns our attention to the

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL BODY CONTRASTED. 265
wonderful contrast of the resurrection day. We may
then discover why it is that these debasing epithets
are applied to the dead. " Sown in corruption ; raised
in incorruption." The meaning of the latter expression
would not be known but for the former, the one word
being the very opposite in signification to the other.
In both states it is evidently implied that the body is
the same, the only difference being, that whereas in the
one state it is corrupt, in the other it is incorrupt.
The grave, in short, has wrought a wonderful change
upon the structure and constitution of the body. It
has purged out of it the seeds of decay; and now it
will be, and be for ever, a bodUy framework, perfect in
aU its parts and functions, and totally free from disease,
liability to accident, pain, and suffering. " Sown in dis
honour ; raised in glory." The dead body is offensive to
the living, and is avoided as a loathsome thing, and, as
we have seen, cannot fail of ultimately being treated with
every indignity. The glory of the Eesurrection, how
ever, will be the very reverse of this. The very frame
which may have been insulted over and trodden under
the foot of hatred and malevolence, exposed to every
indignity, not only resumes its ancient and fair pro
portions, but is glorified. The body of Jesus that
walked by the shores of the Lake of Gennesaret, and
mingled with men — in no outward respect different
from its fellows — became lustrous and bright when
the glory of God bathed it on the Mount of Trans
figuration ; and although no words can adequately
describe the indignities to which it was exposed when
it was scourged, beaten, spit upon, and finally crucified,

266 DISCOURSE XIV.
all that did not hinder or mar its dazzling effulgence,
when, in the vision of the prophet at Patmos, it was
seen walking, in glory, amidst the golden candlesticks.
When, therefore, the body of every one of Christ's
servants emerges from the grave, its previous debase
ment will be replaced with splendour and glory.
" Sown in weakness ; raised in power." The one word
implies the utter extinction of strength, a sinking into
complete and unexcepted helplessness — and what reaUy
is so helpless as a dead body? — the other word, trans
lated " power," means vigour, energy, and an activity
capable of producing even the most wonderful results.
It is sometimes marvellous to witness or read of the
feats of strength and agility of which the human frame
is capable even in its present faUen and deteriorated
condition ; and surprising are the capabilities which by
exercising and training may be developed within it.
It is as if there were a lurking consciousness in the
human bosom that powers — I mean physical and
mechanical powers — were latent within us, and await
ing development. And so it really is; but it must
pass through the disintegration and reconstruction of
the grave. No less certainly than does the feeble chUd
develop into the strong-Umbed man, or man himself,
by careful training, develop his muscles to the strength
of those of a Hercules, will the processes of death and
the resurrection terminate in a bodily might and
vigour, the very weakest specimen of which wiU in
finitely transcend the most world-renowned instances
of bodily and muscular development. " Sown in weak
ness, it will be raised in power."

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL BODY CONTRASTED. 267
I have once more to remind you that throughout this
chapter it is of the body, and the restoration of the bodily
forms after death, that the apostle is discoursing. We are
so much in the habit, when engaged with reUgious sub
jects, of speaking about the soul and the spiritualities
of truth, righteousness, and holiness, that a word spoken
in behalf of the dignity of the body and its claims to
respect and consideration is apt to be considered as un
necessary at least, even out of place, and not religious
at all. But this is a melancholy mistake. The body is
as holy a part of us as is the soul ; and the redemption
of the body is as truly the work of Jesus Christ as is
redemption of the souL There is nothing in Scripture
which would lead us to depreciate the body, or any of
its functions and powers, but, on the contrary, much
which would lead us to value them, and make them the
objects of care and culture. The bodily strength of
Samson; the personal beauty of Absalom; the loveli
ness of the daughters of Job ; the varied physical
abilities of the great men and warriors in David's army,
are all referred to in terms of commendation as valuable
gifts of God. Nay, that remarkable institution of the
Nazarite seems to have had muscular, and, generaUy
speaking, physical perfection as its very end and object.
And so, I doubt not, wiU be the practical result of the
resurrection of the dead ! Death most certainly teaches
humiUty ; but methinks the resurrection wiU singularly
confirm the lesson; for it wUl demonstrate that the
whole glory and beauty then conferred upon the human
frame are the result of the grace of God. Conscious
will every risen human being be that his death and re-

268 DISCOURSE XIV.
duction to dust were the effect of personal infirmity, and
to nothing but the goodness of Heaven will be due his
installation in strength and perfection. At the present
moment we may theoretically acknowledge that we are
but dust ; but the truth will come home to us with a
mightier power when each one of us shall be in circum
stances to say, This body of mine sickened, died, was
buried, and reduced to dust, and lo ! through the grace
of God, it is not only quickened again, but in a state of
incorruption, glory, and strength — the goodness of God
alone making us what then we shaU be. This wiU be
the true apotheosis of the body, the display and demon
stration before heaven and earth, how God, out of the
vilest, lowest, and most worthless materials, can con
struct that which, for ever and ever, will be the chiefest
and most glorious of his works. Not unexampled
already is this wondrous power of transmutation
amongst the works of God. Take for instance, on the
one hand, a piece of charcoal of the value of the T^th
part of a farthing, and, on the other, a diamond — the
Koh-i-noor, or one or other of those world-renowned
gems which monarchs have fixed in their diadems, and
whose commercial value is estimated at millions of
pounds sterling, — who would suppose that, particle for
particle, these substances are identically the same ? Yet
so it is. There is a chemistry by which the costUest
and most resplendent diamond can in a few moments be
reduced to a bit of charcoal ; and this implies that there
is also a chemistry, if only it could be discovered, by
which that bit of charcoal might become a diamond
again. Wondrous thus are the transmutations of

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL BODY CONTRASTED. 269
nature ; and the change of the corruption, dishonour,
and weakness of the human body into the incorruption,
glory, and power of the resurrection, will just prove
another of the same.
There does not appear to be much difficulty, so far,
in understanding the apostle's reasoning. But when we
proceed to the next verse we encounter an expression,
in the interpretation of which not a few ordinary
readers, and even Bible interpreters, have been led
astray. The expression is " spiritual body." " It is
sown," says the apostle, " a natural body ; it is raised a
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a
spiritual body." These words have puzzled many ; and
to this hour I suppose that not a few imagine that the
concrete fact affirmed by the apostle is the change of
body into spirit, or at any rate the transmutation of
this solid, material frame of bones, muscles, and sinews,
into a structure so thin, airy, and gaseous, that, per
chance, the sun may shine through it ; coming into col
lision with any outward substance, it will easily give
way and sustain no damage, and no hand will be able
to grasp or hold it. It is a spiritual body, they think,
in the sense of being unmaterial or devoid of tangible
properties. Now, this idea is altogether fanciful, and totaUy un
supported by the critical significancy of the words in
the original. We have already admitted, or rather it
is the distinct declaration of the apostle, that the resur
rection wiU introduce into the human constitution most
wonderful changes from what it is at present — as
wonderful, indeed, as the change of charcoal into dia-

270 DISCOURSE XIV.
mond. But this is very far from being identified with the
change of body into spirit. The words in the original
are ew,u,a ^v/^ixov and eupa msvftariKov. The word cu/to,
means body, or the material substance in which we are
now clothed; and you will notice that the apostle's words
imply that that ata^a, or body, is found existing both in
the mortal and in the resurrection state. It is a eupa.
in both cases — that is to say, the human body in both
states is substantially the same. It would not be
entitled to be so designated if there was so much as one
bone or muscle present in the one and absent in the
other — the word, translated "body," having a clear, cer
tain, and definite meaning. But there is surely Uttle
difficulty in understanding that that same body — iden
tical as to its parts and structure — may exist in two
very different states. It is an animated thing. God,
we are told in the 2d chapter of Genesis, " breathed into
its nostrils," at the time when it was a lifeless structure
of clay, "the breath of life, and so it became a living
soul." According, therefore, to the nature of that liv
ing soul by which it is actuated, it may be very fitly
characterised. If the temper and disposition of the
actuating principle within us be vicious and ungodly,
are we not entitled to the designation of wicked ? if, on
the contrary, that principle be holy and good, may we
not claim with propriety the designation of righteous ?
We may have a crystal vessel, and fiU it to-day with
water, and to-morrow with wine ; in the one case it may
be called a water-vessel, in the other a wine-vessel.
Now this is precisely what the apostle means by the
two epithets which he employs in this place. Our body

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL BODY CONTRASTED. 27 1
in its present state is, to use the Greek word, -^vxixov —
that is to say, it is carnal or fleshly — it is animated by
a principle which seeks nothing higher than the grati
fication of the moment. It has fleshly appetites and
desires ; and the enjoyment of these in the very highest
degree, and whether in conformity with the divine will
or no, is its undoubted tendency. Indeed, this is the
explanation of all the vices, mischiefs, and crimes which
are extant in the world. Our body is -^tj^txov — that is,
carnal ; and in prosecution of its gratification, man wUl
not be controlled either by the laws of God or man, or
even by those principles which secure health and per
sonal welfare. The resurrection body, however, will be
<mw[ia.rixav; that is, spiritual, or controlled by the Spirit
of God. In every essential particular it wiU be identi
fied with the body which we bore about with us in our
mortal state ; but the animating principle within wUl
be heavenly-minded, subject to God's laws, conformable
in every respect to the divine wiU. In short, what we
call regeneration will be carried to its direct and appro
priate results. So long as a man is unregenerate he
has a body that is ^X^0" — that is, he is wholly given to
the flesh ; but when the great change of regeneration
takes places, the Spirit of God begins to actuate him, and,
to a certain extent, his body is nviv/iurixov, or under the
influence of spiritual motives and power ; and then the
Christian warfare begins — the struggle betwixt the flesh
and the spirit — a struggle in which now the one, now
the other, gains the ascendancy. And so it continues
till death. But after the resurrection there wiU be no
more struggle of the sort. The body wiU be totally

272 DISCOURSE XIV.
msvpuraoti — that is, placed under the control of the
Spirit of God.
In point of fact, brethren, we are by these reflections
directed to the great office of the Gospel dispensation,
and that is, to proclaim, not merely the supremacy of
mind to matter — a notion which ordinary phUosophy is
always ready to bring into prominency — but the far hoUer
doctrine that God, by His pure, holy, and blessed Spirit,
must be enthroned as the supreme ruler and guide of aU
things. There is a world of meanmg in the words of
our Lord's forerunner, " I indeed baptise with water ;
but He who cometh after me shall baptise with the
Holy Ghost." It is His prerogative to make the uni
verse spiritual, not by destroying its material properties,
but by pouring out upon every created thing the copious
and blessed influences of His grace. The foolish and
preposterous notion is, I trust, now getting fast exploded,
that this glorious material creation of ours is destined
to sink into the abyss of annihilation, in order to make
way for a universe of shadows and dreams ; and so, I
trust, the no less foolish and preposterous idea wiU be
exploded also, that man's body, in order to its becoming
spiritual, must lose aU solidity and material properties,
and be converted into a gigantic globule of air, confined
within the limits of some nondescript integument, thin,
pellucid, and as airy as the substance, if substance it can
be caUed, which is confined within it. I cannot, for my
part, comprehend how mind can be holier than matter ;
still less, that whilst something intrinsicaUy pure and
holy is found in the former, the latter should in its
essence be unholy and impure. This was a cherished

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL BODY CONTRASTED. 273
fancy of the ancient Gnostic heretics — a notion bor
rowed from the Zoroastrianism of Persia and the East
— and under it the Christian warfare became merely
the struggle betwixt mind and matter. With our open
Bibles, and the copious grace of Heaven vouchsafed us
in these latter days, we ought to be wiser. Man wUl be
spiritual, remaining substantially what he is, when the
Spirit of God guides every emotion, regulates and con
trols every desire, and brings all things together into
conformity with the divine wiU.
The 45th verse of the chapter before us draws the
contrast betwixt the natural and the spiritual man, by
referring to the first man Adam and the last Adam.
Perhaps, indeed, with the highest probability, the aUu-
sion here is to Adam, on the one hand, as representing
his whole descendants after the flesh ; and, on the other,
to Jesus Christ the Saviour, as representing His entire
Church or spiritual progeny. The " first man Adam,"
says the apostle, " was made a living soul ; " or rather,
for there is a little word in the original here which our
translators have omitted to notice, " was made FOR a
Uving a soul " — that is to say, God created his body of
the dust, and designed it, in the first instance, to be the
vehicle or receptacle of " a living soul" — a principle of
animal life, in consequence of which he would live,
move, and exercise the functions of ordinary existence,
transmitting the same nature to his posterity. But,
adds he, " the last Adam" — that is, Jesus Christ — " was
made for a quickening spirit," the Uttle word being
here too, which again our translators have omitted —
that is to say, that body of Jesus Christ, conceived by
s

274 DISCOURSE XIV.
the power of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin,
was designed to be not only possessed of natural life,
but to be the vehicle or receptacle of a life-giving
spirit — namely, the Spirit of God, capable of communi
cating a holy and spiritual vitality to all His Church
or spiritual descendants. In other words, the body of
Christ, which rose from the dead, having never seen
corruption, and which was very speedily glorified, is
the model for the resurrection humanity of God's saints ;
and not only so, but is at the present moment, and must
ever be, the centre of an influence life-giving, sanctify
ing, purifying, and enlightening. As the sun shines
upon external objects, and these objects by the reflection
of his rays become exceedingly glorious ; so, in the Ught
of the Sun of Eighteousness — that is, the glorified hu
manity of Jesus Christ — every one of His people is des
tined to be glorious for ever. " We shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is." " He wiU change our
vile bodies, and fashion them that they may become like
unto His glorious body, by that power by which He is
able to subdue all things unto Himself." Behold, then,
and understand from this wherein it is that the spiritu
ality of man's risen body consists. It consists in the
indwelling within us of the Spirit of God. As when a
goodly palace, long occupied by a depraved and coarse-
minded tenant, who has polluted every apartment and
destroyed the beauty of the edifice, obtains an inhabitant
of a better disposition, the entire building very speedily
resumes its ancient splendour ; so will it be with the
body of man. The house wiU be substantially — that is
to say, as to its general aspect and constitution — what it

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL BODY CONTRASTED. 275
was before, but the tenant being changed, in many im
portant particulars it will be changed also.
In conclusion, then, let us improve this blessed doc
trine to our comfort and mental peace. Do not regard
it as a mere matter of doubtful speculation. Consider
it as a settled matter of fact. Just as truly as we have
been born and now live — just as certainly as we die —
shaU we emerge again from the grave in bodies substan
tially the same as we now wear, only infinitely improved
in beauty, strength, and glory, and destined to live for
ever under the living power which emanates from the
Holy Ghost or the divine humanity of the Saviour. I
say this is God's truth. I beseech you look at the words
of the text ; and if you believe that the apostle speaks
under the authority of the God of heaven, take in his
words, and apply them to your own comfort. You have
a right to do so,' for you are the Baptised foUowers of the
Son of God, and, through Heaven's grace, may share in
the glories of the first resurrection. Surely, surely we
ought not to have misgivings upon this subject, merely
because it relates to the future. Even science — that is,
merely human and uninspired science — can predict
many wonderful things in the movements of the ma
jestic universe of God. Had we not a proof of this just
the other day ? Did it not teU us, for months before
hand, that on a certain midnight the skies would be
lighted up with myriads of flashing, flaring, and gorge
ous meteors, and were not those who believed in the
predictions of scientific men, and went forth to behold
them, rewarded for their belief with one of the grandest
spectacles their eyes ever beheld, or shaU behold in this

276 DISCOURSE XIV.
world ? And is not this but one of many similar predic
tions whose fulfilment may be anticipated with absolute
certainty ? Now, the apostle Paul speaks with a higher
authority than any man of science can speak. Are you
to believe the astronomer, and withhold your faith from
the inspired apostle ? Be it far from any Christian to
act so foolish, so irreligious a part. Have faith in the
resurrection day. This Ufe is but the dawn of our being;
the eternal day comes with the resurrection morning.
O blessed and exhilarating hopes ! What matters it that
disease brings down my body to the dust, that the snows
of age gather over my brow, that my eye becomes dim,
and my arm is paralysed — what matters all this, if it
reaUy be a fact that my soul shaU return from its tem
porary sojourn in the spirit-world to my place of sepul
ture, reclaim the body, and by the power of God instal
it in the glory and beauty of immortal youth ? What
matters it that the dear friends whom I love have, one
after another, been torn from my embrace, tiU I am left
alone, or almost alone, in the world, to stumble on as best
I may over the damp, miry, rugged path which conducts
to yonder green mound, with a coffin mouldering be
neath it? — what matters aU this, if, even now, a voice
comes from God's throne, " they are not dead, but only
sleeping." "Sorrow not, therefore, as those who have
no hope ; for as Jesus died and rose again, so likewise
those who sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him." 0
glorious and enchanting hopes ! Can science, or even
imagination, supply me with anything like them?
" Watchman, what of the night ! — watchman, what of the
night ! the morning cometh ! " Are there not streaks in

MORTAL AND IMMORTAL BODY CONTRASTED. 277
the horizon that tell of the coming day ? Lost friends
shaU be found again. " Thy dead men shaU live ; to
gether with my dead body shall they arise : awake and
sing, ye that dwell in dust, for thy dew is as the dew
of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead."

DISCOURSE XV.
natural life contrasted with the spiritual: the
living soul, the quickening spirit.
1 Cor. xv. 45.—" And so it is written, The first man," &c.
Authorised Version. Paraphrase.
" And so it is written, The first Thus also it is written in Scrip-
man Adam was made a living soul ; ture, That the first man Adam was
the last Adam was made a quick- made in order to receive and be
ening spirit." actuated by a living soul; the se
cond Adam, in order to receive and
New Translation. be aotuated by a life-giving spirit.
Thus also it is written, The first
man Adam was made for a living
soul ; the last Adam for a quicken
ing spirit.
It is evident that, in giving utterance to the words be
fore us, on which we now mean to comment, the apostle
intends still further to contrast our humanity as it
exists in the present world, with that humanity when
it has reached its resurrection state. He contrasts " the
first man Adam" with " the last Adam ;" and whereas
he affirms that the one " was made a living soul," or
rather, in closer conformity with the meaning of the
original words, " for a living soul" — that is to say, was so

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE CONTRASTED. 279
made " in order to receive and to be actuated by a living
soul" — the other "was made for a quickening spirit;"
— that is to say, " in order to receive and be actuated by
a life-giving spirit."
There is little doubt that, primarily, the expression
" first Adam " refers to the progenitor of the human
race ; and in like manner that the expression " last
Adam " refers to Jesus Christ. But used, as these
terms are, expressly for the purpose of illustrating the
grand doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, we are
entitled to consider them as possessed, in this place, of
a more extended signification. " The first man Adam "
is an expression which denotes both the father of the
human race and all his posterity,- and is synonymous
with the more abstract conception of human nature as
it now exists, and as it has ever existed since man was
a denizen of this earth. In like manner, the expression
" last Adam," or Jesus Christ, who in the 47th verse
is called the " second man and the Lord from heaven,"
is comprehensive enough to include not only the blessed
Eedeemer Himself, but the whole of the chUdren of God,
His spiritual progeny. Both are representative persons
— the one of the fallen and carnal, the other of the re
deemed and spiritual ; Adam being the head and pro
totype of the whole human family, and Jesus Christ, in
like manner, the head and prototype of the entire com
pany of God's redeemed. It is impossible to assign any
other reason for the use of these terms in a treatise on
the resurrection of the dead, except this, that whereas
the whole descendants of Adam have inherited a nature
simUar to that of their first father in his fallen condi-

280 DISCOURSE XV.
tion, so all whom Christ represents — that is, the elect,
the people of God, the children of the resurrection, to
whom Paul is here alluding — will be ultimately clothed
with a humanity similar to that of the risen Saviour.
It is also obvious, from the language of the apostle in
this place, that whereas natural life is the characteristic
of our humanity at present, spiritual life will be its
characteristic hereafter. The first Adam — that is, the
ancestor of the human race and aU his posterity —
was made in the fashion in which we behold him, in
order to receive and be actuated by a living soul ; or,
as the apostle expresses it, " the first man Adam was
made for a living soul." This is an aUusion to the in
spired record of his creation, as we find it contained in
the second chapter of Genesis. There the Almighty is
said to have taken of the dust of the ground, to have
moulded and modelled that into a human body, and
then breathed into its nostrils the breath of life, so that
it might become a living soul. This, then, according to
Scripture, was the primeval design of the creation of
man's body — to be a vehicle or organised receptacle for
a living and sentient principle — a something within it
which performs those functions of life with which we are
all familiar. But this, as every human being knows,
and as, indeed, was intimated to our first parents, when
they were placed by their Creator under the conditions
of the covenant of works, was quite compatible with a
liability to temptation, fall, mortality, and ultimate dis
solution into dust again. But the very design of the
Gospel is to proclaim, in the name of God, and upon
certain conditions, the deliverance of " a multitude

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE CONTRASTED. 28 1
whom no man can number " out of the abject state of
ruin to which sin had reduced Adam and all his natural
posterity. The expedient resorted to for this purpose
is the redemption of Jesus Christ ; and this is effected
by the incarnation, death, resurrection, and subsequent
work of the same glorious Personage. As He Himself
rose from the dead, so also wiU they ; and that life
which He assumed, and with which His body was actu
ated when it issued from the sepulchre, will also be
the life which He will impart to all the redeemed as
they issue from their graves ; and yet higher, holier,
and more glorious although this resurrection-humanity
wUl be, the very fact of its being a resurrection, or taken
from the grave, implies that it too is material, and in
trinsically not a whit better than the body which pre
ceded it. It will owe all its distinction to the workman
ship expended upon it. It is not spiritual in the sense
often given to the term, but, in the fullest meaning of
the word, solid and material. This is the " last Adam,"
and it is " made for a life-giving spirit" — that is, " in
order to receive and be actuated by a life-giving spirit.'
It is, accordingly, a very different life from the natural,
or that which they possessed in their mortal condition.
The words in the original are very remarkable, and
broadly contrasted with one another. In the one case,
it is a mere life or living principle, enabling the human
being to exist, to feel, to grow, and so on, but possessing
no power to avert evU, danger, or dissolution ; in the
other case, it is a thinking, intellectual, deliberative
energy, which has the power to resist mortality and
secure the permanency of Ufe. Betwixt the two ex-

282 DISCOURSE XV.
pressions there is aU the difference which subsists be
twixt life and the Giver of life ; and the intention of the
apostle in using these remarkable terms is plainly to
elevate our conception of the latter infinitely above the
former. The life of the hereafter wiU not only be an
existence, but an existence infinitely removed from aU
defect or liability to termination.
We are thus informed by the apostle that the epoch
of the resurrection, and the world of the hereafter which
follows it, wiU constitute a new and far higher dis
pensation than the present. However wonderful that
alliance may be which we now see subsisting betwixt
the gross and ponderous materials of which the human
body is composed, and the living, sentient, thinking
soul by which it is actuated, an aUiance stiU more
wonderful wiU yet be manifested, in the sight of the
universe, betwixt that same body and an animating
spirit or energy, proceeding from Jesus Christ, which
wUl secure its immortaUty and set at defiance aU in
fluences of an enfeebling and disintegrating sort. This,
in fact, the apostle here declares to be the grand design
or ultimate object of the whole economy of grace,
including in that term the entire march of providence
from creation to eternity. First of all, the Almighty
has so ordered the execution of His decrees, that by the
creation of Adam out of the dust of the ground, and
by the process of ordinary generation throughout His
posterity, miUions upon milUons of human beings come
into existence, and live, move, and die upon the surface
of the earth. This is " the first Adam and the living
soul." But, secondly, it is included in the Almighty's

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE CONTRASTED. 283
divine decree, that by miraculous conception, through
the agency of the Holy Spirit, and in the womb of the
Virgin Mary, the Son of God, or second person in the
adorable Trinity, should actuaUy become incarnate;
and that, by the same divine agency of the Holy Spirit
of God, a multitudinous people should be regenerated,
sanctified, and endowed with the principle of eternal
life. This is "the last Adam and the quickening
spirit " of the text before us. Now, this last Adam —
that is, Christ and His people — although thus generated
of the Spirit of God, are also sprung from the first
Adam. They are an election according to grace, a
people chosen to the high and glorious destiny of being
" kings and priests unto God," and to be the recipients
of a Ufe which cannot fail, which, in fact, perpetuates
itself, being actuated by the "Ufe-giving Spirit" im
parted by the Holy Ghost ; and yet, whatever changes
this may work upon their human constitution, all that
is essential in their humanity must obviously continue.
The man is the same in both states, the difference being,
that whereas by natural birth he is invested with a
lower, worldly, and mortal life, by regeneration he is
raised to a far higher condition of vitality, a life that is
spiritual and immortal.
These considerations seem to me to be so important,
and to connect the doctrine of the resurrection of the
dead so intimately with aU that is' essential to the
Christian system, that it wiU be expedient to examine
them at somewhat greater length.
1. I remark, then, in the first place, that we are here
instructed to look upon our present Ufe as merely an

