fervent zeal, and love abounding. "Filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God."

To grow in grace is a personal advantage. We have to do and to suffer, brethren: use the means, be in action; new scenes will open, new paths to glory will be struck out. Soon our graces will be proved and matured, our trials will be over, our days of mourning ended, and the eternity of our happiness will begin. "Absent from the body, present with the Lord."

To all the readers of our magazine I conclude by praying that they may enjoy spiritual health and prosperity. Camberwell.

JOHN GEORGE.

THE POWER OF THE RESURRECTION.

By power, in respect to the Resurrection of Christ, Paul means the operation of this great fact which produces appropriate results or effects. When we speak of the power of a truth, we mean that it is a cause which produces certain effects upon mind, character, and conduct. A political truth is sometimes so great in its influence as to abolish ancient governments, and thrones, and institutions, and to create a new political life throughout the length and breadth of a country. Religious truths have transmuted and ennobled the religious life of many a nation. The advent of a great truth creates an epoch in one's intellectual life; and all noble epochs in commerce, and politics, and governments, and reformations, and science, have had their origin in the advent of a great truth. The power of the Resurrection is threefold: it is Evidential, Revealing, and Creative.

First, it is Evidential. In the mind of the Apostle Paul, and the other Apostles, the Resurrection of Christ was the chief proof of the Deity. This to them was not an insulated and isolated fact. They looked at it as a fact on which rested His Deity, the authority of His claims, and the credibility of His sayings. It was in their mind the supreme and most satisfactory proof of the divinity. of His person, and promises, and purposes. The enemies of Christ were aware of the conclusive evidential value of His Resurrection. It is a most noteworthy circumstance that Christ's acute and alert enemies never said anything like this: "Well, granting His Resurrection, it does not prove that He is the Son of God." They put Him to death because He said He was the Son of God; and if death had held Him in His bonds they would have been sure that He was not the Son of God, but a pretender and deceiver. Hence, when they heard of His Resurrection, they flatly denied it; for they felt if He had risen from the dead, He and His claims and mission must be divine.

There are unique and marvellous issues involved in the Resurrection of Christ. All other resurrections of the dead have no connection with the claims and mission of those that were raised Their character and work

up to the time of their death would not in any way have been affected if they had not known a risen life. But it is not so with the Resurrection of Christ. To it are related some of the most express predictions that proceeded out of His mouth; He said He would rise again. He said He would raise Himself. He spoke of giving one great sign to the people the sign of the prophet Jonah. If these predictions are unfulfilled, we should not have a perfect man in Christ, we should not have a veracious man; but we should have, to use the blunt epithet of the Jews-a deceiver. Christ's moral character stands or falls with His Resurrection. Then His unique and wondrous claims are vitally connected with the Resurrection. He claimed evenness of Being with the Father; equality of working power with the Father; equality of authority with the Father; equality of honour and worship with the Father; and He claimed to be man's Redeemer, and Resurrection, and Lord, and Judge, and Eternal Life. These are bold and stupendous claims; the claims of God. Christ's Deity stands or falls with the Resurrection. But now hath Christ been raised from the dead. His Resurrection stamps His predictions and claims with the broad seal of the approval and acquiescence of the Father. It is the voice of the Father saying from the excellent glory, "This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him." As an argument for the divinity of Christ and Chris. tianity, the Resurrection in satisfactoriness and conclusiveness is unique and supreme. We are often led away in these disputing days from this rock of proof to arguments which are not so practical and conclusive. If Christianity were wholly or chiefly a system of truths we might reason from their uniqueness, and self-evidencing power, and purity, and consistency, and universal adaptiveness, and regenerative effects to their divinity. These characteristics, when combined, constitute a moral argument of great weight. But Christianity is not wholly nor chiefly a system of truths. It is not a theology, then a person, but a person, then a theology; it is a person, then a doctrine. The truths of Christianity have their foundation in a personal life and death. The life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ are the fount of the distinctive and dominant truths of Christianity. They come from Him; they conduct to Him. He is their source, their power, their end. The basis of Christianity as a system of truths is a personal history. The grand prooffact in that history is the Resurrection. It is a proof that all may appreciate men of culture, and men of no culture; men of ideality, and men of a practical turn of mind; and all kinds of rational men can appreciate a fact. To appreciate some of the moral arguments for the divinity and authority of Christianity requires special states of mind, and special knowledge, and special discipline; but all persons can appreciate the evidential value of a well-established fact. To deny such a fact is clear evidence of either immorality or irrationality. Such a fact puts an end to all speculation, and doubt, and uncertainty. We are bound to bow to the authority of facts. There may be men in the moon; we can speculate about that. There are men in Manchester: we cannot speculate about this. And then the Resurrection of Christ is unchangeable in its evidential value. Whatever minor theologic changes there may

