duced, such as Acts xxiv. 15, "And have hope towards God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." And Job xix. 26, 27, "And though after my skin, worms destroy this body; yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me." But I need not multiply testimonies, in a matter so clearly and frequently taught in the sacred scripture. Our Lord and Saviour himself proves it, against the Sadducees in that remarkable text, Luke xx. 37, 38, "Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: For he is not a God of the dead but of the living, for all live unto him." These holy patriarchs were now dead; nevertheless, the LORD JEHOVAH is called their GOD, namely, in virtue of the covenant of grace, and in the sense thereof; in which sense, the phrase comprehends all blessedness, as that which by the covenant, is secured to them who are in it, Heb. xi. 16, "God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city." He is not called the God of their souls only, but their God, the God of their persons, souls, and bodies; the which, by virtue of his truth and faithfulness, must have its full effect; now it cannot have its full effect on the dead, who, in as far as they are dead, are far from all blessedness; but on the living, who alone are capable of it: therefore, since God is still called their God, they are living in respect of God, although their bodies are yet in the grave; for in respect of him, who by his power can restore them to life, and in his covenant has declared his will and purpose so to do, and whose promise cannot fail, they all are to be reckoned to live: and, consistent with the covenant, their death is but a sleep, out of which, in virture of the same covenant, securing all blessedness to their persons, their whole man, they must and shall certainly be awakened. The Apostle Paul proves the resurrection at large, 1 Cor. xv. and shows it to be a fundamental article, the denial whereof is subversive of Christianity, ver. 13, 14, “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."

To assist us in conceiving of it, the scripture gives us types of the resurrection of the dead; as the dry bones living, Ezek. xxxvii. Jonah's coming out of the whale's belly, Matth. xii. 40. And nature affords us emblems and resemblances of it, as the sun's setting and rising again; night and day, winter and summer, sleeping and awaking; swallows in winter lying void of

all appearance of life, in ruinous buildings, and subterraneous caverns, and reviving again in the spring season; the seeds dying under the clod, and thereafter springing up again: all which, and the like, may justly be admitted, as designed by the God of nature, though not for proofs, yet for memorials of the resurrection; whereof we have assurance from the scripture, 1 Cor. xv. 36, "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die."

II. I shall inquire into the nature of the resurrection, showing, 1. Who shall be raised. 2. What shall be raised. 3. How the dead shall be raised.

FIRST, Who shall be raised? Our text tells us who they are; namely, "All that are in the graves," i. e. all mankind, who are dead. As for those persons who shall be found alive at the second coming of Christ, they shall not die and soon thereafter be raised again; but such a change shall suddenly pass upon them, as shall be to them instead of dying and rising again: so that their bodies shall become like to those bodies which are raised out of the graves, 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." Hence these who are to be judg ed at the great day, are distinguished into quick and dead, Acts x. 42. All the dead shall arise, whether godly or wicked, just or unjust, (Acts xxiv. 16,) old or young; the whole race of mankind, even these who never saw the sun, but died in their mother's belly, Rev. xx. 12. "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God." The sea and earth shall give up their dead, without reserve, none shall be kept back.

SECONDLY, What shall be raised? The bodies of mankind. A man is said to die when the soul is separated from the body, "and returns unto God who gave it," Eccles. xii. 7. But it is the body only which is laid in the grave, and can be properly said to be raised: wherefore the resurrection is, strictly speaking, competent to the body only. Moreover, it is the same body that dies, which shall rise again. At the resurrection, men shall not appear with other bodies, for substance, than these which they now have, and which are laid down in the grave, but with the self-same bodies, endowed with other qualities. The very notion of a resurrection implies this, since nothing can be said to rise again, but that which falls. But to illustrate it a little, First, it is plain from scripture-testimony. The Apostle tells, it is "this mortal which must put on immortality," 1 Cor. xv. 53, and that Christ "shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body," Philip. iii. 21. Death, in scripture-language is a sleep; and the resurrection

an awaking out of that sleep, Job xiv. 12, which shows the body rising up, to be the self-same that died. Secondly, The equity of the divine procedure, both with respect to the godly and the wicked, evinces this. It is not reckoned equal among men, that one do the work and another get the reward. Though the glorifying of the bodies of the saints be not, properly speaking, and in a strict sense, the reward of their services or sufferings on earth: yet this is evident, that it is not at all agreeable to the manner of the divine dispensation, that one body serve him, and another be glorified: that one fight and another receive the crown. How can it be imagined that the temples of the Holy Ghost (as these bodies of believers are termed, 1 Cor. vi. 19,) should always lie in rubbish, and others be reared up in their stead. That these members of Christ (ver. 15,) shall perish utterly, and other bodies come in their room? Nay, surely, as these bodies of the saints now bear a part in glorifying God, and some of them suffer in his cause; so they shall partake of the glory that is to be revealed. And these bodies. of the wicked, which are laid in the dust, shall be raised again; that the same body which sinned may suffer. Shall one body sin here, and another suffer in hell for that sin? Shall that body, which was the soul's companion in sin, lie for ever hid in the dust; and another body, which did not act any part in sinning, be its companion in torment? No, no: it is that body which now takes up all their thoughts to provide for its back and belly, that shall be raised up to suffer in hell. It is that tongue that is now the swearing, lying tongue, which will need water to cool it in eternal flames. These same feet, that now stand in the way of sinners, and carry men in their ungodly courses, shall stand in the burning lake. And these now covetous and lascivious eyes, shall take part in the fire and smoke of the pit.

