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the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body 1.”

There is a respect due to our mortal body, as it is the shell of our immortal soul. The holy apostle is indignant at the misuse of so valuable a possession. "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid "." But there are other modes of polluting our mortal body. Evil thoughts and evil words, as well as evil actions, desecrate the temple of the Holy Ghost. Doubtless, these bold bad intruders may come into the mind unsought. The danger is in harbouring such unworthy guests. The grace of God, to be sought for by diligent prayer, is the only method for their expulsion. "Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of man"."

May the consolation arising from this holy doctrine soothe my soul in its passage through the world! Let me look upon the departure of my friends as happy messengers to another country, and let me expect our reunion at the Lord's season. I am setting forward on the same journey, sweetly conducted by the same angel of the covenant. "All the days of my appointed time will I wait until my change come ;" and then, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus 5 !"

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1 2 Cor. iv. 10.

4 Job xiv. 14.

2 2 Cor. vi. 15.

3 Matt. xvi. 23.

5 Rev. xxii. 20.

IV. A spiritual resurrection.

WHOSOEVER reflects upon a future state with reference to himself, as every one must do who believes the Gospel, an intense interest must be excited in his breast. He cannot be neuter in his own salvation. There are two prospects before him, under this view, which must necessarily be the case, if man be an accountable creature. The great prophet of the Jews places this in strong language before a large concourse of his own people. "See! I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.—I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him '." The pious Jew heard these words and trembled. A dread alternative was before him; though in his mind temporal prosperity might preponderate. But there was a prophet even among the Jews who rivets the warning voice upon a higher motive. The prophet Daniel says, Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth

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1 Deut. xxx. 15. 19, 20.

shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt '."

The revealed doctrine of a resurrection removes every doubt on this awful subject, at the same time that it applies the feelings both of hope and fear to every believing heart. But feelings such as these must have a stable foundation, otherwise they will be driven away as stubble before the wind. Deliberate, and determine. The resurrection of our Lord, the restoration of lifeless clay to sense and reason, to vital energy and animation, the sound argument for the identity of our mortal body in an immortal state, all contribute to assure us that there is no man who ever lived, who now lives, or shall hereafter be born, who is not personally and vitally concerned in this great inquiry.

Yet

As mortality is a daily occurrence, we see the grave opened, and soon closed upon the dead; and, except on some trying occasions of the loss of friends, with very little disturbance of home-comfort. ought this to be so, when we are ourselves yet trembling on the ground which yields to every footstep? We know this well, but view it as we do the procession-" Come like shadows, so depart." But here we are arrested by a very serious thought; What! if there be two deaths and two resurrections? one, of short duration, the other extending into a long eternity:

1 Dan. xii. 2.

expressed, on the fair side, in the benediction of St. John, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection,-on such the second death hath no power." But why hath the second death no power over such? Because they have been previously the happy objects of a spiritual resurrection. Let no one fancy that because spiritual, such a state is unattainable. The steps are plain that lead to it. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body 2." There is an analogy in this respect between this world and the next.

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Here we have a soul implanted

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in a mortal body. If the soul dies, woe unto the whole man. But it is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing". Man is said to consist of spirit, and soul, and body. But the spirit, or breath of man, is far different from the breath of God. " What man knoweth the things of a man, save the man which is in him? even so the things knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." It is the Spirit of God which searcheth all things, and hence the origin of a spiritual resurrection. There is therefore a death unto sin, and a resurrection unto righteousness. Christ is the connecter of every holy union, and joins the two worlds by the medium of himself. "No man," says he, "cometh unto the Father but by me 5." "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture "."

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But there are those who will be partakers of a first resurrection, who will, alas! fall under a second death. These are they who may be said to have no Saviour, because they have rejected him. He offered to redeem their souls by the sacrifice of himself; they, like the multitude of the Gadarenes, besought him to depart from them.

This, indeed, seems strange to eyes that have ever looked on heaven. Yet he that meditates on the true state of man, who considers him in a state of nature, and in a state of grace, will perhaps cease his astonishment. A short recollection will settle the difficulty. 1. There is a death of the soul, as well as a death of the body. This is implied in the expression of a second death. There could not have been a second death, unless there had been a first. We know that in the book of the revelation of St. John, where the expression will be found, it may be interpreted figuratively, as in fact, the soul never dies; but under the dominion of sin, it loses its vital functions, and, therefore, in various passages of Scripture, a wicked man is said to be past feeling, dead in sin, like a tree whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; in short, deprived of that spark which giveth life to the man. St. Paul says, He that liveth in pleasure, is dead while he liveth. This, as to common practice, explains the whole. Man has been in this case ever since the day of his primary disobedience: and in this state he could no

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