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Harvey, fancy forced similitudes between the parts of a flower and the circumstance of the Redeemer's suffering-or task each plant to furnish lessons of religion and morality; yet we may challenge any one not to cherish emotions of gratitude to heav en, on admiring in a rose, the elegance of its form, the beauty of its colour, and its delicious fragrancy.

"Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew,

In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew;
Gay without toil, and lovely without art,

They sprung to cheer the sense, and glad the heart,"

That the sublime science of botany possesses charins excitive of great enterprise and exertions, the examples of Tournefort, of Linnæus, of Bartram, of Dombey, the Michauxs, and other illustrious botanists sufficiently manifest.

SELECTED.

FROM THE QUARTERLY THEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.

A MEDITATION ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

THE hope of existing after the present life, was not utterly lost from among mankind, even amidst the darkness and corruptions of Paganism. But the prospect was so obscure, and the hope so uncertain, that it could afford but small consolation in their last moments, to the wisest and most virtuous men of the Heathen world. And to all others, it was so blended with the melancholy phantoms of a superstitious imagination, that it ser

ved rather to oppress, than to shed any confort on the hour of death. But, in the Gospel of our blessed Saviour, the doubtful expectations of nature are rendered clear and certain; the obscurities of reason are enlightened; and to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, there is added a principle, which the human mind had never before dared to conceive; I mean that of the resurrection of the body, and its future and eternal re-union with the soul in a happy state of existence.

This doctrine, which is peculiarly precious to man, inasmuch as it brings our future existence more within the comprehension of the mind, and gives it a stronger interest in the heart, was received at first with astonishment and incredulity, both by Jews and Greeks. Against the objections or the doubts of the one and of the other, the apostle, in this chapter demonstrates both its possibility and its conformity to reason, and points out the unspeakable consolation which the pious hope that, this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, is fitted to impart to every true believer amidst the various trials and sorrows of this life.

Let me invite the pious reader, therefore, to employ with me a few moments in meditating on the resurrection of the body; the certainty and importance of the doctrine, its practical uses, and its spiritual consolations. And may it impart to us those holy comforts, those blessed supports under the distressing vi cissitudes of the world, and finally, that victory over the fears of death, which amidst labours and persecutions, and the certain anticipations of martyrdom for the cause of his Redeemer, formed the joy and triumph of the apostle himself.

In the first place, let us contemplate the evidences of the resurrection of the body, yielded by the physical world, notwithstanding its apparent contradiction to the general laws of nature. It has been at all times, as well as in the age of the apostle, thought to be a question beyond the powers of philosophy to resolve, with what bodies do they come ? Can these corporeal systems, after they have been long dissolved into their original elements, and variously dispersed by winds and waves in a thousand different directions; after they have successively passed, perhaps

into a thousand different bodies, be again collected and re-organized in the same body which perished at death? If it were possible, would it be a reasonable object of desire, in that spiritual and immortal state, that the soul should be again united to a sluggish mass, which might be regarded as its former prison, which impaired its active powers, and was perhaps the seat of all the errours of reason, and of all the disorders of the passions?

The sacred writer, who presents these objections, answers them by a beautiful analogy taken from the grain which the husbandman casts into the earth. It seems to perish. It becomes a mass of putrefaction, and like the body laid in the grave. But there is a delicate, almost imperceptible germ which survives, and presently assumes a new and much more beautiful form. Can we doubt but that the whole vegetable, with all its beautiful apparatus of fruits and flowers, was included in that minute and invisible particle, which receives a new life in the midst of death? And may not the soul, (it is the suggestion of an ancient philosopher.) in parting from its present abode, carry along with it that material principle, which shall become hereafter the germ of a new and more glorious organization? Shall we deem this impossible, because the fineness and subtlety of this principle at present eludes our perceptions? But are we not constantly surrounded with forms of matter not less imperceptible to sense? Is that mysterious power obvious to our sight or feeling, which points the needle to the pole; or that mightier influence, which binds to one centre the vast orbs that compose our system, which however is constantly operating within us and around us?

