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to Solomon's prayer imply a real and sensible | thee. But he answered and said unto them, residence of Deity, but that it was the uni- an evil and adulterous generation seeketh versal belief of the Jews and of the strangers after a sign; and there shall no sign be given who visited Jerusalem, that there was an in- to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. For gress of God into the temple, and a habitation as Jonas was three days and three nights in in it; and, in another place, that God de- the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be scended and pitched his tabernacle there. three days and three nights in the heart of The Jews themselves, however, admitted, the earth." The Sadducees, opponents still that whatever glory these expressions might more virulent than the Pharisees, perfectly signify was now departed. To restore that understood him as meaning on the basis of glory, and to bestow it on the second temple his own, to establish the belief of a resurin more abundant measure than the first ever rection of the body; for they argue with him possessed, was the end of Christ's mission; on the subject, and frame a case which they and in him was the prediction fulfilled: "The supposed would reduce the author of the docglory of this latter house shall be greater trine to an absurdity. This afforded our Lord than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts." an opportunity of showing that the doctrine He was that oracle by whose answers all in dispute was actually an article in their light and truth were emitted; the true Sche- own creed, as being the disciples of Moses. chinah who had the spirit without measure; he Thus it runs through the whole of divine Rewas anointed with the "oil of gladness above velation. The fathers beyond the flood lived his fellows," and thus in all respects greater and died in this faith. The dust of Abraham, than the temple. That temple, says he, Isaac, and Jacob thus rested and rests in hope. which you have defiled I have cleansed: and It is indeed more clearly stated under the this temple of my body which you are going Gospel dispensation, and the ground of it is to destroy, I will raise up again. more fully demonstrated, that is, the dawning light of the morning gradually brightened into the perfect day.

When this prediction was verified by the matter of fact, that fact became the foundation of one of the distinguishing doctrines of "In three days I will raise it up." This the gospel, the resurrection of the dead. is an explicit declaration of his own inherent Jesus early taught and frequently repeated Deity, for God alone has the right and the it, that it might be clearly understood and power over life and death. An angel may carefully remembered. The impostor is at be the delegated instrument in executing the pains to conceal his purpose till it is ripe for sentence of divine justice, by taking away execution. He fears prevention, and there-life; as in the case of the first-born of Egypt, fore endeavours to take you by surprise. The thief gives no warning of his approach, but comes upon men while they sleep. The true prophet discloses his design, prepares, forewarns, puts the person who doubts or disbelieves upon his guard, bids defiance to prevention. His own resurrection, and the doctrine of a general resurrection which is founded upon it, were not barely hinted at, or declared in obscure and equivocal terms. They were not the casual topic, and for once only, of private conversation with his disciples. No, this was a leading, a commanding object, presented continually to view, placed in the strongest light, announced with equal fairness and simplicity to friends and to enemies.

"And Jesus going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him; and the third day he shall rise again.' He declares the same truth thus openly in the court of the temple. He repeats it in the presence and hearing of the multitude, "when the people were gathered thick together, then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from

of those who fell by the pestilence, to the number of seventy thousand, for the offence of David in numbering the people, and of the hundred, fourscore, and five thousand smitten in one night, in the camp of the Assyrians. But we no where find the power of quickening the dead delegated to a created being. Man has the desperate power of destroying his own body, but there it ends, and the disembodied spirit ceases from all power to repair the awful violence which it has com mitted. Man cannot by a mere act of his will even lay down his life, any more than he can reanimate the breathless clay. It is the incommunicable prerogative of him who has life in himself, to dispose of it at pleasure. This prerogative Jesus Christ claims and exercises. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them: even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." In the case of his own death, it was an act of sovereign, almighty power. "Jesus said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost," while as yet the principle of natural life was strong within him, thus demonstrating that his assertion concerning himself was founded in truth: "I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." And on this power over his

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own life, he founds his right of dispensing | tiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs life and death to others. "And this is the in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; Father's will which hath sent me, that of all and upon the earth distress of nations, with which he hath given me I should lose nothing, perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; but should raise it up again at the last day. men's hearts failing them for fear, and for And this is the will of him that sent me, that looking after those things which are coming every one which seeth the Son, and believ- on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall eth on him, may have everlasting life: and I be shaken. Verily I say unto you, this gewill raise him up at the last day. Whether neration shall not pass away till all be fultherefore it is said that "Christ was raised filled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, up from the dead by the glory of the Father," but my words shall not pass away. or that he himself raised up the temple of his body, one and the same source of life, one controlling, irresistible will, and one supreme efficient power are displayed.

"Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? It has been already shown that this was a wilful misapprehension and it exhibits a humiliating view of the power of prejudice. Something may be made of a stupid child, if he be disposed to exert the poor faculties which he possesses, but obstinacy sets discipline at defiance. It is possible to assist weak eyes, but what can be done for the man who wilfully shuts them, or who madly plucks them out? To enter with commentators, into discussion respecting the period of the temple's rebuilding, is foreign to our purpose. What is it to us how long time was employed in the work, by what prince or princes it was carried on, and what was its comparative magnificence, with relation to the first temple, and to other structures of a similar kind? But it is of high importance to know, that the prediction of Christ concerning it, already quoted, was exactly fulfilled, about forty years afterward; when Jerusalem was besieged and taken by the emperor Titus, was pillaged and burnt, the temple completely destroyed, upwards of one million and one hundred thousand of the Jews destroyed by famine and the sword, ninety-seven thousand taken prisoners, the whole nation expatriated and dispersed; and that the state of the temple from the year of Christ 70, down to the present 1802, and of this scattered, degraded, yet providentially supported and distinguished people, at this day, are a standing evidence of the truth and certainty of the things wherein we have been instructed. He is faithful and true who promises and who threatens. "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gen

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"When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them." Words as they are spoken, and events as they pass, frequently make a slight impression, but when recalled and fixed by some striking correspondent circumstance, they rush on the mind like a torrent, and we wonder at our own preceding carelessness and inattention. Had the disciples been men quick of apprehension, and of easy belief, the fabrication of a cunningly devised fable might have been suspected: but they were persons of a simplicity of character that sometimes bordered on stupidity; they were "slow of heart to believe;" they often misunderstood their master; they were of all mankind the most unfit to plan and to support imposture. When Jesus spake of destroying and of raising up again the temple of his body, the Jews wilfully perverted his meaning, and his disciples seem hardly to have marked his words. The greatest of miracles must be performed to subdue the incredulity of the one, and to rouse the attention of the other. In both we contemplate the wrath and the weakness of man ninistering to the glory of God. It was meet that the mouth of malignity should be stopped, and that the truth, as it is in Jesus, should be taught to the world by men whose own ignorance had been instructed, whose doubts had been removed, whose faith had been established. "We still have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power, may be of God, and not of us."

The resurrection of Christ from the dead, therefore, so clearly predicted, and so exactly accomplished, supplies the Christian world, in every age, with the firmest basis of faith, and with the purest source of hope and joy. The apostle of the Gentiles, once the most violent opposer of the fact, and of the doctrine founded upon it, thus collects the evidence: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apos

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tles. And last of all he was seen of me also as office bearing testimony to Christ's prophetic of one born out of due time." Paul's reason-character, and to the foundation on which it ing upon the subject is conclusive and satis- rested. "Nicodemus, a pharisee and ruler factory; it meets the human heart in all its of the Jews, came to Jesus by night, and said desires and expectations. We resign our- unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a selves to the stroke of death with composure. teacher come from God: for no man can do We bury our dead out of our sight, without these miracles that thou doest, except God bidding them a final farewell, because "the be with him." But the sacred historian subflesh also shall rest in hope." "For if we joins a reflection most humiliating to human believe that Jesus died, and rose again. even nature; for it implies that the understanding so them also which sleep in Jesus will God may be enlightened, and the conscience perbring with him.” "This corruptible must fectly convinced, and yet the heart remain put on incorruption, and this mortal must corrupted and malignant. Many believed put on immortality. So when this corrupti- in his name, when they saw the miracles ble shall have put on incorruption, and this which he did." But the Searcher of hearts mortal shall have put on immortality, then discerned under a sound belief, a dangerous, shall be brought to pass the saying that an unsubdued perversity of disposition in is written, death is swallowed up in vic- which he could not confide. "But Jesus did tory." not commit himself unto them." In this Christ acted as a pattern to his disciples, and conformed himself to the doctrine which he taught them. "Beware of men: be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." There is an excess of caution unworthy of a noble and generous mind, which damps exertion and poisons society. But there is also an ex

The importance of this doctrine, in the scale of Christianity, will warrant our following up the article of our Lord's history which we have been reviewing, to its more remote effects and consequences. This will accordingly form the substance of the following Lecture.

sincere in the power of the crafty and designing. True wisdom safely conducts its possessor through the channel which divides them. "A prudent man," says Solomon, "foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself, but the simple pass on, and are punished."

