proceeds to give utterance, as far as he is able, to the conceptions by which his soul was filled and overwhelmed. But what is the point of view, from which he contemplates the glory that is to be revealed to the sons of God? On what stage in the career of the sons of immortality does he fix, as furnishing the most full and perfect contrast to the weight of suffering, that bows them in this vale of tears? In other words, what is the period referred to, when they were to be glorified together with Christ? For, that one and the same period is indicated by this and the following expressions, the glory which is about to be revealed to us,f-the manifestation of the sons of God, the glorious freedom of the children of God,||and finally, the sonship,-the ransom of our body,Sthat all these expressions, we repeat, point to one and the same occasion, does not, we think, admit a doubt. And what is that occasion? Are we not pointed, most distinctly, to the general resurrection? Overleaping all the intervening period, and overlooking, as it were, all preceding and minor displays of the Christian's glory, does not the mind of the apostle fasten upon the time when the glorified body, raised from the dust in renovated youth and beauty, shall be reunited to the glorified spirit, and the relation of the children of God shall be recognised and announced before an assembled universe? Let us recur, for a moment, to the expressions as they occur, when, according to the representations of the New Testament, are Christians to be glorified together with Christ? When, in the only sense, acknowledged by the Scriptures, is to take place the manifestation** of the sons of God? Compare, here, Col. 3: 4. "When Christ, our life, is manifested, then shall ye also be manifested with him, in glory." Compare, too, 1 Thess. 4: 13, a passage directly relevant to our subject. And to what period, again, may we so justly refer the glorious freedom of the sons of God, as to that which witnesses their triumph over death, the last enemy, and emancipates their * συνδοξασθῆναι. † τὴν δόξαν μέλλουσαν ἡμᾶς. † τὴν αποκάλυψιν τῶν υἱῶν τοῦ θεοῦ. τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνῶν τοῦ θεοῦ. entire nature from the thraldom to which sin had subjected it? But if the above expressions left any doubt, it is dissipated by the final, most explicit statement of the apostle himself, in which he couples the filiation* (evidently another expression for the manifestation of the sons of God,t-the full and public recognition of their relation, and their investiture with the glory which belongs to it) with the redemption of the body, making the two circumstances, if not identical, at least coincident, in time. Here, then, it seems to us, is an important clew to guide us in the interpretation of the passage. And we cannot avoid the conviction, that here all the interpreters, whom we have seen, have more or less failed. Some throw the resurrection entirely out of view. Others, who admit a reference to it, yet fail to give it due prominence,-to make it the fore-ground of the picture,-to let it occupy that place which it manifestly occupied in the mind of the apostle. We think the phraseology of the passage, especially taken in connection with the general tenor of the New Testament representations, forces upon us the conviction, that the apostle here refers definitely to the period of the resurrection, and that, not so much because this was the most advantageous view from which to draw the contrast, but because this was ever uppermost in his mind, when he reflected on the future glory of the people of God. Indeed, it cannot have escaped the attentive reader of the apostolic writings, how frequent and striking are the allusions to that period, and how it pervaded and colored all their religious hopes. The passage which we have quoted from Col. 3: 4, is full of significance, and furnishes a striking commentary on that under consideration. "Ye are dead," says the apostle, "and your life is hid with Christ in God." The Christian life is now hidden, concealed. In his separate existence, and real character, he is scarcely recognised. When, then, is he to be manifested? Where honored with the title, and clothed with the glory, that belong to his station. When, in other words, is his manifestation,||-his filiation, $-to take place? "When Christ, our life," proceeds the * υἱοθεσία. † ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος. † ἀποκάλυψιν τ. υ. τ. θ. apostle, "is manifested, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory." In 1 Cor. 15, this topic furnishes the theme of one of the most animated and eloquent discussions found on the pages of this always animated writer. He shows how it follows from, and presupposes the death of Christ, how it involves the very cardinal doctrines of the gospel, and is a vital element of the Christian's faith and hope. He dwells upon its proofs, its scenes, and its practical uses, with a minuteness, a variety, and a fulness, which show that it absorbed the energies and interests of his soul,that it was with him an ever-present and inspiring truth, held not merely as a tenet, essential to the completeness of a scheme of doctrines, but as a truth fruitful of practical influences, and heavenly consolations,-pressing on his heart, with the might of a new and overwhelming reality, -the consummation, and the glory of the gospel,-the grand object of Christian hope, the grand incentive to Christian faithfulness. It will not, we trust, be irrelevant, in this connection, to present a passage of some length, from 2 Peter 3: 10-16. We shall give it nearly in the words of the common version. "But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works in it shall be burnt up. Since, then, all these things must be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, -looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, in which the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat. But we, according to his promise, look for new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless, and consider the long-suffering of the Lord salvation. As also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you, as also in all his epistles speaking concerning these things." This interesting passage needs no comment, compared with Rom. 8: 19; 1 Cor. 15; 1 Thess. 