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THE VERITY OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION 
 FROM THE DEAD, 
 
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THE VERITY OF 
 
 CHRIST'S RESURRECTION 
 FROM THE DEAD 
 
 AN APPEAL TO THE COMMON-SENSE OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 THOMAS COOPER 
 
 Author of " The Bridge of History over the Gulf of Time," " God, the Soul, a>id the 
 
 Future State," "Plain Pulpit Talk," " The Purgatory of Suicides," 
 
 " The Paradise of Martyrs," etc., etc. 
 
 SEVENTH THOUSAND 
 
 H O I ) D E R AND STOUGHTON 
 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW 
 
 MDCCCXCJI 
 
Printed by Hazelly Watson, (S 1 I'i>try, Ltd., London and Aylesbury 
 
TO 
 
 JOHN HOUGHTON, Esq., 
 
 OF 
 
 SANDFIELD PARK, 
 
 WEST DERBY, 
 
 LIVERPOOL, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS 
 
 MOST RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY 
 
 INSCRIBED BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 T N pursuance of the purpose expressed in the 
 Prefaces to my " Bridge of History " and to 
 " God, the Soul, and a Future State " — I here- 
 with publish the substance of four lectures on the 
 Resurrection of Christ, which I have delivered, 
 wholly or in part, in^ almost every important town 
 of England and Scotland, during a period extend- 
 ing over the last eighteen years. 
 
 I have again thought it better to put what I 
 have spoken into a bookish form, for general 
 readers. But, I have, as before, preserved the 
 familiar and conversational tone — the interrogative 
 and repetition — with the occasional light step-a- 
 side into other themes by way of relief — in short, 
 the policy of spcecJi that must be employed by all 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 who wish to secure the earnest and prolonged 
 attention of the working- classes to lectures on 
 serious subjects. 
 
 Besides, I humbly think it desireable that the 
 soldiers who come after me should know how I 
 strove to conduct the fight. The battle with 
 Scepticism will not be ended for many a long year 
 after I quit the field. I pray that Victory may sit 
 on the helm of the Christian combatants who have 
 to follow me ! 
 
 THOMAS COOPER. 
 
 2, Portland Place, 
 
 St. Alary' 's Street, Lincoln. 
 Ap'il, 1875. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction . • i 
 
 I. 
 
 FIVE MOST IMPORTANT AND DISASTROUS CONSE- 
 QUENCES FOLLOW, IF JESUS ROSE NOT FROM 
 
 THE DEAD 
 
 II. 
 
 FIVE THEORIES HAVE BEEN DEVISED TO ACCOUNT 
 FOR THE EXISTENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, AND 
 FOR THE STORY OF THE RESURRECTION OF 
 JESUS, WITHOUT GRANTING EITHER TO BE TRUE 19 
 
 III. 
 
 LATER HYPOTHESES AND SCEPTICAL REASONINGS 
 
 OF STRAUSS 28 
 
 IV. 
 
 ALLEGED CONFUSION IN THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES 
 
 OF Christ's RESURRECTION 37 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 REMARKABLE ACCORDANCE OF THE EVANGELISTS 
 IN THEIR RELATION OF THE CHIEF EVENTS 
 PRELIMINARY TO THE RESURRECTION . . 44 
 
 VI. 
 
 WHY MATTHEW ONLY TELLS US OF THE WATCH 
 AT THE SEPULCHRE. — COWARDLY CONDUCT OF 
 THE SANHEDRIM 59 
 
 VII. 
 
 TWO REMARKABLE FACTS CONSIDERED : THAT NO 
 MAN SAW JESUS RISE FROM THE DEAD ; AND 
 THAT HE APPEARED ONLY TO 'CHOSEN WIT- 
 NESSES' 6S 
 
 VIII. 
 
 SOME MINOR CONSIDERATIONS PREPARATORY TO A 
 SURVEY OF THE RECORD WHICH CONTAINS 
 THE VITAL PART OF THE EVIDENCE • . 78 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT RECORD CONCERNING THE 
 WITNESSES WHO SAW JESUS AFTER HE ROSE 
 AGAIN FROM THE DEAD 87 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI 
 
 Page 
 
 CONSIDERATION OF THEORIES RESPECTING THE 
 
 RESURRECTION-BODY OF CHRIST . . . Ill 
 
 XL 
 
 THE DUTY OF ENQUIRY INTO THE CHRISTIAN EVI- 
 DENCES : AN EARNEST APPEAL TO SCEPTICAL 
 WORKINGMEN 131 
 
 XII. 
 
 CONSIDERATION OF OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE 
 OF A FUTURE STATE: OUR OWN EXISTENCE 
 IN THE ETERNAL FUTURE MADE CERTAIN BY 
 THE RESUPRECTION OF CHRIST . . . I48 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE WAY TO REACH THE TRUTH RESPECTING THE 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, 
 AND FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY . . 164 
 
THE VERITY 
 
 OF 
 
 CHRIST'S RESURRECTION FROM 
 THE DEAD. 
 
 IF the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 
 be a veritable historical fact, it is the most 
 commanding fact in the chronology of the world. 
 If the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 
 be a true substantial historical fact, it is of more 
 importance to you and me and every child of man, 
 than any event that ever occurred since the world 
 began. The coronations of kings and emperors — 
 the glittering pageants of princes — the grand pon- 
 tifical high masses performed by mitred prelates, 
 in lofty cathedrals, amid the pealing of Te Deums, 
 to celebrate the victories of conquerors — the long 
 processional pomps, in gold and jewels, of royal 
 and imperial and ecclesiastical dignitaries — all the 
 
 i 
 
2 IMPORTANCE OF THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 spectacles of magnificence and gorgeousness and 
 grandeur which could possibly be displayed before 
 our eyes would be worth no more than the gew- 
 gaws of children compared with the verificaticn of 
 the historical fact that Jesus of Nazareth rose again 
 from the dead. No historical fact can equal this, 
 in value, for us : no revelation of discovery, ancient 
 or modern, can compare with it in real importance. 
 If the founders of the pyramids could burst their 
 mummy-cases, and be clothed again with flesh and 
 blood, and could stand before us, and tell us how 
 those mighty piles were raised, how long it is ago, 
 and for what purpose they were used ; — if all the 
 proud kings who reigned in Babylon and Nineveh 
 could pass, in stately file, before us, and pronounce 
 their own names, and tell us of the battles they 
 fought and of the peoples they conquered ; — if the 
 builders of our own Stonehenge could rise from 
 the dead and present themselves to our amazed 
 sight, and tell us why those mystic stones were 
 erected on Salisbury plain — who reared them — 
 how long it is ago — and for what purpose the 
 wondrous circles were used; — the sum of the 
 stories of curiosity and interest thus rehearsed to 
 
IMPORTANCE OF THE RESURRECTION. 3 
 
 us would not equal, for us, in value, the verifi- 
 cation of the historical fact that Jesus of Nazareth 
 rose again from the dead. 
 
 If an angel could descend from heaven and shew 
 us the meaning of every prophecy contained in the 
 books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and 
 Daniel, and the twelve minor prophets ; — who 
 should unfold to us the exact and complete mean- 
 ing of every chapter and verse and line and word 
 of the Book of Revelation ; — who, turning to the 
 beginning of the Bible, should tell us all that we 
 desire to know about the primeval creation and 
 Man's fall ; — who could tell us where was the 
 Garden of Eden, and whether all the living races 
 of men are descended from one Adam, or whether 
 there have been several Adams, as some contend ; 
 — and who could assure us whether Noah's flood 
 extended over the whole earth, or only over a part 
 of it, and could describe to us every circumstance 
 of the Deluge, so as to clear up every difficulty 
 that any of us now feel in the reading of the Bible 
 account of it ; — the sum of all the interpretations 
 and revelations made to us by the angel, would 
 not equal for us, in value, the verification of the 
 
4 IMPORTANCE OF THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 historical fact that Jesus of Nazareth rose again 
 from the dead. 
 
 If some mighty man of science could arise, 
 transcending in powers of analysis and proof, of 
 induction and discovery, all the men of science 
 who have gone before him, — who excelled Liebig, 
 and Faraday, and Davy, and even Herschel, and 
 Newton, — some marvellous discerner of the secrets 
 of Nature, who could tell us what Electricity is, 
 and Light, and Chemical Affinity — who could re- 
 veal to us why the loadstone attracts iron, and 
 why the needle points to the pole — and why, when 
 we join thin plates of copper and zinc, or silver 
 and zinc, and surround them with a liquid acid, 
 we create a force whereby we can transmit messages 
 across the Atlantic, at the rate of one hundred and 
 ninety thousand miles in a second; — all the com- 
 bined story of astonishment the mighty man of 
 science could display in our hearing would not 
 equal for us, in value, the verification of the his- 
 torical fact that Jesus of Nazareth rose again from 
 the dead. 
 
 If some gifted seer could arise, filled with clear 
 and certain visions of the future, who could tell 
 
IMPORTANCE OF THE RESURRECTION. 5 
 
 us what will be the condition of our beloved Eng- 
 land five hundred years hence ;- — what wi!l be the 
 changes on the continents of Europe and Asia in 
 all those years ; — whether more and more wars of 
 devastation will be waged by France and Germany, 
 and whether Russia will seize India from us, and 
 thus reduce England to an inferior power; — 
 whether America will dominate the world ; — what 
 will be the condition of China and Japan and 
 Australia and New Zealand, and what the destiny 
 of Africa; — and if the gifted seer could multiply 
 the interest of all he revealed to us, tenfold, by 
 informing us with what speed men will travel a 
 thousand years hence ; — whether the use of steam 
 will be superseded by some new motive power, 
 and, if so, what that power will be; — whether such 
 increase of magnifying power shall be won for the 
 telescope as to enable men to discern the real 
 nature of the sun, and to ascertain that the nearer 
 planets are inhabited; — above all, what will be 
 the forms of human society a thousand years hence 
 — whether they will still be competitive, the many 
 being subordinates and the few the privileged, or 
 co-operation will become the rule ; — the whole 
 
6 IMPORTANCE OF THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 sum of the varied and exciting relations made to 
 us by the seer could not equal, for us, in true and 
 substantial value, the verification of the historical 
 fact that Jesus of Nazareth rose again from the 
 dead. 
 
 Nay, if all the darling children of Genius could 
 awake from the dead, and tell us in rapt and 
 ecstatic syllables of all the thrilling joy they ex- 
 perienced in their wondrous creations • — if Raffaelle, 
 and Michael Angelo, and Leonardo da Vinci, and 
 Titian, and Corregio, could stand before us, and 
 tell us of all the rapture they experienced in the 
 creation of their marvellous pictures ; — and Handel 
 could shout aloud the joys he felt in the creation 
 of his grand Hallelujah Chorus, and 'For unto us 
 a child is born,' and 'Worthy is the Lamb,' and 
 the Hailstone Chorus, and 'The horse and his 
 rider'; — and Mozart could tell us what he felt, 
 when dying at thirty-seven, he said ' Now I begin 
 to see what could* be done in music'; — and the 
 grand, old, bald, blind Homer could rise and tell 
 us of the ecstasy he felt in forming his war-ballads 
 of the 'Iliad;' and Milton could stand beside him 
 and reveal the rapture he felt in the composition 
 
THE GREAT QUESTION. 7 
 
 of the 'Paradise Lost'; — and the unequalled, the 
 unparalleled Shakspere — the sweet English face we 
 could, above all, delight to see — could delight our 
 ears with the tale of all the thrilling emotion he 
 experienced in the creation of his ' Hamlet' and 
 'Othello', his 'Lear' and ' Macbeth';- not the 
 entire combined story of the rapture and ecstasy, 
 of the joy and delight, experienced by the children 
 of Genius in the creation of their marvellous works 
 would equal, for us, in real and substantial value, 
 the verification of the historical fact that Jesus of 
 Nazareth rose again from the dead. 
 
 For, — we all have to die. 
 
 Shall we live again ? 
 
 The Progressive nature of Man, — as we en- 
 deavoured to shew, the other night, — is strong 
 presumptive evidence for a Future Life. The Al- 
 mighty's creation of Man with intellectual powers 
 so expansive, with yearnings for knowledge so sate 
 less — merely to live here and live no more — looks 
 like an abortive work. It seems so unworthy of 
 Himself, that we reject it. 
 
 But the Moral nature of Man— the existence of 
 Conscience, in him — the dictate of the Moral 
 
8 THE SCEPTICAL ANSWER. 
 
 Sense, that Virtue deserves praise and reward, and 
 Vice blame and punishment, and yet Virtue so 
 often suffers and Vice so often triumphs, in this life 
 — seem to unfold the awful truth, beyond question 
 or denial, that there must be a future life where 
 Virtue is triumphant and Vice suffers, — or the 
 Equity of God, the Moral Governor, would be left 
 in question. Conscience proclaims to Man that, 
 for him, there must be a retributive ' hereafter ' ! 
 
 "Ay," says the sceptic, "I have heard all your 
 reasonings from the Progressive nature of Man, 
 and I have listened to your preachments about 
 Conscience and the Moral Nature : — I have heard 
 all you can say, and the assertion of your own 
 belief that there is a retributive 'hereafter.' 
 
 " But when I first entered the chamber of death, 
 and gazed on the form of her whom I loved, and 
 saw her lie breathless, speechless, lifeless— when I 
 called, but there was no answer — when I wailed, 
 in my bitter agony, but there was no response — 
 oh, how vain seemed to me, all your preachments 
 about conscience and the moral nature and all 
 your dreams of a ' hereafter' ! 
 
 "And when I followed her fair corpse to the 
 
THE CHRISTIANS HOPE. 9 
 
 churchyard, and saw the open grave, and the frag- 
 ments of mouldered coffins and human bones, 
 strewed about — and a skull — fleshless, eyeless, 
 tongueless — oh, how vain seemed to me all your 
 dreams of a Future State ! 
 
 "I cast my last look at the coffin which held 
 the form of her I loved, and I said in my heart — 
 1 Fare thee well ! I shall see thee no more for 
 ever! But it matters not. I, myself, shall soon 
 be gathered to the dust, and they will cover me 
 up from all human sight, and I shall forget, and 
 soon be forgotten. I have but one cold consola- 
 tion : — If I cease to be, I shall cease to weep !' " 
 
 Thank God, that is not the state of mind and 
 feeling with which a Christian turns from the grave, 
 when he has cast his last look at the coffin which 
 holds the form of the beloved and departed dead. 
 He remembers that it is only the clay tabernacle 
 which is coffined there. It was fair to look upon, 
 in life j but God has taken it down — and its freed 
 tenant has escaped to bliss. He looks forward to 
 the happy meeting and re-union in the land beyond 
 the grave. He turns away from the coffin and the 
 grave to recommence his pilgrimage that may now 
 
IO FAITH AND DOUBT. 
 
 be solitary — but it is with an echo around him of 
 the exultant words to which he has just listened — 
 the grandest words that ever were spoken on earth, 
 for doubting man : — 
 
 "I am the Resurrection and the Life-! 
 He that believeth in me, though he were 
 dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever 
 liveth and believeth in me shall never 
 
 DIE!" 
 
 "Ay," rejoins the unbeliever, "those words of 
 Christ would be the grandest words ever uttered in 
 the world, for doubting man — if they were true. 
 But I cannot believe them. I cannot believe that 
 Jesus of Nazareth was the Resurrection and the 
 Life : I cannot believe that he did, really, rise from 
 the dead." 
 
 Hearing that unmistakeable avowal of unbelief, 
 we go on to observe that 
 
REASONINGS OF ATHEISM. II 
 
 FIVE MOST IMPORTANT AND DISASTROUS CONSE- 
 QUENCES FOLLOW, IF JESUS ROSE NOT FROM 
 THE DEAD. 
 
 i. TF Jesus rose not from the dead, we shall 
 ■A. scarcely find any man's belief in a Future 
 State to be sufficiently strong to influence his con- 
 duct. You may reckon up all possible items of our 
 progressive nature, and dwell for hours on the great 
 and undeniable fact of our moral nature and sense 
 of responsibility, and yet find men unconvinced and 
 unmoved morally. I have known a few Deists in 
 my time. Not many in late years— for, it is a 
 most serious fact that the prevailing form of 
 unbelief in these days is negative Atheism. Un- 
 believers do not say — " Sir, there is no God : I am 
 quite sure of it." But they say " You cannot prove 
 that there is a God, and no one can prove it. I 
 do not say that there is no God. I merely say, I 
 
12 REASONINGS OF DEISM. 
 
 know nothing about it." Neither do the free- 
 thinkers of the present day say "Sir, I affirm thai 
 there is no future state for man." But they say 
 " You cannot prove that there is a future state, 
 and no one can prove it Nor does any one 
 return from the dead to tell us. I merely say, I 
 know nothing about it. I give all such questions 
 the go-by. I am a Secularist — that is to say, I 
 concern myself about the present life, and leave 
 others to their dreams about the future." 
 
 Such is the scepticism of this present time ; but, 
 fifty years ago, the prevailing form of unbelief in this 
 country was Deism. Of workingmen, especially, 
 hundreds were worshippers of Thomas Paine, and 
 zealous readers of 'The Age of Reason.' And 
 when you talked with such men, they readily avowed 
 their belief in the existence of an Almighty and 
 All-wise Maker. But if you asked them whether 
 they believed in a future state for Man, they re- 
 plied that there might be one, but they could not 
 say they believed there was one. 
 
 I never, in my life, found a man who really 
 believed in a future state, unless he believed that 
 Christ rose from the dead. And none of you will 
 
FAITH IN THE RISEN CHRIST. 1 3 
 
 ever be likely to find a real believer in a ' here- 
 after,' unless he be a believer in the resurrection of 
 Christ. Our only certainty of our own resurrection 
 is the certainty of faith, and our best foundation for 
 that faith is the reality of the resurrection of Christ. 
 
 2. Again : if Christ did not rise again from the 
 dead, the Christian believer's experience is all a 
 dream. His belief that he is accepted and par- 
 doned for Christ's sake, becomes sheer delusion. 
 For if Jesus rose not from the dead, there is no 
 proof that he has paid our debt — that his atone- 
 ment for Man's sin is accepted. Christ ' died for 
 our sins, and rose again for our justification.' But, 
 if Christ be not risen again, no Christian believer 
 is in a justified state. " If Christ be not raised," 
 says St. Paul, " your faith is vain. Ye are yet in 
 your sins." 
 
 3. Again: if Jesus did not rise again from the 
 dead, we have no warrant for our observance of 
 the Christian sabbath: our 'Lord's Day,' as it is 
 called in our Acts of Parliament : the first day of 
 the week. We do not keep the Jewish sabbath : 
 the sabbath instituted amid the thunders of Sinai, 
 ?jid which the Jews have observed, in all countries 
 
.14 MISERY OF THE JEWS SABBATH. 
 
 where they have sojourned, for more than three 
 thousand years — commencing at six o'clock on 
 Friday night in each week, and ending at six o'clock 
 on Saturday night ; or, in some, countries, and at 
 certain times of the year, commencing with the 
 observance of the first star which appears on 
 Friday night,' and ending with the observance of 
 the first star which appears on Saturday night. 
 
 I say we do not keep the Jewish sabbath — for 
 that is the Jew's day of mortification and irksome- 
 ness and tormenting restraint. A Jew dare not 
 wipe a knife, or light a fire, or light or snuff a 
 candle, on his sabbath. He has to hire the Gojim 
 — the gentile — to perform such services for him. 
 Persons who have lived in Jewish families have 
 told me of the restraint— the burdensome and 
 miserable restraint experienced by young Jews, 
 during the hours of our Saturday afternoon, and 
 how eagerly they have looked for the appearance 
 of a star as their sabbath was drawing to a close, 
 — and, above all, how joyously they have shouted 
 1 There it is ! ' when a star appeared \ and then, 
 gaily, ran off to business or amusement. 
 
 The true Christian knows no irksome sabbath. 
 
WARRANT FOR OUR ' LORD'S DAY.' 1 5 
 
 His ' Lord's Day' is a day of heartfelt cheerfulness. 
 When he wakes in the morning, it is with the feel- 
 ing of thankfulness that the day has returned, and 
 of gladness that it is to be devoted to God's 
 service. 
 
 But our only warrant for keeping the first day 
 of the week, as our Christian sabbath, is the 
 tradition that the early Christian church kept it, 
 as it has been kept ever since, in commemoration 
 of our Lord's resurrection from the dead. In the 
 year one hundred and seven of our era — only 
 seventy-four years after Christ's crucifixion — Pliny 
 writes to the Emperor Trajan concerning the per- 
 secution of the Christians in the provinces of 
 Pontus and Bithynia, and tells him that the Chris- 
 tians are wont to assemble early in the morning on a 
 certain day of the week, and sing hymns to Christ 
 as their god. And Ignatius, and Justin Martyr, 
 and Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria, and 
 other fathers who follow, tell us that this ' certain 
 day of the week' was, from the beginning the first 
 day of the week, because their Lord rose from the 
 dead on that day. Let it, also, be observed that 
 there was a tradition in the early church, that 
 
1 6 TEST OF CHRIST S VERACITY. 
 
 whenever Christ appeared to his disciples during 
 the forty days he tarried on earth — if'it were only 
 on earth he tarried — he always appeared on the 
 first day of the week : seeming to give a com- 
 mencement of its observation, himself. And the 
 truth of this tradition seems highly probable from 
 what we read of our Lord's appearances in the New 
 Testament. 
 
 4. Again : if Jesus of Nazareth did not rise 
 again from the dead, then he did not speak truth— 
 for he said — " Destroy this temple (his body) and 
 in three days I will raise it up " — " The Son of 
 Man shall be betrayed into the hands of wicked 
 men, and they shall slay him, but in three days he 
 shall rise again." If, therefore, Jesus did not rise 
 again, he must have been either a deceiver, or a 
 mistaken enthusiast; and, in either character, he 
 could not have the sincere attachment of any of 
 us, who are in earnest. 
 
 5. Lastly : if Jesus Christ did not rise again from 
 the dead, then Christianity is not true. The fact 
 ©f the resurrection of Christ has often been fitly 
 described as the keystone of the Arch of the 
 Religion itself: pull out the keystone and the 
 
CHRISTIANITY: WHENCE IS IT? 17 
 
 Arch tumbles into ruin. And thus if His resui 
 rection be not a truth, Christ's religion is untrue. 
 
 But, then, comes the difficulty of all difficulties . 
 How to account for the existence of Christianity at 
 che present time, if the religion be not true ? It 
 is — as I observed to you, in another lecture, the 
 established and professed religion of three hundred 
 and thirty-five millions of the human race. Not 
 of the savage or uncivilised nations — but of the 
 nations who have the power and commerce and 
 science and literature of the world. How is it 
 that these millions profess the Christian religion ? 
 How came Christian churches to be built — of 
 which there are some hundreds of thousands in 
 the world — some of them dating many hundreds 
 of years back? A few years ago, Dean Stanley 
 delivered his interesting discourse at the celebra- 
 tion of the eight-hundredth anniversary of the 
 opening of Westminster Abbey. King Edward 
 the Confessor, we learn from our national history, 
 was to have been present at the opening, but was 
 prevented by sickness, and died a few days after 
 the opening. We might as well doubt that such 
 a king as Edward ever lived as doubt that fact. 
 
 2 
 
1 8 OTHER HISTORICAL QUERIES. 
 
 Only a few months ago, they were commemorating 
 the twelve-hundredth anniversary of the opening 
 of Ely Cathedral. 
 
 I might go on to mention the dates of other 
 ancient Christian buildings, and to shew how the 
 dates are bound up with many important facts in 
 history. How does it happen that there are thou- 
 sands of ancient coins bearing symbolical marks 
 of Christ's religion ? If Christianity be not true — 
 if the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the 
 dead be not a veritable historical fact — where did 
 the religion come from ? 
 
 Theories have been devised to account for the 
 existence of the religion, without granting it to be 
 true ; and theories have been devised to account 
 for the story of Christ's resurrection, without 
 granting it to be true. 
 
 To assist your memories, as I said that Five 
 important and disastrous consequences would 
 follow, if Jesus rose not from the dead, I go on 
 to say, that 
 
THE WORN-OUT SUN THEORY. 1 9 
 
 II. 
 
