ceding Article, as a third privilege of the Church and work of the Spirit.

2. Even in the Old Testament we find hopes expressed of a Resurrection. Thus Job says, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God (Job xix. 25, 26). Again, Isaiah prophesies, Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise (Isai. xxvi. 19), and Daniel says yet more plainly, Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (Dan. xii. 2). The Sadducees, indeed, in the time of our Lord, denied the doctrine, as they also denied the existence of angels and spirits, but Martha without doubt expressed the hopes of her age, when she said of her brother Lazarus, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day (Jn. xi. 24).

3. But the New Testament fully reveals what is only partially anticipated in the Old. Marvel not at this; said our Lord to the Jews, for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of condemnation (Jn. v. 25, 28, 29). And when the Sadducees brought forward certain coarse objections to the doctrine, He declared that they erred, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God, for a resurrection was implied in the very name whereby God was pleased to reveal Himself, when He said, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of

tismal Creed and the Visitation of the Sick. See Heurtley, pp. 100, 101.

Jacob1, He was not the God of the dead, but of the living (Mtt. xxii. 32).

4. Pledges of a Resurrection. Not only, however, did He thus distinctly declare that there will be a resurrection, but He was pleased on more than one occasion to give proofs of its possibility. Thus in the death-chamber He restored to life the daughter of Jairus3; on the way to the grave He raised the son of the widow of Nain1; and four days after death He called forth Lazarus from the tomb. But the most signal instance was His own glorious conquest of death, when He arose triumphant from the grave, and shewed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs (Acts i. 3).

5. The Resurrection of Christ. And His Resurrection is the pledge and earnest of the resurrection of humanity. For as by virtue of our union with the first

1 "An assertion which could not be made of an annihilated being of the past." Alford in loc.

2 Even as proofs had been given in Old Testament times: for we read there of the restoration to life,

(a) Of the dead child of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings xvii. 22);

(b) Of the child of the Shunammite woman (2 Kings iv. 32-37);

(c) Of the dead man who was cast into the grave
of Elisha (2 Kings xiii. 21).

3 Mtt. ix. 18-26; Mk. v. 22—43; Lk. viii. 41–56,
4 Lk. vii. 12-15.

5 Jn. xi. 39-44. We have also in the New Testament the instance of Tabitha or Dorcas (Acts ix. 36-43).

6 See above, p. 37 and the notes. Observe the importance which St Paul attaches to the historical proofs of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Illustrations of the doctrine we may trace (1) in the resurrection of Spring from the icy sepulchre of Winter, (2) in the caterpillar passing into the butterfly, (3) in the uprising of the seed sown. See Pearson, on Art. xi. (1 Cor. xv. 36-39.)

7 This was partially fulfilled when from the graves which opened at His death many bodies of the saints which

Adam we all die, even so by our union with the second Adam shall we all be made alive (1 Cor. xv. 22). But every man in his own order1. Christ, the first fruit, is risen; hereafter shall rise all they that are Christ's at His coming (1 Cor. xv. 23); for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him (1 Thess. iv. 14).

6. The Resurrection of the Body. And not only is His resurrection a pledge of our resurrection, but it also enables us to understand in some measure what is meant by a resurrection of the body. For while the intonations of His voice, and the marks in His hands and feet proved that the Body wherewith He rose, was the same Body in which he had died, yet there were not wanting proofs that it had undergone marvellous change. The risen Saviour was no longer subject to laws of time and space. He comes we know not whence. He goes we know not whither. Now He stands in the midst of the Apostles (Jn. xx. 19). Now He vanishes out of their sight (Lk. xxiv. 31); and at length He is received up into heaven3 (Acts i. 9). So shall it be at the resur

slept arose after His resurrection, and came out of their graves, and went into the Holy City, and appeared unto many (Mtt. xxvii. 52, 53).

1 Or, rather, "troop" or "rank," as in an army, ev T idiw ráyμarı, 1 Cor. xv. 23, "as though the scene were presented of troop after troop appearing after their victorious general." Stanley On the Corinthians; and Barrow's Sermon On the Resurrection.

2 "There is no shadow of uncertainty intended in the expression if we believe. It denotes, as surely as it is a primary article of our Creed, that the Saviour first died, and then rose. The resurrection of Christians is as sure as the resurrection of Christ." Vaughan On 1 Thess. iv. 14.

3 "The Resurrection is not like any one of the recorded miracles of raising from the dead. It is not a restoration to the old life, to its wants, to its inevitable close, but the

rection of the dead. The bodies with which they shall rise, shall so far be the same bodies, that every one shall have properly his own, and be truly the same person he was before'. But these bodies will be very different from our present bodies2. Sown in corruption, they shall be raised in incorruption; sown in weakness, they shall be raised in power; sown in dishonour, they shall be raised in glory (1 Cor. xv. · 42—44); and, invested with new attributes and new properties, they shall be like unto Christ's glorious Body, according to the mighty working whereby God is able to subdue all things unto Himself (Phil. iii. 21).

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TWELFTH ARTICLE.

The Life Everlasting. Amen.

1. The Fourth of our great privileges as members of the Church, is the Life Everlasting. This ArtiIcle of the Creed is to be taken in close connection revelation of a new life, foreshadowing new powers of action and a new mode of being. It is not like any of the fabled apotheoses of the friends of the gods...it is the consecration of a restored and perfected manhood.... The Body, which was recognised as essentially the same Body, had yet undergone some marvellous change, of which we can gain a faint idea by what is directly recorded of its manifestations." Westcott On the Resurrection, 154–160.

1 Archbishop Secker On the Catechism, Vol. 1. 271.

2 The Apostle's analogy of the Seed-corn enables us in a measure to understand this. The grain of wheat, after being apparently destroyed, rises again, and the body with which it is raised may be called its own body. But still it is a new body, it is the old life reappearing in a higher form, with stem, and leaves, and fruit, &c. Robertson's Lectures on the Corinthians.

3 See the Service for the Burial of the Dead.

4 Wanting in some of the early Creeds, the Twelfth

with the one preceding. For as we believe that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, so we believe that the dead shall rise to life, and that this life will be everlasting.

2. Everlasting Life. True, indeed, it is that all shall rise again; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation (Jn. v. 29). But in this Article is specially set forth "the most large gifts which God will give to them that be His1," and who depart hence "in His true faith and fear?"

3. Present. In one sense everlasting life may be regarded as a present gift, and as having its commencement on earth. For our blessed Lord says, This is life eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (Jn. xvii. 3). Again, He saith, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life3 (Jn. v. 24); and this life He imparts through the grace of the Holy Ghost.

4. Future. But though begun on earth, everlasting life in all its fulness is a future gift, and will be only then perfectly realized, when it shall be shared by the whole being of man, body, soul, and spirit, in the

Article "can hardly be said to have been established in the Western formularies till the middle of the seventh century." Heurtley, p. 151.

1 Nowell's Catechism; see also Nicholson On the Catechism, p. 86, smaller Edn.

2 See the Prayer for the Church Militant in the Communion Service.

3 Compare also Jn. iii. 36; vi. 47. Hence we say in the second Collect in the Morning Prayer, that "our eternal life standeth," i.e. "consisteth, in the knowledge of God;" and in the Collect for St Philip and St James's Day, that "truly to know God is everlasting life."