Learn another lesson on the resurrection, from the numerous transmutations of the insect tribes, which daily pass under our view. A deformed and sluggish grub weaves a tomb for itself. It seems to become extinct; but in a little time we see it mount into the air in a new form, adorned with the most beautiful colours.

Of spiritual and celestial objects, which are so far above the reach of our present faculties, frequently we can judge only by analogy. And although such analogies can never convey adequate images of those things which eye hath not seen, and of which

it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive; yet they' seem to throw some feeble rays of light upon them, and to offer some foundation, on which the mind, exhausted by its efforts to conceive them, can rest.-Look round thee then, O man! who thinkest that the dead cannot be raised from the dust and from that profound oblivion, in which they seem to be for ever lost; and does not all nature teach thee important lessons, and present thee with impressive images of the future resurrection of the just? Behold the new creation, which every vernal season produces, when all the glories of the year are seen to spring, if I may speak so, from the tomb of winter. These images, indeed, are only imperfect illustrations, adapted to the weakness of our senses, of that great object of faith: the only solid and immoveable foundation of a Christian's hope is, the infallible promise of the spirit of truth. But now is Christ risen and become the

This sluggish and unwieldy

first fruits of them that sleep. The time is coming when all they who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth, they that have done well, to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation. Another objection against the doctrine, is drawn from the illsand inconveniences, to which the soul is subjected by its union with the body in the present life. mass of matter, is supposed to be rather the prison than the helpful companion of the active spirit; to cloud and darken the clearness of its perceptions, and to oppress and enchain the activity of its powers. Although this should be true of the present gross and disordered bodies, which we inhabit, yet such is the nature and order of human spirits, that it is only by being united to some corporeal organized system, that they can receive any ideas. And at the resurrection of the just, all that is gross, all that is disordered, all that is impure, shall be forever separated from the bodies of the saints, raised to immortal life; and their powers, their activity, and glory, shall correspond with the exalted rank which the soul shall hold in the scale of being in her celestial state. Do you ask, then, if they can be the same bodies that we inhabited here, which shall assume such a different and glori ous appearance? Yes, truly do we not continually behold the

same elements capable of receiving the most various forms? What resemblance is there between those beautiful and active tribes which fill the air with their harmony, and the lifeless egg from which they have sprung? Do not the same elements compose the unsightly clay, which we trample beneath our feet, and the resplendent diamond, which glitters in the crowns of princes: the lightning, which, in its destructive course, rends oaks and rocks to pieces; and the mild and glorious rays of the sun, that give life, and health, and beauty to the whole universe? Accordingly, the apostle hath said, all flesh is not the same in its outward form and visible appearance: There is one flesh of men, and another of beasts. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another of the stars, though all proceeding from the same light. Not less difference, O believers! may we expect to find between our present tenements of clay, which, at death, return to their original dust, and those celestial temples, in which, the glorified spirit shall dwell for ever. Raised to heaven by the power and love of the Redeemer, to inhabit those glorious worlds of light above, this corporeal system will be conformed in beauty and perfection to its immortal habitations.This mortal shall put on immortality. Sown in weakness, it shall be raised in power; sown in dishonour, it shall be raised in glory; sown a natural or gross and animal body, it shall be raised a spiritual body; that is, a body infinitely refined and purified from the dregs of matter, and possessing at once both the rapid energy and the imperishable nature of spirit. It shall there be invested with new powers, and be fitted with new organs adapted to its celestial state; and having attained its highest perfection, shall shine with undecaying lustre in the kingdom of God.

The doctrine of the resurrection of the body, therefore, as it is explicitly taught in the holy Scriptures, so it contains nothing which violates reason, and which is not even supported and rendered credible by the course of nature.

Let us then, in the next place, take a brief review of the importance of this doctrine. I mean not merely the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, but that of the resurrection of the body, and its immortal existence in re-union with the soul.

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