influence through the authority of the gospel, than it could have had by the mere force of speculative reasoning, the world has received an advantage by the encouragement given to virtue, and the restraint laid on vice by these means, which ought ever to be acknowleged with thankfulness.

But the gospel has added to this doctrine, and communicated to us the knowlege of some circumstances, which were not discoverable but by the means of revelation; and they are principally these; that there shall be a resurrection of the body; that Christ shall be judge of the world; that the rewards and punishments in another life shall be in proportion to our behaviour in this.

I shall speak briefly to these particulars, and show for what purpose they were revealed.

First, the resurrection of the body was revealed to give all men a plain and a sensible notion of their being subject to a future judgment. Death is the destruction of the man; and sure we are that the lifeless body is no man; and whatever notions some may have of the soul in its state of separate existence, yet a mere spirit is not a man; for man is made of soul and body; and therefore to bring the man into judgment to answer for his deeds, the soul and the body must be brought together again. This doctrine, established on the authority of the gospel, does not remove all prejudices of the case, when examined by the short and scanty notions we have of the powers of nature; but it effectually removes all difficulties that affect this belief, considered with respect to religion and morality for the single point in which religion is concerned is to know whether men shall be accountable hereafter for their actions here. Reason tells us they ought to be so: but a great difficulty arises from the dissolution of the man by death; a difficulty followed by endless speculations on the nature of the soul, of its separate existence, of its guilt in this separate state with respect to crimes committed in another, and in conjunction with the body, and by other difficulties of the like kind. But take in the declaration of the gospel, that soul and body shall be as certainly united at the resurrection as they were divided by death, and every man be himself again; and there is no more difficulty in conceiving that men may be

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judged for their iniquities hereafter, than there is in conceiving that they may be judged here when they offend against the laws of the country.

But still there are prejudices remaining. To some it is incredible that the dead should be raised. To these we answer, on the foot of the gospel evidence, that the dead have been raised: on the foot of reason, that it is altogether as credible, that God should be able to raise the dead to life a second time, as that he was able to give them life at first. There is no difference in the cases; they are acts of one and the very same power.

But we are farther asked, what body shall be raised, since no man has exactly the same body two days together? New parts are perpetually added by nutrition, old ones carried off by perspiration: so that in the compass of a few years a human body may be almost totally altered, and be no more the same than a ship which has been so often repaired, that no part of the original materials is left. But this objection, as plausible as it may seem, has nothing to do in the present case; for religion is concerned only to preserve the identity or sameness of the person, as the object of future judgment; and has nothing to do with that kind of identity against which the objection can be supposed to have any force. Were the case otherwise, the difficulty would be really as great in human judgments in this life, as in the divine judgment hereafter. Suppose a man should commit murder when he was twenty, and not be discovered till he was sixty, and then brought to trial, would common sense admit him to plead that he was not the same person who committed the fact; and to allege, in proof of it, the alterations in his body for the last forty years? Suppose then that, instead of being discovered at sixty, he should die at sixty, and should rise either with the body he had at sixty, or twenty, or in any intermediate time, would not the case be just the same with respect to the future judgment ? Evidently it would be the same: which shows that the article of the resurrection, as far as it is a support of religion and of 、 a future judgment, stands quite clear of this difficulty.

But the prejudices which affect men most, when they consider this article of the resurrection, arise from the weakest of all imaginations; that they can judge from the settled laws and

course of nature, what is or is not possible to the power of God. It is very true that all our powers are bounded by the laws of nature but does it follow that his power must be so bounded who appointed these laws of nature, and could have appointed others, if he had thought proper? We cannot raise a dead body; our hands are tied up by the laws of nature, which we cannot surpass. Neither can we make or create a new man ; but we certainly know, from reason and experience, that there is one who can and what can induce us to suppose that he cannot give life to a body a second time, who we certainly know gave life to it at first? These prejudices therefore we may safely refer to the power of the Almighty, to which all nature is obedient, and on which we may securely depend for the performance of divine promises, how unpromising soever the circumstances may seem to be which attend them. When the Sadducees denied the resurrection, our Saviour told them, ' Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God:' intimating plainly, that for the security and certainty of our resurrection we must trust to Scripture, and the declaration of God's purpose contained therein; and for the method and means of bringing this great work to pass, we must rely on the power of God.

