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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

THE

Resurrection of Christ

% Series of JtaorMs

ELIPHALET NOTT, D.D., LL.D.,
LATE PRESIDENT OF UNION COLLEGE.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION' AND NOTES
BY
TAYLER LEWIS.

HHixo ftork:
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.,
SUCCESSORS TO
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO..  ...
1872.

FS17

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,
By SCBIBNEK, AEMSTBONG & CO.,
la the Ofllce of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington.

Poole & Maolaucbxan, Pbtnteks,
805-213 East Twelfth Street.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

This publication is intended mainly as a memorial to
the numerous alumni of Union College, or to bring vividly
before their minds the remembrance of one greatly vener
ated and beloved. The majority of them, doubtless, yet
recall his noble form, and not a few are still living whose
memories go back to the days of his prime, when he was
regarded as one of the chief pulpit orators of our land.
"We think that this latter class will read these sermons
with'special interest. For them they will revive a fading,
yet still precious reminiscence, bringing up a most life-like
picture of the man as he once stood before them in the
pulpit. It will help them to see again that impressive
action, so calm and chastened, yet so powerful; to hear
again the tones of that voice, as clear in its solemn whis
per as in its loudest utterances. They will read them to
greater effect, and with a more equitable criticism, because
they can so readily fill up from such remembrance what
the mere printed page must fail to convey.
Dr. Nott was pre-eminently an impassioned preacher, —
a true preacher in distinction from the logical casuist or
the methodical didactic lecturer, — a preacher in the old
sense of the term, that of x^puf, prasco, herald, proclaimer,
" the voice of one crying in the wilderness," or " at the
city gates," — calling aloud to men, demanding their atten
tion to some great fact, .and setting it fortli in language
exuberant and superlative, indeed, yet most natural when
regarded as flowing from an over-welling fountain of emo
tion. Some might charge him with a Ciceronian fulness,

IV TNTEODTTCTOET NOTICE.
or an unnecessary copiousness of language, or certain
modes resembling the heraldic style of solemn repetition;
but the serious reader will see how far this is from any
thing that may be justly described as . empty declamation
or mere verbosity. Few are the epithets that have not an
emphatic and even a suggestive significance. There are
some repetitions that may have come from changes made
to adapt particular sermons, or parts of them, to other oc
casions—thus interrupting their continuity, as is adverted
to in the notes — but in most cases they are simply a
method of deepening the emphasis, by using twice and
thrice, in the same connection, the same well-chosen word,
instead of weakening the impression by an evident seeking
for variety. Especially will those who knew the preacher
recognize all these peculiarities as well adapted to that
striking effect which was ascribed to Dr. Nott's oratory in
the days of his power, or when he everywhere drew crowds
to hear him.
More than any other American clergyman did he resem
ble some of the great French preachers in the days of
Louis XIV. He had nothing Edwardean about him;
nothing of the Scotch manner, whether as regards its logic
or its boisterousness ; but in many things, especially in his
exclamations, his invocations of the divine name, and his
passionate appeals to the hearer, might he be compared to
the fervid Massillon. There is no evidence that he had any
familiar acquaintance with the preachers referred to, or
that he strove to imitate them, either in their excellences
or in any mistaken view of their faults. In these respects,
both in regard to what is to be commended for its clearness
and power, as well as in that for which he may be held
liable to criticism, his style of expression and his manner
of delivery were all his own. Such, too, was ever the
impression made upon the mind and the feeling of the
hearer. As we have already intimated, Dr. Nott's preaching was

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. V
not logical, nor even argumentative, in the strict sense of
the word. The old " doctrines of grace " were his message,
as something to be proclaimed, not to be proved, as some
preachers are forever doing. His object was more to im
press than to convince; or, rather, to convince by im
pressing. Hence it is that an important fact, or a striking
idea, is held up by him in changing lights. It is the same
fact, the same idea, coming over and over again, it may be,
yet each time presenting a varied aspect, and thus deepen
ing the eflect of the whole picture he aims to set forth. It
resembles the impassioned pleading of a lawyer before a
jury, — of a deeply-moved advocate losing sight, for a time,
of his formal brief, carried away by the emotional rather
than the logical connections, and holding up, in varied
though striking forms, some great fact, or facts, with which
he would impress the tribunal he is addressing. These ser
mons abound in exclamations. In the delivery, too, there
were striking pauses, with new starting-places^ as we may
call them, in the middle of a sentence (though never letting
the old subject drop out of mind), and all so managed that
passages, syntactically very long in the writing, had given
to them, in this way, the appearance and the force of
separate appeals. Dr. Nott wrote, his sermons with this
his own peculiar mode of delivery in view, and without
any thought of publication ; knowing that his manner of
utterance would supply every seeming defect of the kind,
or as they might be regarded in a composition intended
solely for the eye. The few changes that have been made
by the editor have been mainly designed to remedy this,
or, in other words, to preserve the syntactical clearness of
the thought, such as the calm reading demands, without
losing any of that vivid accompanying emotion which so
richly appeared in the oratorical exhibition. It is, in
short, simply an effort to bring the reflection of the
preacher in the book as near as we can to the exact repre
sentation of the preacher in the pulpit.

VI INTEODUCTOEY NOTICE.
There are other discourses of Dr. Nott, which, taken
separately, might have been thought better adapted to pub
lication. It was also at one time deemed advisable to add
the sermon, so admired in its day, on the death of Ham
ilton. These, however, were selected because they seemed
to form a series presenting a degree of unity not elsewhere
found. In this way, too, their capability of being brought
out as relating to one general subject was an advantage,
inasmuch as it furnished a larger title for the book, that
might possess a greater interest than the usual uninviting
one of " sermons."
Dr. Nott's style of preaching was widely different from
that which was most prevalent in his day, and before his
day, throughout his native New England. When it is
said, however, that he was impressive rather than logical
or argumentative, the assertion needs to be qualified.
There is, indeed, in these discourses a rich and powerful
argument, notwithstanding that the syllogistic, or any for
mal logical aspect, be almost wholly wanting. It is un
answerable. This may be boldly said in view of a position
which has lately been assumed with a confidence that seems
to challenge denial. It is frequently asserted that the old
reasoning on the Evidences of Christianity, or of such a
fact as that of the Resurrection, will no longer answer in
view of modern objections. It might have done, they say,
fifty years ago, but " the higher criticism " has given a new
aspect to the whole matter. Paley and Lardner did very
well as against the more shallow infidels of their day, but
there has arisen a race of unbelieving Anakim far surpass
ing Hume and Voltaire. The defender of the Scriptures
needs new armor to meet them. German Rationalism has
rendered all the old arguments obsolete. This is repeated
continually. By sheer reiteration, often without the at
tempt to give a particle of evidence, the impression is pro
duced, especially on the minds of the young, that there has
somehow arisen some new and terrible form of doubt, some

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. VII
most formidable difficulty unknown to other times, and
unassailable by any former arguments. It is an undefined
spectre. It is everywhere haunting our modern literature,
though taking no precise form. It is the shadowy pres
ence of some new enemy, never clearly seen, but who has
rendered unavailing, it is said, all former tactics, whether
of assault or defence. In defending Christianity, if it can
be defended, we must take a new start, and proceed upon
grounds differing altogether from the old.
Now this is all an impudent falsehood. "We say it un
hesitatingly. There is no new difficulty, or any so sur
passing former difficulties as to be entitled to the name.
There is no substantial objection to the Gospels, or to the
Bible generally, that has not been known to scholarly and
thinking men for more than a thousand years. Some as
pects of Bible authorship have been changed, some ecclesi
astical writings have been pronounced spurious, though
very few that had not always been suspected ; some new
various readings have been discovered, but in no respects,
or in the most unessential respects, have they changed the
general aspect even of the critical field, much less that
great argument, remaining the same from age to age, be
cause built on the unchanging foundations of our deeply-
investigated human nature. There is, in short, no vital,
no essential difficulty, no one going to the root of the great
debate, that was not as familiar to the learned men of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as it is to the best
scholars now.
Equally unfounded are the ignorant assertions, so often
and so flippantly made, in respect to what science has done
or is going to do. Science has done much, undoubtedly,
in her own department of inductive discovery ; she has de
tected a great many more shadows than were formerly seen
upon the dim rear wall of the earthly cavern to which we
are confined. She has bored down a few inches deeper
into the cells of matter, and finds it matter still — matter

Vlll INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
as resistance, matter and motion — nothing more. Be it
coarse or fine, most gross or most ethereal, it is the same
thing in its ultimate elements. It is simply site, arrange
ment, proportion, number, — nothing more. The life-giving
Word is not seen ; it cannot be seen ; it transcends sense ;
it is unsearchable by experiment ; it belongs " to the things
unseen and eternal." Science is, indeed, most keen ; she
penetrates far ; she can almost see molecules, it is fancied,
though at every step of her sounding it becomes more and/
more evident that between the last casting of her lead and
that other distant shore, where nature and matter begin,
there still flows on a silent, undiscovered ocean of the vast
unknown. How near that other shore may be, or how far
off, this too is a part of the unknown and the unknowable
secret thab baffles all her efforts. Granting that she has
seen molecules, or molecules of molecules, or " molecular
combinations," as they have been styled, or anything else
to which can be applied this wholly imaginary and artifi
cial nomenclature, yet atoms still remain invisible. Those
old puzzlers of the earliest as well as of the latest minds
do still lie fathoms deep beneath her keenest lens. In
other words, those beginnings of organization where life
dwelleth, or is supposed to dwell, are as yet immeasurably
remote from the most powerful analysis she can employ.
Our modern investigations have not reached this organiz
ing energy ; they fall short of it by an unknown and un
knowable distance ; they have therefore furnished no
stronger objections to the doctrine of the resurrection of
the body than such as were familiar to Celsus, or even to the
Corinthian Sophist whom Paul seems to have had in view,
and who so confidently asked, " "With what body do they
come ? " In other words, the old difficulty suggested by
that evident fact, the constant flow and change of matter,
or of material identity, before as well as after death, was
as clear to the little science of the old infidel as it is to the
great science of the new. That sharp alternative issue :

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. IX
Does the organization come from the life or the life from the
organization, whether in the highest or the lowest forms —
this sharp alternative, we say, is no nearer being settled
now than it was in the days of the ancient hvlozoists. The
whole question of the resurrection, or the making again to
exist what had existed before, is involved in the same
science-transcending mystery as the fact of creation, or the
making that to be which before had never been at all. It
is the same mystery, whether it regards the origin of the
material, the origin of the form, or the origin and perpe
tuity of that which constitutes the hidden principle
whether of material or formal identity. We do not say
the problem is solved. All that need be contended for is,
that it remains just where it was. The modern infidel has
here no advantage over the ancient unbeliever. We may
safely defy any man to show wherein the position of the
argument has, in this respect, undergone any essential
change. Dr. Nott, it is true, does not go at all into these physical
matters. The historical argument is the one on which he
dwells, and that is the same which has, in substance, been
always used in the Church. There is nothing new except
in his mode of presenting it, and that consists more in the
oratorical earnestness displayed than in any affectation of
argumentative order. Reduced, however, to a more logical
form, it may be stated in some such way as this : —
First grovmd : That the disciples and other witnesses
of Christ's resurrection should have been imposed upon in
regard to a fact, or series of facts, falling so directly under
the observation of the senses in their most familiar exer
cise — is incredible.
Second ground : Designed imposture on their part,
when considered in connection with their subsequent lives,
is — still more incredible.
Third ground: The sudden change in the spiritual
character and in the corresponding action of the first

X INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
preachers of Christianity, demands for its credible cause
no less an event, or one no less superhuman and miracu
lous, than that assigned, — namely, the resurrection of
Christ, showing its first effects in a revivifying of their
souls, and an entire remoulding of their lives.
Fourth ground : The great spiritual miracle of the early
and rapid spread of Christianity, or of the new life — as
truly new as any physical revivification — coming from no
previous human development, and continuing, even down
to the preacher's time, to reanimate and renew the souls
of men.
It is the latter aspect which is chiefly dwelt upon in the
discourses that follow the first presentation of the argu
ment. There may be in it a neglect of method ; there is
some repetition ; but the appeal, as a whole, is clearly and
powerfully made. It gives the preacher an opportunity to
dwell on the triumphs of the Gospel in his own times, and
especially on some revival scenes in the College and else
where, that had called out an intense interest. He treats
it all as a continuance of the resurrection power. The
spiritual miracles attest the great physical miracle of the
Saviour's actual rising from the tomb. It was an unbro
ken effect, commencing with the early morning dawn of
Christianity, when, from that sealed sepulchre,
The light broke forth so gloriously,
and continuing ever since to shine, though often obscured
by the storm and darkness of human depravity it has had
to encounter. " Its outgoing is to the ends of the earth,"
until " nothing shall be hid from the enlightening beams
and the warming heat thereof."
Such is the argument. It is not new, but it is unan
swerable. Gibbon has not shaken it. Strauss and Renan
— inferior men to Gibbon — have, in no respect, changed
its force. The objections are the same. The statements
of historical fact by which they are met are the same
1*

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. Xl
The immutable verities of human nature that give the
argument its great power remain the same. They have
not been in the least affected by all the show of criticism
brought to bear against them. Tayler Lewis.
Union College, Schenectady, Deo. 22, 1871.

THE RESURRECTION.

i.

THE EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY.
Whereof He hath given assurance to all men, in that He hath raised
Mm from the dead. Acts xvii. 31.
Who hath given assurance unto all men ? You
shall hear: "And the times of this ignorance God
winked at, but now commandeth all men, everywhere,
to repent." Why now ? " Because He hath appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righte
ousness by that man whom He hath ordained." How
know we this ? He hath given assurance of it. In
what manner hath he given assurance ? In that He
hath raised him from the dead.
To the resurrection of Jesus Christ Paul appeals as
furnishing, not presumptive merely, but indubitable
evidence of a future judgment. Mark his words:
Whereof He hath given assurance. The same appeal
may be made in respect to every evangelical doetrine.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the basis on which
Christianity was reared, and on which it rests. This
fact disproved, the basis vanishes, and the superstruc
ture, however perfect, sublime, glorious it may be,
has nothing to support it. It crumbles into dust.
The subversion of this single doctrine subverts Chris
tianity. It clouds our temporal prospects ; it extin-

8 THE RESURRECTION.
guishes our eternal hopes. There remains no sacrifice
for sin, no promise of forgiving mercy to the sinner.
If, then, Christ be not risen, Christians, your faith is
vain ; ye are yet in your sins.
If Christ be not risen, then is he not the Messiah
foretold by the prophets, and promised to the fathers ;
concerning whom it is written that he should die not
only, but live and reign forever. David declares this
expressly ; so does Isaiah ; so do all the prophets :
" Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee ; ask
of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for
thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of
iron ; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's
vessel. Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings ; be in
structed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with
fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest
he be angry and ye perish from the way when his
wrath is kindled. Blessed are they that put their
trust in him. Therefore my heart is glad, my glory
rejoiceth, and my flesh shall rest in hope. For thou
wilt not leave my soul in Hades ; neither wilt thou
suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt
show me the path of life. In thy presence is fulness
of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for ever
more. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my
right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent : Thou art
a priest forever, after the order of Melchisedec. I
shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the
Lord. Thou hast chastened me sore, but hast not
given me over unto death. Lift up your heads, O ye
gates, and be ye lifted up$ ye everlasting doors, that
the Lord of glory may come in. Who is the Lord of

THE EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY. 9
glory ? The Lord strong and mighty : the Lord
mighty in battle. Thou, God, wen test up with a shout,
and the Most High with the sound of a trumpet."
These are the words of David.
" Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our
sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of
God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities ; the
chastisement of our peace was upon him,, and by his
stripes we are healed. The Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, he was
afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was taken
from prison and from judgment, and who shall de
clare his generation, for he was cut off out of the
land of the living. Aud he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death. Yet he shall
prolong his days, he shall see his seed, and the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall
be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my right
eous servant justify many, for he shall bear their
iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion
with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong." Such was the mysterious prediction of the rapt
Isaiah, uttered ages before the striking fulfilment
made it clear.
Other testimonies might be added, but these are
enough. The Messiah of the prophets was both to
suffer and to reign. He was to triumph over death,
and the heavens were afterwards to receive him back
into glory.
If Christ, then, be not risen, his credentials are
spurious, and his claim to the office of Messiah has

10 THE RESURRECTION.
failed. If he has not risen, his gospel is a fic
tion, remission of sin by his blood, a dream, and eter
nal life through faith in his name, a fancy. A doc
trine so absolutely fundamental, a doctrine, too, on
the truth of which we are to stake our souls, and put
[at hazard our eternal interests, cannot be examined
with too strict a scrutiny, or decided with too pro
found a candor.
In a celebrated discourse, delivered at Athens eigh
teen hundred years ago, Paul, in the midst df^picu-
rean and Stoic philosophers, asserted that the man
Christ Jesus had risen. He boldly declares it, not
with the wavering, hesitating timidity which betrays
the perjured witness, but with that frank and fearless
confidence which bespeaks conscious rectitude and
the full assurance of faith.
But not on the testimony of Paul alone does this
singular and important fact depend. There are
other and numerous and unimpeachable witnesses ;
there is a train of well-connected circumstances, cor
roborating their testimony, and there are other and
incontrovertible facts, confirming and establishing
this previous fact. The whole forms a mass of evi
dence that carries the mind with it, and impels belief.
No higher evidence can be required ; none can be
given ; because that already given involves our con
fidence in the divine providence and the divine vera
city. I may, therefore, without rashness, venture
my soul upon it. If I am deceived here, there is
nothing in which I am not liable to be deceived. If
I am deceived here, it is the sanctity of the disciples'
lives, the purity of their doctrine, and the splendor
of their miracles — miracles wrought in thy name,
Mighty God ! which have deceived me.

THE evangelical testimony. 11
There are numerous and unimpeachable witnesses
to the fact in question.
Hear Matthew : — " In the end of the Sabbath, as it
began to dawn toward the first day of the week,
came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the
sepulchre. And behold there was a great earthquake :
for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven,
and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it.
And fofcjear of him the keepers did shake, and
became as dead men. And they answered and said
unto the women, Fear not ye, for I know that ye
seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he
is risen as he said. Come see the place where the
Lord lay. And as they went to tell the disciples,
behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they
came, and held him by the feet and worehipped him.
Then Jesus said unto them, Be not afraid ; go tell
my brethren, that they go into Galilee, and there shall
they see me. Then the eleven disciples went away
into Galilee, and when they saw him they worshipped
him. But some doubted, and Jesus came and spake
unto them, saying, All power is given nnto me in
heaven and in earth."
Hear Mark : — "When Jesus was risen early, the first
day of the week, he appeared unto Mary Magdalene,
out of whom he had cast seven devils. After that
he appeared unto two of them in another form as
they walked, and went into the country. Afterwards
he appeared unto the eleven, as they sat at meat, and
upbraided them with their hardness of heart, because
they believed not them who had seen him after he
had risen."
Hear Luke : — "And Jesus himself stood in the midst
of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you,

12 THE RESURRECTION.
and they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed
that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them,
Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in
your hearts. Behold my hands and my feet, that it
is I, myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit hath
not flesh and bones as ye see me have. And when
he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and
his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and
wondered, he said, Have ye here any meaj; ? And
they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and of an honey
comb. And he took it and did eat before them."
Hear John : — " The first day of the week cometh
Mary Magdalene, early, while it was yet dark, unto
the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from
the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to
Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus
loved, and said unto them : They have taken away the
Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where
they have laid him. Peter, therefore, and that other
disciple whom Jesus loved went forth. And the
other disciple did outrun Peter. Then cometh Peter,
following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth
the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about
his head not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped
together in a place by itself. But Mary stood with
out, at the sepulchre, weeping, and as she wept, she
stooped down and looked into the sepulchre. And
seeth two angels in white, sitting, 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. And when she had thus said, she turned herself
back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it

THE EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY. 13
was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weep-
est thou 1 Whom seekest thou ? She, supposing him
to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have
borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him,
and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her,
Mary. She turned herself, and said unto him, Eab-
boni, which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her,
Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my
Father, kpt go to my brethren and say unto them, I
ascend unto my Father, and to your Father, to my
God, and to your God. The same day, at evening,
when the disciples were assembled, came Jesus, and
stood in their midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
And when he had so said, he shewed them his hands
and his side. And Thomas was not with them. The
other disciples said unto him, We have seen the Lord.
But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands
the print of the nails; and put my finger into the
print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side,
I will not believe."
"Again the disciples wrere within, and Thomas with
them. Then came Jesus, the door being shut, and
stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
Then said he unto Thomas, Keach hither thy finger,
and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and
thrust it into my side, and be no more faithless but
believing." Hear the writer of the Acts of the Apostles — "Jesus
showed himself alive after his passion by many infal
lible proofs, being seen of his disciples forty days, and
speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of
God. And when he had spoken these things, while
they beheld, he was parted from them, and a cloud
received him out of their sight."

14 THE RESURRECTION.
Hear Paul — " Christ was Been of Cephas, then of the
twelve : after that he was seen of above five hundred
brethren at once. 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."
It is the supplement of the exceedingly brief
account given Matthew xxviii. 10, 16. " Then saith
Jesus unto them, Fear not, go ye away and tell it to
my brethren, that they go into Galilee, for there shall
they see me." The appointment was for all the
brethren, all who loved him, and had believed on
him. The eleven made known the promise and the
place of meeting. It was the mountain (see verse 16)
" where Jesus had appointed." Tradition says, Mount
Tabor. Be this true or not, it was a well-known
place, and thither the great multitude flocked to
behold him. " Some doubted ; " so it is declared,
with a candor unknown to other histories, but of the
mass it is said, " they saw and worshipped." A part
had fallen asleep, but the majority were living in
Paul's day.
You have heard these several witnesses. Their tes
timony is full ; it is circumstantial, it is explicit. They
tell you that Jesus Christ was seen of them alive, after
that he had risen from the dead. That he was seen
of them at different times, in different situations, and
'at different places. A great company of them were
assembled at Mount Olivet, when he delivered his
parting benediction. There was he separated from
them, continuing visible to every eye as he ascended,
until a cloud received him out of their sisht.
What shall we say to these things ? The number
of witnesses attesting the resurrection of Jesus Christ
is sufficient to establish any fact capable of being esta-

TUE EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY. 15
blished by testimony. The fact itself, however, is
too improbable in its nature, and too momentous in
its consequences, to be admitted merely on account of
the number of witnesses who have attested it, how
great soever that number may have been. It wrere
rash to risk our souls on the credibility of numbers.
When eternal interests are at stake, a mortal should
proceed with caution. It is not possible, as we have
said, to institute too severe a scrutiny, br decide with
too profound a candor.
On the review of details so singular and so impro
bable, two suppositions naturally suggest themselves.
These witnesses have been imposed upon, or they are
themselves impostors. Either alternative established
annuls their testimony. Either alternative not re
futed leaves the question doubtful. Both, therefore,
mnst be met and dissipated ; doubt must be removed,
and even suspicion put at rest, before we yield to such
details our entire assent.
These witnesses have been imposed upon.
All is not truth that is honestly attested as such.
Other men have been mistaken, and why not the
disciples ? We will attempt to answer this interroga
tion. But let it be premised that our answer will
have respect only to the single fact, the resurrection.
With respect to this one fact, we affirm, that they
were not mistaken, because it is not possible that they
could have been. No source of error can be pointed
out ; none can even be imagined. Shall it be looked
for in their passions and prejudices ; in their organs
of perception, or in their want of understanding;
shall we seek it in the nature of the fact, or the cir
cumstances under which they examined it \ It may

16 THE RESURRECTION.
be sought in each and in all of these, but it will be
found in none. It is admitted that they were fallible.
It is also admitted that among all who are so, passion
and prejudice have a wonderful influence, both in
facilitating and in obstructing belief. Hence at one
time faith is yielded to the slightest evidence, at
another, it is withheld from the strongest. Apply
this to the disciples. They were Jews ; they had been
educated in the synagogues ; they had drunk deep in
the prevalent opinion that the Messiah was to be a
temporal prince, and his kingdom a temporal kingdom
— an opinion which, counteracted as it was by their
Master, still tinctured all their conversations, and gave
a direction to all their actions. Hence, only the night
before the passion, had they not been restrained, they
would have erected the standard of empire, and ap
pealed to the sword.
It was the splendor of the Saviour's miracles that
first attracted their attention, and that afterwards
attached them to his cause. The idea of teacher was
merged in that of conqueror ; a conqueror rendered
invincible by power miraculous, and who, as they had
hitherto believed, was at that time to assume the gov
ernment, and restore the kingdom to Israel. The
event subverted their belief, disappointed their expec
tation, and dissipated forever their dream of a tem
poral royalty. When they saw Jesus Christ appre
hended without resistance, and led without rescue, like
a lamb, defenceless to the slaughter, their confidence
was shaken ; their fortitude gave way ; hope forsook
them ; abandoning the cause, they left the captain of
their salvation to his fate, and fled. It was a moment
of utter dereliction. No one ventured to assert his
innocence at the bar of Pilate ; no one dared to murmur

THE . EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY. 17
discontent at the scene on Calvary. And why ? Be
cause the same stroke which nailed Christ's body to the
cross, nailed with it his disciples' hopes. All was given
up as lost. Timid, palpitating, and despised, they
shunned the public eye, and sought safety only in
concealment. The resurrection had indeed been intimated to
them, but it had not been understood. Nor was it ex
pected. That he who had just been vanquished by his
enemies — he who had thus forfeited their confidence
by forfeiting, in their opinion, his claim to the office
of Messiah — that he shonld, after this recent and utter
humiliation, suddenly become a victor, not only over
those who had conquered him, but also over death, by
whom all are conquered, seemed incredible. His
triumphant reappearance from the sepulchre was an
event which they did not anticipate, and were not pre
pared to celebrate.
The rumor that he had so appeared excited interest ;
it awakened alarm, but did not restore confidence : it
did not acquire belief.
With the most wary caution, each disciple examined
for himself ; and with a hesitancy bordering rather on
skepticism than credulity, they yielded to evidence
the most incontrovertible their tardy assent. One of
them would not be persuaded until he had put his
finger into the prints of the nails, and thrust his hand
into his side. They insisted on evidence which would
enable them to say, " That which we have heard from
the beginning, which we have, seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, and our hands have
handled of the word of Life — that which we have
seen declare we unto you."
Be it so, that neither their passions nor their pre-

18 THE RESURRECTION.
judices were to the disciples a source of error, but, on
the contrary, that both operated against an admission
of the resurrection. Be it so, that their late grievous
disappointment had taught them caution, and made
them tremblingly alive to whatever might possibly
again involve them in disgrace, or further compromit
their personal safety, still might they have been mis
taken, it may be said — neither their organs of percep
tion nor their understanding were infallible.
They were unlearned men, mere fishermen and tent-
makers, and therefore incompetent to decide on the
case in question.
Fishermen and tent-makers indeed they were, and
for the most part unlearned too, but how does that
affect their competency ? I mean their competency
so far as respects the ascertainment of their Master's
resurrection. In the prosecution of such an inquest
the profoundest erudition would have availed -them
nothing. There were no probabilities to balance ; no
contradictory testimony to reconcile ; no web of arti
fice to unravel. No arguments were to be examined ;
no premises to be consulted; no conclusions to be
drawn. A mere fact, and a fact, too, the most obvious,
and the least equivocal that can be conceived or im
agined, is submitted to the deliberate and repeated
examination of their own eyes, their own ears, their
own sense of feeling ; and having been so submitted,
the only thing to be by them decided is, whether such
fact did or did. not exist. Now, with respect to the
existence of this fact, unlettered as the disciples may
have been, they were competent to decide— competent
not perhaps to appreciate the incidental evidence ; not
perhaps to collect and arrange and weigh the concur-

