body, which his own plastick word first taught to play in our lungs, to dance through our veins, and throb around our hearts. You might as well with Berkeley deny all matter, and with Priestly all spirit. You might as well, with the fool in the scriptures, deny that there is a God, ay or a man that is born or a man that is dead. For once admit, that there is a power to make alive, and the inference is not to be resisted, that the same power can make alive again. In the interim, I care not where the soul is, where the body is. He, who originally joined them together, can join them anew. The labour is not more onerous, the manner more intricate or embarrasing. To found the universe includes the ability to regulate it. To do all things indeed, which in themselves do not involve a manifest contradiction.

Nor is it incredible, that God should be able to raise the dead, in consequence of any supposed difficulties thrown in the way, through the subtlety of physical or metaphysical research. The questions are as old as the writings of Paul, "How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" And have men refined upon these, in the pride and folly of their hearts? Have they shown, that our bodies are perpetually changing the particles of which they are composed? Do they therefore ask, if the whole of those particles are to be resuscitated, or only in part? Have they found out, that the very same materials may be transferred from one body to another, and do they therefore sneeringly inquire, in which of the bodies, each soul is to reappear at the resurrection? Precisely as the Apostle himself put to silence the cavils of the Sadducees, I reply in the spirit of that faith, which cometh by hearing and not by sight, "God will give it a body as it shall please him, and to every" soul its "own body." How, I neither know nor care. It will be done wisely and well, and that is enough for me, and I should hope for you. When you can tell me, how all the fragrance of the rose and the lily is at length locked up in their respectiveseeds to come forth again in their season, and scent with new odour the vernal breeze; when you can tell me, how two opposite mirrors can reflect intervening objects, multiplying them in an almost endless extent, without any obstacle being offered to the repeated transmission to and fro of the rays of light; when you can solve all this, it will be time to solve the mystery of the resurrection. In the mean while, let the scriptures control your belief of the one

as your senses indicate, without enabling you to account for, the phenomena of the other. Those scriptures, which assert of this mortal, "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body."

Incredulity upon this subject may be further checked, by considerations derived from the analogy of nature. An analogy, which the great Apostle of the Gentiles did not deem it beneath the dignity of his office to adopt, in his argument to the Corinthians, reminding them of the well known fact, "that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." With the view then of comprehending the full force of his similitude, select an individual, if such a one could be found, entirely unacquainted with the operations of nature. Show him the seemingly perished acorn, and the human body actually deprived of life. Explain to him, that after being deposited in the ground, they will in due time reappear, the one in the tall green oak, the other in the living man; and as to a belief in either result, the smile and the feeling of incredulity will alike play upon his features, and occupy his mind. Conviction however will soon follow, as the vegetable process is commenced and unfolded, as it gradually advances to perfection. And can you show him, that this is the effect of the divine behest, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself, upon the earth?" He will have as little difficulty in crediting the same scriptures, where they assert, "Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; (for the trumpet shall sound;) and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." To such an individual, there would be no greater miracle in the one case, than in the other. Our hearts may be slow to be lieve, because they are familiar with the goodness of God in the yearly returns of seedtime and harvest. But to him, for the first time beholding the earth relaxing from the frost and snows of winter, and progressively assuming its green array and variegated tints, the wonder and astonishment would not be less effectual and sub lime, than if the graves were to be opened, and the dead of forgot

ten ages be restored to life again. To him, the power of annually renewing the face of nature would be fully equivalent to the power of renewing, once for all, the slumbering clay of the universal dead; no matter how distant the period; no matter how many revolving suns must first shed their enlivening rays, and brood as it were over the mansions of the tomb.

Blessed however be God, the arguments already adduced upon this noble theme, the arguments derived from his acknowledged power and wisdom, and from the analogy of his own fair creation, only serve to prepare the mind for the more cordial reception of a truth, already recorded in the sacred volume, already demonstrated in Spirit and in power, already manifested in the eyes of numerous unexceptionable witnesses. Jesus Christ whose testimony, as the Redeemer of the world and the Saviour of sinners, is the spirit of prophecy, and the incontrovertible sanction of miracles; Jesus Christ, who was born into this vale of tears, who lived and died therein as a man liveth and dieth; that same Jesus, whom the Jews crucified and slew, and who previously announced, "after three days I will rise again;" that same Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."