be in the Christian Church, and whatever minor errors connected with the human authorship and text of certain Scriptures, the evidential value of the Resurrection of Christ remains the same. It is the permanence of this evidential fact that will for ever support the faith of men in Christianity, whatever changes may take place in the traditional theory of creation, the human authorship of certain books of the Old Testament, and the destiny of the wicked.

And again: this is an important point-the Resurrection of Christ is a proof which we may receive from those who first used it, if they had but one qualification. The only qualification really required to infallibly testify to a fact is to know that it happened. Those who first used this fact as a conclusive proof of the divinity of the Christian religion were the Apostles. To them whether Christ rose from the dead was a matter of fact, not a matter of logic nor learning; not a matter of speculation nor opinion, but a simple, naked matter of fact. What is required to believe in a fact-to publish a fact? Only this: to know that it happened. The Apostles knew that this fact of all facts had happened. Some of them knew Christ when He was a boy, knew Him for two or three years as their Teacher and Friend; they travelled with Him, and listened to His discourses; and after His violent and public death, and obscure burial, they saw Him again and again; they ate and drank with Him; and often listened to His great teachings concerning His kingdom. No wonder that they were consistent in declaring this fact; that they all suffered for it; and that most of them died as witnesses to it. In the minds of the Apostles the Resurrection was the conclusive and inviolable proof of the divinity and authority of Christ and Christianity. And it is this still; and it ever will be this. The author of "Natural Religion" tells us that "Larevellere-Lepeaux once confided to Talleyrand his disappointment at the ill success of his attempt to bring into vogue a sort of improved Christianity, a benevolent Rationalism which he had invented to meet the wants of a sceptical age." "His propaganda made no way," he said. "What was he to do?" he asked. The ex-Bishop politely condoled with him, feared it was a difficult task to found a new religion, more difficult than could be imagined, so difficult that he hardly knew what to advise. "Still"-so he went on after a moment's reflection-"there is one plan which you might at least try; I should recommend you TO BE CRUCIFIED, AND TO RISE AGAIN THE THIRD DAY."

There is, secondly, the Revealing power of the Resurrection. It reveals a future existence for man. It is much more than the future existence of the soul, of which the Resurrection of Christ is a revelation. It is an old-time question: "If a man die, shall he live again?" The only adequate affirmative answer is the Resurrection of Christ. It makes this sufficing answer because it is a complete victory over death; and more. Christ rose from the dead with unimpaired faculties of body and mind. He, on the morning of the third day, rose unhurt by His submission to the powers of the grave; the Holy One did not see corruption. If this were all we could say about His Resurrection it would be a revelation of unimpaired personal life after death. This is much; but it is not all. With His Resurrection Christ began a life