THE EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY. 19
rent testimony of other witnesses ; but competent to
determine for themselves, and by the unerring indi
cation of their own senses ; competent to determine,
with a certitude that all the counter-suggestions of
men and devils could not shake, whether Jesus Christ,
having been dead and buried, appeared again alive
to them on the earth. Yes, the fact of his reappear
ance from the sepulchre was, to his disciples, not a
matter of opinion, not a matter of persuasion, not even
a matter of belief, but of knowledge. They had the
means of knowing ; nay, they were under the necessity
of knowing. They must therefore know, and they did
know absolutely, and without the possibility of mis
take, whether he did so reappear. Yes, well they
knew whether they heard him speak, saw him move,
eat, and drink ; whether they handled him to ascertain
that it was not a spectre, and found those very wounds
which the nails and spear had imprinted on his body.
They knew whether, having been disheartened and
dispersed by his death, they rallied around him a
second time as their Leader, and continued for forty
days to follow his fortunes, to attend upon his ministry,
and receive his directions. And, finally, they knew
whether they accompanied him to Olivet, and there
saw him in daylight visibly ascend toward heaven till
a cloud received him out of their sight.
These are things which, if indeed they existed, the
disciples knew, and could not help knowing. These
are things in the ascertainment of which the intuition
of sages, nay, the perspicuity of seraphs, could have
benefited them nothing. As we have said, therefore,
with reference to this one fact — their Master's resur
rection — the disciples, unlettered as they may have
been, were competent witnesses. Nay, they were the

20 THE RESURRECTION.
most competent witnesses. I had almost said the only
competent ones. For who could tell with the greater
certainty whether Jesus Christ had arisen from the
dead, his own disciples, or indifferent persons % Those
who knew him well and long, or those or knew him
not, or knew him but imperfectly %
Other witnesses have been adduced in support of
the resurrection. It is sufficient here to give their
names and cite their words, though not as witnesses
in chief, or as those on whom I place the main reli
ance. As first in this subordinate class, there may be
given the words of a well-known and almost contem
porary historian. " At this time there was one Jesus,
a wise man, if I may call him man ; for he did most
wonderful works, and was a teacher of those who
received the truth with delight. He won many to his
persuasion, both of the Jews and Gentiles. This was
Christ, and although he was, at the instigation of some
of our nation, and by Pilate's sentence, suspended on
the cross, yet those who loved him at first did not cease
to love him : for he came to life again the third day,
and appeared to them."
This testimony of Josephus, the Jewish historian, was
claimed and quoted by the fathers ; it has been claimed
and quoted by the moderns ; its genuineness is sup
ported by the strongest evidence, internal and exter
nal, but we rely not chiefly upon it here ; it is not as
primary evidence that we quote it.
Again, the " Acts of Pilate," transmitted to Tibe
rius Csesar, detailing the circumstances of the trial,
the death, and the resurrection of that just man, con
cerning whom, at the time of his condemnation, he
declared, I find no fault in him; these "Acts of
Pilate " have been claimed and quoted. Doubts have

THE EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY. 21
indeed been thrown upon its authenticity, but nothing
could have been more in harmony with the well-known
course of Roman judicial proceedings than such a
transmitted report. That no record should have been
kept would, on the other hand, seem almost incredible.
Justin Martyr, who lived about a century after the
Saviour's death, and who offered to dispute the ques
tion of Christianity with the Cynic philosopher, before
the Roman Senate, confidently appeals in his apology
to the Acts of Pontius Pilate, and even refers the
Emperor to them for information relative to the death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Fifty years thereafter, Tertullian, a convert from
Paganism, and a man learned in the Roman law,
makes a like appeal to the testimony of Pilate,
and even to the acts of the Senate, predicated on
that testimony, and preserved among the public
archives. But neither is this record claimed or quoted as pri
mary or the most satisfying evidence.
I need not lay the stress of the argument upon what
Josephus testifies concerning Christ's reappearance.
Josephus never saw Jesus Christ. I may say the same
of Pilate's or Herod's testimony concerning Christ's
reappearance. They saw him only while under arrest,
and for a few moments at the judgment-seat. I care
not what the Scribes and Pharisees may affirm or deny
concerning the reappearance of Jesus Christ — they
had seldom seen him, and only on public occasions,
and amidst the multitude. Though all these, though
the whole Sanhedrim, and only these, were to assert
his resurrection, we might doubt. For all these, con
science-smitten as they were, like the murderer of John
the Baptist, might mistake another far Him whom they

22 THE RESURRECTION.
had taken, and with wicked hands had crucified and
slain. What they affirm may indeed possibly be true.
But I cannot be assured that it is so ; for I cannot con
fide in their discrimination. Apart from these, there
are other and less objectionable witnesses. Why
are they withheld ? If I must decide whether Jesus
Christ be risen from the dead, and if to decide cor
rectly be of moment, why mock my efforts by present
ing the depositions of Herod, or Pilate, or Caiaphas?
These are not the persons that can resolve my doubts
and settle my faith. Whether this mysterious per
sonage, coming professedly from the sepulchre, and
the rumor of whose reappearance has filled Jerusalem
with terror, whether this be in very deed that same
Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified ; this is a point
on which, before I decide, I want to hear Matthew,
and Mark, and Peter, and James. I want to hear
the two Marys who met him at the sepulchre. I
want to interrogate the beloved John, who has leaned
so often on his bosom, and the cautious, scrutinizing
Didymus, who refused belief till he should have
examined his side and his hands. Away, therefore,
with Herod, and Pilate, and Caiaphas ; away with the
Scribes, and Pharisees, and Sanhedrim. Let the
disciples be brought forward. They know, and can
tell infallibly whether he, concerning whom I am
inquiring, is that same adored Master whom they
once owned and honored before his passion, and
whom, restored from the tomb, they still own and
honor. If they believe that Jesus Christ has risen
from the dead, I believe also : for this is a point in
which, though all the world besides should be de
ceived, it is impossible that they should be. And

THE EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY. 23
yet these witnesses are objected to as incompetent.
What, Christ's own disciples ? Ah ! were the author
ities on this question of life and death reversed ; did
the Scribes and Pharisees and the Sanhedrim appear
in favor of, and the disciples, together with the con
course of brethren from Olivet, against the resurrec
tion, which would be deemed the most competent
witnesses ; which would be believed ?
Nay, if in opposition to the Scribes and Pharisees
there appeared only one of Christ's disciples, the rest
remaining silent, be that one disciple Matthew, or
John, or Thomas, or any other of the eleven — I repeat
it, if only one of these appeared, and, confronting the
crowd of strangers, declared that the person in ques
tion was not his Master, but some unknown impostor,
whom the brethren owned not and would never own,
he would be believed ; his single denial of the fact
would go further to shake the faith of an inquirer
than the denial of the whole, Jewish nation. Yes, his
single denial would weigh against, and it ought to
weigh against, all the thousands of Judah and Jeru
salem. To say the least, therefore, the disciples were
competent witnesses.
Competent indeed they were, it must be admitted,
because not ignorance, but idiocy or derangement,
could have rendered them otherwise, where common
sense and those organs of perception common to the
species constitute the only competency. Still, how
ever, though neither their understandings nor their
organs were inadequate, a source of error may have
existed in the presentation of the case. In other
words —
The fact itself may never have come fairly and
'fully under their examination.

2i ¦ THE EESUREECTION.
A transient and obscure appearance sometimes de
ceives the most sagacious. But the appearance in
question was neither transient nor obscure. What
say the witnesses themselves ? After Jesus Christ had
arisen from the dead he appeared to them, not when
alone and in darkness only, but when assembled and
in daylight also. How often he appeared to them
they have not told> us, and we know not. But they
have told us of his appearing to some of them at least
twelve different times ; twice at or near the sepul
chre, again and again to the apostles, and once, on
a mountain in Galilee, to about five hundred of the
brethren. More than this, that he showed himself to
be alive after his passion by many infallible proofs ;
being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the
things pertaining to the kingdom. That with some of
them he travelled ; that with others he ate and drank ;
that to others he exposed the prints the nails had left
in his hands, and the wound the spear had inflicted
in his side. ¦
Here, then, according to the testimony of the wit
nesses themselves, there could have been no decep
tion. Their opportunity for examining the fact was
the best that can be imagined ; the fact itself, the
most obvious, and the signs by which its existence
was indicated, the least equivocal. There are inci
dents in this narrative of the Saviour's resurrection
and reappearance which, if indeed they took place,
as the disciples affirm they did, must have been de
cisive. They are incidents that carry conviction with
them, and preclude alike the possibility of doubt or
deception. To talk of stronger evidence, or of better
opportunity, is worse than trifling : it is insanity.
What stronger evidence, what better opportunity
could even the sternest incredulity suggest ?

THE EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY. 25
Thomas withstood for a time the testimony of his
brethren ; but even Thomas, when his revered master
presented himself before him, stretching forth his
transfixed hands, and throwing back the mantle from
his scar-marked side — even Thomas, with all his
characteristic scepticism — demanded nothing more
decisive.
' Placing his finger on the print of the nails, and
thrusting his hand into the wound of the spear, in a
burst of rapturous confidence he exclaimed, My Lord
and my God ! From that moment his unbelief van
ished ; nor was he ever afterwards faithless, but be
lieving. Was even Thomas imposed upon ? The fact, too,
did it come fairly under his examination ?, Be it
here remembered that the death and burial of Jesus
Christ is not disputed. On these points, the execu
tioners, the spectators, the Scribes and Pharisees, the
elders, the whole Jewish nation have appeared in
evidence. It is his reappearance from the sepulchre
alive, and that only, which is called in question.
Now, is this a point difficult of ascertainment ; or
by what abstruse criterion, apart from common obser
vation and unknown to common sense, would objec
tors wish it to have been ascertained ? If travelling
on foot from place to place ; if conversing on differ
ent subjects ; if giving salutations of friendship ; if
accepting acts of homage ; in one word, if abiding,
and eating, and drinking with his disciples ; if these
be not infallible proofs of life, what proofs would be
infallible ? Again, if access to and intercourse with
the personage furnishing these proofs, during forty
days successively, did not afford a sufficient oppor
tunity for ascertaining whether he was alive or not ; is

26 THE RESURRECTION.
there any supposable situation within the range of
possibility, in which an inquirer could be placed, that
would afford such an opportunity ? Could Thomas,
with the beloved form of his Divine Master full
before him, still bearing on his body the obvious and
well-known marks of his recent crucifixion, could
Thomas have been furnished with any better.oppor-
tunity or any stronger evidence ? No, unless the con
stitution of nature were changed, the opportunity
already furnished was the best, and the evidence the
strongest that man could have or God could give.
Collect these observations, and see how they bear
upon the ' point in question. Consider the previous
opinions and prejudices of tjie witnesses; consider
the qualifications of the witnesses ; consider the situ
ation of the witnesses; consider the nature of the
fact at issue ; the resurrection of their Master, with
whom they had been for years previous to his death
in habits of the tenderest intimacy, and who after
wards appeared to them again alive, and continued
so to appear for forty days, assuming all his former
authority, exercising all his former functions, and in
structing them in the things pertaining to the king
dom of God, till finally, standing in the midst of
them on the mountain top, the heavens, from whence
he came, opened and received him back to glory.
Consider these things, and then say whether it is
possible for the disciples, entertaining such opinions,
swayed by such prejudices, possessed of such facul
ties, placed in such a situation, and concerning such
a fact, whether it is possible for them to have been
imposed upon.
Imposition is out of the question. The circum
stances of the inquest, admit of none ; the nature of

THE EVANGELICAL TESTIMONY. 27
the inquest admits of none. It respected an audible,
a visible, and a tangible object. An object, too,
placed in the light of day, and subjected to the scru
tiny of senses long familiarized to it, and perfectly
acquainted with its discriminating and distinctive
marks. If Jesus Christ did not, after his passion,
appear again alive to his disciples, they knew that he
did not, and the whole story of his resurrection was
an abominable and a premeditated lie, of which they
were the voluntary and guilty authors.
This alternative, therefore, I consider put at rest.
The disciples were not imposed upon; if there is
imposition, they know it ; more than this — they are
the authors of it ; they are the guilty authors of it,
and must be responsible to God and to the universe
for all the fatal consequences which may result there
from to society, to themselves, and to the souls of
other mea.

II.

DESIGNED TMPOSTURE INCREDD3LE.
Whereof He hath given assurance to aUmen, in that He hath raised
him from the dead. Acts xvii. 81.
In the preceding discourse we have examined and
disproved the possibility of one of the alternatives
suggested to invalidate the testimony in favor of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. It may, therefore, be
assumed as settled, that the witnesses were not im
posed upon.
Then, they are themselves impostors. This is the
other alternative ; and if the possibility of this, too,
cannot be disproved, then let faith be withheld from
them, and infidelity be blameless. But, how can the
possibility of this be disproved ? I answer : —
The place, the time, the manner in which the resur
rection was promulgated ; the number of individuals
concerned in the promulgation ; the system of doc
trines and of duties f ounded on it ; the splendid enter
prise projected in consequence of it ; the heroic con
stancy with which that enterprise was executed, and
the exemplary lives of the witnesses who took the lead
in its execution, render imposture improbable ; and to
crown the argument, the course of action without
motive, or rather in opposition to motive, which this
supposes is contrary to the nature of man, and there
fore impossible.
The place, the time, the manner in which the resur
rection was promulgated.
It was not some obscure and remote village in
Palestine, but Jerusalem, the capital itself, that was
selected as the theatre of this dangerous enterprise ;

DESIGNED IMPOSTURE INCREDIBLE. 29
the very place which had been the theatre of the
crucifixion ; the very place that contained the means
of detection ; the very place that furnished the motives
of detection. There the accusers of Jesus Christ
reside ; there his judges reside; there his executioners
reside ; men whose honor is concerned ; men whose
passions are excited, and whom every public and
every personal consideration must impel to detect
and expose an imposture calculated to fix guilt upon
then consciences, and cover with eternal infamy their
memories. ¦
The time and the manner were as unpropitious as
the place. No respite was allowed for suspicion to be
laid asleep, or for the ardor of that infuriate multitude,
who demanded his crucifixion, to subside.
No secrecy was enjoined ; no concealment was
attempted; no whisper indistinctly circulated. On
the contrary, the witnesses enter the city instantly ;
they enter it openly, and there publicly and boldly
announce ihe resurrection of their Master / announce
that they themselves have seen him ; that he has been
seen by others, and by multitudes to whom without
fear of contradiction they appeal. When did impos
ture ever attain its object by such a direct, such an
incautious and intrepid march ? Had the resurrection
been a falsehood, would the authors of it have chosen
such a time, or such a place, or such a manner for
palming it upon the world ? Above all, conscious of
the falsehood themselves, would they have appealed
for its truth to five hundred persons, and thus have
put it in the power of their adversaries to confront
them with this host of witnesses, who, if Jesus Christ
had not risen, and if they had not seen him, must give
the lie to the insidious declaration \

30 THE RESURRECTION.
If these witnesses' appealed to were indifferent
persons, the appeal furnishes the means of complete
and unavoidable refutation. If they were not indif
ferent persons, but accomplices, then another and no
less embarrassing difficulty presents itself.
The number of individuals concerned in the pro
mulgation. The extreme difficulty of imposing upon mankind
with respect to facts which have recently taken place,
is sufficiently evinced by the numerous and repeated
failures that crowd the page of history. Not the deep
hypocrisy of Catherine the Great could conceal the
circumstances of the death of the Emperor, her hus
band, much as she desired this ; and though a few
chosen confidants only were intrusted with the bloody
secret. Not the sullen silence of a gloomy supersti
tion could stifle the voice of truth and conceal, even
until they were matured into action, those dark de
signs which, in Britain, were so often entertained
during the civil wars. Time draws aside the veil that
covers the acts and stratagems of courtiers, and even
reveals the half-concealed project which had only been
alluded to, or hinted at, in the council chamber.
But a secret, intrusted to more than five hundred
individuals ; a secret, not the divulging but the keep
ing of which placed in jeopardy the life of each one
to whom it was intrusted — a secret confided, not to
courtiers, not to priests trained to reserve, and used
in all the arts of duplicity and concealment, but to five
hundred plain common men of different and vulgar
occupations, associated previously in no common fra
ternity, held together by no antecedent bond ; that a
secret so intrusted to such a number of such men

DESIGNED rMPOSTURE INCREDIBLE. 31
should be kept inviolable ; that they should weave so
dexterously in concert their web of falsehood, that the
sagacity and perseverance of their enemies during
eighteen centuries should be baffled in every attempt
to unravel it, surpasses credibility.
Amidst his agonies on Calvary, the reputed male
factor had no advocates ; not an individual ventured
to defend his cause, or to assert his claims. But no
sooner is he cold in his sepulchre, than five hundred
witnesses, touched by some common impulse, start up
and attest his resurrection. The same spirit actuates
them all; they move in concert; no inconsistency
marks their conduct ; no contradiction appears in their
narrative. The air, the expression, the parts, the
whole bear examination. The unity, the simplicity,
the consistency of truth is everywhere maintained.
No error betrays the concealed fraud ; no clue guides
to a detection of the subtle imposture.
Great as their number is, no one ever swerves from
his ill-plighted faith. In his most serious moments
no one ever relents. In his most careless moments no
one ever betrays. Though threatened with death, or
tempted by reward, not a symptom of dereliction is
ever manifested in public, or a syllable of doubt ever
whispered in private, during the entire lives of these
adroit impostors.
Was there ever a parallel case ? Did such complete,
such triumphant success ever before crown such a
preposterous undertaking ?
But if the number of individuals concerned in the
promulgation is incompatible with imposture, still
more so is

32 THE RESURRECTION.
The system of doctrines and duties founded on it.
No comparison can be instituted between Christian
ity and the ethical systems on which the ancient philo
sophers had exhausted their labors. It stands amidst
them like a pyramid, beside the rush-built edifice
which children for their amusement have reared up.
The odds is equally apparent, whether respect be had
to purity of morals, or sublimity of doctrine.
Here innocence and guilt are immeasurably sepa
rated, and the lines of each are drawn with a god-like
hand. Here every virtue is ascertained and enforced,
every vice stated and condemned. Here no fashion
able crimes are licensed, no venial faults tolerated.
Here duty and interest are united, and holiness and
happiness made inseparable. Here God is honored,
man is humbled, the grave illumined, death con
quered, hell uncovered, heaven disclosed, and immor
tality brought to light.
._ What a grand and awful superstructure to be reared
on a foundation so humble, and which, if false, must
be pronounced so vile. This matchless and imperish
able temple of truth and righteousness, built upon
and upheld by fraud and falsehood ? Not the ever
lasting mountains, standing through so many revolu
tions, with only hay and stubble for their base, would
present so egregious, so palpable a contradiction.
Correspondent to the system of doctrines and duties
founded upon the resurrection, is
The splendid enterprise projected in consequence
of it, and the heroic constancy with which that enter
prise was executed.
It was an undertaking embracing as its object
nothing less than the instruction of vulgar ignorance

DESIGNED IMPOSTURE INCREDIBLE. 33
the humanizing of savage manners, the subduing of
ferocious passions, the regeneration of the depraved
heart, the sanctification of the guilt-defiled conscience
— in a word, the ref ormation and redemption of a world.
What a noble and lofty undertaking for a few fisher
men, a collector of customs, and a tent-maker ! Espe
cially to be commenced at the moment they were
perjuring themselves beside the tomb of their Master,
by falsely attesting his resurrection from it.
How marvellous it is that these faithless conspira
tors, when in the act of attempting to palm upon the
world one of the most impudent of falsehoods, should
conceive the sublime and god-like idea of rearing on
that very falsehood the deathless fabric of Christian
faith and morals ! How marvellous, when in the act
of attempting this, that they should have conceived
and resolved to execute the daring, the gigantic pro
ject of subverting the empire of superstition, of de
molishing the temples of idolatry, of arresting the
progress of licentiousness, of stemming the torrent of
passion, of imposing universal chastity upon the sexes,
of restoring perpetual peace among the nations, of
eradicating revenge from the heart, of banishing in
justice from the earth, and of constraining, by an
appeal to the death of Jesus, the millions that inhabit
it to renounce their sins, to exemplify in their lives
that very candor, integrity, and veracity which they
themselves, by the fabrication of their Master's ap
pearance, had just with frontless audacity abandoned
and abjured.
Here again the admission of the imposture involves
absurdity, contradicts experience, and reverses the
natural course of things. Figs spring from thistles,
grapes ripen upon thorns, a germ of life shoots forth

34 THE RESURRECTION.
from the Bohan Upas of the universe, and fruits of
immortal growth hang clustering around the decaying,
the wrath-smitten trunk of the tree of Death. Or, to
speak without a figure, moral causes cease to operate;
moral character loses its distinctness; opposite attri
butes assimilate ; the father of lies -becomes the patron
of truth ; the panders of fraud, apostles of righteous
ness ; and from hell itself' proceeds a project which
angels might be proud to execute, and which heaven
would not blush to own.
Ah ! ye mysterious promulgators of the new reli
gion, ye magnanimous triflers with the credulity of
mankind, how shall I reconcile the mean and guilty
falsehood with which you are charged to the grand
and glorious enterprise to which it was directed, —
or to the disinterested and heroic constancy with
which that enterprise was executed! — When hold
ing the New Testament in my hand, I behold you
compassing the land, traversing the sea, buffeting the
storm ; unsubdued by hunger, unintimidated by peril,
disregarding the dungeon, contemning the scaffold,
and intent only on the conversion of sinners, the res
toration of a world to righteousness — when I behold
these things, I pay, I am compelled to pay, to your
memories an instinctive homage.
And can they, the perfection of whose doctrines
excites my admiration, the grandeur of whose design
awakens my awe, and the manner of whose execution
extorts my homage, can they have been impostors ?
A marvellous difference exists between these apos
tolic impostors, if indeed they were such, and those
unprincipled pretenders who in later times have cor
rupted and cursed the world. I have never seen or
heard of conspirators like these — conspirators whose

DESIGNED IMPOSTURE INCREDIBLE. 35
high and ennobling purpose it was to extend the reign
of righteousness, and limit and narrow the dominion
of sin. Of all supposable projects, this is the last in
which men of this sort would nowadays engage.
The disciples, it is affirmed, did not believe that
Jesus Christ had risen. Grant it. There are other
men in the world and in Christendom who do not
believe it,
But what would you think of a conspiracy entered
into by these men, after the example of the disciples,
for the sole purpose of imposing still more extensively
on the world a submission to that faith which they
themselves receive not ? What would you think if in
the prosecution of this conspiracy you should see them
deliberately forsaking father and mother, and houses
and lands, patiently submitting to every privation, to'
want, to nakedness, to exile, heroically bracing their
bodies to the severities of every climate, and breasting
the storms of every ocean, as unmindful of pain as of
danger, and intent only on conveying the knowledge
of this resurrection fable not only to the capitals of
civilization, but to the unlettered tribes that still
hunt amidst the forests of the continent, or fish along
the shores of the islands of the sea ? Or having seen
such an enterprise prosecuted in such a manner, and
this for many years together, and till most of the ori
ginal adventurers had become martyrs to the cause ;
having seen that the residue held on to the persistent
purpose with a zeal that no waters could quench, with
a constancy that no allurements could shake, and with
a fortitude that no terrors could intimidate ; how must
we estimate the candor of those who should insinuate
that these men were not in earnest, that they were, in
fact, intentional deceivers who had conceived the wild

36 THE RESURRECTION.
idea of imposing upon mankind the belief of the re
surrection, when in reality they did not believe a word
of it themselves.
And yet the delicate sensibility of some casuists,
though it recoils from the suggestion that even a God.
of mercy might possibly have interposed for the salva
tion of a lost world, recoils not from the most un
masked and shameless statement of the foregoing
monstrous absurdity.
But if the splendid enterprise projected in conse
quence of the resurrection, and the heroic constancy
with which that enterprise was executed, are incom
patible with imposture, still more incompatible with it
are The exemplary Uves of the witnesses who took the
lead in its execution.
It is not on the peculiar character of the apostolic
enterprise, and the sublime manner of its execution,
that we exclusively rely; though these suggest an
argument that never has been and never can be satis
factorily answered. To the insidious imputation of
imposture we oppose a uniform course of action, an
entire life consecrated to the practice and promotion
of virtue, no less than to the establishment and spread
of Christianity.
We ask, and let our adversaries answer, how is this
to be accounted for ?
A solitary vice, it is believed, seldom takes posses
sion of the heart. Especially is it not the nature of
falsehood to reign alone. He who can sport with truth
without compunction is not usually very scrupulous
with respect to the commission of other sins. There
is not a more execrable character than that of the wil-

DESIGNED IMPOSTURE INCREDIBLE. 37
ful, conscious liar. Especially may this be affirmed
in respect to serious subjects, where God is appealed
to, and perjury implied. It were as rational to look
for modesty in a harlot as for the conscientious per
formance of any relative duty from such a faithless
villain. And yet what relative duty is there that the disciples
performed not ? The attitude of Evangelist is not the
only one in which they appear. But in whatever
position they were placed, the expression was the
same ; in whatever light exhibited, the attributes of
goodness only were apparent.
Their characters seem to have been formed after a
sublime model, and cast in a diviner mould than those
of any other mortals. Their virtues were of a higher
order and a holier type. On earth they have had no
rivals. Philosophers appear degraded, and sages
humbled in their presence. Nor these alone. Even
the church cannot boast an individual whose life
shrinks not from a comparison with theirs.
The Church of Rome, even in its darkest periods,
had its saintly men. The Reformation produced a
Luther, a Calvin, a Knox, men of exalted virtues, and
whose memories posterity have delighted to honor;
but neither Romanism nor Protestantism ever gave
the world any characters to be compared with the
disciple John or the apostle Paid. The characters of
the reformers were indeed formed upon the same
model as those of the Evangelists, but they were char
acters of a lower grade, of a coarser texture, and of
a less celestial aspect. They possessed not, or at least
not in the same degree, that simple majesty, that dis
interested charity, that unassuming meekness, that
uniform heavenly-mindedness which were so conspi-

38 THE RESURRECTION.
cuous in those favored individuals who were nurtured
in the school, surrounded the person, and enjoyed the
tutelage of Jesus Christ.
The situation of these men was indeed a command
ing one. They stood upon an eminence. Their theatre
of action was the high grounds that separate the pre
ceding from the present dispensation. But after all
they are distinguished less by the eminence of their
situation than of their virtues. Other characters
appear beside them like the miniatures of some
modern and humble artist beside the full-length por
traitures of the matchless Raphael.
Said Luther to his friends who endeavored to dissuade
him from his dangerous journey : " If there were as
many devils at Worms as there are tiles on the houses
I would go there." This was indeed a noble utterance.
There is, however, something of coarseness in the ex
pression, and perhaps a tincture of pride even in the
sentiment. Paul would not have spoken thus. On a
like occasion, thus he did not speak. There is a far
greater majesty as well as a deeper meekness in his
words : " And now behold I go bound in the spirit
unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall
befall me there. Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth
that in every city bonds and afflictions abide me. But
none of these things move me, neither count I my life
dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course
with joy, and the ministry I have received of the Lord
Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God."
The difference is here apparent, nor here alone, or
between these individuals only. The sternness of
Luther, the severity of Calvin, the coarseness of Knox,
the wavering of Erasmus, and the timidity of Melanch-
thon appear as blemishes when seen in that pure and

