the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped like water. The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel." Our Lord Jesus went out of the grave, in like manner, and marched out of that bloody field with a pomp and majesty becoming so great a conqueror.

Secondly. And to increase the splendour of that day, and drive on the triumph, his resurrection was attended with the resurrection of many of the saints, who had slept in their graves till then, and then were awakened and raised to attend the Lord at his rising. So you read, Matt. xxvii. 52, 53. "And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves, after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." This wonder was designed, both to adorn the resurrection of Christ, and to give us a specimen or pledge of our resurrection; which also is to be in virtue of his. This, indeed, was the resurrection of saints, and none but saints, the resurrection of many saints, yet it was but a special resurrection, intended only to show what God will one day do for all his saints; and for the present, to give testimony of Christ's resurrection from the dead. They were seen and known of many in the city, who doubtless never thought to see them any more in this world. To inquire, curiously, as some do, who they were, what discourse they had with those to whom they appeared, and what became of them afterwards, is a vain thing. God hath cast a vail of silence and secresy upon these things, that we might content ourselves with the written word; and he that "will not believe Moses and the prophets, will not believe though one rise from the dead," as these saints did.

Thirdly. Christ rose as a public or common person, as "the first-fruits of them that slept." 1 Cor. xv. 20. I desire that this may be well understood; for upon this account it, is, that our resurrection is secured to us by the resurrection of Christ; and not a resurrection only, but a blessed and happy one; for the first-fruits both assured and sanctified the whole crop or harvest.

Now that Christ did rise, as a public person, representing and comprehending all the elect, who were called the children of the resurrection, is plain from Eph. ii. 6. where we are said to be risen

with, or in him. So that, as we are said to die in Adam, (who also was a common person) as the branches die in the death of the root; so we are said to be raised from death in Christ, who is the head, root, and representative of all his elect seed. And why is he called the "first-born," and "first-begotten from the dead," but with respect to the whole number of the elect, that are to be born from the dead in their time and order also? and as sure as the harvest follows the first-fruits, so shall the general resurrection of the saints to life eternal follow this birth of the first-boru from the dead.

It shall surely follow it, I say, and that not only as a consequent follows an antecedent, but as an effect follows its proper cause. Now there is a three-fold causality, or influence, that Christ's resurrection hath upon the saints' resurrection, of which it is at once the meritorious, efficient, and exemplary cause.

1. The resurrection of Christ is a meritorious cause of the saints' resurrection, as it completed his satisfaction, and finished his payment, and so our justification is properly assigned to it, as before was noted from Rom. iv. 25. This his resurrection was the receiving of the acquittance, the cancelling of the bond. And had not this been done, we had still been in our sins, as he speaks, 1 Cor. xv. 7. and so our guilt had still been a bar to our happy resurrection. But now, the price being paid in his death, which payment was finished when he revived, and the discharge then received for us, now there is nothing lies in bar against our resurrection to eternal life.

2. As it is the meritorious cause of our resurrection, so it is the efficient cause also. For when the time shall come, that the saints shall rise out of the dust, they shall be raised by Christ, as their head, in whom the effective principle of their life is. "Your life is hid with Christ in God," as it is Col. iii. 3. As when a man awakes out of his sleep, the animal spirits seated in the brain, being set at liberty by the digestion of those vapours that bound them up, do play freely through every part and member of the body; so Christ, the believer's mystical head, being quickened, the spirit of life, which is in him, shall be diffused through all his members, to quicken them also in the morning of the resurrection. Hence the

warm animating dew of Christ's resurrection is said to be, to our bodies, as the dew of the morning is to the withered, languishing plants, which revive by it, Isa. xxvi. 19. "Thy dew is as the dew of herbs ;" and then it follows, "the earth shall cast forth her dead.” So that by the same faith we put Christ's resurrection into the premises, we may put the believer's resurrection into the conclusion. And therefore the apostle makes them convertibles, reasoning forwards, from Christ's to ours; and back again, from ours to his: 1 Cor. xv. 12, 13. Which is also the sense of that scripture, Rom. viii. 10, 11. “And if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness." i. e. Though you are really united to Christ by the Spirit, yet your bodies must die as well as other men's; but your souls shall be presently, upon your dissolution, swallowed up in life. And then it follows, verse 11. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." i. e. Though your bodies must die, yet they shall live again in the resurrection; and that by virtue of the Spirit of Christ which dwelleth in you, and is the bond of your mystical union with him, your head. You shall not be raised as others are, by a mere word of power, but by the Spirit of life dwelling in Christ, your head; which is a choice prerogative indeed.

