body, and is not complete without both-the one is called the first, the other the second resurrection.

That the Scriptures speak of a first resurrection, the partakers of which are blessed and holy, and over whom the second death has no power, is not denied. But they are silent with respect to a second resurrection, especially with this predication annexed to it, that the subjects of it are blessed and holy, and free from the second death ; no mention is made, any where in the Scriptures, that they are blessed and holy who have part in the second resurrection. It is therefore most rational and correct to understand the first resurrection as belonging to the just, who are blessed and holy, and the second (when we use the term at all: it is not in the Scriptures) as pertaining to the wicked. For there shall be a resurrection, both of the just, and also of the unjust; for all must come forth in their proper order, and fill up their proper character, and stand in their proper lot; those who have done good, (who have been obedient to the will of God as far as made known to them, and have also come into Christ who is the resurrection and the life, of whom they have learned to do good all the time,) to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, (and continued so to do; for all have done evil more or less,) to the resurrection of damnation. (Acts xxiv. 15; Jno. v. 21-29.)

A second implies a first; but a first does not necessarily imply a second; at least of the same kind, and pertaining to the same order of things. Two cannot be without one, but one may be without two, and that one is the first. The second death therefore necessarily presupposes a first; but the first resurrection for those who are blessed and holy, no more implies a second for the same characters, than Jesus' being called the first begotten, implies that God has a second begotten, according to the same extraordinary generation: here the first begotten is also the only begotten. (Jno. i. 18; Heb. i. 6.) Besides; that which is, by the Spirit of inspiration, called the first resurrection, fills the place and time commonly assigned to the second, even the day or time of judgment; and in it the souls of the faithful are spoken of as being seen, but not a word of any other bodies being united to them, or in anywise connected with them; thus in the resurrection of the just, the old body, or tabernacle, is left out of the question, as will be more fully shown in its place.

CHAPTER IV.

OF SOME SCRIPTURES INCAPABLE OF A PROPER ACCEPTATION ON THE PRINCIPLE OF THEIR RELATING TO THE RESURRECTION OF THE ANIMAL BODY.

SECONDLY. I am now to consider some of those passages of Scripture, which cannot be understood with good sense, if considered as speaking of the resurrection of the same material body. This short branch of the subject is nearly allied to that which is next in course; and by a careful perusal and diligent digestion of what is here stated, the mind will be profitably prepared for the reception of what is to come, in which the subject of the true resurrection in Christ will be treated of to a still greater extent.

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The first passage to be introduced here is the following, (2 Cor. v, 1, 2, &c. :) For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven." Were the resurrection of the same animal body an object of the Apostle's faith and expectation, no more favourable opportunity could have been asked to bear his testimony to the fact, and to express his confidence in it, as a source of encouragement against the thoughts of its dissolution. But without the smallest intimation of a resurrection or restoration of the body, (for so he terms it afterwards,) or earthly house of this tabernacle, he directs the mind to quite another source of recompense and comfort-We have a building with God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens— our house which is from heaven. And this is the more remarkable, as this part of the Apostle's discourse is a manifest descant on what he had just before stated of the confidence which he had, that they would all be raised up by Jesus, by the agency of the one who had raised up the Lord Jesus himself. So that what he here speaks of receiving after the dissolution of the tabernacle, is to be considered as the fruit of Christ's resurrection in its influence on them, and its equivalent in them; and yet nothing is said of the resurrection, or restoration of the tabernacle or body, (Chap. iv. 14, 16, 17, 18 :) "Knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you-For which cause we faint not: but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. [The new continually supplanting the old, but no account of the old being restored.] For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a

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building with God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." [Yea, we have it ready at any time whenever this is dissolved, without waiting for a restoration of the old.] "For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed [with our house from heaven,] we shall not be found naked. [The dissolution of our earthly house notwithstanding.] For we who are in this tabernacle do groan, being burthened not that we would be unclothed, [clean dissolved,] but clothed upon, [fixed in a more durable and comfortable existence in the true substance,] that mortality might be swallowed up of life." (That new dwelling wherewith we shall be clothed upon, and which is the true and eternal life, may supplant and forever supersede the old earthly house, which is mortality in the abstract.) Now he who hath wrought us for this self-same thing is God, who also hath given to us the earnest of the Spirit. [While yet in the tabernacle.] Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith not by sight:) we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive [bear or carry] the things done in [by] his body, according to that which he hath done, whether good or bad." Yet not one word or intimation of the same old body being raised, or of the tabernacle being restored, at the judgment-seat of Christ, or any where else.