 FIVE THEORIES HAVE BEEN DEVISED TO ACCOUNT 
 FUR THE EXISTENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, AND 
 FOR THE STORY OF THE RESURRECTION OF 
 JESUS, WITHOUT GRANTING EITHER TO BE 
 TRUE. 
 
 i. ^T^HERE is the old Sun Theory : the theory 
 J- which would persuade us that no such 
 person as Jesus of Nazareth ever existed : that he is 
 only a personification of the Sun, like the Sun-gods 
 of the old Hindoos, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks 
 and other ancient nations. It is the old fable of 
 Nature remodelled, this theory asserts : the fable 
 which is so old that no one knows who devised it, 
 or when it began to take possession of the rude 
 minds of early men : the fable which is still 
 mixed up with all religious beliefs, and will con- 
 tinue to be mixed up with them, even when the 
 maturer human mind disregards all other fables. 
 
20 ' SCURRILITY OF THE OLD DEISTS. 
 
 The Sun sets and rises again ; and so, allegori 
 cally, Christ is represented as dying and rising again 
 from the dead. The divine child was born on 
 Christmas-day, at mid-winter, during the shortest 
 days : another personification of the Sun, which is 
 born and re-commences his yearly course from the 
 shortest days. 
 
 I need say no more to you about the Sun 
 Theory ; for many of you have heard me expose 
 its fallacy, again and again. And those among 
 you who have never heard my lectures on the His- 
 torical Evidences of Christianity, can learn how 
 I treat the worn-out Sun-theory, by reading my 
 little book, entitled ' The Bridge of History over 
 the Gulf of Time.' 
 
 2. I mention the theory of Woolston, Morgan, 
 and other 'old English Freethinkers,' as they 
 are usually called, with a sense of shame. They 
 did not hesitate to pronounce Christ to be a 
 wandering impostor — a vagabond pretender— who 
 went about professing to heal diseases; and 
 affirmed that his disciples were only his knavish 
 accomplices ! 
 
 Thank God, such ribald and vile detraction of 
 
CHANGE IN FREETHINKERS. 2 J 
 
 the Saviour's character is no longer the fashion 
 with sceptics. The leading sceptical writers on the 
 Continent seem to vie with one another in extolling 
 the beautiful moral teaching of Christ, and in 
 enthroning the beauty of his moral example. And 
 how far the sentiments of our living freethinkers 
 differ from those of the old English Freethinkers 
 may be understood by but two sentences in 
 the last chapter of 'Supernatural Religion' — an 
 anonymous book issued only a few months 
 ago, and understood to be a text-book among 
 what are called 'scholarly and advanced free- 
 thinkers.' These are the two sentences : — 
 
 " The teaching of Jesus carried morality to the 
 sublimest point attained, or even attainable, by 
 humanity. The influence of his spiritual religion 
 has been rendered doubly great by the unparalleled 
 purity of elevation of his own character." 
 
 The scurrilous theories of Woolston and Morgan 
 and the rest not only set out with representing the 
 Saviour as an impostor and his disciples as his 
 accomplices in deceit ; but they maintained thaf 
 Christianity has been propagated and established 
 in tb^ world by a succession of impostors and 
 
2 2 FOOLISH THEORY ABOUT CHRIST. 
 
 dupes : the ministers of the various sects of Chris- 
 tianity. They also strove to impress their own 
 generation with an idea of their own merit, as men 
 that would open people's eyes who had been long 
 deceived ; but they were answered by men of their 
 own generation, and their books have passed into 
 desuetude. 
 
 3. A third theory is also derived from the old 
 freethinkers ; a theory so absurdly improbable that 
 it might have passed into oblivion, had it not been 
 taken up and clothed with new attractions by some 
 of the German sceptical writers. I may just say, 
 too, in passing, that I observe Mr. Voysey has 
 taken up this theory : Mr. Voysey, the clergyman 
 who lately insisted on keeping his living, and yet 
 teaching unbelief from the pulpit — on administering 
 the sacraments of the church, and yet instructing 
 his flock that their faith in Christ was vain : — the 
 clergyman who gave the poor Archbishop of York 
 so much trouble in trying to get quit of him, with- 
 out hurting him ! 
 
 The theory is this : that Jesus did not die on 
 the cross : that he merely fainted away ; and that 
 the aromatics, or spices, in which Nicodemus and 
 
MR. VOYSEY S ACCEPTANCE OF IT. 23 
 
 Joseph of Arimathea wound him served to revive 
 him. Also, that his friends doctored his wounds, 
 and that he crept about by night and shewed 
 himself to his disciples — not daring to be seen in 
 the day-time, lest he should be again seized, and 
 crucified afresh ! 
 
 I shall have to recur to this theory, as we go on. 
 At present, let me say how I pitied Mr. Voysey, 
 when I read the sermon he preached at St. George's 
 Hall, on Easter Day, 1873 — in which he main- 
 tained this most absurd scheme. What ! — a poor 
 creature whose wounds had been doctored, creep- 
 ing about to shew himself and his wounds, by 
 night, and by stealth, give force to the grand trium- 
 phant declaration that Jesus had risen from the 
 dead, and ascended up on high, leading captivity 
 captive, and had received gifts for men, even for 
 the rebellious ! What ! martyr after martyr— men 
 and women — young and aged — suffer themselves 
 to be stoned in the street — lashed with the scourge 
 — slain by crucifixion, fire, or wild beasts — and all 
 for their belief in a poor creature who stole abou* 
 by night, in fear, to shew to his disciples his doc- 
 tored wounds ! What an absurd story ! Who can 
 
24 HENNELLS FANCIFUL THEORY. 
 
 help treating it with contempt, and wondering that 
 any man who was reckoned intelligent should 
 either have broached it, or maintained and de- 
 fended it? 
 
 4. Concerning a fourth theory I shall need to 
 say very little, for I never learned that it had more 
 than one advocate : its author — Charles Hennell 
 of Woodford, the writer of ' Christian Theism/ 
 Hennell's theory is — that Nicodemus and Joseph 
 of Arimathea, when they saw that Jesus was dead, 
 and his Messiahship was no longer credible with 
 them, resolved to secure the corpse for decent in- 
 terment, out of respect to Jesus. But when they 
 observed that the women came to look about the 
 sepulchre, and when they heard that Jesu's dis- 
 ciples remained in Jerusalem, they took alarm — 
 for they had concluded that the women and dis- 
 ciples would hasten away to Galilee, in fear, when 
 their Master was crucified. Hearing, also, rumours 
 that Christ's saying was abroad — that he would 
 rise on the third clay — they became further alarmed. 
 If these men take it into their heads to affirm that 
 their Master is risen — thought these two members 
 of the Sanhedrim — and the notion spreads until 
 
ONLY RECEIVED BY HIMSELF. 25 
 
 Jerusalem is in an uproar about it, we shall be 
 brought into trouble : it being known that we were 
 disciples of Jesus. 
 
 So, thinks Hennell, Nicodemus and Joseph of 
 Arimathea laid their heads together to deceive the 
 disciples and make them hasten back to their 
 homes. Accordingly, the sepulchre was opened 
 in the night and the body of Christ removed and 
 secretly buried ; and a young man with a long 
 white garment was placed in the empty tomb, to 
 counterfeit an angel, and to tell the disciples that 
 their Master was risen, and they were to hasten 
 back to Galilee — for Christ would meet them 
 there ! 
 
 Hennel thinks that the disciples were poor, 
 ignorant, sincere creatures, who believed it was 
 an angel they had seen ; and that they went forth 
 teaching that their Master was risen from the dead. 
 The credulity of mankind, Hennell is of opinion, 
 will account for the spread of their story, and the 
 establishment of Christianity in the world. 
 
 Such is the theory of Charles Hennell ; and it is 
 so whimsical and foolishly improbable, that I need 
 say no more about it. 
 
26 THE THEORY OF STRAUSS. 
 
 5. Lastly, there is the theory of my old master. 
 Strauss : the theory I have striven to disprcn e. 
 also, in my ' Bridge of History.' I may describe 
 the theory of the 'Leben Jesu' in few words. 
 Strauss holds that the story oi Christ's resurrection 
 originated in the heated and fond fancies of the 
 disciples, who, he thinks, fled back in haste to 
 Galilee, with natural fear, when their Master was 
 slain. That, in the warmth of their enthusiasm, 
 they, after some time, ventured to return to Jeru- 
 salem, and there proclaimed that Jesus was risen 
 from the dead. That their enthusiasm was in- 
 fectious, and spread quickly among the multitude ; 
 and the authorities, deeming the new fancy would 
 soon die out, let them alone till the superstition 
 gained so much strength that they could not quell 
 it — and thus it has continued to live. 
 
 In the ' Leben Jesu,' Strauss also denies that 
 we know who wrote the Gospels, when they were 
 written, or where they were written; — treats 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as merely 
 imaginary authors of the Gospels; — holds that 
 various fragmentary accounts were collected, and 
 formed into what are called our 'Gospels,' about 
 
THE THEORY 01 STRAUSS. 27 
 
 the middle of the Second Century — or one hun- 
 dred and twenty years after the Crucifixion; — 
 and maintains, that in these hundred and twenty 
 years, there was ample time for what he calls the 
 'mythical' stories of our Gospels to grow up. 
 
 I think it unnecessary to draw your attention 
 to the names of Kenan and more modern writers, 
 because their theories of unbelief are really built 
 on the critical foundation of Strauss. 
 
28 THE DEATH OK STRAUSS. 
 
 III. 
 
 LATER HYPOTHESES AND SCEPTICAL REASONINGS 
 OF STRAUSS. 
 
 THE ' Leben Jesu' of David Friedrich Strauss 
 was the work of a young man of only seven- 
 and-twenty years of age ; yet it produced a very 
 powerful perversive effect on the minds of thousands 
 of scholars and thinkers. Happily, many of these 
 have thrown off the yoke of what was once deemed 
 his 'inexorable logic'; but the logician himself 
 did worse than merely hold by his own 'inexorable' 
 reasonings, and descended into positive Materialism 
 and Atheism. He has lately died in the strong 
 avowal of his darkest unbelief, at the age of sixty- 
 six. We must leave him to the All-wise Judge, 
 and must ever remember that we have no right 
 to pronounce the final sentence on our fellow- 
 man : that pertains to God, as His rightful office, 
 alone. 
 
LATEST WORKS OF STRAUSS. 29 
 
 During his later life, Strauss issued two works — 
 a 'Life of Jesus for the People,' and 'The Old 
 Faith and the New.' By the 'New Faith,' he 
 really means no faith, at all. He tells us that 
 there is no God and no hereafter ; that we ought 
 to cease to call ourselves Christians; and that 
 there is nothing left for us to worship but the 
 Universe. Such is the lamentable error he pro- 
 claims in his latest book ! 
 
 In the 'Life of Jesus for the People,' Strauss 
 strongly maintains that we have but one contemporary 
 witness to rely upon for the appearance of Jesus 
 after his death — and that is the apostle Paul. He 
 will not have it that any part of our Four Gospels 
 contains the testimony of a contemporary witness. 
 He treats the names by which they are called as 
 labels put upon them by imagination; and thus 
 denies that Matthew and John give us any witness 
 at all : — or Mark, or Luke — for we have no writing 
 which we know to be verily theirs. Paul, he holds, 
 is our sole cotitemporary witness. 
 
 None of the German sceptics (neither Renan) 
 be it observed, question the reality and activity of 
 the life of St. Paul They hold indeed — if I were 
 
30 STRAUSS'S ESTIMATE OF PAUL, 
 
 to express what they think in rough English — that 
 this eager, busy Paul was the fellow who wrought 
 all the mischief which has lasted to this Nineteenth 
 Century; and that we should, most likely, have 
 never heard of Jesus of Nazareth, had it not 
 been for Paul : Paul, who restlessly went up and 
 down amid the cities of the Lesser Asia and 
 of Greece, and along the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean, teaching and preaching the new supersti- 
 tion, in spite of persecution and imprisonment 
 and suffering. 
 
 Strauss, — and some other German sceptics, as 
 well as Renan, — seems to have a somewhat high 
 intellectual estimate of St. Paul. He seems to re- 
 gard the great apostle as one of those strong, ener- 
 getic spirits who appear, only now and then, in the 
 course of centuries, — and who draw thousands into 
 their own bond of enthusiasm while living, and 
 mark out the path in which thousands will follow 
 when they are dead. 
 
 Strauss looks at Paul displaying his native 
 energy, first, as the Jewish zealot — brought up at 
 the feet of Gamaliel— a Hebrew of the Hebrews — 
 A Pharisee of the Pharisees — holding the clothes 
 
AND THEORY OF PAULS CHANGE. 3 1 
 
 of Stephen's murderers while they stoned him to 
 death — procuring letters from the chief priests — 
 and going forth in quest of Christian offenders, and 
 dragging men and women to prison. But Strauss 
 holds that this seemingly strong, unrelenting man, 
 like all other large intelligences, had a soft place 
 in his nature. When he sees the Christian 
 mothers in prison, with the iron chain about them, 
 suckling their babes, and joyously singing hymns 
 to Christ, Paul's heart is stricken with remorse. 
 When he sees the Christian martyrs, walking in 
 fetters and lashed with the scourge as they pass 
 along the streets, yet singing exultant strains of 
 Christian faith, Paul's heart quails with the thought 
 that these men may be right after all, and that his 
 part as a persecutor, is deeply criminal 
 
 " Perhaps," thinks Paul, " I am wrong and these 
 sufferers are right. I almost thought the face ot 
 Stephen did shine like the face of an angel, as they 
 said it did, when I heard him cry ' Lord Jesus, 
 receive my spirit ! ' And perhaps he did see Jesus 
 ' standing on the right hand of God ' — just as our 
 fathers saw spiritual sights ! " 
 
 But stifling such thoughts and reproaching 
 
32 GENUINENESS OF PAULS EPISTLES. 
 
 himself for entertaining them, he sets out, with 
 assistants, for Damascus, on his errand of persecu- 
 tion. And, now, Strauss thinks he sees the full 
 interpretation of all that is said to have happened. 
 A violent storm of thunder and lightning hurls 
 Paul and his companions to the ground, and — with 
 his mind and heart all in inward storm and con- 
 flict between doubt and remorse — Paul imagines, 
 amid the peals of thunder, that he hears a voice 
 saying ; Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? ' 
 And he cries out ' Who art Thou, Lord ? ' and 
 imagines he really hears the voice reply ' I am 
 Jesus whom thou persecutest' — while, amid the 
 vivid lightning he imagines Christ appears to him 
 in brightness, and summons him to be a disciple 
 
 and preacher of the faith he has persecuted. 
 
 i 
 
 And this energetic Paui, it was, that wrote the. 
 Epistle to the Romans, the two epistles to the 
 Corinthians, and the Epistle *o the Galatians. 
 Such is the conviction of Strauss. Renan holds 
 that Paul also wrote the two letters to the 
 Thessalonians j and, from his Roman prison, the 
 letters to the Ephesian, Philippian and Colossian 
 churches, and the letter to Philemon. And though 
 
EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 33 
 
 unequal to Strauss in logical power, Renan is, un- 
 doubtedly, a more profound scholar. 
 
 And this Paul, contends Strauss, is our only 
 contemporary authority for the story of the Resur- 
 rection of Jesus : more explicitly, for the story of 
 the appearance of Jesus after his death. And in 
 the first epistle to the Corinthians, Strauss points 
 us to Paul's own statement (chap. 15, vv. 3 — 8) : 
 
 "For, I delivered unto you, first of all, that 
 which I also received, how that Christ died for 
 our sins according to the scriptures ; and that he 
 was buried, and that he rose again the third day 
 according to the scriptures ; and that he was seen 
 of Kephas, then of the twelve ; and that he was 
 seen of above five hundred brethren at once — of 
 whom, the greater part remain unto this present, 
 but some are fallen asleep. After that he was 
 seen of James, then of all the apostles. And, last 
 of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out 
 of due time." 
 
 " Last of all he zvas seen of me also " — but what 
 kind of seeing was this of Paul? asks Strauss. 
 And he answers his own question, by affirming 
 that Paul's seeing cf Christ was not like our daily 
 
 3 
 
34 JARGON OF CERTAIN WRITERS. 
 
 and hourly seeing : it was not seeing by the use of 
 the outward eye : it was not objective seeing, says 
 Strauss : it was only subjective seeing. 
 
 Belike, some of my audience may not be skilled 
 in the lingo or jargon of the men who, by emi- 
 nence, are called 'thinkers.' Let me observe, 
 then, that such writers and speakers are much in 
 the habit of employing terms peculiar to them- 
 selves. They commonly talk of the 'abstract and 
 the concrete' — the 'object and the subject' — the 
 'objective and the subjective,' and so on. Thus, 
 they term what we see with the outward eye ' ob- 
 jective vision,' while the term 'subjective vision' 
 is used by them to denote either an image of 
 something that we summon up to the mind's eye, 
 as we say, voluntarily — or an image beheld in- 
 voluntarily by the mind, when we happen to be 
 very highly excited, and which, though it seems to 
 be real is only imaginary. 
 
 Now, Strauss asserts that Paul saw nothing out- 
 wardly — nothing real— when he was stricken down 
 by the storm of thunder and lightning, on his way 
 to Damascus : it was only a figure of Christ seen 
 by his mind while he was in a state of very high 
 
LOGICAL TRAP OF STRAUSS. 35 
 
 excitement : the sight was involuntary, and it was 
 merely an instance of ' subjective vision.' 
 
 Mark the next stealthy step of the astute logician. 
 " Remember," says he, " that Paul classes his own 
 seeing, and the seeing of others, all in the same 
 category. So he must mean that the vision of 
 Kephas, and of James, and of all the rest, was, like 
 his own, merely subjective " / 
 
 With the testimony of the Four Gospels before 
 us — the testimony which, by serious investigation, 
 we hold and believe to be true testimony — we feel 
 that this is too impudent an attempt to steal a 
 march upon us. What ! — ten men (or eleven when 
 Thomas was present) all take to dreaming, with 
 their eyes open, that they saw a person stand in 
 the room with them, md heard him speak, and 
 saw him eat, and yet he did not stand there, at all ! 
 One man may fancy he sees what he does not 
 really see, if he be in a state of very high excite- 
 ment; but ten or eleven persons sitting in a room 
 are not likely to get into such an abnormal state — 
 all at once — and altogether. And when many 
 persons are excited together they do not see the 
 same imaginary sights. 
 
36 CREDULITY OF THE INCREDULOUS. 
 
 Sceptics charge Christian believers with credulity 
 but that sceptic must be credulous indeed who can 
 persuade himself that the ten or eleven apostles 
 could all fall to dreaming, with their eyes open, 
 ^at Jesus stood in the room where they were 
 sitting ; that he spoke to them at considerable 
 length, and ate in their presence, after they had 
 handled his body — and yet he neither ate nor 
 spake, neither did they handle him or see him — 
 for he was not with them, at all. This is all so 
 utterly foreign to all human experience — so utterly 
 impossible — that, I repeat, that sceptic must be 
 credulous indeed who can believe it. 
 
GQSPELS NOT ' SKILFUL ' HISTORY. 37 
 
 IV. 
 
 alleged confusion in the gospel narratives 
 of Christ's resurrection. 
 
 " T3 UT, sir, I object to the divarications in the 
 -L ' Resurrection-story," some one will say : " it 
 is like trying to travel a skein of ravelled silk. If 
 one were to grant that it is most probable that your 
 Four Gospels were written by the persons whose 
 names they bear, how can you expect us to give 
 unyielding credit to an account which is so full of 
 intricacy and irreconcileable difficulty?" 
 
 I grant, at once, that the Four Evangelists are 
 not what is called skilful historians. One would 
 never think of comparing them with the masters 
 of historical method — with Hume and Gibbon 
 and Grote, for instance. But I contend that the 
 difficulty of combining the fourfold testimony of 
 the Evangelists into one consistent narrative is not 
 so great as some people say it is. How many of 
 
38 IDLE COMPLAINT OF SCEPTICS, 
 
 the people who object to the ravelled state of the 
 narrative have tried to disentangle it ? If half the 
 effort were made to unravel the difficulties in the 
 Gospel narrative, which is often made by a company 
 of clerks to correct the week's account in a bank- 
 ledger, the ' divarications ' in the last chapters of 
 the Four Gospels would soon vanish. What quiet 
 patience — what calm, strong, fixed attention men 
 display in reckoning money, and in setting the ac- 
 count clear between debtor and creditor ! If there 
 were half the intensity of patient, deep attention 
 shewn in men's pursuit of Truth — in the endeavour 
 to overcome scriptural difficulties, and see our way 
 clearly through them — how soon the task would be 
 accomplished ! 
 
 " Scriptural difficulties, sir! " exclaims the sceptic, 
 indignantly, — " why has the scripture any diffi- 
 culties at all ? Tell me that, sir. If ' Holy Scrip- 
 ture,' as you call it, be what you say it is — a 
 Revelation from God — why is it not a volume 
 remarkable for its plainness and unmistakeable 
 clearness, instead of being full of these 'difficulties' 
 that you are compelled to acknowledge it contains? 
 Why, for instance, was there not given to us one 
 
ABOUT GOSPEL 'DIFFICULTIES.' 39 
 
 clear, simple statement of the facts — if they be 
 facts — of Christ's resurrection, instead of four 
 conflicting accounts ? " 
 
 I ask that sceptical friend to remember the say- 
 ing that "from the mouth of two or three witnesses 
 every word shall be established." No fact is held 
 to be so well ' established ' by a single testimony, 
 as by several. By multiplicity of testimony there 
 is held to be corroboration of fact. It surely is 
 very unreasonable to complain of a book because 
 it aims to strengthen the evidence for a fact, by 
 giving us four testimonies for it instead of one. 
 
 "I tell you. sir," again says the sceptic, "that there 
 can be no corroboration of a pretended fact when it 
 is related by four writers who contradict each other." 
 
 I reply that the Four Evangelists will not be 
 found to contradict one another, in their narratives 
 of Christ's resurrection, if their accounts be patiently 
 and honestly examined. 
 
 "Patiently!" exclaims the sceptic — "why, it 
 seems mere mockery to use such a word. Where- 
 fore is any patience needed? You say your 
 scriptures are Divinely inspired. Then, sir, they 
 ought to agree perfectly and completely. I say, 
 
40 ABSURD NOTIONS OF SOME PEOPLE, 
 
 perfectly and completely — for you will never per- 
 suade me that God would inspire one man to write 
 an account of Christ's resurrection one way, and 
 inspire another man to write it another way." 
 
 Then, to secure such a perfect and complete 
 accordance as you seem to demand — I reply to the 
 sceptic — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John should 
 have written the same number of chapters, the 
 same number of verses, the same number of lines, 
 the same number of words — and the very same 
 words. And, then, if you had brought such a 
 volume to me, I should have felt much inclined to 
 knock it about your ears, and to say ' You dunce, 
 do you call this a copy of the Four Gospels ? It 
 is only one book printed four times over. I pray 
 you take it away ! ;; 
 
 Suppose four witnesses come into a Court of 
 Justice. The first witness waits for no question 
 from the barrister, but delivers all he has to say 
 in a strong voice that cannot be overpowered by all 
 who call upon him to cease. The second witness 
 is equally irregular, will answer no question, nor 
 make any pause, and, moreover, there is no novtlty 
 in his testimony. — What would the Court sav? 
 
ABOUT THE NATURE OF EVIDENCE. 4 1 
 
 " My lord," the leading counsel would say to the 
 judge, "this man is repeating the very words of 
 the first witness." 
 
 " I believe he is," declares the judge. 
 
 "Stop, sir!" cries one barrister after another. 
 But the man will not stop. He will finish his 
 story — and it is, word for word, the story told by 
 the first witness in the case. 
 
 Suppose the third witness to proceed in the same 
 way, and his voice was so stentorian that he could 
 not be silenced, one can imagine how the Jury 
 would touch one another's elbows, and say " These 
 fellows have been at great trouble to get the same 
 tale by heart ; but what noodles they must be to 
 imagine that we shall believe them the more for 
 their silly cunning." 
 
 If the fourth witness ventured to come into 
 Court, and essay to rehearse the same tale, word 
 for word, we feel sure that the indignation would 
 be general ; — and, whether this last witness could 
 or could not be silenced, judge, barristers, and 
 jury would agree to dismiss the case. 
 
