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And these corporeal manifestations were fully justified by the objects to be attained. The disciples were disconsolate and spiritless, and ignorant how to act, as well as inclined, no doubt, to lose faith in Him Whose separation from them was so ill-understood as yet; and nothing could cheer and direct them like the presence and instructions of their risen Lord. And especially was it necessary that He should appear to credible witnesses and verify the reality of His resurrection for all time. But I take it that the natural body was assumed only for such occasions, to be changed' back again into the ethereal organ when the earthly interviews were over. I think it likely, moreover, that such transitions were effected not by virtue of our Lord's Omnipotence, but simply by the exercise of a function natural to all spiritual bodies. This may appear more probable from what I shall advance shortly. Of course, we can never understand the mysterious capacity by which such transformations may be effected, till our own bodies are changed from the 'natural' into the 'spiritual.' Then, however, we may find such transitions to be as easy, as natural, and as rapid as those of thought.

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Specially illustrative of this view was Christ's appearance to the two disciples going to Emmaus. To put Himself in communication with those disciples He assumed the natural body for that special occasion; for as soon as the object of His interview was served, 'He vanished out of their sight.' (Luke xxiv. 31.) I can conceive of no explanation of that wonderful transaction so probable as that Christ was then in a glorified state, and that in vanishing out of sight He simply transformed the natural body—assumed for that occasion-back again into the spiritual.

Equally instructive, as I understand it, was our Lord's transfiguration on the mount. The glorious appearance which He then assumed corresponds wonderfully with His after appearance to John in Patmos. On the mount 'His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.' (Matt. xvii. 2.) After His ascension, when seen by the beloved disciple, 'His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.' Now, as this last appearance was that of His glorified body, so, I believe, His appearance on the mount was that of His body glorified. In order to establish a natural medium of communication between Himself and those heavenly visitors who came to speak with Him of His coming decease, it was necessary either that they should assume a fleshly body like His, or that He should assume a spiritual body like theirs. Otherwise, except miraculously, there could be no vocal communication between them. But I think it more reasonable to suppose that there was no miracle in the case,* nor yet that any special radiance was then

* It is obvious to remark that our author's hypothesis necessitates a double miracle: first, the temporary spiritualization of the body of Christ; and second, the visibility to eyes of flesh, of the three spiritual bodies, those of our Lord and Moses and Elias. Besides, the radiance of our Lord's body eclipsed that of Moses and Elias; and His raiment also was dazzlingly luminous. We read nothing of the effulgence of the bodies of Moses and Elias.-EDITOR.

shed down upon Christ from on high, but that His body simply assumed, for that occasion, the glory into which it was afterwards permanently transformed. It becomes thus easy to believe that all spiritual bodies may possess the capacity of changing their form or appearance as occasion may require.

The same probability is illustrated by the visits of angels. The spiritual bodies which we may suppose those beings to possess, must be endowed with functions and capacities of which we have hardly any counterpart in this life. Ministering spirits' as they are they must, for instance, have the power of flight in a degree far exceeding our conception. Gabriel, on the occasion of his visit to the prophet Daniel, traversed the distance from heaven to earth in a few minutes. Now it will be clear, on very slight reflection, that the body-form and substance-which would serve Gabriel for such a journey, would be quite unsuitable for his interview with the prophet. Hence we must believe that those organs by which he 'touched' the prophet and spake with him must have been assumed for the occasion, for they would be incompatible with the rapidity of his previous flight.

We have many accounts of physical succour being bestowed by angels, and in such cases they must assume physical organs. Our Lord Himself, after fasting in the wilderness, was ministered to by angels, whose principal duty was to bring to Him the food He required-a physical act. Again, when His bodily frame was borne down by the mental agony He suffered, 'there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him.' When such material services are required, we must believe that the fine, invisible organisms of angels are changed for the time into grosser but more serviceable vehicles, for the relief of our grosser necessities.

