ples all at once; and, last of all, he appeared unto Paul himself. Most of these five hundred witnesses were alive when Paul wrote his argument, and all testified that Christ had risen from the dead; nay, they did this when prisons and scourgings had to be endured, in order to maintain the point. Now, says he, if Christ did not rise from the dead, then these five hundred were, of all men, the most miserable, because they were beaten and persecuted in this life for a lie, and in the life to come would go to the judgment, under the awful guilt of making God a liar, testifying that he raised up Christ from the dead, when, it was all false. Christ, then, it is proved, if any thing can be proved by witnesses, did rise from the dead. God gave him the power to rise. "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again,' says the Saviour. One step more. Christ's rising from the dead was the pledge that he would raise up all the dead. "The hour cometh and now is, when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and they shall come forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation." Our Job, who asks the question, if a man die, shall he live again, saw this truth, and cries: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand upon the earth in the latter day. He shall call, and I will answer him. I shall in my flesh see God, whom I shall see for myself, and not another." David believed it, and declared that "his flesh should rest in hope." Daniel believed it: "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Paul believed it: "I hope toward God, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust." "God hath raised up the Lord Jesus Christ, and will also raise us up by his own power." "But some men will begin to cavil, and say, with what body do they come? God giveth a body as it pleaseth him. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." . John believed it: "I saw a great white throne, and I saw the dead, great and small, stand before God." If any doctrine is clearly and fully revealed in the word of God, it is the doctrine of the resurrection-that if a man die, he shall live again. I can no more doubt it than I can doubt that there is a wonder-working God in existence. Oh! how differently am I, as a minister of the Gospel, permitted to address you, than if our Heavenly Father had thrown no light on this subject in his holy word! I may have the gold of earth; but when I go to my grave I can not carry it with me. I may have honors here, but they go not beyond the grave. I may have beauty here, but it turns to corruption at death; but oh! myself, my whole self! soul and body, and my friends whom I love, all that is really of any worth, has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. I know that the debt has all been paid. I am not doomed to the grave to pay the ransom of my soul. I go not down into its dark chambers as a punishment, for, if I am Christ's, my sins have been blotted out. But I must die, and molder in the dust, that I may leave all that is vile, all that is polluting, all the virus of sin which makes this a vile body, and come up again, with a body like unto Christ's own glorious body, that I may be clothed upon with life eternal, without spot or wrinkle on the garment of salvation. The resurrection of life! The dead in Christ shall rise first! How silent and still the earth! the winds are hushed, the waters cease to heave, and are like a sea of glass, the air is balmy and sweet, the birds of heaven have ceased their notes, and the clouds are all gone, and the heavens and the earth seem to stand waiting. The earth, the hills, and the valleys, are full of the dead. There is heard no noise in these graves. They are all dead men. Then comes a soft, plaintive voice of a trumpet that floats round the whole earth like a soft vail thrown over beauty; and the voice of the trumpet waxes louder and louder, till it reaches one awful note! Then the dust begins every where to move, the graves to open, and living forms to come forth, the first-fruits, the elect of the Lord! They come from the hills, and from the valleys, from the caverns, and from the ocean, the lake, and the river. Abraham and his family from the, old tomb at Macpelah, Moses from his unknown grave, and the dead, small and great. Ah! the righteous! is the end come, and their hopes all complete? How feel they? How felt Abraham when he looked off on the burning cities of the plain, and "lo! the smoke went up as the smoke of a great furnace;" how his heart praised God that he was not there among the wicked! How felt Noah when, from the window of his ark, he looked out on the mighty waters, covering hill and mountain, the grave of a lost world, and thanked God that he was not among the wicked! and when the ark grated upon the dry land, and the door was once more opened, and the old Patriarch could go out from his prison, and look once more upon the fair heavens and the beautiful earth, how his soul rose up to God, and how the eyes streamed with tears of gladness and of gratitude! So will the righteous feel when the door of the grave, that long prison, is thrown open, and they come forth to a life that shall never end; to a body that will never sin, nor suffer, nor decay; to be reunited to a body that will be the temple of the Lord, never to go out of it again. "Blessed is he who hath part in the first resurrection." "They also that have done evil shall come forth to the resurrection of damnation !" When the righteous have been raised and acquitted, caught up to meet the Lord in the air, justified, and glorified, and have entered into the joy of their Lord, then will the rest of the dead arise, clothed with shame and everlasting contempt. See that man just emerging from his grave. See his form, his face, his disappointment, his despair. Hear him speak, the wretched one! "Oh! is it come to this! Is it all over! settled! heaven gone! Christ gone! pious friends gone! all gone! Is it come to this, that I am lost, a lost, ruined creature forever! no going back into my grave! no rocks or mountains to fall on me and cover me! no heaven offered! no Saviour offered! no change for the better-to all eternity! To be clothed with shame and everlasting contempt! is it come to this! come to this! that my soul is lost, and I have come forth to the resurrection of damnation! O wretched man that I am!" With what inexpressible sadness should we be gathered together to-day, to bury an aged patriarch, who has spent a long life in acquiring experience, in doing good, in disciplining his own spirit, if all this is to be lost, and if he can not live again! Is all his experience and discipline, woven into his very soul, to be lost forever? Have we heard that clear, ringing