being in flesh and spirit shall be in eternal misery or joy. We have here, therefore, a rule and a line by which to calculate the amount of our punishment or our recompense. We know well what it is to rejoice in the days of our youth, in the sunshine of the heart, and the energy of the bodily powers. We know equally well what it is in sickness and sorrow to endure, though it be but for a single night, the anguish of a wounded spirit united to the pains of a diseased body. We have only to extend the duration of these enjoyments or sufferings from time to eternity; and, behold, we have before us a picture of Christian retribution such as will, and such as is most of all adapted to work upon our minds and hearts; intelligible in its nature, and therefore powerful as a motive; not vague nor imaginative, and therefore neither visionary nor curious. for had we not known them, had we | retribution which we shall receive; been left to imagine that any single the same man that sinneth, the same portion of the folly and infirmities of this life would have clung to us in another life, we should have looked on the one doctrine of the gospel with dread rather than joy. It would have been a melancholy prospect to have thought, that in eternity we should have borne about with us a body subject in the slightest degree to our present wants and weariness. Yet that may, perhaps, be a portion of the punishment of the wicked in a future life. And be it well remembered, that in all that Scripture saith concerning the changes of the resurrection, it speaks only of the bodies of the redeemed: it passes over what will happen to those who will then stand at the left hand of the Lord with a carelessness, a sort of contemptuous silence for them. Therefore we are still left to apprehend that there will be no ameliorating change wrought upon their bodies by the resurrection, save the change from But there is another peculiar class mortal to immortal. They will then, of duties to which this doctrine more if that be the case, still be the victims particularly persuades; and there is of all the sufferings, sorrows, and one peculiar class of sins from which wretchedness of this earthly state; it more especially guards us: I mean, and they will carry with them, as their the sins and duties of our fleshly memeverlasting curse, an incorruptible bers. "I beseech you, by the mercies corruption a weakness too strong of God, that ye present your bodies a to sink into dissolution-perpetual | living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to the dishonour-lusts that cannot find exercise diseases that have no hope of death. This will be their portion, to drink for ever the miseries of earth with the eternity of hell. Sad contrast of their own thorns in the flesh and the glorified and sanctified bodies of the redeemed. Lord." So speaks the Apostle, alluding more particularly to that great mercy of having our vile body changed, that it should be like to the glorious body of Christ, which he calls, especially, the redemption of the body. There is, truly, no other doctrine which can so forcibly exhort to the mortification of our members which are on the earth. And you find St. Paul continually using it: "Mortify therefore your members"-he has just been speaking of our being raised from the dead—“ Mortify therefore your mem Such are the answers that Scripture enables us to give to the questions of the text; such the manner and order in which we are taught the dead will be raised; such the bodies with which we may expect they will rise. What, then, is the lesson of profit we may de-bers which are upon the earth; forrive from this consideration? nication, uncleanness, inordinate afThe first is, that of a warning to pre-fection, evil concupiscence, idolatry" pare for this awful change. If there and all other fleshly lusts of the eye, will be indeed a rising again both of the just and of the unjust-and if even after death the body as well as the soul will be made to inherit the reward of its deeds, how holy should we become in all manner of conversation and godliness. For it is no half measure of the tongue, and the body. Why, what is the hope of the resurrection which I shall see? What is the nature of the change for which I am to prepare? It is that this poor pitiful frame, this tabernacle of clay which I bear about with me here on earth, the source of my pains, the fountain of my sorrows, the | ing, honour, and praise be for ever and seat of disease, and the heir of death-ever to the Lamb that sitteth on the it is that even this wretched frame throne"-shall I degrade my tongue shall spring up from its dust, throw by lying, by deceit, by licentious conaside its dishonour, forget its weak-versation? Shall I corrupt the tongue ness, be purified from all the dregs of which is to praise God, into impurity its earthly corruption, rise from the and blasphemy and slander and riotous dead, ascend up into heaven with mirth? Shall that which is intended Christ, who is gone before; and there for a blessing in heaven be made on stand-the fellow of angels before the earth the instrument of cursing? Shall throne of