that another life was prepared for the interred bodies? The same was suggested by the spices and other symbols of immortality, which, like the sacrifices under the law, assisted the obscurity of direct instruction. Nor did this custom arise from superstition; for we find the Holy Spirit as diligent in mentioning the sepultures, as in insisting on the principal mysteries of faith. And Christ commends this as no mean office;[672] certainly for no other reason, but because it raises our eyes from the view of the grave, which corrupts and dissolves all things, to the spectacle of future renovation. Besides the very careful observance of this ceremony, which is commended in the fathers, sufficiently proves it to have been an excellent and valuable assistance to faith. Nor would Abraham have discovered such solicitous concern about the sepulchre of his wife, if he had not been actuated by motives of religion, and the prospect of more than worldly advantage; that by adorning her dead body with the emblems of the resurrection, he might confirm his own faith, and that of his family.[673] There is yet a clearer proof of this in the example of Jacob; who, to testify to his posterity that the hope of the promised land did not forsake his heart even in death, commands his bones to be reconveyed thither.[674] If he was to be furnished with a new body, would not this have been a ridiculous command concerning dust that was soon to be annihilated? Wherefore, if the authority of the Scripture has any weight with us, no clearer or stronger proof of any doctrine can possibly be desired. Even children understand this to be the meaning of the term “resurrection;” for we never apply this term to any instance of original creation; nor would it be consistent with that declaration of Christ, “Of all which the Father hath given me, I shall lose nothing, but will raise it up again at the last day.”[675] The same is implied in the word “sleeping,” which is only applicable to the body. Hence the appellation of _cemetery_, or _sleeping-place_, given to places of burial. It remains for me to touch a little on the manner of the resurrection. And I shall but just hint at it; because Paul, by calling it a mystery, exhorts us to sobriety, and forbids all licentiousness of subtle and extravagant speculation. In the first place, let it be remembered, as we have observed, that we shall rise again with the same bodies we have now, as to the substance, but that the quality will be different; just as the very body of Christ which had been offered as a sacrifice was raised again, but with such new and superior qualities, as though it had been altogether different. Paul represents this by some familiar examples. For as the flesh of man and of brutes is the same in substance, but not in quality; as the matter of all the stars is the same, but they differ in glory; so, though we shall retain the substance of our body, he tells