Thus all difficulties are easily disposed of by him that understandeth. 2. At the same time, let us avoid all curious questions on this subject. There may be many points connected with the resurrection of the body which we cannot comprehend or explain. Let us, then, never go a step further than Scripture takes us by the hand. That which God has revealed let us thankfully receive and heartily embrace; that which He has concealed let us willingly be ignorant of, and wait till all is clear in the light of God's countenance. Then shall we acknowledge with gratitude that He who promised has also brought it to pass, and that not one jot or one tittle of His Word has failed. Thus it has been in time past, and thus it will be again. 3. How little reason have we to dread death when we look at it in connexion with Jesus and the resurrection. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again; even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." (1 Thess. iv. 14.) Let us rather remember that, as in the case of the grain, that which we sow is not quickened except it die, so the death of the body and its burial in the grave is one step towards that glorious quickening which it shall experience at Christ's second coming. The process may seem loathsome, and the wages of sin appear very terrible to flesh and blood; but faith looks to the glorious result, and this gives death and the grave quite a different complexion. Faith looks upon death as a stepping-stone to life. Faith fearlessly enters into the dungeon, having first written upon the slab which covers it, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." 4. Let us then pray for faith; that faith which apprehends Christ and all the promises of God in Him. Then may we, in spite of our present low estate, hear a voice saying to us, as to the captive Israelites among the brickkilns of Egypt, "Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." (Ps. lxviii. 13.) Though ye have lien in the dust of death, and had your dwelling among the clods of the valley, yet shall you mount up with wings as eagles and shine resplendent in the rays of the Sun of righteousness, and your glory and beauty shall far exceed your former shame. 5. But O, my brethren, if such are our high hopes and expectations for our bodies, how pure should we keep them from sin, and how jealously should we guard them for the true Master's use! This is the argument of the Apostle: "Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up our bodies by His own power. Know Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid ! What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." (1 Cor. vi.) SERMON IX. 1 COR. XV. 42-45. "So also is the resurrection of the dead. corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in "It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." THESE words are not to be connected with the verses immediately preceding, but with those we considered last Sunday. The Apostle had introduced an objector, saying, "How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" To this double question he replied, "O stupid man, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain; it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body." This led him to digress a little to point out God's wonderful power in producing such a variety of bodies and keeping them all distinct: not only the different kinds of seed, but the different kinds of flesh, whether of men, beasts, fishes, or birds; and not only earthly bodies, but heavenly, investing them with different degrees of glory, as the sun, moon, and stars of divers magnitude. Having concluded this digression, he returns, as he is wont, to the point from whence he started, the unfinished figure of the harvest. As yet he had only spoken of man's sowing--" that which thou sowest "—and the marvellous change which a grain of wheat undergoes; not quickened till first it dies, and then endued by God with a body identical with that sown and yet greatly changed for the better. "So also is the resur |