284 DISCOURSE XV.
initiatory or rudimental stage in our existence — a pre
paration, in short, for something far higher and more
glorious. The first Adam is made " for a living soul " — that is to
say, his body has a principle of life associated with it,
in virtue of which the man holds intercourse with the
external universe, grows, and, before dissolution arrives,
attains to a condition of greater or less development.
Being born, we play our several parts, for a longer or
shorter period, on the stage of time. One lives a single
day, another attains to a century of years ; one is con
tinuously pinched with poverty, another pampered with
every indulgence, and another still passes through
every variety of fortune ; one is inervated with luxury,
another is ground to the dust with hard and unceas
ing labour ; — every person, in short, during his earthly
sojourn, being possessed of an idiosyncrasy — that is, a
constitution and a character belonging to no one else
besides. But the result of this embodied existence —
this possession of a living soul — is the attainment
before death of a special and individual development.
It wUl at length become apparent that a vast multitude
of persons have been actuated by this natural life, no
two of whom are precisely alike. As in the mightiest
forest there are probably no two trees exactly similar to
one another, or even two leaves of any tree ; so at the
resurrection morning, if we should conceive the entire
human family to be gathered together — that is, aU the
men, women, and children who ever lived — no two in
that vast multitude, either in outward appearance or
internal character, will be the same. These facts, then,

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE CONTRASTED. 285
cannot be taken into consideration in connection with
the idea of a future life, without establishing the con
viction that the end of our present life, let it be spent
as it may, is the production of a special character with
which every individual shall start on the eternal life of
the hereafter, and the formation of an infinitely varied
aggregate of inhabitants who will constitute the popu
lation of the world to come. And on the hypothesis,
not to be disputed by any reader of God's word, that
the saved, the redeemed, will at the resurrection day
be composed of a portion of the bygone inhabitants of
this world, it is plain that the world of the hereafter,
let it be locally situated where it may, wiU necessarily,
in many of its aspects, be assimilated to that which is
existing at present. All the wicked are removed, in
order that the good and the holy alone may be left
behind, and these wiU set out on a new career of
existence, occupation, and enjoyment — a career for
which aU that has befallen them in this life has been
designed to be the preparation.
Could we only realise this as a literal fact in the
destiny prescribed to us by the decrees of God, we
would look with greater equanimity on the events and
transactions of this passing world. Why should we be
too much depressed, and mourn beyond measure, when
friends are taken from us by the stroke of death ? If
they are in Jesus, justified and sanctified, aU is weU
with them — they have completed the preliminary stage
of their being ; they are laid into the sepulchre like a
precious deposit in the treasury of a banking establish
ment, to be drawn forth again with accumulated in-

286 DISCOURSE XV.
terest at the proper time. We shall see them again on
the morning of the resurrection day. Why should we
shrink from death ourselves, as though this life were aU,
and ignore the true manhood and maturity of our being,
which wiU be revealed when the resurrection comes ?
Why, the evils of time are numerous and distressing ;
but in the hereafter the Christian need dread no evils
at all. On this side the grave we encounter sickness,
and poverty, and toil, and disappointment, and pain,
and sorrow. These are the consequences of our natural
life and fallen condition. But to every one they are of
merely temporary duration. The "night of weeping,"
the " moment of God's wrath," wiU soon be over, and
then comes the day of blessedness and glory. And
here is the peculiar privilege of every Christian man
and woman : the trials of time are absolutely indis
pensable preparations for the coming eternity. Faith,
hope, confidence in God, love to man, patience, per
severing diligence in deeds of philanthropy, aU these
and many other quaUties besides are essential to the
perfection of humanity; and without the agency of
trial and affliction they cannot be produced. The
violences of the moral world are equaUy necessary with
those of the physical in order to produce beneficial
results. Wherever we look around us, we behold proofs
of the universal law, that order and beauty spring from
confusion and uproar. The loveUest valleys must have
been produced by mighty convulsions of nature ; the
plough and spade must turn up the soil and toss it
about in all directions, or there will be no satisfactory
harvest ; wars and political convulsions are often the

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE CONTRASTED. 287
preliminaries and procuring cause of long-continued
peace and national liberty. We may admire the beau
tiful vase of gold or sUver which constitutes, it may
be, the principal ornament of the palace of national
sovereignty or the hall of princes, but we will err if we
suppose that the exquisite work of art arrived at its
perfection in a moment, and as the product of influences
aU calm, soft, and gentle. It is very much the reverse.
The ore is dug out of the solid rock; it is pounded
with hammers ; it is exposed to the fierce heat of the
furnace ; the resulting metal is beaten into shape,
pressed betwixt rollers, crushed into the unyielding
mould ; it is scratched with the graining tool, rasped
with the file, polished, rubbed, and twisted in all direc
tions ; and as the result of these myriads of violences,
it comes forth the perfection of artistic beauty, the admi
ration of nations and generations of men. Analogous re
sults are produced in the moral world. Both with respect
to every individual man, and the people of God as a
whole, it is a fixed and indispensable fact that through
much tribulation we pass into the heavenly kingdom.
2. But I remark, in the second place, that we are here
instructed to anticipate, as the future perfection of our
being, a state of embodied existence, spiritual and im
mortal. Whilst the first Adam is described as being
actuated by " a living soul," the last Adam is actuated
by a " life-giving spirit."
AU that man is now in possession of, in virtue of his
natural birth, is ordinary life — an existence of longer or
shorter duration, but certain, within a fixed period, of
ending in death. The pulse beats ; the blood circulates ;

288 DISCOURSE XV.
the powers of body and the faculties of mind are gradu-
aUy developed; the processes of nutrition, breathing,
sensation, and so forth, go on ; decay sets in, decrepi
tude, and finally dissolution. This is the history of
the first Adam ; and the result is, that every one who
passes through these processes attains thereby such a
special development as confers upon him an indivi
duality separate and distinct from every other. And
now death takes place: soul and body are sundered.
For a season the one, in the state of disembodied con
sciousness, is an inhabitant of the spirit-world, and the
other is reduced to dust. But the epoch of resurrection
arrives. Of the same materials as before — that is, out of
the dust of the ground — a new body is provided, on the
same model and possessed of the same lineaments as
formerly, and so substantially and thoroughly identified
with the former one, that it wiU actuaUy be felt to be
the same; and soul and body are re-united. This is the
last Adam. But whilst really the same, there is also a
wonderful difference. It possesses now what it had not
before, a life-giving spirit. The resurrection-humanity
is immortal and indestructible, in consequence of being
actuated by the living Spirit of God. The operation of
that life-giving Spirit wiU be such as effectually to
secure the body against all future injury, discomfort,
and deterioration. No more growth, and no more de
cay ; no more danger, disease, or death. The spirit or
animating principle will, from its own intrinsic power,
protect the man from all liabUity either to sin or to
suffer — in a word, secure his immortaUty and blessedness.
Nor need we make a mystery of this, or regard it as

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE CONTRASTED. 289
uninteUigible. We are surrounded, at present, with
ten thousand facts and phenomena which demonstrate
the wonderful power of mind in warding off danger to
the body, and delaying death. We clothe ourselves
against the winter's cold, we retire to cool shelters from
the summer's heat, we compound medicines to remove
disease, we coUect and prepare articles of food to pam
per our, appetites, we decorate our persons and dweU-
ings in order to gratify our taste: and there is Uttle
doubt that aU this promotes our comfort, enjoyment,
and even Ufe. So much is the body dependent upon
the operations of mind even in this our natural or mor
tal state. It is surely, therefore, not a difficult matter
to comprehend how a power purely mental or spiritual
should be the means of securing the permanent vitality
of man in his resurrection state. We shall not need
to imagine that the body must consist of a materiaUsm
essentially different from that which we have at pre
sent, in order that we may Uve for ever. We shaU be
immortal simply because it will be a " life-giving spirit "
which animates us. A power dweUing within our very
bosoms wiU repel every approach to disintegration or
decay, and thereby secure our immortaUty. I think I
have heard of a distinguished anatomist who, whilst de
scribing the functions of the internal and vital organs
of the human body, felt constrained to remark, that
these organs were so wonderfuUy constructed and put
together, so thoroughly protected against danger and
derangement, and provided with such an exquisite
apparatus for ejecting what was dangerous to Ufe, and
attracting what was good and salutary, that his wonder
T

29a DISCOURSE XV.
was, not that the human machine should continue to.
work till threescore and ten years passed over its head,
but that it should ever grow old and die at all. But
whilst Scripture, not only in this chapter but in innu
merable passages besides, proclaims the coming recon
struction of the human body, the words before us
declare the means which God has ordained to secure
its permanent vitality. These are the indweUing of a
" life-giving spirit." Not a hair will become grey, not
an arm wiU be paralysed or lose its strength, not an
eye will wax dim : for the last Adam is " a quickening
spirit." Is it possible, however, we may now ask, to ascertain
what this quickening spirit is, and whether or no the
possession of it is within our reach ? As we have seen,
all that we have got from our birth or first creation is a
natural or mortal life. That speedily terminates. It is
full of sorrow, suffering, and pain, and it ends in death
and the grave. But we desire the resurrection into Ufe.
When we come again from the dust, we would gladly
find ourselves in possession of that " Ufe-giving spirit"
wherein a future immortality consists. Where is it to
be found : how is possession of it to be secured ?
3. And this leads me, in the third place, to remark
that we are here instructed in the important truth that
the regenerating Spirit of God, imparted to believers
in the hour of evangelical conversion, is literaUy that
" life-giving spirit " here spoken of, which secures our
immortaUty. It is, of course, a well-understood maxim of Chris
tianity, that through faith in Jesus Christ, and thus

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE CONTRASTED. 291
alone, we can appropriate salvation. But we must not
suppose that in the act of saving faith there is nothing
else called into exercise than the natural powers of the
human understanding. These indeed are exercised : the
man thinks, reasons, deliberates ; and, like the person
whose withered hand was restored, does his best, when
the Lord commands him, to stretch forth the palsied
Umb. But the healing power is from God, and that
comes with the Holy Ghost, who, in the hour of con
version, takes possession of the human heart. There is
literally an emanation from God, quickening, enlighten
ing, sanctifying; and what we are here taught is the
momentous doctrine, that the possession of the Holy
Spirit, by every believing man and woman, is identical
with the " life-giving spirit," which, after the resurrec
tion of the body, will effectually prevent it from ever
dying again. In the hour of conversion we become
united to Jesus Christ by a quickening spirit which
never afterwards forsakes us. Our communion and con
versation are thereafter in heaven ; although at death
our natural or mortal life ceases, yet in the spirit-world
our spiritual life continues ; and when, by the miracul
ous power of God, the resurrection of the body is accom
plished, that spiritual life becoming now the actuating
principle, our risen humanity cannot but Uve for ever.
The God of life is in us, and we cannot die. The seeds
of our former mortaUty are left behind us in the grave,
and the animating power which wiU then operate in
every muscle and pore, will in itself be, and must neces
sarily make these, as indestructible as God HimseK.
I, therefore, identify the animating principle of our

292 DISCOURSE XV.
resurrection-humanity with that Holy Spirit which it is
the office of the Gospel to bestow on every converted
man. This proposition may be proved by a very full
and elaborate production of Scripture texts. When, as
recorded in the third chapter of John, the Pharisee
Nicodemus came to Jesus in search of instruction on
the highest of aU topics, that of eternal salvation, he
was no less than three times over informed, and in
words of most solemn emphasis, that the very essence
of that eternal life consisted in the regenerating power
of the Holy Spirit. Get that, and he would enter into
the kingdom of God ; be destitute of it, and he must
needs perish for ever. Our apostle in the Epistle to
the Eomans speaks of the Holy Ghost as the " Spirit of
Life," and teUs us that " to be spirituaUy-minded is life ;"
and Jesus Himself announces that it is the " spirit that
quickeneth," and the mere "flesh profiteth nothing,"
the words which He spake being "spirit and life."
Without multiplying Scripture quotations, therefore,
and bearing in remembrance that the very object of the
Gospel is to make men Christians by leading them to
spiritual conversion, we may consider it as established
that the Holy Ghost does animate the converted and
bestow upon them eternal life. What is that, or what
can it be, but the Ufe of the hereafter, the state of
existence of the last Adam referred to in the words
before us, where, after the resurrection, He becomes " a
quickening spirit"? And this is apparent from the
very nature of things. There are not two kinds of
eternal life — one bestowed at regeneration, and another
at the resurrection : they are one and the same. We

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE CONTRASTED. 293
may have hitherto supposed that the work of the Holy
Spirit is exclusively one of sanctification, that is to say,
the forth-putting of a moral power with the view of
making its objects wiser, holier, and better than for
merly they may have been. But this is only one part
of the divine influence of that blessed Agent. He has
also a quickening or life-giving power. Through Him
we are absolutely united to the Godhead, and there
fore, and for no other reason whatsoever, possessed of
eternal life.
Let us learn from all this the momentous importance
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God,
speaking in the written and preached Word, is really
the communicator of eternal life to every one who
listens to the Gospel appeals. Turn to God; receive
the Word into your heart, and you not only have the
mental peace and spiritual joy which spring from com
munion with the heavenly world, but the actual germ of
eternal life and blessedness. It is not more a certain
matter of fact that there is Ught in the sun, heat in a
furnace, and vegetable life in the seed sown in order to
produce a crop, than that the man who receives and
appropriates the Word of God is constituted thereby an
immortal being. 0 what a world of meaning is com
prehended in that expression, eternal life ! How bound
less is this universe around us, stretching away into
infinity on every side, and fiUed throughout aU its de
partments with the wonderful works of God ! How
pleasant would it be to expatiate, say for a thousand
years, amidst these exhaustless fields of contemplation,
activity, and enjoyment ! At what price would human

294 - DISCOURSE XV.
reason value a charter from Almighty God, which would
entitle its possessor to appropriate so great a privUege
and boon ? But far more than this is the gift of salva^
tion in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. AU the blessedness
which the resources of immensity can bestow, and a
never-ending eternity wherein to enjoy them, are liter
ally held out to men in the Gospel offer. " Eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for
them that love Him ; " and " all things are yours ;
whether Paul, or ApoUos, or Cephas, or the world, or
Ufe, or death, or things present, or things to come : aU
are yours ; and ye are Christ's ; and Christ is God's."
Pity it is we have so little faith ; and that, when dis
coursing on the glorious destiny of God's people in the
great hereafter, there should always be so much reason
for using the complaint of the prophet — " Ah ! Lord
God ! they say of me, Doth He not speak parables ? "
Looking so much at things temporal, we are blinded to
the reality of things eternal : accustomed aU our life to
the trivialities and unworthy debasements of our fallen
state, we are apt to imagine that anything higher and
better is impossible. It is the judgment of ignorance,
like that of the chUd who, holding in his hand the
rough, scaly, and unsightly root, can form no conception
of the plant and flower which spring from it. And yet
the analogies of nature are aU on the side of develop
ment. Man would be an exception were advance and
progressive improvement denied him. Let the ruo-o-ed
and unseemly root be planted in the appropriate soU ;
let the moisture of the earth below, and the rain and

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE CONTRASTED. 295
dews from heaven above, supply the necessary nutri
ment, and in due course we shaU have the green shoot,
the graceful branches, and the gorgeous flower. Life is
wonderful even in the grass and lUies of the field : how
much more wonderful must it needs be in man, the
chiefest of all God's works, that framework, bodily and
mental, through which it has pleased the Almighty to
reveal Himself, and that for ever and ever, to the whole
material creation.

DISCOURSE XVI.
THE RESURRECTION BODY DIFFERENT FROM THAT WHICH
LIVED AND DIED, AND YET, IN ALL ESSENTIAL PAR
TICULARS, IDENTICAL WITH IT.
1 Cor. xv. 46-49.— " Howbeit that was not first," &c.

Authorised Version.
"Howbeit that was not first
which is spiritual, but that which
is natural ; and afterward that
which is spiritual. The first man
is of the earth, earthy : the second
Man is the Lord from heaven.
As is the earthy, such are they
also that are earthy : and as is
the heavenly, such are they also
that are heavenly. And as we
have borne the image of the earthy,
we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly.'' New Translation.
But not first the spiritual, but
the animal, and thereafter the
spiritual. The first man is earthy
of the earth : the second Man the
Lord from heaven. Like as the

Paraphrase.
There is thus a spiritual nature
and an animal nature : and, in
the order of things, the animal
comes first, and the spiritual af
terwards. The first man is of the
earth, earthy ; the second Man is
the Lord from heaven. It thus
appears that there are two kinds
of natures — the earthy and the
heavenly : and two classes of men
corresponding to them. As was
the earthy Adam, so also are all
his natural descendants : as is
the heavenly Adam, so also are
all those who are His spiritual
progeny. Nay, every individual
Christian is made to partake of
both natures. In consequence of
our natural birth, we have borne
the image of the earthy : by our

THE BODY CHANGED AND YET THE SAME. 297
earthy, so also those that are spiritual birth, we also bear the
earthy ; and like as the heavenly, image of the heavenly.
so also the heavenly. And as we
have borne the image of the
earthy, we shall also bear the
image of the heavenly.
It will be borne in remembrance, that the subject which
the apostle is discussing at this part of his argument, is
the contrast betwixt what human nature is in the pre
sent world and what it will be after the resurrection of
the body. Consciousness teUs us what our own bodies are
— how liable they are to disease, accident, pain, and decay;
and all that we see around us in the world, and during
our intercourse with human beings similarly constituted
with ourselves, points with unerring finger to death and
the corruption of the grave as our certain destiny. There
can be no doubt that the words of the apostle most
accurately describe our state, so far as consciousness
and experience give indication of it ; and corruption,
dishonour, weakness, and a condition no better than
that of " the beasts that perish," are words which most
fitly describe this bodily frame when the immortal
spirit has forsaken it. But with all the emphasis of an
inspired revelation from God, we are here informed that,
mortal and corrupt although our bodies are, the seeds
are in them of a future and glorious vitality. They are
destined to rise again from their state of death : corrup
tion being replaced by incorruption, weakness by power,
dishonour by glory, the animal by a spiritual life. The
decree, it seems, of Almighty God is passed upon the
subject ; and the acorn when planted in the earth does
not more certainly, and in accordance with nature's

298 DISCOURSE XVI.
laws, turn into an oak, or the tulip-root, simUarly dealt
with, into a gorgeous flower, than will the human body
of every one of God's saints be changed, at the resur
rection day, into the very perfection of corporeal and
animated existence.
Here, then, we have a most important principle an
nounced. It is as much a law of nature — that is, a
settled purpose and arrangement of Almighty God —
that we rise from the sleep of death, as that, through
the infirmity of the flesh in its present state, we die.
The death and the resurrection of the body are merely
steps or stages eventuating in a corporeal existence
which is destined to be immortal. You wUl notice that
the first of the verses now before us, and whose exposi
tion we must overtake in the present discourse, virtu
ally re-affirms this truth ; declaring that the Almighty, in
carrying our bodies from the stage of the natural to that
of the spiritual, is but accommodating Himself to a law
of natural, perhaps necessary, progression. " Howbeit,"
says the apostle, " that was not first which is spiritual,
but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is
spiritual." Again, I have to ask you to bear in mind
what was stated formerly, and I think established, as to
the meaning of the two terms here translated "natural"
and "spiritual;" and more especiaUy that the change
represented in this place as occurring in our humanity,
does not and cannot signify the transmutation of matter
into spirit, or body into mind ; but merely the passing
of the body from under the dominion of natural and
fleshly propensities to be under the control of the Spirit
, of God and all holy feeUngs and aspirations. The body

THE BODY CHANGED AND YET THE SAME. 299
— meaning thereby this framework of flesh and blood
— wiU be substantially the same in both states ; the
only difference being that carnal affections and de
sires are removed as a controlUng power, and spiritual
.feelings come in their room. We may illustrate this by
conceiving of a machine, such as a cotton factory, a ship,
or a railway locomotive, driven at one time by means
of steam, but at another by some different power, such
as electricity. Under the agency of steam, the machine
may do its work effectuaUy and well ; but cause may
be seen for altering the motive power : and whilst the
wheels and pinions, the shafts, belts, and other apparatus
remain unchanged — nothing more being done with
these than to adapt them to the new power by which
henceforth they are operated upon — the new electrical
or other force may introduce the very greatest improve
ment, and the work of the machine may be done infin
itely better. In the one case, we call the machine a
steam-engine ; in the other, an electrical, or whatever it
may be : but we never imagine, because we use these
words, that the engine, in the one state, is made of
steam, and that, in the other, it is transmuted into the
more ethereal substance of electricity. In Uke manner,
I repeat it : for where a text or word of Scripture has
been so much misunderstood as this has been, such re
petition is necessary : the natural body which we now
have will, in aU essential particulars, be the same with
the spiritual body of the hereafter ; the only difference
lying in the motives, feeUngs, and aspirations by which
it is actuated.
When, in the verse before us, the apostle tells us that

300 DISCOURSE XVI. ¦
" that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is
natural, and afterward that which is spiritual," he evi
dently points to some progression intrinsically existing in
the very nature of things. Everything in nature grows —
progressively advancing towards complete development.
The flower, the tree, and man himself in his progress
from infancy to maturity, are common illustrations of
this fact. But there is, it seems, another and a far
higher illustration of it, in man's progress from the
natural to the spiritual — that is, from man as he is in
this world, to that which he wUl be in the world to
come. This statement is not unimportant, considered
in itself; seeing that it lays down a law or rule of the
divine procedure as affecting ourselves, in which we are
called upon very cordially to acquiesce. But there are
several inferences naturally flowing from it of an ex
ceedingly practical kind. It tells us, for instance, that
our present condition is, by the appointment of God,
that of the natural or fleshly man : what, therefore, can
we be in this world, but liable to the influences of the
natural propensities and affections ? We cannot escape
from ourselves, or exhibit the operations of a life which
exceeds the capabilities of our being. They, therefore,
who call upon human beings to realise an angelic Ufe
whUst yet in the body, and, with the self-torturing
ascetic or fanatical devotee, aim at something transcen
dental in their piety, are evidently attempting an im-
possibiUty. They never wUl, and they cannot succeed.
True and common-sense piety acquiesces in the arrange
ments too palpably fixed to be even interfered with in
safety ; hears the voice of God in the natural appetites,

THE BODY CHANGED AND YET THE SAME. 301
wants, and wishes of the human heart ; and seeks — not
to annihilate, but to regulate them by reason and the
maxims of the written Word. Distinctly does the
apostle here tell us, that " that is not first which is
spiritual, but that which is natural." However, his
language also points to a hereafter, when man wiU be
placed under different conditions. Then he wiU be
" spiritual " altogether ; no more gross appetites de
manding gratification ; no more selfish enjoyment, for
getful of every one besides ; no more importunate de
sires and wayward affections, refusing to be controUed
either by reason or the law of God. Surely such a con
summation may well be looked forward to with satis
faction and faith. Present duty is so to comport our
selves amongst things that are, that we may not be dis
qualified for the life of the hereafter ; to cherish, as
much as we can, the spirit of holiness, truth, and purity
— in one word, conformity to the divine will — seeing
this is the consummation towards which all is tending.
" First that which is natural ; afterwards," and as the
grand end or consummation, " that which is spiritual."
The next verse virtually repeats this sentiment, but
superadds an iUustration of it taken from the first and
second Adam. " The first man," says the apostle, " is
of the earth, earthy : the second man is the Lord from
heaven." The aUusion here plainly is to the creation of
our first father Adam, as contrasted with the incarnation
of Jesus Christ. Of the former it is written that the
Almighty took of the dust of the ground, and having
moulded it into that compUcated framework of bones,
muscles, and so on, which constitutes our humanity,

302, DISCOURSE XVI.
"breathed into its nostrils the breath of life," and so
made it a living being. Such is the natural man. By
his very constitution, therefore, the natural man is " of
the earth, earthy;" and that no one might entertain the
slightest doubt upon this subject, the phenomena of
death prove that what out of dust has come, to dust
may literaUy and very readily return. But the incarna
tion of the Son of God was an incident of a very different
description. " The Lord then came from heaven;" took
up His residence in the virgin's womb ; consecrated or
made holy part of her substance, which enlarged, and
in due time was born— pure, perfect, immaculate ; and
to whatever changes that humanity might be liable, one
thing is certain, it was in no degree liable to corruption.
Here, then, is the counterpart and illustration of the
spiritual humanity of which the apostle is speaking.
The body of Jesus Christ, from its conception in the
Virgin's womb throughout aU its subsequent changes
and history, was a spiritual body ; that is, a body be
gotten, animated, actuated by the Holy Ghost, and in
wondrous hypostatical union with the second person of
the Godhead. It might be maltreated, and every indig
nity showm to it by the maUce of men, but that only
indicated human depravity. It was made capable of
suffering ; for without its sacrificial suffering the great-
atonement could not have been effected ; but this liabi
lity to suffering was the result of the positive operation
of God ; it was incorrupt all the while, however, and
incorruptible. It could suffer no deterioration whatever,
for the providence of God watched over it, so that " a
bone of it could not be broken ; " and not longer than