 I thought some of my audience who have, most 
 likely, been hard at work, both with head and 
 
42 NO MECHANICAL INSPIRATION. 
 
 hand, throughout the day, were becoming drowsy. 
 So I stepped out of the strict highway of the 
 argument, in order to awaken them. And, now, 
 let us return to our serious theme. 
 
 We know of no doctrine or theory of Divine 
 Inspiration — or, at least, we acknowledge none — 
 which would necessitate our regarding the Four 
 Evangelists as mere penman-machines : mere 
 writers-down of word after word, dictated to 
 them word by word, by the Holy Spirit. God 
 moved them, and guided them, we believe; but 
 He did not destroy their separate identity as 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, any more than 
 He superseded their own voluntary action ot 
 mind. 
 
 We, therefore, read the Four Gospels with the 
 expectation to find, in them, indications of the 
 individual mental constitution or habitude, or other 
 intellectual peculiarities of their writers — just as we 
 expect to find marks of idiosyncrasy (I would not 
 use so long a word, if I knew a short word as 
 suitable) — marks of idiosyncrasy, in other writers. 
 
 I venture to affirm that the accounts of our 
 Lord's resurrection in these Four Gospels will be 
 
SIMPLE MODE OF EXPLANATION. 43 
 
 found to form a consistent narrative, if the accounts 
 be investigated and examined without prejudice. 
 Let it be clearly understood that while I call upon 
 you to listen to me, as I endeavour to set these 
 narratives before you cleared of what some hold to 
 be insuperable difficulties —I shall urge on your 
 acceptance no explanation of an apparent difficulty 
 that may be deemed far-fetched, fanciful, or im- 
 probable. I shall, simply, suggest such explanations 
 as any candid investigator of common history would 
 suggest. I beg of you to keep this in mind; and 
 to remember that it is only by employing such 
 modes of explanation as are common in the critical 
 investigation of history, that I shall claim your 
 assent. 
 
44 HOW CLEARLY CHRIST FORETOLD 
 
 REMARKABLE ACCORDANCE OF THE EVANGELISTS 
 IN THEIR RELATION OF THE CHIEF EVENTS 
 PRELIMINARY TO THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 FIRST, let us observe that all the Four 
 Evangelists give us the positive information 
 that Jesus foretold to the disciples, his death 
 and his resurrection from the dead. The scourg- 
 ing and the spitting and insult are also foretold. 
 The passages are many and I cannot quote 
 them : you must read them for yourselves. And 
 mark, I entreat you, how strictly the passages 
 accord. There are no ' divarications ' to be 
 reconciled here. All is most severely accordant. 
 
 These sorrowful foretellings of the Saviour 
 confounded the disciples : ' they understood not 
 that saying, and they feared to ask him ' : and 
 again ' they wondered what the rising from the 
 dead should mean.' Their preconceived notions 
 
HIS OWN PASSION AND DEATH. 45 
 
 of Christ's temporal Messiahship and its outward 
 grandeur caused them to shrink from the idea 
 of their Master being put to a shameful death. 
 And the thought of his 'rising from the dead,' 
 left them in helpless wonder. We cannot feel 
 any surprise at all this, when we think how 
 fixed and rooted the belief in a temporal Messiah 
 must have been in the minds of the disciples, 
 as it was in the mind of every Jew. 
 
 Their failure to understand and receive what 
 their Master said is not the most important 
 matter for our attention. The fact we have to 
 do with is, that Jesus plainly foretold his 
 betrayal into the hands of sinful men — foretold 
 his crucifixion — foretold his death — and foretold 
 his resurrection on the third day : that he fore- 
 told that all this should be real — a real death 
 and a real resurrection from the dead on the 
 third day. All the Evangelists, I repeat, are 
 fully agreed that Christ foretold all this : there 
 are no ' divarications ' to be explained, or recon- 
 ciled, here. 
 
 Secondly, we have to point to the remarkable 
 accordance of the first three Evangelists — ' the 
 
46 STRICT ACCORDANCE IN COMMON 
 
 synoptics,' as it is the German fashion to call 
 them — in their narratives of the betrayal, the 
 capture, the mockery, the trial, the scourging, and 
 the crucifixion of Christ. The darkness over the 
 earth from the sixth to the ninth hour is related 
 nearly in the same Greek words, by Matthew, 
 Mark, and Luke. The lifting up of the sponge 
 with vinegar, our Lord's cry, the words of the 
 centurion, the rending of the veil of the temple, 
 are also given with most remarkable accordance. 
 
 Some of you who are listening to me may 
 think that there is nothing so very remarkable 
 in the accordance I am speaking of. You may 
 suppose it a very common case to find such 
 accordances in history. But, I beg to assure 
 you that you are very much mistaken, if you 
 think so. I have been a reader of history, from 
 a child ; and, in the course of my life, have read 
 almost every history that I could lay my hands 
 upon j and I declare to you that I feel I could 
 challenge any man to produce, to my eye -sight, 
 any account of the public trial and execution of a 
 public character, so wondrously and circumstan- 
 tially recorded, by several historians, and with 
 
HISTORY, BUT SELDOM FOUND. 47 
 
 such accord, as is this account of the public trial 
 and execution of Jesus of Nazareth, by the 
 Evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke. I beg 
 your close attention to this fact. 
 
 Those among you who have not read much 
 history may be surprised when I tell you, that 
 nothing is more commonly to be found on its 
 pages than real ' divarications ' which are inex- 
 plicable, in the narratives of public trial and 
 execution of public characters. I may point you 
 to the familiar instance of conflicting and irrecon- 
 cileable statement in our own national history, 
 respecting the death of the great Argyle, in the 
 reign of Charles the second. Lord Clarendon, 
 who became Lord Chancellor of England, and 
 must, one would think, have had the clearest 
 sources of information, declares that the Marquis 
 of Argyle was condemned to be hanged, and that 
 the sentence was executed the same day. On 
 the other hand, Bishop Burnet, with Woodrow, 
 Heath, and Echard — three scholarly historians, — 
 affirm that he was tried and condemned, on 
 Saturday, to be beheaded ; but that the sentence 
 was not executed till Monday. Up to this 
 
4© THE INSCRIPTION ON THE CROSS. 
 
 moment, no one can affirm whether Argyle was 
 hanged or beheaded, and whether he died on 
 Saturday or Monday. 
 
 Think of the uncertainty in which we are left 
 respecting the time and manner of the death of a 
 public man which happened in our country only 
 two hundred years ago, and then think of the 
 clear and distinct accordance of Matthew, Mark 
 and Luke in narrating the crucifixion of Christ, 
 which occurred more than eighteen hundred years 
 ago! 
 
 "Stop, sir!" some caviller will be inclined to 
 cry out ; " how can you assert that there is so 
 perfect an accordance in the narratives of Christ's 
 crucifixion? Why, sir, they don't agree in so 
 simple a matter as the inscription on the cross. 
 In one we read that it was 'This is Jesus the 
 King of the Jews ' — in another that it was, simply 
 1 The King of the Jews ' — in the third that it was 
 1 This is the King of the Jews ' — and in the last 
 that it was ' Jesus of Nazareth the King of the 
 Jews.' " 
 
 A very little learning will explain all that, my 
 friends. And, remember, workingmen — for it is 
 
ALLEGED ' DISCREPANCIES ' IN IT. 49 
 
 to you I always address myself — remember that 
 it often needs a little learning to enable a man 
 to explain a difficulty. Don't make the foolish 
 speech which I so often heard from London 
 sceptics when I contended with them, during 
 those twenty-one months, nearly twenty years 
 ago — "Give us no more of your learning — your 
 Latin and Greek — to explain difficulties : it is 
 only an attempt to trick us." I call such speeches 
 foolish — because I feel sure if workingmen will 
 call to mind that these Gospels were written well 
 on to two thousand years ago, and were written in 
 ancient Greek, which is now a dead language, 
 they must perceive at once that some little 
 learning, at any rate, is needed to explain the 
 difficulties we think we find in them. 
 
 I keep in mind that I said I should not offer to 
 you any explanation of a difficulty, but such-a-one 
 as I should offer to explain a difficulty in common 
 history. And now I beg of you to call to mind 
 how it is stated, in two of the Gospels, that the 
 inscription on the cross 'was written in Hebrew 
 and Greek and Latin.' St. Matthew, undoubtedly, 
 quotes the Hebrew inscription » 
 
 4 
 
50 A HINT ABOUT LANGUAGE, 
 
 " The Hebrew inscription, sir ! " interrupts some 
 sceptical workingman, impatiently, "why, surely 
 you don't mean to tell us that it is at all probable 
 that Pilate would express what he meant in three 
 or four different ways ! Pray, sir ! vn the name of 
 common-sense, don't try to pe'*«uade us that the 
 inscriptions in Hebrew and Greek and Latin were 
 unlike. The words in the Hebrew must have 
 been represented by words of exactly the same 
 meaning, both in the Greek and the Latin." 
 
 My reply to that workingman is J — My dear 
 friend, I must beg of you not to be offended, when 
 I tell you that you do not understand Language, 
 as a study, or you would not say what you have 
 just now said. Words are not always represented 
 in one language by words of exactly the same 
 meaning in another language. Some of the young 
 ladies in this assembly are, doubtless, readers of 
 French, and they will assure you that you could 
 not, in one word, say ' twice* in that language. 
 There is no single word in French which means 
 twice; and that is the reason why a Frenchman 
 who speaks broken English will tell you that he 
 did a certain act i two times.' Then, there is that 
 
THAT WORKINGMEN SHOULD NOTICE. 5 1 
 
 peculiarity of expression called ' idiom/ in every 
 language ; and words are not always arranged, in 
 one language, in the same order as they are in 
 another: in English we should say a black man; 
 but it would be ' man black ' in many other 
 languages ; and if a Latin scholar had to tell you 
 how he had to read a passage in Cicero, he would, 
 perhaps, shew you that he had to begin with a 
 word at the head of the passage and then to go 
 seven or eight lines farther down the page for the 
 next word — the verb — without which he could not 
 read the passage, at all. 
 
 Let me say again — Matthew undoubtedly quotes 
 the Hebrew inscription. He wrote for Jews. 
 You will see that to be perfectly clear, if you 
 read him closely. Chrysostom tells us he wrote 
 his gospel at the request of the Christian church 
 in Jerusalem; and the early Fathers tell us he 
 wrote it in Hebrew : of course they mean the 
 Hebrew spoken in our Lord's time — the Syriac, 
 as we call it now. 
 
 Mark — you will learn by proper enquiry — writes 
 down the substance of Peter's preaching, being 
 Peter's interpreter at Rome and elsewhere. So 
 
52 
 
 PILATE S REASON FOR WRITING 
 
 Mark would not copy any of the inscriptions, 
 Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. He would give the 
 sting of the inscription, just as Peter gave it, in his 
 preaching: 'the King of the Jews.' — "What do 
 you mean by calling that the sting of the inscrip- 
 tion ? " some of you may ask. I will tell you. 
 You will remember how Pontius Pilate is de- 
 scribed as being most unwilling to condemn Christ 
 — how he strives to release him — and how he 
 publicly washes his hands, according to Matthew^ 
 to shew his innocence of the blood of Jesus — and 
 how, at last, Pilate was stung into action by the 
 cry ' If thou let this man go thou art not Cresar's 
 friend ! ' That cry warned Pilate that the Jewish 
 priests and rulers meant to impeach him to the 
 Roman emperor and senate, if he did not comply 
 with their blood-thirsty demand. So he condemns 
 Christ, and stings the priests and rulers in return, 
 by placing an inscription over the head of Christ 
 which describes the crucified Saviour as 'the 
 King of the Jews.' See how they fume when 
 they have read the inscription ! They know 
 that the transaction will be reported, in full, to 
 the Roman emperor and senate, by Pilate ; and 
 
THAT INSCRIPTION ON THE CROSS. 53 
 
 their long-standing bad character for rebellion be 
 thus increased. 
 
 " Write not, ' The King of the Jews/ say the 
 chief priests to Pilate, " but— that he said * I ant 
 the King of the Jews/ " — " What I have written I 
 have written," was the stern and scornful answer 
 they had from Piiate. He discerned that they 
 had been plotting his ruin ; and this inscription 
 above the cross was the beginning -of his counter- 
 plot. He knew that when the report of the trans- 
 action was read at Rome, it would be said, 
 immediately, either in the Senate, or by the im- 
 perial secretaries — "This Pilate is just the man 
 to hold the reins tight among these rebellious 
 Jews : he has crucified another of their pretended 
 kings." 
 
 The evangelist Luke is the most classic writer 
 of the Four, and it is most probable that he gives 
 us his Greek version of the Latin inscription. 
 ' Rex Judajorum hie ! ' it would read, in scornful 
 style : literally, ' King of the Jews — this ! ' 
 
 John, writing thirty years after the three other 
 evangelists, and in the polished Asiatic-Greek city 
 of Ephesus, would quote the Greek inscription, 
 
54 SMALL CAVILS SHOULD BE NOTED. 
 
 which would be full and flowing, according to 
 the genius of that most beautiful language : ' Jesus 
 of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.' 
 
 I have occupied a longer time than may have 
 been thought necessary, by some of you who think 
 it but a petty and unworthy cavil to object to the 
 difference in the inscriptions over the head of the 
 crucified Christ. But experience has taught me 
 that it is better to remove the smallest causes of 
 cavil from the minds of workingmen, than to let 
 them go unanswered. In this instance I have 
 only given such an explanation as I should have 
 given to clear away a similar difficulty in common 
 history ; and I have given it because I believe it 
 to be the true explanation. 
 
 To resume : it was to the remarkable accord- 
 ance of the narratives of Matthew, Mark, and 
 Luke, concerning the betrayal, capture, trial, and 
 crucifixion of Christ, that I was endeavouring to 
 secure your attention. I did not mention John, 
 for a reason that will be evident to you if you 
 spend a little time in comparing him with the 
 other three. He would, undoubtedly, have the 
 Gospels of ' the synoptics ' before him, and so 
 
ST. JOHN STANDING BY THE CROSS. 55 
 
 only felt it his duty to fill in their triple narrative, as 
 it were, with such facts as they had left unnoted, 
 while he would deem it needless to go through all 
 the painful story step by step, as fully as thev had 
 done. He would see no reason to add testimony 
 where there was already testimony enough, anr 1 
 such clear and concurrent testimony, too. 
 
 But, let it not be thought that the beloved 
 disciple was to take no important part in com- 
 pleting the Gospel narrative. At the risk of being 
 thought credulous, I declare to you that I regard it 
 as a blessed special providence, that the loving 
 disciple stood by the cross at the death of his 
 Master, and was thus able to give us this most 
 important testimony : — 
 
 " Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of 
 the first, and of the other which was crucified with 
 him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that 
 he was dead already, they brake not his legs. But 
 one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, 
 and forthwith came thereout blood and water. 
 And he that saw it bear record, and his record is 
 true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye 
 might believe" 
 
56 sx. John's invaluable record. 
 
 Might believe what? Why does John use such 
 peculiar words? Might believe that Christ was 
 really dead: that it was not a sham death, nor a 
 case of fainting or swooning. Had Jesus been 
 alive when the Roman soldier pierced his side 
 with the spear, the blood— which would have been 
 running its rapid course through the heart, arteries 
 and veins — must have gushed out in a torrent. 
 But Jesus was dead and his blood was ' setting ' as 
 we say into congealment. So there came forth 
 only a little blood (not a stream) with water. The 
 soldier's spear had pierced the heart and the peri- 
 cardium or bag which holds it, and in which there 
 is a portion of water. Such was the opinion of 
 Erasmus and Beza j and the highest modern phy- 
 sicians corroborate it : they say that John's pecu- 
 liar narrative attests the death of Christ in the 
 most remarkable manner. And I cannot help 
 thinking that the soldier who pierced the Saviour's 
 side was a veteran who was accustomed, thus, to 
 test the fact whether a crucified person were really 
 dead. 
 
 Thirdly : I entreat you to observe the like re- 
 markable accordance of the Four evangelists, in 
 
The stone rolled to the door. 57 
 
 their narrative of the circumstances of Christ's 
 burial. They each and all give us the name 
 'Joseph of Arimathea,' as that of the rich man, 
 and honourable counsellor, who went in and begged 
 the body of Jesus, from Pilate ; they each and all 
 tell us the body was wrapped in linen ; two of them 
 tell us the sepulchre was hewn out of a rock ; two 
 of them say ' man had never been lain ' in it ; and 
 another calls it ' new ' ; and two of them say a 
 stone was rolled to the door of it : a ' great stone/ 
 says Matthew. 
 
 " But why do not the other two evangelists men- 
 tion the stone, I want to know, since you assert 
 there is so great accordance among them?" says 
 another sceptical critic. 
 
 I reply that the other two evangelists do mention 
 the stone — only they defer the mention of it till 
 they have to relate that the women found it rolled 
 away when Christ was risen. And then, let it also 
 be observed that Mark corroborates Matthew by 
 calling it a ' very great' stone. 
 
 John gives us the particular information thai 
 Nicodemus assisted in the burial of Christ. 
 
 " But Matthew, Mark, and Luke know nothing 
 
58 SOMETHING ADOUT NICODEMUS. 
 
 about that," cries out another objector — "do you 
 call that accordance ? " 
 
 I answer that you have no ground for saying 
 they knew nothing about it. If you had said that 
 they say nothing about it, you would have been 
 right. I will give you the reason why they say 
 nothing about it. It is because Nicodemus (the 
 shy, timid ruler who ' came to Jesus by night,' not 
 having the courage to come in the day time) would 
 be unwilling to let his name be published, in his 
 life time. When John wrote his ' supplementary 
 gospel,' as it is often called, — so long after the 
 others — no doubt Nicodemus was dead ; and there 
 was now no motive for John to withhold the men- 
 tion of his name. I should have given the same 
 explanation of this alleged difficulty, had it occurred 
 in the pages of common history j and I give this 
 explanation, also, because I believe it to be the 
 true one. 
 
 Lastly : I beg of you to observe how the first 
 three evangelists relate, with perfect accordance, 
 that the Galilean women beheld the sepulchre, and 
 how Jesus was laid. 
 
MATTHEW WROTE FOR JEWS. 59 
 
 VI. 
 
 WHY MATTHEW ONLY TELLS US OF THE WATCH 
 
 AT THE SEPULCHRE. COWARDLY CONDUCT 
 
 OF THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 BEFORE we pass on to consider the fourfold 
 narrative of the Resurrection contained in 
 the Gospels, we will, if you please, attend to the 
 account respecting the watch at the tomb, which 
 is related by Matthew only 
 
 11 And why by Matthew only ? " demands 
 another sceptical hearer. 
 
 Because Matthew wrote for the Jews, as I said 
 to you before ; and this story about the disciples 
 stealing the body of Jesus out of the tomb while 
 the guards slept was circulated among the Jews, 
 only. Matthew felt it to be his duty to contradict 
 the false story, and to rehearse what he learned 
 to be true about the experience of the guards,—- 
 especially, as he knew that the false story was yet 
 
60 WHY THE PRIESTS ASKED FOR 
 
 in circulation among the foreign Jews. Nay, 
 Justin Martyr, in the second century, relates that 
 the Sanhedrim sent agents among the foreign 
 Jews, to propagate it. And Celsus, the opponent 
 of Christianity, repeats the false story, also in the 
 second century. But the story was so silly, and 
 so self-contradictory, that the later Evangelists did 
 not think it worth insertion in their narratives, 
 which were intended for Gentile reading more than 
 for Jewish : in other words for readers who had 
 never heard of the story, and who would only 
 think it worthless when told. 
 
 The enemies of Christ, who were always mark- 
 ing his words, and seeking to ' entangle him in his 
 talk ' and make him commit himself, had marked 
 his saying, as often as he had uttered it — that if 
 they slew him he would rise in three days. The 
 simple disciples had also heard Christ's prophetic 
 declaration ; but they ' wondered what the rising 
 from the dead should mean ' : indeed, they do not 
 seem to have had the slightest perception of its 
 real meaning. The chief priests suspected that 
 there was some design in Christ's saying, — for 
 they regarded every word he uttered as the 
 
A WATCH, AT THE SEPULCHRE. 6 1 
 
 word of a deceiver, and regarded his own person 
 with the bitterest hatred. So they come to Pilate 
 and tell him of their suspicion as to the design in 
 Christ's saying, and that they fear his disciples 
 may steal his body away by night and then give it 
 out that he is risen from the dead. Although 
 they assure Pilate that they feel much apprehen- 
 sion of mischief, he does not seem to pay them 
 much regard, and dismisses them, as before, with 
 scornful brevity : 'Ye have a watch : go your way! 
 make it as sure as ye can ! ' 
 
 ' Ye have a watch,' the commentators conclude, 
 means — ' There is the constant and ordinary watch 
 in the tower of Antonia — take as many men from 
 it as you think you need ! ' And they set the 
 watch and sealed the great stone : sealed it, n.ost 
 likely, with the great seal of the Sanhedrim. 
 Nothing is told us ; but we may imagine the 
 soldiers pacing, in grim array, with their swords in 
 their hands, up and down the rocky pavement of 
 the garden, before the sepulchre, through the 
 night until near the dawn. Suddenly, there is an 
 earthquake, and the angel of the Lord appears, 
 rolls back the great stone from the door, and sits 
 
62 SANHEDRIM, AND THE SOLDIERS. 
 
 upon it. ' His countenance was like lightning 
 and his raiment white as snow; and for fear of 
 him the keepers did shake, and became as dead 
 men.' 
 
 When they recovered their senses, they would 
 not see the angel : he would be no longer visible 
 to them ; but they would run from the sepulchre 
 in terror — one may say in common English — as 
 fast as their legs would carry them : none of them, 
 we imagine, having courage enough to look into 
 the sepulchre, before they departed. Most likely 
 the Sanhedrim would send a messenger to go 
 and look at the empty tomb, when they had 
 heard the statement made by the Roman guard. 
 The messenger would return and tell them that 
 there was no corpse in the tomb. 
 
 And, now, what do the Sanhedrim ? — what are 
 their real convictions ? The soldiers have, doubt- 
 less, been keenly questioned, and they all declare 
 they kept their watch most faithfully. And there 
 they stand — some of them looking pale, yet ; and 
 none of them manifesting any signs of guile. 
 If they were all Romans they would describe the 
 supernatural personage they had seen, is one of 
 
CONFUSION OF THE SANHEDRIM. 63 
 
 the gods. The chief priests cannot treat their 
 story with contempt — but what were the real con- 
 victions of the Sanhedrim ? 
 
 Many of them, no doubt, were so confounded 
 that they could not announce any clear conviction. 
 But I hold it to be beyond a doubt that some 
 among them would openly avow their belief that 
 the Magician, the great deceiver, who was in the 
 habit and practice of casting out daemons by 
 Beelzebub the prince of the daemons, had escaped 
 death by a compact with the Evil Spirit, who had 
 really rolled away the stone from the door of the 
 sepulchre to release him. These stronger and 
 more malign minds would not be able to persuade 
 the other members of the Sanhedrim, at once; and 
 so the scheme would be resorted to of bribing the 
 guards to tell a false tale. They gave the watch 
 1 large money ' ; and they would have need to 
 do so — for the watch would not think themselves 
 secure from punishment, by the promise which the 
 Sanhedrim gave them to 'persuade' the governor, 
 if it came to his ears, and to secure the watch 
 from his anger. The guards would feel certain 
 that Pilate would put them to death, if they said 
 
64 COWARDICE OF THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 they had slept on guard — for that was death, by 
 Roman military law. 
 
 If any members of the Sanhedrim did believe 
 that the dead body of Christ had been stolen, why 
 did they not insist on a strict enquiry ? Why were 
 not Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus sum- 
 moned to the bar of the Sanhedrim, and compelled 
 to answer the most searching enquiries ? Sum- 
 moned ! Most likely they were present at this 
 very meeting of the Jewish supreme council — and 
 from them Matthew had all the items of his narra- 
 tive; but their behaviour would manifest their 
 entire innocence — nay their evident concern and 
 alarm would increase the alarm and confusion of 
 others. 
 
