and of hearing, yet it
was not subjected to the usual conditions of matter as to its
locomotion, or its obstruction by intervening objects. It retained the
marks of what had happened before death. In order to convince the
disciples of His identity, our Lord ate and drank before them. We must
therefore infer that these were natural acts of His resurrection body,
and not merely assumed at pleasure.

With a body, then, of this kind will the blessed be clothed upon at
the resurrection, and remain invested for ever in glory. Now let us
see what further flows from this as an inference. We may further say,
that we have implied in it a surrounding of external circumstances
fitted to such a state of incorruptibility and glory. Man redeemed and
glorified will not be a mere spirit in the vast realms of space, but a
glorious body moving in a glorious world. Nor is this mere inference,
however plain and legitimate. Holy Scripture is full of it. The power
of words does not suffice to describe the beauties and glories of that
renewed and unfailing world. I need not quote passage after
passage--they are familiar to you all. Nor, again, is it nature alone
which shall be glorious above all our conception here. It would appear
that art also shall have advanced forward, and shall minister to the
splendour of that better world. The prophets in the Old Testament, and
the beloved Apostle in the New, vie with one another in describing the
heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, adorned as a bride for her husband,
lighted by the glory of the indwelling Godhead.

_Where_ this glorious abode of Christ and His redeemed shall be, we
have not been told by revelation; and it were idle to indulge in
speculations of our own. From some expressions in Scripture, it would
seem not improbable that it may be this earth itself after
purification and renewal: from other passages, it would appear as if
that inference were hardly safe, and that other of the bodies in space
are destined for the high dignity of being the home of the sons of
God.

We have now, I believe, cleared the way for the answer to a question
which presses upon us to-day: as far, at least, as that answer can be
given on this side of death. Of mankind in glory, thus perfected, what
shall be the employ? For I need hardly press it on you that it is
impossible to conceive of man in a high and happy estate, without an
employment worthy of that estate, and in fact constituting its dignity
and happi