THIRDLY, HOW the dead shall be raised. The same Jesus, who was crucified without the gates of Jerusalem, shall at the last day, to the conviction of all, be declared both Lord and Christ; appearing as Judge of the world, attended with his mighty angels, 2 Thess. i. 7, he "shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God," 1 Thess. iv. 16. "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, and these who are alive, changed,' 1 Cor. xv. 52. Whether this shout, voice, and trumpet do denote some audible voice, or only the workings of divine power, for the raising of the dead, and other awful purposes of that day, (though the former seems probable) I will not positively determine. There is no question but this coming of the Judge of the world, will be in greater majesty and terror than we can

conceive; yet that awful grandeur, majesty, and state, which was displayed at the giving of the law, viz. "thunders heard, lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount seen, the Lord descending in fire, the whole mount quaking greatly, and the voice of the trumpet waxing louder and louder," (Ezek. xix. 16, 18, 19,) may help forward a becoming thought of it. However, the sound of this trumpet shall be heard all the world over; it shall reach to the depths of the sea, and into the bowels of the earth. At this loud alarm, bones shall come together, bone to his bone: the scattered dust of all the dead, shall be gathered together, dust to his dust: "neither shall one thrust another, they shall walk every one in his path:" and meeting together again, shall make up that very same body, which crumbled into dust in the grave. And at the same alarming voice, shall every soul come again into its own body, never more to be separated. The dead can stay no longer in their graves, but must bid an eternal farewell to their long homes: they hear his voice, and must come forth, and receive their final sentence.

Now, as there is a great difference betwixt the godly and the wicked in their life, and in their death, so will there be also in their resurrection.

The godly shall be raised up out of their graves, by virtue of the Spirit of Christ, the blessed bond of their union with him, Rom. viii. 11, "He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Jesus Christ arose from the dead, as the first fruits of them that slept, 1 Cor. xv. 20. So they that are Christ's shall follow at his coming, ver. 23. The mystical Head having got above the waters of death, he cannot but bring forth the members after him in due time.

They shall come forth with inexpressible joy: for then shall that passage of scripture, which, in its immediate scope, respected the Babylonish captivity, be fully accomplished in its extensive spiritual view, Isa. xxvi. 19, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust." As a bride adorned for her husband, goes forth of her bed chamber unto the marriage; so shall the saints go forth of their graves, unto the marriage of the Lamb. Joseph had a joyful out-going from the prison; Daniel from the lion's den; and Jonah from the whale's belly; yet these are but faint representations of the saints out-going from the grave at the resurrection. Then shall they sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb in highest strains; death being quite swallowed up in victory. They had, while in this life, sometimes sung by faith, the triumphant song over death and the grave, "O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?

(1 Cor. xv. 55.) But when they sing the same, from sight and sense, the black band of doubts and fears, which frequently disturned them, and disquieted their minds, is forever cashiered.

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May we not suppose the soul and body of every saint, as in mutual embraces, to rejoice in each other, and triumph in their happy meeting again? And may not one imagine the body to address the soul thus? "O my soul, have we got together again, after so long a separation! art thou come back into the old habitation, never more to remove! O joyful meeting! how unlike is our present state to what our case was when a separation was made betwixt us at death! now is our mourning turned into joy; the light and gladness sometimes sown, are now sprung up; and there is perpetual spring in IMMANUEL'S land. Blessed be the day, in which I was united to thee, whose chief care was to get Christ in us, the hope of glory, and to make me a temple for his Holy Spirit. O blessed soul, which in the time of our pilgrimage, kept thine eye on the land then afar off, but now near at hand! thou tookest me up in secret places, and there madest me bow these knees before the Lord, that I might bear a part in our humiliations before him: and now is the due time, and I am lifted up. Thou didst employ this tongue in confessions, petitions, and thanksgivings which henceforth shall be employed in praising for evermore. Thou madest these (sometimes) weeping eyes sow that seed of tears, which is now sprung up in joy that shall never end. I was happily beat down by thee, and kept in subjection; while, others pampered their flesh, and made their bellies their God, their own destruction: and, now I gloriously arise, to take my place in the mansions of glory; whilst they are dragged out of their graves, to be cast into fiery flames. Now, my Soul, thou shalt complain no more of a sick and pained body; thou shalt be no more clogged with weak and weary flesh: I shall now hold peace with thee in the praises of our God for evermore. And may not the soul say? O happy day, in which I return to dwell in that blessed body, which was, and is, and will be for ever, a member of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit! now shall I be eternally knit to thee; the silver cord shall never be losed more: death shall never make another separation betwixt us. Arise then, my body, and come away: and let these eyes which served to weep over my sins, behold now with joy the face of our glorious Redeemer; Lo! this is our God, and we have waited for him. Let these ears which served to hear the word of life, in the temple below, come now and hear the hallelujahs in the temple above. Let these feet, that carried me to the congregation of saints on