Finally, let us dread the thought of being found amongst the enemies of Christ. Apply the test to your own conduct. Think when you are called into any particular line of action, or any particular association. Am I with Christ, or against him? Am I for him, or opposing him? Am I honouring him, or denying him? Let that voice of warning be ever heard in your ears, "Whosoever shall confess me before him will I confess; but whosoever shall deny me, him will deny before my Father and his holy Angels.” men, A Sermon DELIVERED BY THE REV. C. BENSON, 1 Cor. xv. 35.-" But some man will say, How are the dead raised? and with what body do they come? compound of matter and spirit; and that the same being who on earth is faithful to his Saviour, will, in heaven, be glorified by that Saviour; that he who disbelieves or disobeys his Lord will, in the same form in which he sinned in this state of pilgrimage, be condemned to everlasting and unavailing anguish in the appointed state of retribution. This was the promise of Jesus to his followers; and to illustrate and confirm that promise, he himself burst the bands of death, and showed himself alive after his passion to his various disciples, and after forty days ascended visibly with his body into the heavenly regions. He had declared to them, not only that where he was they should be also, but as he was they also should become. Now, they had beheld him mounting up into heaven-into heaven, therefore, they themselves, also, were to obtain an entrance. They had beheld him carrying up thither the body in which he had walked with them, and talked with them, during the course of his earthly ministry: with the same body, therefore, with which they had accompanied him Of all the doctrines which the gospel has brought to light, when making known to us that life and immortality which is purchased by the merits of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the most inexplicable to human reason is that of the resurrection from the dead, the reunion of the body and soul in another and better world, where there will be no disease to weaken, and no death again to dissolve the connexion which will then be once more formed. The Grecian and Roman philosophers might have some faint notion of a future state, in which the soul would either be happy or miserable for ever, according to the merits of the being in whose vile tabernacle it dwelt on earth. But that future state was to consist, in their view, not of another union to the body, but in a complete and permanent separation from the bondage of the flesh, from pain, and suffering, and decay. They looked upon the body as the prison and the degradation of the soul; and conceived its only hope of felicity to be placed in an emancipation from its dungeon of earthliness. Nor have the Deists, in the latter days, ever conceived a doc--with the same eyes which had looked trine of a different kind: they have deemed it necessary to disembody the spiritual part of man, in order that it might be happy for ever. But the doctrine of Christianity is of a different character; it promises to man a perfection and an eternity of happiness, both in body and soul: it tells the disciple of the gospel, that as he is now so he will be hereafter-a on him-with the same ears that had It words, they went forth and preached | tortioner and adulterer, the worldlyJesus and the Resurrection, as the minded and the lover of pleasure and two fundamental principles of the re- folly, will be left to slumber on for ligion of the gospel. But it was one ever in the unconsciousness of the of the most wonderful and unexpected grave. The wicked sometimes hope doctrines, and many who embraced that, but they cannot hope with any the faith of Christ were yet often foundation in the scriptures. All that dwelling on its singularity; and, with are in their graves shall hear the voice a vain and useless effort to clear up of the Son of Man, and shall awake; the whole mighty mystery, were often some indeed to everlasting glory, but asking the questions of the text, and some to everlasting shame and conconfounding both themselves and their tempt. "There will be a resurrecteachers, by demanding how the dead tion," says the Apostle," both of the shall be raised up, and with what just and of the unjust." And while body they shall come. the bodies of the saints shall inherit It is not to presume to answer these the kingdom prepared for them from inscrutable questions in the fullest ex- the beginning of the world; the flesh tent that I have chosen these words of the ungodly shall rise to live for for the subject of our present con- ever likewise, and living to find for sideration. The event alone can tell ever the worm that dieth not, and us the means and the mode by which burn for ever in the lake of fire preGod will operate this astonishing re-pared for the devil and his angels. novation of the whole human race: Whatever be the meaning of these and, in a question so confessedly be- similitudes, doubtless they are similiyond the reach of man's present facul- tudes of an anguish of a most fearful ties, it is far better to leave the solu-nature; and doubtless it is an anguish tion of the wonder to the appointed which will fall at the resurrection, both time. upon the bodies and upon the souls of the ungodly. Remember the recompense due for the misdeeds of the body when united to the spirit. It is well that we should ever bear engraven on our memories this thought: because the Bible, when it speaks of the resurrection, speaks so constantly, and so much more copiously, of what will be the fate of those who are saved through Christ, than of those who are lost and