3. Christ's resurrection is not only the meritorious and efficient cause, but it is also the exemplary cause or pattern of our resurrection. He being the first and best, is therefore the pattern and measure of all the rest. So you read, Phil, iii. 21. “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." Now the conformity of our resurrection to Christ's stands in the following particulars: Christ's body was raised substantially the same so will ours. His body was raised first-so will ours be raised before the rest of the dead. His body was wonderfully improved by the resurrection-so will ours. His body was raised to be glorified, and so will ours.

1. Christ's body was raised substantially the same that it was before; and so will ours. Not another, but the same body. Upon

this very reason the apostle uses that identical expression, I Cor. xv, 53. "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal, immortality ;"-pointing, as it were, to his own body when he spake it. The same body, I say, and that not only specifically the same, (for indeed no other species of flesh is so privileged) but the same numerically, that very body, not a new or another body in its stead. So that it shall be both the what it was, and the who it And indeed to deny this, is to deny the resurrection itself. For should God prepare another body to be raised instead of this, it would not be a resurrection, but a creation. That cannot be called a resurrection, where one thing falls and another rises, as Gregory long since pertinently observed.

was,

2. His body was raised, not by a word of power from the Father, but by his own Spirit, So will ours. Indeed the power of God shall go forth to unburrow sinners, and fetch them forcibly out of their graves; but the resurrection of the saints is to be effected another way; even by his Spirit which now dwelleth in them. The very Spirit of Christ, which effected their spiritual resurrection from sin, shall effect their corporal resurrection also from the dead.

3. His body was raised first; he had in this, as well as in other things, the pre-eminence: so shall the saints, in respect of the wicked, have the pre-eminence in the resurrection, 1 Thess, iv. 16. “The dead in Christ shall rise first." They are to attend the Lord at his coming, and will be brought forth sooner than the rest of the world, to attend on that service. As the sheriff, with his men, goes forth to meet the judge, before the gaoler brings forth his prison

ers.

4. Christ's body was marvellously improved by the resurrection, and so will ours, It fell in weakness, but was raised in power; no more capable of sorrows, pains, and dishonours. In like manner our bodies are "sown in weakness, but raised in strength; sown in dishonour, raised in glory; sown natural bodies, raised spiritual bodies;" as the apostle speaks, 1 Cor. xv. 43, 44. Spiritual bodies, not properly, but analogically. No distempers hang about glorified bodies, nor are they henceforth subject to any of those natural necessities, to which they are now tied. There are no flaws, defects,

or deformities, in the children of the resurrection. What members are now defective or deformed, will then be restored to their perfect being and beauty; for, if the universal death of all parts be rescinded by the resurrection, how much more the partial death of any single member? as Tertullian speaks; and from thenceforth they are free from the law of mortality; "they can die no more;" Luke xx. 35, 36. Thus shall they be improved by their resurrection.

5. To conclude: Christ's body was raised from the dead to be glorified and crowned with honour. Oh! it was a joyful day to him; and so will the resurrection of the saints be to them-the day of the gladness of their hearts. It will be said to them in that morning," Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the dust," Isa. xxvi. 19. O how comfortable will be the meeting betwixt the glorified soul and its new-raised body. Much more comfortable than that of Jacob and Joseph, after twenty years' absence, Gen. xlvi. 29. or that of David with Jonathan, when he came out of the cave to him, 1 Sam. xx. 41. or that of the father of the prodigal with his son, who "was dead, and is alive; was lost, and is found."

Flavel.

The morning of the great day will be ushered in, not by the cheerful twilight spread over the mountains; but the awful approach of that intense splendour, surrounded by which the Son of God will descend. A new and terrible light will appear in midheaven, and advancing towards the earth, will diffuse such a morning over all its regions, as the universe has never beheld, and will never behold again.

At this momentous period the trumpet of God will sound. The archangel will call to the dead, and awaken them from the long sleep in which they have been buried; the earth and the ocean will give up the dead which are in them; the regions of death, and the world of departed spirits, will give up the dead which are in them; every grave will open, its dust be re-animated, and living forms be seen rising from its dark chambers over all the surface of the globe. Those who are still alive will also undergo, substantially,