 To hush it all up ! — that was judged to be the 
 wisest proceeding — for a guilty feeling would be 
 predominant with, perhaps, the greater number of 
 them. Might not Jesus have really risen from 
 the dead ? What evil had he done ? — as Pilate 
 demanded of them. Had they not sinned greatly 
 in compelling Pilate to condemn him to be cruci- 
 fied ? Their hearts had often quaked when they 
 heard of him— when he rode into Jerusalem and 
 
STRENGTH OF JEWISH CHARACTER. 65 
 
 the crowd shouted ' Hosanna to the son of David'; 
 and when they heard that he had raised Lazarus 
 to life ; and when they were told of other mighty 
 miracles which he had wrought. But they had 
 stubbornly resisted conviction — ay, with a stub- 
 bornness of which Jews alone are capable ! 
 
 If one could allege no other reason for God's 
 selection of the Jews as His peculiar people, one 
 might find a commanding reason in their strength 
 of character. Oh, of what strong stuff the Jews 
 are made ! How ineffaceable is the whole type of 
 the Jew ! His very physiognomy is the same in 
 all ages. Witness those pictures in our British 
 Museum, copied from Egyptian monuments which 
 are three thousand years old ! His immoveable 
 obstinacy is the same now, as it was of old. The 
 Romans had more trouble with the Jews, when 
 they had conquered little Palestine, than ever they 
 had with any people whom they brought under 
 their yoke. The Jews were always rebellious. 
 And no persecution, however fierce, in the Middle 
 Ages, could break the adamantine strength of 
 Jewish character. And its strength is as vigorous 
 as ever : in the acquirement of wealth, in states- 
 
 5 
 
66 ABSURDITY OF THE STORY 
 
 manship, in learning, in criticism, in science, in 
 art — above all in the divine art and science of 
 music, and in superlative powers of song — the 
 Jews either vie with the foremost, or are the fore- 
 most themselves ! Have we not a Jew premier ? 
 I ask, could that man have won his way to such 
 an elevation, in this old land of prejudice and 
 privilege, if he had not been a man of real genius, 
 and of extraordinary force of character ? 
 
 I repeat, the Sanhedrim stubbornly resisted con- 
 viction, although Jesus gave them the clearest 
 proofs of his true Messiahship ; and now, they 
 give ' large money ' to the soldiers to say that 
 Christ's disciples stole his dead body from the 
 tomb while they — the guard — guiltily slept ! It 
 was a most absurd proceeding — but they could 
 devise no way out of their difficulty, except trying 
 to hush up the truth. 
 
 "Say, His disciples stole him away while we 
 slept." Say, that you knew what was being done 
 while you were fast asleep ! Say, that you think 
 the disciples must have stepped on tip-toe, when 
 they removed the stone, for they did it without 
 noise, or it must have awaked you ! What the 
 
that Christ's body was stolen. 67 
 
 soldiers were to say when other questions were 
 asked, .they were not instructed to say. How was 
 it the clothes were left in the sepulchre? — some 
 would question them. Since the thieves must 
 have been in a hurry, why did they not run away 
 with the corpse wrapped up in the grave-clothes as 
 they found it ? What could the disciples of Christ 
 do with his dead body ? How could their pos- 
 session of it answer any purposes of imposture ? 
 Could they shew it publicly and say — " Look ! 
 do you not see that he is risen from the dead ? ' 
 
 The silliness of the story was not seen by those 
 who invented it — for their confusion and fear and 
 malignity blinded them. But we see it, now ; and 
 we cannot wonder that so foolish a story was soon 
 worn out, and that, after Matthew had alluded 
 to it, it was passed by, in silence, by the other 
 Evangelists. 
 
68 NO MAN, AND PERHAPS, NO ANGEL, 
 
 VII. 
 
 TWO REMARKABLE FACTS CONSIDERED : THAT NO 
 MAN SAW JESUS RISE FROM THE DEAD \ 
 AND, THAT HE APPEARED ONLY TO ' CHOSEN 
 WITNESSES.' 
 
 LET us not hasten on, and miss one serious 
 reflection. Be it strictly observed that there 
 is no record of any one seeing the Saviour rise from 
 the dead. We are sure that no human eye saw 
 Christ rise from the dead. The Roman guards 
 beheld the terrible countenance of the angel who 
 descended from heaven and rolled back the huge 
 stone from the door of the sepulchre; and, then, 
 they swooned away with fear. They did not see 
 the Saviour rise. Nor did the mighty angel come 
 to release Jesus from his deathly prison ; but, to 
 open the tomb that all who came to look for him 
 might see it was empty. 
 
 Bishop Beveridge speaks of "two angels who," 
 
SAW CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD. 69 
 
 he says, saw Christ " not only risen, but rising, and 
 assisted him in it, rolling away the stone." But 
 there is no Scripture for this. Whether any of the 
 angels saw Christ rise, we cannot tell. And what 
 time the glorious Second Person of the Ever- 
 blessed Trinity raised that human body, took it 
 out of the sepulchre, and joined it again to the 
 human soul, and — for ever — to His Own glorious 
 Divinity, we cannot tell. And whether by the 
 human hands of the risen Saviour, or by the 
 ministration of angels, those grave-clothes were 
 folded together, and that face-napkin was 'neatly 
 wrapped up ' and laid in a place by itself, and not 
 with the linen clothes — we cannot tell. The Son 
 of God, who declared of His Own life — "I have 
 power to lay it down, and I have power to take it 
 again " — took away his raised body from the tomb, 
 in a way, and at a time, that we know not of. 
 
 But we cannot be surprised at this. We could 
 not expect that human eyes would be permitted to 
 pry curiously over the very act of the bodily re- 
 surrection of Christ. I say, we cannot be surprised 
 at the great negative fact that no human eye saw 
 the Saviour rise from the dead — for it is in strict 
 
70 GREAT WORKINGS IN NATURE, 
 
 keeping with all God's great procedures in Natuie. 
 You examine your own limbs ; — you mark the fit- 
 ting of the joints, and the ordering of the sinews 
 and muscles and nerves and arteries and veins in 
 your own body ; — and you scan the bodies of the 
 animals ; and you say, — reasoning by analogy — and 
 reasoning most infallibly, too — "What wondrous 
 design and contrivance ! ;> 
 
 But — the wondrous Designer Himself? We 
 cannot see Him. Matter attracts matter, and 
 the loadstone especially attracts iron, and various 
 metals have affinities for other metals. But what 
 is attraction ? — what is chemical affinity ? We 
 cannot tell. We cannot see either. What is this 
 force we seem to create by placing slices of copper 
 and zinc, or silver and zinc near one another, and 
 surrounding them with a liquid acid, so that we 
 can send a message through a wire at the rate of 
 190,000 miles in a second? We cannot tell. 
 We cannot see it. How does the Mind — Ourself — 
 use the brain and nerves, to see and hear and 
 smell and taste and feel ? They tell us we ought 
 to call k Nervous Force. But what is it? AVe 
 cannot tell. We cannot see it. 
 
LIKE CHRIST S RESURRECTION, UNSEEN. 7 I 
 
 Oh, how often, as we glance at the great realm of 
 Nature, and feel ourselves set fast with its multitu- 
 dinous wonders and mysteries, we feel compelled to 
 cry out, in the language of the ancient prophet — 
 1 Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself ! ' So 
 it is here. No man sees Christ rise from the dead. 
 God leaves man to collect the evidence for himself, 
 as He does in the great realm of Nature. The 
 Maker of all things is essentially invisible. We 
 see His works, and we must gather the great truth 
 of His existence from them. So it is here. We 
 must gather the evidence for the truth of Christ's 
 resurrection for ourselves. What are our mate- 
 rials ? 
 
 " Stop, sir ! " cries out again, one of our scepti- 
 cal friends ; "how can you expect me to believe 
 that Jesus of Nazareth rose again from the dead, 
 if there be not a single eye-witness of the actual 
 fact ? Oh, sir, if his resurrection were really of so 
 much importance to us all, as you so emphatically 
 proclaimed it to be in your introduction, I should 
 have thought it would have been emblazoned on 
 the page of history as such an incontestable and 
 well-witnessed fact, that no one could possibly have 
 
72 NOT A GLARING, BUT SOBER 
 
 doubted it. I should have expected that a most 
 glowing and triumphant statement would have been 
 handed down to us, in history : how all Jerusalem 
 was awoke by an earthquake — that legions of 
 angels were beheld in the sky, proclaiming, with 
 harps and trumpets, that Jesus was about to rise — 
 that all Jerusalem saw him burst the tomb, and 
 ascend in splendour — and then, that he himself and 
 the angels slowly faded from human sight, as they 
 went up to heaven ! ' ; 
 
 And what would your favourite historical critics, 
 with their astuteness, and acumen, and so on, have 
 said to such an account, my sceptical friend ? 
 
 " Oh !" they would have cried, " this is a wilder 
 story than even the flight of Elijah, in the fiery 
 chariot ! What monstrous romance ! They who 
 wrote such a story — so utterly unlike all human 
 experience — could only expect it to be believed by 
 dotards and children. A fine tale for the nursery, 
 certainly." 
 
 No, no ! God's word does not furnish us with 
 any flashy and startling record of the resurrection 
 of His Son, in order to win our reliance upon the 
 truth of the fact. None of them saw Christ rise ; 
 
STORY, HOW THE SAVIOUR ROSE. 73 
 
 but He manifested Himself after His resurrection 
 to "chosen witnesses" — "To whom" says Luke, 
 " He shewed Himself alive, after His passion, by- 
 many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty 
 days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the 
 kingdom of God." 
 
 "But why to chosen witnesses'} " asks again our 
 sceptical friend. 
 
 Because, if the witnesses had been any sort of 
 people, they would have been no witnesses, to us. 
 Just think a little, I beseech you, good friends. 
 What kind of witnesses do we really need for such 
 an unique fact as the resurrection of Jesus ot 
 Nazareth from the dead? The unspeakable 
 importance of such a fact leads every one of us 
 to demand that the witnesses shall have two great 
 qualifications : they must be moral characters 
 of the most exceptional sincerity and upright- 
 ness; and they must be able to testify without 
 mistake. 
 
 No one could give us testimony of any value 
 who did not know Jesus of Nazareth. If Jesus 
 had appeared in a large, mixed crowd in the 
 streets of Jerusalem, many who had seen him 
 
74 SENSIBLE THOUGHTS OF DR. SOUTH. 
 
 before might not have been able to identify him, 
 and some would not have known him, at all. 
 
 And, suppose Jesus had shewn himself to the 
 priests, and members of the Sanhedrim, who 
 brought him to trial — what kind of treatment 
 would he have received from them? Just such 
 kind of treatment as Dr. South shrewdly points 
 out, in one of his sermons : they would, if they 
 recognized him,, have given immediate orders to 
 seize him, and drag him away again to crucifixion. 
 And, then, he would have freed himself from 
 their wicked power, by vanishing out of sight. 
 And what would his enraged and disappointed 
 persecutors have said, then ? — "Oh ! this is 
 the great magician — the deceiver — the impostor, 
 who casts out daemons by Beelzebub the prince 
 of the daemons ! This appearing to us, and 
 vanishing in a moment, is one of his old magical 
 tricks ! " 
 
 This is what they would have said, as surely 
 as you and I are alive. They were fixed in 
 their resolve ?wt to believe in Him. The only 
 Messiah they would believe in must be a con- 
 quering Messiah : one who could banish the 
 
GOOD SENSE OF BISHOP SHERLOCK. 75 
 
 Romans, and set up a grand temporal kingdom. 
 They would not have the Crucified One, with 
 his spirituality and purity — even if he had risen 
 again from the dead. Therefore, if Christ had 
 shewn himself to them, as the risen Messiah, it 
 could have answered no good purpose. Christ 
 knew that ; and so he said to them, openly, and 
 before they seized him to crucify him — " Behold, 
 your house is left unto you desolate ; for, I say 
 unto you, that ye shall not see me, henceforth, till 
 ye say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of 
 the Lord !" 
 
 We see the reason why Christ appeared only 
 to chosen witnesses. It was for the reason that 
 Bishop Sherlock alleges : that they might be good 
 witnesses : that is to say, witnesses who had 
 familiarly known the Saviour, who had travelled 
 with him, eaten with him, listened to his teaching 
 over and over again, day by day, during the 
 three years of his teaching : witnesses who knew 
 him so well that they could not possibly be mis- 
 taken, and suppose it was the same Jesus of 
 Nazareth they had formerly known, if it were 
 really some other person. They who were the 
 
76 DR. SAMUEL CLARKE'S INTELLIGENT 
 
 chosen witnesses were, in all these respects, the 
 good witnesses we need. 
 
 " The wisdom of God," says the great Samuel 
 Clarke, " provided as many unquestionable wit- 
 nesses of the Resurrection of Christ, as the nature 
 of the thing required ; as was sufficient to make 
 the fact incontestable ; as was satisfactory to 
 any reasonable and unprejudiced person. To 
 work more miracles for the sake of obstinate and 
 vicious unbelievers, God was not obliged. And, if 
 He had done it, the objection would still have 
 increased without end. For, if it was not sufficient 
 that Christ shewed Himself openly to a number of 
 witnesses, but it had been necessary that he should 
 appear personally to the whole city of Jerusalem, — 
 for the same reason it might be fancied necessary 
 that he should have shewn himself to the whole 
 yewish nation; and, for the same reason, to all 
 other Nations likewise \ and to these, in every age 
 of the world, as well as in one age ; and that, to 
 every single person, it one miraculous appearance 
 were not sufficient, he might have shewn himself 
 often and with more miraculous circumstances ; and 
 so on, without end. Which shews plainly the 
 
REASONINGS ON TESTIMONY. 77 
 
 unreasonableness of all such expectations, when 
 men are not satisfied with that evidence which is 
 fit and sufficient in its kina.'"' 
 
 And now, let us proceed to consider the record 
 which contains the testimony of the chosen wit- 
 nesses.— 
 
78 ANOTHER SCEPTICAL OBJECTION, 
 
 VITT. 
 
 SOME MINOR CONSIDERATIONS PREPARATORY TO A 
 SURVEY OF THE RECORD WHICH CONTAINS THE 
 MOST VITAL PART OF THE EVIDENCE. 
 
 " \T AY, sir," once more interrupts some scep- 
 •L ^ tical friend, " I shall demur to your going 
 on, till you have cleared up another difficulty 
 which you seem purposely to have shunned, as it 
 you did not like to tackle it, lest you should fail. 
 It may be that you think the difficulty of no im- 
 portance ; but it seems important to us who are 
 
 not believers " 
 
 Go to the point, at once, friend, and tell us your 
 difficulty, be it great or small. 
 
 "You know, sir," proceeds our friend, "that 
 your Gospels say Jesus declared that he would rise 
 again ' in three days/ or ' on the third day ' ; 
 and, in your First Gospel, Jesus is strangely repre- 
 sented as declaring that ' the Son of Man ' — him- 
 
EXPOSTULATION WITH THE OBJECTOR. 79 
 
 self—' should be three days and three nights in 
 the heart of the earth.' Now, sir, tell me, in 
 plain, honest language, and without any shuffling, 
 how you can make it out that Christ spoke the 
 truth, — since all of you tell us he died about three 
 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, and rose again some 
 time on a Sunday morning. According to our 
 common English reckoning that would only 
 amount to one whole day, a part of another day, 
 and two nights." 
 
 Depend upon it, my friend, you shall have an 
 answer in plain, honest language, and without 
 shuffling. You talk of our common English 
 reckoning ; but I beg of you to remember that it is 
 not an English reckoning with which we have to 
 deal. I call upon any workingman, who is present 
 to-night — however sceptical he may be — to listen 
 to me with candour. You know we did not make 
 the ancient languages, and we cannot be account- 
 able for any method of reckoning time that was in 
 use by any ancient nation. Many of their usages 
 differed from ours \ and among the rest, their way 
 of reckoning time. 
 
 Suppose any of our kings reigned ten years and 
 
80 THE EXPOSTULATION CONTINUED. 
 
 one week — we should say he reigned ten years. 
 But, in the ancient canon of Ptolemy, which 
 scholars reckon to be a most valuable piece oi 
 ancient chronology, the odd week entitles the dead 
 king to be set down as having reigned eleven years. 
 It was a prevailing custom among ancient nations 
 to reckon in this manner. 
 
 Ask any Jew in London how his people reckon 
 the days with regard to the practice of circum- 
 cision. You read, in the Pentateuch, that the child 
 must be circumcised on the ' eighth day.' How do 
 they reckon the days ? Suppose a child to be born 
 on Monday afternoon, although the Jewish day 
 ends, usually, at six in the evening, the short part 
 of Monday will be reckoned one whole day, and 
 the child must be circumcised on the following 
 Monday. We English folk call that period a week, 
 or seven days \ but the Jewish reckoning makes it 
 eight. You know we cannot alter this : then 
 custom has lasted for ages ; and we must be con- 
 tent to settle what we deem a difficulty, by using 
 the Jewish method of reckoning time. I could 
 point you to Grotius, the friend of Milton, and 
 other learned authorities, to shew that a few hours 
 
THE "THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS.' 8l 
 
 often stand, in the Jewish reckoning, for what we 
 should call a night and a day — but I know thaf 
 workingmen do not like to be troubled with 
 learned references. 
 
 You must look at the fact that Jesus at the 
 ninth hour — that is at three in the afternoon— 
 of Friday, 'gave up the ghost, and said, It is 
 finished ' j and you must take the Jewish reckon- 
 ing which would make the remaining three hours 
 of Friday, the first day — that is to say a whole 
 day : a night and a day. Then, from six o'clock 
 on Friday evening to six o'clock on Saturday 
 evening, is the second day : another night and 
 day. And from six o'clock on Saturday evening, 
 to the hour at which Christ rose on Sunday 
 morning, is the third day ; another night and day. 
 So, as strange as it may seem to our English 
 minds, the period would stand for " three days 
 and three nights," to the Jewish mind. 
 
 I have given you ' in plain, honest language, 
 and without any shuffling,' the real solution of 
 this difficulty — which has often been presented to 
 me by sceptical workingmen, who frequently find 
 their greatest difficulties in what seem, to old- 
 
 6 
 
82 THE LAST TWELVE VERSES 
 
 fashioned Christians, very trifling obstacles to a 
 man's reception of sound evangelical truth. 
 
 Without further hindrance, I trust we may now 
 go on to consider the really central and important 
 part of the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, 
 contained in the New Testament : I mean, the 
 record concerning the witnesses who saw Jesus 
 after he rose from the dead. This record is con- 
 tained in the last chapter of St. Matthew ; the first 
 eight verses of the last chapter of St. Mark ; the 
 last chapter of St. Luke ; the two last chapters 
 of St. John ; several passages in the Acts ; and 
 one passage in St. Paul's first epistle to the 
 Corinthians. 
 
 Some of you may feel a little surprise that I 
 have limited the record in St. Mark to the first 
 eight verses of the last chapter of his gospel. I 
 do so, from what I believe to be sound reasons. 
 The last twelve verses in our common English 
 version of St. Mark are not found in that most 
 ancient manuscript, the Vatican ; neither are they 
 found in the Sinaitic, the very ancient manu- 
 script recently discovered by Dr. Tischendorf. 
 They arc marked as ' doubtful ' in several nianu- 
 
NOT WRITTEN BY ST. MARK. 83 
 
 scripts. The verses are not in the style or manner, 
 and. often, not in the language, of St. Mark's 
 Gospel. 
 
 For some reason — perhaps, because he was 
 suddenly seized, and put to death, with St. Peter, 
 at Rome, during Nero's persecution of the Chris- 
 tians — Mark seems to have left his Gospel 
 unfinished ; and some other hand added these 
 twelve verses, that his Gospel might not remain 
 an incomplete record. There can be no doubt 
 that the twelve verses are very ancient, for one ot 
 them is quoted by Irenasus, in the second century; 
 and the twelve verses are found entire in the Alex- 
 andrian manuscript, which is held to be of the fifth 
 century. I might have passed by these twelve verses 
 without any remark. But, as I had resolved not 
 to make any use of them, in our discussion and 
 consideration of the Gospel narrative, I feel it is 
 better to give you my honest conviction that they 
 are not a part of the original Gospel of St. Mark 
 I have not come to this conclusion rashly; but 
 after some research and much consideration — and 
 I, therefore, give you my clear conviction, with- 
 out hesitation or doubt. 
 
84 INSTANCE OF WANT OF METHOD. 
 
 Let no one judge me, as making too free with 
 the Divine record. I yield to no Christian man 
 in my reverence for it. I should dread to say 
 or do anything which would tend to unsettle 
 any man's faith, or lessen any man's reverence 
 fjr the Bible, as a Divine revelation. But, a 
 blind and undistinguishing reverence is mere 
 superstition. No really intelligent Christian can 
 esteem the Gospel of St. Mark to be of less 
 value without the twelve verses in question, if he 
 be satisfied that they form no genuine part of it. 
 
 I ventured to make an observation to you, a 
 little while ago, which some of you, whose religious 
 feeling is the deepest and most tender, might also 
 judge to be somewhat irreverent. I ventured to 
 say that the Evangelists were not skilful historians. 
 And I think now is the time to give you an instance 
 in proof of what I mean. You will find it in the 
 opening of the last chapter of St. Matthew. 
 
 To a hasty reader — a reader at first sight — 
 Matthew seems to mean that the women were pre 
 sent at the door of the sepulchre, when the mighty 
 angel descended and rolled back the stone, and sat 
 upon it. His account is an instance of want of 
 
PROUD BISHOP HORSLEY'S BLUNDER. 85 
 
 method. And yet his account is no more unme- 
 thodical than accounts transmitted to us by other 
 ancient writers. When you think over Matthew's 
 account— when you judge of it as you would of 
 a passage of common history — you feel sure that 
 Matthew does not, and cannot mean, that the 
 women saw the mighty angel roll away the great 
 stone from the door of the sepulchre. And yet 
 some lordly and learned men seem to imagine 
 they did. Listen to a passage from one of proud 
 Bishop Horsley's sermons on the Resurrection : — 
 
 " St. Matthew's women saw the whole process of 
 the opening of the sepulchre, for they were there 
 before it was opened. They felt the earth-quake ; 
 they saw the angel of the Lord descend from 
 heaven; they saw him roll away the vast stone 
 which stopped the mouth of the sepulchre, and, 
 with a threatening aspect, sit upon it ; they saw the 
 sentinels fall down petrified with fear." 
 
 Did they ? Then how was it that they did not 
 1 foil down petrified with fear ' ? If Roman soldiers 
 — men of bone and muscle and sinew — some of 
 whom had, perhaps, faced death in sturdy battle — 
 were affrighted and swooned away — how could 
 
86 H0RSLEY NO SAFE COMMENTATOR. 
 
 weak women sustain the vision of the angel whose 
 1 countenance was like lightning ' ? As one would 
 say, it would have frighted them out of their five 
 senses — ay, fifteen senses, if they had so many. 
 We feel sure that Matthew does not mean, and can- 
 not mean, that the women saw the angel roll away 
 the stone from the door of the sepulchre. Horsley 
 was a giant in controversy, and an imperious giant, 
 too. But, with all his learning and cleverness, I 
 would not take him for a safe commentator on 
 sacred writ. 
 
 Let us now proceed to consider the most im- 
 portant part of the evidence for the resurrection 
 of Christ, contained in the New Testament. 
 
VISITANTS AT THE SEPULCHRE. 87 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT RECORD CONCERNING THE 
 WITNESSES WHO SAW JESUS AFTER HE ROSE 
 AGAIN FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 \ T TE will endeavour to take what seems to be 
 * * the natural order of the record : — 
 1. The evangelists Matthew and Mark relate 
 
 that, what seems to have been, a band of women 
 
 approach the sepulchre early in the morning of the 
 
 first day, our Sunday. In this band of women 
 
 were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, 
 
 and Salome 
 
 u I must interrupt you again, sir," our sceptical 
 
 friend would like to say : "John shews that Mary 
 
 Magdalene was alone." 
 
 Indeed, he does not. You will see that, very 
 
 clearly, if you read on a little. 
 
 " Who shall roll us away the stone from the door 
 
 of the sepulchre ? " say the women among them- 
 
8S MARY MAGDALENE NOT ALONE. 
 
 selves, as they are drawing near the garden where 
 it was hewn out of the rock. " It was very great," 
 says St. Mark. In the Codex Bezse, a very ancient 
 manuscript preserved in the University of Cam- 
 bridge, it is said that it took twenty men to roll the 
 stone to the door of the sepulchre. This statement 
 is not confirmed by any other ancient testimony ; 
 but it indicates that the early Christians believed 
 the stone was, indeed, ' very great.' 
 
 Behold, the women, as they come near the tomb, 
 see that the stone is rolled away! And Mary 
 Magdalene, believing that the Saviour's body had 
 been taken out of the sepulchre — but, without 
 stopping to see — runs back, immediately, to Jeru- 
 salem, to tell Peter and John what she fears. She 
 says to them — " They have taken away the Lord, 
 and we know not where they have laid him." 
 " We know not": you see John does not mean 
 that Mary Magdalene went to the sepulchre alone : 
 she had evidently left her companions there, and 
 thus speaks of them, to Peter and John, as having 
 the like fears with herself. 
 
 Meanwhile, the women who were left behind by 
 Mary Magdalene, venture to enter the tomb, and 
 
THE FIRST BAND OF WOMEN. 89 
 
 see "ayoung man sitting in a long white garment," 
 says Mark, who writes down the substance of 
 Peter's preaching — Peter, the ' matter-of-fact ' man, 
 who always describes things in a matter-of-fact 
 way, or as they seem to be to the outward eye. 
 Matthew says it was an angel — the angel who had 
 rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon 
 it. But the women do not see him there : they 
 see him on entering into the sepulchre. He tells 
 them not to be affrighted, but to come and see 
 where the Lord lay — for, he is risen ; and to go 
 and tell the disciples— " and Peter," adds Mark- 
 poor remorseful Peter whom his Lord pitied,— 
 that they were to go into Galilee, and that there 
 the Saviour would meet them. 
 
 " And," continues Mark, " they went out quickly 
 and fled from the sepulchre ; for they trembled and 
 were amazed; neither said they anything to any" — 
 to any they met on their way to tell the disciples 
 he means; for they went to tell the disciples— 
 but the most thoughtful critics are of opinion that 
 Jesus did not meet them until after they had seen 
 and spoken to the disciples— for the words in our 
 common version of Matthew's gospel, "And as 
 
90 VISIT OF PETER AND JOHN. 
 
 they went to tell his disciples," are not in the best 
 manuscripts. 
 
 2. But, now, Peter and John reach the sepulchre, 
 followed by Mary Magdalene. John outruns Peter, 
 stoops down and sees the linen clothes lying — but 
 Peter comes up, and goes into the sepulchre at 
 once, with his accustomed impetuosity, and sees 
 the linen clothes lie — of course, with the spices, 
 though they are not mentioned — and the napkin 
 which had been bound about the Saviour's head 
 "not lying with the linen clothes, but neatly 
 wrapped (or folded) up " — says the Greek — " in a 
 place by itself." What he saw was so remarkable, 
 that Peter undoubtedly told John. " Then went 
 in that other disciple," says John himself, "and 
 he saw and believed." Believed what? — Believed 
 that his Lord was risen, doubtless. It would be a 
 sweet glow of new-born faith — a faith so trembling 
 that he would not be bold enough to reveal it, 
 even to. Peter, at lirst, or to the rest of the disciples 
 when he met them. 
 
 As for Peter, one can easily imagine his perplex- 
 ity, lie had no thought of a resurrection ; and so, 
 his matter-of-fact mind must have eagerly scanned 
 
peter's stupefied wonder. gj 
 
 the linen clothes and spices, and the face-napkin 
 so neatly folded up, and lying in a place by itself, 
 — over and over again; — and have striven to 
 come to some conclusion, as to the meaning 
 of what he saw, coupled with the fact that the 
 Saviour's body was gone. We must remember 
 that neither he, nor John, knew anything of the 
 setting of the watch — for that would be done as 
 secretly as possible. Nor would they know any- 
 thing of the rolling away of the stone by the 
 angel. The words of Mary Magdalene would 
 possess Peter's mind: "They have taken away 
 the Lord, and we know not where they have laid 
 him." 
 
 u But who can have taken away a naked 
 corpse?" Peter would think. "Our friends, Joseph 
 of Arimathea and Nicodemus who brought the 
 body into this new tomb, did it out of love and 
 reverence. They wound it in these linen clothes, 
 with these spices, and wound this napkin about 
 my Lord's head ; and they would never mar the 
 acts of devout respect thus rendered to him, by 
 rudely re-opening the sepulchre so soon, stripping 
 his dead body, and carrying it away, naked, to bury 
 
92 MAGDALENE STANDS WITHOUT WEEPING. 
 
 elsewhere. Neither can the body have been taken 
 away by common thieves, employed by my Master's 
 enemies ; for they would have been in haste, and 
 have carried away the body without staying to un- 
 wrap it. They would neither have left the clothes 
 and spices behind them, nor have folded up the 
 napkin thus neatly. What can be the meaning of 
 it all ! " — and Peter would leave the tomb with a 
 sort of stupefied wonder. 
 
 3. When Peter and John " went away again to 
 their own home," Mary Magdalene stood weeping, 
 and remained at the sepulchre. She 'stood 
 without '.• she had not gone into the sepulchre > 
 and perhaps, from her absorption in grief, knew 
 not what Peter and John had seen in it. But, 
 when they are gone, she stoops down to look into 
 the sepulchre, "and seeth two angels in white 
 sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the 
 feet, where the body of Jesus had lain." And 
 they say unto her, " Woman, why weepest thou ? 
 She saith unto them, Because they have taken 
 away my Lord, and I know not where they have 
 laid him." She says "/ know not," now she is 
 alone: it was " We know not" when she was 
 
HER RAPTURE, WHEN SHE KNOWS JESUS. 93 
 
 describing her own fears and the fears of the other 
 women, to Peter and John. 
 
 "And when she had thus said, she turned 
 herself back" — very likely in fear at the appear- 
 ance of the two speakers in white — and sees Jesus 
 standing near her, but without knowing him. 
 Her tears would blind her; — her grief, joined with 
 the fear she would feel at the vision of angels, 
 would render her incapable of distinct observa- 
 tion ; — and yielding to the first natural thought 
 that came into her mind, that the gardener was 
 about his business thus early, she thus addressed 
 Jesus as the gardener : " If thou have borne him 
 hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I 
 will take him away " — words that shew the dis- 
 traction of her grief. 
 
 11 Mary ! " says the dear, familiar voice. 
 
 " Rabboni ! " — my Master, cries Mary, and 
 seems to have fallen to clasp his feet, in a 
 moment. 
 
 You know the next words of Christ — " Touch 
 me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father." 
 What various interpretations have been given of 
 these words 1 Paley thinks that Christ's reply is 
 
t)4 THEORIES ABOUT ' NOLI ME TAKGERE.* 
 
 founded on some former conversation, 'for the 
 want of knowing which his meaning is hidden 
 from us.' Several writers have hastily concluded 
 that Christ forbad Mary Magdalene to touch — or 
 to attempt to touch — his body, because it was a 
 1 spiritual body,' and, therefore, really could not 
 be touched : — forgetting that Jesus invited the 
 disciples, afterwards, to handle him and learn that 
 he had not a spiritual body. And some theorizers 
 have gone into a mystical strain and taught that 
 there was some mysterious necessity for Christ 
 ascending to the Father, before he permitted his 
 body to be touched. 
 
 Gilbert West's plain, common-sense way ot 
 understanding the meaning of Christ's words is, I 
 humbly think, to be preferred before all other 
 interpretations : Touch me not — don't stay to 
 embrace my feet, now — don't take leave of me, 
 now— I'm not going yet. I am not yet ascended 
 to my Father: Christ does not mean that his 
 body is not to be touched at all ; but that there 
 is no need of touching him — or staying to 
 embrace his feet, now; Mary Magdalene had 
 better hasten to the disciples, and tell them the 
 
ANGELIC APPEARANCES MYSTERIOUS. 95 
 
 good news of his resurrection, and that he would 
 ascend to heaven. 
 
 We cannot help pondering on the record that 
 one angel is seen by the company of women, and 
 two angels by Mary Magdalene, while Peter and 
 John have no angelic vision. We ask ourselves 
 "Why was this?" — but we cannot answer, fully. 
 We know nothing about angels, except what the 
 Bible tells us. We gather, there, that these 
 'messengers' of God can be either visible or in- 
 visible to human beings, so that they accomplish 
 the purposes for which God sends them. Why an 
 angel was appointed to make himself visible to 
 the band of women, to light up the flame of 
 their faith in the risen Saviour — while Peter and 
 John were left to think, and to recal Christ's 
 words — and two angels were visible to the 
 weeping Magdalen, we cannot tell, completely. 
 We must wait till we enter heaven, before we 
 learn the complete answers to these and many 
 other questions beside. 
 
 4. The evangelist Luke describes the visit to 
 the sepulchre of a second company of women 
 Gilbert West shews this clearly. He wrote a 
 
96 THE SECOND LAND OF WOMEN. 
 
 book on the Resurrection of Christ, in 1749 ; and 
 although that is one hundred and twenty-six years 
 ago, I declare to you that I do not think a more 
 sensible treatise has been written since — and I 
 have read every treatise and sermon on Christ's 
 resurrection that I could possibly get hold of. 
 This second company of women see two angels, 
 but not sitting at the head and feet where Jesus 
 had lain, as Mary Magdalene saw them. The 
 two angels evidently are not seen by this band of 
 women, at first, when they enter the sepulchre, 
 as Luke tells us, and find not the body of Jesus. 
 But " it came to pass, as they were much per- 
 plexed thereabout, behold two men stood by them, 
 in shining garments." 
 
 The women are afraid, and bow their faces to 
 the earth; and then the angels are described as 
 addressing them in words not addressed by the one 
 angel to the first band of women : " Why seek ye 
 the living among the dead ? He is not here, but 
 he is risen. Remember how he spake unto you 
 when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of 
 Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful 
 men, and be crucified, and the third day rise 
 
CHRIST A1TEARS TO PETER. 
 
 97 
 
 again." And Luke says " they remembered his 
 words " : the words of the Saviour. 
 
 These women leave the sepulchre, and tell what 
 they have seen and heard to the apostles ; but 
 Luke tells us " their words seemed to them as 
 idle tales." Peter, however, runs to the sepulchre 
 — evidently a second time — stoops down and sees 
 " the linen clothes laid by themselves " — just as 
 he had seen them before — and returns, still " won- 
 dering in himself at that which was come to pass." 
 
 5. The appearance of Jesus to the first band of 
 women must be classed next in order, you will 
 discern from what occurs afterwards. It did not 
 occur "as they went to tell his disciples," it has 
 already been shewn. Jesus says to them " All 
 hail ! " — or, as it should be translated " Rejoice 
 ye ! " — and then, we read, '' they came and held 
 him by the feet, and worshipped him " — words 
 which, again, throw us back on Christ's words to 
 Magdalen. He could not, we repeat, have meant 
 that Mary was not to touch him, or that his body 
 was not to be touched at all — for he permitted the 
 band of women to touch him. 
 
 6. Peter was granted a sight of his risen Saviour, 
 
 7 
 
95 DISCIPLES GOING TO EMMAUS. 
 
 also in the course of the same day. "He was 
 seen of Kephas," says Paul, in his first epistle to 
 the Corinthians, and a few words in Luke make us 
 acquainted with the same fact. The Saviour, who 
 "knew what was in man," discerned the real love 
 for his Master that there was in the heart of Peter, 
 notwithstanding his failures. And so Peter's tor- 
 menting wonder and uncertainty were ended ; and, 
 now, he knew for himself that Jesus was a risen 
 Saviour. 
 
 7. Also in the afternoon of the same first day, 
 Christ manifested himself to Cleopas and another 
 disciple, at Emmaus. Luke's picture is brief, but 
 very life-like. We seem to see Jesus come up 
 to the two disciples in their journey, and say unto 
 them, " What manner of communications are these 
 that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are 
 sad?" And then they tell him the cause of their 
 grief, and of their broken hopes — but unveil the 
 fact that certain women of their company had been 
 early to the sepulchre, and found not their Master's 
 body, but declared that they had seen a vision of 
 angels, which said that Jesus was alive. , The two 
 disciples also say to Jesus — " Certain of them which 
 
CHRIST TALKING WITH THEM. 99 
 
 were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it 
 even so as the women had said ; but him they saw 
 not." Evidently, the two disciples allude to the 
 testimony of the second band of women. 
 
 The few words in which Luke describes the 
 reasoning of Christ with these two disciples, and 
 his exposition of "the things concerning him," 
 contained " in all the Scriptures " — and how they 
 invite him to tarry with them — and how they come 
 to know him — and he vanishes from their sight — 
 form another picture so real that we linger over it 
 with intense interest. Oh how we should have liked 
 to hear the Blessed One tell, with his own voice, 
 "the things concerning him," as they were written 
 "in all the Scriptures" ! We do not wonder that 
 the two disciples said " Did not our hearts burn 
 within us, while he talked with us, by the way ? " 
 
 " Their eyes were holden that they should not 
 know him," St. Luke says. They were prevented 
 from knowing him at first, purposely. Christ 
 meant to teach them that all which had come to 
 pass was in fulfilment of the Scriptures and of 
 God's eternal purpose ; but he could not have won 
 their serious and absorbed attention if he had 
 
IOO CHRIST KNOWN IN BREAKING BREAD. 
 
 revecalcd himself to them, at first : they would hav e 
 been affrighted, as the ten disciples were, afterwards. 
 
 It must have seemed strange to them, when he 
 accepted their invitation to 'abide' with them, 
 that, instead of reclining at the board, to partake 
 of their frugal evening meal, like a guest, — he took 
 the place of the ' master of the feast,' who, after 
 blessing the cup, always took the bread and broke 
 it, and after eating a little of it himself, distributed 
 it round the table. But when Christ came to the 
 breaking of the bread the two disciples knew him 
 at once. Doubtless, there was always a divine 
 sweetness in the face of the Saviour, when he per- 
 formed this devout act : a sweetness they never 
 saw in any other face. I cannot help thinking that 
 this is the real solution of the question — how they 
 knew him so instantly. 
 
 And I will tell you of another thought I have : 
 that the remembrance of the Saviour's divine sweet- 
 ness of look as he broke bread with his disciples 
 was handed down, by tradition, in the Christian 
 Church ; and that that is the reason why so many 
 of the old painters chose this act of the Saviour as 
 a subject for their pencil. Some of you, no doubt, 
 
FAVOURITE SUBJECT WITH PAINTERS. 10 1 
 
 have seen an engraving of Carlo Dolci's painting ; 
 but if you ever go to old Stamford, be sure to trip 
 over to Burleigh House and see the painting itself, 
 in the Marquis of Exeter's gallery. If you have 
 any soul for Art in you, you will long to gaze on it, 
 perhaps, longer than you can stay ; and will say it 
 would be worth walking twenty miles to go and see 
 it, again. 
 
 Christ vanished from their sight, when the two 
 disciples knew him. We do not wonder that they 
 immediately girt up their loins and returned to 
 Jerusalem to tell the apostles. 
 
 8. Ten of the apostles, and others with them, 
 were found, gathered together, by the two disciples 
 from Emmaus. Judas had fallen, and Thomas was 
 absent. Cleopas and his friend no sooner enter 
 and tell the company how their Lord had appeared 
 to them, than they are assured by the apostles 
 themselves that Christ is risen, and that he has 
 appeared to Peter. "The doors were shut, for 
 fear of the Jews," St. John assures us ■ and both he 
 and St. Luke tell us that Jesus suddenly stood in 
 the midst of them, and said ' Peace be unto you !' 
 It is the mode of greeting, the form of salutation, 
 
102 CHRIST WITH THE TEN DISCIPLES. 
 
 which has prevailed, in the East, for unnumbered 
 ages ; and it prevails still. If you meet a Turk, 
 or an Arab, in the streets of London, you cannot 
 please him better than by saying to him — ' Salaam 
 alikocm ! — Peace be unto you. ; He will smile and 
 bow, and placing his right hand on his heart, will 
 reply ' Alikoom salaam !■ — To you peace.' 
 
 "But they were terrified and afiiighted, and 
 supposed that they had seen a spirit," says Luke. 
 And then the Saviour shews them his wounded 
 hands and feet and side, and invites them to handle 
 him, and see that it is himself — " for a spirit," he 
 reminds them, " has not flesh and bones, as they 
 see he has." And, now, their terror is gradually 
 changed into joy ; and " they are glad when they 
 see the Lord " — when they come to the full percep- 
 tion that it is the very human Saviour they have 
 known so well, and for whom they had grieved so 
 much. Yet, their faith trembles — " they believed 
 not for joy, and wondered " ; and to convince them 
 fully, Jesus says " Have ye here any meat ? " And 
 they give him a piece of broiled fish, "and he 
 took, and did eat before them." 
 
 We will not stay, now, to discuss the questions 
 
ArPEARS TO THEM A 2ECOND TIME. 1 03 
 
 of the closed doors and the sudden appearance of 
 Christ, and the nature of his body. Let us get 
 through the full record, in the New Testament, 
 concerning the witnesses who saw Jesus after he 
 rose from the dead, before we enter again on such 
 discussions. 
 
 The Saviour ' opens their understanding,' let us 
 remember, as well as convinces them by eyesight 
 that it is himself: that is to say, he shews them 
 how all his suffering had been revealed in the 
 Scriptures, as well as his resurrection ; and that he 
 makes all this clear to them, because they are 
 1 witnesses of these things/ and they will have to 
 testify of them and preach them. And as an 
 earnest of their great commission " he breathed 
 on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy 
 Ghost " ! 
 
 9. " And after eight days " — that is to say, again 
 on the first day of the week — John tells us in his 
 'supplementary ' gospel, "again his disciples were 
 within, and Thomas was with them. Then came 
 Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst." 
 And then follows the affecting scene between un- 
 believing Thomas and himself. 
 
104 APPEARANCE TO THE SEVEN. 
 
 io. The record in the last chapter of St. John 
 may be classed next. It is indeed a supplementary 
 chapter, and to what has been often called his ' sup- 
 plementary' gospel. For the aged and loving dis- 
 ciple had evidently intended to conclude his gospel 
 with that portion of it which we call the twentieth 
 chapter. But he remembers that "after these 
 things Jesus shewed himself again to his disciples, 
 at the sea of Tiberias," and so he gives us this 
 account of Christ's appearance to Peter and 
 Thomas, and Nathanael (or Bartholomew) and 
 James and John, and ' two other disciples,' who 
 had gone a-fishing, and had toiled all night and 
 caught nothing. Jesus stands on the shore in the 
 early morning, and directs them to cast their net on 
 the right side of the ship ; and soon it was so full 
 that they had great difficulty in dragging the net to 
 the shore. Then follows the conversation of Christ 
 with the disciples, and his remarkable questioning 
 of Peter. 
 
 The appearances of Christ had, hitherto, been 
 in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood ; but this 
 appearance is by the old familiar lake, in Galilee. 
 The disciples had come into Galilee, not with the 
 
APPEARANCE TO FIVE HUNDRED. I05 
 
 purpose of staying there, but to be ready for the 
 especial meeting which their Lord had appointed 
 and of which the women were forewarned by the 
 angels on the morning of the resurrection. 
 
 11. The meeting, on a mountain, in Galilee, is 
 described by Matthew, and it is generally held by 
 Christian writers that it is the meeting of which 
 St. Paul speaks in the fifteenth chapter of his first 
 letter to the Corinthian church : " After that he 
 was seen of above five hundred brethren at once — 
 of whom," says Paul, " the greater part remain unto 
 this present, but some are fallen asleep." 
 
 " And when they saw him, they worshipped him: 
 but sonic doubted" says St. Matthew. There seems 
 nothing surprising in such a statement, if this were 
 really the meeting of "above five hundred brethren" 
 — that is to say, of persons who had believed in 
 the Messiahship of Christ, from seeing him heal 
 the sick and lame and blind and from listening to 
 his discourses. Human nature is the same in all 
 ages; and among a crowd, we should expect to 
 find some doubters. 
 
 Christ declares that all power is given to him in 
 heaven and in earth, and again bids those who 
 
I06 APPEARANCE TO ST. JAMES. 
 
 hear him to go forth and preach his gospel to all 
 nations. They who intended to obey him would, 
 now, quit Galilee and return to Jerusalem — for 
 there they knew they were to open their commis- 
 sion, according to his command. 
 
 12. A separate appearance to James, is men- 
 tioned by St. Paul, only. If it were to 'James, the 
 Lord's brother'— or cousin, as others read it — 
 Jesus might instruct him how he would have to re- 
 main at Jerusalem, and be, to his life's end, the 
 pillar of the Christian church there. If it were to 
 James the son of Zebedee, and brother of John, 
 Christ might give him the solemn forewarning that 
 he must be the first among the apostles to suffer 
 martyrdom, and that Herod would put him to 
 death. We must wait till we get to heaven before 
 we know to which James it was that Christ thus 
 appeared, separately ; and what our Lord really 
 said to him. 
 
 13. The last appearance of Jesus to his dis- 
 ciples, which is briefly alluded to by St. Paul in the 
 fifteenth chapter, First Corinthians, is described, 
 more at length, by St. Luke, at the close of his 
 gospel, and in the early part of the first chapter of 
 
ASCENSION OF THE SAVIOUR. 107 
 
 the Acts of the Apostles. Christ led them out of 
 Jerusalem, across the Kedron and the valley of 
 Jehosaphat, by the garden of Gethsemane, and up 
 the slope of Olivet, " as far as to Bethany." Was 
 it to the house of Mary and Martha and Lazarus ? 
 Did he take a loving farewell of the family who had 
 so often been blessed with his holy presence ? His 
 blessed lips would be discoursing sweetly, all the 
 way as he went, " of the things that pertain to the 
 kingdom of God." 
 
 " Lord, wilt thou, at this time, restore again the 
 kingdom to Israel?" ask the disciples. They are 
 still dull and unspiritual. They still hanker after 
 the temporal Messiahship. " It is not for you to 
 know the times or the seasons, which the Father 
 hath put in His own power. But ye shall receive 
 power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you." 
 They know not what that means ; but when he has 
 lifted up his hands and blessed them, and he is 
 'parted from them,' and 'a cloud' — the Schekinah, 
 one cannot help concluding — ' received him from 
 their sight' — "behold, two men stood by them 
 in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of 
 Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? 
 
IOS THE APOSTLES 'RECEIVE POWER. 
 
 This same Jesus, which is taken from you into 
 heaven, shall so come, in like manner, as ye have 
 seen him go into heaven." 
 
 The disciples would only see the two angels — for 
 such were the 'two men in white apparel,' — for 
 a few moments. The angels had delivered their 
 message, and so would disappear, and leave the 
 apostles to give up all thought of seeing Jesus 
 again, till he should come in his glory. Did they 
 expect him soon? They returned to Jerusalem, 
 from the mount of Olives, and "with the women " 
 from Galilee, " and Mary the mother of Jesus, and 
 with his brethren," they "continued with one 
 accord in prayer and supplication." Then they 
 cast lots, and a successor is appointed to Judas 
 Iscariot the betrayer, in order to make up the 
 number of the twelve. Did they still expect Jesus 
 to return soon, in temporal power? They wait to 
 "receive power," as Christ promised — and, at 
 length the Holy Ghost comes upon them, and they 
 speak with tongues, and their spirits are filled with 
 boldness, and their hearts with joy, and thousands 
 are added to the Church by their preaching. They 
 feel that their Lord's promise is realised : they 
 
CHRIST SEEN OF ST. PAUL. 109 
 
 have 'received power' — but it could hardly he in 
 the way they expected. 
 
 14. ''Last of all, he was seen of me also," says 
 St. Paul, in the passage already quoted from the 
 fifteenth chapter, First Corinthians. The relation 
 of St. Paul's journey to Damascus is given three 
 times over, in the Acts of the Apostles. The seem- 
 ing discrepancies are easily explained. " Hearing 
 a voice, but seeing no man/' in the eighth chapter 
 of the Acts, does not seem to mean more than is 
 meant by the passage in the twenty-second chapter— 
 " They heard not the voice of him that spake to 
 me." The meaning to be gathered from both pas- 
 sages is that the men who were with Paul heard 
 certain sounds, but knew not what the sounds were, 
 or whether they were from the voice of a man, for 
 they saw none. 
 
