sembly? Such will be the terror, such the consternation, when it actually comes to pass. Sinners will be the same timorous, self-condemned creatures then, as they are now. And then they will not be able to stop their ears, who are deaf to all the gentler calls of the gospel now. Then the trump of God will constrain them to hear and fear, to whom the ministers of Christ now preach in vain. Then they must all hear, for,

II. My text tells you, all that are in the graves, all without exception, shall hear his voice. Now the voice of mercy calls, reason pleads, conscience warns, but mul titudes will not hear. But this is a voice which shall, which must reach every one of the millions of mankind, and not one of them will be able to stop his ears. Infants and giants, kings and subjects, all ranks, all ages of mankind shall hear the call. The living shall start and be changed, and the dead rise at the sound. The dust that was once alive and formed a human body, whether it flies in the air, floats in the ocean, or vegetates on earth, shall hear the new-creating fiat. Wherever the fragments of the human frame are scattered, this all-penetrating call shall reach and speak them into life. We may consider this voice as a summons not only to dead bodies to rise, but to the souls that once animated them, to appear and be re-united to them, whether in heaven or hell. To the grave, the call will be, Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment; to heaven, ye spirits of just men made perfect; "descend to the world whence you originally came; and assume your new-formed bodies:" to hell, "Come forth and appear, ye damned ghosts, ye prisoners of darkness, and be again united to the bodies in which you once sinned, that in them ye may now suffer." Thus will this summons spread through every corner of the universe; and heaven, earth and hell, and all their inhabitants, shall hear and obey. Devils, as well as sinners of our race, will tremble at the sound; for now they know they can plead no more as they once did, Torment us not before the time; for the time is come, and they must mingle with the prisoners at the bar. And now when all that are in the graves hear this all-quickening voice,

III. They shall come forth. Now methinks I see, I hear the earth heaving, charnel-houses rattling, tombs burst

ing, graves opening. Now the nations under ground begin to stir. There is a noise and a shaking among the dry bones. The dust is all alive, and in motion, and the globe breaks and trembles, as with an earthquake, while this vast army is working its way through and bursting into life. The ruins of human bodies are scattered far and wide, and have passed through many and surprising transformations. A limb in one country, and another in another; here the head and there the trunk, and the ocean rolling between.* Multitudes have sunk in a watery grave, been swallowed up by the monsters of the deep, and transformed into a part of their flesh. Multitudes have been eaten by beasts and birds of prey, and incorporated with them; and some have been devoured by their fellow-men in the rage of a desperate hunger, or of unnatural cannibal appetite, and digested into a part of them. Multitudes have mouldered into dust, and this dust has been blown about by winds, and washed away with water, or it has petrified into stone, or been burnt into brick to form dwellings for their posterity; or it has grown up in grain, trees, plants, and other vegetables, which are the support of man and beast, and are transformed into their flesh and blood. But through all these various transformations and changes, not a particle that was essential to one human body has been lost, or incorporated with another human body, so as to become an essential part of it. And as to those particles that were not essential, they are not necessary to the identity of the body or of the person; and therefore we need not think they will be raised again. The omniscient God knows how to collect, distinguish, and compound all those scattered and mingled seeds of our mortal bodies. And now at the sound of the trumpet, they shall all be collected, wherever they were scattered; all properly sorted and united, however they were confused; atom to its fellow-atom, bone to its fellow-bone. Now methinks you may see the air darkened with fragments of bodies flying from country to country, to meet and join their proper parts:

This was the fate of Pompey, who was slain on the African shore. His body was left there, and his head carried over the Mediterranean to -Julius Cæsar.

"Scatter'd limbs, and all

The various bones obsequious to the call,
Self-mov'd, advance; the neck perhaps to meet
The distant head, the distant legs, the feet.
Dreadful to view, see through the dusky sky
Fragments of bodies in confusion fly,

To distant regions journeying, there to claim
Deserted members, and complete the frame-
The sever'd head and trunk shall join once more,
Tho' realms now rise between, and oceans roar.
The trumpet's sound each vagrant mote shall hear,
Or fixt in earth, or if afloat in air,

Obey the signal, wafted in the wind,

And not one sleeping atom lag behind."—•

All hear and now, in fairer prospect shown,

Limb clings to limb, and bone rejoins its bone."-t

Then, my brethren, your dust and mine shall be reanimated and organized; "and though after our skin worms destroy these bodies, yet in our flesh shall we see God." Job xix. 16.

And what a vast improvement will the frail nature of man then receive? Our bodies will then be substantially the same; but how different in qualities, in strength, in agility, in capacities for pleasure or pain, in beauty or deformity, in glory or terror, according to the moral

Young's Last Day, Book II.

†These two last lines are taken from a poem, which is a lively imitation of Dr. Young, entitled, The Day of Judgment, ascribed to Mr. Ogilvie, a promising young genius of Aberdeen, in Scotland, not above nineteen years of age, as I was informed, when he composed this poem. The lines preceding these quoted are as follows:

O'er boiling waves the severed members swim,
Each breeze is loaded with a broken limb:
The living atoms, with peculiar care,

Drawn from their cells, come flying thro' the air.
Where'er they lurk'd, thro' ages undecay'd,
Deep in the rock, or cloth'd some smiling mead;
Or in the lily's snowy bosom grew,

Or ting'd the sapphire with its lovely blue;
Or in some purling stream refresh'd the plains;
Or form'd the mountain's adamantine veins;

Or gaily sporting in the breathing spring,
Perfum'd the whisp'ring zephyr's balmy wing-
All hear, &c.

The thought seems to be borrowed from Mr. Addison's fine Latin poem on the resurrection, in which are the following beautiful lines:

Jam pulvis varias terræ dispersa per oras,
Sive inter venas teneri concreta metalli,
Sensim diriguit, seu sese immiscuit herbis,
Explicita est; molem rursus coalescit in unam
Divisum Funus, sparsos prior alligat artus

Junctura, aptanturque; iterum coeuntia membra.

character of the persons to whom they belong? Matter, we know, is capable of prodigious alterations and refinements; and there it will appear in the highest perfection. The bodies of the saints will be formed glorious, incorruptible, without the seeds of sickness and death. The glorified body of Christ, which is undoubtedly carried to the highest perfection that matter is capable of, will be the pattern after which they shall be formed. He will change our vile body, says St. Paul, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. Phil. iii. 21. "Flesh and blood," in their present state of grossness and frailty, "cannot inherit the kingdom of God: neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. But this corruptible body must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality." Cor. xv. 50, 53. And how vast the change, how high the improvement from this present state! "It was sown in corruption, it shall be raised in incorruption; it was sown in dishonor, it shall be raised in glory; it was sown in weakness, it shall be raised in power,' verses 42, 43, &c. Then will the body be able to bear up under the exceeding great and eternal weight of glory; it will no longer be a clog or an incumbrance to the soul, but a proper instrument and assistant in all the exalted services and enjoyments of the heavenly state.

The bodies of the wicked will also be improved, but their improvements will all be terrible and vindictive. Their capacities will be thoroughly enlarged, but then it will be that they may be made capable of greater misery: they will be strengthened, but it will be that they may bear the heavier load of torment. Their sensations will be more quick and strong, but it will be that they may feel the more exquisite pain. They will be raised immortal that they may not be consumed by everlasting fire, or escape punishment by dissolution or annihilation. In short, their augmented strength, their enlarged capacities, and their immortality, will be their eternal curse; and they would willingly exchange them for the fleeting duration of a fading flower, or the faint sensations of an infant. The only power they would rejoice in is that of self-annihilation.

And now when the bodies are completely formed and fit to be inhabited, the souls that once animated them,

being collected from Heaven and Hell, re-enter and take possession of their old mansions. They are united in bonds which shall never more be dissolved: and the mouldering tabernacles are now become everlasting habitations.

And with what joy will the spirits of the righteous welcome their old companions from their long sleep in the dust, and congratulate their glorious resurrection! How will they rejoice to re-enter their old habitations, now so completely repaired and highly improved? to find those bodies which were once their incumbrance, once frail and mortal, in which they were imprisoned, and languished, once their temptation, tainted with the seeds of sin, now their assistants and co-partners in the business of heaven, now vigorous, incorruptible, and immortal, now free from all corrupt mixtures, and shining in all the beauties of perfect holiness? In these bodies they once served their God with honest though feeble efforts, conflicted with sin and temptation, and passed through all the united trials and hardships of mortality and the Christian life. But now they are united to them for more exalted and blissful purposes. The lungs that were wont to heave with penitential sighs and groans, shall now shout forth their joys and the praises of their God and Savior. The heart that was once broken with sorrows shall now be bound up for ever, and overflow with immortal pleasures. Those very eyes that were wont to run down with tears, and to behold many a tragical sight, shall now behold the King in his beauty, shall behold the Savior whom, though unseen, they loved, and all the glories of heaven; and God shall wipe away all their tears. All the senses, which were once avenues of pain, shall now be inlets of the most exalted pleasure. In short, every organ, every member shall be employed in the most noble services and enjoyments, instead of the sordid and laborious drudgery, and the painful sufferings of the present state. Blessed change indeed! Rejoice, ye children of God, in the prospect of it.

But how shall I glance a thought upon the dreadful case of the wicked in that tremendous day! While their bodies burst from their graves, the miserable spectacles of horror and deformity, see the millions of gloomy ghosts that once animated them, rise like pillars of