is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' The consequence, as every one who reads the Bible knows, is, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were living at the time when this declaration was made. Those who die, therefore, live after they are dead; and this future life is the anastasis; which is proved by our Saviour in this passage, and which is universally denoted by this term throughout the New Testament. Nothing is more evident than that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had not risen from the dead [as to their material bodies], and that the declaration concerning them is no proof of the resurrection [of the body]. But it is certain they are living beings; and therefore this passage is a complete proof that mankind live after death."

We close these remarks on the New Testament usage, in respect to terms implying the resurrection, by the following additional extract from Mr. Locke's Letter to Stillingfleet, quoted above:

"He who reads with attention the discourse of St. Paul of the resurrection, 1 Cor. 15, will see that he plainly distinguishes between the dead that shall be raised, and the bodies of the dead. For it is vexooi, dead, núvres, all, oi, who, which are the nominative cases to yɛigorta, are raised, ζωοποιήθησονται, shall be quickened, ἐγερθήσονται, shall be raised, all along, and not σouara, bodies, which one may with reason think would somewhere or other have been expressed, if all this had been said to propose it as an article of faith, that the very same bodies should be raised. The same manner of speaking the Spirit of God observes all through the New Testament, where it is said, 'raise the dead,''quicken or make alive the dead,-' resurrection of the dead.' Mat. 22. 31. Mark 12. 26.

"Another evidence that St. Paul makes a distinction between the dead and the bodies of the dead, so that the dead in 1 Cor. 15, cannot be taken to stand precisely for the bodies of the dead, are these words of the apostle, v. 35: 'But some man will say, How are the dead raised, and with what bodies do they come?' which words 'dead' and 'they,

if supposed to stand precisely for the bodies of the dead,' the question will run thus, 'How are the dead bodies raised, and with what bodies do the dead bodies come?' which seems to have no very agreeable sense.

"This, therefore, being so, that the Spirit of God keeps so expressly to this phrase or form of speaking in the New Testament of 'raising,' quickening,' 'rising,' ' resurrection,' &c., of the dead, when the resurrection at the last day is spoken of; and that the body is not mentioned but in the answer to this question, ‘With what bodies shall those dead, who are raised, come?' so that by the dead cannot be precisely meant the dead bodies; I do not see but a good Christian, who reads the Scriptures with an intention to believe all that is there revealed to him concerning the resurrection, may acquit himself of his duty, without entering into the inquiry whether the dead shall have the very same bodies, or no; which sort of inquiry the apostle, by the appellation he here bestows on him that makes it, seems not much to encourage. Nor, if he shall think himself bound to determine concerning the identity of the bodies of the dead raised at the last day, will he, by the remainder of St. Paul's answer, find the determination of the apostle to be much in favor of the very same body, unless the being told that the body sown 'is not the body that shall be'—that the body raised is as different from that which was laid down, as the flesh of man is from the flesh of beasts, fishes, and birds, or as the sun, moon, and stars, are different from one another, or as different as a corruptible, weak, natural, mortal body, is from an incorruptible, powerful, spiritual, immortal body; and lastly, as different as a body that is flesh and blood is from a body that is not flesh and blood-unless, I say, all this which is contained in St. Paul's words, can be supposed to be the way to deliver this as an article of faith, which every one is required to believe, viz., 'That the dead should be raised in the very same bodies that they had before in this life.'

CHAPTER VII.

The Resurrection of Christ.

THE resurrection of our Lord is in so many instances and in such a variety of ways brought into connexion with the resurrection of his people, especially as a pledge of theirs, that the consideration of this event is imperatively urged upon us in this part of our discussion. As he in his risen body stands at the head of his risen saints, so the fact of his resurrection occupies a like relation to the fact of theirs. The fact itself of his emergence from the sepulchre on the third day is of course admitted. The nature, circumstances, and bearings of the fact, are all with which we at present have to do. What light does this event throw upon the subject of the resurrection-body? If he actually rose in his material body—in the self-same body in which he was crucified-it doubtless affords some countenance to the idea that his people are also to rise in like manner in the bodies which they laid down at death. Still, even on this ground, there are some circumstances which go to constitute a marked difference in the two cases; so that while his resurrection is to be regarded as a pledge, it cannot justly be viewed as a pattern, of theirs. His body did not see corruption, while theirs do. The words of David in the 16th Psalm, as we have already seen, were expressly interpreted, both by Peter and Paul, as prophetic of the buried body of Christ. This is a matter of great moment in the present relation, as the arguments in proof of the resurrection of the body generally concentrate themselves in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The advocates of that theory take their stand, for the most part, on the position, that there could be no true resurrection of Christ without the re-animation and resurrection of his material body; and to deny this, is, in their view, the same as to deny his resurrection altogether. The

same thing is affirmed of our own resurrection. As it is only the body that is properly said to die, so it is only the body that can justly be said to be raised. Even granting for a moment that this were true, still it is obvious that there is a heaven-wide difference between the case of a body that is resuscitated on the third day, and while its organic integrity remains substantially unimpaired, and one that has been dissolved to dust and formed into countless new combinations, both vegetable and animal.

But we shall attempt to show that the resurrection of the Saviour's material body is not incontestably taught in the language of the sacred narrative, and that, by adopting the opposite view, we do in fact bring the resurrection of Christ and that of his saints into the most perfect and beautiful analogy, and one that is utterly precluded by the common hypothesis. Let it once be established that the body in which Jesus rose, and repeatedly appeared to his disciples during the space of forty days, was in fact a spiritual body, and it is obvious that the conformity of the members to the head becomes much more striking if we suppose that they also are to enter immediately at death upon that state which is substantially the same with his. We say substantially, for there were evidently certain circumstances connected with our Lord's post-resurrection appearances, which are not to be expected to find a parallel in the case of the risen righteous. These will sufficiently disclose themselves in the progress of our remarks.

(1.) It is peculiarly worthy of note, that it is nowhere explicitly affirmed in the narrative of the evangelists, or any other part of the Scriptures, that the identical material body of Christ arose. The language that is used respecting that event, is such as to be capable of being consistently understood without the implication that his material body had any share in the resurrection or ascension. But if this be so, we do not perceive that that view can be justly held to be fairly made out; for no language can adequately establish a

fact of this nature, but that which cannot properly be understood in a different sense; much less when equally clear expressions can be adduced in support of the contrary-of which we shall have more to say in the sequel.

(2.) It seems to be a fair presumption that the same body which rose also ascended. But the evidence is certainly conclusive, that it was not a material body which ascended to heaven. Now to consider the resurrection of the same body of Jesus as an example and pledge of that of the saints, and then to suppose that body not to ascend, falls little short of making their resurrection a blank, and completely nullifying the argument of Paul in the opening of the 15th chap. of the first epistle to the Corinthians, where he makes the resurrection of Christ the very groundwork. of the spiritual and resurrection life of his people.

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(3.) The circumstances of his appearance to his disciples, in repeated instances, subsequent to his resurrection, are far more consistent with the idea of his possessing a spiritual body than the reverse. In John 20. 19, we learn that at evening, on the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you." Luke 24. 36, 27, " And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed they had seen a spirit." John 20. 26, "And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you." We have here the evidence of a body divested of the conditions of matter, at least as matter is commonly and philosophically defined. It is one endowed with the power of entering a room when the doors were closed, and all the ordinary avenues of access precluded. Such a body must have been spiritual; nor is this conclusion vacated by the mention of certain circumstances that would seem to be more appropriate to a material structure,