voice, and seen that lofty brow, and looked into that piercing eye, and watched that solemn countenance for the last time? No, brethren! We can almost hear those sealed lips say: "Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands." According to the custom of the times, under the advice of his pastor, he began the study of theology in his junior year, and continued it till the fall of 1804, when, at Enfield, Ct., he was licensed to preach the Gospel. He preached his first sermon at Ellington. In October of the same fall he came to Newington as a candidate, and at the end of two months, without having preached any where else, he received a call to settle in this place, with only two dissenting voices. He was ordained here the next month, January 16th, 1805, Dr. Perkins preaching on the occasion. He was married to Lucy Collins, of West-Hartford, January 21st, 1805. In regard to his college life, and his religious experience, and his views in his youth, I can not do better than to give you his own words, which I find among his papers. They were written a few years ago, when at the age of almost eighty the remembrances of the past came back fresh and bright, in all their strength. I quote his words: "I was born in West-Hartford June 13th, 1781. My father was Zenas Brace, and my mother, Mary Skinner. My father died 1791, at sixty-two, and my mother 1808, at sixty-nine. My father was not in the full communion of the Church; but his prayer in the family made me feel reverence, as he mentioned 'the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." My mother was a woman of conscientiousness and prayer, and she made me fear God and reverence the Sabbath. I thought, when I said, 'Our Father,' etc., that I was speaking to the Invisible One. My heart was totally depraved, but I was restrained from open sin. I had a dread of God, his thunder, his signs in the heavens, and the judgment. Fear kept me from wicked company, and from the ways of evil. In March, 1799, I began to feel conviction of sin. I attended an evening meeting with Dr. Strong in Hartford, and felt that I must look to another world. Many old and young were awakened to a concern for the soul, and there sprung up a great revival. The first sermon I heard with application was from Dr. Perkins: "Remember now thy Creator," etc. I resolved on a life of Christian faith and prayer. I heard Rev. Samuel Blatchford preach Tuesday, June 18th, 1799, on 'There is therefore now no condemnation,' etc. I thought the new birth passed upon me, and that the Spirit of God had changed my soul. I abandoned all youthful pleasures, amusements and company, and took up a life of religious reading, Christian meetings, and dedication to God in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. I believe not a day has passed, from that time to this, without my praying to God in the name of Christ, and I have made it my care to live every hour in the fear of God. I betook myself to the Bible. My reading began with Baxter, Bunyan, and Edwards. July 21st, 1799, I was admitted to the church in West-Hartford. I felt that I was reconciled to God through the blood of his Son, and I was happy in giving myself to God in the everlasting covenant. According to the advice of Doddridge, I made a written form of giving myself to the Father, Son, and Spirit, for life and for eternal life. I gave my soul to God in the Gospel for eternal communion, and presented my body to him a living sacrifice. I asked him to give me a heart to live according to his will, to depend on God for prosperity, to make him my support in adversity, and in Jesus Christ to receive him as my trust and my portion forever. Without any difficulty I received the doctrines of grace, and I esteemed it a privilege and honor to consecrate myself to a Christian life. I received the Bible as the inspiration of God; I adored the Trinity as the one living and true God; I rested on the blood of Jesus Christ as the only atonement for sin; I received the eternal purpose of God as working all things after the counsel of his own will; I felt the power of the Holy Ghost in the regeneration of the soul; I felt that my services had no merit, and acknowledged that my whole reliance was on the righteousness of Jesus Christ for justification. "I can not remember when I could not read. I went to school from three years old to twenty-two years. I can not remember 297 when I had not a conscience of the Sabbath-day. In the latter "In October, 1800, I went to live in Yale College. On this change of life and association, I was afraid of company and temptation, and therefore I set myself upon the strictest life of prayer, watchfulness, and self-observation. I became secluded, unsocial, and somewhat over-scrupulous. I was so resolved on escaping conformity to the follies of the world, that I endangered the proper cheerfulness of the Christian life, and vexed myself with the apparent levity which poured itself all around me. I resolved to walk with God every hour of every day, and on the Sabbath to shut myself out entirely, and not speak a word to any body if I could help it. I have always been disturbed at the follies of mankind, and have exposed my feelings to the opposite sins of severity and censoriousness: so difficult it is to walk uprightly! While I was in college I wrote largely, and almost every day, of my thoughts, duties, and trials; but I have committed those notes to the fire. I had a scrupulous and anxious mind, which was continually struggling for purity and freedom. I meant to be on the golden mean. I quote one sentence from Monday, September 7th, 1801: Be more earnest and solemn, at every period, in preparing for the Sacramental communion. The Christian life is a straight and narrow yet pleasant path. On the one hand, we must be careful that we do not settle down into a cold and lifeless state, and be ashamed of the cause which we profess to defend and make our own; and on the other we must avoid a false zeal and a proud temper of mind, in manifesting our attachment to the cause of religion: not be hypocritical nor enthusiastical; not light and airy nor sad and gloomy; steady, sober, cheerful, able to command ourselves from lusts and sinful appetites, from flights of joy and from fits of melancholy, overcoming every evil disposition and movement within us, and living to the glory of our Master.' I had taken the impression of one's going to college as throwing himself into imminent perils and temptations, and therefore had resolved to seclude myself as much as possible from every exposure. I intended to avoid every idle word and every trifling thing. I had felt the power of Baxter's chapter of a heavenly life, and I was striving to live without sin, in temper, word, and |