But whatever difficulties of this kind may remain, yet this article has removed all which lie in the way of our considering ourselves as accountable creatures, and subject to the future judgment of God. Whatever you may imagine to be the state of separate souls; whatever difficulties may arise in considering a mere spirit as accountable for the actions of this compound being man, they are all out of the question. It is not a mere spirit, but the man himself, who is to be brought to judgment; and plain sense must see and acknowlege the reasonableness of judging a man hereafter for the crimes committed in this life; as evidently as it sees the reasonableness of judging him here, when his crimes happen to be detected. So that the revelation in this particular has brought faith and common sense to a perfect agreement.

Secondly, the gospel revelation has made known to us, that Christ shall be judge of the world.

Our Saviour tells us that the Father judgeth no man,

but

hath committed all judgment to the Son: John v. 22. And again: The Father hath given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man :' ver. 27. And St. Peter declares that the Apostles had it expressly in their commission to publish this doctrine to all the world: He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead :' Acts x. 42. Accordingly St. Paul, in his short discourse to the men of Athens, fully instructed them in this material point: 'God hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by the man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead:' Acts xvii. 31.

I will not multiply texts to this purpose, though many more there are which speak the same sense, because this doctrine is very well known to Christians, and is part of the creed which we daily rehearse.

But it is material to observe that this authority is given to Christ, because he is the Son of man,' as he himself has assured us; and that the person ordained to be judge is a man, even the man whom God raised from the dead,' as St. Paul asserts. How happy is it for us to have a judge, I had almost said so partial, but I may well say so favorable to us, that he was content to be himself the sacrifice to redeem us from the punishment due to our sins! When we consider ourselves, how wretched and weak we are, how perpetually doing wrong either wilfully or ignorantly, and contemplate the infinite majesty, holiness, and justice of God, what account can we hope to give of ourselves to him, whose eyes are purer than to behold iniquity? But see! God hath withdrawn his terrors, and has given a man to be the judge of men. So that we may say of our judge, what the Apostle to the Hebrews says of our High Priest; We have not a judge, which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all things tempted like as we are, yet without sin.'

You may think perhaps that this is drawing consequences on the foot of vulgar apprehensions, and that in reality there is no difference whether God be judge himself, or commits the judgment to the Son of man: for since Christ shall come not

only in the power, but in the wisdom and the justice of God also to judge the world, what difference can there be in the judgment, since in both cases it must be guided and formed by the wisdom and justice of God? True it is, that a mere man is not qualified to be judge of the world: the knowlege of hearts is necessary to the right discharge of that office; a knowlege which no mere man was ever endowed with. But still, if the man is to be judge, the sentiments, notions, and feeling of the man, however guided and influenced by superior wisdom, must preside over and govern the whole action; otherwise the man will not be judge. And hence we may answer some difficulties which speculative men have brought into the subject of a future judgment. Some have imagined that justice, mercy, and goodness in God are not of the same kind with justice, mercy, and goodness in men; and therefore that we can never, from our notions of these qualities in man, argue consequentially to the attributes of God, or to the acts flowing from these attri butes. The result of which is, that when we talk of God's justice or mercy in judging the world, we talk of something which we do not understand. But if men would consult Scripture, these difficulties would not meet them in their way: for surely we know what justice, mercy, and goodness mean among men; and since the Scripture assures us that the man whom God raised from the dead is ordained judge of the world, we may be very certain that the justice, mercy, and goodness to be displayed in the future judgment will be such as all men have a common sense and apprehension of: unless you can imagine that a new rule is to be introduced, to which the judge, and those to be judged, are equally strangers. On this foot of Scripture then we may certainly know what the justice, mercy, and goodness are, by which we must finally stand or fall; and this point being secured, the speculation may be left to shift for itself.

And thus you see how this great and fundamental article of religion, involved in darkness in former ages, is made plain and sensible to mankind by the light of the gospel. That men were accountable, they always knew; that there would be a future judgment, was generally believed: but how men were to appear in judgment, or how mere unbodied spirits were to be