take place? We reply
when this mortal puts on immortality through a resurrection. When we
shall be aroused from the sleep of death to a precipient existence in
heaven--when we shall awake satisfied with the likeness of God. Paul,
in the xv. Chap. 1 Cor. Plainly states that the spiritual body is
prepared and put on after death. Birth then must _follow_, not
_precede_ that spiritual body. It is impossible that birth should take
place, till the body is first prepared. Man's natural body is
organized in the womb, and then born into this world. He drops to a
state of insensibility in death, a reorganization of the spiritual
body takes place to the natural eye imperceptible, and its nature
indestructible. It is gradually brought forward through a resurrection
similar to the grain of wheat to which Paul compares it, is awakened
to a conscious existence, and bears the image of the heavenly as it
once bore the image of the earthy. The resurrection is therefore every
moment progressing, and every man is raised in his own order of time.

But says the reader, if the resurrection be the new birth, then
Christ, himself must have been born again, in order to enter the
kingdom of God! Certainly. But inquires the reader, where do the
scriptures teach that Christ was ever born again? In Colossians chap.
i:15. are these words--"Who [Christ] is the image of the invisible
God, the _first born_ of every creature." This cannot mean that he was
the first born into this state of existence; but he was the first one
whom human eyes ever saw alive beyond the destruction of death to die
no more, and the only one that mortal eye will ever see, for he arose
in his natural body, (being the only true witness, appointed of God,)
to bring life and immortality to light through the gospel.

But that passage, says the reader, does not satisfy me, that Christ
was born again. Then listen once more--verse 18--"who is the
beginning, the _first born_ from the dead that in all things he might
have the pre-eminence." Rev. chap. i. 5. "Jesus Christ the faithful
witness, and the _first begotten_ from the dead." Here it is plainly
stated that he is the "first born from the dead" "the _first begotten_
from the dead" These scriptures in connexion with several others, that
might be quoted, prove that Christ was born again, and that the
resurrection is called birth.

It is evident that man falls to a state of insensibility in death, and
remains in sleep while the spi