4: 13-18, it sheds a flood of light upon the uses which the apostles made of the doctrine of the resurrection. If we have succeeded in settling this point, the way is opened for deciding, satisfactorily, upon the meaning of the much contested κτίσις. We need not dwell upon the origin and possible signification of this word. Derived from xilcev, to create, it denotes primarily the act of creating; secondly, as synonymous with Touα, the thing created, the creation. It has, we believe, in its ordinary use, about the same latitude as the word, creation, and may, according to its connection, refer chiefly to inanimate nature, or include sentient beings. That it is ever, or could be, without the utmost harshness, employed to denote Christians, there is no evidence. The expression, xar xiis, a new creature, or a new creation, furnishes no ground for such a supposition. The question, then, is between that view of it which includes and refers chiefly to sentient beings, and that which refers exclusively to inanimate nature. Does it, in other words, in the passage under consideration, denote men in general, mankind, or inanimate existence, nature? If the view which we have taken above be correct, the question is easily, nay, is already decided. The autos is introduced as looking with earnest longing for the period when the sons of God shall be manifested, in the hope of showing them their glorious deliverance. Is this true of the world of unconverted men? Could the heathen, of or before the age of the apostle, be said, in any possible sense, to be anticipating the resurrection period, with the hope of being themselves participators of its benefits? This point is too plain to need argument. Of all the doctrines or facts unfolded in the word of God, of all the truths, indiscoverable by reason, of which the gospel is the depository, and which, none, perhaps, bears so decidedly as this the impress of its super-human origin,-none is so far from having visited the loftiest visions of the sublimest speculators. The Pythagorean metempsychosis bears to it no analogy. Theologians have fancied, that in the Platonic triad, they could discover the germ of even the mysterious doctrine of the trinity. The sacrifices of the pagan world have been regarded as embodying a dim conception of the atonement. But the resurrection of the dead is, we had almost said, the one great fact, that belongs exclusively to Christianity. It is certainly a fact, of which there is no evidence, that it had ever entered the conception of man, VOL. IV.-NO. XIII. 12 until "life and immortality were brought to light through the gospel." And had it occurred to the minds of the pagans, it could not have come as a welcome doctrine. Plato states it as the prerogative of those who had purified their souls by philosophy, that they were exempted from the necessity of reentering a body, when they had once "shuffled off this mortal coil." The body was regarded as always and necessarily an enemy to the freedom and purity of the soul, and the pagan could have conceived no process, as either probable or possible, by which the spiritualized body should become at once the handmaid of its virtues, and the promoter of its enjoyments. And, keeping distinctly in view the scriptural doctrine of the resurrection, all references to that "longing after immortality," which agitates the breast of universal man,-those high aspirations which indicate at once his origin and destiny, become entirely irrelevant. However true in point of fact, they have no bearing on the case before us. The only meaning, then, which remains for xılσis, in the present case, is, the inanimate creation,-nature. By an animated,-we do not say bold, prosopopoeia, the writer introduces universal nature as longing for the period of the complete emancipation of the sons of God. The argument, then,-for it contains the substance, though not the form of an argument,-is used a fortiori. It reasons from the less to the greater. If the benefits to be reaped by irrational existence from the scenes of that day are so great as to justify it in earnestly expecting them, what shall be its results to the immortal intelligences, the sons of God,—who are to be the principal participators in its glories? If its subordinate and incidental results are so unspeakably desirable, what may they anticipate, on whom it shall confer its "weight of glory?" The sentiment derived from this interpretation is amply sustained by other declarations of Scripture. We will not go back to the prophetic writings, although it is certain, that among the Jews there existed a belief in the future renovation of the earth. Neither would we lay much stress on the "renovation,"* of Matt. 19: 28, or the restoration of all things,† of Acts 3: 21, as these expres * παλιγγενεσία. † ἀποκατάστασις πάντων. |