About the time of his departure, as his Curate was standing by his bedside, he requested him to read the 71st Psalm; which was no sooner done, than he took him by the hand, and said with great mildness and composure 'If this be dying, I had no idea what dying was before;' and then added, in a somewhat stronger tone of voice, 'Thank GOD! thank GOD, that it is no worse.' On the morning of the Epiphany he expired, without a groan or a sigh."

CHAPTER XIII. THE RESURRECTION.

So changed is our condition by sin, that when we seek to find what is the bliss of Heaven, and what of the Resurrection, we are more impressed by what shall not be than by what shall; by the evil which shall cease, than by the bliss which shall commence, and for ever last. It seems everything to say that whatever now afflicts us shall do so no more again for ever. This state of things shows our present sickness; for even thus in illness men desire not perfect health, not the enjoyment of all the acts of health, but relief from immediate pain or weakness. We are sick then here; why would we not be whole? Why not pant for the time of healing, and the restoration of all things?

At the Resurrection, that which now afflicts us shall cease for ever. Do we mourn our friends? We shall see them. Pain, poverty, sorrow of all kinds, are then extinct. Above all, sin will not only not have dominion over us, but will not be present in us. The lusts of our members will, like the storms at even, die away, and the waves which they raised will sink to rest. Our whole frame will return to its obedience to us, in our obedience to our God.

These failing senses are all so many hopes of Resurrection. We shall see, and hear, and move, and remember, and perceive as we did in the freshness of youth. The dreams of a perpetual youth shall be fulfilled at last.

But as it would be a poor account, or rather scarcely any account at all, of the happiness of health, to say that it is the absence of pain and weakness: so the Resurrection is far more than the destruction of our sorrows. Nay, it is what health would be to him who had never known it, sight to him born blind, restoration to the cripple from his mother's womb it is the gift of a new happiness, of something which we have never enjoyed, and of which we can form scarce any notion.

:

"Flesh and blood" cannot inherit the kingdom of GOD; but the body can. By "flesh and blood" is meant whatever is corruptible; but the body will then be incorruptible. Our Blessed LORD is not only the cause but the pattern of our Resurrection: and like Him our body will be the same in being, not the same in glory.❜ "The same, but not the same. It will be the same, because it will be flesh it will not be the same, because it will not be mortal." CHRIST was the same in body. "Handle Me and see." He had the power of eating, although not the need. He was still scarred with the sacred Wounds, and His beloved Face was known to His Apostles. Yet, if S. Thomas touched Him, it was a painless touch; and Death had no more dominion over Him. The attractions of earth could not weigh Him down, nor keep Him here and although before His Resurrection He escaped the hands of the Nazarenes, and walked upon the sea, by virtue of the union of Godhead with Manhood in Himself; yet after His Resurrection He shewed Himself so frequently to be free from the

1 S. Aug. Serm. 362, s. 17.

2 S. Leo, Serm. i. de Res. cap. iv.

S. Aug. Serm. 154, s. 17.

limits which now confine us, that we may well believe His actions to be prophecies of our future powers.

S. John declares, that "it doth not yet appear what we shall be "-only that we shall see GOD, and that the sight of GOD is transforming. "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." S. Paul tells us that in some sort the risen body is very different from the buried, whilst yet it is the same. For burial, he says, is sowing "bare grain;" but the growth of leaf and plant is the likeness of Resurrection. "GOD giveth it a body, as it hath pleased Him; and to every seed his own body.' Therefore we shall be unchanged, so far as to be the same; but changed, so as not only to lose all weakness and imperfection, but to gain unspeakable perfection, and power, and bliss, Blessed, then, will it be to behold our beloved again, their well-known frames and features, all that we loved, all that we remember with delight; but the lines of pain and care departed from them for ever. The leprosy of the fall will be cleansed for ever, and the freshness of childhood and perpetual youth shall return by a change far speedier than the sevenfold dipping of Naaman in Jordan; even by the momentary and perfect working whereby "The LORD JESUS CHRIST shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious Body, according to the mighty working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.""

The ancients spoke of three births: first the natural birth of soul and body; then the new birth of the soul in Baptism, whilst the body remains unchanged; and lastly, the second birth of the body at the Resurrection. Of this the Apostle speaks when he says, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of GOD...

1 Phil. iii. 21,

For we know that, the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the SPIRIT, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body."" The Resurrection is here called adoption; for the receiving a glorious body is the seal of GOD's favour, and it is the consequence and completion of the New Birth. Of our LORD's Resurrection itself it is said, "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee."

Bitter was the severing of soul and body: sweet then will be the reuniting. The sowing was in corruption and dishonour: the raising will be in incorruption to glory. At death the eyes of the departing could scarcely see man, at the Resurrection they shall see GOD: and the deaf ear of age, and the dull ear of dying, and the deafness of the grave, shall hear "the new song," and the Thrice Holy of the Cherubims, and the Amen and the Blessing of the Elders.

Who shall limit the powers of the risen body? If Resurrection is the birth, what will not that be which is so born? The eye is quick. We can see with the glance of an instant lands far distant, hills long miles away from us; but the Apostle says we shall be raised in the twinkling of an eye." "How great, then, says a holy Father, "will be the speed of moving, if the speed of rising could be so great?"

Consider also the soul. "Mark the whole world ordered even in human government: with what administrations, with what orders of powers, conditions of states, laws, manners, arts? All this is done by the soul, and this power of the soul is not seen.

When

the soul is taken from the body, the body lies a corpse; but when it is present to the body, first it in a manner sweetens rottenness; for all flesh is corruptible, and flows away into putridity, unless it is 1 Rom. viii. 18, 19, 22, 23. 2 Ps. ii. 7; Acts xiii. 33. 3 S. Aug. Serm. 277, s. 12.

kept by a sort of seasoning of the soul. But the souls of men and animals have this in common. Those things rather are to be admired which I have mentioned, which belong to the mind and understanding, when it is renewed even to the image of its CREATOR, in Whose image man was made; what will be this power of the soul, when this body also shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality? If it can do so great things through corruptible flesh, what will it be able to do by a body after the Resurrection of the dead ?""

And these powers, vast as they may be, beyond all thought of man, as now he is, will not be at variance with each other. The flesh will no longer lust against the spirit, nor the spirit against the flesh. The day of obedience will have returned, and the fall will be utterly undone, and more than undone. The body will serve the soul, the soul her GOD. Nay, such union will there be between soul and body that the ministrations of the body will not appear a service, but an unity of feeling and of action. There will be but one pulse, one emotion. And this blessed unity will arise from unity with GOD. We shall not feel GOD's service to be service, for our will being conformed to His, and reunited to it, will move together with His. His will, as soon as known, will be our present desire. We shall scarcely perceive it to be His will apart from our own; so united shall we be to Him. The declaration of His will to us will be but giving of knowledge; only the enlightening of affection ready, waiting, longing to do that which it is permitted to do for Him in Whom by love it lives. But who shall speak of these things? We labour to think them out, and cannot feel what we think, or think what we feel, or truly express either thought or feeling. When shall we know the Resurrection by pains and effort? How shall we know it without effort? Know it by enjoyment? Now the 1 S. Aug. in Johan. Ev. Tract. viii. s. 2.