¦ THE BODY CHANGED AND YET THE SAME. 303
tiU the third day could it be imprisoned in the grave,
and then death had to resign its captive, not one frag
ment or atom of its constitution tarrying behind : passing
altogether into the state of immortality and glory. No
thing, surely, can more felicitously illustrate the great
topic on which the apostle is here enlarging. By our
connection with the first Adam — that is to say, in conse
quence of our natural descent from him who was " of
the earth, earthy" — we are mortal and corruptible. But
there is such a thing as regeneration. A new nature is
begotten within us by the Holy Ghost ; and the tendency
of that is to make us altogether spiritual. United to
Jesus Christ by a living faith, we absolutely become
" partakers of the divine nature, and escape the corrup
tion that is in the world through lust." And what
commences with the soul, and in the region of the
unseen, will end in the body, and the visible glory of
the resurrection- day. The earthly Adam entered upon
his career of existence, a fleshly and fallible man, not
having the Spirit of God; and all his progeny have
inherited a similar nature. But the heavenly Adam
was holy and infalUble from the beginning, and both
He and all His spiritual descendants have the Holy
Ghost to quicken and animate them, and so proceed
onwards to the perfection of their being — a humanity
perfect, spiritual, immortal, and encompassed with hea
venly glory.
The next verse carries this reasoning a step forwards.
Having, in the verse which we have just been consider
ing, declared the important doctrine that the first and
second Adam — that is, our first father and Jesus Christ

304 DISCOURSE XVI.
— are representatives respectively of the natural and
spiritual man, the apostle now contrasts the entire human
race, as we behold them in the present world, with what
those of them shaU be who wUl be found worthy to
inherit the world to come. " As is the earthy, such are
they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such
are they also that are heavenly;" that is to say, the
whole human race, springing from Adam, are in nature
and constitution " earthy" — formed of earth, and to
earth returning; but the Saints, the Elect, the Eedeemed,
are assimilated to Jesus Christ, the heavenly man ; and
when the great change of the resurrection -day has
passed upon them, they become, like the Saviour Him-
seU, heavenly and incorruptible. Here we need not stop
to enlarge upon the meaning of the "earthy" — our
consciousness and knowledge of what is occurring in
the world having made us fully acquainted with the
universal mortality and corruptibUity of the human
race. Our subject invites us more especially to consider
the second clause of the verse, or what is impUed in the
expression, " They also that are heavenly." The idea
suggested manifestly is this, an identity of nature be
twixt the risen saints, as to their bodily constitution,
and the risen and glorified Eedeemer. If, in short, we
wish to know what kind of bodies wiU belong to the
Eedeemed after the resurrection, all we have to do is to
set before our minds the idea of the risen Eedeemer.
He is the normal specimen, the pattern and example of
all those who are "heavenly," or partakers of the eternal
inheritance. And this is precisely what our apostle
affirms elsewhere, when, in the third chapter of the

THE BODY CHANGED AND YET THE SAME. 305
Epistle to the Philippians, he declares the " conver
sation " of believers to be " in heaven ; from whence
also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ : who
shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned
like unto His glorious body, according to the working
whereby He is able even to subdue aU things unto Him
self." And it is also the same doctrine which is affirmed
in the third chapter of 1st John, where these words
occur, " It doth not yet appear what we shall be : but
we know that, when He shall appear, we shaU be like
him ; for we shaU see him as he is." If, therefore, we
desire to have some idea of the resurrection-humanity
of God's saints, we are authorised by these texts to con
sider the person of our blessed Lord Himself. That is
plainly the model upon which every one of the Eedeemed
will have his body constituted when he rises from the
dead. Keeping this principle in view, and calling to
recollection the facts of our Lord's history, as set down
in the written Word, we are clearly authorised in coming
to the following conclusions or ultimate results :
1. The bodies of the saints, in their heavenly state —
that is, after the resurrection — wUl substantially and
literaUy, in other words, so far as structure and consti
tution are concerned, be identical with what they were
in their earthly or mortal state.
It is plain that this was the case with Jesus Christ.
The body which was born of the Virgin, which moved
from place to place throughout Palestine, was crucified
on Calvary and deposited in the sepulchre, was that
very body which rose from the dead. As if to demon
strate this very fact, the Eedeemer continued in the
u

306 DISCOURSE XVI.
sepulchre only tiU the third day. The Saviour, so far
as the sacred narrative informs us, did not leave a
single bone, muscle, or even hair of the head behind
him in the grave. For aught we can tell, He might have
been differently attired after His resurrection from what
He had been before, and this may explain the doubts
and slowness of recognition on the part of some of His
disciples ; but we cannot read the Gospels without per
ceiving that in every essential particular He was the
same man before and after the resurrection. The tones
of His voice, His looks, features, gestures, and famiUar
modes of expression, were just what they were before.
He walked, He spoke, He breathed, He allowed Himself
to be handled, He retained the marks of His crucifixion,
He even ate and drank. If, therefore, it be a fact, as
affirmed in the words before us, that " as is the heavenly,
such are they also that are heavenly," then the risen
saints must in all similar respects be identified with the
Eedeemer. No part of their bodies wiU be left behind
in the grave. When the resurrection is an accompUshed
fact, they will be substantially — that is to say, in aU
essential particulars — what they were before. If, to use
a somewhat coUoquial expression, the stock is to be Uke
the sample, man, in his earthly and mortal state, must
needs have about him the great leading characteristics
of His resurrection and glorified humanity. He will not
be translated into an angel or spiritual essence ; he will
stUl be material, an organised being, fearfully and won-
derfuUy made, conscious to himself of his own corporeal
identity, and capable in this respect of being recognised
by others.

THE BODY CHANGED AND YET THE SAME. 307
2. But although man natural and mortal is thus
identified with man spiritual and immortal, such a fact
is quite compatible with bodily changes and improve
ments, and these carried even to an amazing extent.
This too is iUustrated in the person of Jesus Christ.
Things are recorded of Him, after His resurrection, which
before death we would have pronounced impossible.
He appeared suddenly in the midst of His assembled
disciples when the doors of the apartment were shut ;
and as suddenly He disappeared again. He walked
with two disciples to Emmaus, and the moment He was
recognised vanished out of their sight. In Jerusalem
He directed them to go to Galilee, promising to reveal
Himself to them there ; and in Galilee He was found of
them, on the shores of the lake of Gennesaret — a fire
burning, fish broiling, and bread prepared in some
hidden and mysterious way. During those remarkable
forty days betwixt His resurrection and ascension there
is a palpable and striking difference in His demeanour
towards the disciples from what He had uniformly
manifested before ; His interviews being only occa
sional, and Uke angel- visits from another sphere; no
more teaching in public, no more continuous intercourse
with the disciples in private, no more dwelling under a
human roof. Eeturned to the neighbourhood of Jeru
salem and His beloved Bethany, He suddenly blessed
them, and in their sight ascended heavenward ; finaUy,
and in the open atmosphere, disappearing whoUy from
view. Again, near Damascus, His vision was apparently
seen in the midst of dazzUng light, and His words were
certainly heard by the apostle Paul. With these mani-

308 DISCOURSE XVI.
festations of the glorified Eedeemer after His resurrec
tion, we are not at liberty to classify those glowing state
ments contained in the Apocalypse, for the visions there
are to be considered as mental and not physical — visions
revealed in prophetic rapture to the inner man, and not
spectacles presented to the eyes of sense ; but this, not
withstanding, we are entitled to infer from these Apoca
lyptic details, that in that spirit or unseen world where
Jesus now is, His sacred person is infinitely glorious,
doubtless exhibiting those attributes of splendour and
dazzling radiance which were revealed -to the disciples
on the Mount of Transfiguration. On the same princi
ple, accordingly, which has already been announced,
we infer that the bodies of the saints wiU be greatly
improved and glorified. In order to be identified with
their great model, the most wondrous powers and facul
ties will be developed within them. Their bodies wUl
be glorified : not only by the removal of all imperfec
tions — liability to pain, disease, accident, and death —
but by being made radiant and lustrous to the sight,
and at any rate rendered capable, in virtue of the new
constitution of things, of holding rapid, ready, and in
fluential intercourse with the outward creation. It is
obvious that the person of Jesus, after its resurrection,
was not controlled as once it was by what we call the
laws of nature; but, at will, rather exercised control
over these. We are entitled to infer that a somewhat
similar prerogative wUl be conferred upon all who shall
be counted worthy to obtain the " heavenly " humanity
described in the text. The power which mind exercises
over matter even at present, in superintending and

THE BODY CHANGED AND YET THE SAME. 309
directing the movements of the body, is surprising and
wonderful. We have only to conceive of an indefinite
addition being made to this power, to comprehend, in
some measure at least, the condition of the spiritual
man in eternity.
The 49th or last of the verses before us is but the
recapitulation of the sentiment which we have now
illustrated. "As we have borne the image of the earthly,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." Every
chUd of the fallen Adam enters upon its brief career of
worldly existence as a fallen creature, and possessed of a
body, instinct in every pore with the seeds of disease
and mortality. But fallen although that chUd of Adam
may be, it is capable, through regeneration and faith, of
acquiring a new nature, and approximating to God Him
self. The Son of the Highest has become man ; and
one of the purposes of that incarnation is to supply
a model upon which every child of the fallen may be
converted into a child of the unfaUen Adam. In the
domain of the spiritual, Jesus Christ stands to the entire
company of the redeemed in the same relation that our
first father Adam does to all his descendants after the
flesh : that is to say, each is the covenant head or re
presentative of a multitudinous people ; and as a body
dying and doomed to corruption is our inheritance from
the former, our predestined inheritance from the latter
is that very body resuscitated, animated with affections"
spiritual, holy, and pure, and destined to expatiate for
ever and ever, amid all that is blessed and glorious in the
whole universe of God. Looking to the risen Saviour —
the glorious God-man with whom after His resurrection

310 DISCOURSE XVI.
the apostles held such frequent, extraordinary, and yet
human -like intercourse, and whom John at Patmos
beheld in vision surrounded with aU the attributes of
divine majesty — we not only contemplate the grand
object of our Christian love and veneration, but the very
mould and pattern to which we ourselves hope yet to
be conformed. We have borne the image of the
" earthly ; '' we shall also bear the image of the
"heavenly." "We shaU be like Him, for we shall see
Him as He is."
To conclude, then, these somewhat desultory observa
tions on a department of Christian truth unsurpassed
in importance by any other, let us settle it in our minds,
as a matter of revealed and most certain fact, that a dis
pensation or epoch in the future providence of God is
coming, when, for man natural, man spiritual wiU be
substituted ; and when in place of a world occupied by
a vast population, passing through the successive stages
of birth, maturity, decay, and death, with aU the acci
dents and evUs associated with such things, there shaU
be a world tenanted exclusively by the good and right
eous of the dispensation which went before, and aU
these living, and destined to live, for ever and ever, in
bodies perfect, incorruptible, and glorious. This is the
distinct affirmation of the apostle in the verses before
us. The six thousand years, or however much longer it
may be, betwixt the Fall and the Judgment-day, consti
tute the epoch of the natural man — the period, in the
evolution of God's great purposes and designs, during
which men bear the image of the earthly Adam. But
the day of Judgment arrives, and brings with it the

THE BODY CHANGED AND YET THE SAME. 311
mighty cataclysm, so long predicted, of the very world
in which we are dwelling, and the determination of the
question who are to constitute the inhabitants of that
world to come, who are Uterally to be, in the face of
creation, the living and immortal specimens of that
spiritual humanity whom it is the very object of aU our
gospel training to prepare for their glorious destiny.
This judgment being past and over, the very goal of
creation is reached. The perfect state of humanity be
comes apparent. The Eedeemer Himself — God and man
in one person — is revealed as the incarnate and visible
Head of the visible universe ; and a multitude whom no
man can number are revealed alongst with Him, each
wearing His likeness — in personal appearance and human
attributes assimilated to Him, and destined to share His
sovereignty and all the blessedness therewith associated.
I say all this is the undeniable revelation of the Spirit
of God in the verses before us. It is laid down by the
apostle as a matter of indubitable certainty — a certainty
as fixed and determined as any of the most positive of
providential arrangements. A few verses back we find
him teaching that the resurrection of the body is as
much the result of an inherent property of the human
frame, dying and corruptible though it plainly be, as is
the bursting forth of the foUage of trees in spring, or the
evolution of a plant or flower from the buried seed, are
the consequence of essential properties in these veget
able substances. And in the verses which we have now
been considering we are instructed that, by the decree
and determination of Almighty God, the natural hu
manity at present in possession of the earth wiU be

312 DISCOURSE XVI.
succeeded by another species of humanity — that is, the
spiritual — moulded and modelled on the pattern of the
risen Saviour. The process by which this must be
effected is here detailed; and the resurrection of the
body is just a part of that process. Every step towards
its consummation is taken in an orderly way. The
46th verse informs us that the first step in this pro
cess is the manifestation of the natural man — that is,
the birth, life, and death of human beings ; the 47th
describes the new creation — the coming, in human
flesh, of " the Lord from heaven," to be the model of the
spiritual man ; the 48th goes on to teU of the two great
companies, the earthly and the heavenly, who, by the
economy of grace and this spiritualising operation, are
under the Gospel effected or made up; and the 49th
points to the consummation, not only the Eedeemer,
but a numerous people alongst with Him, revealed in the
image and substance of perfect and glorified humanity.
How sublime are these words ! What a meaning there
is in the march of Providence when viewed in the light
of this wondrous revelation ! Successive generations of
the human species are not brought into being merely to
suffer, to languish, to die, to be reduced unto dust ; and
this process going on interminably until every acre of
the earth's surface is filled with the mouldering remains
of the dead. The resuscitation is appointed. In due
course of time all will be raised again from the dead —
the righteous to enter upon an immortal existence of
blessedness and glory.
Is it indeed a fact, that a destiny so transcendently
blessed is within our reach ? May we literaUy expect

THE BODY CHANGED AND YET THE SAME. 313
so wondrous a transfiguration ? What else besides this
is the Gospel ? Who does not accordingly see that in
that Gospel, preached so widely and pressed so earnestly
upon the attention of the children of men, we have in
very deed the pearl of great price, the hidden treasure,
the only precious thing within the reach of mortal
man ? This is the crown for which we are running the
Christian race. If we only knew it, this is the one thing
— the one only thing worth living for. To have a right
to the kingdom of God — a place in that future inherit
ance of the redeemed and a high measure of prepara
tion for it — this is really to each of us the question of all-
in-all importance. Worldly wealth will by-and-by lose
its value : worldly pleasures, like the flowers of spring,
will wither away : worldly power and grandeur will
fade and sink into utter contempt. But the kingdom
of God and its righteousness — no one will be able ade
quately to comprehend their worth till we tread the
soil of the new world in conscious immortality, and
begin to breathe the blessed airs of paradise restored.
Have faith, then, ye followers of Jesus Christ — have
faith in the Lord and Sovereign of that future world :
this is the avenue that conducts you to it. Cherish
His spirit — the spirit of love, and purity, and benevo
lence, and to be ever doing works meet for repentance :
this is the badge of discipleship, the pledge and assur
ance before God and the blessed angels that the spiritual
man is beginning to be developed within your souls.
Behold this goodly and green world of ours, wheeUng
in space its everlasting circles round the central sun.
What is it that maintains its position securely there ?

3H DISCOURSE XVI.
What but that law of gravitation whereby all material
things know and seek their centre! How comes it
that light and warmth, the varied wonders of animal
vitality, and the verdure and fertility of the vegetable
creation, cover the earth's circumference? How but
through the powerful and Ufe-giving influences shot ,
down from the glorious sun ! So by the law of faith
and the operation of the Holy Spirit of God do we at
once acquire a right and a meetness for eternity. Thus
shaU we be enabled to hold our place for ever and
ever in the glories of eternity. Be united, then, to the
Son of God: be conformed to His humanity: resolve
to walk through this world as He walked before you.
Blessed Jesus ! may we aU thus become one with
Thee ! So shall we behold Thy glory which the Father
hath given Thee, and dwell in Thy kingdom for ever
and ever.

DISCOURSE XVII.
THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE : IN THE BODY LIKE
TO ADAM BY OUR NATURAL BIRTH : BY REGENERATION,
EVEN IN THE BODY, MADE LIKE TO CHRIST.
1 Cor. xv. 50-52—" Now this I say, brethren, that flesh," &c.

Authorised Version.
" Now this I say, brethren, that
flesh and blood cannot 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." New Translation.
This, moreover, I say, brethren,
that flesh and blood cannot in
herit the kingdom of God, neither
doth corruption inherit incorrup
tion. Behold, I declare to you a
mystery, We shall not all go to

Paraphrase.
And this leads me to mention an
important fact connected with the
coming of the kingdom of God :
and that is, that flesh and blood,
or a carnal unsanctified nature, is
not fitted for the occupations and
blessedness of that kingdom ; nei
ther can corruption find a. place
in a region where all is holiness
and purity. And here I will de
clare unto you a most important
mystery : It is not the will of God
that all shall sleep the sleep of
death, but it is the will of God that
all His people shall be changed.
This change will take place at the
second coming of Christ, and will
he effected in an instant of time,
in the very twinkling of an eye,
coincident with the sounding of

3l6 DISCOURSE XVII.
sleep : but we shall all be changed, the last trampet. I say, the last
In an instant, in an eye's twink- trumpet, for as at the giving of
ling, at the last trumpet (for the the Law on Mount Sinai the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead sound of a trumpet was heard, so
shall be raised incorruptible, and at the last day that trumpet will
we shall be changed). be heard again, and simultaneous
ly with this the righteous dead
shall be raised incorruptible, and
we who shall then be living will
be changed.
The doctrine of a hereafter is, of course, the foundation
upon which all religion rests. If death were the anni
hilation of our being or the end of all consciousness,
there would be small reason for fearing God or keeping
His commandments : it is the fact, that the character
of the life which now is determines that of a life to
come — this it is which renders religion a matter of such
infinite importance. Even if the future life were purely
spiritual — that is to say, were the dissolution -of the
body destined to be eternal — a notion which holds its
place still in the theories of philosophers who specu
late on what they caU the immateriality of the soul,
and which, I fear, is the whole idea which many enter
tain of a hereafter, who in their open Bibles have the
means of knowing the way of God more perfectly : if, I
say, the purely spiritual state into which we enter at
death were to be eternal, there would stiU be room for
the earnest teachings of Gospel truth. Our mental and
spiritual peace, and that throughout eternity, might
absolutely depend on the mental change and training
which it is the business of religion to accomplish in the
present world. But it is clear as sunlight that the
apostle Paul in the chapter before us inculcates, as an

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE. 317
inspired man, a very different doctrine from the pure
spirituality of the hereafter. His doctrine is virtually
the immortality of the body. The whole of this long
chapter is occupied with the demonstration of a resur
rection from the dead. Man's spiritual state after death
is only an intercalary period betwixt two epochs of
corporeal existence. Man is born and lives tiU natural
death consigns the body to the grave and the soul to
God who gave it. But whUst the soul thinks and is
fully conscious in that spirit-world into which at death
it enters, the body lying in the dust has certain vital
properties about it : it wiU reappear on the stage of
physical existence ; and, united once more to its ancient
partner, will at the resurrection commence a new career
destined never to terminate. The Ufe of the hereafter
becomes, in this way, assimilated to the life of the
present ; and we may have in consequence a far more
inteUigent apprehension of the importance of religious
training and discipline. Not only the soul, but the
very body itself which we now wear, has a noble
destiny before it ; and the care of the body becomes a
duty as imperative upon us as is the care of the soul
itself. The verses now to be considered are virtuaUy a
repetition of the sentiments which the apostle has
already expressed. Of course, they all refer to the
resurrection as that shaU take effect in the case of
God's people : for throughout the chapter no reference
wiU be found to the resurrection of the finaUy repro
bate. It is of the saints the apostle is speaking. They
may die, even as our Lord Himself, but like Him

318 DISCOURSE XVII.
too they wUl rise again ; and the humanity with which
they wiU at their resurrection be clothed, wiU be simi
lar to that which was revealed in Him. They are the
stock — He is the sample ; and from the detaUs con
tained in the evangelical narrative regarding the person
of our Lord, we may draw correct inferences with
respect to the spiritual or resurrection humanity of
God's saints.
1. Let us, in the first place, inquire into the meaning
of the 50th verse, where we are informed that " flesh
and blood" cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and
that corruption cannot inherit incorruption.
By "the kingdom of God" in this place we are
plainly to understand the world of the hereafter — the
economy which succeeds the resurrection- day. The
expression evidently corresponds with the word "in
corruption," with which the verse concludes, and is
intended to describe that state of perfection in which
man bears the image of the heavenly Adam. But the
phrase "flesh and blood" demands some further ex
planation, inasmuch as the very doctrine of the verse —
that is, the affirmation of a contrast betwixt what God's
people corporeaUy are in this world and what they
will be in the world to come — is wrapped up in the
expression. The phrase " flesh and blood " occurs repeatedly in
the New Testament. Thus our Lord, in His memorable
address to Peter, declares that " flesh and blood " had
not revealed to Him the grand truth of the divine
Sonship of Christ ; and there the words evidently
signify that Peter had obtained his knowledge from a

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE. 319
different quarter than man, the expression being
synonymous with human nature in its present state —
that humanity which we find in the present world.
The words are used in a similar sense by the apostle
Paul in the first chapter of the Galatians, in which,
with a view to vindicate his apostleship or divine
inspirations, he declares that he " conferred not with
flesh and blood," that is, received his doctrine from no
human being. Again, in the second of the Hebrews,
the statement having been advanced that the children
of God were made " partakers of flesh and blood," it is
added, that " He Himself took part of the same " — a
phraseology which implies that the words signify
human nature, of which both Christ and His people
are partakers in this world. And, once more, in the
sixth of the Ephesians we are told that we "wrestle
not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and
powers," and so on, the allusion being to the Christian
warfare, in which we contend not, as in ordinary fight,
with creatures like ourselves, but with spiritual powers
or Satanic agencies belonging to the unseen. In all,
these verses the expression " flesh and blood " obviously
signifies human beings, or human nature, as we find
them in the present world. There are, besides, many
texts, both in the writings of Paul and elsewhere, in
which a similar contrast is insisted on betwixt the
fleshly and the spiritual with what is referred to here.
Thus in the first chapter of John's Gospel we find an
allusion to the " sons of God " — that is, true Christians
— the very parties, in short, who are spoken of in this
place as the heirs of the kingdom of God, and these are

320 DISCOURSE XVII.
described as " born, not of blood, nor of the wUl of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God;" and again.
in the eighth of the Eomans, the apostle enlarges upon
the contrast betwixt the flesh and the spirit, telUng us
that " they that are after the flesh do mind the things
of the flesh," that " to be carnaUy-minded is death,"
that "the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be," but that Christians " are not in
the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of
God dweU in them."
By the expression "flesh and blood," therefore, we
are clearly to understand human nature in its unre-
generate state. We are not to forget that one of the
great objects of the Christian dispensation is to provide
means by which human nature . wUl be sanctified,
renewed, or regenerated. These means are the living
power of the Spirit of God. It is as much a necessity
to have within us the Holy Ghost to change and
spiritualise, as it is to look with the eye of faith to
Jesus Christ as our atoning sacrifice and intercessor in
heaven. The term "flesh and blood" expresses, and
weU expresses, what we are before regeneration. We
enter upon our career of worldly existence as creatures
possessed of nothing beyond the impulses and desires
of the flesh. We eat, we drink ; we labour, we rest ;
we sleep, we wake ; we yield to aU natural propensities,
and seek the gratification of fleshly desires and inclina
tions. This we do exclusively ; but the most inatten
tive reader of the Word of God cannot fail to notice
very numerous allusions to a most remarkable change
as taking place in a man when he comes under the

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE. 32 1
operation of the Spirit of God. He is then said to be
" born again," to become a " new creature," to be " led
by the Spirit of God," to be " begotten again unto a
lively hope." In a word, every variety of expression is
made use of in order to show that he is no longer
merely " flesh and blood" — that is, a human being with
nothing better than carnal propensities to guide him —
but that he is actuated by motives of a spiritual, reli
gious, and heavenly kind, and that, too, in the very
highest degree.
There is, accordingly, nothing very profound or un-
inteUigible in the clause before us, "flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God." In fact, the
meaning is immediately explained by the second clause,
"neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." All
that is affirmed is the very comprehensible statement,
that in the kingdom of God, in the great hereafter,
there will be none but regenerated persons. Fleshly
propensities must be subdued, and all carnal incUna
tions subjected to the control of the Spirit of God.
And this is a very important statement. Man wiU
then be uncorrupt and spiritual ; no selfishness, no
ungodliness, not the wiU of the flesh, but the known
wiU of God, being the impellent motive of every action.
And this, as we have already shown, whUst in all its
parts, powers, and functions the human body continues
substantiaUy what it is. To imagine, as some are
incUned to do, that the denial of flesh and blood in the
kingdom of God means that man hereafter wiU have
no flesh on his bones and no blood in his veins, perhaps
neither bones nor flesh at aU, nor so much as one atom
x