DESIGNED IMPOSTURE INCREDIBLE. 39
steady and heavenly light which is still reflected from
the more faultless and more finished characters of the
witnesses in question. Yes, even from behind that
gala"xy with which the Reformation lit up the moral
firmament, the Apostles, though more remote, break
upon the eye like orbs of vaster magnitude, and more
effulgent brightness.
This is not exaggeration. Whoever reads the simple
and unadorned record of their lives must admit that it
is not. In them dignity and humility were united,
valor and forbearance combined. By them envy was
repressed, revenge extirpated, and self-denial carried
to an extent unknown before. Amiable in their
tempers, conciliating in their manners, and possessing
a sensibility which was exquisite, they sympathized
with every human feeling, where sin and malignant
opposition did not forbid its exercise.
Though they themselves were free from the influ
ence of -some of the tenderest ties that bind a mortal
to the world, they were none the less on that account
alive to the joys or griefs of others. After the ex
ample of their Master, they were everywhere sorrow's
consolation. They wept with those that wept ; with
those who rejoiced, they rejoiced. To superiors they
were respectful, to inferiors condescending, to enemies
just. They paid tribute to Csesar ; to God they ren
dered homage. Under injuries they were patient, in
affliction they were submissive, in death they were
resigned. Whether such a splendid assemblage of virtues, such
a matchless perfection of character, be compatible with
an act of the basest fraud, premeditated, persisted in,
and never recanted, we may leave for the sagacity of in
fidels to discover. But if the disciples were impostors,

40 THE RESURRECTION.
they are the first, the last, and the only ones who ever
have been, or who ever will be, in life, examples of
virtue, and in death, martyrs unto righteousness.
These considerations, to say the least, render impos
ture improbable ; and to crown the argument,
The course of action without moti/oe, or rather in
opposition to motive, which this supposes, is contrary
to the nature of man, and therefore impossible.
No man was ever an impostor merely for the sake
of being one. Deception is not itself an end, but
merely a means to an end. He who deceives, deceives
for some purpose apart from the act itself. There is
always an ulterior object, a concealed motive, which,
when disclosed, explains the fictitious part, however
sportive, however serious. It is always so. No man
ever intentionally plays the hypocrite for nothing.
He who deceives, deceives for some purpose apart
from the act itself.
How was it with the disciples? They were im
postors, it is affirmed. But from what motive ? Or
had they, none ? If any, what was it ? From whence
drawn? Not from this world, surely; not surely
from the next.
From the moment of the crucifixion, to human ap
pearance, the cause of Christianity was hopeless. Not
the Jews only, but the Greeks and Romans also, nor
these alone — the learning, the ignorance, the passions,
the prejudices, the official influence, the physical
strength of the world were arrayed against it. Its
Founder was a tenant of the sepulchre. Its few
former professors had abjured it, and on earth there
remained not a friend.
Under such circumstances, to recommence the pro-

DESIGNED IMPOSTURE INCREDIBLE. 41
fession, and become a second time a Christian, was to
become the avowed follower of a crucified impostor,
and the voluntary partaker of his reproach and
obloquy. Thus to avow themselves Christians was to consign
their memories to infamy, and their bodies to cruci
fixion. Relentless executioners, reeking with the blood
of Jesus, compassed his hated followers, ready and
anxious to inflict on them a similar vengeance.
This the disciples knew ; and knowing this, with
fires, and racks, and gibbets displayed before them,
and in the avowed expectation of meeting death by
those terrific engines, they resolutely resumed their
ministry, and entering Jerusalem itself publicly, and
in the very presence of His blood-stained murderers,
announced their adored Master's triumphant resurrec
tion. Faith apart, what imaginable motive can be assigned
for this conduct ? Be their motive what it might, it
was not drawn from this world. Was it then from the
next? Ah! hearer, it is not from thence that men
derive motives to imposture. Futurity suggests many
a thought to damp, but none to stimulate the unprin
cipled adventurer.
Could a Jew, with the Law and the Prophets in his
hand, have expected that fraud or perjury would
thereafter be rewarded by the God of Israel and of
righteousness ? Could a Christian have expected this ?
Above all, could these reputed impostors, preadmon-
ished so often by their Master of that Hell of Retri
bution which awaited the workers of iniquity, could
these men have expected to secure the plaudit in eter
nity by an act of treachery that must damn their fame,
and defile their consciences in time ? No ; to become

42 THE RESURRECTION.
a perjured disciple, the future offered motive no more
than the present. The gibbet or the stake in this
world, and Hell in the next, were indeed poor en
couragement for imposture. And yet, in the present
instance, these were the only encouragement. Neither
God nor man offered any other.
To the persecuted disciples of a conquered, crucified'
Christ, there was no motive falsely to assert His resur
rection. And yet they did assert this. They persisted
in asserting it — persisted, in the face of heaven and
earth, and in the presence of the rulers of both, and
in defiance of all the torments which the one could
threaten, or the other inflict. They were imprisoned,
they were beheaded, they were exposed to wild beasts,
they were stoned, they were crucified. Still they per
sisted, and from the cross, or at the stake, or on the
scaffold, indeed everywhere alike, till the blow was
struck that felled them, they continued to honor
Christ, and to repeat, " That he had risen." Now, if
they did not really, and in their souls, believe in his
actual resurrection, for what — in the name of God Ave
ask it — for what did they do and suffer this ? For
what did they resign the comforts of life and en
counter the horrors of death ?
For what ? According to the theory of unbelievers,
for nothing — without any motive at all. Nay ; in
opposition to all motive, from earth, from heaven,
from hell, from time and from eternity, they honored,
and they persisted in honoring when dead, that very
impostor whom, when dying, they had deserted and
denied. Is there a man credulous or mad enough to believe
this? credulous or mad enough to believe that the
confessor had nothing to console him in his dungeon,

DESIGNED; IMPOSTURE INCEEDIBLE. 43
that the martyr had nothing to support him at the
stake. Without faith and without hope, did men forsake
father and mother, and houses and lands, and wander
in voluntary exile, hated, despised, and persecuted
through the earth ? Without faith and without hope,
did men cheerfully embrace the cross, and trium
phantly mount the scaffold ? Did they deliberately
suffer in then reputation the foulest disgrace, and in
their bodies the most excruciating torments, in attes
tation of that resurrection in which they had no
belief ?
Supported by nothing, did Paul glory in tribula
tions ? In the chilling influence of unbelief, exhausted
by suffering, sinking under the pressure of his perse
cutors, at such a moment and under such influence, did
Stephen look up to heaven in ecstasy and with his
last breath exclaim, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ?
Would to God I were capable of placing this article
before you with its bold and distinctive coloring, and
in the strong blaze of its original and unreflected light.
Would to God that I were able to tear away that veil
which the lapse of eighteen hundred years has drawn
over apostolic sufferings ! that I were able to show you,
in the midst of fire and flames, the dying martyr,
attesting the reality of his Saviour's resurrection, sup
ported by this hope alone ; would to God that I could
show him to you as the amazed spectators saw him,
contemning the agonies of death, and stretching forth
from amidst the devouring element his quivering half-
consumed hands, to seize the crown of righteousness
which Jesus Christ presents, and which faith unfolds
to his heaven-directed eye ! Ah, could I do this, I
would not ask whether these witnesses, on whose minds
3

44 THE RESURRECTION,
Christ's reappearance had produced such an instan
taneous, such an abiding, such a miraculous effect, that
they ever afterwards disregarded fame, riches, ease,
pain, and death ; I would not ask whether they them
selves really believed that He had risen from the dead.
You would not ask it. The living spectators who
heard the dying disciple, from the cross, from the
scaffold, or from amidst the kindling fagots, assert
his faith and repeat his testimony, did not ask this.
No ! the heart of man revolts from the shocking ab
surdity of such a question. Martyrdom for false
opinions there may be ; the Apostle asserts its possi
bility ; the world has had examples of it ; but mar
tyrdom in attestation of a fact known to be false,
is incredible. It reverses the famous sophism of
Hume. No miracle in nature so taxes the human cre
dulity, or demands such an amount of testimony for
its belief.
Could you but see, hearer, one such witness (and
that there have been many is not disputed), could you
see but one such witness, tearing himself from his
friends, tearing himself from the world, and bracing
his body to endure the most excruciating torments in
attestation of a fact, however you yourself might
doubt the reality of that fact, you never would doubt
the reality of his belief of it.
This alternative, also, may therefore be considered
as put at rest. The disciples did themselves believe
that Jesus Christ had risen ! and because they believed
this, they were not impostors.
Is there anything further to be urged to invalidate
their testimony ? It has previously-been shown that
they were not imposed upon ; it has now been shown
that they were not impostors. We must, therefore,

DESIGNED IMPOSTURE INCREDIBLE. 45
deny the connection between cause and effect ; deny
the influence of motive, abandon reason, contra
dict experience, contradict nature, contradict God,
or admit that Jesus Christ has indeed risen from
the dead.

III.

Whereof he has given assurance to all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead. Acts xvii. 81.
The two alternatives, suggested to weaken the
credibility of the witnesses who attest the resurrec
tion, have in the preceding discourses been met, and,
it is believed, have been refuted. Nothing remains
to invalidate it. On the contrary, —
There is a train of well-connected circumstances
corroborating their testimony / and there are other
and incontrovertible facts confirming and establish
ing this previous fact.
There is a train of well-connected circumstances
corroborating their testimony.
What are they ? I will mention some of them.
The change of feeling and of action which took
place in the disciples ; the absence of the body ; the
account given by the Jews and by the guard of its
removal ; their conduct on the occasion ; the order
in which the sepulchre was found, and the effect pro
duced by the reputed felony on its perpetrators.
Each of these has a bearing on the question now
at issue. They are all, however, so interwoven that
a separate discussion will not be requisite.

THE ALLEGED THEFT OF THE SAVIOUR'S BODY. 47
There is a marked and obvious difference between
the conduct of the disciples after the time in which
the resurrection is said to have taken place and their
previous conduct. The crucifixion, so precisely cal
culated to depress, to dishearten, and, by dissolving
their only bond of union, utterly to disperse them,
seemed to have produced, and to be producing, its
legitimate effects until the third day. Hitherto some
resemblance may be traced between them and other
human beings, when compassed by enemies, when
struggling with difficulties, and bent on the prosecu
tion of some momentous and doubtful enterprise.
They were anxious ; they were wavering ; they were
timid ; they were easily alarmed. When their Mas
ter was apprehended, only consternation seized them.
Dismayed, they shunned the public eye. They
shrunk from observation. The voice even of a ser
vant-maid awed Peter, before so confident, and who
had followed at a distance, into an act of abjuration.
Eager to escape by any means, he disclaimed all con
nection with the disciples, and denied with oaths
even the knowledge of their Master. Thus, as we
have said, the crucifixion seemed to have produced,
and to be producing, its legitimate effects until the
third day. No longer. It was the crisis of their
fate : the point on which their fortunes turned. On
that day, so memorable in the history of the church
and of the world, some great and propitious event must
have taken place. There must have been an entire
change of circumstances, for an entire change of con
duct ensued. A new era commences. Thereafter
no one hesitates ; no one wavers. All are suddenly
reunited, reanimated, and transformed into prodigies
of valor. And this little band — the first members of

48 THE RESURRECTION.
the Christian church— stand amidst the raging multi
tude, breast the storm, and meet the wave of perse
cution, firm as the surge-beaten rocks meet the bil
lows of the ocean that rise and roar and break upon
them. To what is this sudden, this surprising transforma
tion to be attributed ? Around whose standard was
it that the dispersed and terror-stricken Christians
rallied ? Whose voice of power was it that re-braced
the nerves of the palpitating convert, and drew forth
the concealed disciple from his hiding-place ? Even
Peter is reclaimed ; is re-established in faith and for
titude. Dungeons no longer awe him; death does
not intimidate him. He seeks the place of danger ;
he covets the crown of martyrdom ! Yes, even Peter
— the timorous Peter, who just now dared not even
own his Master, but shrunk from the accusation of a
servant-girl, now dares to face his murderers lifting
their blood-stained hands to heaven, and appealing to
the righteous God in vindication of their act. Yes,
even he dares to face these men, and to say to them,
" Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among
you by miracles, and wonders, and signs ; him, being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowl
edge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands
have crucified and slain. This Jesus God hath raised
up, whereof we are all witnesses."
Who can account, on any ordinary principles of
action, for this conduct of Peter, or for that of the
other disciples? Will those who reproach us with
weakness for believing, suggest any plausible apology
for unbelief? Will they even furnish a plausible
conjecture, the resurrection apart, that will explain
these phenomena ? That fact admitted, the mystery

THE ALLEGED THEFT OF THE SAVIOUR'S BODY. 49
vanishes, and the whole after-scene, which was other
wise itself a prodigy, appears congruous and na
tural. But the resurrection is a matter oifact, which the
SEPULCHRE IS THE PLACE TO INVESTIGATE. An in
spection of that will doubtless bring to light some
circumstances, either in confirmation or in refutation.
Come, then, let us go and see the place where the Lord
lay. Behold yonder that host of enemies who three
days since were exulting in their triumph over the
prostrate Galilean. Let us approach them ; let us
say to them: " Into your hands was committed, as it
was taken from the cross, the lacerated body of him
whom we supposed to have been the Saviour." Pro
duce that body now, and our inquiries will be an
swered, the testimony of his disciples falsified, and
the tongue of imposture silenced forever.
What say you, ye priests ? ye keepers, what is your
answer ? " The body is missing." The body miss
ing ? " Yes, it has eluded our vigilance ; it has es
caped from our custody ; it has fled the sepulchre."
It has so ! Look, believer, and see. The stone is
rolled back, and the vault tenantless ! There lie the
napkin that was bound about his head, and the linen
clothes that enfolded his body ; but the body which
they enfolded lies not there !
What mean these habiliments which the dead has
worn and laid aside — this folded napkin — this desert
ed cemetery ? What mean these things ? Do they
not intimate, and more than intimate, the verity of
what the reclaimed Peter asserts, the reality of what
the joy-entranced Mary has seen, and whose bursting
heart still swells with emotions too tender for con
cealment, too strong for utterance ?

50 THE RESURRECTION.
Perhaps, however, the body has been secretly con
veyed away. Let us indulge the supposition for a
moment. But by whom ? Was it by his enemies ?
Would they whose malice compassed his death, and
whose malice even death itself had not quenched,
would they have conspired to re-establish his predic
tion, and coyer his memory with glory? Was it,
then, his friends ? Ah, had Jesus Christ died in re-
tirement, and surrounded only by his friends, there
might have been, if not a motive, at least an oppor
tunity for the execution of such a dark design. In
a death so circumstanced, prevention might have been,
impossible, detection difficult.
But, be it remembered, the death of Jesus Christ
was public; his burial conducted in the presence
and under the direction of his enemies. ' The Scribes
and Pharisees, the priests, the populace, backed by
the authority of Caesar, and with soldiery at their dis
posal, were surely competent to protect the sepulchre
from the assault of Peter and John, the two Marys,
and a few other women, who alone appear to have
had fortitude enough even to approach the place
where this appalling tragedy was enacted. That they
attempted to protect it, that they foresaw the conse
quences of failure, that they felt the full force of all
those motives which urged them to retain in their pos
session the body of the reputed malefactor until the
third day was past, is manifest. They used precaution ;
they made arrangements ; they employed force. Every
thing that man could do they did to secure the sepul
chre. And why did they not secure it ? The event
shows why they did not. Because it imprisoned Him,
who is the resurrection and the life / in whose " hand
were the keys of hell and death ; who could himself

THE ALLEGED THEFT OF THE SAVIOUR'S BODY. 51
open, and no one could shut, who could shut, and no
one could open."
Was ever sepulchre so secured, so watched, so
guarded before ? Has the tomb on any other occa
sion, or to favor any other imposture, surrendered up
the dead that were in it ? Never ; since the first
man died this prison has been inviolable. To saints, to
sinners, to true men and impostors, egress has been
alike denied. No vigilance eludes, no gold bribes its
keeper, nor does any violence break its bars. Even
the most dreaded tyrants, when Death takes them in
arrest, are no longer dreaded. Thereafter no one
fears their release, or guards against their reappear
ance. Though they expire in the midst of courtiers,
whose fortunes hang upon their fortunes, who watch
the remains of life with all the devotion with which
vestals watch the fire upon the altar, who strive to
prevent the departing spirit, and would gladly impose
upon the world, were it possible, a belief of its return
after it was irrevocably gone, — still, none fears their
release, no one guards against their reappearance.
Suddenly the lacerated slave, set free, walks forth se
curely and unharmed over the dust of his disdainful
master, assured that neither arms nor artifice can res
cue the death-enthralled oppressor, or establish on
earth his fallen influence.
How then was it practicable in the case before us
to do this ? What circumstances favored the re-es
tablishment of the Galilean's fallen power? He
expired, as you have heard, ignominiously ; he ex
pired publicly, he expired surrounded by enemies.
They ascertained his death; they controlled his
burial. His tomb was hewn from the solid rock — a
great stone was rolled to its mouth ; that stone was
3*

52 THE RESURRECTION.
sealed, and a band of armed soldiers placed before it.
And yet, in despite of this stone, this seal, this band
of armed soldiers, the pathway from the tomb was
forced, and the body it imprisoned had fled ! How ?
Through whose agency ? By what means? No one
answers these interrogations. The whole transaction
is veiled in mystery. Not even the guard give the
least account of it. From a suspicious source, in
deed, a report is circulated : That " while these slept
his disciples came and stole away the body." Is this
report plausible ? Has it any internal marks of truth ?
Has it any external ? Whatever else may be said to
explain the transaction, this report is a falsehood.
It is a palpable falsehood. Let us examine it :
" His disciples came by night and stole him away
while we slept." Who are they who are bribed to
make /this pitiful declaration ? You shall hear.
" Now, the next day that followed the day of pre
paration, the chief priests and Pharisees came to
gether unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that
that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three
days I will rise again. Command therefore that
the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest
his disciples come by night and steal him away, and
say unto the people, He is risen from the dead : so
the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate
said unto them, Ye have a watch : go your way, and
make it as sure as ye can. So they went and made the
sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch."
You perceive who this guard were ; by whom au
thorized; by whom selected, and where stationed.
You perceive also the agitation the crucifixion occa
sioned, the anxiety it excited, and the interest which
was felt to preserve, until the third day was passed

THE ALLEGED THEFT OF TOE SAVIOUR'S BODY. 53
by, the sepulchre inviolate. And yet inviolate tho
sepulchre was not preserved. The reason why it was
not is not so much as intimated. What say the guards ?
Precisely what they were bribed to say. " His disci
ples came by night and stole him away while we
slept." I affirm that the guards were bribed to say
this, not only because it is so recorded, but because
that, and that only, will account for their making the
impudent declaration — a declaration which, though
it had been true, they, without the connivance of the
Jews, had never dared to make.
Whoever knows anything of the rigors of military
discipline knows that they would not. Then, as now,
for the sentinel to slumber at his post was death.
And yet these guards slept. More than this, they
avow openly that they have done so. Still no mur
murs are heard ; no inquest is held ; no executions
issue. The Jews, so anxious to defend the sepulchre,
and so resentful to every other being that crossed
them in their purpose, to the guard were all concili
ation ; the guard, whose criminal neglect had occa
sioned to themselves the most disastrous disappoint
ment. Against this guard they prefer no charges ;
they indulge no animosity. Both parties are perfectly
complacent, and mutually desirous to consign, with
out inquiry, so much of the transaction as concerned
the soldiery to oblivion. Whence this unnatural sym
pathy between the guard and their distinguished em
ployers? Clamorous on eveiy other article, they
maintain on this a studied, sullen silence. Why this
preternatural apathy ? Why was no examination in
stituted ? why was no development attempted of that
mysterious incident which terrifies the priests ; which
terrifies the elders; which shook Jerusalem to its

54 THE RESURRECTION.
centre? The answer is at hand; the Evangelists
have furnished it. " Some of the watch came into.
the city, and showed unto the chief priests all the
things that were done." "And when they had as
sembled with the elders, and had taken counsel .
together, they gave large money unto the soldiers,
saying, Say ye, His disciples came and stole him away
while we slept. And if this come to the governor's
ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. And they
took the money and did as they were taught," saying,
"His disciples came and stole him away while we
slept." " While we slept ; " but did they sleep on such a
night as this, and during the performance of such a
duty ? Did they sleep while guarding the avenues
of death, and stationed as they were at the tomb of
that dread pretender, who had announced before
hand the time that he would rend that tomb, and
come forth, the resurrection and the life ? They
did not sleep. Every bosom palpitated, every nerve
quivered, and from every eye slumber fled. Who
ever slept in Jerusalem that night, this guard did not
sleep. Nature teaches that they could not: God
knows they did not.
But suppose they had — not one, but all of them.
Suppose this whole band of soldiers, leaning on their
spears, or reclining on their shields beside or around
the sepulchre, tranquil as the tired laborer on his
couch, composed themselves to sleep ? Could the as
sault have been made; could the seal have been bro
ken ; could that stone so large have been rolled back,
and the body, disengaged from the bandages that
begirt it, be borne away in triumph without awaking
them ? Or does (look again into the sepulchre and

THE ALLEGED THEFT OF THE SAVIOUR'S BODY. 53
tell me), does the linen cloth, wreathed so orderly,
and lying on the one side, or the folded napkin, ad
justed with so much care, and lying on the other,
appear like the hurry and confusion of robbery ? No
¦ rude hand disengaged that linen cloth from the body
it enfolded, or tore away that napkin from the head
it bound. Be the truth what it may, they have not
told it. This tale of the body being stolen while
they slept, and stolen too by the disciples, is a false
hood ; a palpable falsehood, and
As itseless as it is palpable. I say useless, for it
leaves unaccounted for other and more decisive phe
nomena than that of the mere absence of the body
for which it was fabricated to account. Of all pos
sible shifts to get rid of supernatural interference,
that of implicating the disciples is the worst. If the
stealing of a dead body would of itself give confi
dence in the resurrection, and re-establish the pros
trate influence of a departed chief, of what potentate
would the ashes remain undisturbed in its sepulchre ?
Or what faction would ever be dispirited and dispersed
by their leader's death? — a loss which has hitherto
been deemed, both by the virtuous and the vile, irre
parable. Were this the fact, if the rifling of a tomb
would produce such reunion and reanimation, we
should see the mausoleums of tyrant kings guarded
after their decease as carefully as the prisons they
erected were guarded previously, and resurrections
would have been as frequent in our world as those
falling powers have been which required for their
support a factitious influence.
But the rifling of a tomb never did, never could,
produce reunion and reanimation. I have heard of
followers being kept together and in spirits by the

56 THE RESURRECTION.
concealment, never before by the promulgation, of
their leader's death.
The subtle Catherine, who wrested from her hus
band the sceptre of the Russias, reasoned differently.
Not content with having announced by a public
ukase the emperor's death, and that she might the
more effectually break the spirits and disconcert the
plans of his adherents, she caused his body to be con
veyed to the capitol, and to be uncovered, before its
burial, in the midst of them. The event showed
with what sagacity she had taken this decisive mea
sure. While there was a possibility that their incar
cerated sovereign lived, loyalty gave them confidence.
But when they saw his pall, approached his bier,
lifted his shroud, and identified his corse, hope for
sook them, exertion ceased, and the bond that had
united them became instantly and utterly dissolved.
Had the disciples, as the bribed watch falsely tes
tified, stolen the body of their Master, it had been
to the priests and elders not a ground of regret, but
of exultation. Such an act would have proved as
fatal to his claims as it would have been derogatory
to the honor of his followers. Had they done this,
no after-persecutions, from either Jews or Gentiles,
would havo 1 een necessary to exterminate the sect.
It had perished of necessity. This theft alone must
have produced its dissolution. No successors would
have perpetuated their infamy ; nor would even the
record of their folly or their fraud have reached the-
times in which we live. Ages ago the story would
Lave been forgotten and unknown.
This is not lightly said. Let us assume the fact to
which this watch, asleep as they were at the time, are
said to testify with so much certitude. Let us follow

out the consequences, and see how the sequel corre
sponds to the assumption.
Be it so. The sepulchre was violated, and by the
disciples. What an egregious error ! What a dis
heartening incident ! Can yon conceive of anything
that could have befallen the already humbled and
desponding disciples so calamitous as voluntarily to
have stooped to this vile act of imputed degradation!
To have stooped, I do not say to acquire the name,
but to do the deed, and to feel the shame of having
done it ; to feel the shame, not of having the world
know, but of knowing themselves, that they had
stolen, and, to save appearances, been compelled to
steal, from its abode of death, the already decompos
ing body of that boastful deceiver who had pro
claimed himself, and whom they had proclaimed to
be, Son of God, the Saviour of the Jews and of the
world. Imagine the disciples, on that ill-boding and dis
mal night, assembled in some secret and obscure re
treat. From this friendless and despised group of
beings, imagine a selection made for the performance
of the premeditated and degrading act of subterra
nean rapine. Muffled in darkness, the base adventur
ers withdraw from their no less base associates ; they
steal along the by-paths; they skulk behind the
monuments ; nearer and yet nearer they approach in
silence. The guards are slumbering at their posts,
and they reach the sepulchre undiscovered. They
penetrate it; again they emerge, and, like felons,
laden with their spoils, they return,' bearing the corse
of their once adored leader, now pale, ghastly, and
disfigured with wounds. This corse, the trophy of
their vile adventure, they expose in the midst of his

58 THE RESURRECTION.
assembled and disheartened followers, exclaiming;
"We have succeeded, comrades ; we have eluded the
guard ; we have rolled away the stone ; we have re
possessed ourselves of the body of Christ, our captain.
Look ! it is he ; see where the nails rent his hands,
and where the spear pierced his side. Look ! it is
He. These are the hands that have been wounded ;
this the side that was pierced ; this is Christ, our captain,
the same that was crucified, that was buried." You
have indeed restored to us his body, but the soul has
fled. O Christ ! The Jews then have conquered, and
thou hast not risen, but art dead. What a com
ment this on thy high pretensions, thy imperial claim,
thy celestial origin ! What a lesson to us his follow
ers ! He can give us no counsel ; he can furnish us
with no defence. It behooves us, then, to think of
ourselves, and escape, while we can, to some place of
safety. Ere this the guard may have awaked ; they
will discover the outrage that has been committed ;
they will spread the alarm through an injured and
indignant city ; its suburbs will be scoured, our re
treat will be discovered, and accumulated ven
geance will burst upon our heads. Whither shall we
fly ? Who will pity us ? Who will protect us ? What
will become of us ? Ah, thou author of our misery !
Alas, our mad credulity ! Is this the reward of our
faith and our fidelity ? Ah, detested impostor, thy
folly and thy falsehood has ruined thyself and us !
My God, what a chilling, what a terrific scene !
Can a more appalling spectacle be imagined than
that of a dead Christ, stolen from his sepulchre, and
surroundea_by'his hopeless, heaven-deserted follow
ers ! And was it here, think you; was it here in this
cadaverous chamber, while the pains of death com-

THE ALLEGED THEFT OF THE SAVIOUR'S BODY. 59
passed them about, — when the terrors of crucifixion
threatened them, — was it here, in this haunt of sin,
of falsehood, of mis'ery, and of putrefaction, that the
transcendent and immortal system of Christian
faith and mo?'als was adopted ? Was it here that
the proud idea was conceived of subverting the em
pire of Satan, and converting the world to righteous
ness ? Was it here that the suffering martyr learned
to endure pain and contemn death? Was it here
that the fervent Evangelist first kindled with the fire
of redeeming love, and became inspired with the
idea of publishing to all nations its glorious tidings ?
Was this stolen, mangled, lifeless corpse the only
rallying-point ofChristianil Was it the sight of
this that reclaimed the apostate Peter, that supported
the martyr Stephen, that collected, that bound toge
ther, that fortified, and filled with the most daring
courage, with the most deathless hopes, the whole
body of the disciples? Especially was it this that
converted the great apostle of the Gentiles ? Paul,
you know, was an eruaiteTnan. He was a Pharisee :
he was an inveterate enemy to Christians. Already
they had felt his inexorable vengeance. Intent on
the extermination of the sect, and swelling with rage,
he hastened to Damascus. On his way thither some-
thing occurred that produced an entire change in his
views and in his conduct — a change that astonished
the Jews, that astonished the Christians, that astonish
ed the Pagans. Now, what was it that produced that
change ? He himself tells us, that it was the sight of
that same Jesus who was crucified on Calvary, and
whom he himself, in the person of his disciples, had
so sorely persecuted. The sight of Jesus Christ !
What sight of him ? Was it that of the malefactor's

60 THE RESURRECTION.
body, deprived of life, covered with wounds, and
stolen ingloriously from the rich Arimathean's rock-
excavated tomb ? Was it the sight of this dishonored
body, buried with infamy, and with infamy dug up
again, that struck the unrelenting Paul with trem
bling, made him drop from his hand the accursed
commission of his cruelty, and, humbled in dust,
exclaim, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? Was
it this that made him forever thereafter glory in the
cross, and hail the Galilean who agonized thereon as
the promised Messiah, the light and salvation of the
world ? Was it this that fired his bosom with such
dauntless fortitude, and touched his lips with such
seraphic eloquence while traversing the great repub
lic, and publishing redeeming love at Jerusalem, at
Corinth, at Athens, and at Rome ? And finally, was
it this, after having bome him triumphantly through
the pains and perils of a most disastrous life, that
prompted, in the near approach of death, that raptu
rous exclamation, I am now ready to be offered up,
and the time of my departure is at hand. I have
finished my course, I have fought the good fight, I
have kept the faith, and there is henceforth laid up
for me a crown of righteousness, which the righteous
Lord will deliver unto me ; and not to me only, but
to all them that love his appearing.
If indeed the body of Jesus Christ was stolen from
the sepulchre by his disciples, as the watch say, then '
I affirm that the effects which that theft produced
were contrary to nature, and therefore miraculous.
For I cannot contemplate those effects without say
ing, nor without being compelled to say, that in their
production there was an interposition of Heaven, and
that this is the finger of God.

