there is no doubt meant, that to depart and to be with Christ, were events to take place at the same time. The two things were, in his mind, indissolubly and immediately connected.

We return from this long, but not unimportant digression, to dwell for a moment on the delightful thought, that "the souls of believers do, at death, immediately pass into glory." The moment the connexion between the soul and the body is dissolved, the happy spirit of the saint, perhaps, like that of Lazarus, convoyed by angels, wings its way to glory. How new and interesting the state in which the emancipated spirit now finds itself! All pain, and sickness, and sorrow, and sin, left for ever behind: all danger and doubt, and conflict, and imperfection, for ever terminated: all the principles of immortal health, vigour, activity, holiness and happiness unutterable, yielding their best and sweetest influence. Thus the soul of the believer enters into glory; a glory which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor of which the full conception hath entered the heart of man.

Yet to give us some faint idea of that which our powers at present are inadequate fully to comprehend or sustain, God hath been pleased to represent heavenly happiness to us by a variety of emblems. It is called "a kingdom," to denote the fulness and extent of all spiritual and eternal good which the saints there enjoy, and the glorious dignity to which they are advanced; they are made kings and priests unto God and the Father; they receive a crown of life which fadeth not away. Heaven is also called "a house not made with hands," to denote the unspeakable glory of the heavenly mansions, beyond the most stately or splendid palaces built by the hands of men. To intimate its satisfying nature, it is called "an inheritance, incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." It is also denominated "a better country," to show that there is no adequate comparison between the things which are seen and temporal, and the things which are unseen and eternal.

It now only remains to take a short notice of the

conclusion of the answer before us, which relates to the bodies of believers. "Their bodies being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection." When believers are united to Christ by faith, his union with them is with their whole persons, both soul and body; and the passages of Scripture are not few, in which the bodies of the saints are represented as the peculiar property of Christ, as well as their souls. It is remarkable, that when the Apostle Paul gives a kind of holy challenge, for any one to tell what shall separate the saints from their Lord, he expressly states that death shall not separate them. As their souls are immediately translated to glory, so their bodies also are considered as the present property of Christ, as members of his mystical body; and as such, after they shall have mouldered to dust, they shall certainly be raised glorious and incorruptible. "As at the death of Christ, though his human soul was separated from his body, yet neither the one nor the other was separated from his Divine person; so neither the soul nor the body of the believer shall be separated from Christ, when parted from each other by death; but both of them shall remain indissolubly united to him for ever. Hence the grave, which is a prison to the wicked, where their bodies are kept in custody to the judgment of the great day, is to the saints a place of rest. For them their Redeemer, when he entered the tomb, sweetened and hallowed it, and they are said to rest in their graves. Their graves are like beds of ease, where their bodies lie in safety, till they be joyfully awakened in the morning of the resurrection. Hence, too, their resting in the grave is expressed, in Scripture, "by sleeping in Jesus;" intimating that they sleep in union with Jesus, and that his Spirit keeps possession of their dust, which he will quicken and rebuild as his temple, at the last day."* These ideas are expressed with equal beauty and justice by Dr. Watts, in the

* Altered from Fisher's Catechism.

18th hymn of his first book, and the 110th of the second.

Hear what the voice from heaven proclaims

For all the pious dead!

Sweet is the savour of their names,

And soft their sleeping bed.

My dear youth, although I have lived many more years than you, yet even since these lectures com

menced, I have stood by the side of the death bed of some of your number: nor is it improbable, although my life is more uncertain than the most of yours, that I shall stand by the death bed of some of you, who now hear me. And when I stand there, tell me, shall I witness in you the benefits which believers receive from Christ at their death? Shall I see you welcome the king of terrors? Shall I see you triumph over him? Shall I see you joyfully anticipating the approaching moment, when your souls shall be made perfect in holiness, and pass immediately into glory? Or shall I see all the reverse? O shall I see you filled with agonizing fear? Utterly unprepared to die, and yet forced to meet your Judge! The one side or the other of this interesting alternative, you may experience, although I should not witness it. And remem

ber, you are likely to die with joy, or with horror, according as you are, or are not, believers, in the sense of the answer before us. Will you not, then, seek that faith in Christ, and that union with him, which will be found so infinitely important in a dying hour, and in all the dread eternity which follows? Will you trifle away your precious time of probation, and run the risk of being summoned to death and judgment, without any preparation? Oh if I could. see you seeking a saving interest in Christ; could see you in earnest and deeply solicitous to be the Lord's; it would afford the happiest presage. God hath said, "they that seek me early shall find me." Seize on this promise while you may. To you it is now addressed. You are now in early life. At a more advanced age, even if you should live to such an age, as you have no certainty that you will, you will not be able then to plead this promise. Will not some of you, therefore, nay, will not all of you, resolve this very hour, in the strength of God, that you will begin to seek his favour in earnest; determined never to give over the suit, till you have satisfactory evidence that you are vitally united to the Lord Jesus Christ; that you have "believed on him to life everlasting?" Amen.

LECTURE XXXIII.

WHAT BENEFITS DO BELIEVERS RECEIVE FROM CHRIST AT THE

RESURRECTION?

HAVING seen, in the order in which they are exhibited in our Catechism, the primitive holy and happy state of man; his loss of his original rectitude, and the miseries consequent on that loss; the provision made for his restoration in the redemption by Christ; and the rich and inestimable benefits which believers receive from that redemption, both while they live and when they die; we are now to contemplate the consummation of their felicity, at the resurrection in the last day. "At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity."

The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, is derived wholly from the Bible. The heathen had some notions of a future state of rewards and punishments, where the souls of good men would be happy, and those of bad men miserable. But they had not, in all their systems, a single trace of the doctrine, that the body is to be raised and rendered immortal. Hence we are told that when Paul discoursed on Mars' hill, at Athens, the most distinguished city of Greece, and the most renowned for science in the pagan world; "when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked." That there should be a resurrection of the body, was an idea that had never been presented to their minds before; and as they believed themselves far superior in knowledge to a barbarous Jew, which was the character of Paul in their estimation, they could not restrain the expression of their contempt and scorn, at the promulgation of this novel, and as they esteemed it, extravagant and absurd notion. Yet it will be found, my children, that this