God. Glorious hope! Mys- these hands, which are to be lifted up terious exaltation! to God in his holy place, be taught the ways of wickedness, of theft, and murder, and cruelty, and revenge on earth? Shall these organs of life, which are to eat and drink in the presence of the Lord, be corrupted with gluttony and drunkenness? Shall any one part of that body which shall hereafter converse with angels, which hath been honoured with the indwelling of the Divinity which now rules in heavenshall that body be converted into a temple of God's worst enemy, and of man's worst enemy, and the worst enemy of all that is happy and goodthe Prince of Darkness, the author of misery, and of all that is miserable, and vile, and guilty, and to be despised? God forbid. The body is to be the Lord's; and as the body is to be the Lord's let it glorify the Lord. Let me be doing while I can, and as long as I can. Fasting is hard; yet, if meat offend my God, I will eat no meat as long as I live. If he require chastity, I will give it. If he ask temperance, I will check my appetites: if purity, why I will even close my eyes lest they should look on the cause of temptation. In all things, since God has given us such a glorious hope, I will endeavour to sanctify myself, through grace, for the great end of my calling, the entire devotedness both of my body and soul, that both my body and soul may be fitted to stand up in his holy presence, being justified, washed, and glorified by the blood of my Saviour, Jesus Christ. What reward, then, shall I give to the Lord for his mighty marvellous loving kindness to this earthly body? These eyes, if they be admitted into heaven, will look upon the holiness of the Lamb-will see the brightness of his glory-marvel at the majesty of his Deity and almost be blinded in the excessive glories of the heavenly host. Shall I, then, fix these eyes upon the vain and unholy objects of the earth? And shall I fill them with intemperance, cruelty, lust, and so unfit them for the contemplation of the spiritual splendour of God's unblemished purity? These ears-they are hereafter to listen to the harps of the angels, to hear the unceasing songs of gratitude of the redeemed; shall I turn them away, then, from this their holiest and most honourable occupation, and bid them drink in with greedy readiness the tempting accents of the charmer who would charm me from the ways of righteousness? Or shall I let them unhallow my soul by being open to the deceitfulness of that philosophy which would take away my heart, and destroy its delicacy by listening to the voice of wit and jesting and licentious thoughts? Shall I take the members which are predestined to the holy office of serving before God's unblemished throne, and make them the members of a harlot, the instruments of uncleanness, and the slaves of vice and licentiousness? Shall this tongue which is hereafter to cry out with all the saints," Glory and bless A Sermon DELIVERED BY THE REV. H. MELVILL, A. M. 2 Tim. ii. 8.-" Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel. from the dead. This text (as a text, of more comfort the more it is needed; and when God will I shall feed upon it) Paul sent to Timothy to be his comfort in all places." WHEN persecution and calumny first | I might point to him as a special exharassed the church, the minds of ample of a man who was always inChristians seem to have usually clung tense, and carefully diligent, in searchwith a more than ordinary grasp to the ing the mind of the spirit as disclosed declarations of Scripture, and to have to us by Apostles and Prophets. It is searched with more than common in exact accordance with this disposieagerness into the hidden meaning of tion that, in one of his letters to a dear every portion of revelation. In pro- friend, we meet with the following portion to their need of support was words, in reference to the text on their vigour of perception; and with which I propose to meditate :-" Let an ardent and with a steadfast energy, me have your prayer at all times, that which would be deemed almost enthu- God would open my heart to feed and siastic by the religious professors of taste of those comfortable places of modern days, did they pore over, and Scripture which to me are locked. ponder the sayings of inspiration; and | Remember that Jesus Christ was raised they would gaze on the firmament of the Bible with all the eagerness of astronomers scanning and searching the natural heavens; and whensoever the beauty and force of some obscure and difficult text broke suddenly on them, Now the verse seems, at first sight, there was just the same gladness as to contain nothing but a simple comthat felt by the observers of the ma-memoration of a well known truth; terial canopy, if a new and brilliant and we might, consequently, be displanet should be discerned on the ho- posed to feel something of surprise, rizon. It would not be so to persons both at the difficulty which Bradford of cursory acquaintance with the writ-professes to have found in unraveling ings of our reformers (and well would it, and at the consolation he expects, it be if such acquaintance were more general; it would serve to show how grievously, in many respects, the churches have degenerated from the earliest elements of Protestantism), it would not be so to persons of cursory acquaintance with the writings of our reformers, without being struck with the preeminent value attached to the word of God by those illustrious men who laid down their lives in support of its doctrines. And if from among the mighty group of martyred saints it be lawful to select one more distinguished than the rest, by the characteristics to which I have alluded, then, I think, I might mention the name of BRADFORD, he who underwent so readily the tortures of the stake that the bystanders said of him, "that he endured the flames as a fresh gale of wind on a hot summer's day;" when elucidated, it would afford him. But if you were to associate, as the martyr does, the words with the fact, that they are sent as a comforting message from the Apostle to his beloved disciple Timothy, you will admit there must be hidden some costly treasure, which is not to be discovered by a mere cursory glance at the surface of the subject. I first of all ask you, whether there can appear any human probability that Timothy, nurtured as he had been in the faith and knowledge of redemption, could be required to be reminded of the historical fact of Christ's resurrection. Was it a fact at all likely to escape the memory even of Christians far less familiar with the elements of the religion of Jesus than this distinguished convert ?-and does not the very supposition, that an actual necessity existed of admonishing research may not avail to detect the force of words which we have been used to consider as expletives, the holy reverence which is due to the inspiration of Scripture should go far to pro Timothy to bear in memory an event, the forgetfulness of which is caused by nothing but infidelity-does not such a supposition go far to contradict every scriptural statement which has reference to the character of Timothy?—hibiting the notion, that there is any and is it not utterly at variance with thing of repetition or superfluity in the all our previously existing conceptions statements of the Bible. Of all conof the man whom Paul addresses as cessions which can ever be made to his own son in the faith, and whom carnal and philosophical inquirers, I this Apostle greatly desired to see, suppose the most dangerous would be, that he might himself be filled with that which would, in any degree, have joy? I account it, therefore, unde- yielded or qualified the doctrine of the niable that our text must include much plenary inspiration of Holy Writ. more than the historical fact, that Jesus Without question, the inspiration by of Nazareth was raised from the dead; which one portion of the Bible was and it must have been the assurance penned differs considerably from that that the Apostle's admonition was far which guided the composition of more energetic than such a reference another portion. The inspiration which can be commonly accounted, that Brad-wrapt the prophet in future times was ford so longed to fathom its consola- of a loftier character than that which tions. I am persuaded that, with all the aspect of what might cover a common-place announcement, there is contained in our text a copious material of most profitable meditation; and the limits of a single discourse will, per-gery, the marvellous things of coming chance, not permit of our investigating its several bearings. rested on the historian when compiling the records of departed ages: but just as much it was the divine influence which enabled Isaiah to lay down, with all the pomp and gorgeousness of ima generations; so it was the divine influence which assisted Ezra in stating, with all the strictness of a scrupulous fidelity, the annals of by-gone years: and while neither the prophet nor the historian could possibly be an eye wit. ness to the main events on which each insists, yet the fact of their having in that whatever Moses had related was an actual occurrence, and that whatever John predicted shall receive a perfect completion. I would premise, that I look upon it as a wonderful feature of the writings of inspiration, that they contain little or nothing of that redundancy of speech which serves, in merely human compositions, for the purpose of oratorical effect. There is generally a super-spiration gives me equal assurance, abundance of language, words being oftentimes ostentatiously introduced, rather with a view to the harmony of the sound than the perfection of the sense; and it were consequently easy, Now, from these general remarks on without doing injury to the author's the paramount importance of aspiring meaning, to abbreviate in many cases and searching after the beauty and the author's expression. But when I emphasis in every, the least turn of take up any portion of the scriptural scriptural expression, if you refer to page, there is an end at once of all this the words which Paul addressed to liberty of cashiering or curtailing the Timothy, you will find they present a formulary of language. There may be singular illustration of the truth on