Would Then make doest, do quickly, for there is no time to spare. III. Set thine house in order. Be ye reconciled to God, that the earthly houses of your hearts may be the temples of the Holy Ghost, the habitations of God through the Spirit. Go and bow yourselves before the Most High God, and offer unto Him a humble and a contrite heart, for a contrite heart He will not despise. No! thus saith the High and lofty One:-"I dwell in the high and holy place, and with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, and that trembles at my Word, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the hearts of the contrite ones. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; and He will walk in you, and dwell in you, and ye shall be the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. This is the only way in which your house can be set in order. The heart in its natural state is out of order; everything is out of its place, and all is confusion. It is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; and out of it proceed every evil thought, word, and work; and nothing can set it right but the Spirit of the Lord, and that Spirit is given unto us when we are brought nigh to God by the blood of the Lamb, that is, when we believe in Jesus, and receive remission of sins. Then, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; and this peace sets all in order, and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us. O get that peace, and you will have peace in your house, and will follow peace with all men; you will have peace in your life, and peace in your death, and will use means to have peace in your family after you are gone. You will look at the words also in another point of view. Set thine house in order. Settle your temporal affairs. Order all things respecting your family, your business, your property; whether you have little or much, order everything about it, that there may be no disputes and quarrels when you are gone; and order all things justly and equitably, without partiality, that there may be peace at the end. Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace. But perhaps you may have a wish that your life should be prolonged for awhile, not so much for your own sake, as for the sake of your family. Well, let that request be made known unto God, with due submission to His will, and if it will be good for you and your friends, He will grant it; for He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him; He also will hear their cry, and save them: but at all events, set thine house in order; for thus saith the Lord-Thou shalt die, and not live!-sooner or later you must be gathered to your fathers. A GREAT MYSTERY. 1 Cor. xv, 51. "Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." O DEATH! thou king of terrors! thou fell tyrant! thou cruel spoiler! what hast thou done? Myriads of human beings hast thou crushed into thy dark, damp grave! Thou hast blasted the most blooming hopes and prospects! Thou hast torn asunder the most tender and endearing ties! Thou hast separated chief friends, and hast cast many a widow and orphan broken-hearted upon the tender mercies of a cold, unfeeling world! Thou, indeed, art no respecter of persons; thou seizest without ceremony the crowned monarch as well as the humble peasant! the rich and mighty nobles as well as their servitors who attend upon them. Thou snatchest away the young as well as the old; the rich as well as the poor; the finished scholar as well as the rude barbarian; the saint as well as the sinner. Nay, even when intellect, and usefulness, and youth, and beauty, and piety, are all combined, thou regardest not, thou pitiest not! Thou art, indeed, a mighty hunter before the Lord! thou hast subdued Nimrod, and Xerxes, and Cyrus, and Hannibal, and Scipio, and Alexander, and Cæsar, and all their successors in arms and valour! But there is ONE whom thou canst not subdue. He once conquered thee, and escaped from thy grasp in spite of thee! and He will destroy thee. He will subdue all things unto Himself; for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet; and the last enemy that shall be destroyed is thee, O death! Yes, He will entirely vanquish and subdue thee, and compel thee to deliver up all thy prey the greedy sea must yield up her dead, and the earth no more conceal her slain; for He who at first created the dust out of nothing, and then formed man out of that dust, can as easily raise him from the dead when the body shall have returned again to dust, and shall have undergone ever so many changes. Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed, and death shall be swallowed up in victory. I. For the knowledge of this cheering, glorious truth we are indebted solely to Divine revelation. The teachings of nature and philosophy upon this grand subject are imperfect; they show probabilities, but no real certainties. By nature we have a dread of annihilation, and a strong desire for future existence; and it is therefore presumed that He who planted that desire in our nature will gratify it, as He does that of hunger by food, of thirst by water, and of attachment by friends and suitable objects; but this is a mere conjecture-no certainty. The belief in a future state is universal, and has ever been so, even amongst heathens, whether savage or civilized; and it is supposed that what is so generally believed must be true; but it has not been so. For many generations all the world believed that the sun went round the earth; but their belief was in error, and therefore it might be so in this case. There is an apparent resurrection in the natural world, and therefore it is presumed there will be a real one with respect to the human body. The torpid chrysalis produces the beautiful butterfly; and the trees revive in the spring: but this is not proof; the chrysalis and the trees were not actually dead: besides, it is said we all do fade as a leaf; and the leaves do not live again. And upon this subject the dead themselves are silent, with the exception of those named in revelation. Among the myriads who have died, and gone to dust ages ago, none have returned to tell the story; and their awful silence says,There shall no sign be given you. Then apart from revelation we have no satisfactory evidence that we shall survive the grave; but the Book of God comes to our aid, and says plainly there shall be a resurrection, both of the just and of the unjust. Reason asks,-Will not God raise intelligent man? His human life is much shorter, and more uncertain than that of some animals and trees; will he not live again? How appalling the idea of burying in the earth an enlightened, pious, and useful man, if the dead rise not! How depressing to inter a pious and beloved relative or friend, if the dead rise not! But the voice of God comes in the holy Book -Thy brother shall rise again. We read there that the dead have been raised-the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue at Capernaum; the son of the widow of Nain; Lazarus of Bethany; and at the crucifixion of Jesus, the graves were opened, and many bodies of saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many; Jesus also Himself rose from the dead according to the Scriptures. The sacred volume also informs us that there shall be a general resurrection of the dead. This joyous truth was revealed even in the patriarchal age to that distinguished and enlightened man, Job, of the land of Uz. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth; and though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me :" Job, xix, 25—28. It was spoken of by Daniel the prophet:-"Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt; and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever:" Dan. xii, 2, 3. It was fully asserted by the Lord Jesus:-"Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." John, v, 28, 29. "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die:" chap. xi, 25. And it is confirmed and amplified by St. Paul in the chapter before us :-"Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept; for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. II. But some will say,-How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come ? The apostle evidently anticipates the objection of the false apostles or sceptics of Corinth, and he at once proceeds to meet it. These were ready to inquire in what manner could the dead be raised, after their bodies had been turned to dust, mixed with other bodies, and even become a part of other bodies; and, if this were possible, with what sort of bodies would they rise from the grave? with such as they had on earth, or with others of a different material ? The apostle replies, "Thou fool! that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body." He is fitly called a fool who presumes to limit Omnipotence, and to deny the |