 Christ's appearance is not depictured, or de- 
 scribed, in any of the three narratives in trie Acts ; 
 but it is affirmed in each of the three passages, in 
 the eighth, twenty-second, and twenty-sixth chap- 
 ters of the Acts of the Apostles, that Jesus did 
 appear to Paul. In the first passage, Ananias says 
 to Paul, "Brother Saul, the Lord — even Jesus that 
 
IIO NO * SUBJECTIVE VISION ' OF PAUL. 
 
 appeared unto thee in the way, as thou earnest." 
 In the second passage, Ananias is also described 
 as saying to Paul — " The God of our fathers hath 
 chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His will, 
 and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice 
 of his mouth." And in the third passage, Jesus 
 himself is described by Paul, as saying "I am 
 Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise, and stand 
 upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for 
 this purpose, to make thee a minister and a wit- 
 ness," etc. 
 
 I repeat that the appearance of our Lord to Paul 
 is not depictured or described; but it is clearly 
 affirmed. And Paul did not regard it as mere ' sub- 
 jective vision,' — as trance or ecstasy. He regards 
 it as " the direct perception of the visible presence 
 of Jesus Christ " — to quote the language of Dean 
 Ilowson 
 
EVIDENCE INCREDILLE TO SOME. Hi 
 
 CONSIDERATION OF THEORIES RESPECTING THE 
 RESURRECTION-BODY OF CHRIST. 
 
 SUCH is the evidence for the Resurrection of 
 Christ derived from the testimony of those 
 who saw him after he rose again from the dead. 
 
 "And I, sir,'' says one of my sceptical hearers, 
 "have listened to your summing-up of what you 
 call the vital part of the evidence for Christ's resur- 
 rection, with as much patience as I could com- 
 mand. But you must know that a great part of 
 this evidence, as you call it, is utterly incredible. 
 What are we to think of a real human person, who 
 could be handled and felt, and who could eat and 
 drink, standing suddenly in the midst of a company 
 who were sitting in a room with closed doors ? " 
 
 I will state your objections, my friend, as fully 
 and forcibly as Strauss states them ; I will also give 
 this audience the conclusion to which Strauss 
 comes; and then give you what I believe to be 
 
112 REASONINGS OF STRAUSS. 
 
 the only solution to Strauss's difficulties, and to 
 your own. 
 
 Of this kind are the reasonings of Strauss : — If 
 Jesus were really 'handled' by the disciples, — if 
 Thomas really did put his finger into the print of 
 the nails in Christ's hands, and his hand into the 
 wound in Christ's side, — if Jesus really did eat of 
 the broiled fish — we are presented with a real 
 human body — a body like our own : there can be 
 no misconception about that. But our bodies 
 cannot penetrate through closed doors and walls, 
 and make themselves suddenly visible and invisible. 
 Yet it is affirmed that the body of Jesus Christ did 
 all this ! Then, as the accounts in the Gospels are 
 so contrary to human experience, — so utterly irre- 
 concilable with reason, — I reject the accounts 
 altogether. I have no doubt that Peter, and John, 
 and James, and the rest, may have imagined that 
 they saw Christ. I have no doubt that they 
 believed it. I do not suspect them, for a moment, 
 of dishonesty. But I do not believe that they saw 
 Jesus stand in their midst, and talk, and eat — 
 although he had entered the room while the doors 
 were closed. I do i>ot believe this ; and I insist 
 
SOLUTION OF DIFFICULTIES. II3 
 
 that no reasonable man can believe it. The whole 
 story must be swept out of the domain of History : 
 henceforth it must be held to belong to the domain 
 of Romance : the region of the Imagination. 
 
 And thus Strauss thought he had for ever anni- 
 hilated all possible belief in the Resurrection of 
 Christ, among reasonable and cultured men. And 
 why was it that Strauss, with all his subtle and 
 powerful logic, and with all his undoubted sincerity 
 and honesty, came to such a conclusion ? Because 
 he set out with the assumption that Jesus was a 
 mere man, — that Jesus was not Divine as well as 
 human, — that his nature was simply human nature, 
 and therefore nothing could be done in it and by 
 it, but what could be done with our common 
 human natures. If Jesus had been a mere man, 
 the argument of Strauss is so perfectly and conclu- 
 sively true that it is unassailable. But since Christ 
 was God and Man the argument of Strauss is worth 
 nothing. 
 
 " And is that the sole solution you have to offer 
 me, for my difficulties?" our sceptical friend will 
 ask. 
 
 // is. I have no other solution to offer you. I 
 
 a 
 
114 SOLUTION OF DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 despise all ingenious attempts to solve these diffi- 
 culties by trying to shew — as some half-hearted 
 critics have done — that Christ might have entered 
 by the door, without being observed by the 
 disciples, while they were hotly and excitedly 
 absorbed in conversation. I tell you, plainly, that 
 there is no solution of your difficulty— no answer 
 to the argument of Strauss — but a full acknowledge- 
 ment of the Divinity of Christ. It was because 
 He was God as well as Man, that he could rise from 
 the dead : that He could restore His human body 
 to life. " He rose," says quaint old Dr. Donne, 
 "as none before did, none ever after shall rise. 
 He rose : others are but raised. ' Destroy this 
 temple,' says he, 'and I will raise it.' I — without 
 •mploying any other architect." Did He not say 
 'I lay down my life that I might take it again. 
 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down on 
 myself — I have power to lay it down, and I have 
 power to take it again " ? 
 
 It was because He was God as well as Man, that 
 He could walk on the waves, and pass in and out 
 of rooms, without the unclosing of fastened doors. 
 As God, He was the Maker and Sustainer of 
 
SOLUTION OF DIFFICULTIES. 115 
 
 Nature, and had perfect power over every part of 
 it — so that He could dissolve that human body, 
 and re-unite it, in a moment, if He willed so to do. 
 And who shall say that He did not ? 
 
 " But is this the only answer we should receive 
 from others ? " our sceptical friend may say to me. 
 " You say, this is the only solution you can give 
 to our difficulty. But are there not teachers from 
 whom we should receive a different solution ? " 
 
 I cannot conceal from you the fact that you 
 would receive a different solution from many 
 Christian teachers. Some would assure you, at 
 once and without any circumlocution, that the 
 resurrection-body of Christ was what St. Paul 
 would have called a ' spiritual body,' and, there- 
 fore, not limited by the conditions of matter. 
 Others would boldly tell you that the manifesta 
 tions of Christ to his disciples, after he rose again 
 from the dead, were only ' subjective ' ; and de- 
 pended on the power he gave them to see him, 
 supernaturally. But, I will not waste your time 
 by dwelling on theories which are not held, or 
 taught, by teachers who are termed ' Evangelical.' 
 I think it better to point you to one theory which 
 
Il6 THEORY OF DR. CANDLISH. 
 
 is supported by eminent names. It may be 
 deemed venturous and needless for me to declare 
 myself a dissident from this theory ; but as I claim 
 the right to think for myself, I shall not hesitate to 
 do it. 
 
 More than a dozen years ago, the distinguished 
 Presbyterian divine, Dr. Candlish, of Edinburgh, 
 excited great attention by a series of discourses 
 from the pulpit, which he afterwards collected into 
 a volume, under the title of ' Life in a Risen 
 Saviour." With the keen argumentative subtlety 
 which characterised his mind, Dr. Candlish strove, 
 in these discourses, to construct a mystical theory 
 on the words ' flesh and bones ' used by the risen 
 Saviour, when he appeared to his disciples, so 
 suddenly, in the room wherein they were sitting 
 with closed doors. To every ordinary reader, the 
 terms used by Jesus seem to be purposely em- 
 ployed, in order to produce in the minds of the 
 wonder-stricken and doubting disciples the con- 
 viction that he has a real body — a substantial, 
 material frame — a something that can be seen and 
 felt. He means that they are not to frighten them- 
 selves with the thought that he is only a spirit — an 
 
THEORY OF DR. CANDLISH. 1 I 7 
 
 incorporeal existence. They are to 'handle' him, 
 and be fully convinced that he has a real body — a 
 body of matter — of ' flesh and bones.' 
 
 And, when Christ, perceiving that the faith of 
 the disciples still hangs in the balance— that their 
 convictions still halt and linger — says to them 
 1 Children, have you any meat ? ' — and when he 
 partakes of the food they give to him — the broiled 
 fish — (for " honeycomb " is not in the most 
 ancient copies)— ordinary readers conclude that 
 Jesus did this not as a mere make-believe, in which 
 there was no reality ; but that he did actually and 
 truly eat, in the presence of his disciples, as he had 
 been wont to do, that they might be perfectly con- 
 vinced he was still possessed of a veritable human 
 body : a material body, as before. 
 
 But, Dr. Candlish has very different views. He 
 sets the terms ' flesh and blood ' and ' flesh and 
 bones ' in opposition to each other. And he mar- 
 shals scripture texts, with singular dexterity, to 
 shew that the former terms ' flesh and blood' are 
 a Gentile expression of human relationship — while 
 the latter, ' the Jewish mode of expressing kins- 
 manship, by unity of flesh and bones, rather than 
 
I iS THEORY OF DR. CANDLISH 
 
 of blood, bears the trace or mark of a higher con- 
 ception than our Gentile phraseology embodies.' A 
 higher conception, he says, of a ' humanity ' which 
 1 is to be perfect, incorruptible, and immortal.' 
 
 You will ask me, how the doctor makes his 
 meaning clear as to what kind of a body the 
 Saviour wished his disciples to understand that 
 he had, when he said " handle me and see, for a 
 spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." 
 I will give you the doctor's own words ; and if his 
 meaning be clear to you, I shall have to confess 
 that your mental eye-sight is stronger than mine. 
 
 "There is, therefore, no real inconsistency," 
 says Dr. Candlish, "between the apostle saying 
 ' flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
 God,' and the risen Lord saying ' I have flesh and 
 bones.' The two expressions are quite distinct. 
 The first, 'flesh and blood,' denotes the human 
 bodily nature, liable to dissolution and decay. 
 The other, 'flesh and bones,' points rather to its 
 higher spiritual development in a structure having 
 extension and form — bones and flesh of some 
 sort, — but not necessarily of a sort resolvable into 
 dust and perishable." 
 
THEORY OF DR. CANDLISH. 119 
 
 " Bones and flesh of sonic sort " ! How could 
 a man so intelligent as Dr. Candlish allow him- 
 self to talk so loosely? " But not necessarily of a 
 sort resolvable into dust and perishable " ! Who- 
 ever heard of such sort of bones, before ? What 
 man of science has ever discovered bones not 
 resolvable into dust and perishable ? ' Of sonic 
 sort': of what sort? No man knows of flesh, 
 bones, or blood, which are ' incorruptible and 
 immortal.' When St. Paul said { flesh and blood 
 cannot inherit the kingdom of God ' he doubtless 
 meant 'bones' as well. I cannot forbear saying 
 that to my mind, this laboured theory of Dr. 
 Candlish is, simply, a mere meteor of his fancy — an 
 imagination which dazzled him, till he set himself 
 to build, out of it, an hypothesis which should 
 attract others by its novelty. 
 
 The great purpose of broaching this theory on 
 the part of this eminent and excellent divine, 
 was to lead his Christian audience and his readers 
 to feel a triumphant confidence that they shall 
 have ' perfect, incorruptible, and immortal ' bodies, 
 because their bodies, at the general resurrec- 
 tion, are to resemble the Saviour's. But, in the 
 
120 DR. CANDLISH SUPPORTED 
 
 earlier part of the very discourse that I have 
 just quoted, the doctor shews that he intends 
 his hypothesis to stand also as an explication oi 
 the fact that the risen Saviour could appear and 
 disappear, suddenly, in spite of closed doors ; 
 and could pass — the apostles knew not whithei 
 and re-appear, they knew not from whence. 
 
 The great Scottish divine having thus given 
 the start, has been followed by other teachers 
 in the path of mysticism. More lately, Dr. 
 Westcott, Regius Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Cambridge, — a divine to whom 
 every Christian man must feel deeply obliged by 
 his valuable contributions to our stores of Christian 
 Evidence — has published his 'Gospel of the 
 Resurrection.' This learned and critical divine 
 uses the term 'glorified body' to describe the 
 resurrection-body of Christ : a term not used 
 by Dr. Candlish— and yet Dr. Westcott has evi- 
 dently espoused the Scottish divine's theory about 
 the 'flesh and bones.' This is manifest from 
 the language of a note on one of his pages : — 
 
 "The significant variation from the common 
 formula ' flesh and blood ' must have been at 
 
BY PROFESSOR WESTCOTT. 12 1 
 
 once intelligible to Jews, accustomed to the pro- 
 visions of the Mosaic ritual, and nothing would 
 have impressed upon them more forcibly the trans- 
 figuration of Christ's body than the verbal omission 
 of the element of blood which was for them the 
 symbol and seal of corruptible life." 
 
 Professor Westcott also says, on the same 
 page, "This Body which was recognised as 
 essentially the same Body, had undergone some 
 marvellous change, of which we can gain a 
 faint idea by what is directly recorded of its 
 manifestations. Thus we find that the Person 
 of Christ was not recognised directly by those 
 who saw Him. However firm their conviction 
 was afterwards that they 'had seen the Lord,' 
 they knew Him first when He was pleased to 
 make Himself known. Human sense alone was 
 not capable of discerning Who He was. It 
 could not be otherwise if His Body was glorified, 
 for our senses can only apprehend that which is 
 of kindred nature with themselves." 
 
 But, if this be true : — if " human sense was 
 not capable of discerning Who He was," — if 
 "our senses can only apprehend that which is 
 
122 DR. CANDLISH SUPPORTED 
 
 of kindred nature with themselves," — why did 
 Christ mock the disciples by telling them to 
 'handle' him, 'and' see' that he was not a 
 spirit, but had 'flesh and bones' — that is to say, 
 that his body was like other human bodies? I 
 repeat, that I cannot for a moment suppose that 
 there w T as anything like make-believe in the 
 Saviour's invitation to the disciples. He must 
 have meant that their human senses could "appre 
 hend that which" was "of kindred nature with 
 themselves." 
 
 " And, as Christ's body," continues Dr. Westcott, 
 "was no longer necessarily to be recognised, so 
 also it was not bound by the material laws to which 
 its action was generally conformed. He is found 
 present, no one knows from whence. He passes 
 away, no one knows whither. He stands in the 
 midst of the little group ot the Apostles ' when 
 the doors were shut for fear of the Jews.' He 
 ' vanished out of the sight ' of those whose eyes 
 were opened that they knew Him. And, at last, 
 while they beheld, He was taken up, and a cloud 
 'received Him out of their sight.' It is impossible 
 not to feel in reading the narratives that we are 
 
HV PROFESSOR WESTCOTT. 123 
 
 regarding a form of existence human, indeed, yet 
 indefinitely ennobled by the removal of needs and 
 limitations to which we are at present subject. It 
 is vain for us to speculate on the nature of that 
 transformed human Body. We can form no clear 
 positive conception which is not shaped by the 
 present laws of thought. Negatively, we can only 
 say, that it was not bound by those laws of space 
 (for example) which necessarily enter into all that 
 we think or do." 
 
 Such are the speculations of our modern divines : 
 Christ's resurrection-body was a " transformed 
 human body" : it was " a form of existence human," 
 but it had none of the " needs and limitations " to 
 which our ordinary human bodies are subject. Dr. 
 Westcott thinks " it is vain for us to speculate on 
 the nature of that transformed human body"— 
 although he does speculate on its nature, and 
 assures himself that " it was not bound by the 
 material laws," and that thus it was that it enabled 
 Christ to stand in the midst of the disciples when 
 the doors were closed, and to appear and disappear 
 in a moment. 
 
 The chief purpose of Professor Westcott in em- 
 
124 N0 NEED OF MYSTICISM. 
 
 ploying this theory is of the same excellent ana 
 highly spiritual character, as the purpose of D*. 
 Candlish ; and no Christian can read the ' Life in 
 a Risen Saviour ' and ' The Gospel of the Resurrec- 
 tion ' without feeling the most profound respect for 
 the authors of these books. But I am compelled 
 to confess that I cannot see the worth or the verity 
 of this Incorruptible and Immortal Flesh-and-Bone 
 Theory. Neither flesh nor bone, any more than 
 blood can be incorruptible and immortal : nor can 
 bone inherit the kingdom of God, any more than 
 flesh and blood. I must plainly avow my honest 
 conviction that all attempts to account for Christ's 
 manner of visiting His disciples after His resurrec- 
 tion, by inventing mystical theories about the 
 change in His body, are utterly needless. If the 
 devisers of these theories were asked how Christ 
 could walk on the waves ' in the days of his flesh ' 
 — they would, doubtless, reply that it was because 
 He was God as well as Man, and He Who sustains 
 the ' law of gravitation ' can suspend it. Then, why 
 spin this mystical theory to account for Christ's 
 standing in the midst of His disciples in a room 
 while the doors were closed? If God makes all 
 
OLD ENGLISH CHURCH DIVINES. 1 25 
 
 the "laws of Nature " — as philosophers call them — 
 can He not suspend or transcend any of them if 
 He chooses so to do ? 
 
 It is very observable, at how great a distance 
 from all enticing speculations our old English 
 Church divines preserve themselves, when dealing 
 with the brief Gospel records of Christ's appearance 
 to his disciples after his resurrection. The great 
 exhaustive intellect of Isaac Barrow — the acute and 
 thoroughly logical mind of Samuel Clarke — the 
 shrewd perceptive power and brilliance of South — 
 the plain, English sense of Tillotson — (I might 
 name many more) — were employed, at Easter 
 seasons, in deducing useful and inspiring lessons 
 for their hearers, from the grand theme of our 
 Lord's resurrection from the dead. But they 
 never suffer themselves to be led into visionary or 
 mystical theories about Christ's resurrection-body. 
 Their plain belief is very plainly expressed : that 
 the risen Saviour passed away from and entered 
 into, the company of his disciples, by the same 
 miraculous power that he walked on the waves: 
 He was God and Man. 
 
 Dear old Matthew Henry displays a little ink- 
 
126 MATTHEW HENRY AND ORIGEN. 
 
 ling towards speculation, in his commentary on the 
 twentieth chapter of St. John's Gospel. "When 
 they (the disciples) were assembled," says he, 
 "Jesus came among them, in his own likeness, yet 
 drawing a veil over the brightness of his body, now 
 begun to be glorified, else it would have dazzled 
 their eyes, as in the transfiguration." A notion, 
 one cannot help thinking, that he caught from 
 Origen, who thought that Christ's divinity shone 
 so brightly through his body after the resurrection, 
 that the disciples could only bear to look on it, 
 now and then. Origen thinks this was why Christ 
 did not abide with His disciples, during the forty 
 days which elapsed between His resurrection and 
 ascension. Origen's conception must be ascribed 
 to his Platonism : the Platonists of his time held 
 that human spirits separated from the body, pass 
 into ' luciform vehicles,' or bodies of light. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor, for a wonder, is, at first, vehe- 
 mently naturalistic. " When the third day was 
 come " — I quote from his " Life of Christ " — " the 
 soul of Jesus returned from Paradise and the 
 visitation of separate spirits, and re-entered into 
 his holy body, which he, by his Divine power, did 
 
jeremy Taylor's vagueness. 127 
 
 wdintegrate, ///////£■ his veins with blood, healing all 
 his wounds, excepting those five of his hands, feet 
 and side, which he reserved as trophies of his 
 victory, and arguments of his passion/' 
 
 But soon, his ' seraphic fancy ' peeps out. 
 "And though," says he, "like Moses, descending 
 from the mount, he wore a veil, that the greatness 
 of his splendour might not render him unapt for 
 conversation with his servants ; yet the holy scrip- 
 ture affirms that he was now no more to see cor- 
 ruption." 
 
 A few more words on this theme, and we leave 
 it. A sceptical friend asks me to state plainly, 
 since we read that Christ left the grave clothes in 
 the sepulchre, how he was clad ! And I call to 
 mind a curious discussion I had with London 
 sceptics, in the Hall of Science, City-Road, one 
 Sunday night, in 1857, — on this very subject. 
 One stout debater insisted that the Gospel account 
 was positively indecorous, for it left us to draw but 
 one possible conclusion : that Jesus was utterly 
 without clothing when he appeared in the early 
 morning, in the garden, to Mary Magdalen. 
 
 " O nay ! " instantly replied a real Cockney ; " if 
 
128 CURIOUS NOTIONS OF CHRIST'S DRESS. 
 
 wasn't so. You know, she took him for the gar- 
 dener. Doubtless, it was because, being in bnff, 
 he had put on the gardener's clothes, having found 
 'em in the garden-house ! " 
 
 There was a loud laugh; but the Cockney 
 looked amazed to witness it. I verily believe, the 
 poor fellow believed what he said. 
 
 Professor Westcott touches this question very 
 shyly, in a note : " His dress (it has been said) 
 must have been purely subjective. But a little 
 reflection will shew that the special outward forms, 
 in which the Lord was pleased to make Himself 
 sensibly recognizable by His disciples, were no 
 more necessarily connected with His glorified 
 Person than the robes which He wore." 
 
 Here again is the language of mysticism, — 
 a language in which I cannot convey my own 
 simple belief. Neither could I tell you that 
 I believe the Saviour's dress was " purely sub- 
 jective" — for I believe no such nonsense. I tell 
 you, without fine-spun philosophical phrases, and 
 without fearing the ridicule of critics or unbelievers, 
 that I believe Christ appeared to Magdalen and to 
 His apostles in a perfectly decorous dress of His 
 
ASCENSION-BODY OF CHRIST. I 20 
 
 own creation. And I think it most likely that it 
 resembled the dress — the coat ' without seam, 
 woven from the top to the bottom ' — in which the 
 disciples had been accustomed to see him, daily, 
 in the days when they journeyed with him and 
 took him in their boats upon the sea of Galilee. 
 
 I say — a dress of his own creation. He had but 
 to will that it should exist, and it would exist. 
 He created bread, twice, to feed the bodies of 
 others : why should he not create clothing for 
 his own body ? 
 
 In conclusion, I will take the liberty to use the 
 words of Dr. Candlish in expressing my own con- 
 victions : " Some have felt themselves shut up to 
 the conclusion, that our Lord's body did not under- 
 go the needful change from corruption to incorrup- 
 tion, — that it did not become a spiritual body, — 
 until his ascension. Until then, in their view, His 
 risen body was of the same kind with his body as it 
 hung on the cross, and as it was laid in the grave. 
 It was on its going into heaven, that it was so trans 
 formed from a natural to a spiritual body, as to be 
 fitted for its heavenly immortality." 
 
 The doctor mentions Dr. John Brown, as holding 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 ASCENSION -BODY OF CHRIST. 
 
 these views. I have never seen the book of Dr. 
 John Brown; but have been accustomed, all my 
 life, to hear these views expressed, by Christian 
 teachers of various denominations. As a Christian 
 believer I have never had any other views ; and I 
 can see no reason for changing them. I hold that 
 the ' natural body ' of the Saviour became a 
 'spiritual body' as He ascended to heaven — and 
 not before 
 
EARNEST WORDS TO DOUBTERS. 131 
 
 XT. 
 
 THE DUTY OF ENQUIRY INTO THE CHRISTIAN 
 evidences: AN EARNEST APPEAL TO SCEP- 
 TICAL WORKINGMEN. 
 
 I DO not imagine, or expect, that I can win 
 over, at once, to Christianity, the minds of 
 sceptical workingmen, who may be listening to 
 me. I know too well, by personal experience, how 
 hard it is to part with sceptical convictions — how 
 difficult it is to bring a mind, which has become 
 strongly warped in the direction of unbelief, to 
 enter upon a determined, steady, and persevering 
 consideration of the Christian Evidences. And 
 without this — without an earnest and devoted study 
 of Christian Evidence — no thinking sceptic (for I 
 am not addressing vulgar scoffers) can ever be- 
 come a real Christian. 
 
 I seek no flighty converts from your ranks — no 
 sudden passing over to our side from yours, of 
 
132 EARNEST WORDS TO DOUBTERS. 
 
 some hot, excitable partisan, who is incapable of 
 thinking. I seek to lead you to accept what I 
 believe to be Truth, by inducing you to practise 
 the daily reflection, the steady conning over and 
 over again of each item of the Christian Evidences, 
 which effectually cured my doubts, and rendered me 
 a settled and grateful believer. I would not lift up 
 my finger, or stir a straw, to make a sudden and 
 spasmodic conversion of any one of you, which 
 would leave you helpless in your new belief, and 
 incapable of giving a reason of the hope within you. 
 Such a convert would be a very useless one. I want 
 to enlist real soldiers for my Master. 
 
