destly suggests, that were Christ to make it his request to God that Lazarus might revive, Christ's request would be granted. It was our Lord's practice, of which I purpose not at present to enquire the reason (it is a subject by itself which would require a close investigation); but it was his constant practice, to exact of those who solicited his miraculous assistance, a previous belief that the power by which he acted was divine, and that it extended to the performance of what might be necessary to their belief. To Martha's suggestion that God would grant the resurrection of Lazarus to Christ's prayer, our Lord was pleased to reply with that reserve and ambiguity which he sometimes used, in order to throw the minds of his disciples into that state of suspense and doubt which disposed them to receive his mercy with the more gratitude, and his instruction with the more reverence and attention: "Thy brother," said he, "shall rise again; " not declaring at what time his resurrection should take place. Martha, not satisfied with this indefinite promise, nor certain of its meaning, and yet not daring to urge her request, and afraid to confess her doubts, replied, "I know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection of the last day.” A resurrection at the last day was at that time the general expectation of the Jewish people. Martha's profession, therefore, of an expectation of her brother's resurrection at the last day was no particular confession of her faith in Christ. Our Lord, therefore, requires of her a more distinct confession, before he gave her any hope that his power would be exerted for the restoration of her brother's life. "I," said Jesus," am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he - 66 live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. Believest thou this?" Martha's answer was little less remarkable than the question: "She saith unto him, Yea, Lord; I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world:" as if she had said, Yea, Lord, I believe whatever thou requirest of me. Although the sense of thy words is wrapt in mystery which I cannot penetrate, — although I have no distinct understanding of the particulars which you propose to my belief, nor apprehend how it is that the dead die not, yet I believe that you are the Messiah promised to our fathers, the Emmanuel foretold by our prophets; and I believe you are possessed of whatever power you may claim." But let us return to the particulars of our Lord's requisition. Martha had already declared her belief that God would grant whatever Christ would ask, although his request should go to so extraordinary a thing as a dead man's recovery. Jesus tells her that he requires a belief of much more than this: he requires her to believe that he had the principles of life within himself, and at his own command; and that even that general resurrection of the dead in which she expected that her brother would have a share was a thing depending entirely upon him, and to be effected by his will and power. I," said he," am the resurrection and the life." Since he had the whole disposal of the business, it followed that he had the appointment of the time in which each individual should rise; and nothing hindered but that Lazarus might immediately revive, if he gave the order. But this is not all he requires that she should believe, not only that it depended him to restore life to whom and when it pleased 66 upon him, but that death is an evil which he hath the power to avert and ever does avert from his true disciples. "He that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." It is of great importance to enquire in what sense it is promised to true believers (for in some sense the promise is certainly made to them) that they shall never die. For the resolution of this important question, I would observe, that our Lord's words certainly contain an assertion of much more than was implied in Martha's previous declaration of her belief in the doctrine of a future resurrection. This is clearly implied in our Lord's emphatic question, which follows his assertion of his own power and promise to the faithful,-"Believest thou this?" If every Christian, when he reads or hears this promise of our Lord, "He that believeth in me shall never die," would put this same question to his own conscience, and pursue the meditations which the question so put to himself would suggest, we should soon be delivered from many perplexing doubts and fears, for which a firm reliance on our Master's gracious promise is indeed the only cure. "Thou believest," said our Lord to Martha, "that thy brother shall rise in the resurrection at the last day thou doest well to believe. But believest thou this which I now tell thee, - believest thou that the resurrection on which thy hopes are built will itself be the effect of my power? And believest thou yet again that the effect of my power goes to much more than the future resurrection of the bodies of the dead, that it goes to an exemption of them that believe in me from death, the general calamity? Believest thou that the faithful live when they seem to be dead; and that they never die? If with these notions of my power over life and death, and with these just views of the privileges of my servants, thou comest to me to restore thy brother to a life which may be passed in thy society, the immediate act of my power may justify thy faith. But any other belief of my power, any other apprehension of thy brother's present state, which may prompt thee to solicit so singular a favour,—are erroneous; and I work no miracle to confirm thee in an error." All this is certainly implied in our Lord's declaration, and the question with which it was accompanied. It is evident, therefore, that under the notion of not dying, he describes some great privilege, which believers, and believers only, really enjoy. But farther, the privilege here promised to the faithful must be something quite distinct from any thing that may be the consequence of the general resurrection at the last day. It has been imagined, that the death from which the faithful are exempted by virtue of this promise is what is called in some parts of Scripture the second death, which the wicked shall die after the general resurrection, — that is to say, the condemnation of the wicked to eternal punishment. But such cannot be its meaning; for the exemption of the faithful from the second death is a thing evidently included in Martha's declaration of her faith in the general resurrection. What may be the state of the departed saints in the interval between their death and the final judgment, is a question upon which all are curious, because all are interested in it. It is strange that among Christians it should have been so variously decided by various sects, when an attention to our Lord's promises must have led all to one conclusion. Those who imagine that the intellectual faculties of man result from the organization of the brain and the nervous system, maintain that natural death is an utter extinction of the man's whole being, which somehow or other he is to re-assume at the last day. It is surely a sufficient confutation of this strange opinion, - if that may deserve the name of an opinion which hath less coherence than the drunkard's dream, but it is a sufficient confutation of this strange opinion, that if this be really the case, our Lord's solemn promise hath no meaning: for how is it that a man shall never die who is really to be annihilated and dead in every part of him for many ages? or what privilege in death can be appointed for the faithful, what difference between the believer and the atheist, if the death of either is an absolute extinction of his whole existence? Of those who acknowledge the immateriality and immortality of the rational principle, some have been apprehensive that the condition of the unembodied soul, with whatever perception may be ascribed to it of its own existence, must, indeed, be a melancholy state of dreary solitude. Hence that unintelligible and dismal doctrine of a sleep of the soul in the interval between death and judgment; which, indeed, is nothing more than a soft expression for what the materialists call by its true name, annihilation. Thanks be to God! our Lord's explicit promise holds out better prospects to the Christian's hope. Though the happiness of the righteous will not be complete nor their doom publicly declared till the re-union of soul and body at the last day, yet we have our Lord's assurance that the disembodied soul of the believer truly lives, - that it exists in a conscious state, and |