THE ALLEGED THEFT OF THE SAVIOUR'S BODY. 61
This tale, therefore, of the rifling of the sepulchre,
circulated by the watch, and which the Jews repeat
ed and still repeat, is a falsehood as useless as it is
palpable ; useless, because it leaves unaccounted for
difficulties as insuperable as those which it is fabri
cated to explain.
To admit its truth, therefore, is merely to displace
one miracle by the substitution of another. And the
simple and the only question to be decided is, whether
we shall believe the former miracle, the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, on the highest of all possible evi
dence, or the latter marvel of incredibility on no
evidence at all.
" He was crucified, dead, and buried." All Jeru
salem witnessed this series of events. So far, no
transactions were ever more public or more solemnly
authenticated. To disbelieve them is to reject all
history of the past as utterly worthless. No grave
was ever more carefully guarded. If their hopes had
not all been crushed, the disciples had indeed a mo
tive for joy in the idea of a risen Saviour ; but to
have stolen away his dead remains would have been
spiritual death to every lingering expectation. That
ghastly theft, as it has been fairly pictured to you, no
man can believe. What, then, became of the body
of the Crucified ? The question must remain unan
swerable, unless we go on to the next article of the
early creed : " On the third day he rose from the
dead." No other event could account for the reani
mation of the disciples ; no other event could give the
reason of that new, unworldly light and life which
have ever since been streaming forth from that sepul
chre to change the whole moral and spiritual aspect
of the world.

IV.
THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT.
Whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead. Acts xvii. 31.
You have heard numerous and unimpeachable
witnesses attest the resurrection of Jesus Christ ; you
have seen that a train of well-connected circumstances
corroborates their testimony. It only remains to be
shown that
There are other and incontrovertible facts confirm
ing and establishing this previous fact.
What other and incontrovertible facts are these,
confirming and establishing this previous fact ? The
descent of the Spirit — the power of miracles — the
spread of Christianity.
The descent of the Spirit.
Jesus Christ promised that the Spirit should de
scend upon his disciples after he had arisen. In con
firmation of this promise, the Spirit did so descend.
What evidence is there of it ? A sudden and mar
vellous change wrought on them. The disciples,
destitute originally of all great and shining qualities,
distinguished by no peculiar aptitude for acquiring
those which they possessed not, and at a time of life,
too, when the human character, having attained its

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 63
full rigidity, is no longer capable of being re-moulded
by ordinary means ; even then, they were suddenly
transformed into prodigies of wisdom, of virtue,
and of fortitude, both in action and in suffering.
We have already glanced at their lives. Incom
parable men, as we have seen, they indeed were.
Such, however, they were not from the beginning.
Such they were not even at the time of their Master's
death. His resurrection ensued. A sudden transfor
mation took place ; a transformation worthy to have
been produced by the Holy Ghost, and at the very
time of its promised descent.
It entered into the original plan of Jesus Christ, as
appears from his own explicit declaration, to suffer,
to die, and to rise again. On this foundation was he
to rear a kingdom vast in extent and endless in dura
tion; a kingdom new in its origin, in its object, in its
laws, and in its administration ; a kingdom which
would subvert all other kingdoms, and remain itself
exclusive and universal.
As the basis of this projected kingdom was to be
laid by the death of its Founder, the entire superstruc
ture was to be reared by subordinate agents, and in
the absence of the Principal. Whom did he select
for the accomplishment of this high purpose ? On
whose brow did he place the mitre? Into whose
hands did he commit the sceptre ? Who were ap
pointed to be the heralds of his law and the executors
of his government ? Were any individuals of original
and splendid talents selected ? any of great wealth or
powerful connections ? any profound scholars or
sagacious statesmen? The choice was not made of
such. On the contrary, the agents appointed to exe
cute were as little and as impotent as the design to be

64 THE RESURRECTION.
executed was vast and mighty. In defiance of all
the maxims of human prudence, as if to take from
unbelief the shadow of an apology, and make it mani
fest to every eye that God's right hand had done this
thing, the wealth, the power, the talents, the learning,
the influence of the world were disregarded, and a
selection made that promised nothing but defeat and
disgrace. Obscure, uneducated, ignoble men were
preferred ; men ignorant, rash, dull, intractable.
Fishermen, tent-makers, toll-gatherers were preferred.
Twelve such men, without any previous advantages,
and with all the prejudices, passions, and habits pecu
liar to their stations and callings, were suddenly col
lected, and invested with authority more absolute and
awful than had ever before been committed to mor
tals. To them were delivered the keys of the kingdom
of heaven. Whose soever sins they remitted were to
be remitted, whose soever sins they retained were to
be retained.
To qualify them for the duties of this fearful office,
they were admitted into the family, and taken under
the tuition of Jesus Christ. Three years they accom
panied him in his travels, saw his miracles, and heard
his lectures. But so slow of understanding were
they, that, at the end of these three years, they seemed
still to be mere fishermen, still incapable, under any
culture, of becoming qualified for a holier or higher
calling. They neither comprehended his doctrine,
nor sympathized with him in his design. His humi
lity offended them. They were scandalized at his
cross: they were ignorant of his prerogatives, and
unbelieving in respect to the fulfilment of his prom
ises. All the attempts which- had been made to en
lighten their understandings and elevate their minds

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 65
above present and sensible objects seemed to have
been abortive. By parables, by similitudes, by fami
liar conversations, as well as by formal and set dis
courses, they had been instructed ; but to little pur-

They entered not into the spirit of these discourses ;
they understood not the things that were spoken.
They were still, as they ever had been, ignorant and
unteachable, slow to understand, as well as to believe,
not only what the prophets, but what Christ himself
had said. It was on this account that, deploring the
state in which he was about to leave them, and
grieved at their habitual dulness and intractableness,
he addressed to them that pointed and sharp rebuke,
0 faithless generation, how long shall I be with
you f How long shall I bear with you ?
Such were the disciples when Jesus Christ closed
by death his ministry. They no more understood his
claims, or the nature of his kingdom, than did the
Scribes and Pharisees, or the populace who flocked
together where he passed, that they might see his
miracles, and partake of the loaves and fishes. Know
ing them to be such, what could he expect from them ?
How could he suppose they would ever be able to
administer his government, to expound his laws, or
even to answer with wisdom and pertinency the in
terrogatories addressed to them by magistrates and
kings ? He tells us, he told them, how he expected
this. Hear his words. " If I depart, I will send the
Comforter unto you. When He, the spirit of truth,
is come, he will guide you into all truth. And when
they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magis
trates and powers, take no thought beforehand how
or what you shall answer ; neither premeditate ; for

QQ THE RESURRECTION.
the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour
what you ought to say."
With these prophetic words the event coincided.
From the moment of the promised descent of the
spirit, these weak men, these illiterate men, these
stupid and intractable men were suddenly endowed
with the highest knowledge. They became instantly
wiser than the Jews, wiser than Abraham, wiser than
Moses, wiser than Solomon, wiser than the Romans,
wiser than the Greeks. They understood the law,
they understood the gospel ; things past, things fu-'
ture, things invisible, even the hidden mysteries of
the kingdom of God, are known to them. They bring
forth things new and things old as from an ex-
haustless treasury. To the pious they are sons of
consolation; to the impious, sons of thunder. They
confront the Sanhedrim, they encounter the Epicu
reans, they silence the Stoics. They deliver prophe
cies, they promulgate laws, they.perfect and consum
mate a system so matchless, so transcendent, as to
have become and remain the glory of the Church and
the admiration of the world ; a system replete with
the most exalted and sublime ideas of God, with the
most accurate and comprehensive judgments of man ;
a system containing the most exact and striking pre
sentation of the civic and social relations, together
with the rights and obligations springing out of them ;
a system perfect and finished, in which nothing is
defective, nothing redundant ; a system which re
quires no revision, which admits of no emendation ;
a system so holy, so true, so universal and unchang
ing in its principles, as to be, like the laws of nature
and of God, suited to all stages of society, to all
nations and ages of the world.

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 67
The institutions of Solon have become obsolete ;
the laws of Lycurgus have perished ; the pandects of
Justinian have ceased to be the rule of life ; the great
body of the Roman law has been amended and re
modelled ; but the gospel remains unchanged. Now,
as formerly, it is most honorable to God, most bene
ficial to man. The lapse of eighteen centuries has
brought to light no blemish or defect ; it still bears
the same strong impress of Eternal wisdom and good
ness that it did when uttered by the lips and inscribed
by the pens of the apostles. Its unrivalled perfection
even its enemies acknowledge. Those who deny its
inspiration are compelled to concede that there is
nowhere else embodied a system of morals so pure,
or of doctrines so sublime.
The ancients have furnished no such specimen of
virtue or of wisdom ; all that is purest in modern
ethics has been derived from it.
The" New Testament stands confessedly alone pre
eminent ; not only unapproached, but unapproachable.
Such a work, at such a time, by such men, unless
God had inspired them, is impossible ; its very exis
tence is a monument that, standing like a pyramid
among the moral ruins of the world, perpetuates, and
must forever perpetuate the evidence of one fact : —
the descent of the Spirit. Nor is this all. These
once ignorant, narrow-minded, and indocile fishermen
not only embody this .wonderful system of doctrines
and duties, but they also publicly and extemporane
ously illustrate, explain, defend, and enforce it with
a sagacity and facility that amazes. The fact is the
more wonderful that they do this with equal ease, per
spicuity, fluency, and power in all the known varieties
of Eastern languages. Yes, unlettered as they were,
4

68 THE RESURRECTION.
and without any previous study, or previous residence
elsewhere than in Palestine, and though not called
from their fish-nets till the maturity of manhood,
they understand perfectly all the dialects existing in
the Roman Empire and beyond it. From the Indus
to the Rhone, from the Caspian to the Red Sea, there
is not a known tongue in which the Gospel is not
proclaimed. " Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the
dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea and Cappa-
docia, in Pontus and in Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphy-
lia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene ;
and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes
and Arabians, heard them speak, in their own tongues,
the wonderful works of God."
However the Apostles may have acquired this
unusual knowledge and use of language, the fact
that it was so employed is one that it is not easy to
call in question. The Gospel was certainly preached,
not only at Jerusalem, at Corinth, at Athene, and at
Rome, but also in Gaul, in Egypt, in Arabia, in
Syria, in India, in Mesopotamia, and elsewhere, dur
ing the lives of the Apostles themselves. Monuments
of antiquity attest this wondrous fact; churches
planted by the Apostles, and remaining to the pres
ent day, demonstrate its truth. The Apostles actu
ally preached the Gospel to these different kindreds,
tongues, and people. These different kindreds, tongues,
and people heard the Gospel preached by them. There
is but one alternative. Either the unlettered popu
lace of all these nations understood the native lan
guage of the fishermen of Galilee, or the unlettered
fishermen of Galilee were in some way enabled to
understand the native language of the people t©
whom they carried the Gospel.

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 69
We have missionaries in India, and some have been
there for years. It was only after much previous
preparation at home that they were sent out to evan
gelize the heathen. Some of them have not even yet
commenced their oral mission. Though impatient of
delay, and surrounded by idolaters, they are still
silent. Though they profess to be the bearers of sal
vation, no Hindoo or Burman auditory has been in
structed by their epistles, or even heard from their
lips the enunciation of the glad tidings. Whence
this delay? It is inevitable. They are acquiring
the language of the natives ; nor can they, great as
their desire may be, and urgent as the necessity may
be, convey one idea of Christ, of faith, of forgiveness,
or of heaven, till they shall have made the acquisi
tion. And yet, who ever heard, in the apostolic age,
of any school of language but that opened on the day
of Pentecost, or of any other teacher of language than
the Holy Ghost ? On what occasion did Peter, or
James, or John suspend their mission, and linger in
silence on the borders of idolatrous nations till they
had acquired from the natives the import of their
terms, and their tone of utterance ? Who of them,
or of their unlettered coadjutors, called suddenly to
address a world lying in wickedness, ever declined a
mission to the east or to the west, to the north or to
the south, because the languages, of those regions
were unknown to them ? On the contrary, ever fur
nished, ever prepared, ever active, they compassed
sea and land ; nor did the peculiar shibboleth of any
nation, however refined, however barbarous, render
them inaccessible to the living voice of these primi
tive Evangelists, these daring and adventurous de-
claimers against all unrighteousness. Look over the

70 THE RESURRECTION.
great map of ancient Christendom ; see what a vast
extent of country, and what different tongues and
people were scattered through it. This extent of
country the disciples traversed, and, without any
previously acquired knowledge of the varieties of
language which they met with, everywhere alike
preached Jesus and the resurrection as they went.
How did they do this ? By hieroglyphics and pan
tomime ? Was Christianity promulgated in Greece
without a knowledge of the Greek, or at Rome with
out the Latin ? Was it promulgated in Arabia with
out the Arabic, in Syria without the Syriac, or in the
peninsula of India without the ancient Malabar,
where eastern as well as western tradition makes it
certain that St. Thomas preached, and founded
churches ? The contrary supposition has far greater
difficulties than the admission of the miraculous gift.
The broad fact that churches were founded by them
in so many countries, even though the sacred histori
an had been silent on that article, would demonstrate
that, in addition to the profoundest knowledge of
ethics, these mysterious fishermen understood and
could speak more languages, to say the least, than
the most learned among the Greeks and Romans. It
was not a common faculty, even regarded as acquired.
The admiration expressed for Josephus on account of
his good knowledge of Greek shows that this power
of speaking foreign tongues was an extraordinary ac
complishment in ancient times.
Hindered by their previous occupations, and pre
cluded during half their lives from all the ordinary
sources of intellectual improvement, whence did they
so suddenly derive this consummate and finished edu
cation? What teacher with such matchless skill

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 71
opened to their minds the treasures of celestial wis
dom, attuned their organs to the utterance of such
divine language, and touched their lips with the fire
of such varied and seraphic eloquence ? By what
miraculous tutelage were they made at once the most
enlightened sages ; the most consummate orators ?
Who can account for this ? or rather, who cannot
account for it ? For who can open that volume of
moral science, of sacred literature, so replete with
whatever can enlighten, can exalt and purify the soul
— who can behold its venerable authors, with their
sandals bound upon their feet, their locks bleached
with the dews of every climate, conveying glad tid
ings and publishing salvation to the Jews, to the Ro
mans, to the Greeks, to the Assyrians, to the Egyptians,
to the Arabians, and the Hindoos — standing before
tribunals and answering judges and rulers of the
earth with a majesty that never sinks, with a compo
sure that is never interrupted, with a wisdom that
never errs, with eloquence becoming the ministers of
heaven, the accredited ambassadors of God to man ;
who can do this, I say, and not recall to mind those pro
phetic words of Christ, which we have before quoted,
" If I go away, I will send the comforter unto you.
When he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide
you into all truth. And when they bring you before
magistrates and powers, take no thought beforehand
how or what you shall answer ; neither premeditate,
for the Holy Ghost will teach you in the same hour
what you ought to say."
But not with knowledge only were they endowed.
At the time of the promised descent of the Spirit,
They became suddenly prodigies of virtue, as well
as of wisdom.

72 THE RESURRECTION.
The transformation which then took place in their
moral characters was as sudden, as entire, and as
glorious as that which took place in their intellectual
condition. After relinquishing their humble occupations, and
'during the natural life of their Master, place and
power seem to have been their principal objects.
They were vain ; they were selfish ; they were jeal
ous ; they were resentful, and covetous of wealth and
honor. To whatever concerned the body they were
alive. They aspired to the highest seat ; they con
sidered nobility to be the chief beatitude, and their
heads were filled perpetually with some dream of tem
poral glory. Their present poverty and dependence
were tlieir humiliation. Proud even in anticipation,
they jealously weighed their respective claims, and
with an evil eye looked forward to the pomp and
splendor which they conceived were held in reser
vation. Hence their secret rivalries ; hence their open and
disgraceful wranglings ; hence their society in retire
ment was embittered, and their very journeys filled
with strife. After hearing from their Master the
most heavenly lessons, and while yet within the reach
of his eye and the sound of his voice, they indulged
in emulation and quarrelled about pre-eminence. On
the part of James and John a request is preferred to
Jesus Christ himself that the one might sit on his
right hand and the other on his left in that imagined
kingdom with which their ambition was inflamed, but
which he came not to establish. The other disciples,
far from cherishing any ingenuous feelings, and as
eager for preferment as the ambitious brothers, were
filled with indignation.

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 73
By example, by admonition, by precept, did their
august Teacher endeavor to heal their dissensions and
eradicate the unhallowed passions wliich produced
them, but in vain. In vain he expostulated with
them ; in vain, when they inquired of him concerning
precedence in the kingdom of Heaven, did he signifi
cantly plaee a little child in the midst of them, add
ing, " Except ye be converted, and become as little
children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven.
Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself and be
come as this little child, the same is the greatest in
the kingdom of Heaven." In vain did he say to them,
" Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise
dominion over them, and they that are great exercise
authority upon them ; but it shall not be so among
you ; but whosoever will be great among you, let him
be your minister ; and whosoever will be chief
among you, let him be your servant. Even as the
Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
Even this lesson of heavenly wisdom, enforced by
his own divine example, was lost upon them ; and,
strange as it may seem, their perverseness continued
to the end. Take the scene of the last sad night be
fore the passion. Behold them rising from the sacra
mental table, that altar of peace, where, since that
day, so many reconciliations have been effected, so
many resentments buried, so many worldly honors
abjured, so many malignant passions sacrificed ; be
hold them, I say, rising from that table, and at a time,
too, when all the solemn circumstances of the cruci
fixion were just in prospect, still indulging in the
most worldly and selfish feelings. See them going
forth on such a night as that without humility, with-

74 THE RESURRECTION.
out charity, their souls inflamed with unholy carnal
animosities. Even then there was " strife among them,
which of them should be accounted the greatest"
Good God ! what ministers these to be intrusted
with the administration of that future kingdom of
peace, of charity, of humility, and self-denial, about
to be established on the earth ! What but abortion
and disgrace could be expected from agenfe thus sel
fish and discordant ? If the living example of meek
ness wdiich their Master set before them was unavail
ing ; if his will authoritatively expressed in person
was unavailing ; if the humbling consideration of
his death in prospect was unavailing to quench their
ambition and prevent their strife, what but perpetual
broils could be expected when these restraints should
be taken off and that unhallowed passion, so long par
tially repressed, should be permitted to break forth
in its violence and operate unchecked.
Nor ambition only. Other and marked indications
of a carnal temper were apparent. A village of Sa- ,
maria had refused to treat them with urbanity. Un
able to brook the insult, they meditated its destruction.
More than this ; they had the effrontery to approach
that benignant Saviour, who never exhibited himself
before them but in the attitude of clemency, and to
say to Hun, " Wilt thou that we " — mark this emphatic
word^ — " Wilt thou that we command fire to come
down from heaven and consume them f "
Be not deceived. It was no holy impulse of rev
erential homage for the Son of God ; it was no sud
den throb of religious horror excited by this first
token of rejection that prompted their interrogation.
They as little understood the dignity of his nature as
the object of his mission. It was not in the char-

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 75
acter of a Saviour from sin that they had enlisted
under his banner. It was the ambition of dignitaries,
not the ardent love of redeemed sinners, that inflamed
them. The vain bauble of a temporal principality
was perpetually in prospect. Like the ministers of
some petty tyrant, they were filled with strange ideas
of personal consequence, and would, had their Master
permitted them, have avenged a personal affront by
sweeping a whole village filled with human beings
from the earth. Hence that pointed and piercing
reproof wliich He addressed to them : "Ye know not
what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of
man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save
them.'" Everything bespoke in them a calculating and a
carnal policy. When a devout woman, in token of
reverence for her Saviour, poured on his head an ala
baster box of very precious ointment, these same dis
ciples, who would have destroyed an entire village of
Samaria for not receiving them with hospitality, were
filled with indignation, and said, in a tone of unbe
coming censure, To what purpose is this waste f
Again their Master rebuked them. He points them,
by way of contrast, to the humble penitent, and then
adds these memorable words : " Wheresoever this
gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall
also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a
memorial of her."
As if they alone were privileged with unrestrained
access to his sacred person, whom they deemed to be
the king of the Jews, the approach of others appeared
obtrusive and gave them umbrage. Not even believ
ing parents would have gained admittance for the
presentation of their infants had not he benignantly
4*

76 THE RESURRECTION.
interposed and checked the officious forwardness of
his disciples who forbade them.
Even the miraculous powers with which they were
on a certain occasion temporarily endowed were con
sidered not so much as gifts for the relief of misery,
for the confirmation of faith, and the edification of
the Church, as personal badges of official distinction.
Hence, when they saw one casting out devils, though
in the name of Christ, they looked upon it as an in
fringement of their prerogative, and, with an air of
authority, commanded him to desist.
During that mysterious scene of suffering termed
the agony they seem to have been almost wholly un
moved. Far from exhibiting any just or generous
sympathy with their Master, these disciples slept.
Rising from the blood-bedewed earth, he awakes them
from their slumbers, he addresses them in words of
deepest anguish : " My soul is exceeding * sorrowful,
* This is one of those passages in which the reader especially
needs the power of Dr. pott's most impressive delivery, as it is
also one which will most vividly recall hirn to the minds of those
who were privileged to hear him in his prime, long years ago.
The calm yet impassioned action, the solemn and emphatic pauses,
above all, the pleading tones of that voice, so clear in its lowest
whispers, furnished an exegesis of this scriptural scene that the
utmost efforts of any mere critical explanation must fail to reach.
The bare words, however, when carefully studied, are eminently
suggestive of all that such a delivery would aim at conveying.
TlepiXviros, a term superlative in force if not in form, fMed with
sorrow, all environed with sorrow, drowned in sorrow, " exceed
ing sorkowful, even unto death." Then, too, that strange and
very unusual word, aSti/iovea/ (Matt. xxvi. 37), rendered " to be
very heavy," rather, to be very lonely, desolate, &5thu>s, away from
one's kindred or people — in a strange world, in a strange land,
forsaken of God and deserted by men. " Tarry ye here." Our
English word tarry has other senses, which prevent its adequately
representing the original in this place: "Stay here" — "stay

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 77
even unto death ; tarry ye here and watch." Again
the wondrous, the mysterious cry, Abba, Father !
" Abba, Father ! Let this cup pass from me." An
angel descends to strengthen him, but again the un
feeling disciples slept.
When the guard approached to apprehend him, and
while He, with holy resignation and majestic com
posure, advanced to meet them, his disciples, with
presumption as absurd as unbecoming, were deter
mined on resistance. The sword was drawn, and in
a spirit that shrank not from the crime of murder,
and would have stained the very threshold of the
Christian church with human blood. But this show
of heroism was as transient as it was unhallowed.
Wanting faith and firmness to meet the shock, as the
disciples of such a Master ought to meet it, they
passed from one extreme of weakness to another.
Not daring to do their duty, they basely fled, and
sought concealment amid the. darkness. Even Peter,
at first so forward, shrank from interrogation, and de-
with me ; O leave me not ; fall not asleep ! " The language of the
whole passage denotes a strange, inexplicable fear of some awful
enemy, some fearful conflict, in which his sore tried human na
ture, seemingly forsaken by its divine strength, clings to human
company and human sympathy. There was a sorrow here, a suf
fering, an agony beyond all our power of .conceiving. That we
have not gone beyond the true import of this most mysterious
passage is shown by the language, Heb. v. 7 : " Who in the days
of Ms flesh, when he had ofCered up prayers and supplications,
with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him
from death. " There must have been something that He beheld
in that death far beyond any conceivable agony of human disso
lution. We are compelled to think this, or regard Christ as infe
rior in courage and in endurance to many a heroic martyr among
his own followers, sustained, professedly, by the Saviour's
strength. — Ed.

78 THE RESURRECTION.
nied his discipleship— denied it with an oath, with
cursing as well as swearing, with anathemas and im
precations, with language as vulgar and cowardly as
it was profane.
Indeed, the history of their lives during these three
years is a history of follies, of blindness, of blunders,
and of unbelief. No traits of peculiar promise were
as yet unfolded, no indications of subdued passion or
of progressive holiness began to be apparent ; nor did
anything betoken that they were shortly to become
exemplars of righteousness and be qualified to act as
reformers of the world.
Far from being distinguished saints, they were not
even blameless men. Far from being worthy of the
school of Christ, they would have done no honor to
that of Plato or of Gamaliel.
But mark the change. After the promised descent
of the Spirit, these faithless, forward fishermen be
came as rich in grace as in knowledge. The enlight
ening of their understandings and the transformation
of their hearts were simultaneous, or rather the latter
was the cause of the former. It was more than the
light of intellectual day that broke upon their minds
so suddenly. They not only recognized in the re
puted King of Israel the king of righteousness, but
they also, as willing subjects, hailed his reign and
bowed to do him homage. As the great outlines of
his plan of mercy caught their eyes they saw its vast-
ness, they felt its glory. That bubble of a temporal
kingdom which the breath of vanity had blown
now burst ; and with it every other bubble that floats
upon the surface of the world. The charm of robes
and diadems has fled. They were cured of conten
tion ; strifes about pre-eminence are no longer heard

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRrr. 79
of. No other king but God is recognized ; no crown
but that of martyrdom and immortality.
Pride has been extirpated ; ambition, every carnal
passion, has been slain; worldly motives cease to
operate; a holy tranquillity ensues, and all the en
dearing charities of a new nature springing up, appear
in vigorous exercise. Injuries are forgiven and for
gotten. Enemies are kindly entreated and prayed
for. The cross, once their shame, has become their
glory ; poverty a beatitude. Self-denial is now their
habitual life ; even stripes and imprisonment are en
dured without a murmur.
These very men, who once thought and talked of
nothing but preferment, now decline all human ho
mage as an utter profanity. When the people of
Lystra, awed by the sight of their miraculous healing
power, would have offered sacrifice, they rend their
garments, they "run in among the excited multi
tude " exclaiming, " Sirs, why do ye these things ?
we also are men of like passions with you, and preach
unto you that ye should turn from these vanities,
unto the living God, who made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all things that are therein." These very
men, who once would have consumed a whole village
of Samaritans for offering them a slight affront, now
bear every indignity with a meekness that fills us
with astonishment. When injury is added to insult,
they supplicate that same Jesus to whom they for
merly addressed their imprecations, for forgiveness
in behalf of those that mock them. These very men,
once so carnal and selfish, are now abstracted from
the world, intent on heaven, absorbed in God ; un
blamable men not only, but of exemplary lives and
consummate holiness.