 Do not refuse to part with your prejudices. Do 
 not say, lightly and scornfully, 'We can never be- 
 lieve such a story as that of Christ's resurrection.' 
 I ask you, in the words of St. Paul, 'Why should 
 it be thought a thing incredible with you that God 
 should raise the dead ? ' If you believe in God's 
 existence, Christ's resurrection ought not to be in- 
 credible to you. The Almighty Being Who gives 
 and supports all life, can surely restore life. And, 
 to those among you who do not believe in God's 
 existence, I put the old question — How can you 
 
EARNEST WORDS TO DOUBTERS. 1 33 
 
 account for the present existence of Christianity 
 in the world, without granting it to be true — and 
 without admitting that the Resurrection of Christ 
 is a veritable fact ? 
 
 I, again, urge upon you all, the necessity of 
 reconsidering your doubts, and re-examining your 
 sceptical convictions, instead of turning away to 
 sink again into stolid indifference — or, to talk over 
 your old prejudices, and strengthen one another in 
 them, as you are wont to do. 
 
 1. Whether the story of the Resurrection be 
 false or true, you cannot, as I have already said, 
 peruse a story of equal— much less, of greater 
 importance. No history, no narrative, ever written 
 in the world has been creative of such unparalleled 
 effects, as the history contained in the Four Gos- 
 pels. Can it be possible that so many millions of 
 our race — of the most enlightened part of our race 
 — and, among them, hundreds of the brightest 
 human intellects — have received this Gospel history 
 for truth, — and yet it is but a bundle of fables, a 
 mere tissue of superstition and mistake ? 
 
 You cannot read these Gospels, attentively and 
 thoughtfully, without feeling their pictorial power — 
 
134 TH E DISCIPLES WERE NQT MEN 
 
 their likeness to truth. Unless you are under the 
 influence of confirmed and rooted prejudice, you 
 cannot say that the simple writing reads like a lie. 
 There is a naturalness in the Gospel narratives 
 which ever characterises truthful statement. Their 
 writers never deal in rant, in turgid descriptions, in 
 exaggerated portraitures. 
 
 The character and conduct of the witnesses who 
 saw Jesus after he rose from the dead deserve 
 your respect, and not your scorn. They were not 
 men of weak character, however rude and un- 
 educated they might be. They were not easily 
 gullible men. When they received the report 
 of the women who declared that they had seen 
 Jesus and he had spoken to them, the apostles 
 were stoutly incredulous. The report of the 
 women seemed to them Mike idle tales.' And 
 Thomas received the assurance of his fellow-dis- 
 ciples, that they had seen Jesus, with the sternest 
 unbelief. There is not a sentence in the Gospels 
 which would lead us to the conclusion that the 
 apostles were men who could easily be imposed 
 upon. They are as full of Jewish prejudices as 
 the rest of their countrymen; and hold to their 
 
TO BE EASILY IMPOSED UPON. 135 
 
 prejudices with the same tenacity of character. 
 They only yield up their prejudices — they only 
 part with their unbelief — from the superincumbent 
 pressure — the overwhelming force of evidence. 
 
 When they were assembled with closed doors 
 and Jesus stood suddenly in their midst, their 
 behaviour was perfectly natural behaviour. They 
 were terrified, for they thought he was a spirit. 
 And what wonder, since he appeared in a moment, 
 and the doors had not been opened ? We cannot 
 wonder at their unbelief in the outset; but we 
 should have wondered if it had continued. When 
 Christ told them to ' handle ' him, and thus make 
 themselves sure that he had a natural body, — a 
 body of ' flesh and bones,' — and when they saw 
 him eat, it would have been strange indeed if 
 their doubts did not begin to lessen, and their faith 
 to dawn. 
 
 And, if their doubts again returned, and they 
 feared they were mistaken, — yet, when Christ 
 appeared to them, again and again, during the 
 forty days before his ascension; — when they had 
 had time to recall to mind, and talk with one 
 another about, all the miraculous deeds of the 
 
136 THE WONDROUS CHANGE SEEN IN 
 
 Saviour ; — how they had seen him walk on the 
 waves : — how they had received the broken loaves 
 and divided fishes, from his hands, and had twice 
 seen thousands of human beings fed, miraculously j 
 — how they had seen him cure the leper, the 
 paralytic, the lame, the blind, with a word ; — how 
 they had heard him summon Lazarus from the tomb, 
 and seen the man who had been four days buried 
 come forth alive, and had afterwards sat at meat 
 with him ; — they could not doubt any longer that 
 the resurrection of their Lord and Master was real. 
 
 How Christ could pass into a room without the 
 doors being unclosed; — how he could suddenly 
 vanish from their sight ; — where he was when he 
 was absent from them ;— they knew not: they 
 could not have answered Strauss, if he had lived in 
 their day, and put such questions to them. But, 
 after all that they had witnessed so plainly, they 
 could not doubt. 
 
 2. I entreat you, now, to fix your attention on 
 the change wrought in the character and conduct 
 of the Apostles, from the time of the resurrection 
 of their Lord : — for the change wrought in them 
 is one of the strongest and clearest proofs of the 
 
THE CONDUCT OB THE DISCIPLES. 137 
 
 truth of Christianity. Remember, how selfish and 
 worldly were their expectations in the former time; 
 and how Christ had to settle their foolish quarrels 
 about earthly precedency. Remember their real 
 ignorance as to who the Saviour really was. They 
 knew nothing of His Divine Nature : — for we must 
 not take those sudden words of Peter, " Thou art 
 the Christ, the Son of the Living God," as signifi- 
 cative of the opinions of the Apostles. Peter 
 seems, from what Christ says, to have uttered the 
 words by Divine impulse, and without knowing 
 the full meaning of them : " Blessed art thou, 
 Simon Bar-Jona ! " says the Saviour, " for flesh 
 and blood hath not revealed this unto thee; but 
 my Father which is in heaven." 
 
 They could not have known that Christ was 
 Cod, as well as Man, and have walked and talked 
 with Him, daily, as they did. Their whole natures 
 must have shrunk into the dust — they could not 
 have companied with Him as they did — had they 
 known that He was God, as well as Man. They, 
 doubtless, experienced feelings of awe and wonder, 
 and questionings uninterpretable by their own minds, 
 when they saw His miracles. But their language 
 
138 Christ's divinity gradually 
 
 was "What manner of man is this?" when He 
 stilled the waves and the winds : they had, still, no 
 conception that He was God. Even when they 
 saw Him walk on the waves, it raised in them no 
 belief in His Divinity, although they were affrighted 
 till He spoke to them, and said " Be of good 
 cheer, it is I ! " Peter calls out " Lord, if it be 
 Thou, bid me come unto Thee " — with the same 
 loving and simple familiarity, as if he had been 
 making the commonest request. 
 
 The ' infallible proofs ; not only of his identity, 
 as the very Jesus whom they had known ; but, of 
 His Divinity, must have begun to dawn upon their 
 minds, during the ' forty days ' that intervened be- 
 tween His resurrection and ascension. Although 
 they were ' unlearned and ignorant men ' in the 
 opinion of the Sanhedrim, they knew that no 
 merely human being could suddenly appear in a 
 room with closed doors, and disappear in a 
 moment. They knew that when He appeared in 
 their midst, the second time, and reminded Thomas 
 of his words of unbelief — He must have heard the 
 words of Thomas when they did not know that He 
 was near them and listening to them. 
 
PERCEIVED BY THE APOSTLES. I39 
 
 In the thrilling words of Bishop Wilberforce, 
 " They saw Him ; they heard Him ; He joined 
 unexpectedly in their conversation or actions, as if 
 He had all along been, unseen, a witness of them ; 
 they handled Him ; He was there ; He blessed 
 them 1 and again He vanished out of their sight. 
 But was He gone, or only hidden ? Was He 
 away, or only unseen ? They were now learning 
 He ivas ever with them ; that He was not, as before, 
 present with those who were in one place, and 
 therefore absent from those who were in another : 
 that it was not with Him now as it had been of 
 old, when He was not with the dying Lazarus at 
 Bethany, because He was with the twelve in the 
 parts of Galilee ; but that wheresoever two or 
 three were gathered, there He was in the midst of 
 them; that space, and singleness of place, were 
 not to Him. 
 
 " And this was a most practical belief. It gave 
 a sense of reality to their whole lives. They were 
 learning the great law of His spiritual presence. 
 For all they did was done in His sight. In a 
 moment He might stand visibly beside them. 
 There was no more room for ' reasoning apart, in 
 
140 THE 'POWER FROM ON HIGH,' AND 
 
 the way, which of them was the greatest ' ; for they 
 ever felt that His eye was on them ; that His ear 
 marked their words. And this, while it interfered 
 with none of the true joys of life, did yet add a 
 depth and a seriousness to its whole character ; 
 their actions were deeds done in full light, under 
 the King's eye, with His approbation or displea- 
 sure marked on each ; they were conscious of too 
 high a presence to be triflers, or mean or shallow, 
 themselves." 
 
 They became new men. It was by a gradual, 
 yet really rapid process. What a contrast between 
 the picture given of them, before, in half-a-dozen 
 words, " They all forsook him and fled " — and 
 their behaviour when he has ascended, and they 
 have received the ' power from on high ' that He 
 had promised them ! What a contrast between 
 the cowardly Peter who trembles at the words of 
 a servant maid, and denies His Master — and the 
 unlettered fisherman, his tongue 'touched with 
 hallowed fire,' uttering words, at Pentecost, which 
 pierce his hearers to the heart, and proclaiming in 
 triumphant syllables the resurrection of his Lord ! 
 
 See how strong the conviction has become in 
 
ITS INFLUENCE ON THE APOSTLES. 14I 
 
 the hearts of the Apostles that their Master is 
 Divine — when they take the lame man by the 
 hand, and command him ' in the name of Jesus of 
 Nazareth ' to ' rise up and walk ! ' Listen to Peter 
 making another great speech — preaching another 
 great sermon — to the wondering crowd ! How 
 this fact about 'the Prince (or Author) of Life, 
 Whom God hath raised from the dead,' still burns 
 upon his tongue ! What an orator he becomes in 
 a little time ! — and, I don't think anybody would 
 be so much surprised at it as Peter himself. 
 " How is this? " Peter would say to himself, 
 u that I, the poor, uneducated fisherman can talk 
 in this way, and the people are converted so fast ? 
 (For the church now numbered five thousand !) 
 Lord, it is Thy Holy Spirit that does the work, it 
 is not poor blundering Peter ! " 
 
 But, now come the priests, and the Sadducees, 
 and the captain of the temple, and seize Peter and 
 John, and put them in prison, till the next day. 
 And, on the next morning, they are brought up 
 before their judges, and the lame man who was 
 healed likewise. " By what power, or what name, 
 have ye done this?" the judges demand. You 
 
142 CONFUSION AND EVIDENT FRIGHT 
 
 see, they do not question the miracle itself: they 
 believe it has been done by magic — by the aid of 
 Evil Spirits — or by practising magical rites and 
 pronouncing the word 'Tetragrammaton,' or some 
 other awful collection of syllables. But Peter 
 boldly tells them that the miracle has been done 
 by faith in the name of Jesus whom they — the 
 priests and rulers — had crucified ; and whom God 
 has raised from the dead. 
 
 And then the rulers are confounded, and put the 
 prisoners out of Court, that they may talk it over a 
 while. But, all they can summon courage to do is, to 
 call them in again, and strictly forbid them to teach 
 any more in the name of Jesus — and let them go ! 
 
 Soon after the Sanhedrim bring them up again, 
 and send them to prison again. But the angel ot 
 God releases them, and they go and teach in the 
 temple. Again they are fetched, and brought up 
 again for trial. It would seem that it was not only 
 Peter and John, but the whole company of the 
 apostles, this time — yet Peter is, still, the great 
 spokesman, and witnesses again, boldly, that 
 God hath exalted the Jesus whom they crucified 
 to be ' a Prince and a Saviour,' 
 
OF THE ANGRY SANHEDRIM. 1 43 
 
 The rulers are ' cut to the heart,' and take 
 counsel to slay the apostles. But the counsel of 
 Gamaliel, and their own fears, prevail. And so 
 they call in the offenders, and having beaten 
 them, they commanded that they should not speak 
 in the name of Jesus, — and, again, — they let them 
 go ! Such was the lame conclusion to all their 
 display of authority on the part of the rulers ! 
 But, as for the apostles, — " They went forth rejoic- 
 ing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame 
 in His Name. And daily in the temple, and in 
 every house, they ceased not to teach and preach 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 Ancient tradition teaches that every one of the 
 Apostles, except John, became martyrs for Christ. 
 It is true, modern criticism rejects this tradition — 
 as it rejects almost every other tradition. Yet no 
 modern critic can prove the tradition false. And, 
 so far as we can trace the lives of the apostles, by 
 aid of the historic narratives and letters in the New 
 Testament, we should hardly be led to the conclu- 
 sion that many of them died a natural death. Paul 
 does not seem to be describing his own experience, 
 only, wher he tells the Corinthians — "I think that 
 
144 THE TWELVE SAW MORE THAN PAUL. 
 
 God hath set forth us, the apostles, last, as it were 
 appointed to death. . . . We both hunger and 
 thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have 
 no certain dwelling-place ; and labour, working 
 with our own hands : being reviled, we bless : being 
 persecuted, we suffer it: being defamed, we intreat: 
 we are made as the filth of the world, and are the 
 off scouring of all things, unto this day." 
 
 Paul was the apostle 'born out of due time,' to 
 whom Christ appeared, miraculously, along time, 
 comparatively, after the ascension. If Paul's zeal 
 was so great as we know it was (for neither English 
 nor foreign sceptics doubt it) how great zeal must 
 the companions of Christ have felt? To them 
 He appeared not once only, but often ; not in a 
 dazzling environment of light, over-head, for a few 
 moments, amid the hurry of a journey — but stand- 
 ing amidst them, as they sat together, and shewing 
 them his hands and feet and side, and eating with 
 them. Paul never tells us that he saw any of 
 Christ's miracles ; and it is not likely that he would 
 omit to tell us, if he really witnessed any of them. 
 He did not, like the other apostles, hear Christ 
 say 'I will: be thou clean' and see the leper im- 
 
THE TWELVE SAW MORE THAN PAUL. 1 45 
 
 mediately made whole. He did not, like the 
 other apostles, hear the open declaration of the 
 man who had been born blind, and to whom 
 Jesus had given sight — ' One thing I know, that, 
 whereas I was blind, now I see.' He did not, 
 like the other apostles, see Jesus walk on the 
 waves. He did not, like the other apostles, 
 receive the broken bread and divided fishes from 
 Christ's hands, and help to distribute them to the 
 thousands who were miraculously fed. 
 
 Think of the forces, and repetition of forces, 
 brought to bear on the convictions of the apostolic 
 companions of Christ, compared with the evidence 
 which swayed the mind of Paul. We cannot 
 wonder that the resolution of the men to whom 
 revelation after revelation was made by Christ, 
 before and after his resurrection, impelled them to 
 encounter all peril, all suffering, and death itself, in 
 their testimony to the Risen Saviour. Their moral 
 heroism cannot surprise us. Their nature would 
 not have been like our common human nature, if 
 they had acted otherwise with such compelling evi- 
 dence surrounding them. Their conduct is consist- 
 ent : the change in them is natural. All that is clear. 
 
 10 
 
I46 IF THE APOSTLES WERE SANE, 
 
 But, if they saw no Risen Christ — if they felt 
 none of these compelling motives, they could not 
 have been sane men to have led the lives they led. 
 Impostors they could not have been. They had 
 no motives for imposture, for they had nothing to 
 gain bylt. And sane men could not have held by 
 the day-dreams which Strauss imputes to them, 
 amid the scorn and suffering of years, to end their 
 lives by martyrdom. 
 
 "It is impossible," says Dr. Macpherson ot 
 Aberdeen, in his excellent Lectures on the Resur- 
 rection, "for any sane mind to have been deluded 
 by its own imagination, however excited, as Strauss 
 represents these followers of Jesus to have been. 
 Strauss, or any other person, may easily assert that 
 such was the case ; but, we repeat, the supposition, 
 taking all the circumstances into consideration, is 
 morally impossible. Imagination cannot so operate 
 in any mind not deprived of reason. A sound 
 mind may be deceived by outward appearances, or 
 by plausible testimony. Nay, it may, at times, be 
 deluded by suggestions of its own imagination. 
 But such a mind will recover its proper condition 
 as soon as time and events have withdrawn the 
 
CHRISTIANITY MUST BE TRUE. 147 
 
 sources of deception or of delusion. Insanity 
 alone could account for such a delusion as that 
 under which, according to Strauss, these first dis- 
 ciples laboured. " 
 
 Then, were the apostles insane? What were 
 those words of Paul ? — " Being reviled, we bless : 
 being persecuted, we suffer it : being defamed, we 
 intreat." Did you ever know any madness like 
 that, my sceptical friends ? I wish the whole world 
 were converted to such madness : the madness of 
 men forgiving their enemies, and blessing those 
 who revile them ! What a happy world it would 
 soon be. if it were smitten with such madness ! 
 
148 WASTE OF MATERIAL BODY 
 
 XII 
 
 CONSIDERATION OF OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE 
 OF A FUTURE STATE : OUR OWN EXISTENCE 
 IN THE ETERNAL FUTURE MADE CERTAIN BY 
 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 
 
 "\T 7E see, clearly enough, what you mean," 
 V V some of you will say, " by urging us to 
 consider, so especially, the evidence for Christ's 
 resurrection. You mean, that His resurrection, 
 some way or other, secures our resurrection ; and 
 that we might become assured of that, by studying 
 this evidence. But you know our greatest diffi- 
 culty : — What solution of it do you offer to us ? — 
 
 " When we die, our bodies will, in the lapse of 
 years, be dispersed throughout Nature, and become, 
 very likely, over and over again, parts of other 
 bodies. How can we live again, when our bodies 
 are scattered into atoms, and are driven miles 
 isunder ? " 
 
SHEWS ERAIN IS NOT MIND. 1 49 
 
 How is it that you live now, at this present 
 moment — and the body you had ten years ago is 
 scattered into atoms, and the atoms may be driven 
 miles asunder? With your materialistic notions, 
 you would have contended that the brain you had, 
 ten years ago, thought, reasoned, and remembered ; 
 and that, whatever knowledge you had treasured 
 up, was treasured up in that brain. But that brain 
 is gone — scattered into atoms, which may be 
 driven miles asunder : where is the knowledge you 
 had ten years ago — the remembrance of incidents 
 in childhood — of the sayings and doings of your 
 friends in youth — reminiscences of your reading, 
 your fancies, your day-dreams — records more 
 serious of your manhood — pictures of scenery — 
 remembrances of facts — ot grateful joys and of 
 heavy sorrows — of mirth and of heart-ache — where 
 are all these, now ? — scattered into atoms of for- 
 getfulness, with the atoms of the brain you had ten 
 years ago ? 
 
 No: because it was not your brain which knew, 
 and recorded, and remembered. It was your 
 Mind: your real Self. And when the body and 
 brain you have now are scattered into atoms, and 
 
150 CHANGES OF MATERIAL BODY 
 
 driven miles asunder, your real Self will still exist — 
 will still live. 
 
 There is no greater rationality in concluding that 
 your body is your real Self, any more than that the 
 air around you, or the earth on which you tread, is 
 your real Self. Your brain is composed of carbon, 
 oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus, and so on. But 
 how can you imagine, or believe, that so many 
 parts of these, by being mingled, interfused, or 
 combined, can attain the faculty, or power, of 
 thinking ? Why permit yourself to be mystified by 
 people who call themselves philosophers, and who, 
 like Dr. Tyndall, prophesy because they cannot prove, 
 that some day, or other, men will come to learn 
 that Matter thinks ? Use your common-sense, 
 workingmen, is the humble advice I give you ; and 
 tell such people that you are not to be humgud- 
 geoned by such prophecies ; and that a philo- 
 sopher's part is not to prophesy, but to prove, 
 by induction. 
 
 I wish you workingmen would learn to read 
 Bishop Butler. You could scarcely do that, with- 
 out preferring him to all other reasoners. He 
 shows that .we cannot reason that death is the 
 
SHEW THAT BRAIN IS NOT MIND. 151 
 
 destruction of Ourselves — for we do not know 
 what death really is. We only witness some of 
 its effects, such as the dissolution ot flesh, skin, 
 and bones. We are also ignorant as to what the 
 exercise of our living powers depends upon. They 
 seem to be extinct when we are fast asleep, or in a 
 swoon. But they are not extinct : we soon exercise 
 them again. This shews that our living powers 
 may be suspended without being destroyed. 
 
 We know by our own consciousness that we are 
 Ourselves. I want you to look at this very closely. 
 You know that the air around you is not Yourself, 
 nor any part of yourself. Then, if you breathe it, 
 and it becomes a part of your bodily system, it is 
 still no part of your real Self. You see an ox, or 
 a sheep, in a field. You are sure that neither 
 animal is a part of Yourself. And, if either animal 
 be killed, and you eat of its flesh, and so its body 
 becomes a part of your bodily system, still it is no 
 part of your real Self, any more than it was while 
 the animal walked in the field. 
 
 Your real Self thinks, judges, remembers, and its 
 power ot thinking, judging, remembering, may be 
 suspended, only to be again exercised — but vour 
 
152 NOT TRUE THAT THE MIND 
 
 thumb does not think, your great toe does not 
 judge, your little finger does not remember; and so 
 neither can your brain do any of these — for the 
 chemical substances of which it is composed are 
 found in other parts of your bodies, and these can 
 neither think, judge, or remember, separately — and 
 how should they do so, together ? 
 
 " It is as easy to conceive," argues again Butler — 
 the prince of reasoners — that our real Selves " may 
 exist out of our bodies as in them : and that we 
 might have animated bodies of any other organs 
 and senses wholly different from these now given 
 us ; that we may hereafter animate these same or 
 new bodies variously modified and organized ; as 
 to conceive we can animate bodies such as our pre- 
 sent. And, lastly, the dissolution of all these several 
 organized bodies, supposing ourselves to have suc- 
 cessfully animated them, would have no more con- 
 ceivable tendency to destroy the living beings — 
 Ourselves, — or deprive us of living faculties, — 
 the faculties of perception and of action,, — than the 
 dissolution of any foreign matter, which we are 
 capable of receiving impressions from, and making 
 use of for the common occasions of life." 
 
DECLINES WITH THE BODY. 1 53 
 
 I am thinking of another objection to Man's 
 spiritual nature which 1 have often heard from 
 doubters : that the growth of our intellectual 
 powers accompanies the growth towards maturity 
 of our bodies; and that our intellectual power 
 declines as our bodily strength declines. But let 
 no one ever persuade you that they can reason from 
 what is not fact. Men's bodies usually begin to lose 
 their elasticity, their capability of sustaining pro- 
 longed labour, or exerting great speed of motion, 
 between forty and fifty. But it is something rare to 
 find a healthy man's intellect decline so early. On 
 the contrary, men usually feel themselves capable of 
 sounder thinking and discernment, at sixty, than 
 at any prior period of their lives. Nay, we have 
 instances of high intellectual power displayed by 
 men of fourscore. 
 
 Some of you will remember some very excellent 
 observations of Lord Brougham on this subject, in 
 his 'Discourse of Natural Theology' — which is 
 now prefixed to the best edition of Paley. Lord 
 Brougham was, himself, a living proof, at fourscore, 
 of the correctness of his own reasoning. Lord Lynd- 
 hurst, and many other Law-lords, with many states 
 
154 ARGUMENT OF BUTLER, THAT 
 
 men, authors, artists and philosophers, might be 
 named, as corroborating the important truth, that 
 our intellectual faculties do not usually decline in 
 vigour as early as the strength of our bodies 
 declines. 
 
