TO THE

SURVIVING AFFLICTED WIDOW

AND CHILDREN OF

WELCOME ARNOLD, ESQ.,

The following Sermon is inscribed, with the sincerest desires for their present and future happiness, by their friend and very humble servant,

THE AUTHOR.

A SERMON.

IT IS SOWN IN CORRUPTION, IT IS RAISED IN INCORRUPTION; IT IS SOWN IN DISHONOR, 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. 1 COR. xv. 42, 43, 44.

THE love of existence, and the desire of knowing futurity, may be ranked among the strongest propensities of the human heart. The first of these is repressed by death, the last is encouraged by the prospect of a resurrection. So great is our attachment to happiness, and so great our aversion to misery, that whatever discloses to us our future state, cannot but be highly interesting and important. We must therefore feel peculiarly indebted to our beneficent Creator, for assuring us of the resurrection of our bodies. The language of the Saviour was, "the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth." He who was caught up into the third heaven said, "the trump shall sound, and the dead shall be raised." John, when he beheld in vision the resurrection, said, "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God-and the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and hades delivered up the dead which were in them." But our inquiries may perhaps extend farther than merely to ascertain the fact of the resurrection of the dead. We may be disposed to ask, as some did in the Corinthian church, "how are the dead raised? and with what body do they come?" These questions imply a desire to know the manner in which the resurrection should be effected. They also imply a disposition to

doubt the resurrection, unless the persons who proposed them should have their inquisitive curiosity fully gratified. This is the reason why the Apostle replies with severity, and says, "thou fool, that which thou 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 some other grain; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body." The Apostle in these words reproves the unreasonableness of those who are disposed to doubt or deny a fact, merely because they cannot comprehend the manner in which it is accomplished. He intimates that there is nothing more mysterious or unintelligible in the resurrection of the body, than there is in the germination of a grain of wheat. This, when cast into the earth, will neither spring nor grow, unless it dies. But who can tell how the death of that which is sown, is essential to the life and growth of that which springs up? That this is the case we cannot deny, though the manner in which the fact is accomplished is entirely beyond our comprehension. When the bare grain is sown in the earth, the future body of that grain is not sown. The grain dies, the principle of life ascends, and God clothes it with such a body as he pleases. The Apostle proceeds to show that there will be different grades of people in the resurrection, and that then there will be as great a diversity in the bodies and appearances of men as there is in the present state. These ideas are implied in the following words. "All flesh is not the same flesh; there is one kind of flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestial. The glory of the celestrial 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 of the stars; for as one star differeth from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead." But though there will be in the world of the resurrection such a diversity in the bodies of men, yet there are certain circumstances in which they will all agree. These are expressed in our text. "It (body) is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor