word here rendered "an abhorring," is the same which, in the other text, is rendered "contempt :" and Isaiah and Daniel point at one and the same thing, namely, the loathsomeness of the wicked at the resurrection. They will be loathsome in the eyes of one another. The unclean wretches were never so lovely to each other as then they will be loathsome: dear companions in sin will then be an abhorring each one to his fellow; and the wicked, great and honourable men, shall be no more regarded by their wicked subjects, their servants, or their slaves.

USE I. Of comfort to the people of God. The doctrine of the resurrection is a spring of consolation and joy unto you. Think on it, O believers, when ye are in the house of mourning, for the loss of your godly relations or friends, "that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope;" for ye will meet again. They are but lain down, to rest in their beds for a little while, but in the morning of the resurrection they will awake again, and come forth of their graves. The vessel of honour had much alloy of base metal in it; and therefore it behooved to be melted down, that it may be refined and fashioned more gloriously. Do but wait awhile, and you shall see it come forth out of the furnace of the earth, vying with the stars in brightness, nay, as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. Have you laid your infant children in the grave? you will see them again. Your God calls himself the God of your seed; which, according to our Saviour's exposition, secures the glorious resurrection of the body. Wherefore, let the covenant you embraced for yourself and your babes now in the dust, comfort your

heart in the joyful expectation, that, by virtue thereof, they shall be raised up in glory. Be not discouraged by reason of a weak and sickly body: there is a day coming when they shall be every whit whole. And although, perhaps, thy weakness will not allow thee now to go one furlong to meet the Lord in public ordinances; yet the day cometh when thy body shall be no more a clog to thee, but thou shalt meet the Lord in the air. It will be with the saints coming up from the grave, as with the Israelites when they came out of Egypt: "There was not one feeble person among their tribes." O that those who are now so desirous to be beautiful and handsome, would not be too hasty to effect it with their foolish and sinful arts; but study the heavenly art of beautifying the body, by endeavouring now to become all glorious within with the graces of God's Spirit-this would at length make them admirable and everlasting beauties. Thou must indeed, O believer, grapple with death, and shalt get the first fall; but thou shalt rise again, and come off victorious at last. Thou must go down to the grave; but though it be thy long home, it will not be thine everlasting home.

Thy friends indeed will leave thee there: but thy God will not. What God said to Jacob concerning his going down to Egypt, he says to thee concerning thy going down to the grave: "Fear not to go down-I will go down with thee, and I will also surely bring thee up again." O solid comfort! O glorious hopes! "Wherefore comfort yourselves and one another with these words."

USE II. Of terror to all unregenerate men. Ye who are yet in your natural state, look at this eter

nal state; and consider what will be your part in it, if ye be not in time brought into the state of grace. Think, O sinner, on that day, when the trumpet shall sound, at the voice of which the doors of the grave shall fly open, the devouring depths of the sea shall throw up their dead, and the earth cast forth hers; and death every where, in the excess of astonishment, shall let go its prisoners; and thy wretched soul and body shall be re-united, to be sisted before the tribunal of God.

Then, if thou hadst a thousand worlds at thy disposal, thou wouldst gladly give them all away, upon condition thou mightest lie still in thy grave with the hundredth part of that ease wherewith thou hast sometimes lain at home on the Lord's day or, if that cannot be obtained, that thou mightest be but a spectator of the transactions of that day, as thou hast been at some solemn occasions, and rich gospel-feasts: or, if even that is not to be purchased, that a mountain or a rock might fall on thee, and cover thee from the face of the Lamb. Ah! how are men bewitched, thus to trifle away the precious time of life, in almost as little concern about death, as if they were like the beasts that perish! Some will be telling where their corpses must be laid; while yet they have not seriously considered whether their graves shall be their beds, where they shall awake with joy in the morning of the resurrection; or their prisons, out of which they shall be brought to receive the fearful sentence. Remember, now is your seed-time; and as ye sow, ye shall reap. God's seed-time begins at death; and at the resurrection, the bodies of the wicked, that were sown full of sins, that lie down with

them in the dust, shall spring up again, sinful, wretched, and vile. That body, which is not now employed in God's service, but is abused by uncleanness and lasciviousness, will then be brought forth in all its vileness, thenceforth to lodge with unclean spirits. The body of the drunkard shall then stagger by reason of the wine of the wrath of God poured into him without mixture. Those who now please themselves in their revellings, will reel to and fro at another rate; when, instead of their songs and music, they shall hear the sound of the last trumpet. Many toil their bodies for worldly gain, who will be loath to distress them for the benefit of their souls; by labour, unreasonably hard, they will quite unfit them for the service of God; and, when they have done, will reckon it a very good reason for shifting duty, that they are already tired out with other business: but the day cometh when they will be made to abide a yet greater stress. They will go several miles for back and belly, who will not go half the way for the good of their immortal souls; they will be sickly and unable on the Lord's day, who will be tolerably well all the rest of the week. But when that trumpet sounds, none shall be missing in that great congregation. When the bodies of the saints shine as the sun, frightful will the looks of their persecutors be. Many faces, now fair, will then gather blackness. They shall be no more admired and caressed for that beauty which has a worm at the root, that will cause it to issue in loathsomeness and deformity. They shall be stripped of all their ornaments, and "shall be an abhorring to all flesh," and serve as a foil to set off the beauty and glory of the righteous, and make it appear the brighter.

Now is the time to secure for yourselves a part of the resurrection of the just. The which if ye would do, unite with Jesus Christ by faith, rising spiritually from sin, and glorifying God with your bodies. He is "the resurrection and the life." If your bodies be members of Christ, temples of the Holy Ghost, they shall certainly arise in glory. How can one imagine, that those who continue dead while they live, shall come forth at the last day unto the resurrection of life? But that will be the privilege of all those, who, having first consecrated their souls and bodies to the Lord by faith, do glorify him with their bodies as well as their souls; living and acting to him, and for him; yea, and suffering for him too, when he calls them to it.

HEAD IV.

THE GENERAL JUDGMENT.

MATTHEW XXV. 31-34, 41, 46.

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed, &c.-Unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, &c.—And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal,"

THE dead being raised, and those found alive at the coming of the Judge changed, follows the gen