13. Hear my prayer, O LORD; incline thine ear unto my cry; be not regardless of my tears.

14. For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my forefathers were. 15. O spare me, that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be

no more.

Or, Psalm xc.

LORD, thou hast been our refuge from generation to generation.

2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art, O God.

3. Thou reducest mortal man to dust, and sayest, Return, ye children of Adam. 4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch of the night.

5. Thou overwhelmest them: they pass away like sleep: they are like grass which springeth up in the morning.

6. In the morning it flourisheth, and springeth up; before the evening it is cut down and withered.

7. For thus we are consumed by thy displeasure, and are afraid of thy wrathful indignation.

8. Thou

8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, and our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

9. For all our days are passing away; we are consumed by thine anger; our years are like a vapour.

10. The days of our age are threescore years and ten: and if by reason of strength they come to fourscore years, yet is their strength but labour and sorrow: so soon passeth it away, and we are gone.

11. But who regardeth the power of thy wrath, or the terribleness of thy dis pleasure?

12. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

13. Return unto us, O LORD, at the last, and be gracious unto thy servants. 14. O satisfy us speedily with thy mercy: so shall we rejoice and be glad, all the days of our life,

15. Comfort us again, according to the time that thou hast afflicted us, and according to the years wherein we have suf fered adversity.

16. Shew thy servants thy work, and their children thy glory.

17. And let the gracious countenance

of

of the LORD our God be upon us: 0 prosper thou the work of our hands.

¶ Then shall follow the Lesson taken out of the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians.

THE portion of scripture selected to be

read upon the present occasion, is taken from 1 Cor. xv. 20, to the end.

BUT indeed Christ hath been raised from the dead: the first fruits of those who sleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also cometh the resurrection of the dead. For as through Adam all die, even so, through Christ, shall all be restored to life.

But every one in his own order. Christ the first fruits; afterwards, those who are Christ's at his coming.

Then cometh the end; when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God even the Father: when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power, For he must reign till God hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy shall be destroyed, even death. For God hath "subjected all things under his feet."

But when it is said, All things are subjected to him, it is manifest that he is excepted who subjected all things to him.

And

And when all things shall be subjected to him, then shall the Son also himself be subject to Him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.

Besides, what advantage have they who are baptized for the dead? If the dead will not be raised at all, why are they baptized for the dead? and why stand we in danger every hour?

I protest by that joyful confidence which we have in Christ Jesus our Lord, that I die daily. If, to speak after the manner of men, I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit me? If the dead will not be raised, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.

Be not deceived. Evil connexions corrupt good morals. Awake as becomes you, and err not. For some have not the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

But some one will say, Why are the dead to be raised? and with what body are they to come?

Thou inconsiderate man! That which

* i. e. into the hope of a resurrection of the dead. See Alexander's Commentary on 1 Cor. xv. Or, as others understand the words, in the place of those who have suffered mar. tyrdom, See Abp. Newcome in loc,

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thou

thou sowest, is not brought to life except it die. And as to that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body which will be produced, but a bare corn, perhaps of wheat; or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him, and to every seed its own body.

All flesh is not the same flesh but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars moreover, one, star differeth from another star in glory. Thus will it be in the resurrection of the dead.

It is sown in corruption *, it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is an animal body, and there is a spiritual body. And thus saith the scrip

The comparison here is between man in the present life and man after the resurrection.

ture: