esertion of the orthodox
doctrine of the Church? If he varies so far from the established
formularies out of a regard for philosophy, he may as well be
consistent and give up the physical doctrine wholly, because it
rests solely on the tradition which he leaves and is every whit
irreconcilable with philosophy. This device is as wilful an
attempt to escape the scientific difficulty as that employed by
Candlish to avoid the scriptural difficulty put in the way of the
doctrine by the apostolic words "Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God." The eminent Scottish divine affirms that
"flesh and bones" that is, these present bodies made
incorruptible can inherit the kingdom of God; although "flesh and
blood" that is, these present bodies subject to decay cannot.23 It
is surely hard to believe that the New Testament writers had such
a distinction in their minds. It is but a forlorn resource
conjured up to meet a desperate exigency.

At the appearing of Christ in glory,

"When the Day of Fire shall have dawn'd, and sent Its deadly
breath into the firmament," as it is supposed, the great earth
cemetery will burst open and its innumerable millions swarm forth
before him. Unto the tremendous act of habeas corpus, then
proclaimed, every grave will yield its prisoner. Ever since the
ascension of Jesus his mistaken followers have been anxiously
expecting that awful advent of his person and his power in the
clouds; but in vain. "All things remain as they were: where is the
promise of his appearing?" As the lookers out hitherto have been
disappointed, so they ever will be. Say not, Lo here! or, Lo
there! for, behold, he is within you. The reason why this carnal
error, Jewish conceit, retains a hold, is that men accept it
without any honest scrutiny of its foundations or any earnest
thought of their own about it. They passively receive the
tradition. They do not realize the immensity of the thing, nor the
ludicrousness of its details. To their imaginations the awful
blast of the trumpet calling the world to judgment, seems no more,
as Feuerbach says, than a tone from the tin horn of a postillion,
who, at the post station of the Future, orders fresh horses for
the Curriculum Vita! President Hitchcock tells us that, "when the
last trumpet sounds, the whole surface of the earth will become
instinct with life, from the charnels of battle fields alone more
than a thousand millions of human beings starting forth and
crowding u