But, vast as is the change, all that are in the graves shall come forth; each body the same, by a law of identity, with that which slept; the same, yet another, as the butterfly, the soaring emblem of immortality, is the same with the worm and the chrysalis. One generation, we know, will not even suffer the change of the grave, but another change, by which, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the present mortal nature shall‍ rather be clothed upon than unclothed, and mortality be swallowed up of life.

The resurrection in the last day is one in which "all that are in the graves shall come forth :" but whatever is more minutely said or intimated of the body of the resurrection is spoken of those who have slept and lived in Jesus. They that come unto the resurrection of damnation are also endued with an immortal body, prepared for the endurance of that just doom which sends them away into everlasting punishment."

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So little can we know of the deepest seeds of even the corporeal organization, that it is impossible to say or judge whether the germ of the immortal body, mysteriously enclosed in the mortal, may or may not be made, through the direct effect of holiness or of sin, the germ of necessary bliss or woe hereafter. The body of the believer is the temple of the Holy Ghost. They that sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. How deep that sanctification or that corruption may now reach into the depths of our corporeal being, is known to the Author of that being. The blessing and the taint are corporeal as well as spiritual, both now and in the resurrection; and both perhaps may extend their electric chain through the very darkness of the grave.

LXVII.

Death of Death.

"The isles

With heaving ocean, rocked; the mountains shook
Their ancient coronets; the avalanche
Thundered; silence succeeded through the nations
Earth never listened to a sound like this.

It struck the general pulse of nature still,
And broke for ever the dull sleep of death."

HILLHOUSE.

THE events of the last resurrection are painted in the Scriptures with a peculiar grandeur. From various portions of the New Testament a mighty picture is formed, on which the eyes of successive generations were to be fastened, in the sure knowledge that every eye should see the stupendous reality.

In a day and an hour of which no man or angel knoweth, the Lord Jesus shall return from heaven as He ascended into heaven. "He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father's." The presence of the angels, of all the angels, and the magnificence of His train, is everywhere signified, in contrast with His former humiliation. Some amazing sign shall herald His coming: "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." They shall see Him sitting on the right

hand of power," clothed with the might and majesty of the Godhead. "The heavens must receive Him until the times of restitution of all things." We "wait for the Son of God from heaven;" from heaven we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ."

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It is particularly told us, that He shall come with all His saints." They who have "slept in Jesus" shall be brought with Him " as a part of His shining train, so that those who are alive and remain" shall not "prevent," or precede, "them which are asleep."

He shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God." "For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." It was with the same sound that the presence of God on Mount Sinai, when the law came to man, was proclaimed in the ears of Israel. The trump of the archangel, whatever else it be, must be a summons that shall be heard by innumerable beings; one that shall echo, like a thousand thunders, through this visible universe. An archangel may utter such a summons by means which, could they be named, might be regarded as sudden and tremendous operations of nature; for what are all such but effects. proceeding from causes which lie behind, in the hands of angels and of the Lord of angels?

The word of God covers these mighty events with an awful indistinctness; the characteristic, from necessity, of all which connects the finite with the infinite. At one time, it is the voice of the archangel, which seems to ring in our ears; at another, the voice of Christ, at which, like Lazarus of old, the dead come forth from their graves. "The sea gives up the dead which are in it; and death and hell deliver up the dead which are in them;" body and soul are united; wher

ever the seed of the immortal body may have fallen, wherever the spirit may have had its unseen abode.

Of all the dead, "the dead in Christ shall rise first:" "Christ the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at His coming: then cometh the end." They are named first in all the descriptions of the resurrection and the judgment; and it is declared that the saints shall judge the world, and that the apostles shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. For, He shall sit upon the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all nations of the quick and dead. To gather them, too, He will send His angels, whose office it especially is, to gather together His elect from the uttermost part of earth to the uttermost part of heaven. They are the reapers, who separate the tares from the wheat in that great harvest.

Then, those who were mingled on earth must be for ever divided; and when the righteous shall have been welcomed by their Judge and Saviour to His kingdom, the wicked also shall hear their sentence. The scene of the universal judgment would seem to be upon the earth; possibly on a vast valley or plain, which, if literal, is fast by the walls of Jerusalem; and, if symbolical, has its name, "the valley of Jehoshaphat," "the valley of divine judgment," from the events of that day.

Divided, as the sheep and the goats, the righteous first, and then the wicked, shall be judged according to the deeds done here in the body. Their Judge is the Son of man: "Him hath God ordained;" and by Him "the dead are judged out of those things which are written in the books, according to their works:" «And another book is opened, which is the book of life," in which are written the names of all the final heirs of

salvation. A book may be a figure; but it can be a figure of nothing but a record; and this record is one in which every idle word, and every cup of cold water given in the name of Christ, is accurately preserved. "There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed."

They whose names are in the book of life, the penitent, the believing, the renewed in soul, the diligent in well-doing, are recognised as washed from their sins through the blood of the atonement, and as sanctified by the Holy Spirit. They are acquitted for Christ's sake; and the good which they have done receives the recompense which their Lord had promised. They become, as it were, assessors with Him while the more fearful portion of the judgment is transacted. The wicked also of all ages are gathered in one mighty multitude, and await and receive their doom.

There, on one side, are patriarchs, prophets, pure priests, and righteous kings, and holy apostles, and a noble army of martyrs; true confessors, patient sufferers, pious champions, venerable recluses, faithful matrons, constant wives, devoted virgins, fervent preachers, diligent teachers, earnest writers, watchful pastors, honest men, upright servants, dutiful children, innocent babes without number, generous bestowers, energetic lovers of their fellow-men, humble men of prayer, conscientious labourers in every private sphere of duty, last who were first, and first who were last; the sower and the reaper, the example and they who followed the example, whole families and companies who had journeyed together; and those who had stood alone, "faithful found among the faithless." There, on the other side, are murderers, and liars, the abominable and the bloody, tyrants and robbers, and adulterers, and extortioners, the drunkard, and the reveller, and the blasphemer, the