doctrine of Christ to be founded upon the unchanging principles of philosophy but so mysterious, that man in his present existence cannot comprehend the subtle causes and effects by which he shall put on immortality.  It was, therefore, necessary that this sublime truth should be established in the world by the miracles Jesus wrought and by the miraculous power of God in raising him from death.  The first man Adam was made by a miracle, while his posterity are naturally born into life, according to that constitution of things which God has established.  So Christ, the second Adam, was born from the dead by a miracle, while mankind from the beginning, have, in succession, been born from the dead according to that constitution of things which he has established.

On this principle, it may be stated as an objection, that as none of Adam’s posterity could be born till their parent was created by a miracle, so none of the human family could be born from the dead, till Christ the second Adam were raised immortal by the miraculous power of God.  This objection is futile unless it can be proved that Christ creates life and immortality.  In fact, it would even then fail;—­ because Christ, as our sacrifice, was slain from the foundation of the world in the offerings made to God in his stead.  The atonement, made by the high priest throughout the whole Mosaic dispensation, concluded by raising the Jewish nation in figure on his “breast-plate of judgment” into the holy of holies, which was a pattern of things in the heavens.  The atonement always involved the resurrection.  The judgment of the Jews, for two thousand years, by Moses only pointed out the resurrection of man in figure, but Christ proved the reality by a tangible fact, and thus revealed it to the living as the doctrine of God of which the world had been ignorant.  So what the judgment of the world by Moses taught in figure, the judgment of the world by Christ teaches in reality.  My limits will not allow me to argue this point at large.  I have already remarked, that I believe "the judgment of the world" expresses the whole reign of Christ including the resurrection.

We now proceed to notice the Scriptures.  Matt. xxii. 31, 32.

“But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

To this Luke adds, “for all live unto him.”  In order to make these words of Jesus refer to a general resurrection at the end of time, all writers have availed themselves of this last clause in Luke (on which Matthew and Mark are silent) and contend that it means—­all live unto God who in his counsels views the future resurrection as present.  But this exposition by no means satisfies my mind.  If Abraham, Issac and Jacob are not raised—­if they are yet wrapped in the insensibility of death, then God during that period is not their God.