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eem it sufficient to establish the fact that the dead are continually rising in this _last, this gospel day_. But the question presents itself-- were any of the human family raised immortal before that period? To this question I give an affirmative answer. I firmly believe, that the dead have been rising immortal from Adam to the present day, for God has never changed the established order of the universe. I believe that the dead are raised without any _miracle_, in the common acceptance of that term, as much as I believe that we are born, and die, not by a _miracle_, but according to that constitution of things which God has immutably established from the beginning. I believe this doctrine of Christ to be founded upon the unchanging principles of philosophy but so mysterious, that man in his present existence cannot comprehend the subtle causes and effects by which he shall put on immortality. It was, therefore, necessary that this sublime truth should be established in the world by the miracles Jesus wrought and by the miraculous power of God in raising him from death. The first man Adam was made by a miracle, while his posterity are naturally born into life, according to that constitution of things which God has established. So Christ, the second Adam, was born from the dead by a miracle, while mankind from the beginning, have, in succession, been born from the dead according to that constitution of things which he has established. On this principle, it may be stated as an objection, that as none of Adam's posterity could be born till their parent was created by a miracle, so none of the human family could be born from the dead, till Christ the second Adam were raised immortal by the miraculous power of God. This objection is futile unless it can be proved that Christ _creates_ life and immortality. In fact, it would even then fail;-- because Christ, as our sacrifice, was slain from the foundation of the world in the offerings made to God in his stead. The atonement, made by the high priest throughout the whole Mosaic dispensation, concluded by raising the Jewish nation in figure on his "breast-plate of judgment" into the holy of holies, which was a pattern of things in the heavens. The atonement always involved the resurrection. The judgment of the Jews, for two thousand years, by Moses only pointed out the resurrection of man in _figure_, but Christ proved the _reality_ by a tangible _fact_, and thus revealed it
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