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rits, who, "knoweth whereof we are made, who "numbers the very hairs of our head, and without whose knowledge, not even a sparrow falleth to the ground ";" he, in whom we "live and move, and have our being," knows all the parts of which our bodies are composed. Our dust may rest in the sepulchres, where repose our fathers; or exposed in some distant land, to the winds of heaven, may be dispersed through the earth. Our bodies may be guarded by the piety of our posterity, in the splendid tomb; or placed beyond the reach of their pious affection, may become the prey of the tenants of the ocean. Still, however placed, and wherever dispersed, the Eternal whose, eye reacheth through the whole heavens, and searcheth the foundations of the earth, watches over our dust. And he knoweth, where, every particle necessary to constitute our bodies is placed; and by what means it may be recalled to its former station, in our mortal frame.

And to this knowledge which is infinite, he adds power which is unlimited. Once he spake; and the dust of the ground moved with life. Once he commanded; and man, erect in his stature, beautiful in his frame, started from the earth. Again, that voice which shakes the heavens, and the earth, shall be heard. And the dust shall again

d Ps. ciii. 14.

Matt. x. 29.

Acts xvii. 28.

move with life. Bone shall come to its bone; sinew to its sinew; flesh to its flesh; and the fiat of the Eternal shall invest the soul with the body changed indeed, and glorified, but the body in which she once journeyed on her mortal pilgrimage.

Knowledge that is infinite, power that is unlimited, belong unto the Eternal.-Why should it be thought incredible, that he should raise the dead?

2. The resurrection of the dead is not then impossible. The analogy of nature and reason renders it probable.

The glo

All nature exhibits a resurrection. rious luminary of day, sinks into the night of the grave, and again rises, to run his joyous race. Summer hastens to bury her luxuriance, in the cold sepulchre of Winter. Nature dies, and is entombed. But again she lives, and grows, and flourishes, and sheds forth her beauties in the morn of Spring. The seed that is sown in the earth, rots, and apparently perishes-but it revives and sends forth its vigorous shoots, yielding sustenance, diffusing fragrance and delight.

And is man the noblest of the works of God, to know no resurrection? Is the sun of his being never to rise from the night of the grave? Are his joys extinguished in the gloom of Winter, never to feel the reviving freshness of Spring? And less favored even than the seed that is cast

into the earth, is his mortal part never to escape from the embrace of corruption? There is no consistency in nature, no consistency nor justice in its author, if there be not a resurrection of the dead.

For why should he connect with a soul that is to live for ever, a body which so soon perishes, and lives not as long as that of many of the beasts of the field? Why should he have connected this body with the soul, by ties so intimate and tender, that the agony of death only can rend them asunder, if the separation is to be forever? And why is the body, which has shared with the soul her joys and sorrows, and has been the instrument of her virtues and her vices, forever to leave its spiritual companion the moment she is entering that final state of being, where her virtues are to be rewarded in the perfection of her joys, and her vices to be punished in the filling up of the measure of her sorrows? The analogy of reason and nature seems to require that the body, like the soul, should live forever.

3. But what the nature of the thing, and the knowledge and power of God, prove possible; what, the analogy of reason and nature suggests to be probable-revelation renders certain.

Open those oracles which God has given as a light to our footsteps, through this vale of darkness, as our guide to the bright scenes of a future world; and we shall find the truth so triumphant

and consoling, that "our corruptible, shall put on
incorruption, and our mortal, immortality," confirm-
ed beyond the possibility of doubt. It was this
prospect of a glorious resurrection, that shed the
beams of joy, on the shades of sorrow, that enve-
loped the afflicted Job. "I know that my Re-
deemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the lat-
ter day upon the earth, and though after my skin,
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I
see God"."

With the hope of a resurrection, Isaiah con-
soled the afflicted people of Israel. "Thy dead
men shall live, together with my dead body shall
they arise awake and sing, ye that dwell in the
dust: for thy dew, is as the dew of the herbs,
and the earth shall cast out the dead f."

By the mouth of the Prophet Hosea, the Mes-
siah declares, "I will ransom them from the
grave: I will redeem them from death. O death,
I will be thy plague; O grave, I will be thy de-
struction "."

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With the prediction of this triumphant event,
Daniel closed that awful roll of prophecy, which
unfolded the momentous changes that awaited
the world. Many of them that sleep in the dust
of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and some to shame and everlasting contempt "."
When he who was the resurrection and the life

• Job xix. 25.

f Is. xxvi. 19.

Daniel xii. 12.

Hos. xvi. 14.

came, that Messiah who was to bruise the head of the serpent, and to triumph over death and the grave; this truth of the resurrection of the dead, was established by illustrious examples, and by declarations clear and forcible. The daughter of Jairus restored to life from the bed which was wet with the tears of sorrow for her departure'; the young man raised from the bier on which they were carrying him to burial, and restored to his disconsolate mother; the restoration of Lazarus from the grave, where he had already begun to see corruption, to the embraces of friendship and affection-these were the examples, by which Jesus proclaimed his divine power, as "the resurrection and the life." "The hour is coming," said the Saviour and the judge of the world, "in which all that are in the graves, shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation "."

m

Awful hour! when the ancient of days shall come forth, his garment white as snow, the hair of his head like pure wool, having on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords-Thousand thousands standing before him, and ten thousand times ten thousand ministering unto him-when the angel set

i Mat. v. 22.

* Luke vii. 11.
m John v. 29.

1 John xi. 5.

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