80 THE RESURRECTION.
Behold them in their retirement ; behold them in
their public administrations. Examine the temper
of their hearts ; examine the conduct of their lives ;
and, having done so, say whence this peculiarity of
character, so faultless, so sublime, so unlike whatever
of goodness has elsewhere appeared on the earth.
Yes, look upon these rude, carnal, calculating fisher
men of Galilee, so suddenly and so gloriously trans
formed, and say whose impress this new nature bears ;
whose image and superscription is this? The his
tory of the day of Pentecost, and that alone, will
answer these interrogations : " And when they were
all assembled with one accord, in one place, suddenly
there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing
mighty wind. And they were all filled with the Holy
GhOst, and began to speak with other tongues, as the
Spirit gave them utterance." So says the history ;
and the heaven- wrought change in the disciples which
we have been contemplating is a proof of the truth of
it. There are yet other proofs ; for henceforth,
They became also prodigies of fortitude, heroes,
both in action and in suffering.
You need not be told that they were not so origi
nally, nor even as late as the crucifixion. Though
previously near the person, and spectators of the
matchless majesty which signalized even the humilia
tion of the Son of God, no peculiar elevation of mind,
no marked decision of character, no daring spirit of
enterprise, had as yet begun to show itself. On the
contrary, they were pusillanimous, distrustful, irreso
lute. Nor was it till the spirit of their Master, like
the descending mantle of Elijah, fell upon them, that
they assumed a bolder tone and appeared in a sub-
limer attitude. Henceforward they 6peak, they act,

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 81
they suffer, with a magnanimity as novel as it was glo
rious. Self-aggrandizement is no longer the spring
of action. Apart from the interests of the Saviour's
kingdom, personal considerations are not so much as
taken into computation. Their lives are accounted
to be only relatively valuable. Even their individ
uality seems to have been merged in the interest of
that cause with which they have identified themselves,
and over which their hearts, in all the fervor of holy
affection, appear to be ever expanding. They 6eem
to have lost their personal identity in the old Adam ;
they are no longer Peter, James, and John, with their
individual peculiarities, but men in Christ.
The question with them is not now as formerly,
What is our reward to be? how much shall we get?
Other motives influence them ; other thoughts occu
py them ; other and higher cares press upon them.
Jesus Christ has risen from the dead ; they are the
witnesses of his resurrection, and they feel responsi
ble to God and to the universe for the promulgation
of the fact.
They have ceased to feel like citizens of the earth.
Their commission they believe to be from heaven,
and they act only in the character of God's ambassa
dors. Those things which allure other men, allure not
them ; those things that awe other men, awe not them.
They enter the synagogue, they face the tribunal of
justice and proclaim Him, whom Pilate condemned,
whom the Jews crucified, to be the promised Mes
siah, made manifest by his rising from the dead..
Their voice fills Jerusalem with terror ; Rome
hears it and trembles. The authorities of the world
attempt to silence them. Superstition frowns, power
threatens ; bonds and imprisonments are prepared ;

82 THE RESURRECTION.
but nothing moves them from their purpose. Mild,
conciliatory, condescending with respect to whatever
was personal, they conceded nothing, they yielded to
no circumstances, where official duty was concerned.
As men, they arrogated nothing to themselves ; as
ambassadors of God, they spake only to command.
As messengers of Jesus, they were above concilia
tion, they were beyond control. They owned no
other master ; they feared no other vengeance but
His displeasure. It had been as easy to push the sun
from his course as to have turned them from their
purpose. The storm gathers ; still undismayed, they preach
Christ and him crucified. It breaks upon them ; still
do they preach Christ. As applied to them, the well-
known words of the great Roman poet cease to be
hyperbole : " Righteous men, and steady to their aim;
no burning rage of clamorous mobs commanding
evil, no look of threatening tyrant shakes them from'
their solid purpose; though the world's orb were
broken and dissolved, still undismayed would the
ruins strike them." * Or, in the similar language of
Scripture, might we say, " Though the earth were
removed, and the mountains cast into the midst of
the sea, still would they not fear ; for the Lord (their
risen Saviour) is now their refuge and their strength,
"their very present help in trouble."
* Justi et tenaces propositi viri,
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus instantis tyranni
Mente quatit solida.
+ * * * * *•
Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidos f eriant ruinse. Horat. Cam. III. 3.

THE ATTESTING DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 83
Nor were they less bold in action than in utterance.
The diminutive project of erecting a little principal
ity, of which Jerusalem was to be the capital, had
given place to the grand idea of God's eternal king
dom. Of this kingdom the whole earth, with'all its
kindred, tongues, and people, is but a province, — at
present a rebel province. In the midst of it stands
the throne, not of Jehovah but of Satan, and millions
do him homage. To recover this kingdom to right
eousness and to God is their aim. It is not desirable
only, but, in their adventurous and heaven-sustained
conception, it is practicable also. Yes, these twelve
isolated individuals, without friends, without learning,
without influence, without even sword or staff or
scrip, and with all the power and malice of men and
devils arrayed against them, are sanguine, are confi
dent. Not a doubt lingers about their hearts.
With no armor but their faith, with no resources
but their fortitude, with no weapon but the cross,
they hasten to the combat. The extended region of
fraud, of folly, and superstition lies before them.
Jews, Romans, Greeks, Barbarians, nations without
number and without end arise in prospect.
These all, all in their opinion, belong to Jesus Christ.
They count upon them as though they were already
his. As his they claim them ; nor do they waver as
to the practicability of bringing this mighty host of
rebels to subjection.
In sublimity of design, in sublimity of execution,
nothing performed by created beings exceeds, noth
ing equals this. Never before did creatures so Utile
undertake so resolutely or execute so much.
Nor were they greater in action than in suffering.
Opposition to their ministry did not terminate in men-

84 THE RESURRECTION.
aces. Unable to seduce or silence, the great powers
of the world resolved to 'crush them. Instruments of
death were seized, engines of torture were applied.
Their heads were dissevered from their bodies ; their
joints were dislocated ; their muscles were torn asun
der ; but still their spirit was not broken. The liv
ing gathered strength from the victory of the dead.
Coadjutors were raised up ; a similar impulse and
direction was given to other minds.
Had Plato any such disciples ? Had Socrates any
such disciples ? Whence this matchless grandeur of
character, so novel, so angelic ? It is not surely of
earthly origin. None but a God as potent as ours
could have raised up such actors or sustained them
amid such sufferings.
Behold, hearer, the spirit of a risen Saviour reap
pearing from the sepulchre in the persons of his fol
lowers. This is one fact confirming and establishing
the previous fact : His resurrection.

THE POWER OF MIRACLES.  THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.
Whereof he Tiath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath
raised him from the dead. Acts xvii. 31.
We have already adduced one fact, the descent of
the Spirit, confirming and establishing the previous
fact, the Pesurrection. The descent of the Spirit is
not, however, the only fact that deserves to be adduced.
Another, and one no less conclusive, presents itself.
The Power of Miracles. Whence had the dis
ciples this power ? you know whence they profess to
have derived it. Announcing the resurrection of
their Master, they exhibit at the same time, and in
confirmation, their commission from Him to publish
the glad tidings, investing them with power " To
heal the sick, to cleanse the leper, to raise the dead',
to cast out demons."
Under this commission they act, and they are taken
at their word. Numerous subjects are presented, and
the validity of their commission is confirmed by the
issue. For the sick that are brought forward are
healed ; the deaf hear ; the blind see ; the dumb
speak; the cripple walks ; the leper is cleansed; the
demoniac is restored to reason, and the dead to life.
Other, and yet other objects of misery are presented,

86 THE RESURRECTION.
and the presentation is attended with the same effect.
Suddenly their fame spreads; the cities they enter
are crowded ; the paths they travel thronged by im
potent people, and they were healed, every one. Even
garments transmitted from their persons possessed a
healing virtue ; beds and couches were spread beside
their pathways to intercept their very shadow. The
mere statement of such a fact, the mere prevalence
of such a belief, shows how great the change in the
position of these men, how strong the feeling that
they carried with them a power from on high.
! What shall we say to these things ? Did they indeed
exist ? So say the sacred writings. So say all the
converts, all the confessors, all the martyrs ; so says
the universal church. The millions that embraced
Christianity during the lives of the Apostles, though
speaking different languages, and living in different
hemispheres, all, all with one voice declare miracles
to have been among the grounds of their faith, and
the means of their conversion.
There is one thing in which the friends and ene
mies of Christ were, of old, perfectly agreed, namely,
that he and his disciples wrought miracles. The
Jews, who hated them, admitted this. The Romans,
who persecuted them, admitted this. Celsus, Por
phyry, Hierocles, who attacked the Christian faith,
admitted this. Julian, who apostatized from the
Christian faith, admitted this. Here then is the univer
sal consent of all antiquity. Jews, Christians, Pagans,
Philosophers, Historians, sacred and .profane, give a
concurrent testimony. There is not one dissenting
voice. Not a single denial ; not even an intimation
that there ever was a denial is to be found on any page
of antiquity that has reached our times. On the

THE POWER OF MIRACLES. 87
contrary, evidence of the miraculous cures recorded
in the Acts of the Apostles is furnished and perpetu
ated in the very attacks of enemies themselves. To
this mass of evidence there is nothing to oppose.
No fact of the same antiquity is more incontestably
authenticated. It is not more evident that Csesar
crossed the Rubicon, or that Pompey was defeated at
the battle of Pharsalia, than that Paul and Peter
healed the sick, and restored to sight and hearing the
blind and the deaf. The evidence can only be evaded
by a sophism which coolly assumes that nothing
wonderful, or transcending the ordinary experience
of the one who chooses to deny it, can possibly be
proved by any amount of human testimony.
Whence had the disciples this power ? By whom,
and why, were the fishermen of Galilee so signalized
above all the dwellers upon earth ? Two answers,
and but two, differing iu form, but nearly identical
in substance, were given by ancient unbelievers.
The one by infidel Jews ; the other by infidel Greeks
and Romans. The former, amazed at the wonders
performed by these men who act prof essedly under
the commission, and speak only in the name of Jesus,
affirm, concerning him and them, that they are
leagued with devils, and upheld and assisted by
Beelzebub, the prince of devils.
The latter, no less amazed at seeing men, despica
ble in their eyes on account of their country no less
than their occupation, exercising powers confessedly
supernatural, and speaking with power to the insane,
to the palsied, to the living and the dead, affirm that
they are not what they seem to be, artless and un
lettered, but subtle and skilled magicians, instructed
in charms and incantations, able to conjure up de-

88 THE RESURRECTION.
parted spirits, and employ the agency of invisible
powers. They were arts, they affirmed, learned during
Christ's exile in Egypt, and communicated to them
for the purpose of upholding and extending His in
fluence. This is Porphyry's explanation. A similar one is
given by Celsus, whom Julian follows. Unable to
deny the miracles of the Apostles, and pressed with
the difficulty thus presented, they always return the
same answer : These miracles are wrought by magic /
the Apostles were magicians; Jesus Christ was a
magician. Miracles are a divine language. To heal the sick, to
cleanse the leper, to raise the dead ; this is not the
work of demons ; even if they had power over nature,
it is not by acts of beneficence that they would
manifest it.
Let us leave these dreams of ancient infidel insan
ity. They come themselves from the world of dark
ness, from the demon-worshipping and demon-haunt
ed ages. Long since have they ceased to have any
weight ; they are only mentioned as evidence that
the anti-Christian malignity remains unchanged, how
ever different the forms of ancient and modern at
tack. It is not necessary to inquire of the sibyl, to
consult the oracles of Delphos, to ascertain whence
' the disciples had this power. Their commission tells
us whence it came : " Afterwards he appeared unto
the eleven, as they sat at meat, and upbraided them
with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because
they believed not them who had seen him after he
had risen. And he said, Go ye into all the world,
and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that

THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 89
believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall
follow them that believe : In my name shall they
east out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ;
they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any
deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay
their hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
In conformity to this commission they went forth,
and these signs did follow them. Yes, even their en
emies being judges, these signs followed them.
The Power of Miracles wrought under the com
mission and in the name of Jesus Christ, is a second
fact confirming and establishing the previous fact,
His resurrection. There is yet another.
The Spread of Christianity, by the same agents,
and under the same commission.
From the effects produced by the ministry of the
Apostles on the bodies, turn your attention to those
that were wrought in the souls of men. During the
comparatively short period of their earthly labors
(and let it be remembered that it was not till the first
half of life was past, that they were called from their
private and humble occupations), Christianity was
spread from India to Ethiopia, from Scythia to Brit
ain. How did they force their way so far? how did
they achieve so much ? It was by preaching Christ ;
Christ crucified, — Christ risen from the dead. The
cross was their standard ; the resurrection was their
argument. Other than these they had no weapon ;
this was all their armor; as we have said, neither
sword, nor staff, nor scrip were theirs. But Heaven
was on their side. Else why this triumph ? Surely
not from earth were their succors drawn.
Compare them in this respect with the greatest
names of antiquity, with Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates,

90 THE RESURRECTION.
Zeno, with Epictetus, Seneca, and the boasted Anto-
nines. Learning and eloquence were theirs. They,
too, claimed to be teachers of truth, and undertook to
enlighten and reform the world. They published
systems ; they were the founders of schools ; but what
did they effect, though using all the arts of persua
sion, all the powers of the most cultivated language,
all the subtleties of the keenest logic? Not one
kingdom, not one province, not one town, — no, nor
even a village ever embraced their dogmas, or became
subject to their laws.
A few men of literature and of leisure read as a
pastime the speculations of these admirable philoso
phers, but the common people knew not, nor even
yet do they know, that either Socrates or Plato ever
lived. How different has it been with Christ's apostles !
Their number and their names, their heroic lives,
their spiritual conquests, their gospels and their epis
tles, are familiar to all. Even after eighteen hundred
years we may say it is their mind, their thinking, that
forms the mind of the age.
The Fishermen of Galilee must have proceeded on
snblimer principles, and been upheld by a higher
power than the philosophers of Athens. Parting
from the sepulchre of their Master, to promulgate
His law and attest his resurrection, a mysterious effi
ciency accompanies them. Neither the singular facts
they allege, nor the unearthly doctrines they teach,
nor the unworldly restraints they impose, weaken
their influence or obstruct their progress. Every
where, when they speak, reason bows to faith, and
passion to reason. It is not villages, it is not towns,
but States and Empires that are captivated, and

THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 91
borne away as the trophies of their arms. Farther,
and yet farther, they advance into the region of error
and delusion, and victory attends them. Opinions
change ; habits and manners change ; even the very
monuments of superstition melt away before the light
and heat that accompany them, like the snow-built fab
rics of children before the beams of the meridian sun.
And yet, not a single outward circumstance favored
their success. They were poor, illiterate, ignoble.
No adventitious trappings of fortune were flung
around them, nor in the eye of those carnal men to
whom they were addressed had the doctrine they
taught anything to recommend them. On the con
trary, then preaching crossed all the prejudices of the
Jews, all the propensities of the Gentiles ; from both
it demanded sacrifices ; on both it imposed restraints.
This is not exaggeration. It said to the miser, be
charitable ; to the drunkard, be temperate ; to the
ambitious, be humble ; to the debauchee, be chaste ;
and to the idolater, renounce thine idols, and render
a spiritual homage to that God who is a spirit. It
made no compromise with passion ; it conceded
nothing to frailty. On the contrary, it insisted that
self must be denied, the world abjured, the flesh
crucified, tribulation suffered, and death endured for
Christ's and for righteousness' sake.
These were the only terms of discipleship that the
Apostles were allowed to offer, or that they did offer
to bigoted and self-righteous Jews, to profane and
licentious pagans.
And yet, no sooner did they begin to offer such
terms to such men, than a sudden commotion took
place. It was as if the archangel's trumpet had
sounded among the habitations of the dead. From
5

92 THE RESURRECTION.
their long and death-like slumber thousands awoke
to hear and to obey the summons.
The splendor of their conquests, as the greatness
of their miracles had done before, amazed and terri
fied the Jewish priests ; for many of the first trophies
were won at Jerusalem, and from among the seed of
Abraham. Yes, even in persecuting Jerusalem, and from
among those who cried crucify him ! crucify him !
numbers, renouncing the tradition of the elders,
openly declared for Jesus, and " sold their possessions,
and their goods, and parted them to all men, even as
every man had need."
The Apostles soon passed beyond the limits of Pal
estine. They penetrated the neighboring provinces ;
converts were made in all the cities of Greece ; the
resurrection was preached at Athens, the crucifixion
was proclaimed in Rome, the capital of the world.
The worshippers of Jupiter, of Bacchus, of Mercury,
and of Mars listened to them as the disciples of
Moses before had done. The same wondrous change
took place, the same new appearance of a virtue here
tofore almost unknown to the world. In token of
their love and sincerity, men presented their goods to
feed the poor, and their bodies to be burned.
" The law had gone forth from Zion, and the word
of the Lord from Jerusalem." How short the period
before the world felt everywhere the heaving of the
new power. The pagan priesthood, no less than the
Jewish, became amazed and terrified. The oracles
were consulted, the idols invoked. The Roman au
thorities were alarmed, and the whole empire, rising
in its strength, attempted to obstruct the progress
and stop the inarch of the new religion.

THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 93
E But it attempted this in vain. In such a warfare,
hot all the decrees the Caesars published, not all the
armies the Caesars commanded, were competent for
the defence of a single province. Many witnesses for
the truth were indeed slain. But by an invisible
agency their places were supplied, and supplied
from the ranks of their adversaries. Not a confessor
was imprisoned, not a martyr was burned, but it pro
duced some fresh accession to the Church.
Thus triumph followed triumph till not a province,
hardly a town or village were left to the pagan wor
shippers. Had Julian lived in an after age, he might
indeed, in a higher sense, and personating the Divin
ities he worshipped, have exclaimed, "vicisti 0 Gali-
Icee." For the prince, the people, the senate, the army
were conquered. The banner of the cross waved on
the standard of the legions which once fought against
it ; it was impressed on the tapestry that adorned the
walls of the forum ; it was engraved on the imperial
armor that hung suspended from the ceiling of the
capitol. The very machinery of idolatry vanished,
and pagan Rome was stricken from the map of the
world. Not pagan Rome only. The gods of the
East were deserted by their worshippers ; and neither
Dagon nor Moloch were able to retain their thrones.
Thus extensive and continuous were the effects of
the day of Pentecost. Even remote nations were
shaken as if by a mighty rushing wind. Everywhere
alike, images tottered, shrines were overturned, altars
were razed, and temples demolished, or reconsecrated
by the introduction of a holier worship.
Who can deny these things? or who can account
for them, unless God was with the Apostles ? On
•what hidden principle of human action can these

94 THE RESURRECTION.
phenomena be explained ? Whence came this sudden
reanimation, this life of faith ? By what unknown
influence was the drunkard made temperate, the
miser charitable, the debauchee chaste, the proud
humble, and the idolater an advocate for the worship
of the true God ? By what secret powerful charm
were so many and such abominable sinners, suddenly
withdrawn from their indulgences and defilements,
induced to practise all the self-denials and submit to
all the restraints of a religious life ? By what secret
and powerful charm were bo many and such relent
less enemies made to weep and supplicate for mercy
at the feet of that same Jesus of Nazareth whom they
before had persecuted?
Had Christ never risen, would it have been so?
Would these signs have followed, or these triumphs
attended his disciples ? Had He remained a tenant
of the sepulchre, would their voice have had such a
transforming, such a life-communicating influence ?
The inference is irresistible. The world's life came
from that sepulchre, and no one but a risen Saviour
could have conducted such a stupendous undertaking
to such a sublime and glorious result. " This is the
Lord's doings, and it is marvellous in our eyes."
Judge of what would have been, from what was.
For three successive days Jesus Christ was a tenant
of the sepulchre, and Zion sat in mourning. Yes ;
the faith and the fortitude of the Church lay buried
with the body of its Founder. Without a resurrection
of the one, there never could have been a resurrection
of the other. But the one has arisen ; a demonstra
tion that the other has arisen also.

VI.

CUEIST RISEN m THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.
Whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath
raised him from the dead. — Acts xvii. 31.
Christ said he would found his empire in his
death : "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto me." And he did so found it.
The resurrection was at once the evidence and the
era of its commencement. Ever since that first and
splendid triumph, though previously poor, houseless,
and depressed, his march to empire has been constant
and progressive. Eighteen centuries have elapsed,
but the impulse given to the infant church on that
eventful morning when the Son of Man came forth
from the sepulchre, the resurrection and the life, has
not yet spent its force. Now, as formerly, Zion is
enlarging her borders and multiplying her converts.
The story of His life, of His death and resurrection,
is read in languages more numerous than those that
were spoken in the days of the Apostles.
It is not Jews, Greeks, Arabians, and the dwellers
in Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia, and Pamphylia ; it is
not the nations that stretch from Turkey to Caledo
nia, from the Mediterranean to the Polar circle, from
Labrador to Mexico, and from Mexico to Cape Horn ;

96 THE RESURRECTION.
it is not these nations only that have heard respective
ly, in their own tongues, the wonderful works of God.
Already has the apostolic testimony, together with
that finished system of duties and doctrines with
which it is inseparably connected, been transferred
into many languages of distant Asia.
In addition to all the dialects of Christendom, the
Bible has been rendered into Arabic, Syriac, Persian,
Tamul, Malabar, Hindostanee, Sanscrit, Mahratta,
Orissa, Bengalee, and, to add no more, into the Chi
nese language, spoken in so many provinces and by
so many millions.*
Though changed in form, that linguistic power first
given on the day of Pentecost is continuing its march
through the world. The " tongues of fire " are still
spreading their path of light. It is no less the gift
of God, as now manifested in the ways of learned
study, than in its primitive miraculous impulse. It is
from the same heavenly source ; the Spirit still gives
utterance in the zeal that originated and sustains
such a work of Christian philanthropy. Yes, the
grand design is formed, it is matured ; it is hastening
to execution; the preparations are accumulating;
the translator's pen is employed ; the press has been
engaged, and, I had almost said, the type are in the
foundry, for transferring that sacred saving book, the
Bible, into all the various forms of speech, and among
all the posterity of Adam. What other volume has
been thus honored, or has the remotest prospect of
* This was uttered more than fifty years ago. It was at the
time of the origin of Bible societies, and at the beginning of those
great missionary efforts which are now promising such glorious
fruit. A great many more languages might now be added to the
list.— Ed.

CHRIST RISEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. 97
ever being so ? Whence this distinctive glory that
after so many ages rests upon, and consecrates its
pages, if it contains not what it professes to contain ?
Why does this printed record, like the living voice of
those who penned it, possess such a controlling and
resistless influence ? Why do a thousand tributary
streams spontaneously flow into the treasury of the
sanctuary, for the purpose of multiplying and dis
tributing the copies of this heaven-befriended work ?
Why vanish in succession all impediments to its dis
tribution? Why sink the mountains, why rise the
valleys before it, offering free course to it, and it
alone, of all the books on the earth, to the most dis
tant, the most rude, and the most barbarous nations ?
Whether God be on the side of Christianity or not, it
is manifest that it is destined to become, and that it is
becoming, the exclusive and the universal faith. Pro
phecy apart, it is manifest that it is becoming, and
that it will become the universal faith. This the phi
losopher must acknowledge ; to this the statesman can
not shut his eyes ; Christianity must conquer ; for it
possesses within itself a vital principle — a redeeming,
a life-communicating influence. Its very contexture
is for immortality. Age does not enfeeble it ; its vig
or increases with its endurance ; its momentum is in
herent, and ever becomes greater as it advances.
No force obstructs its progress, and " no counsel
formed against it prospers." Other religions, like
all the fabrics which mortal man has reared up, rise,
decline, disappear. This only, though it decline, re
vives again. Other religions depend on circumstances,
and are supported by extraneous causes. This only
upholds itself, and, disclaiming sublunary aid, derives
its succor from above.

98 THE RESURRECTION.
The Prophet of Arabia made no converts beyond
the limits where his sabre reached. At Medina his se
pulchre yet stands. Many a pilgrim visits it, and re
turns as he went, a Mussulman. But he brings from
thence no balm to heal the wounded bosom, no hys
sop to purify the sin-defiled conscience. No celestial
fire touches his lips, or warms his heart ; nor is any
light or heat imparted by him to illumine and warm
and soften other hearts.
Mohammedanism derived all its influence from the
sword. All its weapons are carnal. It makes no in
visible conquests ; it possesses no regenerating influ
ence ; it is accompanied by no baptism of the spirit;
now, as formerly, it is the sabre, not the Koran, that
makes converts. That book of wonders is indeed read
by multitudes. But with what effect ? what have been
its triumphs ? How many souls has it reclaimed from
sin and restored to righteousness ? In regard to any
spiritual renovation it is, and ever has been, as inane
and powerless as the Arabian tales.
Not so the Scriptures — For the word of God man
ifests itself to be quick and powerful, sharper than
any two-edged sword, pierci.ng to the dividing asun
der of the soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the
tiwughts and intents of the heart. To say nothing of
those things of which we have heard, and which our
fathers have told us, let us advert to what we ourselves
have seen. Who of you are ignorant of the late
and mighty effort which has been made to counteract
the spirit and subvert the faith ? To the age of su
perstition, which was terminated by the Reformation,
ensued the age of infidelity. Long had a spirit of skep
ticism been maturing its plan and infusing its poison.
Hitherto, however, its advances had been cautious, cov-

CHRIST RISEN JS THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. 99
ered, though constant and systematic. Already re
sources had been provided ; already learning, and tal
ent and experience had been enlisted, and in the
close of the eighteenth century the mask was lifted.
By one simultaneous movement a multitude display
ed themselves, emboldened by their numbers and ex
ulting in their strength. Never, in the opinion of
carnal, calculating men, was success more probable ;
never was it more confidently expected. The world
wondered at the change which was taking place ; the
friends of Zion stood appalled. — It seemed as if the
stone was about to be replaced upon the sepulchre,
and that tie dissolved that had bound, so long, so many
nations to allegiance. Those whom grace prevented
not, imagined that it was so. The enemies of the
Cross congratidated each other on their anticipated tri
umph — their only triumph. Then, in that hour of de
lirious exultation, it was boastfully announced, and be
lieved as confidently as if the annunciation had been
oracular : " thai twenty years would not elapse before
every Christian church would le deserted, and the
very priesthood itself be dissolved. " Appearances
favored the fulfilment of this malediction, and the
hearts of the faithful might have failed, had they not
held in their possession an older and a diviner oracle :
No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper,
and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judg
ment thou shalt condemn.
Thus spake the oracle, and thus the event has been.
Those twenty portentous years, which were to termi
nate the influence of Messiah and wind up the Chris
tian dispensation, have elapsed ; and yet I preach
Christ the risen Saviour ; and you hear Christ the ris
en Saviour preached.
5*

100 THE RESURRECTION.
On the east and on the west, on the north and on
the south, millions are engaged in the same grace-ex
alting service.
During these portentous years — this tempest of the
passions — She sea has indeed roared, and the waves
thereof have been lifted up, but Mount Zion has not
been removed. Her temple, her altar, her priesthood,
and her worship remain. More than this ; during
these portentous years, though compassed by so many
enemies, and under the pressure of so many adverse
circumstances, she has risen in her glory and in her
strength : " She looketh forth as the morning, fair as
the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army
with banners." But'that formidable host of assailants
who so lately menaced her existence, where are they ?
Ah me ! smitten and dispersed by an invisible hand.
To them may be applied the words of the Psalmist : " I
have seen the wicked hi great power, and spreading
himself like a green bay tree ; but he vanished, and lo,
he is not ; yea, I sought him, but he could not be
found." Balaam is not the only adversary who has found it
impossible to curse those whom God had not cursed.
All the wit and raillery, all the sophistry and invective
of the moderns, like the swords and fagots of the
ancients, have produced no other effect than to estab
lish and extend that faith they were employed to ex
terminate. During this mighty conflict the Church
has stood, and yet stands, and stands firm ; Tier founda
tion, the apostles and prophets ; Jesus Christ, the
resurrection and the life, being the chief corner-stone.
The champions of infidelity have been met in every
path, as Paul was met on his way to Damascus, and
turned from their purpose as he was turned from his.