322 ' DISCOURSE XVlL
of a material kind, is clearly a most gratuitous assump-'
tion. Were such the fact, man would be converted
into a spiritual essence similar to the angels, and it
would be preposterous to say that he had a body at all.
Such was not the fact in the case of Jesus Christ, who,
as if to put to flight all such imaginations, ate and
drank, handled and was handled by others, after He
rose from the dead. Indeed, if man after the resur
rection is to be spiritual in the sense of immaterial,
I cannot understand what resurrection means, seeing
that in his disembodied state he is obviously and
already possessed of aU the spirituality which such a
use of the term can imply. Surely it is far better, and
in greater accordance with reason, to consider the text
as asserting the great Gospel doctrine, that regenerated
humanity, and that alone, wiU find a place in the
heavenly world. Man will then be perfect. Sin will
be wholly subdued and cast out. Selfishness, impurity^
immorality, will be unknown. " Flesh and blood," or
the wayward propensities of our fallen nature, wUl no
longer hold man in subjection ; and the corrupt and
sinful desires, so frightfuUy prevalent in the world as
we now see it, and productive there of so much misery
and woe, will be utterly extinguished, and for ever.
Under such a hypothesis there is nothing mystical in the
apostle's language, and his words are the natural conclu
sion of his argument, seeing that in the preceding verses
he has set 'forth the perfections of man's resurrection-
humanity, and more especially that his body is then to
be constituted on the model of the sacred humanity of
the Saviour Himself. What so natural as to conclude

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE. 323
with the affirmation that the corruption and fleshly
propensities of our faUen state wiU then be utterly
unknown ?
2. Secondly, let us inquire into the mystery of the
great change referred to in the 51st and 52d verses.
The word here translated "mystery" is of frequent
occurrence in the New Testament. It does not neces
sarily mean something extraordinary, out of the way,
and at variance with the order of natural events. It is
certainly used, however, to denote truths of more than
ordinary importance, and such as, without a special re
velation, mankind could never at aU become acquainted
with. Thus the wonderful doctrine of the incarnation
of the Son of God is called the " mystery of godliness ;"
the union betwixt Christ and His Church is called a
" great mystery ; " so also the admission of the Gentiles
to the privileges exclusively enjoyed by the Hebrew
race — a fact which is denominated " the mystery which
hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now
is made manifest to the saints." We read of a " mystery
of iniquity" — an expression applied to the rise, pro
gress, and full development of apostasy in the Christian
Church, and also of " the mystery of God " as denoting
the plan of redemption now evolving in providence,
and destined to be completed by the revelation of the
kingdom of God. We may, therefore, be assured that
when the apostle applies this term to any fact con
nected with the subject-matter of this chapter, he
means us to regard it as one possessed of special
interest and importance.
The first mysterious or remarkable circumstance re-

324 DISCOURSE XVII.
ferred to by the apostle is contained in the words, " We
shaU. not aU sleep, but we shall all be changed." Of
course the " sleep " here referred to is death. This is
a designation perpetually used in Scripture, and one
which deserves to be carefully noted. There is more in
the term than at first sight appears. Death is only a
sleep. It is not the termination or extinction of being,
but only an interval of repose ; an intercalary period
betwixt two states of active physical occupation. The
man who at nightfaU divests himself of his clothing
and retires to sleep, has merely ended the business and
employments of one day; but he anticipates, whUst
doing so, an awakening in the morning ; and, accord
ingly, the activities of a new day do actuaUy ensue.
Death, therefore, is the period of repose betwixt the
activities of this world and the activities of the world
to come. Moreover, sleep is a purely corporeal affec
tion, for, as is most singularly and remarkably apparent
from the phenomena of dreaming — thousands of the
most extraordinary dreams being actually on record,
and every one having a personal knowledge of dreams
in his own experience that are not a little wonderful —
the mind, during sleep, is in a state ofttimes of even
preternatural activity. The very term of sleep, there
fore, applied by the sacred writers to describe the state
of death, is a virtual declaration of the activity of the
human soul whilst the body is mouldering in the grave.
Nay more, as by that bodUy affection which we caU
sleep, the soul, exhausted and worn out by the labours
of one day, has its powers recruited and made meet for
the labours of another ; so, from the use of the term

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE. 325
by the Spirit of God in Scripture, we argue that the
slumber of death is the preliminary of an awakening
to reinvigorated existence. All these things, however,
although most important, are not the mystery which
the apostle means to disclose in the words now under
consideration. The mystery lies in the fact which he
now reveals, that this sleep of death is destined not to
be universal. There wiU be some — for ought we can
tell, it will be a large company — who will not die at
all. This, we know, has been the case already in two
remarkable instances mentioned in Scripture — the in
stances, namely, of Enoch and Elijah. And as these
LUustrate the escape from death, so also do they iUus-
trate the other part of the mystery to which the apostle
alludes, the great change which will be effected in the
persons of many of God's saints. Like their great pro
totypes, they will be " translated that they should not
see death." Up to the moment when the creative and
resistless word shall issue from the throne of God, the
bodies of the saints will retain their accustomed quali
ties, the powers and properties of the natural man ; just
as did the bodies of Enoch and EUjah, which were in
all respects similar to ours until the instant of their
translation. Then, however, the great change takes
place. And that we may understand in what it is that
this change consists, we have but to recoUect the words
which the apostle has already been using. The body
becomes Uke to that of Jesus Christ when it issued
from the tomb. It is identical with that which, up to
the moment of change, had been worn, not a bone or
muscle having been removed. But from being mortal

326 . DISCOURSE XVII.
it becomes indestructible ; every mark and indication of
feebleness, imperfection, and liability to corruption ab
solutely disappears, and the consciousness is forthwith
awakened of perfect health, vigour, immortaUty, and aU
those powers which in the person of the risen Saviour
became so signaUy apparent. The effects of the FaU
are instantaneously thrown off. Man is reinvested in
his nature, as it was when first it issued from the hand
of the Creator in paradise. His body is spiritualised
and glorified, and this by the miraculous power of God,
without passing through the processes of death and
corruption. We may here notice that the wonderful event which
the apostle describes in this place, is one in which a
portion only of God's elect are concerned. When he
affirms that " we shaU not all sleep, but that we shaU
aU be changed," he manifestly suggests the conclusion
that this change or translation, without having to die,
is the prerogative of comparatively a few. Apparently
none but those who are alive upon earth at the time of
the Lord's second coming wiU enjoy that prerogative.
And this is the teaching of the apostle in another of
his epistles. In the 4th chapter of 1st Thessalonians,
he speaks of the saints who "sleep in Jesus being
brought back with Him ; " but there also he repeatedly
refers to others as " aUve and remaining unto the com
ing of the Lord," of whom he affirms that " they shall
be caught up together with the returning saints in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." The fact of this
translation and rapture of the living is not without an
important bearing on the question which we are now

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE. 327
considering of the nature of the resurrection-humanity
of God's saints, or the restoration of the body. It is
plainly the doctrine of the apostle that those who are
raised from the dead, and those who are translated, wiU
aU be constituted aUke ; all assimilated to the sacred
person of their risen Lord. From what is said, there
fore, of these translated ones, we may draw a correct
inference regarding the condition of those who are
raised from the dead. Before and after their transla
tion, it is obvious that the former parties are, and could
be, nothing else than substantially what they were
before ; if so, death and the grave wiU be found to effect
no essential change on the structure and constitution of
those who escape from under their power. Their bodies
wiU be restored in all their integrity, only incorrupt
and immortal, the whole of their functions under the
regulation of the Spirit of God.
But the second mysterious or wonderful circumstance
referred to by the apostle, is the instantaneousness with
which the change will be effected : " In a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump ; for the
trumpet shaU sound, and the dead shall be raised incor
ruptible, and we shall be changed."
Undeniably, if we are to interpret these words Uter-
aUy, the apostle here affirms the coming of an event of
the most extraordinary description. In that event two
things are comprised, the change of the living and the
resurrection of the dead, both occurring simultaneously,
and both effected in an absolute instant of time. A
moment, or, as the original has it, an absolute atom of
time — a period measured by the twinkling of the eye-

328 DISCOURSE XVII.
lid— is all that is necessary in order to accomplish this
most astonishing alteration in the constitution and even
the bodily structure of the whole human race. Never
did such a stroke of the pendulum take place, or wUl
take place again, as that which ushers in so startUng
and tremendous a phenomenon. The trumpet, it seems,
shall sound to announce the approach of that moment
of surpassing wonder. What this trumpet literally wiU
be, or trumpet-sound, it is difficult for us to tell ; but
there is no doubt that wherever the judgment-day is
spoken of in Scripture, some allusion or other to this
trumpet is very commonly made. The Saviour Himself
tells us that, in the day of His second coming, " He
shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet,
and they shaU gather together His elect from the four
winds, from one end of heaven to the other ; " in another
place, the apostle Paul speaks of "the Lord Himself
descending from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the Archangel, and with the trump of God ; " and in
the Book of the Eevelation, that wondrous opening to
our view of the unseen and heavenly world, no less
than seven angels are represented as sounding their
seven trumpets to herald the coming of the kingdom of
God. Perhaps the most marvellous display of present
Deity recorded in Scripture is the descent on Mount
Sinai as described in the Book of Exodus ; and whilst
we are there, historically and distinctly, informed that
clouds of thick darkness encompassed the mountain,
that " the Lord descended upon it in fire," that it reeled
beneath the shock of an earthquake, and that other
tokens of terror were displayed, we are specificaUy

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE. 329
instructed that "the voice of the trumpet sounded
long, and waxed louder and louder." If, accordingly,
we are to consider language as capable of conveying
a meaning, we are bound, as Christians, to anticipate
a time when the heavens will literally give forth a
sound, capable of being described only as that of a
trumpet, warning the entire population of the globe
that time's business is over, and that the concerns of
eternity are begun. The trumpet-sound at Sinai was
literal, and as such was heard by human ears ; and if it
be a literal fact, which, with no show of reason, we can
possibly deny, that the Eedeemer will descend to judg
ment, this audible accompaniment of His descent must
needs be literal too. And why should we think other
wise ? Many a tremendous earthquake has emitted
frightful sounds through the stony strata of entire
provinces — sounds heard by myriads of human beings
— and been the harbinger of ruin to populous cities,
and hundreds of thousands of their wretched inhabit
ants. Thunder-storms, accompanied by flashes of vivid
lightning, are of common occurrence in all parts of the
world ; fiUing the atmosphere with terror, often inflict
ing damage, and imparting consternation to thousands.
It is not, therefore, a matter without a paraUel ; but, on
the contrary, it is an incident quite in accordance with
natural phenomena and the ordinary anticipations of
the human mind, that when such mighty events as a
resurrection of the dead and a judgment of the whole
human race are impending, the very framework of nature
should give intimation of what is going to happen.
Then surely, if ever, this whole round globe of earth

330 DISCOURSE XVII.
may be converted into a Sinai — thick darkness brooding
over it, like its funeral-paU — the Ughtning-flash burst
ing from every cloud — the solid earth's continents reel
ing and tottering under universal earthquake — and
nature, in all its departments, uttering its cry of terror.
Such things are quite in accordance with phenomena
actually extant and familiar to us aU. The ship tossed
by the hurricane creaks in all its timbers, and, ere
the catastrophe comes, screams out its waU of distress.
There are a whole host of texts which warn us of this
time of universal terror. "The earth," says Isaiah,
"shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be
removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof
shall be heavy upon it, and it shaU faU, and not rise
again." " The day of the Lord cometh," saith Joel ; " a
day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and
of thick darkness. The earth shall quake before them ;
the heavens shall tremble ; the sun and the moon shaU
be dark, and the stars shaU withdraw their shining.
And the Lord shall utter His voice before His army —
multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision ; for the
day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." Then
adds the Saviour Himself, " There shall be signs in the
sun, and in the moon, and in the stars ; and upon the
earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and
the waves roaring ; men's hearts failing them for fear,
and for looking after those things which are coming on
the earth : for the powers of heaven shaU be shaken."
If, along with these sight and sounds of terror, God
should everywhere cause the voice as of a trumpet to be
heard, there wiU be little difficulty in interpreting its

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE. 331
meaning. AU other sounds wiU be the wail of ruin —
nature's dying groan. But this sound of the last trump
wUl convey a special meaning to every ear that hears it.
It will be tantamount to the special voice of God. The
wicked wUl hear in it the kneU of doom, the righteous
the triumphant shout of deliverance. Even the antici
pation of it is to us a solemn warning : " Therefore thus
will I do unto thee, 0 Israel ; and because I wiU do this
unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, 0 Israel."
It is obvious that the principal, I might almost say
the only, fact which is here revealed, is the instantane-
ousness of this tremendous change. What means wiU
effect it, and how, or with what special accompaniments
over the wide surface of the whole world, and in such in
numerable cases, the transit will take place from corrup
tion to incorruption, and from mortaUty to immortality,
we may speculate upon, but we are not authorised to
dogmatise. But here is the apostolic affirmation as to
its certainty as a matter of fact. The one moment, the
dead are in their graves, and the Uving are dying, or,
with ten thousand forms of weakness, error, and way
wardness, are prosecuting courses which aU terminate
in death ; the next moment, and like a burst of sun
shine from behind a dark cloud, the dead of a thousand
generations reappear, and both they and the Uving, in
every locality of the earth's surface, are conscious of in-
corruptibUity and immortaUty. The fact is, the trans
action is miraculous, and miraculous in the widest
possible scale. It is altogether out of place, therefore,
in such a matter, to speculate as to causes and effects.
Infidels, and theologians who to aU intents and pur-

332 DISCOURSE XVII.
poses are practically infidel, will of course doubt or even
deny such a consummation. But here you have the
declaration of an inspired apostle, that " in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, the dead shall be raised in
corruptible, and both they and the living simultaneously
changed." Facts of a similar character, although on a
far more contracted scale, are historically related in
Scripture ; such as the resurrection of Lazarus, the in
stantaneous bestowing of sight on the blind, the appari
tion of Moses, Elijah, and our Lord Himself, in glory
on the mount of transfiguration. Indeed, the whole
miracles of Christ may be regarded as a specimen and
earnest of this the great miracle of the resurrection-day,
the one standing to the other in the attitude of the first-
fruits to the general harvest. Of course, where there are
parties who question or deny the historical reaUty of the
resurrection of Lazarus, these are not likely to assent
to the perpetual declaration that similar miracles are
yet to be performed, not in isolated instances, but in
numbers to be reckoned by thousands of millions. But
what matters it ? I repeat the statement ; there is the
declaration of the apostle, or rather the Spirit of God
speaking by the apostle, "The trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall
be changed."
The great truth, then, asserted in the words upon
¦which we have been commenting, relates to the coming
changes of the day of God. The body, the soul, social
life itself, the very world in which we are dwelling, are
all awaiting those momentous alterations which are
fitted to adapt them to their eternal state. The princi-

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT CHANGE. 333
pies and laws which are now in operation have aU the
stamp of transitoriness upon them, and are not fitted to
secure a bliss which is permanent and perfect ; but the
change here effected wiU do this, and more. Blessed are
they who, in time, cast in their lot with the people of
God ; for let us never forget that the outward and
material changes of that tremendous epoch are but the
sequence of changes internal and spiritual in the souls
of men. Let us seek and desire this spiritual renewal.
Eemember the words of Jesus — " Except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

DISCOURSE XVIII.

THE NATURE, NECESSITY, AND MEANS OF THE GREAT
CORPOREAL CHANGE.

1 Cor. xv. 51, 52. — " Behold I shew you a mystery ; we shall not all
sleep," &c.

Authorised Version.
" 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. "
New Translation.
Behold, I declare to you a mys
tery, we shall not all go to sleep :
but we shall all be changed. In
an instant, in an eye's twinkling,
at the last trumpet (for the trum
pet shall sound, and the dead
shall be raised incorruptible, and
we shall be changed).

Paraphrase.
And here I will declare unto
you a most important mystery.
It is not the will of God that all
shall sleep the sleep of death, but
it is the will of God that all His
people shall be changed. This
change will take place at the
second coming of Christ, and will
be effected in an instant of time,
in the very twinkling of an eye,
coincident with the sounding of
the last trumpet. I say, the last
trumpet, for, as at the giving of
the law on Mount Sinai, the sound
of a trumpet was heard, so at the
last day that trumpet will be heard
again, and simultaneously with
this the righteous dead shall be
raised incorruptible, and we who
shall then be living will be
changed.

THE GREAT CORPOREAL CHANGE. 335
In my last discourse I endeavoured, in an expository
way, to explain the meaning of these words. Acknow
ledging them, as we do, to be part of the oracles of God
— an inspired utterance of divine truth — our plain duty,
as Christians, is to make an effort to comprehend them.
What is their concrete signification ? What do they
UteraUy mean ? To what facts do they actuaUy point
in the great hereafter? For, assuredly, if words can
convey meaning at all, the subject-matter of these
verses may well be caUed " a mystery ;" that is, a re
velation from heaven so divine and extraordinary that,
without inspiration, man could never arrive at any
knowledge of it whatsoever ; and yet, the mysterious
revelation is of such a nature, and contains so many
striking or even startling details — details of matters of
fact which are destined yet to take place in the experi
ence of us all, and in which, therefore, we have aU a
personal interest — that a very small degree of what may
be called Christian curiosity is needed to prompt fur
ther and earnest inquiry. Death, in the case of all who
die, is only a " sleep " — a few hours' repose, preparatory
to the awakening of a new day : and yet there wiU
actuaUy come a time when, with respect to an entire
multitude of human beings, that sleep of death will be
dispensed with ; that is, they will not die at all. The
march of time is literally bearing us onwards to a
conjuncture when, over the whole world, a miraculous
event wiU happen — the instantaneous repeal of the law
of death. This long-predicted change wiU be effected
" in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye Simultane
ously with this " the trumpet " of doom wiU actually

336 DISCOURSE XVIII.
sound. Providence, it seems, wUl hold on its ordinary
way tUl this goal is reached ; although portents of com
ing terrors will be given, the affairs of time wiU substan
tially continue to flow in their ancient channel tiU the
very last ; but then the re-echoings wiU be heard over
aU the earth of the " trump of God " — those very
trumpet -notes which sounded so dreadfully at Sinai ;
and the tremendous events wiU be reaUsed of a resur
rection of the dead, and a change of both the dead and
the living. These, in so many words, are the affirma
tion of the verses before us. If this inspired apostle is
speaking the truth, a sudden cataclysm to the world and
aU its inhabitants is here predicted. Any day, amidst
our thoughts and engrossments of worldly business, or
any night, from our ordinary repose, we may be roused
by the thunder-crash of this appalling and momentous
scene, and the transit from the epoch of death to that of
Ufe and immortality wUl in one moment be effected.
This subject of the great impending change is intrin
sically so important, and indeed so closely associated
with the whole of the apostle's argument contained in
this chapter, that it demands at our hands a stiU closer
and more earnest consideration. I propose, accordingly,
in the present discourse, to seek the answer to a few
questions which are of very considerable consequence
towards the understanding of the whole subject.
1. Let us inquire into the nature of the change
here spoken of. What is specially and categoricaUy
meant by the change which the apostle here refers
to? In the minds of many, the consummation of aU things

THE GREAT CORPOREAL CHANGE. 337
is associated with the absolute destruction of the world,
perhaps the very annihilation of matter itself ; and they
look for nothing beyond the judgment-day but a dream
land of mystical musing and so-caUed spirituality. The
earth is to be burned up, and the very stars are to fall
from heaven and be no more. A sorry ending this for
so glorious a creation ! One might suppose that it was
scarcely worth the while of the Almigfity to people im
mensity with so many glorious worlds, and then allow
them to explode into nothing, like so many bubbles on a
mountain stream. Can the parties who entertain such
sentiments really, in their hearts, feel that so wild an
hypothesis consists with the wisdom and goodness of
God ? Surely a very small amount of discretion, or even
common sense, might lead them to inquire whether
more temperate views, in connection with this most im
portant subject, be not far more in accordance with the
likelihood of things, and even the strong language of
Scripture. Why should the Almighty resort to a con
flagration at all, if nonentity be the goal to which all
things are tending ? The fiat of a Creator brought them
into being ; might not a similar fiat unbeing them again ?
Moreover, does there exist in any conflagration, how
ever extensive and however intense, a physical power
which is fitted to annihilate so much as one particle of
matter ? Considerations of this sort do certainly corro
borate the inferences of a sound criticism on the words
of Scripture, that aU that is meant by the- disruption
and fiery overthrow of the last day is a change in the
world's structure, an alteration in our mundane economy,
a widespread but stiU Umited destruction by fire of the

338 DISCOURSE XVIII.
earth's surface, with a view to introduce something
grander and more glorious than what exists at this
present moment. Let it be remembered, that if the
apostle Peter speaks of "the earth and the works
therein melting with fervent heat," he describes as the
end of that process the revelation of " new heavens and
a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."
If any force is to be attributed to such considerations,
and to arguments which in former discourses have already
been advanced, change, and not extinction, is the world's
future destiny. If it really be the fact that on the sur
face of the redeemed earth heaven is to be set up, we
may reasonably conclude that it wiU, in structure and
constitution, be made fit for its glorified population ; and
we may, accordingly, set down the convulsions of the
day of God as intrusted with the commission. The
physical arrangements of the world wiU be greatly im
proved ; so greatly, indeed, as adequately to correspond
with the glowing language of all the prophets, who
speak of the " earth yielding her increase," of " nothing
to hurt or devour being found in aU God's holy moun
tain," of " the wolf and the lamb feeding together," of
" the glory of God covering the earth as the waters cover
the sea." If geologists speak the truth, the earth which
now is consists mainly of the ruins and debris of former
worlds, the present world being, in many respects, an
improvement on its predecessors ; and I see not where
the improbability Ues that one convulsion more may
take place, issuing also in a stage of stiU higher and more
glorious improvement. But it is obvious that the change
spoken of in the text relates not so much to the world

THE GREAT CORPOREAL CHANGE. 339
as to the person of man, or what we may call the per
sonnel, mental and bodily, of those who are destined to
be the glorified subjects of the kingdom of God. When,
accordingly, we turn our attention to the correct defini
tion of the change before us, it is necessary to keep this
fact distinctly in view.
Now there can be little doubt that Christianity, in so
far as it is a system of moral training and discipline, is
based on the conception of a great personal change.
The whole teachings of the New Testament dispensa
tion, and that is essentially a system of teaching,
proceed upon this understanding. At the outset of
our spiritual career the heart of man is represented by
Scripture as carnal, corrupt, worldly, and even inclined
to evil continually ; the Spirit of God, by the operation
of divine grace, introduces light and life into this region
of darkness and death ; a new man is, in consequence,
created within us, small and feeble to begin with, but
destined gradually to develop more and more the graces
of regenerated humanity ; and the ultimate consumma
tion is spiritual perfection, or restoration to the image
of God " in knowledge, righteousness, and true holi
ness." It is the very design of word, ordinances, and
even Providence itself, to advance in the heart of every
child of God this work of moral improvement. We
are entitled, accordingly, to conclude that the change
referred to by the apostle is tantamount to the com
pletion of this work. When the tremendous " moment"
here spoken of arrives, and the Almighty's fiat is pro
nounced, the work of spiritual sanctification in every
human soul is consummated ; no more appeals to the

340 DISCOURSE XVIII.
conscience, no more conversions, no more growth in
hoUness, purity, and truth. The work of the Holy
Ghost is done. That change-effecting fiat of God puts
the copestone on the temple of every man's moral
nature, gives the finishing-touch to the picture which
the divine Artist through so many ages has been
depicting. Every individual man wiU then know and
feel what, spiritually, and for ever and ever, he is
destined to be. We are not bound to maintain that
every man wiU then be perfect aUke, or that the society
of the eternal world will exhibit a dead level of uni
formity, every one being similar to another, Uke the
meshes of a net or the grains in a heap of wheat.
Variety will prevail then, in moral and spiritual dis
tinctions, as truly as it prevails in the present world.
And yet every one will be perfect in his own degree,
just as amongst flowers the daisy, the tulip, the rose,
and so on, may each in its species be perfect, although
one flower is far grander and more glorious than
another. Accordingly, what we hold to be the con
summated change referred to in our text is the attain
ment, by every one, of his own special perfection. The
discipline of time, added to the regeneration of the
Holy Ghost, will be found to have made the avaricious
man more or less liberal, the proud man humble, the
indolent man active, the selfish man considerate of
others, benevolent, generous ; the dishonest man scrupu
lously upright, the impure man holy, and so on in
other respects. In a word, by this time the lesson of
conformity to the divine wiU has been effectually
learned. No danger, thereafter, of another FaU. And

THE GREAT CORPOREAL CHANGE. 34I
as in the kingdom of God there will be no temptations
to evil, and no tempter to lead astray, man will set out
on a career of progressive and uninterrupted blessed
ness. His aim now wUl be assimilation to God. What
a subUme idea ! and yet somewhat paradoxical !
Eternally approaching nearer and nearer to God in
knowledge, goodness, and bliss, and yet, from the very
nature of the glorious model, never arriving at the
goal! From these observations it will not be difficult to
apprehend one of the results of the great and instan
taneous change of the day of God. Man's moral and
spiritual character will then, in one moment, be de
termined. But it is plain that the apostle's language
has a special application to the body. It is of this,
indeed, he is directly speaking. "The trumpet shall
sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and
we shall be changed." The change spoken of is there
fore, and mainly, a corporeal one, and consists especially
in this, the elimination from the body of all corrupti
bility. As has been repeatedly affirmed in these Dis
courses, I can see no reason for supposing that after
the resurrection the bodUy frame of man wiU, in struc
ture and constitution, be anything else than what we
see it in this world. In shape, in appearance, in
powers of sensation, perception, locomotion, and so on,
it must needs be identified with what it was before.
All these things, and more, are involved in the very
idea of a resurrection ; for it would be absurd to affirm
restoration on the part of that which was an absolute
and entire novelty. That man corporeally perfect and

