mortality which we hear and fee, the remains of those who left the world ages before we came into it, and are still mouldering in their tombs, is undeniable evidence that death deftroys this compound being which we call man. How to revive this union nature knows not; and as for those who make the fpirits of men in the divided state to be perfect men, they feem to have got a conclufion without confulting the premises.

Look now into the Gospel: there you will find every reasonable hope of nature, nay every reasonable fufpicion of nature, cleared up and confirmed, every difficulty answered and removed. Do the prefent circumstances of the world lead you to fufpect that God could never be author of such corrupt and wretched creatures as men now are? Your fufpicions are juft and well founded: God made man upright, but through the temptation of the devil fin entered, and death and deftruction followed after.

Do you fufpect, from the fuccefs of virtue and vice in this world, that the providence of God does not interpose to protect the righteous from violence, or to punish the wicked? The fufpicion is not without ground. God leaves his beft fervants here to be tried oftentimes with affliction and forrow, and permits the wicked to flourish and abound. The call of the Gospel is not to honour and riches here, but to take up our cross and follow Christ.

Do you judge, from comparing the present state. of the world with the natural notion you have of God, and of his juftice and goodness, that there muft needs be another state in which justice shall

take place? You reason right; and the Gospel confirms the judgment. God has appointed a day to judge the world in righteousness: then those who mourn fhall rejoice, thofe who weep fhall laugh, and the perfecuted and afflicted fervants of God shall be heirs of his kingdom.

Have you fometimes mifgivings of mind? Are you tempted to mistrust this judgment, when you fee the difficulties which furround it on every fide; some which affect the foul in its separate state, some which affect the body in its ftate of corruption and diffolution? Look to the Gospel: there thefe difficulties are accounted for; and you need no longer puzzle yourself with dark questions concerning the state, condition, and nature of separate spirits, or concerning the body, however to appearance loft and deftroyed; for the body and foul fhall once more meet to part no more, but to be happy for ever. In this cafe the learned cannot doubt, and the ignorant may be fure, that it is the man, the very man himself, who shall rise again: for an union of the fame foul and body is as certainly the restoration of the man, as the dividing them was the deftruction.

Would you know who it is that gives this affurance? It is one who is able to make good his word; one who loved you fo well as to die for you; yet one too great to be held a prifoner in the grave. No; he rose with triumph and glory, the first-born from the dead, and will in like manner call from the duft of the earth all those who put their truft and confidence in him.

But who is this, you will fay, who was subject to

death, and yet had power over death? How could fo much weakness and fo much ftrength meet together? That God has the power of life, we know; but then he cannot die: that man is mortal, we know; but then he cannot give life.

Confider; does this difficulty deserve an answer, or does it not? Our bleffed Saviour lived among us in a low and poor condition, exposed to much ill treatment from his jealous countrymen: when he fell into their power, their rage knew no bounds: they reviled him, infulted him, mocked him, fcourged him, and at laft nailed him to a cross, where by a shameful and wretched death he fi nished a life of forrow and affliction. Did we know no more of him than this, upon what ground could we pretend to hope that he will be able to fave us from the power of death? We might say with the disciples, We trufted this had been he who should have faved Ifrael; but he is dead, he is gone, and all our hopes are buried in his grave.

If you think this ought to be answered, and that the faith of a Chriftian cannot be a reasonable faith, unless it be enabled to account for this feeming contradiction; I beseech you then never more complain of the Gospel for furnishing an answer to this great objection, for removing this stumbling-block out of the way of our faith. He was a man, and therefore he died: he was the Son of God, and therefore he rofe from the dead, and will give life to all his true difciples. He it was who formed this world and all things in it, and for the fake of man was content to become man, and to tafte death for all, that all through him may live. This is a won

derful piece of knowledge which God has revealed to us in his Gospel; but he has not revealed it to raise our wonder, but to confirm and establish our faith in him to whom he hath committed all power, whom he hath appointed heir of all things.

Had the Gospel required of us to expect from Chrift the redemption of our fouls and bodies, and given us no reason to think that Chrift was endued with power equal to the work, we might justly have complained; and it would have been a standing reproach, that Chriftians believe they know not what. But to expect redemption from the Son of God, the refurrection of our bodies from the fame hand which at firft created and formed them, are rational and well-founded acts of faith; and it is the Chriftian's glory, that he knows in whom he has believed.

That the world was made by the Son of God, is a propofition with which reafon has no fault to find that he who made the world fhould have power to renew it to life again, is highly confonant to reason. All the mystery lies in this, that so high and great a perfon fhould condefcend to become man, and subject to death, for the fake of mankind. But are we the fit perfons to complain of this transcendent mysterious love? Or, does it become us to quarrel with the kindness of our bleffed Lord towards us, only because it is greater than we can conceive? No; it becomes us to bless and to adore this exceeding love, by which we are faved from condemnation, by which we expect to be rescued from death; knowing that the power of our bleffed Lord is equal to his love, and that he is able to fubdue all things to himself.