CHRIST RISEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. 101
Our religious assemblies, our solemn feasts, nay, the
very ministry is crowded with reclaimed infidels ; men
who, having renounced their impieties and withdrawn
from then associates, have fled to Christ for refuge
from the wrath to come ; men who now wear His
livery, who possess his faith, and cease not to acknow
ledge that they have been conquered by Him whom
they once vainly imagined they were about to con
quer. Nor have reclaimed infidels been the only
triumphs.* We live in a season of great religious
power. In families where no private devotions were
offered up, in societies where no public worship was
maintained, in villages where no churches were
erected, where no religions tracts were circidated, and
where even the missionary's voice had not been heard,
the Word and the Spirit have exerted their influence.
Yes, even in such unpropitious situations, touched by
an impulse from heaven, the penitent sinner has wept
and prayed ; that impulse has passed from heart to
heart, from family to family, till the very face of
society has changed, and a marked and visible refor
mation taken place. The drunkard has relinquished
* One of the effects of Dr. Nott's early ministry in Albany was
said to be the conversion from infidelity of some who stood high
in the political world. The allusion is probably to such ; the
importance of the event, at the moment, giving it a magnified
aspect. There follow allusions to revival scenes in which Dr. Nott
was earnestly engaged, — some of them among the students of the
college. Like other preachers, he was in the habit of accommodat
ing previous discourses to later occasions, with passages inter
polated to suit some marked event. There are some things here
which seem to have come in in that manner. The first thought
was to leave them out. It was supposed, however, that, with
this explanation, their being permitted to remain might add to
their interest with those who knew the speaker and may have
been familiar with the occasions referred to.— Ed.

102 THE RESURRECTION.
his cups ; the miser has abjured his Mammon ; the
usurer has restored his unlawful gain ; the thief has
disclosed his concealed goods ; and the debauchee has
forsaken the company of his Delilah.
You know the inveteracy of infidel principles;
you know the obstinacy of guilty habits — an obstinacy
so unconquerable by ordinary means, as to justify
those strong expressions of the Prophet: "As soon
may the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard
his spots, as those accustomed to evil learn to do
well." And yet those accustomed to do evil have
learned to do well. By some invisible influence, a
change has been effected in their prevailing tempers,
in their moral habits, in their external conduct, as
striking, as inexplicable, and as evidently supernatu
ral, as was the effect produced in the physical condi
tion of the blind man whose eyes Jesus opened, or of
the lame man who at the command of Peter and
John arose, and leaped, and walked. Whatever may
be said of the force of truth and the influence of the
spirit in former times, the facts now appealed to are
not imaginary. Change of inveterate opinion, of
deeply-rooted prejudice, "change of heart" and
reformation of life, change in the outward and inner
being, are constantly produced by some agency that
accompanies everywhere this mysterious book, the
Bible, and the preaching it inspires. Such changes
are as striking as they are numerous. Let the sneer
ing infidel, let the self-righteous formalist account for
it as he may ; these are miracles that we have seen —
spiritual miracles, carrying with them then divine
evidence, no less convincing than any supernatural
change in nature. It is admitted that customs and
manners assume varying forms ; it is admitted that

CHRIST RISEN LN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. 103
one vice may supplant another, that example, or per
suasion, or authority may give a new direction to
human action, and open new channels for the pas
sions ; but that any of these causes ever changed the
predominant temper of man, and implanted in his
heart new principles of moral action, may confidently
be denied. Under every other culture, and notwith
standing all the alleged amiablenesses of his nature,
man remains forever what he forever has been, a
sinner, — and everywhere alike he may be thus char
acterized : God is neither predominant in his affec
tions nor in his thoughts.
No other tutelage effects, or even claims the power
of effecting, what the iniiiistry of the Spirit effects, —
conversion. By conversion I mean not any agita
tions of body or auy perturbations of mind. These
may be incidents of conversion, but neither sighs nor
tears, no matter how distinctly uttered or profusely
shed, form any part of that renovation of heart, or
reformation of life, by which a sinner becomes, in
the emphatic language of Scripture, a new creature ;
even as Paul, once so vindictive, and Mary, once so
dissolute, became new creatures in Christ Jesus.
I know not what other men think of conversions'
such as these ; conversions which no human power
can either produce or hinder ; conversions which at
first accompanied the preaching of the gospel, and
that only, and which still accompany it whenever it
pleases God, whose power remains the same, to 6tretch
forth his arm and replenish by his grace the vessels
predestinated to eternal glory. I know not what
other men think of these things, but for myself I be
lieve as firmly, aud for the same reason, that an in
visible agent operates on the souls of men, as I be-

104 THE RESURRECTION.
lieve the wind passes through the forest, when I hear
the rustling of its leaves and see its branches shaken.
This is sound philosophy as well as sound theology.
Every other theory leaves one event (and certainly
the most sublime one which the hf e of man furnishes,
the conversion of a soul from sin to righteousness)
unaccounted for, or accounted for only by the as
signment of causes that exist not; or, if -they exist,
that are utterly inadequate.
To this fact, the renovation of the heart by His
spirit, as the abiding evidence of His resurrection,
Jesus Christ referred those infidel Jews who demand
ed of him a sign.
Often did they repeat the demand, but he con
stantly returned the same answer — always resting his
claim upon the sign of the prophet Jonah, warned by
whose voice, and by it only, the great, the populous
city of Nineveh repented. What a marvellous result !
Lot warned the cities of the plain ; Noah warned the
antediluvians — long and often did he warn them ;
with as little effect, however, as if he had addressed
himself to monuments and prophesied among the
tombs. But with all his human weaknesses, the
preaching of the prophet sent to the Ninevites was,
in this respect, a type of the gospel's power. Behold,
a greater than Jonah is here ; declared to be so by
the same kind of evidence ; but more abiding and
more abundant, by as much as the sign of perpetual
conversion, and the conversion not of a town or a
province, but of a kingdom, a world, is greater than
the sign of conversion at a particular time, and of a
single city. Jonah spake, and Nineveh repented.
So Christ still speaks to men, and everywhere we
hear of men repenting and turning unto God.

CHRIST RISEN EST THE HISTORY OF THE CnUECH. 105
Tell me not that the success of which we speak has
been fortuitous ; that in all this vast, this continuous,
this progressive enlargement of the Chinch, no pro vi-
dence is seen, no present God is manifested; Let us
review the plan, and refresh our minds by glancing a
second time at its execution.
The son of an obscure carpenter appears in Judea
and announces the novel, and, according to human
calculation, the absurd project of founding by his own
death, and on his own resurrection, a mighty and an
abiding empire. Attracted by his manner and his
miracles, while yet living, multitudes flocked around
him. They offer to crown him king, and to place in
his hand the sceptre. This offer he rejects; whilst he
reveals a method at variance with every human pas
sion, pursuit, and prejudice. He talks to proud men
of humility, to ambitious men of self-denial, to self-
righteous men of repentance, and to carnal selfish
men of spiritual and disinterested enjoyments. He
formally announces his death, his burial, adding at
the same time that on the third day he shall rise
again, and by such resraTection establish his kingdom
— a kingdom new in its nature, holy in its laws, uni
versal in its extent, and eternal in its duration. For
the administration of this future kingdom, he selects
and appoints the officers. Twelve illiterate men, col
lected from the lowest grades of life, and utterly un
qualified to fill a higher station, are called — are or
dained to execute a vaster enterprise, and perform
more complicated and more arduous duties than ever
before fell to the lot of mortal.
This done, the predicted tragedy is consummated.
He is arrested and condemned. He dies. By wicked
hands is he crucified and slain. The main purpose

106 THE RESURRECTION.
here is to set forth the spiritual effects of Christ's res
urrection, as they have, been and still are manifested
hi the world. As an introduction, however, to this,
or to show more vividly the aspect I would now pre
sent, there may be pardoned a brief recapitulation of
physical and historical facts, more minutely dwelt
upon in previous discourses.
History records that some strange phenomena ren
dered memorable the hour of the crucifixion, — that
the sun was darkened, that the mountains quaked,
and that the veil of the Temple was rent asunder.
But I pass these things. Enemies, jealous of his
power, take possession of his body, and seal and
guard his sepulchre. Thus far. A pause ensued.
Twice the sun performed its revolution, and all re
mained tranquil. Nature gave no forebodings of
convulsion ; no symptom of release appeared. His
corse was as motionless, and his sepulchre as silent
and as cheerless as other sepulchres. Around it stood
the watchmen clad in armor.
The third day dawned at length on the world, when
it is reported that an angel descended, and that an
earthquake was felt. But I insist not now on these
things. Be the agent whom it may, this is certain; that
the guards were dispersed, that the stone was rolled
back, and the body rescued. A marvellous incident ;
and which still remains without a parallel on the page
of sepulchral history. But not to the cemetery were
the marvellous incidents of that eventful day con
fined. . The influence that reached the sepulchre
reached beyond, it. Simultaneous with the Master's
release was the disciples' reappearance. But they
were no longer what they heretofore had been — ob-

CHRIST RISEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. 107
scure men, illiterate men, impotent meu. A change,
sudden and entire, had taken place, and they were
hencef orth known only as extraordinary personages,
endowed with wisdom, gifted with the use of tongues,
gifted with the power of miracles.
The potentates of the world combine against them.
They, on the other hand, do not even deliberate about
the result of such a combination, but hasten to the
execution of their appointed office, and begin at once
to draw the lines, to organize the departments, and
administer the government of that infant kingdom,
which already begins to rise and rest on that broad
fact, the resurrection.
Their term of action ended, successors imbued with
the same spirit rise up and further prosecute their
labors. Century after century rolls away ; still the
work progresses. As the world grows older, the vast
design opens, and act following act, the grand drama
still continues advancing to its ultimate result. At
the distance of eighteen hundred years from the era
of the resurrection, and after the amazing progress it
has already made, we see Christianity yet progressive.
And seeing this, can it be a question whether its
founder and its finisher is a tenant of the sepulchre ?
What! the tomb imprison Him, the column of
whose glory, broad, and massive, and imperishable,
stands founded on the fact of his resurrection from
it ? Neither to earth nor hell doe3 this proud monu
ment owe its being. From the first, and through all
the stages of its progress, meu and devils have opposed
it. If not by GooVs, by whose right hand, then, has
it been erected and upheld ?
With these facts before me, I would as soon believe
that Atlas holds the earth upon his shoulders, or that

108 THE RESURRECTION.
Ceres pours the annual harvest from her horn of plen
ty, as that Peter and James, together with their un
lettered coadjutors, reared this fabric and shed upon
it this radiance of divinity. I would as soon believe,
and it would mark as vigorous and as sane a mind to
believe, that the laws of nature were factitious, that
suns and stars were made to move and shine by necro
mancy, and that all material changes were illusions —
mere sleight-of-hand, played off to impose upon man
kind by some Egyptian juggler, as that the laws of
grace were factitious, and that this great moral sys
tem, embracing so many ages, combining so many
actors, triumphing over so many obstacles, and reach
ing forward to such sublime results, was a mere
imposture, fabricated some eighteen centuries since
by a few ignorant, vulgar fishermen of 'Galilee !
Yonder orbs of fire speak not more loudly God's
handiwork ; nor is that firmament above marked
out with bolder lines of his wisdom, or set with
brighter constellations of grace and glory.
These two systems bear the same impress; the
Book of Nature and of Inspiration are written in the
same characters, they speak the same language, they
reveal the same Godhead, and it is self-evident that
the same eternal wisdom planned and penned them
both. If the record of the one is true, so also is the
record of the other.
That ruptured monument from which the affrighted
guards were driven back imprisons Jesus Christ no
longer. He has risen from it. As sure as the sun
shines, as sure as the stars twinkle, he has risen ; in
triumph he has risen ; everything proclaims it.
For if he be not risen, whence now acquires the
Bible its energies ? Whence gathers the Evangelist

CHRIST RISEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. 109
his fires ? Let us for a moment admit the contrary.
Be it so. The Apostles may have deceived us ; the
primitive Christians may have deceived us ; nay, even
the martyrs, who in the midst of fire and flames de
livered their testimony, may have lied to us. Still
one thing is certain : the God of providence is a God
of truth. Whoever else may have lied to us, His dis
tinctive acts deceive us not. We hear Him saying in
the administration of His government, — saying from
age to age: "The Church is my heritage; I have
planted and will defend it. Elsewhere, ye profane, di
rect your rage ; but touch not my anointed, do my
people no harm ; " " no weapon formed against Zion
shall prosper, and every tongue that riseth up in
judgment against her I will condemn." " In vain do
the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain
thing ; in vain do the kings of the earth set them
selves, and the rulers take counsel together against
the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us
break their bands asunder, and cast their cords from
ns. I who sit in the heavens do laugh ; I hold them
in derision." Tain alike are their counsels and their
weapons. I have given to my Son " the nations for
an inheritance ; and he shall inherit them." Though
the voice of prophecy were feebler than it is, the
voice of providence could not be mistaken. This
perpetual triumph of the Chinch is " the Lord's doing,
and it is marvellous in our eyes." " This is the day
which the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice and be
glad in it."
To carnal hearts Christianity is as repugnant, to car
nal eyes as devoid of glory, as in the ages that are
past. Whence then receives it power to support
itself against so many and such determined enemies ?

110 THE RESURRECTION.
By what unknown and heaven-derived charm does it
purify the conscience, subdue the heart, bind the pas
sions, renovate the life, reclaim the idolater, purify
the adulterer, make penitent the murderer, and sub
due the vilest sinner to righteousness and to God?
Whence even now that shaking so perceptible
among the nations ? It comes from heaven. It is
the nfoving of the Holy Ghost. It is the living spirit
of a risen Saviour. Such were the ancient tokens
of His presence in His Church, and they are still the
tokens of it.
Yes, every penitent that weeps, every convert that
sings, is an additional subject of Christ's eternal
kingdom; more than this, — he is a new witness
raised up of God to perpetuate the knowledge and
the evidence of the fact that He has risen.
" For as the lightning cometh out of the east and
shineth to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of
Man be," — and so has been, and still is His coming.
Whether kingdoms rise or fall, every change acceler
ates His progress ; all events bend unto His purpose.
The whole earth is bowing, or preparing to bow to
His authority, and coming under the dominion of His
sceptre. Yonder regions of error and delusion be
long to Jesus; He is approaching to possess them,
and the way is opening for His triumphant entry.
The glad tidings have already reached many, and
they will soon have reached every nation. Then will
the purposes of grace be consummated, and the mil
lennial jubilee begin.
To this momentous result the economy of Provi
dence is evidently tending. Hence that bias of the
human mind that begins to lean towards the rehef of
pagan miseries. Hence that spirit of religious in-

CHRIST RISEN IN THE HISTORY OF TIIE CnUECH. Ill
quiry, of action, and of enterprise poured out on the
risen and on the rising generation — poured out on
our schools, poured out on our colleges.
All the heathen are Christ's heritage. The classic
divinities of Greece and Rome have fallen before the
Ark of the Covenant ; but Juggernaut remains. There
are idol gods which are yet to be overthrown, and
their dominions added to the empire of the Son of
Man. The devotee that plunges into the watei's of
the Indus is about to be rescued ; the flame that flares
from the funeral pile on the banks of the Ganges is
about to be extinguished ; Africa is hastening to be
released, Asia to be re-enlightened, and the Ameri
can savage to be disciplined and baptized. Much
has already been done, but more remains to be accom
plished. The field of souls is even now white unto
the harvest; a harvest plenteous indeed, but the
laborers are few. Few, however, they will not al
ways be ; for the Lord of the harvest is preparing to
send forth a fresh accession of laborers into his field ;
and he will send them forth, and they shall reap it.
That call is now heard among us.* Its voice has
visited our seat of learning. Youth and talents, as
well as piety, befit this enterprise of a world's redemp
tion The conqueror of the tomb in person is mak
ing the selection. We see it; nor guile nor force
can hinder him- At pleasure he visits the most re
tired and the most conspicuous walks of life. He
approaches the haunts of ignorance" he enters the
school of science, and everywhere alike his hallowing
influence is felt.
Suddenly all that is gross is purified ; all that was
* It is evident that this sermon was preached, or this addition
made to it, during a season of revival in the College. See note, p. 101 .

112 THE RESURRECTION.
profane, consecrated. The alcoves of the Lyceum are
resorted to, for sublimer inquiries, the groves of the
Academy for holier contemplations. The Christian
graces adorn with chaster ornaments the vestibule of
literature, and sit enthroned on the seat of the pagan
muses. All is changed ; on every side the sign of the pro
phet Jonah reappears. Not Nineveh was more alter
ed than is that seminary which the spirit of Emmanuel
enters. Assemblages of youth whom nothing serious
could hitherto affect are awed as by a divine presence.
The thoughtless become thoughtful; the wayward,
docile ; the giddy, grave. In the chambers of impie
ty the sigh of contrition is repeated. From the hall
of pleasure the minstrelsy of Zion resounds. And
even that profaned chapel, where pains and penalties
so long extorted a reluctant and heartless worship,
now sends up from redeemed lips the spontaneous
hallelujah to the God of mercy.
These are no equivocal phenomena. Such tokens
of a present God are not to be mistaken. Now, as
formerly, O thou Conqueror of death ! out of the
mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected
praise. Redeemer of our souls, arisen from the sepulchre,
we know thee by thy deeds of mercy ; we know thee
by thy train of glory. Welcome to our schools of
learning ; welcome to our halls of science. Here too
make thy triumphant entry. Be our abodes thy habi
tation ; our hearts thy throne.
Hear, O God ! our prayer, and answer us ; and to
thy name shall be the glory.

vn.
Christ's resurrection the confirmation of a fu
ture JUDGMENT.
He hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in
righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained ; whereof he
hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised htm from
the dead. — Acts xvii. 31.
A future day of judgment presupposes a future
state of being. Here man dies ; but since his judge
and his day of judgment have been appointed, it is
manifest that God purposes that he should live here
after, that he may be hereafter judged.
The Egyptians, indeed, it is said, held an inquest
and passed a sentence over the bodies of their dead.
Funeral ceremonies were awarded to their public
benefactors ; but to those who had lived ingloriously
were denied the honors of sepulture. The prospec
tive view of such a posthumous retribution might have
a political effect, but it could exert no truly moral
or spiritual influence. Light must fall that sentence
that falls on him who neither knows, nor fears, nor
suffers, nor enjoys. Thus falls not God's decisive sen
tence. " He is not the God of the dead, but of the
living," and they are living men whom He proposes
to arraign before his dread tribunal. It was not in
tended that all those sinners who inhabit the earth

114 THE RESURRECTION
should with infamy be buried beneath it ; but, that
all who are in their graves should hear the voice of
the Son of God ; that all the dead, small and great,
should come forth, and stand before the judgment-
seat of Christ, to give an account of all the deeds done
in the body, whether they be good or whether they be
evil. These, these were the grand, decisive points to
be established. And what so precisely calculated to
establish them, and give to the minds of men a strong,
a steady, and a fixed conviction of their truth, as the
actual raising from the dead of Him whom God had
appointed to be their judge ?
Notwithstanding that bewildering darkness with
which apostasy has overspread our world, concealing
God and rendering heaven invisible, — notwithstand
ing that slumberous influence which has sealed the
sinner's eyelids, and touched and paralyzed his moral
sensibilities, there has ever been the thought of a
judgment to come.
The idea has gleamed through all the religions and
mythologies of the world. Notions of a dread ruturity,
fearfully strong and tenacious, however obscure and
indistinct, have been almost if not altogether uniform
and universal among mankind. During the darkest
times and in the most degraded state, some wavering
hopes, some undefined fears have still lingered within
the bosom, and alternately dilated and wrung the
heart. Yet nothing certain was known; or if there ever
had been such knowledge, still, through the deceit-
fulness of sin, and during the lapse of ages, it had
been lost — yes, so far as human efforts were con
cerned, lost beyond recovery.
Philosophy examined, and doubted; re-examined,

CONFIRMS A FUTURE JUDGMENT. 115
and still doubted. Again it examined and conjectured,
but affirmed nothing. It could never say, " I know
that my Redeemer liveth; " it could never rise to the
assurance, '* I know in -whom I have believed." Even
Revelation, though it intimated and suggested, had
not as yet clearly and fully established the fact and
the manner of future beinsr.
It yet remained for life and immortality to be
brought to light. The pagan world groped in the
profoimdest darkness, and even those who dwelt in
Zion seemed benighted. Yes, even among the Jews
there were, at the time of Christ's appearance, not a
few who denied that there existed in heaven or in hell
either angel or spirit.
So far as concerned the human race, if there were
no appearances that absolutely proved this gloomy hy
pothesis, there were many that seemed to favor it,
and none which rendered its falsehood certain and pal
pable. No attribute of man, how sublime soever, ap
peared to be imperishable. It was not ihe organic eye
only, but the intellectual also, that grew dim and some
times even sightless by age.
Man ripened not in knowledge as he ripened in years,
nor were gray hairs any certain indication of matured
wisdom. On the contrary, reason, and memory, and
fancy, and imagination were seen to decay, and some
times even to disappear, before their possessor reached
the sepulchre. Instead of brightening as she approach
ed her native immortality, there wras in the soul an
evident dimness, an apparent falling off, a kind of ap
proximation towards the extinction of her being, wliich
if it gave not, at least seemed to give, sad presage of
approaching and eternal non-existence.
Souls, if indeed souls existed apart from organized

116 the resurrection
matter, had somehow been ever disappearing, like
ephemera that sport away their hour in the sunbeam
of the morning and are seen no more. Behind them
they left no token of existence, nor did they ever re
appear. If indeed they survived elsewhere, no vision
reached their residence, no ear caught their accent ;
nor from thence had they ever sent back to the world
they left either messenger or message. It might be,
indeed, that they had not perished in the catastrophe
of death ; or it might be they had perished ; and if they
had not, their being and their state of being were mat
ters of opinion, not of knowledge ; of faith, and not of
sight. But if the phenomena of the soul, as observed by
the sin-beclouded eye, were equivocal and gloomy,
how much more so, those of the body!
For some thousands of years these material fabrics,
which from their elevated form and fearful organiza
tion might have seemed to have been made for immor
tality, had been mouldering back to dust. In most
cases, even before they had been laid in the sepulchre,
grace and beauty, erectness and vigor, all that forms
the outward glory of manhood, had forsaken them.
Heaps of awful ruins, these wrecks of decayed and
decaying bodies had been accumulating, and were on
every side accumulated. The process of destruction
appeared to be complete and final. No symptom of
returning life had thereafter as yet appeared. Dust
was committed unto dust, and ashes unto ashes, with
the same sad prospect as when the first funeral was
attended. Ever since that impressive and appalling so
lemnity, the night of death had lasted, and the sleep
of the sepulchre was yet an iron slumber.
Release had indeed been intimated, it had been

confirms a future judgment. 117
waited for ; age after age it had been waited for ; but it
came not. There is a Hmit to expectancy ; even hope de
layed makes the heart sad. It was not in man to con
template this house of silence — this land of desolation,
becoming perpetually still more desolate. It was not
in man to contemplate these things without misgivings.
A great while had already intervened since the first
man died ; a great while yet remained before that gen
eral '• resurrection at the last day" in which Martha
and pious Jews believed before the time of our Saviour.
That fearful lapse of ages which indefinitely, if not
immeasurably, separated the fulfilment from the pro
phecy, required to be broken by some significant sign,
some intelligible token, some unequivocal pledge, some
ascertained fact on wliich the eye of science as well as
of faith could rest.
It had been said that the dead should rise. The
saying had been repeated ; yet the dead rose not ;
" neither awoke they out of their sleep," — a sleep
which, notwithstanding all that reason intimated to
the contrary, notwithstanding all that revelation fore
shadowed to the contrary, threatened to be eternal.
A case was therefore necessary; a real ascertained
case, an actual resurrection. It was necessary in
order to refute the cavils, to remove the doubts, and
put at rest the faith of mankind.
Nor would an actual resurrection, if the case were
insulated and individual, settle the general question.
Some illustrious personage, some public official char
acter, some known and constituted representative
of the species, was required, — some one with refer
ence to whom, and pointing to whose sepulchre the
future evangelist could say : " As in Adam all died,
so in this man shall all be made alive."

118 THE RESURRECTION
Such a case could be furnished only by Messiah.
And by him it was furnished. He rose to give the
world assurance of a future judgment, by giving
them assurance of a future resurrection. It was the
grand criterion ; for if the dead rise, the hope of the
righteous is confirmed, whilst the sinner escapes not,
even by death, from either God or existence. Though
he might hope to do so, this change would place him
again in a condition to be judged for " sins committed
in the body" and therefore demanding such a reha-
biliment as the most impartial and appropriate theatre
for their retribution.
No other resurrection could have given that assur
ance. It was needful, therefore, that He should rise.
He did rise ; and, rising, refuted the cavils, removed
the doubts, and furnished the evidence for putting
the faith of mankind at rest. It is not too much to
say that the resurrection of Jesus Christ has given
to every individual son of Adam assurance of his own
resurrection. For God did in effect raise the whole
human race, when, in evidence and in token of that
event, He raised that one, and that only individual,
by whom in this respect the whole human race was
personated. But to give assurance " that God hath appointed a
day in the which he will judge the world in righteous
ness, by that man whom he hath ordained," it was
needful, in another point of view, that he should raise
Him from the dead.
Existence beyond the grave established, retribution
of some sort follows by necessary consequence, and
would require no distinct and separate proof.
If God intended to raise the dead, that sin was to
be punished would be obvious enough. It was not,

CONFIRMS A FUTURE JUDGMENT. 119
therefore, to authenticate the mere fact of God's dis
pleasure against unrighteousness, — it was not to seal
damnation and render hell certain, — it was not to no
tify to fallen men that the same fate awaited them
which had already sunk into perdition fallen angels, —
it was not to recall the minds of sinners to some
future retribution, according to the letter of that
inexorable law which said originally, which still says,
and will forever say : The soul that sinneth it shall
die. No, it was not for this purpose that Jesus Christ
rose. For such a retribution no preparation could be
made by him who had become a sinner. Not even
contrition could avail him ; it is not the humbled, but
the holy heart that the law approves. No ministry
of reconciliation is sent to devils, no voice urges apos
tate angels to repentance, by either the certainty or
the nearness of that fearful condemnation which awaits
them. It was not, therefore, as we have already said,
to recall the minds of sinners to some future retribu
tion, according to the letter of his inexorable law, that
God raised Jesus Christ from the dead ; but it was
to give assurance unto all men of a day of judgment
of a peculiar kind, — the result of a special appoint
ment, — at which that man whom God hath ordained
will preside, — at which the plea of his own vicarious
sufferings will be alone available, and at which par
dons will be ratified, as well as condemnations pro
nounced. These were the points to. be established ; and to es
tablish them conclusively and satisfactorily, — in one
word, to give assurance to all men that God had ap
pointed a day to judge the world in such a manner, and
by such a judge, it was needful that He should raise
him, whom he had thus appointed, from the dead.

