SERMON II.

HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD.

BY DR. ISAAC BARROW.

[ISAAC BARROW was horn in 1630. In 1672 he was made master of Trinity

College, Cambridge, and died in 1677.]

SERMON II.

ACTS, I. 3.

To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs; being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

THE most proper and most usual way of God, in confirming any truth of high moment in special manner revealed by him, is by lending unto them whom he employs as messengers thereof, his powerful arm for the performance of works supernatural or miraculous. Of such works there is none more certainly such than raising a dead person to life; the doing which, upon several accounts, plainly surpasseth the power of any creature; not only as exceeding the ordinary law and course of nature established and upheld by God, but for that the souls of men departing hence do return into God's hand, or into a state by high sentence determined, whence no creature is able to fetch them down, or raise them up; because also God hath reserved the pregative of doing this unto himself; he holding (as it is expressed in the Revelation) the keys of

hell and of death;' he having said, 'I am he, and there is no God beside me; I kill, and I make alive.'1

There could also particularly be no more proper way of confirming our religion to come from God, whether we consider the persons whom it was designed for, or the doctrines it propounded. The Jews were incapable of conviction by any other way than by miracle; no other reason would have been apprehended by them, or would have had any force upon them.

The Jews (saith St. Paul)

require a sign;' and, except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe,' said our Saviour to them. The Gentiles also had been so used to the winding off and on the subtleties and the plausibilities of disputation, that nothing probably in that kind would have sufficed to persuade them; and therefore, somewhat miraculous in the highest kind might be needful to convert them: also the most peculiar and eminent doctrines of our religion (such as are, our Lord Jesus being the Messias, the Son of God and Saviour of the world, the future resurrection, general judgment, and dispensation of rewards, answerable to men's practice in this life) cannot more immediately and directly be assured, than by the resurrection from the dead of him, who principally did reveal them.

Wherefore, Almighty God, in confirmation of our religion, did perform this great work in raising Jesus our Lord from the dead; and withal (for the conviction of the world, for rendering our faith reasonable, and our infidelity inexcusable) he did

20.

Apoc. i. 18; Deut. xxxii. 39; 1 Sam. ii. 6; Psalm lxviii.

21 Cor. i. 22; John, iv. 48.

take especial care, that the fact should by very sufficient testimony be conveyed unto us; to which purpose he did (as St. Peter said) πроxεроrovεiv, predesign, pick out, and appoint a competent number of persons, in all respects capable and fit to assert it: this is that which St. Luke in our text doth in way of historical narration affirm. And because the truth thereof is in its kind the principal argument, whereby the truth of our religion in gross may be evinced, we shall, for the confirmation of our faith, against all impressions of this incredulous (and therefore impious) age, endeavour by God's assistance now to declare and maintain it. That Jesus truly died, all the world could testify; no death was ever more solemn or remarkable; nor do any adversaries contest it; that he after that death was by Divine power raised again to life is that which we believe and assert. Now, whoever with reason shall doubt thereof or deny it, must do it, either because of some repugnance in the fact itself, implying that it could not well be done; or from deficiency of the testimony proving it, as to its authors or circumstances; but neither of these exceptions may reasonably be admitted.

As for the fact itself, or the notion of a resurrection in general, there cannot, (admitting that, which as capable of antecedaneous proof, and as acknowledged by all persons owning any religion, may be presupposed, the power and providence of God, together with his chief attributes of wisdom and goodness incomprehensible,) there cannot be any repugnance therein, or any incredibility. For it was neither in its nature impossible to God, nor in

1 1 Acts, x. 41.