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SERMON XX.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." -1 PET. i. 3.

IT is an established Article of the Christian Faith that Jesus Christ arose from the dead; that He was "put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit;" that He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the Resurrection from the dead." In this doctrine all Christians profess their steady belief, as in the truth of that on which their salvation depends. To a congregation of Christians, therefore, this doctrine cannot require any proof: we must conclude that the testimonies have been already examined, and confidence fully reposed. In fact, the objections, which from time to time have been raised by infidelity-all the exceptions which sincere believers are able to imagine-have been often weighed with the strictest impartiality, and found weak and insufficient. It has been shown to demonstration, that the witnesses who have re

corded this stupendous occurrence, were in every respect worthy of the utmost credit; that they could not, from the circumstances of the case, be imposed upon themselves, nor be capable of imposing upon others. They were not credulous or hasty in giving their assent, nor rigid in exacting faith from others, without the fullest proof. It has been shown, that there existed no possible motive for their assertions, except an irresistible conviction of the truth, and an indispensable obligation to proclaim it. For it brought upon them the most perplexing and bitter distresses. It removed, beyond all the flattery of hope, the most distant prospect of worldly advantage; and, finally, terminated a wretched life, in every kind of torture. Other facts of history are not, and cannot be, founded on proofs so striking and irrefragable as these; and he, therefore, who rejects them, must shut his eyes against the light -must be wilfully blinded to the evidence which stands so prominently before him.

But this, as I have said, is a subject fitted rather for the conversion of infidels than for the

edification of Christian believers. It is surely unnecessary, on an occasion like the present, to adduce the proofs of Christ's resurrection, to those who are now met to celebrate His TRIUMPH over death-to those who recognise the blessings and feel the hopes of a like destiny, from the assurance which God, "in His abundant

mercy," has supplied "by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." I will pass on, therefore, to the irresistible deductions which issue out of this memorable occurrence, and to the proof, that the resurrection of CHRIST is an infallible argument of OUR OWN.

The most powerful evidence of OUR rising from the dead, is undeniably the resurrection of our SAVIOUR. It is the most easy to comprehend, and the most difficult to be withstood. It speaks at once to the senses, in the shortest and fullest manner; and appeals from the inscrutable mysteries of Providence to the simple manifestation of fact. Reasonings, in which some have indulged in order to facilitate a belief of this great truth, are to be classed more properly under the head of illustrations, than of arguments—are better calculated to portray that which is already believed, than to convince us of that which we doubt. Such persons have called the attention to SLEEP, as to the natural image of death; and to our awakening from sleep, as to the resurrection from the dead. They have likened the setting of the sun to the interment of the grave, and his glorious re-appearance in the morning, to our rising from the darkness of death. These circumstances have been insisted on as plausible arguments for the general resurrection of mankind; as if the Creator designed to typify, by natural appearances, the great destiny hereafter

to be awarded; as if, like the numerous incidents of the Jewish Dispensation, every occurrence of nature bore some distinct allusion to the future.

It is true, these resemblances of a resurrection are sufficiently apposite to impress those to whom this great article of faith has been revealed; they are sufficiently distinct to remind the contemplative Christian of the doom for which he is reserved. But they are far from enough to take the place of revelation, and enable the philosophic heathen to collect the truth of a resurrection from the dead. He might easily, indeed, trace the analogy between death and sleep-between life and death and the vicissitudes of night and day; but he could not, or at least certainly did not, conclude from hence that men should rise from the dead. So little were the wisest heathens able to infer this mighty change, that we find them complaining of the reverse; that, though the sun set and rose again-though they themselves slept and awoke from sleep, yet that, when the short day of life was at an end, their sleep was to be one long and eternal night!

All other reasoning on this most momentous occurrence, is of no further avail, my brethren, than to prove a resurrection not wholly impossible; or at the best, not absolutely improbable.

It
may be inferred from the known power of the
Almighty that He is able to raise the dead; from
His attributes it may be reasonably supposed,

that He WILL raise them. But it is from the Word of God ALONE, that we can derive a full assurance. The proofs, indeed, drawn from thence, are not all equally convincing. The Old Testament, for instance, supplies not the same lustre of evidence which shines forth in the New; and, even amongst Gospel-proofs, there is not one so cogent and indisputable, as the resurrection of our Lord.

It has been a controversy, whether the Jews were at all illuminated on the subject of a resurrection. But a controversy of this nature could not have arisen among Christians, if they had paid that deference to the authority of our Saviour, which it cannot be denied that they owe. He clearly demonstrated, from the Books of Moses, the expectation of a future life, in opposition to the Sadducees who denied it. But then the truth was clothed in mystery; and the very revelation itself required to be more plainly elucidated. Intimations of another state of existence there certainly are, scattered through various passages of the Old Testament; but it must also be acknowledged, that some texts contradict the plain meaning of others; that some of them bear a doubtful meaning, and require much deeper research and consideration than fall to the common lot. Thus, when Job with great solemnity asserts, that "he knows that his Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the