resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." "That is," as Bishop Beveridge explains it, "all mankind shall as certainly rise again to life in Christ the second Adam, as they died in the first; and all by virtue of His resurrection from the dead, which therefore is not only the pattern and example, but the cause of ours: and such a cause that it cannot but take effect. But all men that die shall as certainly rise again, as Christ did so, and because He did so." Christ rose again, and thereby He set His seal that those words are true which He spake unto the Jews who sought to slay Him, "The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation."

My brethren, I can say nothing which can add to the awfulness of those words. I can use no argument to induce you to listen to them which you have not heard from your youth up. You must die. You must die. You must rise

again. Your rising must be a resurrection

Are you living as men whose lives may terminate at any moment? Are you striving to realize to yourselves continually what a resurrection to damnation implies? Have you thought what it must be to dwell with everlasting burnings? Have you thought on the joys prepared for them who truly believe in Christ, and who look for, and love His appearing? Have you made your choice be tween heaven and Hell? Are you serving God, or yielding yourselves to His enemy and your own?

"O Saviour of the World, Who, by Thy Cross and precious Blood, hast redeemed us, save us, and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord!"

LECTURE VI.

THE PROPER LESSON CONTINUED.

The end of all time. Part E.

2 CORINTHIANS XV. 51, 52.

"BEHOLD, I SHEW YOU A MYSTERY; WE SHALL NOT ALL SLEEP, BUT WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED, IN A MOMENT, IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE, AT THE LAST TRUMP: FOR THE TRUMPET SHALL SOUND, AND THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED INCORRUPTIBLE, AND WE SHALL BE CHANGED."

I SUPPOSE that I am only expressing a feeling in which all earnest-minded persons participate, when I say that there are passages in the Bible so very awful and overwhelming, that one altogether shrinks from speaking about them: we can meditate upon them in the silence and darkness of the night; or with our eyes closed and the world shut out, in the privacy of our closets; but in propor

tion as we have cultivated a reverential spirit shall we, of our own free will at least, avoid doing more. We shall have so much fear of being rash and presumptuous; we shall be so painfully aware of the uncleanness of our lips, and the corruption in our hearts, shall feel so strongly the danger of adding to, or diminishing from, the Word of God, by bringing our narrow prejudices and foolish imaginations in contact with it, and shall have such an especial dread lest any perversions or misconceptions of ours, with respect to it, should contribute to create or foster a prepossession against the reception of it in the minds of irreligious or profane persons, we shall, I say, have so much fear of rendering the Word of God of none effect through any of these causes, that we shall rather ponder over its more awful revelations in silence, and keep them in our hearts, than discuss them, or even speak of them at all, except where obliged to do so as a duty.

But if this be the feeling with which we approach passages of Scripture concerning which we have no intimation given us that they are beyond our comprehension, how

great will be the hesitation with which we shall speak upon a subject whereof the Apostle, writing under the direct teaching of the Holy Ghost, declares it to be "a mystery." True, while he uses the expression he is in the very act of throwing light on what had been involved in deep darkness before; but men, ere now, have been blinded by excess of light, and he who keeps his eyes fixed on the sun may miss his way as effectually as he who wanders in darkest midnight.

The revelation made by S. Paul, while, as a doctrine to be received with implicit faith, it is among the chiefest glories and consolations of Christianity, contains in it so many things that are utterly above our comprehension, that it seems almost irreverent to speak about them at all, seeing that the moment we begin to talk of them it is next to impossible to avoid entering into speculations with respect to them, and so running the risk of coming into the number of those offenders against God who "intrude into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind."