to God. Is there not, then, in that part of our bodily system which enables us to do all this which is done even by angels and by One higher than angels, the germ of that spiritual body " which can inherit the kingdom of God?" And may we not venture to think of the resurrection of the body as a clothing again of our souls and spirits with all the organization that belongs to the higher part of our being, while that which belongs to the lower part lies forever in the dust with which it has mingled ?
It is not difficult to imagine bodies so regenerated that they find their original pattern in the body that rose from the grave three days after death, and after- wards ascended into heaven. It is, in fact, most easy and most rational to believe that as the Incarnation of the Son of God was the new creation of a Man perfect in body and soul, so it was the first step in the new creation of all human nature ; and that as we have borne in our bodies the image of the earthly, which is the First Adam, so in our bodies also we shall bear the Image of the heavenly, which is the Second Adam. See Resurrection of Christ.
Thus, when the word has gone forth, " Behold, I make all things new," this will be a part of that new creation, that the bodies of the redeemed will be as the glorified body of Him who is not ashamed to call them brethren; bodies such as were laid in the grave, and -with some- thing about them yet which will identify them with a former life, and j'et spiritual bodies on which the in- carnation will have done its thorough work by restoring to them their share in the Image of God; making them ever pure, ever incapable of evil, of degeneracy, or of decay.
(2.) As the external features of human nature will be thus renovated, so also will there be a renovation of all that belongs to its mental and spiritual faculties. To- wards such a new creation it is easy to see that the work of the incarnation has ever been tending. AVhat man lost by the fall he regains bj' his restoration in Christ. Man lost the image of God, but the express Image of the Father took upon him the fallen nature, raised it to its first estate in his own person, and made it possible for it to regain that position in the persons of all men. Man lost by the fall the spirit which was breathed into him so that he became a living soul, but the Holy Spirit descended to dwell in the Church on earth, and to continue the power of the incarnation ; and now each sacramentally built up man has the loss repaired, and becomes once more body, soul, and spirit, as in his first creation. See Spirit.
But this is a gradual, not a sudden work, and al- though in the first regeneration of human nature at conversion, and in all the stages of sanctifying edifica- tion, the Lord is causing it to go through a process of renovation and re-creation, the climax of that building up of the restored spirit of man will only be attained when the final fiat of re-creation goes forth. Under the operation of such a re-creation, that which we some- times call " the religious faculty" will become supreme among all the mental qualities of our nature. Then, too, all evil passions, all sorrows, all cares, having passed aAvay as part of the former things that have no place in the renewed world, it is reasonable to believe that other mental faculties will have room to develop in a degree for which there has been no sufficient opportu- nity in this life ; so that the intelligence of each one of the renovated persons will be like the intelligence of an angel. Thus all that is good and noble in the spiritual and intellectual part of human nature will become infi- nitely more good and noble still. The humblest sinner of this life who attains to the life everlasting will stand as a glorious saint before the throne of God. The low- liest intellect will be so cleared, so vivified and devel- oped, by the making of all things new, that there \vill be no such thing as ignorance — as we now understand it — possible, nor any bar set up by the will to the at- tainment of an exalted reach of knowledge.
NEW CREATION
10
NEWELL
It seems, then, that we must blend together the high- est earthly saintliness and the highest earthly intelli- gence if we seek for a type of the perfectly renovated inner nature of man ; and when we have thus gained some idea of what will be effected by the new creation, we still have to remember that this type of the new- created mind and spirit of man places us only on the threshold of his future life. He will go on, without limit of time and age, dwelling in close communion with the all-holy and all-knowing God ; and from the per- petual shining of that "light which no man," in his mortal condition, " can approach unto," there must be a never-ceasing growth of saintliness and intelligence, a development of each which can find no limit short of the holiness and knowledge of the One who is without bounds.