120 THE RESURRECTION
To give assurance of the one, it was needful that
God should do the other. For, without some distinct
and positive attestation of the fact that such a day of
judgment was appointed, never could it have entered
the minds of men or of angels. Nature gave no
intimation of it; reason gave none. It was not
analogous to any act hitherto recorded in the judicial
proceedings of the universe. You might search the
records of eternity, and open every fold in the files of
the Chancery above, but you Avould find no case of
pardon, nor even the term so much as once inscribed
there. The idea of a judgment to come had been in the
world ; but the mode of proceeding, the appointment
of one who had risen from the dead to be the judge,
was all unknown and unconceived. It was a novel
appointment; it was a mysterious appointment; it was
an appointment, therefore, that required confirmation.
On entering our world, Jesus Christ had already an
nounced himself as a Saviour. But to execute this
office in behalf of creatures already under condemna
tion, it was requisite not only that he should sustain
the eternal priesthood, but also that he should be in
vested with judicial powers.
Never was an undertaking so awful or so splendid
as that of rescuing from the pollution of sin, from the
dominion of death, aud from the pains of hell, a race
whom that inflexible law which changeth not had
already pronounced accursed. Such, however, -was
the undertaking which Jesus Christ forewarned the
world he was about to execute. The miraculous
occurrences that marked his progress from Bethlehem
to Calvary bespoke his official character. Less than
a prophet sent from God, he could not be. More he
need not be, if a second promulgation of the law

CONFIRMS A FUTURE JUDGMENT. 121
merely had been his object. But it was not. His
mission as Saviour, Healer, Redeemer, was distinct
from his judicial. In this aspect of his character, he
came neither to adjudge life to the innocent, nor
death to the guilty. It was not as judge that he first
came to tabernacle in human flesh. His office, then,
as he announces it, was " to proclaim liberty to the
captives, and the opening of the prison to them that
were bound."
His harbinger preceded him, preaching repentance
for the remission of sins. He followed in person,
speaking the same language, and promising to the
vilest sinners, being penitent, pardon here and eternal
life hereafter. For this he encouraged mankind to
hope, and for the accomplishment of this he pledged
his veracity as the Son of God.
But would he redeem the pledge ? could he redeem
it \ No panoply as yet had ever been flung around
the person of a sinner. Hitherto the law had crushed
every being on whom its curse had fallen.
The realms of darkness were already filled with
spirits once high in rank and terrible in majesty —
now prostrate, imprisoned, and despairing. Ages had
since revolved, but revolving ages brought them
neither deliverance nor deliverer.
To turn aside the sword of justice from- its object
was the fearful office which Jesus Christ assumed. It
was his voice that held back the arm of vengeance,
when He said, " Spare the victim of sin and death ;
spare him from going down into the pit ; /will be his
ransom." Having said this, he offered himself in be
half of sinners, a voluntary sacrifice ; as such he was
bound, he was slain, he was immolated. The cruci
fixion and burial of Jesus Christ were in proof that

122 THE RESURRECTION
his proffered act of self-devotion had been consum
mated. Though not himself a sinner, the penalty of
the law had reached him, and he became a tenant of
the sepulchre.
But with what effect? Had the sacrifice wliich he
had made been acceptable ? Had it been availmg,
and would the sinner in consequence be released ?
Prodigies had indeed signalized his sufferings and
rendered memorable his death. They were prodigies,
however, if not discouraging, at least of doubtful im
port. The sun darkened, the rocks rent, the moun
tains quaking, were not the most intelligible tokens
of j ustice satisfied, of vengeance appeased. Especially
may this be said when we think of that, solemn si
lence which ensued, that ominous darkness which
settled down and rested on the sepulchre of Him who
had become a voluntary subject to death, for the re
demption of Israel.
The question therefore returns with all its agoniz
ing interest. Has this sacrifice been accepted ? Will
it be availing ? On this point the Church hesitated ;
faith wavered; hope wavered. The first and the
second day elapsed, and no tidings were received
from the sepulchre. Still, the great question that
involved the destiny of so many millions was not de
cided. Neither heaven nor earth, however, remained
longer in suspense. Suddenly an unknown glory lit
up the moral firmament ; the night of death and. of
nature fled together ; and as the third day dawned on
the world, the ascertained, the accredited Messiah
came forth from the sepulchre, " the resurrection and
the life."
That event broke the agonizing silence which suc
ceeded to the crucifixion, and gave to the world the

CONFIRMS A FUTURE JUDGMENT. 123
desired and the decisive answer. That event was
God's official proclamation that the sacrifice on Cal
vary had been accepted, and would be availing. It
was the solemn recognition of Emmanuel in his media
torial character ; it was his solemn ordination to the
judicial office. It told mankind, That mysterious
personage whom you saw suspended on the cross, and
buried in the sepulchre, is my son ; He is your Judge ;
hear ye, and fear ye Him.
In this significant and unparalleled event there
coidd be no mistake, no misinterpretation. Once
the victim of death, he must continue so, or disenthral
himself. Nor could he reappear, except as a con
queror. As such he did reappear, and the keys of
Death and Hell were in his hand.
That God had appointed a day to judge the world
by Jesus Christ was not simply an intimation; it
was not presumptive evidence ; but it was, as Paul
affirms, a. positive assurance that God gave when He
raised him from the dead. When I see Him, once
humbled even unto death, now arrayed in his robe
of glory and sitting on his throne of power, I rec
ognize in him The Son of God ; the Judge of Man.
This event, the resurrection, answers the purpose
for which it was intended. It solves my doubts ; it
removes my difficulties. The mysteries, the obscuri
ties, the improbabilities of the Christian system per
plex and embarrass me no longer. Nothing seems
incredible when authenticated by that momentous
fact, the resurrection of my Saviour. If at any time
new objections present themselves, or if my former
doubts and difficulties return to bewilder and distress
me, one glance toward the sepulchre dispels and dis
sipates them — from thence a light forever shines. It
6*

124 THE RESURRECTION.
is the light that cheers my prospect, that shows me
heaven, that shows me immortality. In that light I
see the bow of Death unstrung; I see his quiver
broken. These trophies attest the fact that Jesus
Christ was conqueror. I do not want, I could not
have a higher proof that he is competent to be my
Saviour, that he is ordained to be my Judge.
On this issue his claim depended. To this, his
resurrection, I am taught to look as the ground of
my assurance. Had he failed here, had Death re
mained conqueror, had the grave continued to im
prison Him, as it imprisons other dead, much as I
might admire the grandeur of his enterprise, much as
I might revere his memory as the Son of Man, I could
not honor him, I could not confide in him, as the Son
of God. No ; turning in sadness from his sepulchre,
still closed and sealed, I could only say, as his discon
solate disciples said in the hour of their desolation,
" Yerily, this was he who it was thought should have
redeemed Israel."
Had he failed here, — but he has not failed. I
know that he has not. I see the seal broken ; I see
the stone rolled back; I see Him risen and victorious;
ascending with the spoils of Hell and Death to His
native heaven. Before Him "the gates are lifted
up ; the everlasting doors are opened ; " he enters ;
he ascends the throne; he sits down on the right
hand of God the Father, and thence shall he come to
judge, the quick and the dead. Merited distinction-
deserved honor. O ! that by faith and penitence we
may be prepared for that day of trial. Then come,
even so come, Lord Jesus !

VIH.
CHRIST RAISED
And Ote times of this ignorance Ood winked at; but now com-
mandetli aU men everywhere to repent. — Acts xvii. 30.
Why now? Because he hath appointed a day in
the which he will judge the world in righteousness,
by iliat man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath
given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised
him from the dead.
Since these things are so ; since God has appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righte
ousness by that man whom he hath ordained ; and
since, as we have seen, He hath given assurance unto
all men of that appointment by raising him from the
dead, with what infinite propriety does He now com
mand all men everywhere to repent !
Independent of such assurance, independent of such
a day of judgment, independent of that benignant
ordination by wliich a man was appointed to be the
Judge of men — independent of all this, repentance
had been the duty of every sinner ; and God might
therefore, without any imputation on his justice, have
enjoined it upon all. Sin as committed against God is
most irrational as well as criminal ; more than this, it
is most vile and detestable. For its own sake, there
fore, ought it to be renounced ; and not only re
nounced, it ought to be detested and abhorred. Re
pentance, though it expiates not sin, befits the sinner ;
sins persisted in become more sinful. Impenitence is
itself a crime, and renders other crimes more crimi
nal. But if repentance, even during those times of

126 THE RESURRECTION.
ignorance, which God winked at, was a duty, how
much more so is it now !
God's will, made known as such, whether in nature
or in revelation, is law ; and every commandment -of
His, even though enforced by no other consideration,
is binding on the conscience. But this command
ment, now given unto all men, to repent, imposes addi
tional obligation, because it is accompanied by addi
tional motives to obey.
Though annihilation terminated man's being, and
oblivion covered his memory and his crimes, it had
been base and detestable to sin away even such an
ephemeral existence. A day, an hour, misspent, would
be inglorious, and cast dishonor on the being who
misspent it. If he who persisted in his sins, though
ignorant of a future retribution, would be a wretch
deserving of condemnation, how much more does he
deserve, who knows that a day of judgment is ap
pointed and yet repenteth not. How much more
guilty still is he who knows that for that day a plea
has been provided through which repentance becomes
available, a plea on whose merits not the guiltless
only, but the contrite soul will be pronounced just —
how much more guilty still, we say, is he who knows '
all this, and yet repenteth not !
O God ! during those days of ignorance of which
thou speakest, though even then no justification of sin
could be set up, there might have been offered for it
some faint show of palliation. But thy revelation of
a day of Judgment has taken from the sinner all ex
cuse. What will it avail him, what will it avail me,
that crimes are secret ? Since, though I could escape
the condemnation of man, I now know that I cannot
escape thy righteous Judgment.

CHRIST RAISED " TO GIVE REPENTANCE." 127
O God ! hadst thou in thy wrath forewarned me
of a day of vengeance merely; hadst thou drawn
aside the veil and shown me the dread tribunal of
justice before which fallen angels once had stood,
and whence nothing but the thunders of the law are
uttered — hadst thou done this, horror-stricken and in
despair I might have fled, crying only to rocks and
mountains to fall upon me and hide me from a pres
ence before which it were vain for a sinner to hope
to stand. But thy revealed day of Judgment, at which
thy Son, my Saviour, is ordained to preside, allures
me while it awes. Its terrors are relieved by the
beams of grace ; its thunder softened by the note of
mercy. Now, if I repent not, I am utterly irreclaim
able and inexcusable; because now I know that
'• there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be
f eared." Now, if I repent not, thy throne will be not
only, but will be seen to be altogether guiltless ; for
I refuse even thy proffered clemency, and in despite
of thy very grace weave for myself the web of
destiny. What is true of myself is true of all men ; for the
same day of judgment is appointed for all, and the
same assurance of it is given to all. Why should not
all then listen and obey ? Since this great truth has
been revealed, since assurance of it has been given,
why are not our sins repented of ? Why are not our
lives reformed ?
Do you disbelieve the fact ? I know you do not.
Confidently as you may speak to others, that apparent
confidence is not truly felt. You dare not, you do
not repose yourself upon it. You impose, perhaps,
upon the world, but you impose not on God. You
impose not on yourselves. You are not at ease in

128 THE RESURRECTION.
your infidei security.. Apprehensions follow you to
your retirements, and everywhere, when alone, your
misgiving heart betrays the conscious and the cow
ard sinner. Though you hate the light, you cannot
altogether shun its influence ; and could you do so,
it would not prevent the accomplishment, , of God's
eternal purpose. Even that bewildering and treach
erous darkness in which a guilty life enshrouds itself
is as transient as it is treacherous and bewildering.
The light of that great day, as you approach it, will
force itself upon you; through the night of death
and the shadows of the sepulchre it will force itself
upon you. All believe alike on this article the mo
ment they feel the fatal grasp of the king of terrors.
The touch of death is fatal to infidelity. I have seen
many a dying sinner, but I have never seen a dying
infidel ; nor will the future pastor who shall stand
beside your death-bed, notwithstanding your present
scoffings, be enabled to say that he has seen one.
It is time for thee, O sceptic, to renounce thy sins,
for thou wilt soon renounce thy doubts. I say soon, for
thou wilt soon die. Yes, though now " thy breasts be
full of milk and thy bones moistened with marroAV,"
thou wilt soon die ; thou wilt soon be buried ; thou
¦wilt soon be raised and stand before the Judgment-
seat of Jesus Christ, and there answer for all the
deeds done in the body, whether they be good or
whether they be evil. So shall we all. O then let
us break off our sins by repentance, and by faith
make our peace with God. The duty is universal ;
the motive is universal; the injunction is universal;
for though the times of the world's ignorance God
once overlooked, yet now " He commandeth all men,
everywhere, to repent.

CHRIST RAISED "'10 GIVE REPENTANCE." 129
John, who preceded the gospel dispensation,
preached to sinners repentance for the remission of
sins. Jesus Christ, who introduced the gospel dispen
sation, preached to sinners repentance for the remis
sion of sins ; and so we who follow him, preach to
sinners repentance for the remission of sins, enforcing
what we preach by the assurance which he has given
of his judicial powers, and of His second coining.
Repentance, repentance, wherever there are sin
ners, is the immediate and universal duty. Repent
ance, instant repentance ; this reason dictates, this God
commands. He speaks to all mankind, and let all
mankind obey Him. Obey Him, ye who hear me.
As you hope to enter heaven, as you dread to be
turned into hell, obey him. By the mingled mercies
and terrors of the appointed and the approaching day
of Judgment, I entreat, I adjure you to obey him.
Obey Him now, not to-morrow. Now is the ap
pointed time. Now is the accepted time ; now re
pentance, though not meritorious, is availing, and
will be followed by salvation.
Whether you will at some future time repent, is
not the question. Remorse you cannot escape. By
an inviolable law, wailings and lamentations are
yours, O sinner. " They are the wages of sin." God
has settled that ; and you may as well hope to live
without life as to sin without sorrow. But salutary,
saving repentance has its limits. Even regrets for
having sinned may come too late — regrets which, far
from conducing to the sinner's forgiveness, only as
certain and proclaim his misery.
I know not why the revolving ages of our eternity
receive their type exclusively from that little span of
time, those threescore years and ten which have pre

130 THE RESURRECTION.
ceded: But so it is ; man's whole immortal being
hangs suspended on his first few fleeting moments !
The first is the decisive act! The after-scene is not
for further trial ; it consists only in fruition, or in
suffering. All this side death is preparation ; all
beyond it, retribution. Into these two periods the life
of every moral agent is divided. The one is short
and mutable ; the other endless and unchanging.
Become quickly, therefore, what you mean to be for
ever. Neither to the virtuous nor the vile will the
trial be perpetual. The one will soon have reached
that limit beyond which he can never fall ; the other
that beyond which he can never rise.
The day of Judgment will be retributive ; not dis
ciplinary. Lamentations poured forth at the bar and
iu the presence of the Judge, move not his clemency.
It is only previous repentance that will be there
available. With reference to the wailings which that
solemnity will occasion, and as a premonition to the
sinner, those fearful words are recorded : " Because I
have called and ye refused, I have stretched out my
hand, and no man regarded ; but ye have set at
naught all my counsel, and would none of my re
proof. I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock
when your fear cometh ; when your fear cometh as
desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirl
wind; when distress and anguish shall come upon
you — then shall they call upon me, but I will not
answer ; they shall seek me early, but they shall not
find me."
Forbearance, so conspicuous in the divine economy,
has its limits. That day always approaching at length
arrives, — the day when the things which relate to the
sinner's peace are forever hidden from his eyes. Now,

CHRIST RAISED " TO GIVE REPENTANCE." 131
God waits to be gracious. " As I live, saith the Lord, I
take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather
that he should turn and live. Come then and let us
reason together ; though your sins be as scarlet, they
shall be wliite as snow; though they be red like
crimson, they shall be as wool. Let then the wicked
man forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts, and let them return unto the Lord, and he
will have mercy, and to our God, and he will abun
dantly pardon. Turn ye, turn ye at my reproofs, for
why will ye die, O house of Israel ? " And why will
you die, O sinner ? Ye who hear me, why ? Why,
since Jesus Christ is ordained to judge the world, and
since repentance will insure forgiveness, why will
you die ? Whence this unnatural suicide ; this fren
zied self-destruction ?
If only after having insulted God and debased
yourselves ; if after having sinned away your term of
being on earth, and made yourselves alike unworthy
and incapable of heaven ; if only after tliis you could
like worms creep back to earth, and repose in eternal
non-existence ! But no, that cannot be.
There is no rest, however inglorious — there is no
refuge, no, not even in death, to wicked men. The
vilest earth will not continue to enclose the viler ashes
of the unrepentant sinner. No matter how degraded
you become ; no matter how low you sink your fleshly
nature, or how far you debase your reason and your
heart, the appointed judgment, "the resurrection of
condemnation," still awaits you. Though you turn
away from the light, and, shutting your eye on life
and heaven, creep like reptiles to your retreat of
death, the archangel's trump shall wake you. You
may fall from virtue, you may fall from honor, but

132 THE RESURRECTION.
you cannot fall from being. The wretch that has
lived to sin must live to suffer. So justice dictates ;
so God ordains.
If the day of Judgment, of which you are assured,
were a day of unmixed justice, on which God came
forth out of his place merely to avenge the righteous,
to purify the world, and to rid the earth as he before
had rid the heavens of rebels, driving the whole race
of fallen men as he drove the fallen angels into hell
— if such were the day of judgment, a day of indig
nation without clemency, of retribution without for
giveness (though even then repentance would be your
wisdom and your duty), we would not thus urge
and press and importune you. But now that the
bow of the covenant is displayed from those heavens
through which the Son of Man shall come ; now that
the judgment-seat itself is radiant alike with the
beams of mercy and of justice, meeting and mingling
as they stream from it, dispelling the gloom that
overhung our world, and lighting up the firmament
above with peace and joy, — there is hope that you
may yet be induced to turn and flee the wrath to come.
Therefore it is that we entreat you, as we see you
advancing to your eternal doom ; therefore it is that
we cry after you, and repeat the cry, even till the
blow falls, saying ever, " Turn ye, turn ye, for why
will ye die ? "
The thought of judgment would be intolerably ter- '
rific, were it not for this idea of mercy mingling with
it. It is the superhuman greatness of the Gospel
scheme of salvation that proves its divinity. From
some primeval source, perhaps the prot-evangel pro
claimed in Eden, the idea- of a theanthropy, or of
some divine incarnation, had entered extensively into

CHRIST RAISED " TO GIVE REPENTANCE." 133
the world's mythologies ; but forensic substitution
was a thought unknown. " Eye had never seen, ear
had never heard, the heart of man could never have
conceived" it. No earthly religion, no superstition,
no system of ethics or philosophy could ever have de
veloped it. We may say, too, that the thought of a
retributive judgment alone, though filling us with
alarm, could never have produced the feeling of pen
itence. In the resurrection of Jesus this new emotion
had its birth. "He was exalted a Prince and a
Saviour that he might give repentance." In Him
are combined the royal and the priestly, the ruling
and the atoning, the judicial and the healing office.
Every element of fear is taken away when we are
led to see, and with all our souls embrace, this won
drous provision of the divine mercy. Hope and joy
take the place of alarm ; a sense of safety, of peace,
of blessed assurance fills the heart, when in our Judge
we recognize our Saviour, — when in the triumphant
Messiah sitting upon the throne of the universe we
behold the Christus P aliens, the suffering Christ, the
mocked Redeemer, the thorn-crowned King, "the
Man of Sorrows " who died upon the cross for our
salvation.

IX.
THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF DEATH.
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now com-
mandeth all men everywhere to repent. — Acts xvii. 30.
By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so
death reigned over all. — Romans v. 12.
Most emphatically is this duty of repentance now
commanded, because He hath appointed a day in
which he will judge the world by that man whom he
hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto
all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
With what conclusiveness repentance is enjoined,
how clear the reason given, how strong the motive
derived from the assurance of a future judgment, has
been already shown. Nor repentance only. Every
other command, as well as that coupled with the an
nouncement of a risen Saviour, derives additional
force from the assurance that is given of that event.
Considerations the most awful and the most tender
now impel me to do what he commands, to suffer
what he ordains.
In the resurrection of your Saviour, then, behold,
O Christian, a new and universal motive both to ac
tion and to suffering.
There were of old, and there still are, profane men
who say, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.
But since Jesus Christ has risen the believer can
never feel this motive, can never speak this language.
It may befit the lips of the Epicurean, the Sadducee,
the atheist or the deist who believes in no existence

THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF DEATH. 135
beyond the grave ; bnt it becomes not him to whom
light breaking from the tomb of Christ has opened
heaven' and immortality and judgment and forgive
ness. Henceforth away, unhallowed pleasures ; away,
ye scenes of mirth, of lust, of treachery, and blood.
All that God abhors will I abhor ; from all that He
forbids will I forever flee. The great future opens
before me. The present has all its importance from
its connection with such an unbounded prospect. I
feel " the power of an endless life." I will abstain
to-day ; I will deny myself to-day. To-morrow, no
less than to-day, is mine ; millions of ages to come
are mine ; eternity is mine. I can therefore afford
to abstain and deny myself, did not the thought of an
eternal being destroy the rehsh for the pleasure, and
sink it into insignificance.
Let the unbelieving sensualist revel away in riot
and debauchery his ephemeral existence. I cannot
be his associate or his guest. His pleasures are not
my pleasures; his prospects are not my prospects.
Ah ! In hell what will it avail me to have eaten and
drunken and sinned to-day ! No ; eternity is too
long ; God's wrath too dreadful. On the score even
of the highest prudence " it is better to suffer with
the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin
for a season." " Light afflictions that endure but for
a moment" are not to be put in competition with
" an eternal weight of glory." But Christianity im
poses no insuperable burdens. I can deny myself. I
can restrain and subjugate my passions. I can give
up " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the
pride of life." I can do more than abstain. I can
endure hunger and thirst, and cold and nakedness.
The primitive Christians endured these; Christians

136 THE RESURRECTION.
of later times, and not far from our own day, have
endured these — endured them for Christ's and for
righteousness' sake. Ever onward, ever upward, was
the motto of these heroic athletes.
'Twas God's all-animating voice
That cheered them from on high.
Through the might of this resurrection power,
under the stimulus of this ever " upward calling of
God in Christ Jesus," they fought the good fight,
they finished their course, and are now in heaven re
ceiving the reward of their labors, and the recom
pense of their suffering. I say reward, for it is
language used in Scripture ; but it was obtained by
another's merits, and through a strength not their
own. It came from the grave of Christ, from the
grace of a risen Saviour.
I asked them whence their victory came ;
They, with united breath,
Ascribed their conquest to the Lamb,
Their triumph to his death.
And dost thou, vile sensualist, or dost thou,
wretched unbeliever, think to allure me from the
track which they have marked out — that path the
ruggedness of which has been smoothed by the mar
tyrs' feet, though still retaining the sacred impress of
the martyrs' blood ? No, " thou man of the earth,
earthy ; " no, thou grovelling sensualist, thou second
Esau ; keep to thyself thy mess of pottage. I'll not
share it with thee ; heaven is sold, to purchase it, and
it is seethed in the blood of the soul. And thou, in
sulting scoffer, scoff on. I can bear thy taunts. I
can brace my nerves against thy jeerings. My pur
suits are nobler than thine ; my hopes are loftier than

THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF DEATH. 137
thine. I fear thee not. I fear not man. And why
should I, a man, fear one who is nothing more ?
Human instruments of assault, whether of steel or
invective, whether the tongue, the pen, or the sword,
are ,but feeble weapons. At the most they can only
kill my body. Neither the poison nor the poniard
can reach the soul. Jesus Christ has risen. He is
my security ; intrenched within this rampart of as
surance my soul looks forth in confidence —
Smiles at the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
I can practise self-denial ; I can endure the deri
sion of man. I can defy his vengeance. But there
is a being whose vengeance I cannot endure, and
against whom it were not bravery but frenzy to
array myself. His power would crush, his wrath con
sume. Him first, him last, him supremely, and him
exclusively do I fear. " Woe unto him that striveth
with his Maker. Let the potsherd strive with the
potsherds of the earth ; but let not man contend
against his creator, or the thing formed say unto him
who formed it, Why hast thou made me thus V At
thought of thee, O my God, far from wishing to re
tain, I abhor my sins. " I abhor myself and repent
in dust and ashes. Against thee, thee only have I
sinned, that thou mightest be justified when thou
speakest, and clear when thou judgest."
Henceforth no trials shall be accounted insuperable,
no labors too severe, no self-denial too hard, no sacri
fices too great, if so I may meet thine approbation,
and through thy mercy escape from the wrath to come.
But there are motives of tender as well as of awful
interest, springing out of that assurance which God
has given of a future judgment by the resurrection of

138 THE RESURRECTION.
the Saviour— motives which address themselves to all
the nobler principles, to all the finer feelings of my
nature. It is not fear alone that makes me shun the plea
sures and fly the society of wicked men. Existence
is dear to me ; I desire its continuance ; 1 wish to
live forever. I respect even my body, — that body
which God made, — so wonderfully and fearfully
made. Mysterious product from the dust; it is
honorable to him ; it is endeared and precious to me.
Through its subtile and delicately arranged organs I
first received the notices of being, beheld the light,
traced out the forms of things, became acquainted
with the melody of sounds, heard the voice of prayer,
the note of praise, and learned to read the name and
acquire some faint idea of the attributes of my Crea-"
tor. This body I have dwelt in since I began to be.
I have fed and clothed it ; I have nursed and nur
tured it ; I strive to prolong its vigor, to prevent its
decay, and to perpetuate its being. But this I cannot
do. In despite of all my wishes, all my efforts, it
wastes, it declines, it tends to dissolution, and it
will finally be all dissolved. I feel that it is marked
for death, that it is ripening for the sepulchre.
I see the uplifted arm of the dread power that
will crush my hopes, and turn my body into dust.
Yes, I foresee that I must die. I cannot prevent,
I cannot delay, this catastrophe. And yet what it
is to die, I know not. My view reaches not even
to the sepulchre ; much less beyond it. I have seen,
indeed, a fellow-creature die, and I know enough
of death to know that it is dreadful beyond my know
ledge, beyond my conception. The shroud, the coffin,
the corse, the grave, appall me. A strange and inde-

THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF DEATH. 139
finable horror seizes my frame ; a sudden and con
vulsive chill passes through my heart at the sight of
death, at the thought of dying. Something within
me intimates that before me there are dangers.
Affrighted, I cling to life, and start backward from
that covered gulf, towards whose brink I feel myself
impelled by a resistless power.
I am a sinner. Of that I am conscious ; nor is it
in the power of created beings to rid me of that con
sciousness. And I fear death the more because I am
a sinner. I tremble at the thought of falling into
nothing; still more do I tremble at the thought of
falling into hell. All that nature has intimated, all
that philosophy has conjectured to support my soul
against the dread of death is vague, indefinite, uncer
tain, and unsubstantial. I am distressed, and exam
ine ; I re-examine, and am still distressed. Nothing
that any human philosophy has offered comes home
to my understanding and my heart like that great fact,
my Saviour's resurrection.
That speaks a language which I understand ; that
presents a motive which I feel. The resurrection of
the body is not now, as formerly, a matter of opinion.
The Lord Jesus Christ has actually risen, and in his
rising I see at once the pattern and the pledge of my
own and of the resurrection of my species.
I am now sure that the grave will not be to me the
bed of death. I shall be raised from thence. I
know I shall be raised, because Christ has risen. I
know this not only, but I rejoice in it also. I abhor
the sepulchre, that house of putrefaction. I desire
most ardently to be raised from it. Nor will desire
cease, nor the cup of my joy be full, while my body
bears that stamp of sin and death upon it. Then only

