CHAPTER XIV. THE RESURRECTION. Life's Epochs. — Insufficiency of Human Philosophy. — Analogy of Nature. -Scripture Declarations. — Christ's Resurrection a Pledge to Believers. -Whately's Opinion. - Thompson's. - Bible Evidence sufficient Souls will sparkle as Gems in the Redeemer's Crown at the Last. "Shall I be left abandoned in the dust, When fate, relenting, lets the flower revive? With disappointment, penury, and pain? No; heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrive, And man's majestic beauty bloom again, Bright through the eternal year of love's triumphant reign."— Beattie. It has been said there are "four grand epochs" in the history of every renewed soul, of every sinner saved by grace→→ the first, the hour of natural birth, when he opened his eyes upon this world, to commence a career that should run on eternally; the second, the time of blessed consecration, when a vital union is established between the penitent spirit and a forgiving Saviour; the third, the hour of death, the close of probation, when soul and body are separated for a season, the one to return to the earth as it was, the other unto God who gave it, free from sin, and ready for glory; and the last, that of resurrection, which consummates the whole. The highest style of sublimity is stamped upon all this; for a glorious Being hath wrought the pattern, and he works as none other can work. Such a fitting process none other ever did institute, or ever will. To the angels it is a mystery. The highest intelligences of heaven look down with adoring wonder upon these epochs in human history, and cannot understand how every blessing should culminate in redemption for erring, apostate man, why so much of grandeur should be associated with the fallen race. It is a marvellous thing, and exalts infinitely above all conception the character of Him who planned and executed the great scheme, and spread it out for the delighted gaze of men and angels through all eternity. But of all these periods, the last, — the grand finale in man's history, the resurrection, has more of mystery to us than any other. We see opening life, and watch its developments, without pausing to consider that there is anything very wonderful in this. It seems more natural than otherwise that the soul, while ruminating upon its origin and its destiny, should turn itself to its Divine Source, and yield itself in love and homage to Him who made it. It does not seem strange to us that the body should succumb to the power of disease, and meet decay. We see death do its work, now slowly and silently, and again suddenly. It is the lot of all; we see this and we know it. We see the mortal part laid in the grave, but the immortal is out of sight. We cannot follow it to know aught that befalls it. An impenetrable veil is drawn over all, that the keenest vision cannot pierce. The natural eye cannot discern the faintest outline of that landscape which opens before the spirit set free from earth; but how does it affect the spirit? No voice has ever come back to tell us; and indeed, if there had, we doubt if the dialect would have been intelligible to mortal ears, or if the emotions of such a one could be symbolized by any words that our language affords. The dead have passed into another sphere, and all things are new. The medium of communication is new, and the things to be communicated are also new. The spirit relations cannot be measured or defined by any in this life, and there is no vehicle of expression with mortals, no avenue through which may be conveyed sight or sound; so that there must ever remain the PHILOSOPHY INSUFFICIENT. 227 most profound ignorance of what happens to the spirit after the dissolution of the body, until we come to that revelation which He who came from heaven has brought for the purpose of giving light to the grave, and all that comes after. No merely human philosophy would have conceived the idea of a resurrection. It might have conceived immortality sooner; might have made a higher style of life to be the result of death, as the pagan philosophers of antiquity often attempted. It might have speculated upon the elements and capacity of spirit, and theorized upon future probabilities, until some sort of system was wrought out that would attract the noveltyloving mind; but, after all, it would be but baseless theory, that would never abide the test which the earnest spirit is ever inclined to apply. "How can the dead be raised up?" is a question that philosophy cannot answer, unless it be that philosophy which came down from God out of heaven. That alone is adequate for a satisfactory reply. Nature indeed hath analogies. In more than one instance she betokens a rising again; but who could determine between the seeming resemblances and the actual? Who could tell with a certainty whether the natural signified anything of the spiritual, whether the finger that points to the result be in the right direction or not? Thousands of little creatures become immured in their self-made graves, and eventually emerge to a new and more brilliant existence; they leave their grovelling position on the earth to mount and fly in the air; but who ever found this the door through which a clear insight into the mysteries of the resurrection was obtained? It may be an easy thing to imagine that man, so much nobler and better, possessing a soul "pregnant with celestial fire," should find this part of his being arising to some proportionate existence; but who would dream that the inanimate form committed to the grave could ever arise and come forth, beautiful and glorified, unless the thought came from some divine and well-authenticated revelation? 228 ANALOGIES IN NATURE. The teachings of Nature in this, as in some other points we have noticed, are interesting so far as they go. We find beautiful types, but those things which are shadowed forth are always dim and indistinct, until we come into the transparent atmosphere of that Word which reveals them in clear perspective. It is difficult, perhaps, to tell how much we might have learned from the former, since our ideas have always been gratefully associated with the latter; but we cannot be too careful in referring all important questions to the decisions of unerring Wisdom. If Nature fails, Scripture cannot; but, since both have the same Author, we find that one but confirms the other, though, as compared, one is darkness and the other light. The insect resurrection, already alluded to, is supposed to typify the human being-its terrestrial form, apparent death, and ultimate celestial destination. "And it seems much more extraordinary," says Robert Boyle, "that a sordid and crawling worm should become a beautiful and active flythat an inhabitant of the dark and fetid dunghill should, in an instant, entirely change its form, rise into the blue air, and enjoy the sunbeams-than that a being whose pursuits have been after truth and an undying name, and whose purest happiness has been derived from the acquisition of intellectual power and finite knowledge, should rise hereafter into a state of being where immortality is no longer a name, and ascend to the source of unbounded power and infinite wisdom." Shall the insect burst the "dark chrysalis," and spread its wings exultingly to roam in a new sphere and enjoy a new life, and shall not "we into new existence spring, Freed from the fetters of this cumbering clay? Shall we triumphant rise and soar away, Leaving the darkness of that land of gloom, For the bright sunshine of an endless day?" The highest end must surely be reserved for the noblest part 1 ANALOGIES IN NATURE. 229 of creation, and "it doth not yet appear" what man will be when he emerges from the present into the future when he bursts his mortal coils, and leaves behind the chrysalis of earth. The new and glad career of the butterfly, so far superior to its former state, may shadow forth the path of a bright-winged seraph, mounting to the celestial regions, rejoicing in the ineffable glory of that Sun which fills all heaven with its brightness. But there are other things in Nature that seem to render a resurrection at least highly probable. We have based strong presumptions of a future life upon the principles of our being, the actions which flow from us, as well as the consideration of things without us. In like manner we may obtain evidence in favor of our present theme. Every twenty-four hours of our life we behold a revolution. amounting to a resurrection. The day opens in brightness and beauty; the sun wheels his chariot in the sky steadily toward the western horizon, riding on until the whole is lost in night, buried in silence and darkness; and what is our pledge that it will ever gladden our earth by its reappearance? We wait for the voice of the morning to open the grave of darkness, to bid the sun come forth from the chamber whither he had retired, and revivify the dead of night. It comes, but never until the appointed time. In vain the weary watcher at the grave of night may cry, "Arise, O Morning, and disperse the gloom." So many moments must the curtain be down, so many hours must the pall be spread, before they can be lifted for the entrance of new light-the beginning of a new day. To this diurnal resurrection succeeds another that of the annual. As the day dies into night, and is gone from us, so doth the summer fall, a helpless thing, into the icy arms of winter, there to find its certain burial. As the stern monarch approaches to place his seal upon her beautiful form, a chill runs through all her system; she is no longer able to keep |