Brainard at thirty, Mills at thirty-one, Martyn at thirty-two, or others, who, in the dew of their youth, have suddenly been called away. Is it without foresight on the part of God? Is it from a want of economy that he withdraws laborers just as they step into the whitened field? Aside from the sanctified influence of their deaths upon survivors here, are they not serving God far more efficiently in his temple above? Have they not been transferred to just that station of heavenly activity for which they were prepared? Is any of the knowledge, or enterprise, or sagacity, acquired here, of no avail there, where all energies are tasked to the utmost? Who knows best where the servants of God can do most for him and his church? 18* CHAPTER XV. RESURRECTION BODY. Shall I be left abandoned in the dust, No; heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrive, And man's majestic beauty bloom again, Bright through the eternal year of love's triumphant reign. BEATTIE. THERE are four grand epochs in the history of every sinner saved by Christ. The first is that of natural birth, by which event another being, fearfully and wonderfully made, commences an existence that shall never end, yet under auspices dark and fearful, inheriting disease within, discomforts without, and displeasure from above. The second epoch is that of the new birth, when this heir of sin and wrath becomes an heir of God; when the disordered soul, oppressed by the bonds of sin, is renewed and disenthralled, translated from the domain of Satan, naturalized in a new kingdom, united intimately and indissolubly with the Lord Jesus Christ. The third epoch is that of natural death; the termination of this probationary period, the separation of body and soul for a season, -the one returning to earth as it was, the other to God, free from sin, and sharing in all the blessedness possible till the last epoch, that of resurrection, which consummates the whole. By that event we understand the reproduction, at the last day, of the same bodies formerly occupied, and the reünion of the soul of each saint with his own body, thus raised and glorified. We understand not a new creation, not the calling into existence of a body formed from substances which did not enter into the old; we understand not an indiscriminate occupation of tenements supplied at Christ's summons, but the refitting of the tabernacle of each believer for the everlasting inhabitation of his own spirit; neither of them, nor the united whole, having lost its identity. This doctrine appears to have passed, insensibly and extensively, from the thoughts and the literature of the Christian public; yet it is a fundamental article in our faith. To strike it out is to remove the corner-stone from the Gospel fabric. "Because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not, 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." It is the spirit of infidelity, alone, which can set aside the doctrine of a future resurrection, and which, carried out consistently, would overthrow the whole Gospel system. There is no gainsaying the apostle's summary logic: if Christians rise not, Christ rose not; if Christ rose not, he and his apostles are false witnesses; we are out upon the gloomy, trackless sea of scepticism. This is one of the test truths of our religion, because it is purely a doctrine of revelation. The human mind, left to itself, would, probably, never have conjectured such a thing. Nature, unaided, is not only dim, but wholly dark upon this point ; and when its possibility is suggested, speculation is far more likely to reject this than the doctrine of the soul's immortality. As, then, this article of our belief is exclusively one of revelation, we are to go at once, and with unhesitating confidence, to the Holy Scriptures. “Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life." (John 6 40.) "And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day." The clause, " and I will raise him up at the last day," is repeated in the 44th and 54th verses, and one similar in the 39th. "And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust." "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 resurrection 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." These passages establish the fact that at the close of this dispensation there will be a resurrection of all the righteous dead, who shall come forth from their graves as certainly as Christ did from his. Special stress is laid upon the event of Christ's resurrection, in proof of the resurrection of believers. "But now is Christ raised from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept." Before him no one had come from the grave without being |