140 THE RESURRECTION.
"shall I be satisfied when I awalce im, thy Ukeness."
And since thou hast given me assurance, O thou dy
ing, thou risen Saviour, — since thou hast given me
this assurance, — that I shall awake, I must obey thee ;
thy love constrains me. Nothing commanded by such
a Master can be deemed oppressive, nor when softened
by such kindness, and excited by such hopes, is even
my obdurate heart reluctant to comply.
Nor for myself only do I thus feel and reason. I
have kindred, I have friends to whom I am attached.
But even from that circle, all that is excellent, all that
is endearing, has faded or is now fading. I have
looked upon the cold clay from which the vital prin
ciple had departed. The signs of thought and friend
ship and virtue still lingered there. Death had not
quite effaced them ; but all they signified had fled.
I have followed their remains to the sepulchre. There
were they covered from my sight, and there, pensive
and oppressed, have I lingered ; for within was con
tained a treasure, marred indeed, but still dear to me.
Often in thought do I revisit those chambers where my
dead kindred, my dead friends repose. I cleave to the
monument that bears their names, and hang over the
mound that hides their ashes. To this nature prompts,
to this love constrains me.
Let the gross, unfeeling unbeliever bury his dead
as he does his cattle ; let a false spiritualism that has
no countenance in Scripture treat the body as some
thing beneath its philosophic contemplation ; let the
other apparent extreme of a heartless materialism
speak with contempt of our mortal remains, as being
no more than other earth, ever passing into other
forms; let the vulgar, scoffing infidel characterize
them as having no other excellence than to serve as

THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF DEATH. 141
hidden manm-e to enrich our fields and gardens. With
none of these can I hold sympathy. The philosophic
and the vulgar strain are alike odious and repulsive.
Something tells me that these remains are precious.
I think it is an instinct of my nature. Something
seems to tell me that, perishing as they are in them
selves, they are still, in some mysterious manner, con
nected with the imperishable, and that their higher
identity, their true identity, cannot be lost. They
may still be denoted by the names and by the per
sonal pronouns once used in addressing them. They
have still a personality, a selfhood, residing in the
matter, and continuing beyond the utmost limits of
material dissolvability. " The souls of believers pass
into glory, but their bodies, being still united to Christ,
do rest in their graves until the resurrection." So
speaks the symbol of our faith, grounded as it is on
Scripture. Their bodies being still united to Christ.
Here is the secret of life, even of the indestructible
bodily germ. " Because He lives, they shall live also."
There is a sacredness in this natural feeling of which
I have spoken, and Revelation most touchingly as well
as powerfully confirms it. It is thus that I have
learned to respect sepulchral ashes. It comes from
the voice of nature, and from the tutelage of faith.
I learn its confirmation in the school of Jesus. Hope
ful tears befit the mourner. He teaches me this by
those he himself mingled with the tears of the weep
ing sisters at the grave of Lazarus, their brother. But
though I may have learned it from faith alone, still it
is a lesson I am not willing to unlearn. I would not
give away those tears for all the atheist's unbaptized
insensibility. I covet not his real or affected stoicism,
his brute-like apathy. No, my dead kindred still

142 THE RESURRECTION.
remain akin to me. The being even of their bodies
has not perished — shall not perish. Neither is it
another body, wholly alien to the first familiar organ
ization, that is to be the dwelling-place of their
future and more glorious existence. Though " a house
not made with hands," it will not be " an unclothing,"
but a " clothing upon." The link even of the bodily
identity, hard as it may be for science and philosophy
to trace it, shall not be lost. The Scripture here is as
emphatic as it is clear and concise. It is " this cor
ruptible" to (pffaprov tovto, that " shall put on incor-
ruption ; " it is " this mortal," to dvnrov tovto, that
"shall put on immortality." Therefore it is that I
respect this sleeping dust and ashes, as something
connected with a higher life. " Their bodies, being
still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the ¦
resurrection." Thus, whilst nature intimates that these
human remains are precious, Jesus tells me why it is
so. The dying members rest with their dying, risen
head. " He is not the God of the dead, but of the
living." Those ruins shall be built again,
And all that dust shall rise.
Christ says that He will raise it up, and I believe
him. I will, therefore, build their monuments. These
are more than tokens of affection. They are tokens
of faith. They evince that their builder expects a
resurrection, and that he buries his dead in confidence
of Christ's second coming.
But not my friends only who repose in death are
taken into this account, and form an item in this con
clusive argument. I have living friends also, friends
of whom as yet the destroyer has not robbed me.
Could I believe that these would be exempted, broken

THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF DEATH. 143
as the circle of my companions has become, it would
be some relief. But even of this partial, stinted con
solation I am deprived. Those who remain, remain
on sufferance. Death has already fixed his seal upon
them. All, all are marked for the sepulchre ; and
even while they seem to linger, are tending step by
step toward that oblivious region whence they shall
not return.
The movement of this living world to death is uni
form and universal. Neither talents, nor learning,
nor usefulness, nor virtue afford exemption, or even
procure a respite. The firmer we cling to life, the
more easily we seem to be broken from our hold.
There is no anchorage on this side death, no haven
where this tempest-driven bark of ours can rest. It is
ordained that it should be so, and all attempts to elude
or resist are vain. The whole race are given up to
death ; they are all dead, or dying, or about to die.
There are, indeed, dreams of life, but they are only
dreams, mere visions of the imagination, fleeting as
ideal. The monuments of art, it is true, for a little
time remain; but the artificer, where is he ? . He is as
though he had never been; his eye has lost its vision,
his fingers their skill. Though constructed of perish
able materials, the building outlasts the builder.
We may erect, but it is our successors who will inhabit.
The very trees we have set, nay, the very shrubbery
we have planted around these halls and along the
walks of science will outlive us. These organic pro
ducts of the soil will grow and flourish, and bud and
blossom, when no flower of thought, no bud of fancy,
no germ of genius, shall put forth from the cold bo
soms of those beings who plucked them from their
native bed and set them here.

144 THE RESURRECTION.
This chosen spot, these rising grounds, have been
our recent theatre of action, and they will, perhaps,
for a few days longer be our theatre of action. Here
we have exercised our taste, our judgment, our skill.
We have planned, and more than this— because God
has thus far helped us — we have executed. The hills
have been depressed, the valleys raised, the rudeness
of nature has disappeared, the regularity of art has
succeeded, and everything has changed around us or
is changing.This scene of toil and anxiety ended, will there
follow, think you, a scene of rest and enjoyment?
There is no rest for man — for man, the victim of
pain, of disease, of death — for man, who is doomed
to the sepulchre.
There has been a first, but there can be no second
Eden on this earth. In this, our beloved literary re
treat, we have fled the corruptions and the tumult of
the city, but we have not fled the corruption of sin,
nor the tumult of the passions. The causes of inqui
etude were not peculiar to the site which this institu
tion has heretofore occupied. Even this second loca
tion has been made within the precincts of the King
of Terrors. Hither our iniquities have followed us,
and here our God will surely find us out.
There is, indeed, a pleasure in contemplating this
new scenery which has so suddenly displayed itself.
It is a pleasure, however, not without alloy. Many a
melancholy association dims the prospect and saddens
the contemplation. It is grateful to behold the tem
ple of science reared up and the halls of instruction
opened. It is grateful to mark the growth and walk
beneath the shadow of the fir-tree and the elm which
have been planted ; but the thought occurs that these

THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF DEATH. 145
are not the only trees that befit these consecrated
classic grounds ; — why have the cypress and the yew
tree been omitted ?
We have our walks for contemplation and for exer
cise ; our Groves of the Academy, and our Vale of
Tempe. The line of the Campus has been struck,
the parterre laid out, and flowers already bedeck it.
But our work is yet unfinished — even the very design
is incomplete. One spot remains to be selected and
enclosed — a little spot, around which the willow may
bend and weep, and where the death-bird may perch
and sing her funeral song.
Much as we have designed and executed, we have
as yet laid out no burial-ground, we have built no
sepulchre. But though we have not, every day's mor
tality reminds us that these are needful. Death, that
frequents the city, frequents also the solitude. He
respects not even consecrated grounds, but delights to
conceal himself along the walks of the Muses, and to
watch unseen in the vestibule of science. No retire
ment escapes his pestiferous breath ; no path his pol
luting tread; nor is the college any more than the
lazar-house secure from his defiling and destructive
entrance. Here, too, the King of Terrors will take his stand,
to disappoint the public expectation, to wring the
heart of friendship, and to cut off forever the fond
parent's hope. As when an untimely frost passes
over the face of nature, so, at his chill presence,
wither alike the flowers of intellect and the weeds of
ignorance. No station is spared. At his command
the master and the pupil descend alike to the sepul
chre. Yet a little while, and this endeared retreat, laid

146 THE RESURRECTION.
out with so much taste and adorned with so many and
such sudden beauties, will have become a residence for
death. That dreaded spoiler is about to enter it, nay,
he has already entered it. Twice, though his ambush
is concealed, and though his arrow flew in secret, has
he given afflictive notice of his entrance. Twice have
we heard his victims groan; twice have we seen them
fall.* Whom next, or in what quick succession he
will dart his arrows, God only knows.
Here, as on every other spot of this accursed and
sin-defiled earth, "all flesh is as grass, and all the
glory thereof as the flower of the grass. The grass
withereth, the flower f adeth. For death is come up
into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to
cut off the children from without, and the young men
from the streets. Therefore so teach us, O God, to
number our days as to apply our hearts to true wis
dom." * This was doubtless preached during a, period of epidemic
fever that at one time prevailed in the College ; or a previous ser
mon may have been adapted to the occasion. It must have been
at the beginning of the sickness, for more afterwards fell victims
to it, whose monuments, referring to the time, are now in the
College cemetery. Both of these discourses, the LXth and the
Xth, bear evidenoe of having been preached during the time when
Dr. Nott was so ardently engaged in laying out and beautifying
the College grounds. See note, p. 101. — Ed.

X.
THE GRAVE OF ADAM — THE GRAVE OF CHRIST.
God now eommamkth aU men everywhere to repent. Acts xvii. 30.
As att who are in Adam die, so aU who are in Christ shall be made
aUve. 1st Corinthians xv. 22.
As the mind runs along the track of future ages,
what an oppressive, what a melancholy prospect opens
before us! So, too, when from some distant and
imaginary point we fancy ourselves looking back upon
this scene, how solemn, how afflictive is the anticipated
retrospection. All the present population gone ; not
one remaining who knew, or loves, or thinks of us, or
who has ever heard our names. The shrubs we set
have died ; the trees we planted have mouldered.
Every ornament has been effaced. The very dome has
fallen in, and the column that supported it lies in
ruins — ruins over which the ox browses, the tent is
spread, or on which the soldier's foot profanely tram
ples. The things that were have become as though
they had never been.
We have built, we cam, build, no lasting monument.
That surely cannot be for immortality whose founda
tion is in the dust. After all that we have done, there
will shortly remain to us nothing but our sepulchres.
Let us leave the dream of sublunary glory then, and
hasten to erect them. Since Jesus Christ has risen,
7*

148 THE RESURRECTION.
this will no longer be a melancholy service. A beam,
an anticipated beam from the resurrection morning
softens the visage of death, and chases from the bury-
ing-ground its haunting spectres. Now, no chill
passes through my bosom ; no horror seizes my frame,
when, alone and benighted, my pathway crosses its
gloomy bounds.
Now we can draw the line, assign the limits, and
even make the subdivisions of our collegiate cemetery
with submission, nay, even with complacency. Of all
the enclosures on these variegated grounds, this be
comes the most endeared and frequented. This is the
Christian's vale of Tempe. Its destination, conse
crates it. At its entrance we put off unhallowed
passions. Its solemn ornamentation checks our levity,
abates our ardor. Its tranquil, retired avenues afford
the calmest, sweetest retreats for contemplation, the
holiest walks for Christian friendship.
This is the only retreat where the wicked cease
from troubling, and where the weary are at rest.
Precious, endeared, chosen spot ! Since Jesus Christ
has risen, no verdure so green as thine ; no flowers so
lovely. Now" thy very cypress and thy yew trees
blossom, and from that drooping willow, through
which sighs so long had murmured, songs, are heard.
Yonder we have taught and toiled ; but when our
day of life is ended, here shall we retire. Those other
grounds have been our theatre of action ; these shall
be our bed of rest. Here in this spot we shall repose
nntik Christ's second coming. Here, beneath this
turf, from which the shrubs, the trees, nay, the very
monuments have mouldered, he will recognize our
sleeping dust. On this spot we shall hear the Arch
angel's trump, and hence we shall arise to welcome

THE GRAVE OF ADAM — THE GRAVE OF CHRIST. 149
that decisive, universal summons, " Awake, ye dead,
and come to judgment!" For as in Adam all have
died, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Ah, how unlike are the offices performed for us by
our first and second representative. How unlike the
mheritance they bequeathed — how unlike their very
sepulchres !
Let us visit them. It is evening — the sun has set
— the hour of contemplation has arrived. A walk to
the bmying-ground may edify us ; to view their monu
ments may be instructive. Let us visit them. That
is the sepulchre of Adam — that of Jesus. And is the
sepulchre of Adam here? It is. Draw near, ye
orphan children, ye posterity of his — draw near, and
contemplate it. See how the moss has grown upon it,
and how the death-worm crawls within. There lies
the body of thy great progenitor — that body, fashioned
by the immediate hand of God himself, now disor
ganized and decayed ; its shroud decayed, its coffin,
all, all decayed and mouldered into undistinguishable
dust. Not so the sepulchre of Jesus. Draw near, child
of grace, exulting disciple ; draw near, and see the
place where your Lord once lay. Not moss, but
flowers new blown, bedeck the rock of Joseph.
No death-worm crawls within ; within there is no
food for worms. The soul of Him whom we adore
" was not left in Hades, nor did his body see corrup
tion." Behold the linen cloth that girded him ; it has
not mouldered, nor has the mildew touched the napkin
that was bound around his head.
There, in the tomb of Adam, beauty fades, vigor
forsakes the arm of flesh, and the life that was, ceases.
Here, in the tomb of Jesus, beauty is restored, the

150 THE EESUKKECTION. • m
arm of flesh is re.strung, and the life that was not, again
returns. That is an iron sepulchre ; its massive covering
presses on the bosom, and crushes the victim under it ;
nor has he opened, nor can he ever open it.
This is already opened ; it contains no victim. The
dead have left it ; left it empty, yet hallowed — destined
never more to hold the remains of human mor
tality. Around that sepulchre Death stalks a conqueror,
brandishing his weapons, exulting in his strength, and
insultingly trampling on the skulls and bones beneath
him. Around this Death is led captive, bound, subdued,
and powerless. His shield has been torn away ; his
bow lies on the earth unstrung ; scattered beside it
behold his broken and his pointless arrows.
Hark ! from the tomb of Adam a melancholy voice
comes forth: "Victim of sin and death, thou wert
made of dust, and to dust shalt thou return."
From the tomb of Christ a far different voice re
sponds : " Heir of righteousness and life, when thy
body shall return unto the dust as it was, thy spirit
shall ascend unto God who gave it."
Hark ! from the tomb of Adam those words of
despair: "By one man sin hath entered into the
world, and death by sin, and so death shall pass upon
all men, because all have sinned." From its gloomy
vault is ever heard the questions which nature cannot
answer : " If a man die, shall he live again ? " "Can
these dry bones revive ? "'
Again, from the tomb of Christ a voice responds :
" Yes, these dry bones can live." " With my body
shall they come." "I am the resurrection and the

THE GRAVE OF ADAM  THE GRAVE OF CHRIST. 151
life ; he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live again." " Dry up thy tears, redeemed
sinner — Adam, thy sire, has not perished ; Noah has
not perished ; the patriarchs and prophets have not
perished ; nay, ' blessed are all the dead that die in
the Lord ; they only rest from their labors, and tlieir
works do follow them.' " " In my Father's house
there are still many mansions ; if it were not so I
would have told you; I go to prepare a place for
you. And if I go away, I will come again, and
receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye
may be also."
I have visited this sepulchre of Christ before ; I have
often visited it, and I still love to visit it. It was here
that my dread of death abated ; it was here that my
hope of immortality began. As I find it now, so I
have always found it, perfumed with fragrance, and
vocal with the song of triumph. Yes, this rock of
Joseph has stood for ages, and it still stands, a beacon
to the wanderer, and to the mourner an asylum.
The angels who descended have not left it, nor will
they leave it, till the redeemed of the Lord are raised.
Here they delight to linger ; they bedeck this monu
ment ; they watch and trim that lamp which hangs
suspended at its entrance. To every penitent inquirer
they now say, as they said unto the weeping, affrighted
Marys : " Fear not ye, for we know that ye seek Jesus
who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen,
as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord
lay." These words have lost nothing of their import or of
their efficacy. Now, as formerly, it is life, it is im
mortality which they bring to light. Ah, could we
hear them with such hearts as the primitive Christians

152 THE RESURRECTION.
heard them. " He is not here ; he has risen, as he
said." As the angel pronoimced these words, radiance
fell upon the sepulchre ; from within it every spectre
fled, and with them that eternal darkness in which
they were enveloped. Amazed, the disciples entered
to see the place where the Lord had lain, shouting as
they entered : Now, O Death, where is thy sting ;
O grave, where is thy victory ! It was finished — the
triumph was complete, the sting of sin was plucked,
the agony of dying was over. A sudden throb passed
throughout the surrounding Golgotha, and from every
cleft and cavern where redeemed dust had been de
posited was echoed back to the living world the note
of victory.
I have visited the sepulchre of Adam, too, before ;
I have often visited it. But I have always found it
as I now find it, cold and comfortless and dreary.
Multitudes have entered it, and are still entering it ;
but there is no egress. Its doors close, but they never
open. No angel ever visits it, except the angel of de
struction. Its keeper hangs no lamp of radiance at its
entrance. This is not his office. It is only to slay the
living, and prolong the bondage of the dead, that he
has been commissioned. Reason, indeed, holds out
her feeble taper to assist my vision. But its beams
are few and faint and tremulous, and only render the
'surrounding darkness on which they fall more visible.
Agonized with doubt, I ask how long ? when will
release arrive? Or is this bondage final ? The dread
keeper, frowning on me, answers only by pointing to
the bones of Adam. I see them mouldered. Firmer,
and yet more firm, the earth settles on the patriarch's
bosom, and from the cell of every kindred skeleton
throughout this charnel-house a groan is heard.

THE GRAVE OF ADAM — THE GRAVE OF CHRIST. 153
And yet, in that sepulchre of Adam I have kin
dred — sisters, once the companions of my youth; a
brother, whom these eyes have never seen. There
my father lies — my mother — the partner of my earlier
years; there sleeps a beloved infant. There too I
shall myself be laid, and there around me my remain
ing children will be gathered. No wonder, there
fore, that I wish only to contemplate the tomb of
Adam in connection with that of Jesus. The glory
that rests upon the one, scatters the clouds and dis
pels the horrors that gather within and around the
other. The rock of Joseph ; be that my hope in death, as
it has been my joy in life. Nor my joy only. Affec
tion mingles in the emotions which I feel at the
thought of Him whose memory hallows it. " Whom
not having seen we love, and whom, though now we
see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy un
speakable and full of glory." — The resurrection is
not the whole of Christ. That makes him known ;
but it is his perfection that makes him precious.
His attributes of wisdom and of justice, no less
than his deeds of goodness and of mercy, claim my
soul's admiration, deserve my heart's most cherished
love. Beside the record of His life, the history of Cyrus,
the annals of Cassar, appear mean — gloriless. His is
a heroism that excites my admiration, because it
reaches the miseries of my condition. He is my
sovereign by choice, as well as by necessity. I feel
emulous to be enrolled in his book of life, and to fol
low in his train of glory. He is ordained my judge,
and it is my joy that he is so ordained. I consent,
nay, from the bottom of my heart I desire, to be tried

154 THE RESURRECTION.
at his judgment-seat. It is my highest hope to be
presented among the millions of the saved as a mon
ument of his mercy ; nor do I wish to enter heaven
in any other way than as a trophy of his grace. To
others there may seem to be no comeliness in him
that he should be desired ; but to the redeemed soul
he is " the chief among ten thousand, and the one
altogether lovely."
Do you ask, sinner, what Jesus Christ has done for
me, that should so much endear him ? I answer, he
has died for me ; while I was yet his enemy he died
for me. " Greater love than this hath no man, that a
man lay down his life for his friends. But God com-
mendeth his love toward us, in that while we were
yet sinners Christ died for us."
Yes, "in his own blood he has washed us, and
made us kings and priests unto God." "Worthy
therefore is the Lamb that was slain, and is alive, to
receive blessing and honor." And woe unto him who
withholds that tribute. If any man love not the
Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha.
Do you ask what Jesus Christ has done for me?
He has suffered the penalties of justice ; he has
quenched the fires of hell in my behalf. He flung
his sacred body between me and perdition. And that
is now the only panoply that shields me from those
flames by which the rebel angels were consumed — -
the only pledge I hold that they shall not hereafter
kindle on me.
Do you still ask what Jesus Christ has done for
me? I answer, he hath disarmed death ; he hath hallow
ed the sepulchre. Death was my great enemy. He
was my last enemy. I dreaded death. But Death is

THE GRAVE OF ADAM — THE GRAVE OF CHRIST. 155
conquered. Jesus Christ hath conquered Death,
plucked the wreath of triumph from the grave.
He has conquered death for me; mine is the vic
tory. Me hath he released from that dreaded iron
bondage. Me hath he released that I might serve
him, love him, rejoice in him, praise him evermore.
" I'll praise him while he lends me breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers ;
My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life and thought and being last,
Or immortality endures."
Thus, as we have said, the resurrection of Jesus
Christ unfolds a new and universal motive to affection
and obedience.
Though he had not risen, a day of retribution
might be probable, nay, it might be certain. But
even assurance that it was so would bring no joy to
me, a sinner. My dread of death would still con
tinue ; my fear of hell would still continue ; my sor
rows for my dead and dying friends would still con
tinue. I should visit their tombs with sadness; I
should build my own in agony ; and having done so,
I must unstring my harp and hang it, like the captive
Israelites, upon the willow, to give forth no note of
joy till a deliverer came.
But since he has risen, and by rising given me
assurance of a day of judgment at which a sinner
may be justified, the whole aspect of existence is
changed. Now it is my life, my joy, to honor and
obey him — to do and to suffer for him.
I love existence ; I sigh for immortality ; I love my
friends, my kindred, my species. For me, for them,
none has done so much ; none has waked or worked
so long as Jesus.

156 THE RESURRECTION.
" He's waked and worked for ages; from the birth
Of nature, to this unbelieving hour.
In this small province of his vast domain
(All Nature bows, while I pronounce his name !)
What has Christ done, and not for this sole end
To rescue souls from death."
' ' Talk they of morals ? 0 thou bleeding Love,
Thou Maker of new morals to mankind,
The grand morality is love to Thee.''
An infidel I cannot be, for Jesus Christ has risen.
A traitor I will not be, for Jesus Christ has risen.
Eternal life is dear to me ; and dear is He who
purchased it. I am a Christian from affection as
well as from necessity. I belong to Jesus Christ, be
cause I love him; and love him because he is my
Saviour, and because he is essentially and infinitely
lovely. H he would release me I would not be released.
H he would absolve me I would not be absolved. If
he were to interrogate me, as he interrogated his
disciples, " Will ye also go away ? " I would reply to
him, as they replied, " To whom, Lord, sliall we go ?
for Thou hast the words of eternal life " — and were
I to go away from Jesus Christ, to whom should I go?
On what should I repose my hopes ? Where should
I find an asylum ? Regions of silence and death, of
darkness and despair ! can ye answer my agonizing
inquiry : To whom can I go if I go away from Jesus ?
No, if Jesus Christ would absolve me, I would not
be absolved. I want no other master. I'll wear no
other livery ; nor own nor owe allegiance elsewhere.
Submission to him is not bondage, it is liberty — lib
erty high-born and deathless ; the liberty of the elect
of grace ; the liberty of the sons of God.

THE GRAVE OF ADAM — THE GRAVE OF CHRIST. 157
His is the only praise in which I wish my tongue
to be employed ; his the only sepulchre in which I
wish my body to be laid, and his the only judgment-
seat at which I wish my spirit to be judged. From
him no motive could induce me to go away. I would
not relinquish the love I bear him, I would not re
linquish the fealty I owe him, I would not relinquish
the heaven he has bequeathed me. I would not, by
abjuring Christ, live a sinner's life, however full of
earthly joy, to acquire that boasted privilege, — to die
a brute. Let the scoffing infidel, let the mortal atheist,
shutting his eye on Christ and heaven, hug his coffin
and cling unto his sod. " Let him say unto corrup
tion, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art
my sister and my mother." He knows no other ori
gin; he has neither the assurance nor the hope of
any other destiny. But Jesus Christ has taught me
that " this corruption can put on incorruption, — that
this mortal can put on immortality."
Adored be that Saviour who made this sure — and
welcome that resurrection morning that shall make it
real. Till then, " my flesh shall rest in hope," and
my spirit wait in faith " all the days of my appointed
time, until my change shall come."
" Now may the God of peace, that brought again
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd
of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting
covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do
his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in
his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory
forever and ever."
Amen.

THE

©Ijpofogiral anb PifosopSiral fciurarg.
A Series of Text-BooH, Original and Translated, for Colleges and
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EDITED BY

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LANGE'S COMMENTARY.
ANOTHER OLD TESTAMENT VOLUME.
JOSHUA, Translated and rdited by Rev. Geo. Bliss, D.D., Lewisburg, Pa.
JUDGES and RUTB by Rev. P. H. Steknstra, Cambridge.
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OLD TESTAMENT.— I. GENESIS. II. PROVERBS, SONG OF SOLO
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NEW TESTAMENT.- 1. MATTHEW. II. MARK and LUKE. III. JOHN.
IV. ACTS. V. THE EPIS TLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS. VI. COR
INTHIANS. VII. THESbALONIANS, TIMOTHY, TITUS, PHILEMON,
and HEBREWS. VIII. GALATIANS, EPHESIANS, PHILIPP1ANS,
COLOSSIANS. IX. THE EPISTLES GENERAL OF JAMES, PETER,
JOHN, and JUDE.
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DR. HODGE'S THEOLOGY.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.
By CHARLES HODGE, D.D., of Princeton Theological Seminary.
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The various topics ranged under these different divisions are discussed with that close
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and writer, and as an investigator of the great theological problems of the day.
* Volume I. and Volume II. are tuna ready. Volume III. -mill he frubliskld
early in 1872.
THE SPEAKER'S COMMENTARY.
THE FIRST VOLUME OF
The Bible Commentary.
(Popularly known in England as " The Speaker's Commentary.")
THE PENTATEUCH:
Comprising Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
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" Bible Commentary ; " Rev. Sam'l Clark, M.A., and Rev. T. E.
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JUWtllH DIALOGUES OF PLATO.
The Dialogues of Plato.
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profound mastery of the subject ; the ease and grace with which the matter is handled
comes from knowledge that is an habitual possession of the mind, and not prepared for
the occasion ; while the idiomatic force and precision of the style shows an intimate acquaint
ance with the resources of the English tongue. The pleasant flow of the language makes
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it is founded, or if it is founded on any theory at all ; but it is certain that, apart from the
nature if the topics under discussion, and the local coloring and environment of the scene,
there is little to remind us that it is not an original production in the vernacular. For
aught that is here indicated to the contrary, the bees that settled on Plato's lips might
as well have swarmed from an English as an Attic hive.
GURTIUS' GREECE. "

THE SECOND VOLUME OF
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By Prof. Dr. ERNST CTJRTIUS.
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bridge. Revised after the latest German edition by W. A. Packard,
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A NEW PHILOLOGICAL "WORK.
AMERICANISMS; Or, THE ENGLISH OF THE NEW WORLD.
By Prof, Schele de Verb, of the University of Virginia, Author of " Studies in English,"
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f\ NEW BOOK BY MAX MULLER.
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me literature relating to them, by one who is perhaps more competent to give an account of
them than any other living scholar.

Prof. Porter's "Human Intellect" Abridged.
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FROUDE'S SHORT STUDIES, SECOND SERIES.

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^mf $hhm on (|ppfi? $v&\nl%.
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