All flesh is not the fame flesh: for there is one kind of flesh of men; another flesh of beasts; another of fifbes; and another of birds. There are alfo celestial bodies, and bodies terreftrial. But the glory of the celestial is one; and the glory of the terreftrial is another. There is one glory of the fun; and another glory of the moon ; and another glory of the ftars: for one fiar differeth from another far in glory. He who has moulded the duft of the earth into bodies of flesh diverfified in their natures according to the wide diversity which fubfifts between the different families of the animal world: He who has beftowed on the inanimate workmanship of his hands, on the orbs which roll through unbounded space, degrees of radiance fo various as those by which the earth, the moon, the fun, and the innumerable ftars of heaven are respectively diftinguished: He is able to revive under another form the decayed flesh of man, and for ever to crown it with glory, which it was incapable of fuftaining before. Is not this representation true? Is it not pertinent? Even fo alfo is the refurrection of the dead. It is fown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is fown in difbonour; it is raised in glory: it is fown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is foren a natural body; it is raised a fpiritual body. Such

fhall be the majefty of the righteous, when they shine like the fun in the kingdom of their Father: fuch the glorious change experienced by their natural bodies, when they are transformed by the Lord Jefus into bodies fpiritual like His own. For as there is now a natural body; fo there is also a spiritual body, in referve for the children of God. And so it is written: The first man, Adam, was made a living foul; when God breathed into his noftrils the breath of life (e). But the last Adam not only became, like the first man, a living foul but by His own proper power He poffeffed life in himself; and He was able also to bestow life on others according to His pleasure. He was a quickening Spirit. For as the Father bath life in himfelf; fo bath He given to the Son to have life in himself. As the Father raifeth up the dead and quickeneth them; even fo the Son quickeneth whom He will. And all that are in the graves fhall hear His voice, and shall come forth (ƒ). As every descendent of Adam has by inheritance received a natural body fimilar to that of his first parent; so shall every true believer in Chrift Jefus receive at the last day by the quickening power of His Redeemer a body fpiritualised and glorified like to that of the human nature glorified in (e) Gen. ii. 7. (ƒ) John, v. 21. 26. 28, 29.

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the person of the Son of God. Howbeit for this his heavenly transfiguration he must wait in patient hope, until his earthly tabernacle fhall be diffolved. That was not first which is fpiritual, but that which is natural : and afterward, that which is fpiritual. The firft man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. Adam, our first parent, was formed from the duft of the ground; mortal in his nature, and even in paradise preserved from decay only by the fruit of the tree of life. But the second man Christ Jefus was God manifefted in the flesh: the Son of God, by nature a partaker of the Godhead: but for our fakes and for our falvation veiled for a season in a human body, a body first to be fubjected to death, then exalted into heaven, incorruptible and immortal. As is the earthy, fuch are they that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, fuch are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy; we shall alfo bear the image of the heavenly. For his appointed feason the child of corruption must bear the body of corruption. Earth must return to earth before it can be clothed with life eternal. But if, while thou art in this tabernacle, thou art renewed in the Spirit of thy mind after the image of the Lord from heaven; when

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when Chrift, who is thy Lord, fhall appear, then fhalt thou alfo appear with Him in glory.

Now this I fay, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God: neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Our bodies, if continued in the ftate of impure and perishable flesh and blood, would be unfit for the habitations of the bleffed, unqualified for the glories of eternity. Behold! I fhew you a mystery. I would explain to you through the infpiration of the Spirit of truth the fecrets of the world to come, which God alone can reveal. We shall not all fleep in the grave;

fball all be changed: all the generations of men who fhall have been depofited in the tomb; and every individual of that concluding generation which Chrift, when he cometh to judgement fhall find alive; all shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the laft trump. For the trumpet fhall found, and the dead fhall be raised incorruptible; and we fhall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal muft put on immortality. So when this corruptible fhall have put on incorruption, and this mortalfhall have put on immortality; when purified for ever from all pollution, difentangled and refined from the feeds of weakness and decay, the glorified frame fhall be re-united to the immortal

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immortal Spirit: then shall be brought to pass the faying that is written, Death is fwallowed up in victory; then shall be fully accomplished in its noblest import the prophetic declaration of Ifaiah: The Lord God fball fwallow up death in victory; and fhall wipe away tears from off all faces: for the Lord hath Spoken it (g). Then fhall the redeemed of the Lord exclaim in the triumphant language of the apostle; O death! where is thy fting? O grave! where is thy victory? In that day fhall they take up, and apply to themselves, the fong of exultation prepared for them by the prophet in the words immediately following that promife, which is now fulfilled in their refurrection to everlasting life: Lo! this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will fave us! This is the Lord: we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His falvation! From the contemplation of the glories of the world to come, St. Paul as it were for a moment returns to earth, that he may impress on our hearts a deep conviction of the fituation with respect to futurity, in which every man, as an inheritor of the mortal and corrupt nature of Adam, and as a finner against God by wilful tranfgreffion, is placed; of the fituation in which all men would have re(g) Ifaiah, xxv. 8. Ee 4

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