408 CHRIST ADMIRED AND GLORIFIED. DISC. IV. death, when such an endless multitude of old and new captives are released at his word, and the grave has re- stored its prey ; when those bodies which have been turned into dust some thousands of years, and their atoms scattered abroad by the winds of heaven, shall be raised again, in glory and dignity, to meet their descend- ing Lord in the air. Surely Jesus, in that day, shall be acknowledged as a sovereign of nature, when at the word of his command, a new creation shall arise, all perfect and immortal. It will add yet further glory to Christ, when we re- member what fruitful seeds of iniquity were lodged in that flesh and blood which, we wore on earth, and which we laid down in the tomb, and when, at the same time, we survey our glorified bodies, how spiritual, how holy, how happily fitted for the service of glorified souls made perfect in holiness. How did all the saints once com- plain of " a law in their members, that warred against the law of their minds, and brought them into bondage to the law of sin," Rom. vii. 2s. But this law of sin is now fer ever abolished, this bondage dissolved and broken, and these members are all new-created for in- struments of righteousness to serve God in his temple, for ever and ever. Holy Paul shall no more groan in a sinful tabernacle, he shall no more complain of that flesh, wherein no good thing dwelt, he shall cry out no more, " O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me ?" Rom. vii. 24. Many and bitter have been the sorrows of a holy soul in this world, because of the perverse dispositions of animal nature and the flesh : But none of the saints in that assembly shall ever feel again the stings of inward envy, the pricking thorns. of peevishness, nor the wild ferments of wrath and passion : None of them-shall ever find those unruly appetites, which wrought so strongly in their old flesh and blood, and too often over- powered their unwilling souls, those appetites which brought their consciences sometimes under fresh guilt, and filled them with inward reproaches and agonies ofspirit. Theseevil principles are all destroyed by death, they are lost in the grave, and shall havé no resurrection. The new-raised bodies of the righteous, in that day, shall be completely ebedient to the dictates of their spirits, without any vi-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=