ber there began.

Great honor is paid to the dead in giving them precedence to the living
at the last day. "The dead in Christ shall rise first," that is, before
the living are changed;--they shall rise, and after that, in a moment,
in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the living will be
transformed; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. This is said in order to comfort
those who mourn the death of Christian friends,--intimating such care on
the part of their Redeemer, that the apostle is directed to tell us "by
the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain to the coming
of the Lord, shall not" have precedence of "them that are asleep." It is
declared that the change of the living will be effected "in a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye." This must be a matter of pure revelation; for
it could not have been foretold, from any apparent probabilities,
whether it would happen instantaneously or by degrees. It is suited to
impress the mind with the power and majesty of Christ, inasmuch as this
is to be one of the great acts connected with his second coming, and as
really an exercise of his omnipotence as the raising of the dead. For he
is "Lord both of the dead and of the living."

"And the sea shall give up the dead that are in it." Many a form of a
believer is waiting there for the redemption of the body. Nor has it
escaped the eye of the great archangel. Wrapped in its rude shroud, or
decomposed and scattered, or in whatever way seemingly annihilated,
personal identity still attaches to it, and the all-seeing eye watches
every thing which is essential to that identity, as easily as though the
body were in the grave with kindred dust. That the power of God in the
resurrection may be fully illustrated, and that some may be preeminent
witnesses in their own persons of that mighty power, perhaps it will
appear that they were permitted, for that purpose, to be devoured, or to
dissolve and to waste away in the sea. If they who came out of great
tribulation are arrayed in white robes among the righteous, we may look
for some special sign of glory and joy in those who receive their
bodies, not from the sheltering grave, but from the sea, and from the
very frame of nature, into which their bodily organization will, in one
way and another, have been incorporated. O the unspeakable wonders and
raptures connected with the resurrection, both as it relat