loyalty to God and his sacred laws; threatened perhaps with dangers and suffering terrifying to human nature; or soothed and flattered by the more dangerous blandishments of ease and soft indulgence, to give ourselves wholly up to them, instead of devoting ourselves, after the example of our Lord, to serve others, and to promote virtue and holiness, and the knowledge of God among men ;-we are to watch always, that we be not surprised so as to fall by the temptation, and to exert all our powers in the noble contest: a contest, not for crowns, or sceptres, or worldly dignities, or false pleasures, which leave a bitterness behind them but to be great in the sight of God, and to taste of those pleasures that are at his right hand for ever more, which flow from an increasing knowledge of his works and of himself, the source of all excellence and felicity; and from the improving society of the wise and good, the spirits of just men made perfect; and from various other avenues, whereby he is capable of making his favoured creatures happy, unknown to us at present, and most probably incomprehensible by us.

;

And thus, our lives formed and governed by the precepts of the gospel, and animated

VOL. II.

K

by

by Christ's example to overcome the world and the evil of it, his resurrection and victory over death are a pledge and assurance of our own. And of that fact itself we have every desirable evidence, of which our apostle gives us a short summary in his entrance on the subject before us.

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Pretended philosophers may ask, as some he tells us did very early, (ver. 35.) "How are the dead raised up; and with what body do they come?" and may deny the possibility of it. We have met with many of this cast. But in Christ we have a proof from fact of the dead being made alive, level to the capa cities of the lowest among the unlearned, and satisfactory to the most scrupulous and inquisitive. And, by being raised to life, exactly according to his own prediction, the truth of the gospel had a further seal set to it by Almighty God, and the future resurrection of all men confirmed, of which he had so often declared himself to be the intended instrument. (John vi. 40.) "This is the will of him that sent me: That every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, (i. e. who receive and follow my holy doctrine,) may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the

last

last day." (Ver. 28, 29.) "Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation."

Suffer me further to remark to you, that there is a peculiar satisfaction and greater confidence of our own being to be raised to life, resulting from our Lord being a man as we are. Had he been one of the angelic order, or a mighty preexistent spirit, he might be supposed by his own energy and power to have raised the body to which he was confined. Nor could his resurrection, then, be so properly called a pattern of ours: St. Paul, therefore, is careful to inform us, that (ver. 20.) "since by man came death, by

man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as by Adam all die, so by Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order. Christ, the first fruits; afterwards, they that are Christ's at his coming." i. e. As all the descendants of Adam die and follow the fate of their first parent, as partaking of his imperfect constitution; so all the faithful followers of Christ shall, after him, be restored

to life, and be conformed to the image of their glorious leader. But each one in his natural order. Christ, as the first fruits of slumbering dust, and the earnest of a plentiful harvest in the first place; afterwards, all his true disciples, who shall be raised to life at the time of his second appearance, at the day of judge

ment.

At which period, what most concerns us, all those in particular to whom the gospel has been made known, and who have embraced it, and sincerely laboured to act up to its to its precepts, shall be publicly acquitted and honoured by the great appointed judge, who has declared, (Luke xii. 8.) "Whosoever shall confess me before men, shall not be ashamed of the truth of my religion, notwithstanding all the discouragement he may meet with in the world, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I deny before my Father which is in heaven."

But, as hinted before, the apostle speaks not in this chapter of the resurrection of all mankind in common, good and bad, but only of the resurrection of righteous persons, Christ's true followers. And though he calls it The

resur

resurrection of the dead, he explains himself, that it is the dead in Christ only, or true christians, that he intends.

Of the wicked, who were afterwards to be made alive, how they were to be raised, or what was to become of them, he says nothing, as being beside his purpose; which was to ascertain to all true believers a happy resurrection by the resurrection of Christ, and thereby to engage the Corinthians, to whom he writes, to be steady in the truth, in full assurance that their labour would not be in vain.

IV.

We may now, in the last place, consider the prospect which the sincere christian will have of death, when placed upon this advantageous ground.

Wide as the empire of that fell destroyer of mankind still remains, and will remain, we shall not view death as an evil, or any thing hostile to us, but as a kind appointment of the heavenly Father, for those who have here no abiding place, to hinder us from fixing our hearts too much upon it.

And as all the distinctions of this world, titles, riches, dignities, drop at the grave and

go