On other occasions angels were entertained by men, and we may be sure they were very human in appearance; for we are told that thus 'some have entertained angels unawares.' It was so with Lot, when two of them feasted with him, and abode with him a whole night. The same two angels had previously eaten and conversed familiarly with Abraham. It cannot be supposed that the bodies in which they thus appeared were exactly the same, either in functions or form, as those they wear in heaven. However useful such fleshly bodies may be on certain occasions, angels could not be the 'ministering spirits' they are, if they still retained such bodies. We must believe that they are assumed, naturally and easily, for special occasions, and as naturally and easily transformed again into their native ethereal substance.

Such bodies may be 'spiritual' in the sense in which Paul uses the word : 'a spiritual body.' He does not mean, nor do we mean, that such bodies are immaterial, for then they would not be 'bodies' at all. But they may

be celestial, refined, invisible organisms, so far removed from the nature of our fleshly bodies as to be fitly described as 'spiritual.' The angelic hosts that surrounded Elisha were no immaterial phantoms, when they were invisible to all but himself. When Elisha prayed that the eyes of his servant might be opened, then he also saw 'the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire.' Those fiery hosts could soon have taken more tangible forms, and

produced more material effects, if the safety of the prophet had required their intervention.

In view of such considerations as these, we are enabled, I think, to fix with tolerable certainty the time when our Lord was glorified. When we perceive the ease with which, in a higher state of being, the spiritual body appears to be transformed into the natural, and the natural into the spiritual, it seems reasonable to conclude that He was glorified on rising from the grave, and that in all His subsequent fleshly appearances He merely used a capacity of transformation common to all spiritual bodies. But not till we are emancipated from these clay barriers can we have any adequate conception how such transformations are effected; it is enough for the present to have the assurance, in the suggestive words of the Apostle, that 'there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.'

I may be permitted to note, in conclusion, another probability in the economy of this spiritual body. In referring to the bodily as well as spiritual likeness to Christ to be attained at last, the language of St. John is peculiar and suggestive: 'It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.' What we shall be does not appear at present, because we are in the flesh, and cannot understand the change to be wrought upon us; but we know that He shall appear in great glory, and we know that we shall be like Him then; for we shall see Him as He is. The peculiar idea here seems to be, that the sight of the Redeemer's physical glory is to be the cause of the saint's resemblance to Him. We shall be like Him, not merely when we shall see Him as He is, but because we shall see him as He is. The Psalmist, too, gives utterance to almost the same idea: 'As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.' (Psalm xvii. 15.) The seeing of God's face is here intimately associated with the attaining of His image. This bodily assimilation to Christ's likeness, and the means by which it is realized, appears to be just a counterpart of the soul's moral assimilation to His image. It is by beholding His moral beauty that we come to possess and reflect that beauty. The chief difference is, that the bodily likeness will be attained at once, by a sudden sight of Him 'as He is'; while the spiritual resemblance is attained gradually, because He is seen now 'as in a glass.' 'We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.' This gradual moral transformation affords us a pledge and an illustration of the instantaneous bodily transformation to be realized at last. On awaking from the sleep of the grave, the first object the saint sees is Christ; and, lo! the sight of Him immediately transforms the vile body into His likeness.*

*This thought is finely presented in our Hymn (72, verse 3):
'His image visibly exprest,

His glory pouring from my breast,

O'er all my bright humanity,

For ever like the God I see '-EDITOR.

It was so in a small degree with Moses. He beheld a little of God's glory on the mount, and the poor mortal flesh caught up so much of that glory that it had to be veiled. If such was the effect of a very imperfect vision of God, vouchsafed to man in this mortal body, how glorious must be the effect when Christ is seen 'as He is,' and when His image shall be reflected by the spiritual, immortal bodies of His saints!

Now what I would venture to put forward as highly probable is that this final transformation into Christ's likeness may be due, not so much to a direct act of Omnipotence, as to the nature of the spiritual body itself. The mere seeing of Christ appears to be the cause of this wonderful change. May not all spiritual bodies be so constituted that on seeing Christ they immediately reflect His image? We have seen that the spiritual body appears to be endowed with the capacity of voluntary transformation. May we not also consider it to be essentially predisposed to one passive transformation,— that of becoming like Christ the moment it beholds Him? Some such supposition as this appears to be in full harmony with the not obscure hints afforded us of the method of future glorification.

