ality is therefore yet to come, and by faith we receive only an antepast of its joys.

From the above observation we infer that, the resurrection is the only gospel faith and hope of a future, happy conscious state of being. When our minds are enlightened to see the mighty changes, that we mortals are represented, in the scriptures of truth, as destined to experience by being raised in a holy and deathless constitution, we are then led to consider the resurrection of embracing all those realities that we are called upon by Jesus Christ and his apostles to embrace by faith and enjoy in this life. So great and sublime is the gift of God, and so far surpassing thought does it magnify the perfections of the divine character, and in so amiable a light does it manifest his love to the children of men, that a living faith in its reality cannot but obtain a salutary influence on our life and conversation. So much stress did the apostles lay upon its importance, that they went every where preaching the resurrection of the dead, as the gospel of Christ.

There is one point we will here notice. All denominations acknowledge that for any man by faith to pass from death to life is a change for the better. If so, then the reality, namely to pass from the sleep of death to an immortal existence, must be a change for the better. Because it is by believing that future reality we are said to have passed from death to life here. The conclusion is unavoidable that the reality must correspond with its antepast by faith. To understand this let us reverse it. Suppose it should be an established law in the nature and constitution of things that all mankind should pass from death to immortal misery in the future world. Let this be revealed and proclaimed as an un

changing truth. As many as believed it would of course pass from death to immortal misery in faith, which would lead them to curse the being who made them, and destined them to this unhappy end. It would be a change for the worse.

Our subject is now so far plain (according to our views) that the phrase "kingdom of God" will be readily understood. Though it has, by different writers, been made to bear many different significations, yet we shall take the liberty to contend that it simply means as follows-1. First an immortal existence beyond the grave brought to light by the resurrection of Christ;-and 2-Second a belief in that reality is the kingdom of God we here enter and enjoy by faith. Into this kingdom, infants, idiots and heathen and unbelievers do not enter, because faith is the only condition. This is the kingdom of heaven that men, blind leaders of the blind, shut up. They neither enter themselves, nor suffer those that would enter to go in. They keep the evidence of the reality out of sight so that men cannot look beyond the vail to its brighter glories and enjoy its peaceful reign in their hearts by faith. When faith is lost in certainty, then this kingdom will be delivered up, and to know shall be life eternal. This difinition we believe will hold good, and apply to any passage in the New Testament where it may occur. Though some contend that it very seldom has reference to an immortal existence, yet we strenuously contend that there is no propriety in the phrase only in connexion with such an existence. We cannot enter, or be born into the kingdom of God by faith, unless we admit the reality in the first place to have an existence, any more than we could, by faith,

enjoy eternal life unless there is such a reality as eternal life beyond, the grave. The above, the reader will please to fix in his mind.

We now perceive that man drops into the sleep of death, and that the résurrection, or new birth is his only hope of a future happy state of existence, and is the only change that can free him from imperfection, and sin, and make him a new creature in a new and immortal existence beyond the grave.

We will here introduce an example to make our argument so far plain. Suppose you were now in ignorance respecting the doctrine of life and immortality through a resurrection. You know you must die, and sincerely think that death will terminate your existence forever. You see your children one after another laid upon their dying bed, and with distraction shake the farewell hand of eternal separation, and with the most solemn melancholy and wo, look forward to the period when you must follow them down to the chambers of eternal silence, and cease to be.

In this moment of dread solemnity and gloom, suppose some kind angel should appear at the bed-side of your expiring child, and kindly inquire, why are you troubled? You answer, because my children have fallen!-the last of my infant train lies panting for breath, and the dreadful hour has come when all those silken affections, that bind our hearts in love, must be rent assunder, and in the awful bosom of death, be extinguished forever!-Suppose your guardian angel smiling over the ruins of death, should point you far beyond these changing scenes, and with rapture exclaim, you shall meet this darling child again and commingle with your little fallen flock in glory! You and they and all

mankind shall be born from the dead into the kingdom of God, and be new creatures free from sin and pain, and "be the children of God being the children of the resurrection." Jesus your Lord "was the first born from the dead," and you shall pass from death to life and live forever.

Now suppose you positively believed his words; could you not say in the scripture form of the expression that through faith you was already 'passed from death to life'?—that you was born of faith, and by faith was in the kingdom of God? You certainly could, and it would in every sense of the word be true. Through faith, you would be justified, through faith sanctified; through faith you would enjoy eternal life-in fine, through faith you would be saved. This faith would give love unmeasured to your Creator, and fill your soul with joy unspeakable and full of glory. "Faith works by love, purifies the heart and overcomes the world."

Reader, do you not love the Lord for his wonderful goodness to his children? What glorious hopes are here! "and he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure"-you now see why the gospel rings with the word faith from one end to the other.

The world previous to the coming of Jesus Christ had no knowledge of immortality through a resurrection, into the kingdom of God. The phrase "born again" is not mentioned in the Old Testament, and of course means something more than conversion. This subject will be continued in our next.

SERMON X.

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

John iii: 3.

The literal rendering of this passage seems to be except a man be born above. The word above being substituted for again more forcibly demonstrates the correctness of my views in the two former discourses.

Many charge the Universalists with denying the necessity of a new birth, or regeneration. But take from me my faith and hope in that glorious truth, and I must at that moment resign the salvation of every human being. Convince me that not another child will be born into this world, and you will at once convince me that this world will shortly be destitute of a solitary inhabitant.

Convince me that a man will not be born again, and you will not only convince me that no one will ever enter the kingdom of God, but that the many worlds, that have already passed from the stage of mortal being, and those that shall hereafter follow, will alike be consigned to eternal silence! Endless misery is out of the question. That could have had no existence even had there been no resurrection in Him who is the life of the world; but death would have terminated the existence of all. Such a punishment is not threatened in all the writings of Moses and the prophets. And we cannot reasonably suppose, if such were a principal truth in revelation, that God would suffer four thousand years to elapse without warning his creatures of such an awful doom. Upon