divested of all that drapery of extravagance which ecclesiastical antiquity has thrown around it, and it is seen standing aloof from all connexion with the dogma of purgatorial penance. Contemplated in this relation, it is not surprising that it should have been rejected from the theology of an enlightened age. But when surveyed purely as a doctrine of revelation, and freed from the additaments of superstition and priestcraft, it comes before us as one of the most interesting features of that divine system of redemption which binds up in one bundle of blessing the eternal destiny of all the saints.

And

It now remains briefly to view the present passage in connexion with one or two other Scriptures, upon which it will be found, if we mistake not, to shed great light. first, we regard this incident in the Gospel narrative as a legitimate primary fulfilment of the prediction of Daniel, ch. 12. 2, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." We have, already, in our previous exposition of this passage (p. 131), given our reasons for translating these words as follows:

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Many out of those sleeping in the dust of the ground shall awake: those (who awake), (shall be) to everlasting life; those (who do not awake), (shall be) to shame and everlasting contempt." This event, as we learn from the preceding verse, is to occur at a period when "Michael shall stand up, the great prince 'that standeth for the children of the people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as there never was since there was a nation, even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." This time of trouble' is to be taken in a large sense, including the calamitous period of the destruction of Jerusalem, of which our Saviour himself says, Mat. 24. 21, "There shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." This clearly identifies the periods, for there can

not be two epochs, both of which shall exclude all parallels in the way here described, as this would be to exclude each other. Michael is here, as in Rev. 12, the mystical or prophetical designation of the Messiah, and his 'standing for the children of thy people,' denotes his providential agency in the disastrous events of that great crisis. The 'awaking of many from the dust of the earth,' has, undoubtedly, an involved reference to the deliverance of those that were written in the book,' i. e. the book of life, or preservation, of which the literal awaking of the sleeping saints was a sensible adumbration. It is no real objection to this exegesis, that in the one case it seems to be affirmed that a part of the sleepers arose to 'shame and everlasting contempt,' whereas in the other it is only asserted that many bodies of the saints' arose. We have already seen that in the former case a resurrection, in the true sense, is not really affirmed of the wicked. They remain unawakened, and there is nothing in the expressions rightly understood to prevent the two passages being brought into entire parallelism. By viewing them in this relation to each other, the difficulties usually felt in regard to the fulfilment of Daniel's oracle, are done away. It is assuredly something which is to take place in a time of trouble, that, as we have seen, answers only to the end of the Jewish state, and the destruction of Jerusalem. What then can it mean but the very thing which we have affirmed? The only point difficult of concession is, that it brings the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ within the period of Jerusalem's calamities. But let it be considered, that the prediction was uttered hundreds of years before the events occurred, and when we allow for the extended sweep of prophecy, which necessarily oftentimes groups together events separated by very considerable intervals of time, we see nothing improbable in the idea, that the whole period of Christ's earthly sojourning, and the final catastrophe of the Jewish metropolis, may be included in the range of the prediction. For the present, then, we have no

difficulty in the conclusion, that the 'sleepers in the dust,' in both cases, are the same, and that while a temporal deliverance of those who were 'written in the book,' is, in fact, intended, the prophecy received at the same time a literal fulfilment as an outward sign of the other, in the event that took place at the crucifixion.

To the same event, in an emphatical sense, we are inclined to refer our Lord's words, John 5. 25: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." It is by no means necessary to exclude from this reference the various cases of resuscitation mentioned elsewhere in the evangelists, as that of Lazarus, the daughter of Jairus, and the young man of Nain. Nor do we refuse to recognize the sense of a moral or spiritual resurrection as the effect of the preaching of the life-giving doctrines of the Gospel. But no one, we think, can fail to perceive a most striking adaptation in the words themselves to the circumstances of the resurrection we are now considering. It was an event to be effected, in a peculiar manner, by the voice' (pový) of the Son of man; and accordingly it is said, Mat. 27. 50-52, "Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice (pavỹ μɛyóλŋ), yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the vail of the temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent." This voice, while it was the last effort of his own expiring breath, was, to the sleeping dust of the saints, the reviving fiat which spoke them into supernatural animation, and thus symbolically exhibited the new-creating energy that was to flow from his doctrines in connexion with his death. It is by illustrations of this nature that we see how wondrously the frame-work of revelation is dove-tailed together.

This is undoubtedly the strongest passage in the New Testament in favor of the common view of the resurrection, and one in respect to which it becomes us seriously to guard against any undue bias, from theoretical promptings, to wrest it from its true-meant design. If we know ourselves, we would deal, with the profoundest deference and with the utmost fairness, with every declaration of holy writ; and, in regard to the present passage, we cannot fail to perceive that it is marked by a certain directness of enunciation, in respect to the general subject, which must be considered. as strongly countenancing the construction which the Christian world has ever for the most part been led to put upon it. Still it can, as we conceive, be no impeachment of a becoming reverence for the words of him "who spake as never man spake" to institute the inquiry, how far and on what principles his language on this occasion can be reconciled with the views thus far maintained in our preceding pages. Let us trust, then, that the truth will not be offended by the following suggestions.

(1.) It is unquestionable that our Lord speaks in this passage in stronger terms than he usually adopts in regard to the resurrection of the dead. However it may be accounted for, the fact is nevertheless certain, that he for the most part speaks of it as the distinguishing privilege and prerogative of the righteous. Thus Luke, 20. 35, 36:

"But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children (sons) of God, being the children (sons) of the resurrection." Here it is clear that the children of God' are identified as the same with the 'children of the resurrection.' Again, Luke 14. 12-14, when commanding his disciples to call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, to their feasts, he adds, " And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just;" as if the resurrection belonged emphatically to the just. In strict accordance with this the apostle expresses himself, Phil. 3. 11, “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." We have no doubt that this aspect of the subject could be abundantly explained by reference to the prevailing sentiments of the Jews at and before the time of Christ, but we here advert to it simply as a fact well entitled to attention in this connexion a fact undoubtedly forcing upon us the inference, that some special reason existed for adopting on this occasion a style of announcement diverse from that which generally obtains in the New Testament teachings on this subject.

(2.) The passage, as understood in its literal import, does certainly encounter the force of that cumulative mass of evidence, built upon rational and philosophical grounds, which we have arrayed against any statement of the doctrine that would imply the participation of the body in that rising again which is predicated of the dead. We do not by any means affirm that the conclusions from that source, to which we have come, are sufficient of themselves to countervail the rebutting conclusion which may be formed from the present passage. All we would say is, that they have weight, and consequently we are not required, or rather are not at liberty, at once to dismiss them, as a kind of profane