342 DISCOURSE XVIII.
immortal may exist, is a fact borne testimony to by the
Scripture statements regarding Adam in the condition
of innocence, and our Lord Himself after His resurrec
tion. We cannot doubt that what Adam was corporeally
before the Fall, he substantiaUy was after it : and when
Jesus had risen from the dead, He had no hesitation in
saying, " Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh
and bones as ye see me have." Whatever additional
powers may therefore be conferred upon the human
frame — and these, we doubt not, will be numerous and
wonderful — we have not a shadow of a reason for con
jecturing that the material structure and constitution
of the body wiU be destroyed, or any of its parts and
organs removed. What it is when it goes to the grave,
it will substantially be when it rises again. One thing,
however, is certain — and this is implied in the term
" incorruptible," repeatedly made use of in the context —
all defect and imperfection, or UabUity to them, wiU be
removed. No more "wounds, and bruises, and putrefying
sores." No more liability to sickness, disease, accident,
or death. This, indeed, seems to be the rationale of our
blessed Lord's miracles, which are to be regarded, not,
as is too often imagined, as proofs merely of His divine
commission, but as true and designed illustrations of
the Gospel dispensation — its spirit and tendencies.
He gave eyes to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech
to the dumb, cleansing to the leper, restoration to the
broken or defective Umb. AU this we hold to be
illustrative of the work to be performed at the Eesur-
rection Day. What was done in the sample in the
days of His flesh, and in a comparatively small number

THE GREAT CORPOREAL CHANGE. 343
of cases, wUl be done in the stock, and amongst the
entire multitude of those who shaU be called upon to
inherit the kingdom of God. The instantaneous change
of our text wiU be an instantaneous clothing of the
redeemed and glorified spirits of God's elect with bodies
glorious, perfect, incorruptible, immortal.
2. These observations wiU sufficiently describe the
nature of the change which we consider is meant to be
referred to in the text. We shall now, shortly, inquire
into the necessity which caUs for such a change taking
place. If we examine the earlier chapters of the Book of
Genesis, we shall there find what is virtually a dog
matic statement of the condition of the world at its
first creation, and of the design or purpose which
presided over that creation. The world is described as
beautiful, " all things very good " — a fit habitation for
the human race. The commandment is issued "to
people and replenish " that beautiful world. This was
the commission given by their Maker to our first
parents. It is impossible not to infer from this that
the end contemplated by the Almighty in the creation,
and the establishment of the law of generation, was the
ultimate and complete filling of the world with a vast
population glorious and immortal. And this we hold
to be the end of creation stiU. No doubt a FaU has
taken place. Death has entered into the world. A
large proportion of the human race wiU be eternaUy
lost. But this will not hinder the primeval and divine
idea of creation being carried into effect in aU its
Uterality. What nature does not effect wiU be accom-

344 DISCOURSE XVIII.
plished by grace. What our first birth has faUed to
procure for us, will be gained by our second birth in
Jesus Christ the Saviour. In the room of the fallen
and dying human famUy an " election according to
grace," " the nations of the redeemed," will be substi
tuted. This we hold to be the plan of redemption, and
it is plainly the carrying out of the primeval idea of
creation as described in the earlier chapters of Genesis.
But it is almost self-evident that this primeval idea
of creation cannot be carried into effect without a very
considerable change being previously effected on human
nature and human society as now we see these things
existing. A soul unsanctified, or at variance with the
will of God ; a temper which is the victim of passion,
prejudice, malevolence, and other evil emotions ; a dis
inclination to what is good, a finding of pleasure only in
what is coarse, brutal, fleshly, ungodly, must of necessity
be incompatible with the idea of heavenly and universal
bliss. In this respect, therefore, a change is demanded
by the very nature of things. And in like manner, and
for a similar reason, a body liable to disease, pain, acci
dent, and suffering of any kind, without strength to
accomplish what may be fairly deemed within the hu
man province, and even without that external seemli-
ness and beauty which appear to be associated with the
very idea of perfection— a body crooked, distorted, weak,
defective in any of its organs or powers, liable to what
are now considered the infirmities of age and decrepi
tude, can never be consistent with the prerogatives of
infinite and eternal happiness. A change in these re
spects also is absolutely necessary. Nay, the law of

THE GREAT CORPOREAL CHANGE. 345
generation itself requires to be repealed in order to the
establishment of the epoch of changeless and eternal
bliss. It used to be a speculation amongst divines,
what would have happened with the human race had
Adam not faUen, and had the law of generation continued
to operate without interruption? and the conclusion
arrived at was something like this — removal to some
distant region of the universe, where generation would
be unknown. But our Saviour Himself throws the clear
est light upon this question, when dogmaticaUy He tells
us that in the kingdom of God they " neither marry nor
are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God,
being children of the resurrection." In short, He in
forms us that, the purposes being now accomplished for
which the law of generation was originally established,
and the entire company of God's redeemed brought into
being, nothing remains but to effect the great and in
stantaneous change referred to in my text — a change
which will not only repeal the law of generation, but
elevate those of the human race who shaU partake of
it to the life of angelic occupation and eternal blessed
ness. It thus appears that the necessity for the change, so
fuUy and graphicaUy described in the chapter before us,
is involved in the very ideal of that consummation which
is contemplated in the Gospel economy. We must be
changed in order to our entering upon the perfection of
our being ; and although that change cannot destroy our
personal identity, or make us anything else, generaUy
speaking, than what we are already, yet as it is synony
mous with the removal of every imperfection and evil

346 DISCOURSE XVIII.
which adheres to us in our present state, the end cannot
fail to be bliss and glory.
3. There is one consideration more, upon which I
must make a few remarks before concluding this part
of the subject, and that relates to the means by which
the change of the great day will be effected.
Change is undoubtedly the law of the universe. No
thing stands stUl. Everything is changing ; and the
changes thus effected, so far as our experience goes, take
place after an order so certain and uniform, that they
are with one consent attributed to what is called the
operation of the laws of nature. We sow a field with
barley, and a crop of barley, and no other grain what
ever, is the result of a long series of changes, in the shape
of germination, growth, and vegetable maturity. So also
with other grains and vegetable seeds of all kinds. By
heat, blocks of ice are converted into water, lumps of soUd
ore into liquid metal, masses of soft clay into bricks
hard and durable. AU these, and the ten thousand phe
nomena which we may notice every day around us, are
thought to be sufficiently explained by saying that they
flow from the specific laws of nature. But reaUy, with
much propriety, we may ask, what is a law of nature ?
Does it mean anything more than a confession of igno
rance, or an attempt to cover that ignorance by the use
of high-sounding language : just as when a gaping crowd
had been attracted by some singular appearance in the
heavens, and were told by a consequential bystander of
whom they solicited an explanation, that they were look
ing at a phenomenon ? How comes it to pass that the
coUocation of certain particles of matter constitutes that

THE GREAT CORPOREAL CHANGE. 347
wonderful organ the human eye, with aU its amazing
powers, and that another collocation of particles, which
are essentially, or at least to aU appearance, of the same
constitution exactly, there is constructed the human ear,
with powers and properties very different ? Of the same
earthy materials the bodily frame of inteUectual man,
the stolid ox, the soaring eagle, and the fishes of the sea,
are composed ; and it is thought to be a satisfactory ex
planation of this, and of aU the wondrous processes by
which identically the same matter is developed into such
wondrously diversified forms, that they come to pass by
the operation of the laws of nature ! I humbly submit,
for my part, that Ufeless matter has no intrinsic power
to effect such changes, or indeed any changes whatever ;
that aU changes must be the result of a living energy —
a power emanating from a living, thinking, designing
being ; and that the true definition of a law of nature is
just the mode in which the Almighty is pleased to ope
rate — a mode, therefore, which at any moment He may
change, suspend, or modify.
To apply this reasoning to the subject-matter of our
present discourse, I affirm that the tremendous change
referred to in our text wiU be brought about, as aU other
changes are, by the living power of God, and doubtless
also in fullest accordance with the laws of the universe
and the nature of things ; that is to say, the order and
constitution which in bygone ages, and everywhere, so
far as we can ascertain, the Almighty has been pleased
to establish. Admit that God is omnipotent, or resist
less in His power, and you acknowledge in that prin
ciple the most ample means for effecting any change

348 DISCOURSE XVIII.
whatever. But admit also, what no reasonable man wiU
deny, that we are very far indeed from having as yet
ascertained all the powers and processes of nature, and
we are compeUed to acknowledge that, for ought we can
tell, there may be extant, in this wondrous universe of
ours, powers and latent forces, all of old established by
God, and in active and vigorous operation, quite compe
tent, when the time arrives, to produce the marvellous
phenomena of a change of the living, as weU as of a re
surrection of the dead. In its march through the celes
tial spaces our world may at length arrive at a region
where these powers and latent forces are actually exist
ing ; and no sooner are they brought into contact with
the bodies of men, whether dead or living, than, forth
with, like the flashing of light into a darkened cavern,
or the bursting out of flame when a torch is applied to
a mass of intensely inflammable matter, the change from
death to life is effected, " in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye." True religion and true philosophy are always
modest — never dogmatic. Certainly there are many an
alogies to be quoted from the developments of mankind,
which teach us the lesson that it is safer to pronounce
nothing impossible. A thousand years ago there was
no gunpowder in the world, and no warlike engines de
pendent upon its explosive power. Had our ancestors
been told of the performances of these engines, known
now to every child, would they not have declared them
miracles ? Two hundred years ago there were no steam-
engines, and very little known of the powers of steam ;
one hundred and fifty years ago, all that was known of
electricity was this, that a piece of rubbed amber attracted

THE GREAT CORPOREAL CHANGE. 349
chips of straw ; yea, so short a period as seventy years
ago, no one dreamt that, by the light of the sun and the
art of the photographer, a complete picture could be
taken containing a thousand portraits, or of the braid
ings of a vast metropolis, and in an absolute moment of
time. And now the absolute miracles are daily per
formed in our country of thousands of steam-engines
doing the work each of ten thousand men ; messages are
flashed in an instant through the electric wire across the
broad Atlantic ; and every schoolboy, with camera and
a few chemicals, can perform marvels which, five hundred
years ago, would have consigned the performers of them
to the dungeons of the Inquisition, or even to the stake,
as wizards who dealt with the powers of darkness. And
yet the laws of nature were then the same that they are
at this moment — that is to say, the miracles of one epoch
are the common phenomena of another. This fact may
yet come to be Ulustrated on a far grander scale than at
present we have any conception of; and no one can teU
but the subject-matter before us may yet supply an
other Ulustration of it.
Be this, however, as it may, the words of the apostle
are clear, distinct, and inteUigible. He pronounces it
to be a matter of fact, that at a certain period in the
coming hereafter, the dead of bygone generations wiU
be resuscitated ; that those Uving at that period wiU not
die at aU ; and that, with the suddenness of a flash of
lightning, in an absolute moment of time, both the Uv
ing and the resuscitated dead wiU be " changed " into
an incorruptible state — that is, qualified for the endless
life which will thereafter ensue. There need be no diffi-

350 DISCOURSE XVIIL
culty in accepting of His announcement on the score of
its miraculous nature. Grant the divine inspiration of
the apostle, and the power of Him that inspired the
apostle must needs be fully competent to effect the
achievement. If we acknowledge that Jesus Christ,
standing by the grave of Lazarus, actually summoned
that person from the corruption of death, and restored
him to the activities of social Ufe, we may readUy, and
without any hesitation, admit that the power then evi
denced may be exerted on a wider scale, and that Deity
incarnate — One who is the Eesurrection and the Life —
was only then affording a type of the great work He
means to perform on the day of God. If there is a life
of the hereafter, that life must begin somehow. If that
life of the hereafter must needs consist in such activi
ties as are competent for human beings, living in bodies
substantially the same with what we now possess, mate
rial changes, and such as wiU exempt them eternaUy
from disease, accident, and infirmity, behove to be
effected upon them. This is plainly the aposto'Uc decla
ration. The new life is to introduce a new mode of
living. Of course, many will be prepared for this by the
transactions of the intermediate state, as weU as the
discipUne of time. But not aU. To many there wUl
be no intermediate state whatever. The transit from
time to eternity — from the epoch of death to the epoch
of life — wiU be but over a line which is passed in a
moment. This is the revelation of our text — " Behold,
I show you a mystery ; we shall not aU sleep, but we
shall aU be changed ; in a moment, in the twinkUng of
an eye, at the last trump ; for the trumpet shall sound,

THE GREAT CORPOREAL CHANGE. 35 1
and the dead shaU be raised incorruptible, and we shaU
be changed."
And thus have I endeavoured to set forth an exposi
tion of the apostle's doctrine relative to the great
change impending over us aU. It is, in truth, a very
sublime and momentous consideration, that such a des
tiny should really be awaiting us. At this moment we
are conscious of being ; and even in this world, short
although our residence in it must be, not a Uttle pleas
ure and not a little pain may be experienced, and our
consciousness of existence may become a joy or a misery.
It is a very different affair, however, to have that joy or
that misery enhanced a thousand times, and rendered
absolutely eternal. Eternity is a tremendous word, how
ever abstractly you view it ; but, 0 ! it becomes surpass
ingly appalling when associated with the conceptions of
infinite anguish and infinite bliss. And the concrete
significancy of the term is yet to be realised "in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye." 0 awful thought !
I see typical ulustrations of the fact occurring in the
experiences of the world. The great woodsman Death
— hatchet in hand — is literaUy abroad in society ; he is
ever hewing down the trees, and ofttimes by a single
blow he prostrates the stoutest and the strongest. Sud
den deaths are far from being uncommon. But there is
a sudden stroke yet to be dealt out, far more awful and
universal in its effects. The grand and universal change
is coining, and the eternal welfare of every human being
is involved in it. 'Tis written — 'tis written, and you
may as weU try to escape death as to avoid this final
destiny. Do we appreciate this fact ? Do we lay it to

352 DISCOURSE XVIII.
heart ? Some trifling question of national policy wiU
command weeks of debate in crowded ParUaments, and
agitate nations to their furthest extremities. But this,
the question of questions, is pushed aside, tiU, Uke a
clap of thunder, it bursts upon the soul in all its terri
ble proportions and significancy. It becomes us to be
wise in time. Let us not trust our everlasting salvation
to a mere peradventure. Let us remember that " with
out faith it is impossible to please God ; '' that " with
out holiness " no one shaU see Him. " Therefore thus
wUl I do unto thee, 0 Israel ; and because I will do
this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, 0 Israel."

DISCOURSE XIX.
THE FINAL VICTORY : DEATH AND THE GRAVE DESTROYED.
1 Cor. xv. 53-57. — " For this corruptible must put on
incorruption," &c.

Authorised Version.
" 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 immor
tality, then shall be brought to
pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory.
0 death, where is thy sting ? 0
grave, where is thy victory ? The
sting of death is sin ; and the
strength of sin is the law. But
thanks he to God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ." New Translation.
For it is necessary that this cor
ruptible should put on incorrup
tion, and this mortal should put
on immortality. But when this
corruptible shall put on incorrup-

Paraphrase.
For this body, now so corrupti
ble, must put on incorruption, and
so be rendered incapable of dis
ease, sickness, or accident ; and
this body, now mortal, must put
on immortality, or be delivered
from all liability to death. But
when this corruptible body shall
be changed into one that is incor
ruptible ; and when this flesh,
now mortal, shall cease to be so
and become immortal, — then the
word of Scripture shall be ful
filled, Death is swallowed up even
unto victory, or is destroyed in
a triumphant manner. Then we
shall be able to say, Where now,
0 Death, is thy sting? and where,
0 Hades, is thy victory ? It was
the consciousness of sin which
sharpened the sting of death ; it
was the denunciations of God's
law which gave power to sin. But

354 DISCOURSE XIX.
tion, and this mortal shall put on now we can render thanks to God,
immortality, then shall come to who gives us a victory in Jesus
pass the word that is written, Christ over both death and sin.
Death is swallowed up even unto
victory. Where, 0 Death, is thy
sting ? where, 0 Hades, thy vic
tory ? The sting of death is sin ;
and the power of sin is the law.
But to God be thanks, who giveth
us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ.
That our human nature — that is, the whole race of man
kind wherever found on the surface of this globe — is at
present in a state unnatural, and diverse from that for
which it was originally designed, is a proposition in fuU
accordance with the instinctive feelings of every bosom.
There is a voice within us which loudly proclaims that
our infinitely wise and benevolent Creator, whilst bring
ing us into being, must have had some far higher object
in view than merely to make us languish through the
sufferings and debasement of this sublunary scene. It
cannot be that we are now occupying that position
amongst the works of God for which we were originaUy
intended. Either, by some means or other, our race has
incurred the displeasure of heaven, and is in conse
quence suffering condign punishment — a spectacle to
the whole moral universe that sin and suffering are
indissolubly connected with one another ; or all the
misery and woes, the agitations and strifes, the distrac
tions and sorrows, which we see prevailing around us,
are the preliminary, and it may be, in the nature of
things, the indispensable preparations for an ulterior
condition of physical and moral perfection.

VICTORY OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. 355
Now, Christianity affirms the substantial truth of
both these conclusions. Man is a sufferer because he
is a sinner ; and yet, there is a life to come in which
resuscitated man — that is to say, a goodly number of
those who have suffered and died, will, and in no small
degree in consequence of the discipline of distress to
which they have been subjected, become physicaUy and
morally perfect. In the 3d chapter of Genesis we are
dogmatically informed that, in consequence of the dis
obedience of the progenitors of our race, an act of judg
ment was passed upon them and their posterity. The
world, for their sake, was placed under the curse of
heaven : toil, sorrow, and suffering were constituted the
subsequent inheritance both of them and of their hap
less progeny: and the sentence of condemnation con
cluded with the terrible words, Thou shalt " return unto
the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust
thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." And this
is the language of all Scripture besides, human suffer
ing being therein continually described as the result of
human depravity or sin. But the Gospel — that is, the
revelation from God to fallen and dying men — that
religious system under which the human race are now
living, — is in its very essence a remedial and prepara
tory dispensation. In the words of the apostle Paul, in
another of his epistles, it acknowledges that at present
" the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together ; " but it also proclaims the coming of a time
when " the creation itself also shall be delivered from
the bondage of corruption," and actually enter into
" the glorious liberty of the children of - God." A-

356 DISCOURSE XIX.
heavenly state is thus held out to man as the object of
Christian hope. He is called to repentance, faith, and
holiness. He is summoned to a life of purity, integrity,
and philanthropic activity, assured that by sowing lib-
eraUy he shaU reap also liberally ; that by looking for
glory, honour, and immortality, he will attain unto eter
nal life ; and that he will, in due course of time, dis
cover that " the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be
revealed in us," an " inheritance" being " reserved" for
him which is " incorruptible, and undefiled, and that
fadeth not away." We thus see that the utterances of
Scripture are in fuUest harmony with the suggestions of
the human spirit; and that God's deaUngs with His
creature man, whilst signaUy illustrative of the rigorous
justice of the divine government, are no less iUustrative
of His benevolence and love.
We come now, in our exposition of this chapter, to
consider the outburst of triumphal song with which the
inspired apostle celebrates that victory over death and
the grave which he knew to be approaching. Often
have the words been repeated at the bedside of the
dying saint ; often have they solemnised and comforted
the group of mourners engaged in the melancholy duty
of consigning their dead to the last dark and narrow
resting-place. And no wonder. At such moments the
soul is saddened, and all but overwhelmed — nothing
meets the gaze but undeniable proofs of human helpless
ness ; and if reasons exist for cherishing the spirit of
acquiescence and consolation, then is the time for resort
ing to such reasons as are strongest and most appropriate.

VICTORY OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. 357
Now, it will here be noticed, that while it is impossible
to conceive of consolatory reasons more vaUd and power
ful, the language in which they are expressed is of a
very elevated and even triumphant sort. The apostle
does not summon the dying or the mourner, as the
ancient philosopher would have done, to acquiesce in
the inevitable, to exercise patience, to practise the heroic
virtue of rising superior to the woes which flesh is heir
to ; but he announces, as a man authorised of God to
make the announcement, that the victory of the grave
is a merely temporary affair, and that the whole pheno
mena of death and the grave are destined to be changed
into their direct opposites. Death is but the preliminary
of a higher life, the dissolution of the grave the com
mencement of a process of reconstruction. And so com
plete, so blessed, so glorious will the change be, that he
feels justified in describing it in the language of positive
triumph : " When this corruptible shall have put on in
corruption, and this mortal shall have put on immor-
taUty, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is
written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 0 death,
where is thy sting? 0 grave, where is thy victory?
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."
1. With a view to understand the full significancy
of these important verses, we may, first of all, consider
the language in which the contrast is described betwixt
man as he exists at present and man as he wUl be
found when the great change of the resurrection-day
is accompUshed,

358 DISCOURSE XIX.
It wiU beneficed that twice over, and in two differ
ent verses, the apostle here affirms the change from cor
ruptible to incorruption, and from mortal to immortality;
the former clause being the statement of it as a matter
of necessity, the latter simply as a matter of fact. Four
times over, also, he uses the same word, translated " put
on," in order to signify the change. That word is
worthy of special attention. It properly means to " go
into," as into a place of covering or shelter ; and hence
to go into one's clothes,. to attire, to array one's self or
others in garments, ornaments, or the like. It is a word
of frequent occurrence in the New Testament. Thus,
using this special word, it is said, " they put on Him a
purple robe ;" care not " for the body what ye put on; "
" a man which had not on a wedding-garment ; " and, re
taining an allusion to the clothing or attiring of the per
son, it is often used in a metaphorical sense. Thus, in the
last chapter of Luke, our blessed Lord is represented as
commanding the disciples " to tarry in the city of Jeru
salem " until they were " endued or clotlied with power
from on high" — a palpable allusion to the descent of the
Holy Ghost ; and Paul summons the Christians of Eome,
Colosse, and Ephesus, to "put on the armour of light,"
to " put on the whole armour of God," to " put on bowels
of compassion," and even to " put on the Lord Jesus
Christ." Indeed the word is used in that remarkable
passage in the 5th chapter of 2d Corinthians, where our
apostle, and in phraseology very like what we have in
the verses before us, speaks of death and the resurrec-i
tion as a species of "unclothing" and "clothing again."
" We," says he, " that are in this tabernacle do groan ; not

VICTORY OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. 359
for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that
mortaUty might be swaUowed up of life."
According, then, to this metaphorical language,
death is, to use a very natural figure, a mere " uncloth
ing " of the man. If, therefore, there is any propriety
in the analogy thus resorted to for illustration, that act
of " unclothing " leaves the man in possession of the fuU
integrity of his being ; aU that has happened is this, the
man has stripped off his garments, and for a season has
laid them aside. He remains, thereafter, precisely what
he was before. It is still competent for him to resume
his cast - off vestments, or array himself in different
attire ; and when that reinvestment takes place, he
cannot be other than he was before, however changed
the habiliments may be. The body which he wears
before death is just an apparatus by which, through
material organs, he communes with the material world :
what he is, and how he acts, when that apparatus is laid
aside, it may be a very difficult thing to say ; but, all
the whUe that state of separation continues, he must
needs be conscious of existence, and possessed of the
capacity of acting through means of those material
organs, when they are restored. The clothing which he
possessed before death was really nothing more than a
congeries of corporeal organs — eyes enabling him to
see light, contours, and colours — ears enabling him to
hear sounds — hands and feet to handle and walk, —
and so on ; and the clothing resumed at the resurrection,
if there is any meaning or consistency in the apostle's
language, must therefore, and in like manner, be a con
geries of material organs designed to subserve identi-

360 DISCOURSE XIX.
cally the same purposes — that is, commune, more fully,
indeed, accurately, and perfectly, yet stiU, through
material organs, commune with the world of sense and
sight. The apparatus is material in both states, and
used for the same purpose — communing or holding in
tercourse with the outward and material creation. Very
great may the change be betwixt the "clothing" before
death and that which is "put on" at the resurrection —
as much contrasted as the rags of Lazarus and the purple
and fine linen of the rich man, or the tatters of the
prodigal and the best robe in which, after his return,
his father attired him ; but the very language employed
by the apostle implies that its use and purpose in both
cases are the same.
It thus appears that the language used by the apostle
in this place gives no countenance to the fancy so many
entertain, that our resurrection -humanity is one of a
thin, light, airy texture — identical with the popular
notion of angeUc beings. MateriaUsm is laid down at
death — materialism is resumed at the resurrection ; and
in both states the spiritual part of man is " clothed " with
the material. But to instruct us further as to the nature
of the change which is effected, the apostle informs us,
twice over, that that which in the one state is corrup
tible and mortal, becomes in the other state incorruptible
and immortal. The thing is the same in both states
but placed under different conditions. At present, it is
organised matter, intrinsicaUy no better than a handful
of earth, however wonderfully modelled into the bones,
muscles, sinews, &c, of the human frame — all of which
are "corruptible" — that is,'Uable to decay and injury, —