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This passover afforded occasion of work-cess of confidence which puts the candid and ing various other public miracles, which are not enumerated in the sacred record, but which attracted attention, and produced conviction in the minds of many who saw and heard him. He was now at the metropolis of the country, and at the season of universal resort to Jerusalem. Of the multitudes who flocked thither to celebrate the feast of passover, very many must have been in the habit of searching the scriptures, and were, with Simeon, "waiting for the consolation of Israel," and with Anna the prophetess, "looking for redemption in Jerusalem." Persons of this description must have been forcibly impressed with the personal appearance of Jesus Christ, with the singularity of his manner and address, with the gravity and dignity | of his deportment, with the authority which he exercised in teaching and reproving. His zeal in the purgation of the temple, and the sign which he proposed as the evidence of his inission, must have been noticed and felt. When these proofs of an extraordinary character were accompanied and supported by a display of miraculous powers, the effect must have been what the evangelist relates: "When he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast-day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did." Nor was this impression confined to vulgar minds, for we presently find a man high in rank and

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The chapter concludes with an ascription to Christ of one of the incommunicable attributes of Deity, the knowledge of the thoughts of men: "He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.' Of this he had given an illustrious instance in the case of Nathanael, whose character he clearly discerned before any personal intercourse had taken place: "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee." Here it is reduced to a general proposition of high moment. "The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son" and he is qualified for the discharge of this all-important office, by a perfect knowledge not only of the actions of a man's life, but of the motives from which he acted, and of the end at which he aimed. May it be engraved on the living table of our heart, that God "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 him from the dead."

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HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST.

LECTURE CXXVII.

AFTER ADMINISTERING THE LORD'S SUPPER.

But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Thou fool. that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest no: that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead: it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.-1 CORINTHIANS xv. 35—44.

To him who believes in the life and immortality which are brought to light by the gospel; to him who has the witness of death every day presented to his eyes, and who feels it continually in his own frame, can it ever be unseasonable or unprofitable to hear of the ground of his holy faith, of his glorious privileges, of his exalted hope? Does the worldling ever tire in calculating his gains, and of reckoning over his hoard? Is the eager heir ever cloyed in contemplating his fair and ample expected inheritance? When were the praises, the reported successes, wisdom, and virtue of a darling child, a burden on the listening ear of parental affection? When was the eye fatigued in surveying the beautiful and majestic fabric of nature, or turned away from it with disgust? Wherefore, then, should it be apprehended that the disciple of Jesus, who has fled for refuge to the hope set before him, whose brightest prospects open beyond the grave, who is rejoicing in the promise of his Master's coming "the second time, without sin, unto salvation;" wherefore suppose that such a person could say, "What a weariness is it!" when the preacher's theme is the complete restoration of man's fallen nature, the resurrection of the body, the perfect resemblance of all the members of Christ to the glorious head, the final and unfading triumph of redeeming love? No, well-pleased you withdraw from the pursuit of temporal pleasure and profit, from surveying the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them, from contemplating even the more The apostle introduces an unbeliever caglorious wonders of the starry heavens, to villing at the doctrine of the resurrection, expatiate over the blissful regions of Ema- and triumphantly demanding, as one defying nuel's land, to drink of "the pure river of the all possibility of reply, "How are the dead water of life," to eat of the fruit of the tree raised up? and with what body do they of life, to feast on the promise of "new hea- coine?" Grasping at mere phantoms of worldvens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth ly hope, credulous as children in admitting righteousness," where there is no more death," the unreal mockery" of a heated imagina where the curse is not known, where God | tion, men doubt and disbelieve only when

himself shall wipe away all tears from all eyes.