But the following is, if need be, still more incompatible with reason and good sense, on the supposition of the resurrection of the same body. (For that is acknowledged by the advocates of that plan to be common to both the righteous and the wicked, as that which will unavoidably come to pass in all who rise at all.) The place alluded to is in the epistle to the Philippians, (Chap. iii.) where the Apostle shows what he had counted loss for Christ, and what labour and care he underwent, that, "If, saith he, by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead, [or τὴν ἐξανάστασιν τῶν νεκρῶν, the resurrection from among the dead."] Now, upon the supposition of the resurrection of that body's being the object with the Apostle, his language is either improper, or his great labour and care in vain, because he was certain to attain to it, labour for it or not. But to rise into the perfection of life in Christ Jesus, to enter into that circle of life in the Spirit of Christ which would leave behind all the dead and every thing pertaining to death; thus to attain to the resurrection from among the dead was quite another matter: this being his object, his language is correct, and his labour and care exceedingly proper.

And what farther proves that he had no respect to the resurrection of the animal body is, that he speaks of the resurrection as attainable, at least to a good degree, in the present tense, and therefore takes an occasion to state that he had not attained to it: which had been utterly unnecessary on the supposition of his speaking of the resurrection of the animal body, which they all knew had not taken place. "If by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect; but I follow

after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." These words show farther what is the resurrection of which he speaks, that for which he was apprehended of Christ Jesus, which can be nothing short of a finished resurrection, perfection or final redemption. And this is evidently the object which he was labouring to obtain, and in the attainment of which he was making some progress, and which he expressed by the different names of the resurrection from the dead; perfection, that for which he had been apprehended of Christ Jesus, and the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus: and yet in all this the animal body has no part, as already shown.

Should it still be alleged that although the resurrection of which the Apostle here speaks is granted (which cannot be denied with any plausibility) to be that which has no respect to the natural body, yet that is not to exclude the resurrection of that body at an after period. This allegation is effectually refuted if we consider, First: that the resurrection of which the Apostle here speaks is, as already stated, the perfection of that for which he was apprehended of Christ; there is, therefore, no further use for the natural body, the work being perfected without it; and therefore, secondly, that the resurrection is a gradual or progressive work, the same as regeneration, and not instantaneous. For the Apostle was evidently in the resurrection, and might be said with propriety, according to the work of that day, to be risen with Christ from the dead, when he forsook his opposition to Christ, and betook himself to the work of preaching the Gospel, and to the labour and travel of which he here speaks, and yet he frankly acknowledges he has not yet attained to the thing, or, in other words, is not yet perfect. "But one thing (says he) I do; forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." He had therefore heard the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, obeyed it, and set out to obtain the prize to which it directed-he had awaked and risen from the dead, and Christ had given him light, and he was now in full pursuit of the prize, perfect deliverance, or full redemption -the fullness of the resurrection to life in Christ Jesus. His aim therefore to attain to the resurrection while he was actually in it, being alive in Christ, proves the resurrection to be progressive, and the fullness of it being the grand object at which the Apostle aimed, cannot fail to obviate every argument for the necessity of an after resurrection of the body.

Farther to refute the allegation of a future resurrection of the animal body, without repeating what has been already stated of the inconsistency of the Apostle's anxiety and care on that supposition, I observe, thirdly; That I have already considered the most forcible and plausible Scriptures to favour that plan, known to me, (if any are more favourable, I am willing to have them produced,) and have not found the fact established. Not to anticipate therefore in this place what is more properly to be contained in the next general head, I drop the

subject here, after just observing, that it may be kept in remembrance in the sequel, That what has been stated shows, that whenever the term resurrection is found in the Scriptures, as belonging to the Christian, none else is to be understood but the resurrection to life in Christ, as will be farther illustrated in the following pages.

CHAPTER V.

THE RESURRECTION THE SAME AS REGENERATION; AND A PROGRES-
SIVE WORK.

THIRDLY. I now come to show, That the true resurrection promised in Christ is the passing from the first Adam into the second. It has been intimated, that the resurrection of God's people and the regeneration are the same. That point will be proved in the discussion of this head, which is in substance the same position: not denying that regeneration may, with propriety, be used in a more extensive sense than that which is common to the term resurrection, as comprehending the final restitution. It will be granted on all hands, that regeneration is the work of passing, or being transplanted, from the first Adam to the second, or in other words, of becoming the sons of God in Christ, and so partaking spiritual life in him. And that this is the amount of the resurrection, the Scriptures are plain enough. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive""And are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." But more particularly.

1st. Resurrection is used by the sacred writers instead of regeneration; or in other words, they are said to be risen with Christ, who, it is evident, had experienced nothing farther than being regenerated into Christ. Thus the Apostle, (Col. iii. 1, 3,) "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God-For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Their being risen with Christ is, too evidently to need proof, the same as being regenerated into Christ, or as it is stated a little after, having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new.

See also the words of Christ, recorded by Luke, as quoted above. "And are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." To be the children of God by regeneration, or being the children of the regeneration, would be quite intelligible language, very naturally conveying the idea of those who are born again, or regenerated into Christ; because it is by regeneration, or being born again, that men become the children of God. But here the term resurrection is used to express that by which men become the children of God, which proves that the resurrection is the same with regeneration at least thus far.