disputers about all deep matters
in heaven and earth. When St. Paul preached to them on Mars' Hill,
they heard him patiently enough, till he spoke of Jesus rising from
the dead; and then they mocked; laughed at the notion as absurd.
And we find that the Corinthians, even after they were converted and
baptised Christians, were puzzled about this same matter. They
could not understand how the dead were raised, and with what body
they would come.

With such the Lord is not angry. If they really wish to know what
is true, and to do what is right; if they really are, as St. Paul
says, 'feeling after the Lord, if haply they may find him;' then the
Lord will give them light in due time, and shew them what they ought
to believe, and give them the sort of proof which they want. All
such he treats as he did Thomas, when he said, in his great
condescension, 'Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and
reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not
faithless but believing.'

So the Lord sent to those Corinthians the very sort of proof which
they wanted, by the hand of the learned apostle, St. Paul. They
were great observers of the works of nature, of the strange movement
and change, birth and death, which goes on in beasts, and in plants,
and in the clouds, and the rivers, and the very stones under our
feet. And they said, We cannot believe in the resurrection of the
dead, because we see nothing like it in the world around us. And
St. Paul was sent to tell them. No: you do see something like it.
If you will look deeper into the working of the world around you,
you will see that the rising again of the dead, instead of being an
unnatural or an absurd thing, is the most reasonable and natural
thing, the perfect fulfilment, and crowning wonder of wonderful laws
which are working round you in every seed which you sow; in the
flesh of beasts and fishes; in bodies celestial and bodies
terrestrial: and so in that glorious chapter which we read in the
Burial Service, St. Paul tells the Corinthians, who went altogether
by sense, and reasoning about the things which they could see and
handle, that sense and reasoning were on his side, on God's side;
and that the mysteries of faith, like the resurrection of the body,
were not contrary to reason, but agreed with it.

So does the Lord clear up the doubts of his people, in the way which
is best for them. But he does not call them as blessed as others.
There