our position. Admitting the possibility that the law of the development of our future being may be very probably ascertained by a scientific inquest into the physical and intellectual constitution with which we are endowed, the presumption is certainly warranted that the language of revelation on the subject is so framed as not to be intrinsically inconsistent with our previous conclusions. It may not indeed be so constructed as to yield that as the most direct and obvious sense, which we are convinced is the true sense, and yet we should reasonably expect it to be of such a character as would not irreconcilably conflict with the assumed verity of the doctrine. We have seen, if we mistake not, that the language of the inspired oracles does really answer to this condition. It has been shown, we think, upon competent grounds, that the leading term employed for conveying the doctrine Anastasis,' resurrection-genuinely implies the idea of future life, future living again after death. The implication of the revival of the dead body is not involved in the true sense of the word, in its general use in this connexion. The proof of this point must be considered as the virtual establishment of our position; for the generally received sense of this term is the main pillar of the generally received doctrine. The inevitable query at once occurs, If the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is not taught by the term 'resurrection' fairly interpreted, by what is it taught? * We admit, indeed, the possibility that the term

'Revivification,' it is argued, implies previous deadness; rising again, previous recumbency. But the interred body is alone either dead or recumbent. Reject the resurrection of the interred body, and you reject the resurrection altogether.' Revivification and resurrection, it is replied, imply continued organization; the interred body is not only dead but entirely disorganized, therefore resurrection cannot apply to the interred body. Its so-called resurrection would not be resurrection but sublimation. Resurrection applies to the deceased man, and not to that with which he ceased, on his relatively dying, to have any connection, and which never formed a part of his essential manhood, a manhood neither composite nor partible. . . . He who, when he says, I believe in the re

may be used in such connexions and relations, as to seem to teach the tenet in question, but we claim nevertheless to have shown, that in all the passages which would naturally be referred to and relied upon for this purpose, a sense may be elicited, without the least violence to language, that entirely harmonizes with the asserted genuine import of the

term.

What then becomes of the Scriptural evidence of the resurrection of the body? Does it not evaporate in the crucible of logical and philological induction? And is it not inevitable that a great change must come over our estimate of the doctrine, viewed as a disclosure of holy writ? Can it hereafter present the same aspect to the reflecting mind as formerly, when conceived to involve the averment of the requickening of the inhumed relics of the corporeal structure? Especially, are we not presented with a new and allimportant view of the central fact, our Saviour's resurrection? Conscious we may be of a severe shock to all our fixed preconceptions on the subject, so that we can scarcely refrain from the exclamation of Mary, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him," and yet can the evidence be resisted? But if admitted, how sublime and interesting the inference that follows! As our Lord forthwith emerged from his temporary subjection to death into a glorious resurrection-state, so also do all his members, the participants of that divine quickening principle which they derive from him, pass at once from their corruptible to their incorruptible existence, and appear in his presence clad in his likeness. No centurial sleep of the soul-no imperfect state of disembodied consciousness-no semi-celestialized condition-awaits the heirs of the resur

surrection of the body,' really means, 'I believe in the sublimation of the corpse,' says what he really does not mean, or really believe. The ancient millenarians were more honest, though not less mistaken; they believed in the resurrection of every tooth and nail." Stephenson's Christology, Vol. II. p. 193.

rection and the life.' The deposition of their garments of flesh is but the signal for their enrobement with the vesture of light in which they shall shine forth as the brightness of the sun in the firmament of heaven. No unrelieved longing for the resumption of their house which is from earth' can chill the ardor of ecstatic spirits for ever at home in their 'houses which are from heaven.' The departure of the saints from the present life is but the development of that heavenly manhood which admits them at once to eternal fellowship with all that are within the veil, and to a complete and everlasting union with their risen and redeeming Head, around whom the spirit-bodied hosts, in ever multiplying circles, continue to cluster. The true Levites of the universe, they gather round the celestial tabernacle, the enthronement of the Shekinah, whose light is ever on them, and to whose glory their own will be for ever more and more assimilated. By being translated they become eternally transfigured, like Moses and Elias on the holy mount, and no supervening 'heaviness from sleep' shall ever interrupt the exclamation— prompted by a rapture which Peter never knew—“ Lord, it is good for us to be here!'

CHAPTER XI.

"The Times of the Restitution of all Things."

THE obvious relation of the remarkable passage in Peter's discourse, Acts 3. 19-21, to the general subject of Scriptural Eschatology, with which our whole discussion is closely linked, suggests the propriety of a somewhat minute and critical survey of the apostle's language. It holds, as is well known, a prominent place in the general system of interpretation denominated Millenarian, and in the view which that theory takes of it, it stands confrontingly in the

way of the leading results to which we have come in the preceding pages. We propose, therefore, to attempt a careful exegesis of the passage, the results of which may perhaps leave it in the attitude of alliance rather than of conflict with our dominant conclusions.

These words are a part of Peter's discourse on the occasion of the healing of a lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. As the people flocked together in amaze, on the report of the miracle, Peter seized the opportunity to preach to them Christ crucified, at the same time charging upon them the guilt of his slaying, and affirming that God had again raised him from the dead, of which they (the apostles) were witnesses, and that it was through faith in the name of this crucified and risen Saviour, that perfect soundness had been imparted to the cripple before them. He then goes on to mention all the apology of which their conduct would admit, to wit, that they had done it through ignorance; and finally closes by urging them to repent, from this among other motives, that their sins might be blotted out when the times of refreshing should come from the presence of the Lord.

The inference is doubtless very clear, that Peter alludes to a time or state of things which there was reason to expect; and which was in fact the subject of a well-known and prevalent anticipation among the Jews. The grounds of such an anticipation must of course have been the prophetic announcements of the Old Testament, and these we are no doubt able to recognize in many of that class of predictions which are emphatically termed Messianic. But before attempting to specify these, it will be well to endeavor to concentrate all attainable light upon the import of the expression καιροὶ ἀναψύξεως, times of refreshing.

The term avausis, which occurs but in this single instance in the New Testament, is derived from the verb avayizo, the distinct primitive elements of which, according to some lexicographers, are avá, again, and yuzos, cold, and thus intimating that kind of refreshment or recreation which is produced by cooling, after excessive heat. The Vulgate accordingly renders the phrase in this place by tempora refrigeri, times of refrigeration. As however a leading

sense of the verb yuzo, the ultimate radical, is to breathe, so the refreshing indicated by the term άváyušis involves the closely related idea of that free respiration, which is effected, for instance, by the operation of fanning, when one is exhausted and faint. The definitions given by Hesychius and Stephens of the primitive etymon illustrate the usage still more fully. The latter thus defines avayizw; refrigera eventilo; interdum pro abstergo, desicco; metaphorice, recreo, refocillo, reficio, proprie reficio a calore. He then quotes Eustathius, who says that άrázev implies restoration from a kind of deliquium, or failure of animation, as άлочúzε, on the contrary, signifies animam efflare, to breathe out the soul, or to experience a suspended animation. As ta the derivative váyvis, he remarks that while its literal sense is refrigeration, it is used metaphorically for recreation, refreshment (refocillatio). Hesychius in his lexicon defines the verb ἀναψύχω by ἀνεμίσαι from ἄνεμος, wind,