VICTORY OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. 36 1
and " mortal " — that is, liable to entire dissolution, or
what we call death ; but, then, that same organised matter,
or matter which has been at one time so organised, and
which still is intrinsicaUy no better than the dust of the
ground, although, we admit, much more wonderfuUy
modelled again into bones, muscles, sinews, and all the
organs of the human body, will be found in a state of
" incorruption " — that is to say, no longer liable to decay
or injury — and " immortality," or delivered from liability
to death. In substance, or the materials of which they
are constituted, the bodies which we have before death
are identical with those which we shall have after the
resurrection, only in the one case they are corruptible
and mortal, in the other case they are incorruptible and
immortal. Why should such a change be considered
impossible or even improbable ? Intrinsically it is not
more wonderful than what we see existing already.
Our present bodies are composed of ponderous and soUd
matter, and yet every organ is operated upon, controlled,
and directed by a living spirit dwelling within ; why
should it be deemed out of the course of nature that a
body equally ponderous and equaUy solid — indeed, in
all respects, or substantiaUy, the same — should, under
the control and influence of a still more powerful in
dwelling spirit, be able to resist corruption and render
death an impossibility ? But, indeed, this is what we
hold to be the declaration of the apostle in this place.
And no less confidently do we affirm that it is the very-
end of the economy of grace to introduce an epoch when
the law of death shall be abolished, and man's immortal
spirit, clothed in a framework of material substance,

362 DISCOURSE XIX.
shaU maintain that material framework, incorruptible
and indestructible, for ever and ever.
2. But, secondly, the apostle describes this change
from corruption and mortality to incorruption and im-
mortaUty under the emblem of a victory over death and
the grave.
There is little doubt that the words " death is swal
lowed up in victory" are a quotation from the 25th
chapter of Isaiah ; but their true significancy has been
very generally misunderstood. As used for devotional
and even theological purposes, they are commonly re
garded as signifying "death is swallowed up in the
victory of Jesus Christ," — the notion being that the
work of the Eedeemer — that is, His atoning sacrifice and
triumphant resurrection — is a kind of whirlpool or abyss
in which death and all its horrible accompaniments are
swallowed up, lost, and for ever engulfed. But this is a
great deal more than the words really contain. AU that
they affirm is the total annihilation of death. The
words translated "in victory" (in the Greek, uc, nxo;),
mean properly " unto victory " — the idea being that the
process of destruction or extermination described by the
word going before, goes on and continues like a battle
that is waged until a triumphant victory is secured — that
is, " aye and until " death is totally abolished. The ex
pression so translated is one of frequent occurrence in
the Greek Septuagint of the Old Testament, and inva
riably has what grammarians call an adverbial signi
fication, corresponding to a Hebrew expression which in
our version is translated " for ever." Thus in 2 Sam.
ii. 26, Abner asks the question, " Shall the sword devour

VICTORY OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. 363
for ever?" (us vinos;) in Jeremiah, iii. 5, the prophet ex
claims, "Will He reserve His anger for ever?" (us vixoc;)
in Amos, viii. 7, we have the words, " I wiU not forget
any of their works for ever " (us vims) ; and there are
many other passages besides. This clause, therefore,
contains no direct allusion to the Eedeemer's victory
over death and the grave, although that be an actual
fact in the Christian scheme. What the apostle affirms
is simply and dogmaticaUy the total extinction of death,
which at the resurrection is destined to be cast, like a
stone or other heavy article, into an abyss so profound
that it never will be brought up or appear again.
" Death will be swallowed up for ever and ever " — that is
to say, will be absolutely annihilated or banished from
the creation of God.
But, although the victory of Jesus Christ is only
indirectly referred to in the words which we have now
been considering, the words which follow use the term
with reference both to the grave itself and to the resur
rection of the saints : " 0 death, where is thy sting ?
0 grave, where is thy victory ? " " Thanks be to God,
which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ." Death is compared to a venomous reptile — a
scorpion or serpent — which has wounded its victims
and introduced into their body its deadly poison. Dis
solution, it is true, does not immediately follow the
implanting of the sting, but there is pain and anguish,
and death ensues in due course of time. And then
comes the victory of the grave, or, as the original
hath it, of Hades. Like a resistless conqueror, it lays
hold of those whom death has prostrated, consigns

364 DISCOURSE XIX.
the body to the cold obstruction and festering loath
someness of the house appointed for all Uving, and the
soul to the mysterious condition of disembodied con
sciousness. Well may this be called a victory, for
nothing can be conceived of as a more complete over
throw of human hopes and desires than the burial of
man, and his subsequent disintegration into dust. So
far as man's power extends, it is a victory total and
hopeless ; but introduce the idea of resurrection — that
is, a true and literal restoration of the body, substan
tially such as it was before, only incorruptible and
immortal — and it is plain the victory passes over to the
other side. The conqueror is despoiled of his triumph
— the power of death and the grave is absolutely de
stroyed ; and from being a victim, sin-ruined and dying
man, restored to that high standard of corporeal life
for which he was originally designed, is in his turn a
conqueror, aU the more distinguished and glorious that
his triumph lasts for ever.
From all this it is obvious that the grand promise of
Christianity — the consummation or ultimate destiny
which is awaiting the people of God — is eternal life in
material bodies, substantially the same with those which
we possess at present, defect and imperfection alone
being removed. The resurrection could not possibly
be a victory unless the literal materialism of the body
were restored. There have been reUgionists in aU
ages who have formed the most fantastic conceptions
regarding the resurrection -humanity promised in the
Word of God, and it is to be feared that such fantas
tic conceptions are not yet whoUy extinct. It is well

VICTORY OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. 365
known that the Jews hold by the doctrine of a resur
rection, and their rabbis have no hesitation in speaking
of the spiritual bodies of those who shall rise from the
dead ; but they define these spiritual bodies as " a gar
ment of light," as "the essence of flame," as " a shining
thin body, not subject to the touch," — and so on. The
followers of Mohammed — that is, a large part of the
population of Asia and Africa — acknowledge also a
resurrection ; but the only purpose for which this resur
rection is anticipated by them appears to be eternal
indulgence in the grossest and most carnal of sensual
gratifications. Of spiritual purity and holiness, in con
nection with the materialism of the resurrection body,
Mohammedanism has no conception. And this may be
partly the reason why Christian writers, both in ancient
and modern times, and the Christian public generally,
have hesitated to admit the literal materialism of the
risen body, and been inclined rather to acquiesce in the
Jewish fancy just referred to of thin impalpable bodies,
somewhat of the consistency of flame. The heaven of
the hereafter must have no element in it of Mohammedan
sensualism. There must be no eating and drinking : it
is doubtful whether the body will have hands or feet,
for that implies that there will be objects to handle,
and a solid soil whereon to tread ; whether, Uke the
angels of the painters, it will have wings, is not quite
certain, but its principal occupation wiU be to sit for
centuries on end upon bright clouds, to sing intermin
able psalms of praise, and flutter about like flashes
of lightning through the amplitude of infinite space.
Now all dreams of this sort are put to flight by the

366 DISCOURSE XIX.
sober utterances of God's Word, and more especially
by the plain and inteUigible language of the apostle in
this chapter. What would our first parents and their
posterity have been had they never fallen? What
was Jesus Christ, that model of the resurrection-hu
manity, when He rose from the dead ? What would
the body of any man or woman be at this moment were
the fiat of the Almighty to banish from it the seeds of
disease and all imperfection, rendering it incorruptible,
and bestowing upon it, as in the case of Enoch and
Elijah, the boon of immortality? Surely the answer
to such questions Ues very readUy to every hand. The
man of the hereafter is the man of the present only
made perfect — that is, rendered incorruptible and im
mortal. The Gospel, in short, is a remedial dispensation.
It will destroy nothing but sin and sin's consequences
— misery, toil, disease, suffering, and death. The dark
cloud will be dissipated which for so long a period has
brooded over this beautiful world ; and when Satan is
cast out, and the law of death eternally abrogated, a
career of blessedness and glory will necessarily be be
fore the risen children of men of which it is not easy
to attempt a description. What victory that has ever
been achieved will be comparable to this ? The woman's
Seed has appeared ; the serpent's head is crushed effec-
tuaUy and for ever.
3. Thirdly, the apostle describes this achievement as
a boon for which gratitude ought to be felt and thanks
returned. " Thanks be to God," he says, " which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Gratitude and thanksgiving are the appropriate

VICTORY OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. 367
sequel of benefits bestowed and appreciated. And
assuredly, if it be a fact that a time is coming which
will behold the righteous dead restored to life, and the
humanity in which they will be clothed so wondrously
purified and improved that they will never thereafter suf
fer more, but set out on a career of blessedness limited
only by the ages of eternity, words cannot adequately
express the thanksgiving and praises which are due to
God. And, if the practical and most intelligible result
of this process of reconstruction of the human body be
the manifestation of a new world in which righteous
ness and the righteous alone shall dwell — the reappear
ing on the surface of this earth of the good and holy
of all bygone generations — the selected and choice
specimens of the human race confederated into happy
communities, and a state of social comfort and perfec
tion the very highest of which our nature is capable —
and all this effected by the living power of God, and
under the direction of our glorified Eedeemer himself
at His second coming, — if this is a consummation liter
aUy to be expected — and to my mind it seems to be
wrapped up in the very idea of the resurrection of the
body — then, gratitude and thanksgiving are feeble words
to express what we owe to Him who is the Captain of
our salvation. In fact, it is only by the entertainment
of this idea that we come to know what salvation
means. It is tantamount to the removal of all the
grief and pain we have ever experienced in the world,
and counterbalancing it with an eternal weight of glory
and bliss. Before the conceptions which such a hope
implies, the golden age of the poets and the economic

368 DISCOURSE XIX.
reforms of worldly politicians are paltry and trivial. Is
not this the world to come to which the prophets are so
constantly referring ? If this be not the heaven of the
hereafter, what can be ? A dreamland of mystic mus
ing, a swimming in oceans of rapture, and eternal songs
of praise, are surely, in comparison, poor definitions of
heavenly bliss. Language of such extraordinary vague
ness is surely totally inconsistent with the very idea of
a corporeal resurrection. But to reaUse to the full the
emotion of gratitude of which the apostle here speaks,
we must actually close with and appropriate the glorious
boon. This is the office of faith. None are excluded
from the offers of the Gospel : all are invited to par
take of its blessed privileges ; and however great and
precious these privileges may be, so far as the present
world is concerned, the actual consummation is the
resurrection of the body and a portion in the kingdom
of God. When the wUderness journey was over, and
the wars of the settlement in Canaan at an end, how
gladsome would every household be and every heart in
Israel as they sat down each one under his vine and
fig-tree, and none to make them afraid — years of con
tentment and repose in prospect to every individual,
and a glorious future before the entire nation ! But
this was only a type of far more glorious things to
come, when the epoch of sorrow and death is over, and
the entire company of God's redeemed enters upon the
long-promised inheritance. Blessed in God, blessed in
one another, and blessed in aU the enjoyments of a
pure, a sanctified, an immortal nature, they wiU not
faU to realise all that is implied in the apostle's words,

VICTORY OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. 369
" Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ."
In conclusion, then, let every Christian man and
woman realise the blessedness of this glorious anticipa
tion. Let them enter fully into the consciousness of the
fact that they are not only redeemed from heU's misery,
but that they are set apart and constituted heirs of
heaven's glory. It was the certainty of this latter con
sideration which called forth from the apostle the glow
ing words upon which we have been commenting. Very
fitly, indeed, may the preacher say, " Prepare for death ;"
make ready to lie down in the grave ; " dust thou art,
and unto dust thou shalt return ; " and in that home of
sUence " the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary
are at rest." But, after all, this is a very imperfect and
melancholy consolation, even although it be associated
with the consciousness of a God who is propitiated, and
a Saviour who loves us, and confers upon us the boon
of mental peace. It is impossible for human nature to
be in love with the clammy chUls of the deathbed, the
horrors of the coffin, and the offensive corruption of the
grave, even although there be dinned into our ears a
thousand times over, that it is the soul which makes the
man, and that soul may be happy even when the body
is hastening to putridity and decay. Our truest conso
lation is the certainty of a resurrection-day. " I am
the resurrection and the life." " Thy dead men shaU
live, together with my dead body shaU they arise.
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust : for thy dew is
as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the
dead." " Watchman, what of the night ? Watchman,
2 a

370 DISCOURSE XIX.
what of the night ? The morning cometh ! " — the morn
ing, that is to say, of the eternal day ! 0 glorious pro
spect ! Could we only habitually realise it ! I do not
undervalue the luminaries which shine whilst the night
watches are passing over our heads, — the sUver moon,
or the ten thousand gUttering stars which make night
radiant. And very pleasant to me, in like manner, are
the ordinances of God's house as they exist at present ;
the loveliness of nature's scenery; the sweet interchanges
of friendship and society even in this fallen world. God
forbid that I should either despise or neglect the blessings
and comforts of this passing world. I have a believer's
right to enjoy them all. But oh ! there are better things
to come. I haU the morning of the miUennial day. I
am wearying to see the first streaks of that long-predicted
dawn which will herald the rise of the Sun of righteous
ness ; and so, whilst surrounded by graves and sad
funeral processions, and hearts that are breaking because
wounded in the tenderest quarter, and faces suffused
with tears which will flow spite of all words of friendly
consolation, I look upwards and forwards, and breathe
the prayer, " Hasten, Lord, and come away ; why tarry
the wheels of Thy chariot ? " Lost friends will be found
again. Our eyes shall behold the King in His beauty;
and beautiful ones will tread once more the soil of this
redeemed world — transfigured, glorified, in point of fact,
Paradise restored. No death now to be dreaded, with
its poisonous sting of sin ; no sin now possible, and
therefore no law bristling with terror : no coffins carried
forth from desolated households, and their pathway to

VICTORY OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. 37 1
the grave bedewed with bitter tears ; no green hillocks
covering dust more precious in our eyes than the
gold of Ophir, and surmounted with the gravestone
that teUs of wounded affections and the agony of a
desolated spirit. The sorrows of the "night of weep
ing " are over, and the day of consolation and blessed
ness has come.

DISCOURSE XX.
recapitulation of argument; objections stated and
answered; improvement of whole argument.
1 Cor. xv. 58. — " Therefore, my beloved brethren," &c.

Authorised Version.
' ' Therefore, my beloved breth
ren, be ye steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of
the Lord, forasmuch as ye know
that your labour is not iu vain in
the Lord." New Translation.
Wherefore, my beloved breth
ren, be ye steadfast, unmovable,
abounding in the work of the
Lord always, knowing that your
labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Paraphrase.
See the grounds, my beloved
brethren, on which we exhort you
to be steadfast in your faith, and
beyond the power of being moved
from your confidence in God, al
ways abounding in the Lord's
work. Continue to labour on,
resting assured that by the bless
ing of the Lord your labours shall
not be in vain.

It has sometimes been imagined, and even stated with
no small degree of emphasis, that profound disquisitions
on Christian doctrine exercise an unfavourable influence
on the teachings of Christian morality. Parties there
are who depreciate faith, and all investigations relative

RECAPITULATION OF ARGUMENT. 373
to its nature and objects, under the idea that they are
apt to turn us aside from works and the commonplace
details of Christian practice. This, however, is a mis
take ; and we could not desire a more complete proof
of the fact than the example of the apostle Paul. He
who is the most doctrinal is also the most practical of
sacred writers ; and the attentive reader of the New
Testament will not fail to notice that those epistles of
his which treat of the deep things of God are those
precisely which enlarge upon the rules and obligations
of ordinary Christian life. Thus the lengthened and
most logical disquisition in the earlier chapters of the
Epistle to the Eomans, relative to justification by faith,
is succeeded by a fuU and minute description of the
duties which the believer owes to his feUow-religionists
and to society at large. And in no part of the Word of
God do we meet with such simple, distinct, and practical
admonitions as to the duties of parents, children, hus
bands and wives, and the like, as in the Epistles to the
Ephesians and the Colossians, where, in such elevated
strains, the doctrines of election, predestination, and the
divine nature of the Eedeemer, are treated of by the
apostle. We need not wonder, accordingly, if something
similar should be found in the chapter before us. Un
deniably there is not a more impressive doctrine than
that of the resurrection of the dead ; nor could language
more striking and subUme be employed to illustrate it
than is here employed. It is, accordingly, just what
we would expect, to find the apostle, before he leaves
the momentous topic on which he has been enlarging,
concluding with words of practical improvement. This.

374 DISCOURSE XX.
is the design of the concluding sentence of the chapter :
" Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, un
movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain
in the Lord."
Having considered at such length the doctrinal state
ments of our apostle, we might now, in conclusion,
inquire generally into the practical bearings of his doc
trine. Many observations, however, of a practical kind,
have already been made in the preceding discourses ;
and all that we deem it necessary to say now upon that
subject may be included in a very few sentences indeed.
But preliminary to this we deem it right to lay before the
reader a condensed synopsis or recapitulation of the
entire argument set forth in this chapter, foUowing up
this with a brief account of those objections which we
have not in former discourses made the subject of close
examination. We shall then be in better circumstances
to understand how the faith of a resurrection must
powerfully influence and guide our Christian life.
Let me recaU to recollection, then, that the whole 01
this argument, relative to the resurrection of the body, is
set forth by the apostle as involving aU that is essential
to the Christian revelation. The fact that there is a life
in the hereafter, commencing with the resurrection of
the dead, is not brought under our notice here as if it
were an inference from other and more important doc
trines — a mere isolated statement in the exhibition of
Christian truth. It is far more than that. It is the
Gospel itself ; or, if we choose to consider that word, in
accordance with its critical significancy, as denoting the

RECAPITULATION OF ARGUMENT. 375
utterance or authoritative proclamation of glad tidings
to the human race, it is the very subject-matter about
which the proclamation is made. It is the concrete
meaning of the word salvation. In the beginning of the
chapter, Paul speaks of his coming to Corinth, and
preaching to the Corinthians the Gospel of salvation ;
and, with a view to accompUsh his evangelical mission,
he announced to them the death, atonement, burial, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. But these facts, in the life
and ministry of the Eedeemer, are merely the means by
which an ulterior fact is consummated, and that is, the
redemption, the glory, the future blessedness of the
people of God. It is to be carefully noted that, through
out this long argument, the apostle does not utter a word
regarding the condition of reprobate sinners, or the
state of condemnation out of which the redeemed are
delivered. No mention is here made of hell-fire, or the
guilt, ruin, and eternal misery of the wicked. His whole
discourse relates to the everlasting glory of the elect ;
and from the beginning to the end of this chapter, every
word he utters connects that glory with the resurrection
of the bodies of God's saints, and the consequent aboli
tion of the law of death. This, therefore, is evidently the
sum and substance of the Gospel. If we are Christians,
and the apostle speaks the truth, the fact in our future
history, which is held out as the promise and reward
of our Christian faithfulness, is a bodily resuscitation
to a physical life in the hereafter of blessedness and
immortaUty. It is obvious, therefore, that the whole demonstration
of the apostle raises the question as to the concrete

376 DISCOURSE XX.
significancy of the final issue of the economy of grace —
the end or consummation of aU things, what is it ? In
what place are the righteous destined to be gathered
together, and what will be the state of actual and social
life when that event is consummated ? In one word,
What is Heaven ? We do not mean that state of spiritual
blessedness in which God and the holy angels now are,
and into which we have reason for thinking the souls of
the righteous dead enter at the moment of the separa
tion of soul and body ; but we mean by the term, that
condition into which they shaU enter when soul and
body are reunited at the resurrection-day. What is the
Physical Heaven ?
Now, having regard to all the apostle's statements in
this chapter, we think, and have endeavoured to prove,
that a very distinct and unhesitating answer may be
given to such queries. The heaven of the Christian is
no dreamland of mystery, made up of gorgeous shadows,
enchanting strains of music, and devotional musings
protracted indefinitely. Neither is it an act of trans
portation to some far-away corner of creation where it
is imagined the saints wUl be happier than they could
be anywhere else. It is simply the world in which we
are now living restored to its paradisiacal state, and
occupied, throughout aU its borders, by good, righteous,
and holy men, women, and children. The first chapters
of Genesis describe the creation of this world, and the
setting out of our first parents to people and replenish
it ; the last chapters of the Book of Eevelation contain
a symboUcal and highly -figurative description — sym
bolical and figurative because prophetic — of what the

RECAPITULATION OF ARGUMENT. 377
world wUl be when the ages of eternity begin to revolve.
The whole of the interval betwixt these extremes — that
is, from the creation till the judgment — constitutes the
entire career of the world and of the human species
under the economy of grace. Many remarkable inci
dents distinguish this period of time, which, after all,
is but one page in the majestic annals of immensity.
Most of these come to pass in accordance with fixed
principles, and after a certain routine, which the wisdom
of man' has been pleased to call laws of nature ; but
occasionally there have been deviations from this, or
miraculous interpositions of the living power of the
Creator. The Bible describes innumerable miracles ;
and indeed the very idea of a revelation from God
necessarily implies the existence of miraculous inter
vention. The creation of the world is described as a
miracle ; so is the Flood ; so is the caU of Abraham ;
so are the deliverance of the Israelitish people out of
Egypt, their march through the wilderness, and their
settlement in Canaan ; so are the birth, resurrection, and
ascension of Jesus Christ. But another still more strik
ing and universal interposition of the living power of
God is predicted. We are not authorised to say when ;
but we will require to shut our eyes to the meaning of
the plainest utterances of Scripture, if we deny that
there is a Uteral epoch, or conjuncture of time, ap
proaching, when God will again interfere in human
affairs as directly as He did at the Flood of Noah, or
amidst the thunderings and vocal announcements of
Sinai. God, who has long kept silence, wUl, in person
and directly, speak to mankind once more. His voice

378 DISCOURSE XX.
will be heard simultaneously over aU the world ; the
present business and avocations of men wUl be arrested,
and the judgment of the quick and the dead revealed.
And then will be effected — and I have no doubt by an
instrumentality which, when the time comes, wUl ap
pear simple and intelUgible enough — the grand separa
tion betwixt the righteous and the wicked. The wicked
dead will be left in their graves for a season, and the
wicked living will die " the second death." " In a mo
ment, in the twinkling of an eye," the righteous living
will be " deUvered from the bondage of corruption,"
and receive their glorified bodies, and be joined by the
multitudinous company of the righteous dead of all
bygone generations ; and both together will forthwith
take possession of the earth, now, as well as the saints
themselves, redeemed, purified, and in all respects made
meet for the glorious place they wiU thenceforth fill
amidst the works of God. This, I conceive, is the
heaven of the future, the consummation to which the
history of our world is tending, the " new earth wherein
dwelleth righteousness."
Scripture and the inferences of natural reason con
duct us to this conclusion, which is not only corrobo
rated by the doctrine of the resurrection of the body,
but absolutely involved in it. Let us only reflect on
what that resurrection is as defined by the apostle's
language in this chapter. Human beings have been
dying for ages, and in every region of the earth : their
ashes are reposing everywhere, so that probably there
is not an acre of the earth's surface where dust once
animated is not to be found; and in the event of a

RECAPITULATION OF ARGUMENT. 379
resurrection taking place, where can that event be con
summated if not in the very spot where these human
remains are lying ? When, accordingly, by the mirac
ulous fiat of Almighty God, all wicked persons die the
second death and are removed to their own place, and
when the resuscitated righteous are again living and
moving on the earth's surface, and in bodies substan
tially the same with what we find human beings pos
sessing at present, what can these resuscitated persons
do, aU over the world, but form themselves into new
social communities, and resume the activities of ani
mated and corporeal existence ? They absolutely can
do nothing else. They are bound to this by the very
conditions of their being. If they have eyes, they must
use them for seeing ; ears, they must be exercised in
hearing ; hands and feet, in handling and walking ; a
brain, in thinking ; affections, in loving one another, and
more especially those to whom they stand in the near
est relations ; powers of thought and contrivance, in
thinking and contriving; skiU and ability to avail them
selves of the powers and properties of the material uni
verse, in the actual forthputting of that skiU and abil
ity. By way of illustration, let us suppose some beau
tiful island in the ocean to be taken possession of by a
numerous band of emigrants, all of them animated by a
good spirit, resolved to live in brotherhood, and promot
ing the comfort and happiness of one another. What
could they do ? Would not every one, in process of
time, find his own sphere, and contribute his own por
tion to the aggregate happiness of the whole ? There
would be some to rule and superintend, some to execute

380 DISCOURSE XX.
and carry out the plans of their more ingenious neigh
bours ; there would be planters and builders, traders
and traffickers, teachers and scientific investigators.
And the ultimate result would be a flourishing and
well-cultivated island, and a community therein enlight
ened, orderly, contented, refined, and prosperous. Now
what is this world but an island floating in the ocean
of boundless space ? Are not its broad continents, its
fertile plains, its green and picturesque valleys, capable
of receiving and sustaining a multitudinous and happy
population? and would that population be anything the
worse, would they not be infinitely the better, if sin,
suffering, and death were absolutely abolished ? Can it
possibly coincide with our notions of divine wisdom,
that so lovely a world should be brought into being for
no other purpose than to subsist for some thousands of
years as the dwelling-place of millions of sinning, tor
tured, and dying creatures, and then be burnt up, and
its ashes scattered through the celestial spaces ? Is it
not more likely, and much more in accordance with the
idea of the Gospel as a remedial dispensation, that the
primitive plan of creation will yet be carried out, and a
human progeny, by natural generation sprung from the
first Adam, but also by the second Adam regenerated
and spiritualised, shall be found " to people and re
plenish the earth"? This hypothesis may not accord
with the views of those who hanker after oceans of rap
ture, interminable songs of praise, and everlasting saun-
terings by rivers of milk and the like, as the proper
definition of the heavenly state, or whose notion of
salvation is a mere deliverance from the grisly horrors

