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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. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality. So 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. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" When this author first presented these epistles to the world, I have no doubt they produced impressions of the deepest interest, if not of high astonishment. Some of you can recollect the emotions with which you read them more than twenty years ago; and they excite the same emotions still, except that they are more enlightened and vigorous. You well recollect also the close of his description of the privileges of the children of God: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It

is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

There is a noble specimen of lofty argument and expostulation also in one of the early books of the Old Testament which I may not pass over in silence. "Gird up thy loins now like a man. I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Wilt thou also disannul my judgments? Wilt thou condemn me that thou mayest be righteous? Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him? Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency, and array thyself with glory and beauty. Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath, and behold every one that is proud and abase him. Look on every one that is proud and bring him low, and tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together, bind their faces in secret. Then will I also confess unto thee, that thine own right hand can save thee!" There are several fine points in this passage, but none

more exquisitely fine than this," Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath, and behold every one that is proud, and abase him! Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low!" It is a lofty challenge from God to the arrogance and power of man. O how impotent compared with the Almighty One! There

needs but a look from God to level the proudest worm. I know not where to find passages of equal force, sublimity, and simplicity out of the Bible. And they are but specimens from almost innumerable passages equally brilliant. There is no vapidness in such passages as these, which palls on the taste. Their flowers do not fade, nor does their fruit lose its freshness. The sacred writers differ in this respect from all others. These dissertations have long been published to the world; but they have lost none of their power, none of their grandeur and beauty. They are always new, and more and more deeply interest a classical mind, the oftener they are read and the better they are known. No matter how often you read them, the last perusal leaves the highest relish behind it.

One of the most eminent critics has said, that "devotional poetry cannot please." If it be so, then has the Bible "carried the dominion of poetry into regions that are inaccessible to worldly ambition." It has "crossed the enchanted circle," and by the beauty, boldness, and originality of its conceptions, has given to devotional poetry a glow, a richness, a tenderness, in vain sought for in Shakspeare or Cowper, in Scott or Byron. Where is there poetry that can be compared with the song of Moses at his victory over Pharaoh; with the Psalms of David; with the Song of Solomon, and with the prophecies of Isaiah? Where is there an elegiac ode to be compared with the song of David upon the death of Saul and Jonathan, or the Lamentations of Jeremiah? Where, in ancient or modern poetry, is there a passage like this? "In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then

a spirit passed before my face: the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof. An image was before mine eyes, There was silence. And I heard a voice saying. Shall mortal man be more iust than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Behold he put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly. How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust and who are crushed before the moth!" Men who have felt the power of poetry, when they have marked the "deep working passion of Dante," and observed the elevation of Milton as he "combined image with image in lofty gradation," have thought that they discovered the indebtedness of these writers to the poetry of the ⚫ Old Testament. But how much more sublime is Isaiah, than Milton! How much more enkindling than Dante, is David! How much more picturesque than Homer is Solomon, or Job! Like the rapid, glowing argumentations of Paul, the poetic parts of the Bible may be read a thousand times, and they have all the freshness and glow of the first perusal. Where, in the compass of human language, is there a paragraph, which, for boldness and variety of metaphor, delicacy and majesty of thought, strength and invention, elegance and refinement, equals the passage in which God answers Job out of the whirlwind? What merely human imagination, in the natural progress of a single discourse, and apparently without effort, ever thus went down to "the foundations of the earth"-stood at "the doors of the ocean". visited "the place where the day-spring from on high takes hold of the uttermost parts of the earth ”. entered into "the treasures of the snow and the hail"-traced the path of the thunder-bolt-and,

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penetrating the retired chambers of nature, demanded, "Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of the dew?" And how bold its flights, how inexpressibly striking and beautiful its antitheses, when from the warm and sweet Pleiades, it wanders to the sterner Orion, and in its rapid course, hears the "young lions crying unto God for lack of meat sees the war-horse pawing in the valley-descries the eagle on the crag of the rock-and in all that is vast and minute, dreadful and beautiful, discovers and proclaims the glory of Him who is "excellent in counsel and wonderful in working?" The style of Hebrew poetry is everywhere forcible and figurative beyond example. The book of Job stands not alone in this sententious, spirited and energetic form and manner. It prevails throughout the poetic part of the Scriptures; and they stand confessedly the most eminent examples to be found of the truly sublime and beautiful. I confess I have not much of the feeling of poetry. It is a fire that is enkindled at "the living lamp of nature,” and glows only on a few favoured altars. And yet I cannot but love the poetic associations of the Bible. Now, they are sublime and beautiful, like the mountain torrent, swollen and impetuous by the sudden bursting of the cloud. Now they are grand and awful as the stormy sea of Galilee, when the tempest beats upon the fearful disciples. And again, they are placid as that calm lake when the Saviour's feet have pressed upon its waters and stilled them into peace.

There is also a sublimity, an invention in the imagery of the Bible that is found in no other book. Here you see "a land shadowing with wings "-a "star coming out of Jacob, and a sceptre arising out of Israel "the "lion of the tribe of Judah "—and

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