condemned, that we may be liable to lose the awakening recollection of what horrid sufferings will then fall upon the wicked. But there is one sense in which every Christian may be allowed to adopt the questions of the text; and that is in the scriptural sense. Every one may, and, if he duly esteem and make it his study and delight, he will and ought naturally to inquire what the scriptures themseves have taught us concerning the manner and the order in which the dead shall be raised up, and the nature of that body with which they will come out from their graves. This is the information which we may legitimately seek; and I will, therefore, in the remainder of this dis- The second assurance which we decourse, endeavour to lay before you a rive from the word of God concerning few of the leading and undoubted cir- the manner of the Resurrection is this cumstances which may be gleaned that it will be instantaneous as well as from the different portions of the Apos- | universal. At one time-at one sound tolic writings concerning the resurrec-by one act of Almighty power, the tion of the dead. whole mass and multitude of sleepers The first point which is most forcibly shall awake. Death does his work of lain down is, The universality of this desolation by successive changes; his reunion of the body and soul. It is conquests are slow and gradual; and not a favour reserved only for the re- generation after generation, and man deemed who will be called out from after man, are bowed down at his unthe chambers of the dead to enjoy in welcome bidding. But the Lord of body and spirit, the reward of that Life will declare his superior and irreobedience which they have paid to sistible might, by breaking at once the God both in body and spirit; while bonds of all who have been the conthe faithless and impenitent, the ex-queror's captives. It is not because the first parents of the human race were the earliest who tasted the bitterness of dying, that they will therefore be the earliest to taste the sweetness of reviving. It is not because Abraham and Isaac, and the Prophets, are dead, and have mouldered some thousands of years ago, that they will therefore spring up from the dust with a proportionable priority of time, before all their children who have since fallen victims to the same law of mortality. There is one-and but one-hour appointed for the sea to give up the dead that are in it, and death and hell to give up the dead that are in them, and the forest and the wilderness and the sepulchre to restore the bones of the bodies which were intrusted to their keeping. In that hour the Patriarchs and Prophets of the world before and after the flood-the kings and the subjects of Babylon and Rome-the disciples of Moses and of Christ, however separated from each other by the difference of time and place, by the first birth, will spring up in this second generation to the sons of the same day, contemporary children of the general resurrection. "For the trumpet shall sound," says the Apostle, "and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the whole valley of dry bones will be revived; bone will come to his bone, and sinews bind them, and flesh cover them, and spirit be breathed into them; and they shall all become, what they once were, living moving things-all at the last trump, and not one shall be wanting. But, behold," says the apostle, to whom we are indebted for almost all our dim conceptions of the future world, "behold, I show you a mystery," a circumstance which reason could not have attained, and for which rection takes place-shall none of them sleep, as other men have done, in the dumb forgetfulness of the grave; but they shall all be changed; a change will pass over them equivalent to death and the resurrection, but death and the resurrection they will not literally know. Nor will even this wondrous and momentary change happen to them until all the rest of mankind have been revived into everlasting existence. The whole process of this singular operation is distinctly recorded in the last verses of the 4th chapter of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, "This we say unto you by the word of the Lord"-mark how solemnly he brings forward this statement,-" This we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent," or go before, "them which are asleep. For the Lord himself 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: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." It is a wonderful scene which those men will behold-it is a wonderful thing to which they will be subject. And an imagination, even of the dullest cast, can scarcely help forming unto itself some picture of the strangeness of the event, and the awfulness of the feelings with which it will be contemplated. (To be continued.) we are wholly indebted to the revela- No. 2. will appear on Thursday, Aug. 26. tion of the spirit of God. That mystery is this:-All will not sleep; all who are dead will rise at once, but all will not die, and, therefore, all will not be placed under the necessity of rising again. Those who are alive and remain on the earth as its inhabitantsand it is clear that some must so live Printed by Lowndes and White, Crane Court, and remain when the general resur London: Published for the Proprietors, by T. GRIFFITHS, Wellington Street, Strand; and Sold by all Booksellers in Town and Country. Fleet Street. Ezra, iii. 11, 12, 13.