"and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army." And God tells the prophet expressly, that "these bones are the whole house of Israel;" meaning the whole church of God, whether Jews or Gentiles, reformed by Christ, and now united in one whole house, under the dominion of the Son of God, as it would be easy to show, from the subsequent part of this prophetic chapter. From the prophecies of the old, thus only briefly mentioned, let us pass to those of the New Testament, on the same great doctrinal truth. Here it is taught and impressed on the minds of the true believers, in more than thirty places. I shall, however, lay before the Christian reader a few of them only, referring to others in a note. Christ expressly tells the Jews, when they sought to slay him*, Marvel not at this; for the hour "is coming, in the which all that are dead in the 66 graves shall hear his voice and come forth, they "that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." Again, to the Sadducees, who attempted to ensnare him with a question, he says, "As touching the dead, that they rise, have ye not read in the Book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, say . ing, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of "Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the "God of the dead, but of the living." And again, when Martha seemed to doubt his power to raise her brother Lazarus from the dead, Christ * John, v. 28, 29. † Mark, xii. 26. said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. "He that believeth in me, though he were dead (temporally), yet shall he live; and whosoever "liveth and believeth in me, shall never die :" meaning "the second death," which will be the punishment of the wicked, when he shall judge the world. This truth was not only thus delivered by Christ himself, to all the apostles, but preached by them as an essential article of the Christian faith. St. Paul is so clear and copious, that I shall only take notice of what he says upon the subject. In his Epistle to the Thessalonians, he says, "If we believe that Jesus died and "rose again, even so them also which sleep in "Jesus (who shall have died in faith in Christ, " and thereby found favour with God) will God bring him with him. For this we say unto you, by "the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, "and remain at the coming of the Lord (mean cr ing those that shall live on the earth when he shall "come to reign, although they shall not die a na"tural death), shall not prevent them that are a"sleep" that are under a temporal death, from rising afterwards at the great day of judgment. "For," says he further, "the Lord shall descend "from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the "archangel, and with the trump of God; and "the dead in Christ shall rise first," that is, when he shall come to reign upon earth: but that this first resurrection shall not prevent a future resurrection of the dead who shall not come with * *John, xi. 25, 26, † 1 Thess. iv. 14, 15, 16, 17. B Christ, at the last awful day, when he shall come, after he has reigned, to judge all mankind. "Then (referring to the first resurrection of the dead) we which are alive and remain (all those "who are alive and remain on earth, and have "believed in Christ at his second coming) shall "be caught up with them (the saints that had "come with him in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the "Lord." In his Epistle to the Corinthians he is yet more explicit and copious upon this great doctrinal truth, of the resurrection of the dead. He represents it as the leading principle of the Gospel of Christ, in which all true believers place their faith and hope. "For," says he,* «if in "this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of "all men most miserable." He then, by a great variety of arguments, asserts this great truth. He tells us, " Since by man came death, by "man came also the resurrection of the dead. "For as in Adam (by Adam's transgression) all "die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." That "Christ must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet, even death itself." He then passes to the resurrection of the dead. To those who may doubt respecting it, he says, "Thou fool, that which thou sowest, is not "quickened except it die; and that which thou "sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, "but bare grain; but God giveth it a body, and 1 Cor. xv. 18. † Ibid. 21, 22. "to every seed its own body:" that* « flesh and "blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nei"ther doth corruption inherit incorruption;" and therefore, that although "we (meaning the hu"man race) shall not all sleep (die a natural death, "for some are to be alive even at the day of "judgment), yet we shall all (both the living and "the dead) be changed; in a moment, in the twink"ling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (from our corrupted terrestrial bodies into spiritual, incorruptible, and never dying bodies), in order that Christ may reward those that have loved the truth, and feared God, through faith in his Gospel, with eternal life, and punish the reprobates, who shall have died in their infidelity, with everlasting misery, or the second condemnation and death. So when this corruptible shall have put. "on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put "on immortality, then shall be brought to pass "the saying that is written-Death is swallowed 'up in victory t:" and, lastly, that then shall they, who shall be made alive and redeemed through the BLESSED AND ETERNAL SON OF GOD, with thanksgiving and praise, exclaim in rapturous ecstacy, "O DEATH, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?" tr Thus much, from the doctrine of the prophets, apostles, and of Christ himself, respecting his coming to judge the world, the last re * 1 Cor. xv. 50. Isai. xxv. 8. Hosea xiii. 14. Rev. xx. 14 surrection, and his triumph over all his enemies, even death and the grave. I have thought it not an improper introduction to what St. John says upon the same subject: for it not only confirms the truths of his prophecy, but will assist us in understanding it. Having foretold the destruction of the world, and with it all the race of Adam, he proceeds to the immediate consequences of that awful event: for, during the agonies and convulsions of expiring nature, he tells us, *" And the sea gave up her dead,' &c.; that is, as I humbly apprehend, in this dreadful convulsion, the particles of matter of which the dead bodies consisted, when in the grave, shall be separated and loosened from those particles of the earth which had been destined to other purposes; and being thus separated, those which had formed the dead bodies shall be gathered together by the almighty fiat of that God, who not only created them out of nothing, but, "made the heavens and earth, and the sea and fountains of waters;" and thus gathered together, those which had been bones shall become bones; and those which had been sineres, sinews; and flesh, flesh; and those which had been skin, shall be skin; and the bodies of the race of Adam being thus formed a second time, the same Almighty power which breathed the breath of life into the dead bodies of our first parents, shall breathe into them the breath of life, however * Ver. 13. |