gospel communicates life, in consequence of its rejection by the Jews, immediately adds, “Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.”[637] After the example of Paul, therefore, let us even now triumphantly exult in the midst of our conflicts, that he who has promised us a life to come “is able to keep that which we have committed to him;” and thus let us glory that “there is laid up for us a crown of righteousness, which the righteous Judge shall give us.”[638] The consequence of this will be, that all the troubles we suffer will point us to the life to come, “seeing it is a righteous thing with God,” and agreeable to his nature, “to recompense tribulation to them that trouble us, and to us who are” unjustly “troubled, rest, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire.”[639] But we must remember what immediately follows, that “he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe,” because they believe the gospel. V. Now, though the minds of men ought to be continually occupied with the study of this subject, yet as if they expressly intended to abolish all remembrance of the resurrection, they have called death the end of all things, and the destruction of man. For Solomon certainly speaks according to a common and received opinion, when he says, “A living dog is better than a dead lion.”[640] And again: “Who knows whether the spirit of man goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast goeth downward?”[641] This brutish stupidity has infected all ages of the world, and even forced its way into the Church; for the Sadducees had the audacity publicly to profess, that there is no resurrection, and that souls are mortal. But that none might be excused by this gross ignorance, the very instinct of nature has always set before the eyes of unbelievers an image of the resurrection. For what is the sacred and inviolable custom of interring the dead, but a pledge of another life? Nor can it be objected that this originated in error; for the rites of sepulture were always observed among the holy fathers; and it pleased God that the same custom should be retained among the Gentiles, that their torpor might be roused by the image of the resurrection thereby set before them. Though this ceremony produced no good effects upon them, yet it will be useful to us, if we wisely consider its tendency; for it is no slight refutation of unbelief, that all united in professing a thing that none of them believed. But Satan has not only stupefied men’s minds, to make them bury the memory of the resurrection together with the bodies of the dead, but has endeavoured to corrupt this point of doctrine by various fictions, with an ultimate view to its total subversion. Not to mention that he began to oppose it in the days of Paul, not long after arose the Millenarians, who limited the reign of Christ to a thousand years.