40 THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 



ened except it die : and that which thoa sowest, thou 

 sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it 

 may chance of wheat, or some other grain : but God 

 giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every 

 seed his own body." (I Cor. xv. 35—38,) The 

 forcible comparison which is here drawn between a 

 lifeless and unsightly grain allied to the earth in its 

 qualities, and that same grain when transformed into a 

 living plant, shooting up its verdant blade into the air, 

 and ascending towards the skies, leaves no room to 

 doubt that the body of man, shall at that future period 

 be so divested of its present qualities, that there shall 

 be no nearer resemblance between its state then, and now, 

 than between the seed, and that plant which is its genuine 

 offspring. The heavenly Saviour, as that same apostle 

 tells us in another place, will so " Change our vile body 

 that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious 

 body, according to the working of that mighty power 

 by which he is able even to subdae all things unto him- 

 self." (Phil. iii. 21.) Glorious, indeed, as will be this 

 change, when soul and body shall thus be linked toge- 

 ther in indissoluble bonds ; it will not be a new creation ; 

 it will be the transforming only of a natural into a spiri- 

 tual body. The same substance will be cast into a new 



