Concerning the question, "Whose wife shall she be of the seven ?" he only says, There is no longer husband or wife after this state. In the other state they neither marry nor are given in marriage. But as touching the revival of the dead, their living again, or being still alive, after death, have you not read, said he, what God declared to you, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. "God," continues he, "is not a God of the dead, but of the living." This, then, proves that the dead are now alive; but it does not prove the resurrection of the body. It proves what Luke adds to his version of this parable, that "they all (though dead) are alive to God." The Sadducees were silenced-the Pharisees triumphed. Both parties saw and felt the point of the Messiah's refutation; but on the hypothesis that this relates to the special question of the resurrec. tion of the body, where is the proof?! Jesus does not say that God is the God of those that are dead, but who shall hereafter live; but he is the God of the living: yes, the LIVING—those now in life. The conclusion is inevitable, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob are now living-"though dead to us, they are alive to God." And if Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, are now living, the revival of the dead is certain, and Sadduceeism is an error.

The Pharisees, to a man, felt that Jesus was on their side and against their opponents. Paul, too, confessed that he was a Pharisee on these questions; and, so far as these matters extend, all Christians may be Pharisees, and be blameless. But we have not yet dismissed the parable. Jesus gave the whole three points of Sadduceeism a fatal blow. While he struck at the root, he also cut the branches. The revival of the dead is proved by a natural comment on what God said to Moses at the burning bush. The resurrection of the body is also clearly asserted, and vindicated from the difficulties growing out of marriage and fleshly relations. And that angels are immortal spirits, is most unequivocably asserted. And here we ought to remark that the Sadducees had no objection to angels, provided only that they were not spirits. for they would say, that the winds and lightnings were God's angels; that the plague that slew the first born of Egypt was an angel, but not a spirit. Their sectarian antipathy was against spirits—against disembodied spirits

against immortal spirits. They denied angels as immortal spirits. They regarded the sirocco, the simoom, the plague, the tempest, the fire, the flood, as angels of God; but those angels that were spirits, immortal spirits, they could not explain, and would not admit. That a man had a soul and a spirit they also admitted, but that either could exist in a disembodied or separate state, they positively denied. Their opposition to angels and human spirits is found in the idea of their immortality. It is one and the same objection against an angel and a disembodied living spirit. They were both immortal, and that implied a future state- -a state of rewards and punishments; and against this the Sadducean spirit revolted. Here lay the secret of all their antipathies. Jesus, then, in the parable asserts the resurrection of the body, proves the revival of the dead, and declares the immortality of the angels: for in Luke's version of this parable, he quotes from the Saviour these words, omitted by Matthew and Mark: "Neither can the raised saints die any more; for they are equal to the angels." Angels, then, cannot die. But why can. not angels die? Because they are spirits, and not because they are messengers. The angels, says Paul, are ministering spirits. Immortality, then, is theirs; not as ministers, but as SPIRITS. Thus the Saviour routes the Sadducees in every point, and affirms three propositions opposite to their three-the revival of the dead, or that the dead live; the immortality of angels as spirits; and the resurrection of the body; and, consequently, a future state of happiness and punishment.

All this, indeed, is implied in many other phrases in the New Testament, of which we cannot now speak particularly. We shall only give a few examples of the fact, that bodies, and not spirits, are raised from the grave:-"It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body: for there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." 1 Cor. 15. "If the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, because of his spirit that dwelleth in you." Rom. viii. 11. “Joseph craved the body of Jesus." "Pilate gave his body to Joseph, and he wrapped it in linen and laid it in a sepulchre hewn out of a rock." Mark xv. 43.; Luke xxiii. 52, 53. “And the women

beheld how his body was laid in the sepulchre." xxiii, 55. “On the first day of the week they entered the sepulchre, and found not the body of Jesus." xxiv. 4. “And when they found not his body, they came." "And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves and appeared to many." Matth. xxvii. 52, 53. Not spirits, but bodies, are said to arise and come out of the graves.

This only to corroborate the interpretation of the parable, or to justify a Christian in preferring the Pharisaic to the Sadducean side of this controversy. There is this special advantage in understanding this ancient heresy-that it enables us to settle controversies about the future state, or the existence of disembodied spirits, by the testimony of the Apostles and the Saviour, rather than by our own reasonings on the subject: for having found on which side they stood, we are sure we are right when we find ourselves with them, and against their opponents, as we evidently do on the present occasion. And this is better than a hundred arguments deduced from philosophy, or any other source, on this important subject. A. C.

Erwinton, S. C. December 14, 1738.

INCIDENTS ON A TOUR TO THE SOUTH.

NO. II.