And certainly we can conceive of nothing more honouring to Christ. What an amazing tribute of glory to Him, that every redeemed one of His should, on seeing Him, immediately glow with His image. And who can say but this may be one means of raising the redeemed from glory to glory, throughout eternity? We can conceive that the Saviour might, at epochs, display new phases of material glory; and His saints, on beholding these new visions of Him, would be transformed into higher manifestations of His image, and so rise into new experiences and new delights. Thus, while He would ever remain the Source and Centre of their joys, their capacities would be endlessly enlarged and endlessly gratified.

On a theme so sacred speculation must be kept within reverent bounds. But as the mind is apt to invest the future scenes of bliss with colours and forms of its own imagining, I think he renders a real service to mankind who advances any reasonable supposition-though it be nothing more-to keep in due check, or haply take the place of, merely gratuitous conceits. Clear and positive knowledge, however, belongs only to the future. When speculation shall have done its best, it will be as true as ever that there have not 'entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' *

* We shall gladly admit an equally well-reasoned and well-written Paper on this very abstruse subject, in support of the alternative hypothesis. It will be seen that the difficulty of determining the localization of the risen Lord during the greater part of the forty days, when He was invisible to all, belongs alike to either supposition.EDITOR.

OUR BAPTIZED CHILDREN:

BY THE REV. GEORGE OSBORN, D.D.

IV.

AMONG the original Nonconformists in England, Philip Henry shines a star of the first magnitude. His Life has found almost universal acceptance. It was inserted in the Christian Library by Mr. Wesley, who also desired his Preachers to read to the Societies that part which relates to Family Godliness; and it even found a place in a collection of Ecclesiastical Biography published by Dr. Wordsworth, the father of the present Bishop of Lincoln. It was abridged in a series of six articles for this Magazine, in the year 1812; and six years afterwards another and larger abridgment was published at the Book-Room, by the Rev. Samuel Taylor. But it is now out of print, and not easy of access, and those who would wish to take Mr. Wesley's advice would not find it easy to do so; though a short extract is given in this Magazine for 1866 (p. 28). Certainly religion has seldom been made to wear a more winning aspect than in this biography, and those of the son and daughters born and reared at Broad Oak. All were early converted, and the famous Commentator earliest of all. Among his miscellaneous works is a valuable Treatise on Baptism, from which the passage following is extracted:

'Our law requires that he who is (subditus natus) born within the king's allegiance, and consequently to all intents and purposes the king's subject, shall, when he is of the age of twelve years, take an oath of allegiance, and promise that to which he was bound before, viz., to be true and faithful to the king (Coke's Inst., i., 68); and this oath to be taken among the neighbours in the leet, or in the sheriff's town. I would compare the Confirmation I am pleading for to this. It is the solemn profession of that allegiance which was before due to Christ, and an advancement to a higher rank in His kingdom. The sooner this recognition is made the better. Youth is quickly capable of impressions; and the more early the impressions are, usually they are the more deep and durable....... Where this is neglected, or negligently performed by the congregation, it is yet the duty of every one to do it, as far as possible, for himself in private; in the most solemn manner, as in the presence of God; the more expressly the better; and it may add some strength to the engagement to subscribe with the hand unto the Lord. (Isaiah xliv. 5.)'

Good reason had this blessed saint to write thus. Among his papers was found one written by himself in his thirteenth year. It recounts how he began to be convinced of sin three years before in hearing his father preach from Psalm li. 17: 'I think it was that that melted me. Afterwards I began to enquire after Christ.' The next year he had 'reason to believe' that his sins were blotted out. What a holy and useful life he led, without a break, from that time forward need not now be more than hinted at. The kind of Confirmation for which he pleads, may, he says, 'not unfitly be done by imposition of hands, according to the practice of the Primitive Church.' But he knows no reason why they must necessarily be Episcopal hands. When every deacon hath authority to administer the great ordinance of baptism, ....it is a riddle to me why the subordinate constitution of Confirmation should be so strictly appropriated unto Bishops.......The investiture were

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