us there will be a change, which will render its condition far more excellent.[676] The “corruptible” body, therefore, will neither perish nor vanish, in order to our resurrection; but having laid aside corruption, will “put on incorruption.”[677] God, having all the elements subject to his control, will find no difficulty in commanding the earth, the water, and the fire, to restore whatever they appear to have consumed. This is declared in figurative language by Isaiah: “Behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”[678] But we must remark the difference between those who shall have been already dead, and those whom that day shall find alive. “We shall not all sleep,” says Paul, “but we shall all be changed;”[679] that is, there will be no necessity for any distance of time to intervene between death and the commencement of the next life; for “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,” and the living transformed by a sudden change into the same glory. So in another Epistle he comforts believers who were to die, that those “which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep,” but that “the dead in Christ shall rise first.”[680] If it be objected that the apostle says, “It is appointed unto men once to die,”[681] the answer is easy,—that where the state of the nature is changed, it is a species of death, and may without impropriety be so called; and therefore there is a perfect consistence between these things, that all will be removed by death when they put off the mortal body, but that a separation of the body and soul will not be necessary, where there will be an instantaneous change.