Previous to the breaking of bread, in commemoration of our Saviour's dying love to perishing sinners, we were led to meditate on the final consummation which the ordinance has directly in view. "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come;" an event which involves in itself the fate of angels and of men; an event which shall exhibit the grandest display of the divine power and wisdom, of justice, goodness, and truth; an event which is at once the object of just terror, and the purest source of joy. One, and that not the least interesting, consideration connected with the prospect of that "great and notable day of the Lord," is that which constitutes the subject of the apostle's reasoning in the passage which has been now read, namely, the resurrection of the dead. The ground of belief respecting this is the truth and certainty of Christ's resurrection, on the third day after his passion, conformably to frequently repeated, well-known, and minutely particular predictions respecting this illustrious event. These were the subject of the preceding Lecture. "Jesus and the resurrection," were the great theme of Paul's preaching at learned Athens, and of his epistles to the churches, particu larly to the Corinthians, in this chapter. This is the sure foundation which God hath laid in Zion, and lo, What a structure is Providence rearing upon it!

the God of truth speaks; they are careless then, that limited faculties are lost in the in only where their spiritual and everlasting vestigation of that which is greatest? Can interests are concerned: they reject that the clown tell how the handful of “bare which reason and religion concur to prove, grain" which he scattered along the surface which the constitution and frame of nature, of the ground, has been transformed into a in her unceasing reproductions, stamp with multitude of stately, fair and fragrant plants? striking marks of probability, and which a No, and neither can the philosopher. But revelation from heaven has rendered infalli- the simplest clown is a philosopher too enble. The objection of infidelity proceeds on lightened to doubt, or to disbelieve what the supposition that there is nothing apparent uniform observation and experience have in the system of the universe which is ana- confirmed to him. He is too wise to suspend logous to the resurrection of the body; that the operations of his useful and necessary it is inconsistent with all knowledge and ex- art, till he has discovered the how and the perience. The apostle goes on to demon- wherefore of it. Can the philosopher then strate that this change, wonderful as it is, arrogate to himself the praise of wisdom, has its counterpart in nature, and is perfectly who refuses the information, and denies himconsistent with appearances which fall every self the consolations of Christianity, because day under every man's observation, and he cannot penetrate into every mystery, rewhich are level to every human capacity. solve every difficulty, and dispel all the obHe refers the infidel to the universally known scurity which it presents? What one art or and understood progress of vegetation, which science has been carried to its highest posis a constant representation of death and the sible perfection? Do men therefore neglect resurrection, of corruptibility and incorruption. to avail themselves of the progress which One of the most obvious and ordinary opera- has been made in science? And shall the tions in husbandry day presents the image most profound of all sciences, but which has, of this great mystery of godliness. The seed, of all others, been most successfully investiO man, which thou castest into the ground, gated, whose discoveries are far more in is surrendered to loss, to putrefaction, to number, and in their nature infinitely more death. It disappears, it seems for ever gone, important than all the rest, be laughed to its form and substance, all, all is dissolved. scorn, be despised and rejected, because it No, sir, it dies but to be quickened. Indeed presents "some things hard to be underit could not have been quickened, unless it stood," because some of its grander discovehad died. What dropped into the earth, a ries are reserved to a future exhibition, besingle, solitary grain, springs up out of it, cause there are "times and seasons," interincreased thirty, sixty, a hundredfold. Had positions, relations, and dependencies" which the little seed never known corruption, the Father hath put in his own power." where would have been that goodly tree laden with golden fruit? It fell naked into the ground, it rises thence clothed with a new, verdant, transparent covering. It every day unfolds some latent beauty, it assumes a more majestic form, it expands an unknown excellence. Its temporary destruction is its perennial establishment.

"So also is the resurrection of the dead." The body was emaciated by disease, it withered by reason of age, it was lost in the grave, it became a mass of corruption. But does it follow that it shall remain for ever a prey to corruption? Does it follow, that it shall rise again with the selfsame qualities which it formerly possessed? No, it is the glory of God not to raise up again weakness, mortality, corruption, but out of weakness to raise power, to clothe corruption with incorruption, to swallow up mortality of life. But how is this done? I cannot tell. O man, "thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all." Who is able to trace and to describe the common process of vegetable nature? Where is the man that presumes to explain that which is least? Is it any wonder,

Again, "God," it is said, "giveth to every seed his own body." "Thou fool," argues St. Paul, "that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body." This implies, that the change produced by the resurrection is not arbitrary or contingent, but established by a certain law, conformably to the nature and qualities of each distinct species. What was wheat, continues to be wheat, after it has risen again. What was any other kind of grain, when cast into the earth, rises up that selfsame kind of grain, and no other. The individual substance is indeed changed, but the essential properties, the specific and distinguishing qualities remain. The same vital principle animates it in every state; when it sprung up in the germ of the parent seed; when it became naked, dry grain, when it lay buried under the clod; when it mouldered away and died, and when it started up again in all the vigour and freshness of a new life. Doth not man, in like manner, in his body, in his mind, in his condition, undergo revolutions equally obvious, equally

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