The second analogy that St. Paul sees in nature is, the marvellous superabundance of the creative power of God. God has planted illimited and unnumbered things. "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars," and yet there is a difference between them—“ one star differeth from another star in glory.” There are gradations in all these forms-bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial-"but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." Here is an answer to all objections—“With what body do they come?" Are we to believe that God has exhausted His creative power, that He has done all He could have done, and that He could make no new form? Are we to believe that the Wisdom and the Knowledge, which have never been fathomed by the wisest, are expended, and that the Power of God should be insufficient to find for the glorified spirit a form fit for it? We simply reply to the objection, "With what body do they come?""Look at the creative power of God!”

The third principle which St. Paul refers to, is the principle of progress. The law of the universe is not Pharisaism—the law of custom stereotyped, and never to be changed. The law of God's universe is progress; and just as it was in creation first the lower, and then the higher-so it is throughout, progressive happiness, progressive knowledge, progressive virtue. St. Paul takes one instance: "That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural." At first we lead a mere animal life-the life of instinct; then, as we grow older, passion succeeds; and after the era of passion our spirituality comes, if it comes at all—after, and not before. St. Paul draws a probability from this, that what our childhood was to our manhood-something imperfect followed by that which is more perfect-so will it be hereafter our present humanity, with all its majesty, is nothing more than human infancy.

Lastly, St. Paul finds that all this coincides with the yearnings of the human heart. "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." This is the substance of two prophecies, one in Isaiah, the other in Hosea, and expresses the yearnings of the heart for immortality. And we may observe that these yearnings are in accordance with our own. No man, in a high mood, ever felt

that this life was really all. No man, then, ever looked on life and was satisfied. No man ever looked at the world without hoping that a time is coming when that creation which is now groaning and travailing in bondage, shall be brought into the glorious liberty of the Son of God. No man ever looked upon our life, and felt that it was to remain always what it now is: he could not and would not believe that we are left here, till our mortality predominates, and then that the grave is all. And this feeling, felt in a much greater and higher degree, becomes prophecy.

Isaiah says, "Death shall be swallowed up in victory." We find a yearning in our own hearts after immortality, and that not in our lowest, but in our highest moods; and when we look around, instead of finding something which damps our aspirations, we find the external world corroborating them. Then how shall we account for this marvellous coincidence? Shall we believe that these two things point to nothing? Shall we believe and shall we say that God our Father has cheated us with a lie? Therefore St. Paul concludes his masterly and striking argument thus: "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."

Of course, if there be no Immortality and no Resurrection, it matters not whom you injure, nor what you do. If you

injure him who has trusted you, of what consequence is it? In a few years all will be past and over. And if there be no Immortality and no Resurrection, it matters not what you do to yourself, whether you injure your own soul or not. But if there be a Life to come, then the evil deed you did is not ended by its commission, but it will still go on and on. The evil you have done to others will remain throughout Eternity; the evil you have done to your own soul will spread; as when you throw a stone into a pond the circles go on widening and spreading, so will that sin spread and increase over the sea of Eternity. If there be no Resurrection, then there are deeds of sacrifice which it would be no use to do; but if there be an Immortality and a Resurrection, then whatever good you do shall never be left unrewarded: the act of purity, the act of self-denial, the act of sacrifice, will ennoble you, making you holier and better. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" or, as at the conclusion of this chapter: "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord!"

THE

LECTURE XXXII.

I CORINTHIANS, xv. 46-58.—January 18, 1852.

HE fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which has so often fallen on our ears like music in the night amidst funereal blackness, is filled with arguments, presumptive and direct, which tend to make Immortality credible and, amongst others, St. Paul uses the analogy of the harvest, and argues from it the resurrection of the body: "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body."

Now many an objector, on hearing this saying, might plausibly ask, Why this delay? why should not God create the perfect spiritual life at once? St. Paul anticipates this, and in answer applies a general law of the universe to the case before him. Such an immediate life of spiritual glory would be contrary to the Divine order in God's creation, for the Law of that order is this: "Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual."

Thus we have here a general principle adduced for a special purpose, which principle is yet not confined by St. Paul to this special case, but is felt by him to be one of universal application. For it is the peculiarity of this philosophical Apostle, that he connects Christianity with God's universe. In the Atonement, in the Resurrection, he sees no strange isolated facts, but the Truths which are found everywhere in various forms. And just as a naturalist would refer any particular species to some great type, so he finds at once the place for any Christian doctrine under some great and

general Law. This principle, that the natural precedes the spiritual, it will be our business to trace to-day.

We will consider first then, The universality of this Law. And,

Secondly, The spiritual instances given of it.

I. Its universality is disclosed in the order of Creation. No ingenuity can reconcile the formal statements made by Moses respecting the Creation, with those made by modern science. The story of the Creation as told by Moses is one thing, as told by men of science it is another thing altogether. For the Bible is not a scientific work; it does not deal with hypotheses, nor with formal facts which are of time, and must necessarily vary, but it declares Eternal principles. It is not a revelation of the truths of Geology or Astronomy, but it is a revelation of the Character of God to us. And yet the spiritual principles declared by Moses are precisely those revealed by science. The first chapter of Genesis starts with the doctrine that the heavens and the earth, that light and darkness, were all created by One and the same God. Modern science day by day reveals more clearly the unity of design that pervades creation. Again, in Moses' account nothing is more remarkable than the principle of gradation on which he tells us the universe arose. And this is confirmed at every step by science. To this the accumulated strata bear their witness, to this the organic remains testify continually. Not that first which is highest, but that which is lowest : First, the formless earth, then the green herb growing on the sides of the upraised mountains, then the lowest forms of animal existence, then the highest types, then man, the last and noblest. And then perhaps, an age to come, when all shall be swept away to make room for a higher and nobler race of beings. For "that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural."

Again, the universality of this law is seen in the progress of the Jewish nation. We take it as an instance of this Law