a glorified body. The bodies of the damned, though incorruptible, shall not be impassible: they shall be capable of experiencing heat and cold, and of feeling pain.
The next quality is " brightness," by which the bodies of the saints shall shine like the sun; according to the words of our Lord recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew: "The just shall shine as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father." [1] To remove the possibility of doubt on the subject, he left us a splendid exemplification of this glorious quality in his transfiguration. [2] This quality the Apostle sometimes calls glory, sometimes brightness; " He will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory:" [3] and again, " It is sown in dishonour, it shall rise in glory." [4] Of this glory the Israelites beheld some image in the desert; when the face of Moses, after he had been in the presence of, and had conversed with God, shone with such resplendent lustre that they could not look on it. [5] This brightness is a sort of refulgence reflected from the supreme happiness of the soul an emanation of the bliss which it en joys, and which beams through the body. Its communication is analogous to the manner in which the soul itself is rendered happy, by a participation of the happiness of God. Unlike the former, this quality is not common to all in the same degree. All the bodies of the saints shall, it is true, be equally impassible: but the brightness of all shall not be the same: for, ac cording to the Apostle; " One is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars, for star differeth from star in glory: so also, is the resurrection of the dead." [6]
To this quality is united that of " agility," as it is called, by which the body shall be freed from the burden that now presses it down; and shall require a capability of moving with the utmost facility and celerity, wherever the soul pleases, as St. Augustine teaches in his book on the City of God, [7] and St. Jerome on Isaias. [8] Hence these words of the Apostle; "It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power." [9]
Another quality is that of " subtilty;" a quality which subjects the body to the absolute dominion of the soul, and to an entire obedience to her control: as we infer from these words of the Apostle; "It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body." [10] These are the principal points on which the pastor will dwell in the exposition of this Article.
But in order that the faithful may know what fruit they are to reap from a knowledge of so many and such exalted mysteries; the pastor will proclaim, in the first place, that to God, who has hidden these things from the wise, and made them known to little ones, we owe a debt of boundless gratitude! How many men, eminent for wisdom and learning, who never