-" And they sung together by course, in praising and giving thanks unto the LORD; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever towards Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. ́ But many of the priests and Levites, and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy; so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy for the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off." THE name of Ezra, which signifies a helper, is strikingly illustrated in the character which this excellent man sustained. He was so pre-eminently to the Jews just about the period of their return from the Chaldean captivity; for he obtained permission from the king of Persia to accompany a goodly number of his fellow-countrymen, bearing the vessels of silver and the vessels of gold which were taken from the temple in the reign of Zedekiah to Babylon, and he set in his heart to complete the work of its reerection. He stirred up the spirits of many to engage with him in this sacred employment-he devoted much of his talents, of his time, of his substance, and of his labours to the work he occupied himself in rectifying and reforming many of the civil, political, and ecclesiastical abuses-he restored the public worship of GoD-he reinstated magistrates in their proper position, and urged them forwards in their line of duty-he likewise assem VOL. II. | bled the people for the purpose of fasting and of earnest prayer, and sometimes publicly expounded in their hearing the oracles of GOD-he re-established the feasts which had been originally ordained of GOD and had been celebrated by Moses with the children of Israel in the wildernessand in short, without entering upon further minute detail, he contributed in a vast variety of ways to restore the children of the captivity to the possession of their long-lost privileges, and to re-establish them in the land from which they had been so long exiled. This celebrated and illustrious individual has proved himself also a helper to us, and to the church of God even to the remotest ages of time. To him we are indebted for the production of the two books of Chronicles and of Kings. To him we owe the arrangement of the sacred canon of Scripture up to the time in which he lived; and I conceive too, the preservation of those invaluable documents during the F F painful juncture of the Jewish affairs, when they were groaning beneath the Assyrian bondage. We cannot, even if we look at the book which bears his name, do otherwise than admire the singular piety of his character, the magnanimity with which he bore, without repining, and without taking the slightest notice of it, the opposition of those who endeavoured to impede him in his work, his intrepid courage amidst singular dangers and difficulties, and the faithful perseverance with which he kept his grand object steadily in view until the people rejoiced together, not only that the foundations of the house of GOD were laid, but that the temple was completely reconstructed. Pause one moment here, my friends, before we enter on the immediate subject to which your attention is to be directed at this religious hour, and ask yourselves this question, whether you sustain that character in a religious sense which Ezra so admirably bore? Have none of you, I ask, proved hindrances instead of helpers in the work of GOD? Have none of you endeavoured to impede the religious procedures of those by whom you are surrounded, in your families, or in the circle in which you move, or in your neighbourhood, or in the church, or in the world? Put these enquiries to yourselves I pray you, not to perturb or needlessly to distress your minds, but to induce penitence and actual reformation, and to constrain you in future to become what those were of whom St. Paul spoke in the language of commendation among the primitive Christians—“They helped us much in the Lord;" so shall I prove your helper, not having dominion over your faith, not needlessly agitating your bosoms with distress, but becoming a helper of your joy. The immediate reference, in the language which I have just read to you, is the set time which GOD had appointed to favour Zion. Israel was now to be delivered from the bondage beneath which it had for many years languished; and Ezra occupies himself with one thousand persons in paying a visit to Jerusalem in about the fifty-ninth or sixtieth year of the captivity, in order to set forward the enterprize in which he had determined to embark. But mark, I beseech you, this circumstance, and it will help you to meet the objection which is often brought forward against the accuracy of the statement which is contained in this part of the narrative. It has been said, that there was scarcely any individual surely who could well remember the former temple and its glory seventy years back. Now it is a mistake, seventy years had not expired; at the utmost sixty had passed away, and according to the arrangements of God's providence in the duraration of human life, it is not unlikely that there were some very old men who had a perfect recollection of the temple which had been destroyed by the Chaldean king and his forces. The circumstance which is stated here is very remarkable. It seems that when the foundations of the house were laid, the younger persons in the congregation of the people shouted aloud for joy; on the other hand, there were certain hoary-headed men, called here "the ancient men," who wept aloud upon the occasion. Now many commentators have censured them for this. There is no censure here implied-there is no expression of disapprobation employed in the language of the sacred historian; and therefore judging candidly of them, I should feel disposed rather to commend them for their tears. And I purpose to show you in the observations which are to follow, that there often exists, in connection with the very same events, cause for joy |