RECAPITULATION OF ARGUMENT. 38 1
of the place of woe; but let common -sense interpret
the handwriting of God so plainly legible on man's
human constitution, and let it reflect that by the resur
rection of the body that constitution is demonstrated to
be eternal, and I declare I see not what other hypothesis
we can entertain that is possessed of the smaUest degree
of probability.
This, then, I hold to be the heaven of the future
revealed in Scripture, and as set before us there in its
physical aspect — the only aspect, of course, in which
we are now considering it. The population of the
world to come will consist exclusively of the " nations
of the redeemed ; " and the office of the Gospel is to
gather that population together and prepare them for
their glorious destiny. The career of the world from
Eden to the judgment-day — that is, the whole course of
time — is just the space aUotted, by divine Providence,
for the making up of that population. They must be
born ; they must attain their appointed development ;
they must be regenerated by the Spirit of God ; they
must be taught the lessons of faith, holiness, and new
obedience ; and, generally speaking, by the discipline of
this world's providences, be trained for the occupations
and employments of their eternal state. This process
has been going on for ages in all parts of the world ;
the products, so far as the body is concerned, are lying
in our churchyards and other places of sepulture ; and,
so far as the soul is concerned, they are found in the
spiritual world of the unseen. When the proper time
arrives, soul and body are united again in those very
localities with which they were once famUiar, and so,

382 DISCOURSE XX.
simultaneously and in all regions of the world, heaven is
set up, and the ages of eternal blessedness for the race
of Adam begin to revolve. In the chapter before us the
apostle declares that the Son of God was incarnate in
order to accomplish this work. Those who in Adam
have died, in Christ are made alive again: by this
resurrection death is absolutely destroyed; and over this
material creation, from which death, with aU its accom
paniments, is expelled, Jesus Christ wiU reign for ever
— the divine, yet visible Head of the visible universe.
Here is the pledge of the permanency of heavenly bUss.
And if we wish to know how the body of man, hither
to so liable to decay, can become indestructible, we are
informed that it is so by the positive forthputting of
the power of God. It dies in order that it may be
" quickened." By the processes of death and resuscita
tion God Almighty is pleased to expel from it the very
seeds of corruption and mortality. It becomes there
after a " spiritual body " — that is to say, a body iden
tical with what it was before, only actuated by the Holy
Ghost in the same way that Jesus Christ was and is,
and in virtue of that quickening power absolutely
impregnable to the assaults of corruption, decay, and
dissolution. Thus constituted the very masterpiece of
God's creative power and wisdom : perfect in all his
parts and functions ; associated with multitudes of others
similarly organised and endowed; animated by the Holy
Ghost, and all influences holy, pure, and loving ; and
settled down in the midst of a material creation with
which he is familiar, and to which he is adapted — a
creation glorious and no longer under the curse — I see

OBJECTIONS STATED AND ANSWERED. 383
not what is wanting to render man's subsequent career
the very perfection of blessedness, physical, inteUectual,
moral, and spiritual.
Such, then, is the conclusion to which I think we
are necessarily carried by the reasonings of the apostle
in this chapter. Of course objections may be brought
against our doctrine in the same manner as they have
been to every doctrine whatever of the Christian faith ;
but M'e ask our readers merely to take the words of
Scripture in their plain, direct, and obvious significancy,
and if they will do this unwarped by prejudice, we fear
not for the result. May not this unwillingness to ac
knowledge the coming of the kingdom of God on earth
spring from the infidel or semi-infidel habit — alas ! now
so common, and in quarters where we might little have
expected to meet with it — of refusing to admit of mi
raculous interposition in the affairs of the world, and
explaining everything, whether in the writings of Scrip
ture or the doings of Providence, by what is supposed
to be the permanent and unchangeable laws of nature ?
But if there be no miraculous interpositions of God, it
is of course in vain to look, in the literal meaning of
the words, for such events as the resurrection of the
dead, and the setting up in this world of a reign of
righteousness, without sin and misery of any kind.
The very first requisite to such a consummation is the
reality of miraculous interpositions ; and if this is
denied, the whole utterances of the apostle in this
chapter are the offspring of a fond delusion, or a bundle
of inexplicable enigmas. Unless words are here used in
a sense totaUy different from that which they naturaUy

384 DISCOURSE XX.
bear, we are bound yet to look for by far the most won
derful interposition of God which wiU ever take place
in the history of the world. If that be not the fact,
religion is anything which the fancy of man chooses to
make it ; and for aught that we can see to the contrary,
man wiU continue, in the ordinary course of things,
hopelessly to sin and to suffer for ever.
Among the groundless objections to our doctrine is
the exaggerated conception which many entertain as
to the actual number of the redeemed. I presume that
they do not dispute the fact, that however numerous
they may be, that number is still a limited quantity — a
quantity capable of being expressed in figures. The
words elect, children of God, and other terms used to
describe them, have necessarily that Umited significa
tion. What they suppose is, that the world is too small
to contain the vast multitude for whom Christ died.
But this objection is really nothing more than the
expression of religious sentimentalism — the product of
a pious, but it may be an ignorant, desire to enhance
the glory of the blessed Eedeemer's atoning work. To
" replenish the earth and to subdue it " was the grand
primeval design of man's creation — a design which the
sin and fall of our first parents have hitherto prevented
from being effected in the way of ordinary generation.
Surely, then, it is enough if, after all, that primeval
design is fuUy and to the very letter carried out by the
work of Christ and the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.
This round world of ours, although but one of the orbs
which people immensity, and far smaller than many of
them, is still capable of containing " a multitude whom

OBJECTIONS STATED AND ANSWERED. 385
no man can number : " it will take rank for ever and
ever as the "purchased possession," the blood-bought
inheritance of the redeemed — that one world in im
mensity for which incarnate Deity suffered and died ;
and who knows but in the ages of the dread hereafter
relations may yet be established betwixt it and the
other worlds of this wondrous universe, which wUl stiU
further enhance the glory of the Saviour God ? There
may be more meaning than at present we can discern in
the words of the prophet, " He shaU see of the travail
of His soul, and shall be satisfied."
Again, it has been imagined that our doctrine leaves
the questions of infant salvation and the ultimate dis
posal of the reprobate in a state of inextricable diffi
culty. What, it is said, will become of the millions of
children who die in infancy ? Is it possible to conceive
that they who have never sinned should ultimately
perish ; and if they do not, of what service can they be
in such a heaven of the future ? Again, what is meant
by hell-fire ? Are the agonies of the condemned of a
physical nature too ; and if so, wUl not the view of
them, or even the knowledge of them, detract from the
blessedness of the righteous? Such questions, how
ever, are manifestly quite irrelevant. Absolutely we
cannot answer them in a satisfactory manner, simply
because we have not the means. The deUverance of
the Westminster Confession relative to infant salvation
is guarded and judicious, affirming that " elect infants,
dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ
through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and
how He pleaseth." With regard to the punishment of
2b

386 DISCOURSE XX.
heU, an opinion has been advanced of late, and strongly
advocated, to the effect that it means an extinction of
being, or annihilation ; but there may be reasons, moral
and judicial, which render it expedient, on the broad
scale of the universe, that there should be a world of
misery eternally peopled by the wicked, as well as a
world of blessedness eternally peopled by the righteous.
The one would be to all the worlds that fiU immensity
a beacon to warn, and the other a spectacle to guide and
gladden. But for the resolution of these and many
other questions we may very fitly wait till another
day. We may rest assured, that if God our Maker be
rigorous in His justice, He is also boundless in His
mercy and love. The Judge of all the earth wiU do
what is right.
Once more, some texts have been quoted which are
supposed to be inconsistent with our doctrine. Thus
in the 6th chapter of this epistle we find the words,
" Meats for the belly, and the beUy for meats ; but God
shall destroy both it and them ; " and it has been ima
gined that this means the removal from the resurrec
tion body of " the beUy," or the organs of digestion and
nutrition, as well as the annihilation of all " meats " or
substances fitted to nourish the body. But this must
needs be an error. All that the words are reaUy in
tended to affirm is the temporary dissolution of the
body in the grave ; and we are informed that our
blessed Lord, the model of the risen man, did both eat
and drink after His resurrection. Again, in the Gospel
of Matthew, the 22d chapter, our Lord is represented
as saying, "In the resurrection they neither marry,

OBJECTIONS STATED AND ANSWERED. 387
nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God
in heaven ; " from which it has been inferred that in
personal constitution the risen saints are totally diverse
from what they were before — in fact, literally spiritual
or angelic. But this also is palpably a mistake. Taken
in connection with the whole passage of which they
form a part, it is obvious that the Lord's affirmation
amounts merely to this : that there will be no genera
tion, no births, no adding to the population in heaven,
and therefore no law of marriage according to which a
man may claim any special woman as his wife, or the
woman, any man as her husband, on the ground of any
relationship of this sort which subsisted in the present
world. They are "like the angels" (ieayyiXoi), inas
much as the conventional arrangements of our present
worldly state, and especially " marrying and giving in
marriage," are unnecessary, and therefore no longer in
existence. All these objections, therefore, may be regarded as
groundless and untenable. But I believe the true rea
son of the antipathy with which some regard our hypo
thesis of a heaven upon earth, is the belief that the
heavenly world is, essentially and intrinsically, some
thing far grander and more glorious than consists with
the idea of its possessing any properties of materialism
whatsoever. Our objectors wish sights far more resplen
dent, melodies far more entrancing, and a blessedness
every way more transcendental, than they feel is possible
in such a world as this, and with creatures materially
constituted as human beings are. But is not this pure
sentimentalism ? It is justified neither by reason nor

388 DISCOURSE XX.
Scripture. The saints go into a spirit- world of grandeur
and glory when they die, but they emerge from it again ;
and their resurrection at the last day is palpably their
return once more within the limits of the material, to
this very body of flesh and bones, this world of moun
tain, rock, and river. Why should we associate the
ideas of debasement and imperfection with corporeal
existence, and heavenly blessedness with lineal remote
ness from the portion of space tenanted by the globe of
earth on whose surface we are living ? That body of
ours, I repeat it, is God's masterpiece of creative power
and wisdom ; and it requires only to have the effects of
sin removed — its weakness, and its Uability to accident,
sickness, corruption, and death — in order to be absolutely
perfect. And yet, whilst retaining all its sinless al
though at present sin-deteriorated properties, the expo
sitions of our apostle point to indefinite progress even
beyond that condition with which it starts on the re
surrection-day. And if it be supposed that human
blessedness may be enhanced by communications with
other parts of the material universe — the planet Jupiter,
for instance, the internal nucleus of the sun with its-
canopy of dazzling splendour, or the star Sirius blazing
in a stUl more distant heaven — for aught I can teU, a
time may come when the progressive development of
our wondrously-constituted humanity may be able to
open up such communications. But sure I am, when
all this is done — should it be done — the discovery will
be made, that human blessedness and perfection are
independent of all transcendentalisms, and that man's
appropriate dweUing-place is this beautiful world of

PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT. 389
ours, this blood -bought inheritance, this home of the
redeemed. But it is time, with' the apostle, to conclude our
lengthened exposition with a few words of practical im
provement ; and it will be observed, that if the apostle's
practical improvement be emphatic, it is expressed in
very few words indeed. Only one verse out of the fifty-
eight is devoted to that subject. But with what energy
are they uttered, and how full they are of meaning !
The Corinthian Christians were his brethren — his " be
loved brethren ; " all candidates, with himself, for a
portion of the glory of which he has been speaking, and
therefore cherishing towards one another that love, or
affectionate concern for each other's welfare, which is
the very essence of heavenly bUss. Let us see in this
the summons of God to cherish habitually the emotion
of Christian love. He speaks of " the work of the
Lord," and their "always abounding in it;" words
which imply that all Christians, from the highest office
bearer in the Church down to the humblest member,
have work to do, in this world, of a spiritual, kind, and
that it becomes them not only to do it, but to do it
thoroughly, perseveringly, and with earnest assiduity.
Let all believing men and women, therefore, inquire what
" work for the Lord " it is competent for them to do,
and thereafter " abound in it." He enjoins his feUow-
believers to be "steadfast and unmovable" — words
which not only comprehend an aUusion to the " faith "
of the Christian, but also to the trial which that faith
has to undergo in the present world. As disciples of
Christ, we are called upon to cherish confidence in God,

390 DISCOURSE XX.
aUegiance to the Saviour, love to one another ; but
myriads of causes are in operation, whose tendency is
to subvert that faith, disturb our Christian equanimity,
and lead us into error and sin. Hence the apostolic
admonition to be " steadfast and unmovable" — an ad
monition often repeated elsewhere. And, in conclusion,
he reminds them of the fact — a fact to be considered as
a matter of absolute certainty — that " their labour is
not in vain in the Lord." In other words, that the faith
they exhibit, the trials through which they pass, and
the Christian work they perform, have all most momen
tous bearings on their eternal condition.
And this, assuredly, is an epitome of all Christian
duty. Have faith in God, and whilst busily prose
cuting our Christian work, " have respect unto the re
compense of the reward." Human reason may suggest
that there is but small likelihood of those things coming
to pass of which we have been speaking. That the dust
of our churchyards shall be reanimated ; that the law of
death shall be aboUshed; that by a miraculous inter
position God will change the aspect of the world, and
set up therein the celestial Paradise, peopling it with
the good and holy of aU places and times ; — these are
propositions which mere human reason may pronounce
fanatical, wild, and extravagant. Be it so. We have no
other primary evidence for them than the Word of God.
Faith, however, " in the sure word of prophecy," sets aU
unlikeUhoods at defiance ; and looks forward, hoping
believing, waiting. And who would not work much, and
sacrifice self to the uttermost, who really felt that for
the faithful worker a satisfying portion in this blessed-

PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT. 39 1
ness and glory is provided ? 'Tis the wiU of God — the
concrete meaning of our responsibiUty — that time should
be the season of preparation for eternity. Very brief is
the one, very lengthened is the other ; but the acorn is
not more the preliminary of the majestic tree, than is
time the germ of the tremendous developments of eter
nity. Two things are competent for us in time — the
acquisition of a right, and the attainment of a meetness
for the kingdom of God. The first is the product of
faith in a crucified Saviour ; the second is the result of
persevering labours in His glorious cause. Believe and
labour ; in these two words Christianity is summed up.
But we may also breathe the prayer, " I pray Thee, let
me go over and behold the land which is beyond Jordan,
that goodly mountain and Lebanon." " Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is done in
heaven."

APPENDIX.

I.
Few Tbanslation and Paraphrase of the Entire
Chapter.
This has already been given in separate portions as the
headings of the Discourses ; but with a view to enable the
reader more fully and easily to study the apostle's argument
as a whole, I have thought it advisable to set down in
this place my rendering of the entire chapter, and that in
successive paragraphs, with a paraphrase annexed in a paral
lel column. The result of this, I trust, will be a clearer and
more adequate conception of the doctrines taught in the pre
ceding Discourses. The meaning of every clause, word, and
even particle, has been carefully weighed ; and the reader
may rest assured that the translation here given is exactly
literal, and in closest conformity with the words of the
original. New Translation. Paraphrase.
I. I now beg to remind you, I. Moreover, brethren, I call to
brethren, of that Gospel which I your recollection the Gospel which
preached to you, which also ye I preached unto you. That Gos-
received, in which also ye were pel ye have received, and in it ye
established, through which also ye have been established. Thereby,
remain in safety (provided ye hold moreover, ye continue in a state
fast the word which I preached to of security, provided ye stead -
you), unless haply ye have believed fastly adhere to the word which I
in vain. Por I delivered unto you, preached unto you ; although it is
amongst the first things, that which a possible thing for parties to be-

APPENDIX.

393

New Translation.
also I myself had so received ; that
Christ died for our sins according
to the Scriptures ; and that He
was buried, and that He was
raised on the third day, according
to the Scriptures ; and that He
was seen of Cephas, then of the
twelve ; then He was seen by above
five hundred brethren at once, of
whom the greater number remain
till this present, but some also have
fallen asleep. After that He was
seen by James, then by all the
apostles. Last of all, He was seen
of me also, as of one born out of
due time. (For I am the least
of the apostles, who am not
worthy to be called an apostle, be
cause I persecuted the Church of
God. But by the grace of God
I am what I am : and His grace
which He showed to me was not
in vain, for I have laboured more
abundantly than they all : not I,
indeed, but the grace of God which
was with me.) Whether, then, it
were I or they who preached, such
was our preaching, and so ye be
lieved.

Paraphrase.
come professed believers, andyet be
none the better in consequence.
You remember that among the
veiy first things which in my
preaching I taught you was that
doctrine which I myself had re
ceived by revelation — the doctrine,
namely, of the atoning death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. I
taught you that Christ had died
for our sins according to the Scrip
tures ; that He had been buried,
and that He had been raised up
from the dead on the third day.
All these things I assured you
were, and I proved them to be,
in accordance with the Scriptures.
Moreover, I told you that after
His resurrection Christ had been
seen of Cephas, then of the twelve
apostles, and afterwards by above
five hundred brethren at once. Of
these parties the greater number
are alive at the present moment,
although some have fallen asleep.
Then He was seen by James ; then
by all the apostles. And, last of
all, I myself beheld Him, being in
my own estimation of little value,
and no better than what my ene
mies may call me — a worthless
abortion. Indeed I am the very
least of the apostles : I am not
worthy to bear the name of an
apostle, because I persecuted the
Church of God. Yet by the grace
of God I am what I am. And
His grace which He showed to me
did not prove an unprofitable gift,
for it led me to labour far more
abundantly than they all : not I,
indeed, but the grace of God which
was with me. From all this you

394

APPENDIX.

New Translation.

II. Now, if Christ is preached
that He rose from the dead, how
say some among you that resur
rection of the dead there is none ?
If resurrection of the dead there be
none, neither is Christ raised ; and
if Christ be not raised, vain indeed
is our preaching, and vain is your
faith. Besides, also, we are found
to be false witnesses of God, be
cause we testified, in the name of
God, that He raised up the Christ,
whom He raised not, if indeed the
dead are not raised. For , if dead
persons are not raised, Christ has
not been raised : and if Christ has
not been raised, foolish is your
faith'; ye are yet in your sins : yea,
also those who have fallen asleep
in Christ are perished.

III. If in this life we are
hopers in Christ only, we are more
pitiable than all men besides.

Paraphrase.
may understand that, whether it
was I or others who preached, in
these terms we did preach, and
such doctrines ye did believe.
II. Now, if the grand doctrine
which we preach be the fact that
Christ has risen from the dead,
how comes it to pass that some
among you are affirming that re
surrection of the dead there is
none ? Were such a, statement
correct — that is, were the resur
rection of the dead an impossibil
ity, it is plain that Christ cannot,
as we affirm, have risen from the
dead ; and in that case, both our
preaching and your faith are ut
terly groundless and vain. I may
even go further and affirm that
we deserve to be proclaimed false
witnesses of God, seeing we affirm
a falsehood — declaring, as we do,
in God's name, that God hath
raised Him from the dead — a
statement totally untrue, if there
be no resurrection at all. It is
surely an obvious truth that if
dead persons cannot be resuscitat
ed, then, in point of fact, Christ
is not raised from the dead. But
what are the inferences which flow
from that ? Nothing less than
these : your faith is groundless, or
rather foolish ; ye are yet in your
sins ; and the whole body of be
lievers who, by dying, have fallen
asleep in Christ, have absolutely
perished. III. If it is only in Christ that
in the present life we can cherish
hope, and it be a fact that Christ

APPENDIX.

39S

New Translation.
But now Christ has been raised
from the dead, the first-fruits of
the sleepers there. For since by
man has been death, also by man
is resurrection of the dead. For
as in the Adam all die, so also in
the Christ all shall be made alive
again. But every one in his own
order : Christ the first-fruits ; then
those who are Christ's at His com
ing. Then is the end, when He
delivereth up the kingdom to God,
even His Father ; when He shall
put down all rule and all autho
rity and power. For it is neces
sary that He reign until He hath
put all enemies under His feet.
The last enemy whom He shall
put down is death.

Paraphrase.
has not risen from the dead, it may
well be said that of all men we
are in a very pitiable condition ;
for Christianity does not free us
from worldly troubles, but rather
increases them, and beyond the
present there is no hereafter. But
it is now our privilege to know
that Christ has been actually
raised from the dead, and that He
is the first-fruits of those who are
sleeping in the grave. For here
we have one of the great provi
dential arrangements of God, —
a man brought death into the
world, a man also brings in the
resurrection of the dead. In the
first Adam all human beings die :
iu the second man, the Christ, all
shall be made alive again. But
in this resurrection every one
shall occupy a place in the divi
sion or band to which he has
been assigned : Christ the first-
fruits ; then those who are Christ's
at His coming. Finally the end
is revealed, when Christ shall de
liver up the kingdom to God —
that is, to His Father; and shall
have succeeded in bringing into
subjection to God all government
and all authority and power.
For it is necessary that He retain
that kingly power which He now
holds in heaven, until He has put
all His enemies under His feet.
The last enemy whom He is
destined to bring under subjec
tion is death.

IV. For all things hath He put
under His feet. But when He saith
that all things are put under Him,

IV. For in the divine decree all
things are put in subjection to
Christ— that is to say, to Christ

396

APPENDIX.

New Translation.
it is manifest that this means with
the exception of Him who put all
things under Him. And when all
the things which exist are sub
jected to Him, then also the Son
Himself shall be subjected to Him
who did thus subject all the things
which exist to Him, so that God
may be the all in all.

Paraphrase.
as the Mediator or God-man, the
Son and Representative of the
Father. For when the decree is
proclaimed that all things are sub
jected to Him, it is plain that
there must needs be an exception
of the supreme God the Father
who issued this decree in favour of
His Son. It will accordingly come
to pass that when all the things
which exist — that is to say, the
whole universe of being — shallhave
been subjected to God the Father,
or in other words, shall have ac
knowledged the Headship of the
supreme God, then the Son Him
self, the visible Head of the visi
ble universe, shall be subject to
the Father ; and God, the invisible
One, shall be all in all.

V. Else what shall those do who
are baptised with death only before
their eyes, if the dead are not at
all raised again ? Why are they
baptised with death before their
eyes? Why also do we expose
ourselves to danger every hour ?
I protest by your rejoicing, which
also I have in Christ Jesus our
Lord, I die daily. If, as a man,
I have fought with beasts at
Ephesus, what profit is there
thence to me? If the dead rise
not again, let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die. Be not de
ceived : good manners are cor
rupted by evil communications.
Awake at the call of righteousness,
and sin not ; for some of you have
nothing but ignorance of God : in
rebuke I say this to you.

V. Asanotherargumentto prove
a literal resurrection, let me allude
to the ordinance of Christian bap
tism. Dying men are baptised,
and receive that ordinance in the
midst of a world where all are
dying around them. In such cir
cumstances, what is the use or sig
nificancy of such an ordinance ?
Why should dying men be bap
tised; and that, too, in the midst of
dying men ? Evidently as a pledge
or assurance that though men die,
to life they will be raised again.
As yet another argument in
favour of a resurrection, let me
point attention to the life of per
secution to which we apostles and
other earnest Christians are con
tinually exposed. We risk our
lives every day. We hourly and
voluntarily subject ourselves, in

APPENDIX.

397

New Translation.

Paraphrase.
consequence of our Christianity,
to the most violent persecutions.
What other consideration than the
hope of a resurrection and another
life could induce us to do so ? For
myself I protest that this persecu
tion is so continuous and severe,
that I pass through the pains of
death every day that I live. If,
as a man would say, I have had
to fight with beasts in this very
town of Ephesus, what advantage
do I obtain from submitting to
such persecution ? Why ? - If the
dead rise not again, and there be
no hope of a resurrection and a
world beyond it, the maxim of the
Epicureans must needs be sound
wisdom, Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die. I beg of you
not to wander into error. Be
ware of holding communication
with deceivers, lest your good man
ners become corrupted. Awake
to spiritual sensibility ; prac
tise righteousness ; swerve not
from the path of rectitude. There
are some of you who are ab
solutely ignorant of God. I
grieve to be compelled to address
you in such terms of rebuke and
animadversion.

VI. But some one will say, How
are the dead raised up ? and in
what body do they come ? Incon
siderate man, what thou sowest
is not quickened unless it die.
And as to what thou sowest, not
the body that shall be dost thou
sow, but a naked seed, as, for ex
ample, of wheat or of some other
grain ; and God giveth to it a body

VI. But some one will be ready
to ask the questions, By what
means are the dead raised up ? In
what manner will that extraor
dinary event take place? And
when the resurrection is complet
ed, what sort of body will man
possess ? These questions may be
asked in the spirit of captiousness
and unbelief, and as though it

398

APPENDIX.