MEETING-HOUSES, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, JEFFERSON'S GRAVE, &e. I Do not wish to expatiate on the unfortunate circumstances and causes that have prostrated the influence of the church in the city of Richmond, especially as there is much reason to hope that those who have contributed to this state of things have so fully eaten of the bitter fruits of their own doings, as not to be soon hungry again for such another repast. The brethren that

have held fast their integrity, and rode the storm, are doing much to recover what has been lost. Meanwhile, they need such an evangelist as brother Henshall to spend all his time in the city, above all that the church can do in her stated meetings for her own edification. Churches in large cities, those great haunts of men, either need many prophets and teachers, or evangelists, if not for their own sake, for the sake of those without, who will not attend without some other inducement than most of such societies now offer. True, indeed, that for the time some of these

churches have existed, they ought to be able to interest the whole community; yet, owing to their former bad education, and the want of such senior brethren, as are apt to teach, they can exert almost no influence on surrounding society. In this state of things most churches in large cities feel the necessity of having at least one meeting every Lord's day, besides on week evenings, for the proclamation of the word. Without this part of the evangelical machinery, many fish that might have been caught in the gospel net, are lost for ever. If the proclamation of the word of the Lord be needful any where in Christendom, it is especially so in large cities. Ignorance, poverty, and crime, for the most part abound in cities, and live near neighbors to overgrown wealth and great literary intelligence.

From the residence of our kind host, brother Waller, on the 1st of November we left Richmond for Charlottesville, via the Louisa rail road, and were conducted by our good brother Coleman to the residence of brother Goss, who was recovering from a severe attack of bilious fever. Brother Goss and brother Poindexter, of the church of Charlottesville, are, it is said by those who have often heard them, very acceptable speakers, and well calculated to exert a strong and good influence on the side of reformation. They have a great deal in their power, and owe much to the kind dispensations of the heavenly Father for abundant opportunities of eminent usefulness. I pray that they may be found good stewards of the manifold favors of God bestowed upon them. The church of Charlottesville is quite an interesting community, and has a good and comfortable meeting-house, which may be visited without doing penance, as is too generally required in Eastern Virginia, and in all the South, so far as I have witnessed.

Meeting-houses do not generally resemble Bethels, or else the Lord keeps the poorest houses in the country. For my part, I cannot associate the idea of a flourishing spiritual temple, and that of an open, leaky, tottering, windowless, stoveless, wooden tabernacle as its residence. It is so much like princes dwelling in cottages, or kings in huts, that its incongruity staggers my weak faith in the sincerity, spirituality, and devotion of those who cheerfully acquiesce in such accommodations. Those splendid, rich, and gorgeous things, called Temples and Cathedrals, fitted up in all the vanity and pride of life, are not a keener satire on the meek and lowly Jesus, than are these dilapidated, cheerless, cold, and ruined places, called Christian meetinghouses, which one too often sees in those regions. They seem to belong to no party; for they are found in all. The owners of these unsightly domicils of religious worship generally live in comfortable mansions, and some of them in princely dwellings; and yet it seems never to have occurred to them, as it did to

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David, how unseemly it is for them to dwell in houses of cedar while the ark of God sits under the ragged curtains of an old tent.

I cannot but think that our houses for worship ought to be as comfortable places of meeting, to say the least, as the private dwellings of the average class that frequents them. Alike removed from the appearance of magnificent display, and that of sordid, cheerless, squallid poverty, they ought to be neat, clean, comfortable, convenient for winter and for summer, for saint and for sinner: so that all who visit them may feel perfectly at home, and, without distraction or inconvenience, attend upon the stated means of illumination and sanctification. Good and convenient

meeting houses are indispensable to the full enjoyment of our Christian privileges, and to our usefulness in the world. True, indeed, that times of persecution and great distress sweeten and consecrate the desert, the mountain cavern, the deep valley, the cottage or the cave; but in times of external ease and prosperity we need synagogues, meeting-houses, and all other conveniences to induce and encourage all to frequent the places of prayer and the ministry of the word. We especially need them on another account-because, without them, in many places, we cannot be heard at all. We are often forbidden to stand on the consecrated ground of sectarian orthodoxy; and are, therefore, under greater obligations to provide ways and means for the free and full proclamation of the word.

While on the subject of meeting-houses, it may not be inexpedient to add, that there is less science displayed in this species of architecture than in any other that has ever fallen under our view. Theatres, lecture rooms, court houses, legislative halls, and almost all other sorts of buildings, have incomparably more science and philosophy apparent in their construction and arrangement than our houses of worship. Pulpits are supremely absurd. The speaker ought always to be the lowest man in a house for three reasons;—that he may have the best air, for he needs it most; that he may be most easily seen; and that he may be most distinctly heard. No man of science will ask me for an explanation of this matter. They are plain philosophic deductions from facts well established, and now generally appreciated. But it ought to be stated that this arrangement pre-supposes always that the floor be an inclined plane, of one foot in every eight, or, at most, ten, of its whole length. The ceiling ought never to be very high. If not inclined to suit the floor, it ought not to be more than from twelve to sixteen feet high. No galleries, of course: windows large, and made to ascend and descend, that the room may be ventilated above or below, as circumstances may require.

Stoves are generally misplaced in places of worship. They ought never to be near the speaker. I have got many a sore