I design not, Brethren, on the present occasion to enter into the minute particulars of that stupendous event. They have been frequently rehearsed in your hearing. They must be familiar to your recollection, and to your hopes. And do you credit the siege of Troy because Homer sang; the voyage and exploits of Æneas, the remote ancestor of Rome, because Virgil tuned his Mantuan lyre? Do you credit the existence and biographical details of heroes and statesmen, because Plutarch and Nepos wrote? "Why then should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" Look at the testimony of poets and historians, conjectural for the most part, and often contradictory. And is this to be received, while that of holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, is to be discredited as romance, and rejected with disdain? Will you thus impugn and renounce the testimony of the Apostles and women, who were eyewitnesses to the fact of the resurrection; of disbelieving Thomas, who would not yield his assent, until he had thrust his hand into the side, and laid his fingers in the print of the nails, yet appearing in the hands and feet of the

risen Jesus: of more than five hundred disciples, who saw him at once; of the select band of friends and companions, who having heard him speak for forty days, of things pertaining to the kingdom of God, were at length permitted to witness his glorious ascent into heaven; in a word, the testimony of disciples, who, in his hour of agony upon the cross, all forsook him and fled, fear blanching their cheeks, and terror striking through their hearts; and yet, when fully convinced of his having risen again, as he himself had said, of disciples, who thereafter rejoiced in the opportunity to lay down their lives in his service; rejoiced, in spite of martyrdom, presented in its most cruel forms, to receive its imperishable crown, as the noblest recompense for the zeal and alacrity, with which they preached Jesus and the resurrection?

Surely, Brethren, after perusing such brilliant testimony, they, who remain incredulous and unbelieving, must write falsehood upon every page of history, falsehood upon every thing, which their own eyes have not seen, which their own ears have not heard. I would sooner pronounce of the triumphs of Alexander, that they were fable; of the brutal murder of Cæsar at the base of Pompey's statue, that it was an idle tale; ay, of the fate of Napoleon, that he died not, neither do his ashes repose amid the rocks of St. Helena. If evidence, so clear, so precise, so unequivocal and disinterested, is not to control the faith of man, then hath our great Creator left himself without a witness, when he would speak to his creatures; then hath he strangely foreclosed his power to teach and direct them, in their goings, with certainty as from him; then is that scripture remarkably fulfilled in our age, which saith, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one should rise from the dead."

The proofs of our Saviour's resurrection are however too plain and manifest to admit of such a dilemma, in the apprehension of far the larger proportion of Christendom. The strong reasons of infidelity are here imbecile and powerless as the club of a dead Hercules. Christians ever have believed, they ever will continue to believe, those proofs to the end of time. And thus believing, thus confident, as to the Captain of their salvation, the text addresses itself to them, from the mouth of an Apostle, with peculiar force and emphasis; "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?"

Yes, Brethren, with respect to those frail and perishing bodies which you now inhabit, if Christ, who was made like unto us in all things, and “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin;" if his human soul has rejoined his human body; if he has become the first fruit of the tomb; why, at some far distant day, and in God's own good time, have ye not the strongest grounds to believe, that ye will experience the like glorious change, the like glorious reanimation from the dust of death? In addition to what bas been already recited, how express and imperative are those words of scripture," Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." "Jesus said, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die." Do ye not then place full faith and confidence in these declarations? In the light of Christ's revival, do ye not regard them, as yea and amen, as truths against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, which God's own puissant arm will accomplish in the face of an assembled universe? Ye do. It would be useless to suspend my voice for a reply. Ye know, that "if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." With such of your number, as are mourners in Zion, how has the consciousness of this reviving doctrine poured its assuasive balm into your anguished souls, when the trembling hand has closed the eyelids of your little ones; when ye have printed the final kiss upon their pallid cheeks, and wept your last adieu; when parental arms, stiffened by the frost of death, have ceased to fold you within the fond caress; when the wife of your bosom, or the husband of your love, breathes not, speaks not, save as imagination. lends to the sundered lips the power of apostrophizing after the manner of Job, "I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister." Dismal indeed would be the house of mourning, more dismal still the place of sepulture, were it not for some soft and soothing voice, inaudibly whispering to the heart of surviving friends, we shall meet again, we shall meet to part no more. It is this, at cheers the loneliness of a bereaved home. It is this, that sprinkles the grave with diamonds, which still emit their lustre in the midst of its darkest gloom. It is the hope of a joyful resurrection, that disarms the king of ter