New Translation.
as He hath pleased, and to each
of the seeds its own body. Not
all flesh is the same flesh ; but
there is one flesh of men, another
of cattle, another of fishes, and
another of birds. There are also
bodies heavenly, and bodies earth
ly ; but the glory of the heavenly
bodies is one, and that of the
earthly another. There is one
glory of the sun, and another
glory of the moon, and another
glory of the stars ; for star dif
fereth from star in glory.

VII. So also is the resurrection
of the dead. It is sown in corrup
tion ; 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 : it is sown
a body animal ; it is raised a body
spiritual. There is a body animal,
and there is a body spiritual.

Paraphrase.
were impossible for God to find a
body in which to present the risen
man. But this proceeds from the
want of consideration. The phe
nomena of vegetation may teach
a lesson on this subject. Every
seed that is sown first dies, and
then springs into a new life. More
over, it does not appear at once
what the resulting plant shall be.
We sow a naked seed, as, for in
stance, of wheat or of some other
grain ; and God causes to spring
from that seed a plant having a
special aspect and constitution —
every seed, indeed, its own pecu
liar plant.
Or we may take an illustration
from animal life. What extraor
dinary varieties do you find exist
ing in this department of nature !
Men, cattle, fishes, birds, are all
clothed in flesh, but vastly distin
guished from one another. We
may even go further. There are
heavenly bodies, and there are
earthly bodies, both glorious ;
but the glory of the one is very
different from the glory of the
other. The sun exhibits one form
of glory, the moon another, the
stars another ; and even one star
differs from another star in glory.
VII. It is evidently, therefore,
the will of God that variety should
prevail amongst His works. The
resurrection of the dead will fur
nish another illustration of the
same fact. Very different, in
many respects, will the resurrec
tion body be from that which dies
and is buried. Like n seed, the

APPENDIX.

399

New Translation.
Thus also it is written, The first
man Adam was made for a living
soul ; the last Adam for a life-giv
ing spirit. But not first the spi
ritual, but the animal, and there
after the spiritual. The first man
is earthy of the earth ; the second
Man, the Lord from heaven. Like
as the earthy, so also those that
are earthy ; and like as the hea
venly, so also the heavenly. And
as we have borne the image of
the earthy, we shall also bear the
image of the heavenly.

VIII. This, moreover, I say, bre
thren, that flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God, nei
ther doth corruption inherit in
corruption. Behold, I declare to

Paraphrase.
dead body is sown in the earth,
and becomes utterly corrupted; but
when it is raised again, it will be a
living plant free from all corrup
tion. Its dishonour will be re
moved, and itwill become glorious;
its weakness will be replaced by
strength and power ; and instead
of being subject to the propensities
of the animal nature, it will be un
der the exclusive guidance of the
spiritual man. For as there is a
body which is under the control of
the propensities of the flesh, and
which maytherefore be termed ani
mal, so there will be a body, guided
and controlled by the spirit, and
which on that account may be
called spiritual. Thus also it is
written in Scripture, That the first
man Adam was made in order to
receive and be actuated by a living
soul ; the last Adam, in order to re
ceive and be actuated by a life-giv
ing spirit. There is thus a spiritual
nature and an animal nature :
and, in the order of things, the
animal comes first, and the spi
ritual afterwards. The first man
is of the earth, earthy ; the second
Man is the Lord from heaven.
Like as the earthy, so also those
that are earthy ; and like as the
heavenly, so also the heavenly.
And as we have borne the image
of the earthy, we shall also bear
the image of the heavenly.
VIII. And this leads me to
mention an important fact con
nected with the coming of the
kingdom of God : and that is, that
flesh and blood, or a carnal un-

400

APPENDIX.

New Translation.
you a mystery, We shall not all
go to sleep : but we shall all be
changed. In an instant, in an
eye's twinkling, at the last trum
pet (for the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incor
ruptible, and we shall be changed).
For it is necessary that this cor
ruptible body should put on in
corruption, and this mortal body
should put on immortality.

IX. But when this corruptible
shall put on incorruption, and
this mortal shall put on immortal
ity, then shall come to pass the
word that is written, Death is
swallowed up even unto victory.
Where, 0 Death, is thy sting?
where, 0 Hades, thy victory?
The sting of death is sin ; and the

Paraphrase.
sanctified nature, is not fitted for
the occupation and blessedness of
that kingdom ; neither can cor
ruption find a place in a region
where all is holiness and purity.
And here I will declare unto
you a most important mystery :
It is not the will of God that all
should sleep the sleep of death,
but it is the will of God that all
His people shall be changed. This
change will take place at the se
cond coming of Christ, and will
be effected in an instant of time,
in the very twinkling of an eye,
coincident with the sounding of
the last trumpet. I say, the last
trumpet, for as at the giving
of the Law on Mount Sinai the
sound of a trumpet was heard, so
at the last day that trumpet will
be heard again, and simultane
ously with that the righteous
dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we who shall then be living
will be changed. For this body,
now so corruptible, must put on
incorruption, and so be rendered
incapable of sickness, disease, or
accident ; and this body, now
mortal, must put on immortality,
or be delivered from all liability
to death.
IX. But when this corruptible
body shall be changed into one
that is incorruptible ; and when
this flesh, now mortal, shall cease
to be so, and become immortal,
then the word of Scripture shall
be fulfilled, Death is swallowed
up even unto victory, or is de
stroyed in a triumphant manner.

APPENDIX.

401

New Translation.
power of death is the law. But
to God be thanks, who giveth us
the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Wherefore, my be
loved brethren, be ye steadfast,
unmovable, abounding always in
the work of the Lord, knowing
that your labour is not in vain in
the Lord.

Paraphrase.
Then we shall be able to say,
Where now, 0 Death, is thy sting?
and where, 0 Hades, is thy vic
tory ? It was the consciousness of
sin which sharpened the sting of
death .- it was the denunciations
of God's law which gave power to
sin. But now we can render
thanks to God, who gives us a
victory in Jesus Christ over both
death and sin. See the grounds,
my beloved brethren, on which
we exhort you to be steadfast in
your faith, beyond the power of
being moved from your confidence
in God, always abounding in the
Lord's work. Continue to labour
on, resting assured that, by the
blessing of the Lord, your labours
shall not be in vain.

II.
Brief Commentary and Critical Notes.
In the preceding translation and paraphrase, the reader
will observe that the chapter has been divided into nine sec
tions. Each of these contains a distinct and separate divi
sion of the apostle's argument, and may be examined by
itself and apart from the others.
I. Verses 1-11. — In this section the apostle reminds the
Corinthians of his first visit to their city, and of the doc
trines by which he awakened in their souls the principle of
spiritual Ufe. Salvation is attainable by Jew and Gentile
alike, but the essential condition of that salvation is faith in
Jesus Christ. Paul carried to Corinth what was, substan
tiaUy, a creed or confession of faith ; that creed consisted of
2C

402 APPENDIX.
two articles — the atoning death of the Son of God, and His
resurrection from the grave ; and through the acknowledg
ment of these the Corinthian believers were placed in a
salvable state. This he declares to be ro hayytXw b evriy-
yiXiguftriv — " the glad tidings which I preached," or, more
literally, " the Gospel which I gospelised." The expression
which follows, oY 6u xai eoiZfisk, has a shade of meaning
which does not appear in our ordinary translation. The
common idea associated with the term " saved" is "future"
salvation, or blessedness after death. But the word in ' the
original does not possess that meaning ; it relates exclusively
to the present, and properly signifies, " at present in a state
of security." In Acts, ii. 47, we find that those who were
added to the Church were called rovs aco^o/x,ivouc, implying
that by their faith in Jesus Christ, and so long as they con
tinued in that faith, they were safe, or secured against all
evil. This also is implied in the term xttnyiTt, which means
not only the act of memory but the exercise of faith. It is
to be noticed that the apostle's reasoning in this section
embraces a fuU acknowledgment of the inspiration of the
Old Testament Scriptures. The death, burial, and resur
rection of Christ are aU declared by him to he xura rag
ygapus. Among the passages to which he refers must
have been Isa. liii., Ps. xvi., and Dan. ix. Isa. xxvi. 19,
predicts the resurrection of the Messiah, and our Lord de
clares the history of Jonah to he a typical illustration of it.
When Paul in this section applies the term ixrgtafMx. to
denote his apostleship, we are not to imagine that he indi
cated thereby any doubt of his apostolic authority. This
could not be, as we find him elsewhere declaring that he was
"not one whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles."
But he aUudes to his enemies, of whom, apparently, he had
not a few. These might affirm him to be " an abortive
apostle," the term signifying " immature," or " born before
the time ; " but let these enemies caU him what they pleased,

APPENDIX.

403

he had seen the Lord and been commissioned by Him •
and the Church of Corinth was the fruit of his apostolic
teaching. II. Verses 12-18.— The apostle having in the above sec
tion set before the readers of his epistle an introduction or
preface, now enters more formally upon his argument. It
would appear that although he and the entire body of the
apostles had rested their Gospel appeals on a declaration of
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, yet there were
some in Corinth — nns, i.e., certain persons — who either
doubted or denied the resurrection of the dead. There is
little doubt but that this was the error of Hymeneus and
Philetus referred to in 2 Tim. ii. 18, who said " that the resur
rection was past already," and by such a saying " overthrew
the faith of some." They imagined, like many of the Gnos
tic heretics of a subsequent date, that the resurrection was a
spiritual thing; they identified it with Gospel conversion,
and affirmed that no other resurrection was to be looked for
than the spiritual quickening, which was initiated by Jesus
Christ, and was being carried out by the preaching of the
Word of God. In opposition to this, our apostle announces
a literal resurrection of the body. Such, he affirms, was the
resurrection of Christ ; such also will be the resurrection of
the saints. Nay, to deny this resurrection of the latter he
affirms to be tantamount to a denial of the resurrection of
the former, and that is neither more nor less than a denial of
Christianity altogether. Nothing can be stronger or more
striking than the language which he employs, and even the
minutim of his expressions are suggestive. The word uvae-
rusts, so often employed in this chapter, and elsewhere in
Scripture, to denote resurrection, properly signifies a " rising
up," as from a sitting to a standing posture, or from a condi
tion of prostration into which one has fallen, into a position
in which the body is erect. The thing raised is necessarily
the same in both cases ; only prostrate in the one case, erect

404 APPENDIX.
in the other. Applied to the resurrection of Christ, it is
avaeraei; ex ttxguv — that is to say, a resurrection " out from
amongst the dead," a resurrection which stiU leaves the great
body of the dead behind ; hut applied to the saints, it is
avaeToi.<si( vtxgom — that is, a resurrection of those very dead
persons whom Christ, when He rose, left in the grave behind
Him. To deny the literal resurrection of the saints is de
clared by the apostle to he antichristian. He who does so
must needs affirm that Christ is still in the grave, and from
thence it follows that the faith of Christians is vain — /xaraia,
that is, foolish or empty; all who have died axoiXovrai,
or, are extinguished ; and the earnest, persecuted, suffering
apostles and martyrs of Jesus Christ are ¦^/iv&ofiaPTv^s rou
&eo-o — that is, false mariyrs, or liars profanely using the name
of God in support of their falsehoods.
III. Verses 19-26. — The object of this paragraph is to
announce the ultimate and complete destruction of death.
Scripture, as well as the convictions of the human heart,
proclaims the urmaturalness of death. Previously to man's
creation, and as geologists inform us, from an inspection of
animal remains existing in the earth's strata of a very an
cient date, death may have existed ; but man was designed
to be an exception to the apparently universal law of physi
cal dissolution, and was created in order to live for ever.
The first man, however, sinned. He ate the forbidden fruit.
And, as if by that act, a physical virus was introduced into
the very root and stem of humanity, all mankind have been,
corporeally as well as spiritually, poisoned, and sooner or
later must die. Here, however, is the grand promise of reve
lation : through another Man the whole human race will be
resuscitated. This is the " mystery of godliness." There is
absolutely no meaning in Christianity unless this be taken
into account. The apostle sets rw ASa,a in opposition to ru
Xoiary; and the iruvrss who have died, — that is, aU who have
experienced physical dissolution in consequence of the sin of

APPENDIX. 405
the one, — are restored — fyo'jroiqgovrai, i.e., brought to life again
— in consequence of the righteousness of the other. Some time
or other, therefore, there will be a literal return to life of the
whole human species. The apostle, however, is careful to
let us know that that does not necessarily imply a simul
taneous resurrection. It is ixaeros ev tui idioj ray/j,an : that
is — the phrase being a military one — in successive cohorts,
regiments, or battalions. Pirst, Christ himself has risen
from the dead, and is the a«{^!) run xixoiwpewj, the first
sheaf of the great harvest — a beautiful allusion to an Old
Testament observance. The second instalment of the resur
rection will take place at Christ's second coming — tv rp
iragouaiy avrov ; and so the process will be carried on, it may
be, by many successive instalments, and these, for aught we
can tell, spread over vast amplitudes of time, until the whole
human race have been resuscitated. But the nXoc, the end
or consummation, will be the absolute annihilation of death,
and the setting up of an epoch of life. This, apparently, is
what is meant by the phrase brat -agaSui ttjh Bustteiav ry
&i(f>. Christ, the Son of God, will take charge of these suc
cessive acts of resuscitation until they are aU accomplished ;
and when the epoch of uniform and universal life is Tevealed,
the special work of the 0 Xoicros will be finished.
IV. Verses 27, 28. — In this short paragraph the apostle
makes one of the most sublime statements contained in all
Scripture. In the fewest words he announces that the
kingly supremacy of Jesus Christ, not over the Church
merely, but over the whole universe, is the ultimate end of
creation, providence, grace, and redemption. It is the divine
decree that the visible universe shall have a visible head ;
what is coming to pass under the present dispensation is fur
thering that object, and ultimately it will become a matter of
fact. The Son of God in human nature will be Lord of all
things ; His people kings and priests under Him ; and He
and they together ruling over aU things, and acknowledging

406 APPENDIX.
the supremacy of the invisible Godhead, will restore the
harmony of creation, and bring about that state of things in
which " God is all in all." We have here a glimpse of the
universe as it will be when sin and death are abolished, the
resurrection accomplished, and the final blessedness revealed.
This language reminds us of various sayings of our apostle
to be found elsewhere, as in Phil. ii. 10, where " things in
heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth," are
represented as subjected to Christ; and Col. i. 16, 17, where
we are informed that " by Him were all things created that
are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or
powers : all things were created by Him, and for Him : and
He is before aU things, and by Him all things consist." It
also reminds us of many of our Lord's sayings, such as that
remarkable one in Matt, xxviii. 18, "All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth." It is to be noticed that
the word translated " all things " has the article appended to
it — a circumstance not destitute of force ; it is not " aU
things " in a general sense, but ra iruvra, " the all things" —
that is, the whole universe of being. We are reminded by
it of the ancient expression to itm. The words with which
the section concludes, ha p b Qsos to. iruvra iv itusn, are very
remarkable. We cannot assign to them a pantheistic mean
ing, as if they affirmed that God is the universe, and that
the universe is God. But the truth they contain must needs
be this : that in the epoch of perfection which is coming,
every property of every material and spiritual object will be
nothing else than an expression of the divine will — God in
everything, and everything in God.
V. Verses 29-34. — It is quite impossible to quote here all
the interpretations which have been given of the phrase " bap
tised for the dead," stiU less to examine and disprove them.
The view given in our paraphrase appears to be the most
reasonable, and quite in accordance with the strain of the

APPENDIX. 407
apostle's argument.* He has already shown that the testi
mony borne by all the apostles to the literal resurrection of
Jesus Christ is virtuaUy a declaration in behalf of the Uteral
resurrection of aU His people; now he announces that the
ordinances of the Church, and the life to which Christians
are caUed, bear testimony with equal certainty to the same
effect. Our Lord has commanded the ordinance of baptism
to be administered; and so important is that ordinance
esteemed by the preachers of the Word, that it is administered
to dying persons. What is the meaning of this physical act
of baptism — that is, application of water to the body — if it
be not that these dying persons, these bodies about to be
dissolved in the grave, were destined to live again? More
over, the life to which Christians in those early times were
called, and that both by Christ himself and His apostles,
was a life of trial and suffering ; such a thing could not be
unless there were a hereafter — that is, a resurrection — and the
recompense of reward. The argument of the apostle assumes
that there is a profit — an opsXo; — in being a Christian, and, if
need be, even suffering torture and death for Christianity's
sake; but as the soul is not affected by death, such tangible
benefit or advantage — the true meaning of opsAos — there
would be none without a resurrection and a future life.
The integrity of man's being — not the soul merely, but also
the body — must share in this advantage, otherwise the Epi
curean maxim, " Let us eat and drink" — actions of the body
exclusively — " for to-morrow we die," would be true wisdom.
Doddridge translates the phrase bpiXiai xuxui by the words
" profane discourses ;" not inappropriately, inasmuch as it is
the erroneous speeches of the Corinthian heretics that the
apostle is condemning ; and the whole proverb, supposed to
be a line from the Greek dramatist Menander, he translates,
* For a fuller inquiry into the meaning of the phrase, "baptised for
the dead," see author's 'Discourses on Some of the most Difficult
Texts of Scripture,' p. 103.

408 APPENDIX.
" Good manners are debauched by talk profane." Most
authors consider the word s^o/oacsjojtfa, " I have fought with
beasts," as a metaphorical expression ; and such a view is
justified by the fact that Paul was protected by his Eoman
citizenship from so degrading a position ; and it is also doubt
ful whether this form of persecution against Christians had
been adopted at so early an era as that of the apostles. Mac-
knight translates the phrase txvri-^ari d/xaiue by the words,
"awake, as is fit;" and Doddridge, "awake, as becomes
righteous men," considering hixaioi to be a preferable reading.
It is obvious, from the whole of this paragraph, that the
apostle Paul regarded with utter repugnance and condemna
tion the tenets of those men who spoke of the resurrection of
the dead as anything else than what the expression in its
plain meaning implied. His whole reasoning involves the
idea of bodily restoration. Whatever fancies many, both in
ancient and modern times, might entertain relative to the
immortality of the soul, it is plain that our apostle had no
conception whatever of a future life, except that which was
based upon the ultimate immortality of the body.
VI. Verses 35-41. — In this paragraph the apostle com
mences the second great branch of his subject, in which be
describes, as fully as human language can do, the very tex
ture and constitution of man's immortal body. The queries
put by the deniers of a literal resurrection were apparently
two in number : " How are the dead raised up?" — a quasi-
triumphant declaration that the thing was an utter impossi
bility ; and, " With what body do they come ? " — as if such
a body, or anything like to it, could not be found in the
whole compass of nature. But in repelling such insinuations
the apostle resorts to the argument from analogy. It is the
only one he could use, for hitherto the human race have had
no actual and general experience of such a thing as resurrec
tion. He affirms, however, that in the ordinary operations
of nature, and in all the departments of the universe, vege-

APPENDIX.

409

table, animal, and even mineral, there were phenomena sug
gestive of its possibility, and which tended to render it a
thing far less strange than otherwise it would have been.
The seed has a principle of life in it which constrains it to
develop into a corn-stalk, flower, or tree. Nature indulges
in multiplied forms of animal life — cattle, birds, and fishes ;
and indeed the whole universe together abounds in different
varieties of glorious objects. Eor man, therefore, whom we
now find existing in an earthly and mortal state, to pass into
a heavenly and immortal state, was a process quite in accord
ance with the analogies of nature with which we are at pre
sent quite familiar. The word apoov, rendered by our trans
lators " thou fool," is not a term of disrespect; it means only
" inconsiderate " or " thoughtless." The word cSi/Ma, occur
ring so frequently in this paragraph, and indeed throughout
the chapter, means essentially and properly " any material
substance." Matter, with its tangible and other properties,
is its very essence. Now the careful reader of the original
will notice that the apostle uses the term in connection with
all the objects to which he refers. The seed is a eSifta, but so
also is the plant which springs from it ; the earthly bodies
are au^ara, but so also are the heavenly. It is impossible,
therefore, to evade the conclusion, that man in his immortal
state will be as much a au/j,a, — that is, as truly material as he
was before. The three terms, eui/ia, ffosgg, So^a, — i.e., "body,"
" flesh," and " glory " — are suggestive. They are tantamount,
to a declaration that man in his resurrection state, or state of
perfection, will be clothed in a body of flesh, only glorified.
VII. Verses 42-49. — The object of this paragraph is still
more fully to describe the contrast betwixt our humanity as
it exists at present, and that humanity when it is glorified
hereafter. Having at considerable length discussed that
subject in the preceding Discourses, and with some degree of
criticism, I need not enlarge upon it here. In describing
man in his present state, the apostle uses the words <p6oea,

410 APPENDIX.
a.Ti[t,ia, uahma, •4't/%/xoi' — that is to say, " corruption, dis
honour, weakness, animalism;" but to describe his future
state he uses the words a<p6aggia, do%a, duvct/jug, vrvev/iarixot —
that is to say, " incorruptibility, glory, strength, spirituality;"
but the subject possessed of these attributes is in both cases
the same — that is to say, the gZ/ia of the first series is essen
tially and literally the eu/^a of the second. The do%a here
attributed to the resurrection body obtains illustration from
Dan. xii. 3, where it is written, " They that be wise shall
shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn
many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever ; " also
from the scene of our Lord's transfiguration, Matt. xvii. 2,
where we are told that " His face did shine as the sun, and
His raiment was white as the light ;" also from the glorious
spectacle revealed to the apostle in Patmos, as described in
Eev. i. Nor is the fact without significancy, that amongst
all nations, in all times, and in all circumstances and condi
tions of life, mankind have ever displayed a disposition to
beautify and adorn their persons. Kings have their jewelled
diadems and sceptres, judges and nobles their ermined and
silken robes, heroes their glittering orders, and all, besides,
their handsome and even elaborately-decorated attire. The
contrast here spoken of is most graphically described by the
comparison of the uxoiv tou %oixov, and the ttxuv rov siiouqaviov —
the former expression alluding to Adam, the latter to Christ.
The former, having been created, grew old and finally died ;
the latter, having grown from childhood to maturity and
died, rose from the dead, and entered into a state of per
manent glory. It is to be remembered that the whole para
graph relates to the pious dead alone, the apostle in his
argument having no reference whatever to the finally re
probate. VIII. Verses 50-53. — The great difficulty of this para
graph is the proper interpretation of the phrase gag% xai
alpa, or " flesh and blood." Some have actually gone the

APPENDIX. 41 1
length of maintaining that the fact which is described in this
place is the utter extinction of the materialism of the human
frame, and that the resurrection body will, in consequence,
be totally devoid of organs of sensation. But it seems to me
that the apostle has no sooner used the phrase than he sup
plies himself the interpretation. The ffag^ xai a7/j,a and the
fiagiXsiav 0eou are evidently the parallel of n fbooa and tt\v a
(pQaegiav. What he means, therefore, by "flesh and blood"
is, not thes.e constituents of the human body, but the state of
corruption" and carnality in which at present they are in
volved. This view of the phrase is still further confirmed
by the 53d verse, which affirms that to (pdagrov tovto — that is,
the body which at present is in a state of corruption, — and to
hr\Tov tovto — that is, the body which at present is in a state of
mortality or liability to death, — is destined at length ivdvgagDai
atpDuooiav and ivdugaatlui c/Javagiuv — that is to say, put on or
be clothed in incorruption and immortality. The subject
or body is the same in both cases, like a man considered as
divested of his clothing : but in the one state the clothing
is tattered, mean, and falling to pieces ; in the other state it
is perfect, durable, and radiant with beauty. The reader will
find in the Discourses a fuller examination of the phrase.
IX. Verses 54-58. — This is the glowing peroration of this
incomparable portion of the Word of God. Again, by using
the word svoWjjra/, and that repeatedly, the apostle most dis
tinctly intimates, that however great the changes may be
which the resurrection will effect on the human body, these
changes are merely in circumstantials, and no more destroy
its distinct corporeity than a change of dress makes the body
different to-day from what it was yesterday. This also is
implied in the expression xanmQn b ISavaroc. It is not the
body, nor the material properties and constitution of the
body, but merely " death," that is swallowed up ; in other
words, the identical body, which was mortal or dying in the
first stage of its existence, becomes immortal or undying in

412 APPENDIX.
the second. In connection with this subject aUusion may be
made to the remarkable expression b itvngos 8ct.va.ros, " the
second death," repeatedly occurring in the Book of the Eeve
lation. This is spoken of the wicked. Whereas the redeemed
people of God are eternally delivered from death, or in their
case death is " swaUowed up ; " the wicked, even after their
resurrection, are made to die again — a death from which
there is no resurrection. To investigate the meaning of this
deurigog davarog would require the space of a special disser
tation. 'Adris, like the corresponding Hebrew Sheol, may
contain an aUusion to the grave, the sepulchre or tomb of
the body ; but, in conformity with classical usage, it rather
denotes the abode or home of the separated spirit during
the interval betwixt death and the resurrection. The word
means properly the " unseen world," — that region which is
occupied by beings and influences which man's present senses
and powers are not capable of making him cognisant of.
But if man enters this region at death, and so ahris obtains
a victory or vixos over him, the only meaning we can attach
to the apostle's exclamation, <xou sov ady ro vixos, or the disso
lution of that victory, is the return of man, in the integrity
of his being, within the region of the visible and material to
which he formerly belonged.

THE END.

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