 I must ask you to reflect, also, on another fact, 
 which is treated with his usual force, by the great 
 reasoner I mentioned to you, a few minutes ago. 
 A mortal disease may be going on in the bodily 
 system of a man, for many months : it is advancing 
 most surely : its progress cannot be stopped ; but 
 the man's intellectual powers are not affected, up 
 to the moment of his sudden death. " In these 
 diseases," observes Butler, " persons the moment 
 before death appear to be in the highest vigour of 
 life. They discover apprehension, memory, reason, 
 all entire ; with the utmost force of affection ; sense 
 of character, of shame and honour; and the highest 
 mental enjoyments and sufferings, even to the last 
 gasp : and these surely prove even greater vigour ot 
 life than bodily strength does. Now, what pretence 
 is there for thinking that a progressive disease 
 when arrived to such a degree — I mean, that 
 degree which is mcrtal — will destroy those powers 
 
DEATH IS THE PORCH OF LIFE. 1 55 
 
 which were not impaired, which were not affected 
 by it, dining its whole progress up to that degree? 
 And, if death, by diseases of this kind, is not the 
 destruction of our present reflecting powers, it will 
 scarcely be thought that death by any other means 
 is." 
 
 So far from death being the termination of our 
 conscious existence, is it not rational to suppose 
 it may be merely a change that we must necessarily 
 pass through in order to reach a higher state of 
 existence ? How different was our mode of life in 
 the womb compared with our state in infancy ; — 
 and how different was our state in infancy, when 
 we might rather be termed creatures of sensation 
 than beings of intelligence, compared with our 
 mature human life. And may not death introduce 
 us to another and yet higher state of intelligence 
 and consciousness ? 
 
 Many of you, I fear, are now without any degree 
 of belief that may be called an assurance of a 
 future life. But you will not tell me that you 
 wish for no such assurance : that you care nothing 
 about it. I knew a lew, in the dark days of my 
 own unbelief, who said they cared nothing about 
 
156 OUR NATURAL LOVE OF LIFE. 
 
 death, and did not wish for another life after the 
 present. But they were not really intelligent 
 men. They were of the gross and sensual order of 
 unbelievers. The purer and higher minds— the 
 more cultivated free-thinkers that I knew — told a 
 different tale. They acknowledged that they felt 
 as I felt, in my doubt : — that I would choose to 
 encounter pain for ever, rather than sink into anni- 
 hilation. And, thus, they expressed a throbbing 
 sympathy with the sentiments that Milton puts into 
 the splendid oratory of that speech of Belial, in the 
 second book of ' Paradise Lost ' : 
 
 "for who would lose, 
 
 "Though full of pain, this intellectual being, 
 " These thoughts that wander through eternity, 
 " To perish rather, swallowed up and lost 
 " In the wide womb of uncreated night, 
 " Devoid of sense and motion ! " 
 
 I am addressing intellectual men, I trust : not 
 the mere slaves of animalism : and your minds 
 respond to these sentiments. You do not feel 
 indifferent and careless about existence. Much 
 less, do you wish to cease to think, and cease to 
 be. You cannot look on annihilation without a 
 
OUR NATURAL LOVE OF LIFE. 1 57 
 
 shudder. Whatever a future state may be, you 
 would rather live in it, than be no more. You 
 have no passion for annihilation. 
 
 Although you are often wearied with bodily toil, 
 is not existence pleasant here ? Some of you may 
 have no sense of the beauty and grandeur of 
 Nature — but you are not all dull and blind to the 
 glories of the outward creation. It would be a 
 saddening thought to many of you, — if you knew 
 that Death was close at hand, and you would never 
 again see the glorious sun * tip the hills with gold ' 
 in the morning, nor behold him set in regal, but 
 departing splendour in the evening; — that you 
 would never again see the queenly moon silver the 
 clouds with brightness, nor the stars, "so wildly, 
 spiritually bright/' begem the deep blue arch at 
 midnight; — that you would never again tread the 
 green carpet of the earth, spread with daisies, nor 
 witness the joys of children, as they gather the 
 primroses and blue bells of the spring ; — that you 
 would never again feel the glory and radiance of 
 summer, nor see autumn put on her robes of russet 
 and gold, and take her throne amid the gorgeous 
 tapestry of the oaks and beeches and pines of the 
 
158 OUR NATURAL LOVE OF LIFE. 
 
 forest ; — that you would never again gaze on dear 
 old Earth's beloved panorama of mountain and lake 
 and river, and hill and dale, and field and wood ; — 
 that you would never again hear the sweet carol 
 of the lark — the golden flute of the blackbird — 
 the vernal shout of the cuckoo — and the hum of 
 gladsome bees ; — never again witness the sport of 
 lambs "scattering the wild briar roses into snow;" — 
 never again gaze at that magnificent picture of the 
 superb arching of a horse's neck, the proud prancing 
 of his feet, and the grace of his form and action ; — 
 that you would never again see the smiling faces of 
 your children, nor the loving eyes of your wife ; — 
 never again hear the dear voice of your mother, 
 nor receive the blessing of your reverend father ; — 
 never again clasp the friend of your boyhood and 
 your youth by the hand ; — never again hear the 
 voice of friendship or of love ; — never again join in 
 exciting and inspiring converse with your intellec- 
 tual friends, 
 
 ' ' and reason high 
 " Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate : 
 " Fixed fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute ; 
 •' And find no end, in wandering mazes lost "— 
 
THERE IS ROOM FOR HEAVEN. 159 
 
 (for to know and feel, after all our debates and 
 discussions on such subjects, that we cannot answer 
 our own questions, seems to be the greatest charm 
 of the debate) — never learn another fact about 
 science— about the secrets of chemistry and elec- 
 tricity, and the wonders of astronomy. 
 
 One has sometimes heard conceited speakers 
 assure their audiences that the Future State had 
 been rendered utterly impossible by the discoveries 
 of Science ;— that the Christian Heaven, so long 
 doted on by religious people, had been swept away 
 by the revelations of astronomy — for there was 
 no room for one in the Universe, with its count- 
 less suns, its planetary systems, its comets, and 
 its nebular bodies. 
 
 But does not such a declaration seem very odd, 
 when you come to think about it? No room in 
 the Universe for a Heaven ! Surely, all these 
 wondrous revelations of astronomy seem to provide 
 us with more and more room. What ! are there 
 so many millions of stars in the Milky Way — stars 
 which are suns of other planetary systems — and is 
 there no room anywhere among them all, for a 
 Heaven ? — What ! neither among our old acquain- 
 
I Co ONLY DEGRADED MINDS CAN 
 
 tances, the Pleiades — nor in ruddy Aldebaran — 
 nor in silvery Vega — nor in huge Arcturus — nor in 
 still huger Sirius — nor in any member of the giant 
 constellation Orion — nor in any of the innumera- 
 ble planets that may be revolving around these 
 bodies ? No room for Heaven anywhere ! Surely 
 all these grand revelations of Astronomy assure us 
 that there is room in the Universe not only for one 
 heaven, but for ten thousand heavens, if we need 
 them. 
 
 And is the Universe boundless — (for you cannot 
 conceive the contrary) — and yet, when you die 
 here, you are never to know any more of it? 
 Existence — conscious existence — is to be experi- 
 enced and enjoyed by millions, in the ages after 
 your death ; but you are to be extinct — to be anni- 
 hilated : you are to be cut off from all conscious 
 ness — for ever ! Can you bear to look at that un- 
 moved and unaffected ? You cannot, if you have 
 any mind at all. 
 
 Is existence so desirable to me — a man of three- 
 score and ten — and do you young men feel unsad- 
 dened at the thought of parting with it? "Give 
 roe my youth again ! " I often wish, with poor 
 
WISH FOR ANNIHILATION. l6l 
 
 Byron. I seem to have experienced so little pain 
 and sorrow compared with the enjoyment life has 
 afforded me, that I often think I should like to 
 begin even this life over again. But when I think 
 of my Saviour's promise — " I go to prepare a place 
 for you ; and if I go and prepare a place for you, 
 I will come again, and receive you unto myself, 
 that where I am there ye may be also " — oh, what 
 unspeakable anguish, what indescribable sorrow 
 should I feel, if I were assured that I should never 
 realise His blessed promise — never be with Him ! 
 My present life, and all my past life, would seem 
 like a mockery of existence. I should not be able 
 to see any meaning in it. It would fill me with 
 despair and disgust ; and, in our common English 
 phrase, so homely, yet so full of meaning, " I 
 should not know what to do with myself ! " 
 
 And you, workingmen, who have any power of 
 reflection, cannot fail to wish for existence in the 
 future — to know what you cannot know here — and 
 what you wish the future to reveal. 
 
 But, where is your hope for this ? What teacher 
 promises you a future life, beyond the grave ? 
 Not Socrates or Plato ; for they were not sure of 
 
 1 1 
 
1 62 NO PROMISE OF HEREAFTER, 
 
 it themselves. Not Auguste Comte, or Strauss, or 
 Renan, with their belief in annihilation. Not John 
 Stuart Mill, who had no belief in a future state for 
 himself. You will search in vain for the doctrine 
 of a future state throughout the entire cyclopaedia 
 of scepticism. 
 
 It is upon Christ alone that you can lean for the 
 assurance of a future life. He is the only teacher 
 who says " If I live, ye shall live also " ; — the only 
 teacher who delivers the precious consolation to 
 his disciples, " I go to prepare a place for you ; 
 and I will come again, and receive you unto my- 
 self, that where I am, ye may be also ; " — the only 
 teacher who utters the momentous proclamation, 
 " I am the resurrection and the life : he that 
 believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
 live ; and he that liveth and believeth in me, 
 shall never die." 
 
 " And are we to be assured by words only ? " do 
 you ask? 
 
 Nay, by deeds — by mighty deeds. He who 
 uttered these words hath burst the bonds of Death. 
 He rose again from the dead, and hath ascended 
 up on high, leading captivity captive — conquering 
 
EXCEPT BY JESUS CHRIST. 1 63 
 
 Death the great conqueror — and hath received 
 gifts for men, even for the rebellious also. He 
 who declared He would rise again on the third 
 day redeemed His word. 
 
 Are these facts — veritable facts ? Then, since 
 Jesus rose from the dead and has passed into the 
 eternal state, it is possible that you and I may 
 also live, hereafter. And, if these be facts, I again 
 appeal to you whether you are not bound to 
 enquire into them. I conjure you, search — enquire 
 — prove the truth of it all, for yourselves. Do not 
 relapse into the mental sloth which may have pos- 
 sessed you ever since you became sceptical — the 
 old listless indifference and unwillingness to get on 
 a fresh track of thought. I know what it is — I re- 
 member it, too well ; and how almost universally 
 this mental sloth characterises the mind which has 
 sunk into unbelief. I entreat you, gird up the 
 loins of the mind, and now resolve to enter on 
 this great and momentous enquiry, in thorough 
 earnest. 
 
164 STEPS TO BE TAKEN IN ORDER 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE WAY TO REACH THE TRUTH RESPECTING 
 THE EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF 
 CHRIST, AND FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRIS- 
 TIANITY. 
 
 START, on this great enquiry, just where you 
 are, now. Commence it, at this moment. 
 
 1. Remind yourselves that it is a fact as posi- 
 tive as your own existence — that, at the present 
 moment, many millions of men, in the most highly 
 civilised parts of the world, believe that Christ's 
 human existence, holy life, miracles, death, and 
 resurrection, were veritable realities witnessed on 
 this earth, more than eighteen hundred years ago. 
 
 2. Trace this fact of belief, century by century 
 up through the ages, till you come upon the time 
 when St. Paul was preaching and writing, Paul 
 who — the most eminent of sceptical teachers assures 
 you — was a real human existence, living at the 
 time he is said to have lived, and preaching and 
 
TO REACH CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 1 65 
 
 teaching as the New Testament declares that he 
 taught and preached. Paul, the writer — according 
 to Strauss — of the epistle to the Romans, the two 
 epistles to the Corinthians, and the epistle to the 
 Galatians. Paul, the writer — according to Renan — ■ 
 not only of these epistles, but of six others : two 
 to the Thessalonians, and those to the Ephesians, 
 Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. 
 
 3. Next, make yourselves certain of this fact : 
 that the most diligent and accurate critics assure 
 us that the earliest of the epistles — those to the 
 Thessalonians — were written but twenty years, and 
 the latest — that to the Philippians — but twenty- 
 nine years, after the Crucifixion. 
 
 4. Take note, that in these epistles Paul not 
 only asserts his own belief of the truth of Chris- 
 tianity, but the belief of the persons to whom he is 
 writing : that is to say of some thousands of persons. 
 
 5. Observe that, in his first letter to the Corinth- 
 ians, St. Paul affirms that Jesus of Nazareth was 
 seen, after his resurrection from the dead, not 
 only by himself (Paul, the writer of the letter) ; but 
 twice by ' the twelve,' or the Apostles ; by above 
 five hundred persons at once, of whom the greater 
 
1 66 RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 
 
 number were still alive; and, also, separately, by 
 the apostles Peter and James, with whom Paul also 
 assures us, in his letter to the Galatians, that he 
 had conversed, at Jerusalem. 
 
 6. The Apostles having been named, this may 
 lead you to study the evidence for the Resurrection 
 of Christ contained in the Four Gospels and the 
 Acts. 
 
 7. But another search remains. Trace out the 
 mention of Christ's Resurrection, in the Epistles of 
 Paul, and bring home to your minds the truth, that 
 there could have been no Christianity without the 
 Resurrection of Christ: that if He had not risen 
 from the dead His very name might have been for- 
 gotten : for Jesus could not have been the Christ, 
 if He had not risen from the dead. His Messiah- 
 ship, His Atonement for the sins of the world — 
 His Intercession — all that is vital to us in the very 
 name of Jesus of Nazareth — rest on the verity of 
 His resurrection from the dead. 
 
 Listen to a few of the passages containing 
 mention of the Resurrection of Christ, from the 
 epistle to the Romans, only j and trace out the 
 other passages for yourselves : — 
 
IN THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. 1 67 
 
 " Declared to be the Son of God, with power, 
 according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrec- 
 tion from the dead" — " If we believe on Him who 
 raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was 
 delivered for our offences, and was raised again for 
 our justification " — "Christ was raised from the 
 dead, by the glory of the Father " — " Christ being 
 raised from the dead, dieth no more " — " If the 
 spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
 dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead 
 shall also quicken your mortal bodies" — "It is 
 Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who 
 is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh 
 intercession for us." 
 
 And now, in conclusion, I feel that I must speak 
 a few plain words to you — so plain that I hope you 
 will never forget them, while you live. 
 
 I have been appealing to you, my sceptical 
 friends, simply as men of understanding, as advo- 
 cates of reason, hitherto. I have addressed myselr 
 to your perception of duty — but it has only been 
 your duty to enquire into Christian Evidence. I 
 wish you were all thinkers but some of you are 
 
1 68 EARNEST APPEAL TO THE 
 
 too easily persuaded, rather than convinced. It 
 is not to the vigour of your rational and logical 
 faculties that the scepticism of some of you is 
 attributable. Scoffs and sneers and corrupt 
 example have prevailed with too many of you. 
 You know that I am telling you the truth ; and I 
 say it with sorrow. But, of whatever kind the 
 influence has been which has destroyed your re- 
 verence for religion and your belief in it — whether 
 mere scoffing, or pernicious reasoning have made 
 you unbelievers, you must now permit me to lay 
 bare the stronger reason why I urge you all to enter 
 on an earnest consideration of Christian Evidence. 
 
 It is not that you may reach the truth, and be 
 content with an idle credence of it. I hold that 
 you are moral agents — that you are to live after the 
 present life — and I want you to feel assured of the 
 verity of Christ's resurrection, that you may feel 
 assured of the reality of a future and endless life. 
 
 If you have thrown off all belief in a future state 
 — and, I fear, it is the case with too many of you ; 
 if you believe the present life will be the limit of 
 your conscious existence — you must feel that you 
 are, practically, classing yourselves entirely with the 
 
CONSCIENCE OF SCEPTICS. 1 69 
 
 animals. You are here for no purpose — for there 
 was no purpose in your creation. You happen to 
 be here : that is all you can say. It does not 
 matter how you live, for — as your teachers say — 
 you are, each of you, only a superior ape : a little 
 higher in organization than a. dog; and you will die 
 like a dog, and be no more ! Your belief does not 
 ennoble you ; but it degrades you : — and if you can 
 look upon your condition only for a moment, it 
 must fill you with disgust for your own miserable 
 existence. You refuse to acknowledge your moral 
 nature and your responsibility to the Moral 
 Governor of the world ; and yet you are not 
 able to kill Conscience : it will rise and accuse 
 you, in spite of all your attempts to stifle it. 
 
 Why should you live in this unhappy condition ? 
 Thousands of our race live in the happy belief that 
 they are something more than mere animals : that 
 they owe their existence to the Everlasting One 
 Who had a loving purpose in bringing them into 
 existence, and wills that they should be happy for 
 ever. 
 
 " We do not wish to be slaves of superstition," I 
 hear you say. 
 
170 EARNEST APPEAL TO THE 
 
 Nor am I inviting you to accept any supersti- 
 tion. I hate it, too thoroughly. I have warred 
 against it, all my life. No, no ! I shall never counsel 
 you to seek a priest, and confess your sins to him, 
 and perform the penance he imposes on you, in 
 order that you may receive absolution at his hands. 
 I do not advise you to exchange one slavery for 
 another. I urge you to preserve your own mental 
 freedom, and to exercise it now and henceforth, in 
 the pursuit of truth. 
 
 It is not by a passing thought — a mere momen- 
 tary consideration — that you can realise the intense 
 importance of the fact that you are moral agents — 
 that you are responsible creatures. And yet many 
 of you have never given more than a passing 
 thought to this all-important fact. Since you so 
 often feel the reproach of Conscience, when you 
 have transgressed that sense of Duty which you 
 cannot throw off any more than you can throw oft 
 your skin — dare you say that you are blameless in 
 never giving half-an-hour's serious thought to this 
 great question of your moral nature? I charge 
 you to take the question home. 
 
 Do not think that, while I talk thus plainly to 
 
CONSCIENCE OF SCEPTICS. 171 
 
 you, I have no feeling for the disabilities under 
 which you labour, as toiling men. Remember, 
 that I, as well as you, have known what it is to toil 
 with the hands till the weariness of the body dis- 
 ables the mind for thinking. Remember that I 
 have felt what deprivation is ; and that I have seen 
 others pine for lack of food, because there was no 
 work, — and become too much distracted and 
 maddened by despair, to be able to think about 
 anything but the means of satisfying their hunger. 
 Do not suppose that I can be without sympathy 
 for every human being who is not only in a servile 
 condition, but is made to feel it, and to feel that 
 he must endure it, or he and his family must perish 
 for lack of food. 
 
 I know it is hard to be urged to think, when you 
 are overpowered by labour, and need sleep. I do 
 not wonder that the young, especially, feel it to be 
 no abuse of time and existence, but a proceeding 
 of common-sense, to walk out in the air, or join in 
 active sports, rather than read and think — when 
 their labour, as human dray-horses in the mill, is at 
 an end, for the day, or the week. I do not won- 
 der when I hear you say " Let them think that 
 
172 EARNEST APPEAL TO THE 
 
 have time for it, and nought else to do : we must 
 stretch our limbs, and get a mouthful of fresh air." 
 
 I wish I could support your plea, fully ; and 
 exonerate you from all blame. My strong sym- 
 pathy with your class would impel me to do it. 
 But, I dare not. The evil — the guilty evil — which 
 pervades the manufacturing districts of this country, 
 forbids it. Thousands of you cannot find time to 
 enquire studiously into the truth of Christianity — 
 but you can spend hours in the perusal of pages 
 which tend not only to harden you in unbelief, 
 but to make you brazen apologists for the vilest 
 sensualism. 
 
 I yearn with pity over numbers of you who have 
 only just passed from childhood to youth, and 
 whose minds are poisoned with the deadly tracts 
 and pamphlets actively circulated by a low sceptical 
 propaganda, I know that you have, in many 
 instances, unwittingly strayed into the nets spread 
 by your older associates, who imagine that they 
 are acting wisely in filling your minds with the 
 unbelief and looseness which poison their own. 
 I cannot address you harshly. In hundreds of 
 instances, others are more faulty than yourselves — 
 
CONSCIENCE OF SCEPTICS. 1 73 
 
 for they drew you into the evil condition which 
 you did not seek. 
 
 What do you young people feel, when you per- 
 mit yourselves to reflect — if you ever do reflect ? 
 It may be you were religiously taught and instructed 
 by your humble parents in childhood ; and they 
 little expected that you would sadden their hearts 
 by joining the ranks of Unbelief. If you have 
 really thrown off the restraints of religion, and 
 sunk into vice — you know you are wrong. All the 
 Socialist and Secularist cant which reaches your 
 ears, about your being ' creatures of circumstance,' 
 and mere impressible subjects of all the influences 
 around you, cannot lull you to peace of mind. 
 The dread power of Conscience, I repeat, will 
 assert itself, notwithstanding all you may do, and 
 others may do, to stifle its dictates within you. 
 
 And if you continue to sin against Conscience, 
 you can only sink into deeper degradation of your 
 moral nature. Older sinners may teach you to 
 laugh at what I am saying ; but, I charge you, use 
 your own powers of observation. Do you not see 
 that the scoffers are degraded beings? Do you 
 really wish to resemble them ? — to have no more 
 
174 THE NEW AGITATION OF THE 
 
 regard for purity of mind and chastity of life, than 
 they have ? If you sink into utter moral degrada- 
 tion, how do you think you will meet death ? 
 
 I know what older sceptics will tell you : — that 
 they have known many unbelievers die calmly and 
 determinedly, with the avowal that they felt no fear 
 of death. Do not covet the power to die in that 
 manner, — for such a death is fearful, if Christianity 
 be true, and a never-ending conscious existence is 
 to follow the present. 
 
 " Do you really mean to tell us that there is an 
 everlasting hell-fire for sinners," some of you will 
 ask, " although many Christian teachers are now 
 declaring that doctrine to be a lamentable error? " 
 
 I reply, that I cannot find that Christ, or any 
 other teacher in the New Testament, says that 
 there will be a termination to the punishment of 
 the wicked, in the Future State ; and, therefore, I 
 dare not say that to you. I do not assume to my- 
 self the right to unchristianize men who teach that 
 there will, eventually, be an end of all evil and all 
 suffering in God's universe. I know some of them 
 to be very noble, very conscientious, and true- 
 hearted men; and I should feel it to be a mean 
 
QUESTION OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 1 75 
 
 guilty act to try to create a suspicion of their 
 uprightness. Eternity — ' for ever ' — is a long chalk ! 
 — and it would be monstrous presumption in me, 
 or any other poor insignificant mortal to dare to 
 say what God intends to do with His sinful moral 
 agents ' for ever ' — if He had told us nothing about 
 it. Let not that be forgotten. 
 
 But what Christ himself says seems very clear. 
 " And these," he declares in the last verse of the 
 twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, "shall 
 go away into everlasting punishment ; but the 
 righteous into life eternal." It is the same Greek 
 word alo'iVLov which is rendered 'everlasting' and 
 1 eternal' in this text. Objectors to the doctrine 
 of endless punishment urge that the simple mean- 
 ing of the Greek word is neither * eternal' nor 
 'everlasting,' but only 'age-lasting.' But we see 
 that this word is applied, in this text, both to pun- 
 ishment and reward; and I can only understand 
 Christ to mean that punishment and reward are 
 to be of the same duration, in the Future State. 
 None of us can think that Christ means the reward 
 of the righteous is to terminate, in the lapse of 
 ages : then, what right have I to conclude that the 
 
ljb GOD IS SURE TO DO RIGHT. 
 
 punishment of the wicked shall terminate ? Christ 
 gives me no authority for such a conclusion ; and, 
 therefore, I dare not come to it, myself — much less 
 teach it to others. May God save us all from the 
 punishment, and bring us all ' into life eternal ' ! 
 — let us all humbly pray. If we lay hold of the 
 saving truth of Christ we shall be safe ourselves ; 
 and it may keep us from tormenting anxiety about 
 others, when we remember tfiat the 'Judge oi all 
 the earth ' must do right. 
 
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 THE STATE OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 
 
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 II. 
 
 THE COMING OF THE BRIDEGROOM. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 III. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD. 
 
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 WHO IS HE? 
 
 Or, The Anxious Inquiry Answered. 
 
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 THE DESPISED FRIEND. 
 
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 STUMBLING BLOCKS REMOVED 
 
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 GOODLY PEARLS. 
 
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 PIETAS PRIVATA: PRAYERS AND 
 
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 BS2427 .C77 
 
 The verity of Christ's resurrection from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00059 2172