much which we, on a hasty glance, which I have insisted. "Remember may suppose could be safely omitted, that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was the sense being uninjured; but a more raised from the dead according to my gosdiligent study will, almost invariably, pel." If there were contained in these prove that the proposed alteration words nothing beyond that historical would be of the most material charac-reference to the resurrection of Christ, ter; and that the words which we, in the pride of our criticism, would have cast away as superfluous are, after all, the very nerves and sinews of the passage; and, in cases in which our own on which I have already spoken, then it is manifest that, without doing any injury whatever to the meaning of the passage, we might considerably curtail the sentence, and reduce it to Now the subject of my present discourse is thus opened before you; and I desire, in dependance on the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to speak to you on the importance of connecting the fact of the Saviour's resurrection with two other facts-namely, first, that Christ was of the seed of David, and, secondly, that the resurrection of Christ is so essential a part of the Gospel of Christ, that the one may be described as according with the other. "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel." such a form as thus-" Remember that | Jesus Christ was raised from the dead." I have omitted two portions—" of the seed of David" and "according to my gospel" and certainly it might be thought that, however the sentence is mutilated, the sense is in no degree marred; the idea of the resurrection being equally preserved whether we read, "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel,”—or simply, “remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.” Now, here is an exact case in point. If it be ever lawful to deal with the words of Scripture as if There can be no dispute that it could they were redundant words, it must be not be needful for St. Paul to characin such an instance as is now under terize Jesus as of the seed of David, review but if it be unwarrantable in order to distinguish him from any thus to deal with inspired words as other being whom the name might resuperfluous words, then it would fol- call to the mind of Timothy. I deny, low that there must be parts we have therefore, altogether, that there is any cast away which intimately connect thing whatsoever of the fanciful or the them with those words we have re- far-fetched, in our ascribing any partained. It is certainly somewhat curious ticular emphasis to this casual intro to observe, that the eminent servant of duction of the human lineage of MesGod, whom I have mentioned as ar- siah. I look on the name of Jesus, dently longing to apprehend the Apos- and its every syllable seems to burn tle's meaning, quotes the passage with and blaze with divinity. I may exexactly these omissions, of which I plain, and interpret it; I may expound have shown it might be susceptible. it as promising salvation, as eloquent The martyr's words are, Open my of deliverance to our fallen race; but heart to feed and taste of these com- in exact proportion as I magnify the fortable places of Scripture. Remem-wonder, I remove, as it were, the ber that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead." And if there be any truth in the observations with which I have hitherto occupied your attention, it might be fair to argue, that Bradford had darkened the passage by passing over, as unimportant, those clauses which he introduces not into the words of his quotation. He introduces Paul as reminding Timothy of the fact of the Redeemer's resurrection. There then arises a considerable difficulty in reconciling the character of the admonition with the character of the person admonished: whereas, on the contrary, if you take the text in its original and unabbreviated form, I do heartily believe that the very parts we are disposed to cast away will be found to contain the actual pith and marrow of the Apostle's meaning; or rather they are the nerves and sinews, separated from which the verse loses all its vigour, and becomes in real truth an idle thing. 66 being unto whom it belongs from all kindred and companionship with the sinful tenantry of a ruined creation. The title of anointed Saviour, full, though it be of magnificent and Colossal mercy, consisting of attributes and principles bearing the impress of a superhuman greatness; and, however stupendous and dazzling the truth, that Deity has interposed on behalf of the helpless, that the arm which compresses the universe around us should have stretched itself forth to raise from the dust rebels who have been their own wilful destroyers; still the Saviour of man must be one who could hold communion and fellowship with man; he must not be separated from him by the appalling attributes which mark a divine Creator. If there must be a celestial nature to afford the succour, there must also be a terrestial nature to ensure the sympathy. Hence, I think it just to imagine, that when the Apostle sent to a beloved disciple |