LECTURE VIII.

SOUL AND BODY.

"This is the first resurrection," &c.-REVELATION XX. 5, 6.

I WILL try to show you the certainty and glory of the fruits of the resurrection in what is here called the resurrection of "them who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God; and who had not worshipped the beast, neither his image; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. This is the first resurrection." I need not repeat that this chapter is the epitome of what are called the millennial blessings, or the joys of the age that is yet to be. It is after all opposition has been destroyed; after Christ has returned to the world over which sin has reigned so long, that the seer, witnessing a grand panorama, the successive scenes of which sweep before his eye, and reveal to him new facts and phenomena, says that after this he beheld an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, that is, the place into which Satan and sin shall be ultimately cast; and the symbol of restricted power, a great chain in his hand; and he laid hold upon the dragon, that is one of his titles, or the old serpent, whose subtilty in Paradise seduced Eve; who is the Devil, or the accuser of the brethren, or Satan; all his names combined; and bound him for a thousand years. We can see at once that the binding of Satan for a thousand years will be in the first place a great relief to this world; just as his presence in this world must be a ceaseless, disturbing cause, to which is to be traced the authorship of the worst crimes that debase and deform mankind. He

is said to have cast him into his own place. Where is Satan now? Not everywhere; but going about, which indicates change of locality, and therefore the absence of omnipresence; going about on the earth seeking whom he may destroy. He is taken at the advent of this new era and cast into the bottomless pit, shut up and sealed, that he should deceive the nations no more, what has been his only pleasure for eighteen centuries and upwards, until the thousand years are fulfilled. Afterwards occurs, what is the most mysterious and difficult part of this book, that he is to be loosed for a ittle; those who are the enemies of God are to come from the four quarters of the earth to make an attack upon the camp of the people of God, and to be destroyed. Then the millennium, like the dawn of the morning, is to break into the full-orbed sunshine of everlasting day; no disturbing, no disruptive elements being admissible; no more tears, nor crying, nor sorrow; a new heaven and a new earth, and all things made new; joy for ever dwelling therein like a rainbow round a fountain of righteousness. Then says John, I saw thrones, and they sat upon them; and judgment was given to them. "Know ye not that the saints shall judge angels? and ye shall sit with me on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel;" the very promise of our Lord. "And judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God;" that was for their faithfulness in testifying to Christ; "and which had not worshipped the beast," that is, the great Western Apostacy, "neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads;" but were, in other words, Protestants; "and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not," that is, their dead bodies were not raised, "until the thousand years were finished." This first one that he has referred to is the first resurrection. And then, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first resurrection."

I wish to show here that there are two distinct acts

in the great drama, if I may use the expression, of the resurrection-one which takes place at the commencement of the millennial day, and the other which takes place immediately at its close. Before I proceed to this, however, let me state what I believe, as indeed I can prove, that now, whilst the body is mouldering in the grave, where the soul of the Christian has left it, to be prepared and made ready for that soul when it comes back again in all its glory and its perfection, the soul that has left it enters instantly into all the happiness and joy of which it is capable. The present state of the souls of believers is not their full joy; that will be when soul and body are united together. And hence throughout the whole Scripture the souls of believers in heaven are represented as in a state of waiting or expectancy for the extrication of their dead dust from the grave, and for its being rebuilt a glorious shrine, a meet home for the glorified spirit that is to dwell in it for ever and ever. In touching words this truth is portrayed in the Epistle to the Thessalonians; where we learn that the soul of the believer is in perfect and conscious happiness, from the distinct statement of God. But we have the means and elements of such a conviction in some degree in our own experience. The soul often acts with greater intensity when it disentangles itself from its material tenement. I am absorbed one day in thought; a topic that intensely delights me is subjected to the investigation and analysis of my mind. I am so absorbed in pursuing the theme I love that the clock strikes, persons enter the room and go out again, music is heard upon the streets, the beat of many feet is echoed from the pavement; all noises and sounds transpire around me that in ordinary circumstances would disturb me; I have not heard a sound. Why? how so? The ears were shut, the senses were in abeyance, the soul had drawn in its tides from the outer shores. Disentangled thus from the complications of all outward action, it thought with the greatest intensity, and lived and acted with the completest and most thorough consciousness. Is not this

so far a proof that the soul becomes vigorous in proportion as it lets go its hold of the body; that the less it is fettered by its earthly tenement the more intense, the more keen, the more powerful it becomes; as if to teach us in this world that the soul separate from the body is not in a state of unconsciousness, but that then it begins its nobler life, puts forth its grandest powers; and is capable of worship, and of adoration, and of study, and of thought, separate from the body, of which it is altogether incapable in this present economy. It will only be able to regain its highest glory and power when the body, purified, glorified, and risen, shall be worthy of so kingly an inhabitant to abide in it for ever and ever. Hence I have always felt what I think is most comforting to Christians, that in no case is the soul ever injured upon earth. In the condition of the veriest idiot, or of the most thorough lunatic, the soul in its innermost sanctuary remains perfect, unmutilated, and were it free, capable of grand imaginings, as was the soul of Newton, or of Shakspeare, or of Milton. Then it will be asked, How do you account for the humiliating spectacle presented by either of these? I would try to explain it this way. My feet, let me suppose, are paralyzed, but the soul is not touched; my hands are next paralyzed, but still the soul is not touched. A step further, my brain, which is a still more important organ, is paralyzed, or pressed upon, but yet my soul is not touched. But you say, I am incapable when the brain is pressed upon of thinking, at least of speaking, acting, writing, in the way I was accustomed to do before-how will you meet this? It is not the soul that has undergone a change, but the outward hand of the soul, which we call the brain, that will not respond to its volitions. When you see a man paralyzed in the hand, he has lost the power of writing, but his skill is the same it ever was; his own idea of what should be, and his desire to accomplish what he means, is as perfect as ever. Then what has gone wrong? The nerves and muscles of the hand which is the instrument will not respond, because they are weak. And

so in the case of the lunatic, when he does not appear as he did before; when he is incapable of those deeds, thoughts, conceptions, as far as we can see them, by which he was marked before, we shall find it is not his soul that is decayed, but it is the organ through which it acts that has suffered injury. Place the noblest minstrel that the sun ever shone upon beside a harp whose strings are broken or out of tune; he strikes the vibrating chord, but he brings forth no sweet music. Why? He has not parted with his skill, nor lost his genius; but the instrument by which he expresses what he knows has lost its power of giving utterance to them. In the same manner, when a person becomes what is called a lunatic, it is not the soul that has gone wrong; but the instrument of many strings, so exquisitely toned when perfect, so liable to go wrong in the wear, and tear, and pressure of an overwhelming world, that will not convey to the outer ear the thoughts, imaginations, and conceptions of the soul. I have often felt this when I have seen persons do what is very cruel-tease a lunatic or an idiot; I have always had the impression that the poor man had just as bright thoughts as I have, as clear conceptions of what was right to do, but he could not express them, he could not carry them out; the birth of the thoughts was complete; their development in the outer world faltered and failed ever as he made the attempt. It is not the soul, again I repeat, that is gone wrong; but it is the outward machinery through which it speaks. November darkness, of which we have so full experience in London, is not the extinction of the sun, but the intervention of a fog; an eclipse is not the extinction of the moon, but only the shadow of the earth upon it. So insanity, paralysis, and sickness, are not accidents of the soul, but diseases of the house in which the soul lives, in consequence of which it cannot act upon the world with which it is made to come into contact. Hence let the fog dissolve, and the sun comes forth in November as bright and pure as in June; let the earth move on, and the moon's disc is as bright and beautiful as before; let health be