higher and heavenlier than His life before His Crucifixion. He was still the same, yet more than the same. He did not die again. He confined His appearances to His disciples. He went no more outside their circle. To them He manifested Himself, and from them He vanished. He did not join them and leave them in the old method. He stood in their midst. He disappeared. Mary, to whom He first appeared, thought at one moment that He was a Spirit. He is her Lord still, but so far changed that she thinks He is a Spirit. At one of His later manifestations of Himself, by appointment, some who saw worshipped Him, but others doubted. There are certain circumstances in the life of the Forty Days which intimate that Christ gradually changed from the terrestrial into the celestial as He drew near to His ascension. In the ascension the Resurrection transformation was consummated. The last of the earthly and mortal and corruptible was laide aside ere, or as, He ascended into heaven. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. The man Christ Jesus, in the fulness and perfection of celestial power and glory and incorruption, ascended into heaven. Thus received, the Resurrection becomes a clear and grand revelation. It is of vast value as a fact; it is of supreme value as a revelation of the celestial glory of personal existence and life after death. Christ has brought life and immortality to light. And this is a revelation of a future, personal existence, which addresses itself to our senses. This weighty testimony of the senses is stated by John in the grand opening passage of his first Epistle : That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled concerning the word of life. . . . that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you."

When standing by the side of the dead, or walking amongst their tombs, the usual arguments for the immortality of the soul are not enough to satisfy us on the question of personal immortality. And in the "solitary and still air of delightful studies" most persons feel that these arguments are not a demonstration of the immortality of the soul, and less a proof of personal immortality. It is well known that the purest sages of Pagan times had no settled conviction of the soul's necessary immortality. The good and great Socrates, whilst dying his noble death, did not feel sure what the destiny of his soul would be, although he had dwelt long and profoundly on the philosophical arguments with which we are well acquainted. It is the use and virtue of these arguments that they point to the fact of personal immortality, which shines so clearly in the revelation which we have in Christ Jesus. The immortality of man He has brought out of all obscuring mist and shade, and placed it in the full light of perfect day. In the celestial life of the man Christ Jesus we have a full-orbed revelation of the Resurrection, of the dead.

But this is not all. He connects our future personal existence with Himself. He said on a great occasion, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Martha, in speaking of her dead brother to our Lord, said, “I know that he shall rise again." Christ replied to this by directing her mind to the only true and sufficient ground of the future existence of her

brother. And what He said turns into a certainty the probability of the philosophical arguments for the soul's continuous existence, and reveals the adequate basis of a grand and inspiring fath in personal immortality. "I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me, shall never die." On another great occasion Christ said, "Because I live, ye shall live also."

His

And then, again, our Lord's Resurrection secures ours. It is not an isolated fact, like the Resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, and that of the only son of the widow of Nain, and that of Lazarus. Christ's Resurrection has a vital connection with every member of the human race. Resurrection and ours are connected, in the revelation of the New Testament, as cause and effect, as root and fruit. This is the doctrine of the magnificent words of the Apostle Paul: "But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of them that are asleep. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each man in his own order. Christ the first-fruits, then they that are Christ's at his coming." In the Resurrection of Christ we have the only adequate reason, and the unclouded revelation, of personal immortality. Men shall live again.

Then, thirdly, there is the Creative power of the Resurrection. The monuments of its creative power are connected both with the past and the present. The first day of the week commemorates the Resurrection of Christ, and is consecrated to His worship and glory. The Jewish Sabbath, which commemorated the completion of the work of creation, naturally and quickly gave way to the Christian Sunday, which celebrates the consummation of the grander work of redemption. The first day of the week, as the Lord's day, soon took the place of the Jewish Sabbath. Every seventh day became an Easter day. Easter Sunday happens fiftytwo times a year. This is a most significant tribute to the creative power of the Resurrection. In this new fact, in those early times, there must have been a power which reached the deepest things in men's hearts, and raised and ruled them. It seems to us that it would be impossible to change the day of the Christian Sunday, and to put the new day to new uses in the practices of the Christians of our country; yet we do not surpass the Jews in our attachment to the Lord's day, in our sense of its commemorative value, our regard to its venerable traditions and associations, and estimate of its spiritual uses. It is the creative power of the Resurrection that accounts for the Jewish Sabbath silently and swiftly yielding to the Christian Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath, although so venerable; and so much love was left in the shade by the brightness of the glory of the risen Christ.

It is owing to the creative power of the Resurrection that we love the Churches of the New Testament. These societies were unparalleled in respect to morality and holiness by any we read of in the world's previous history. Their spiritual light shone out splendidly amid the darkness and foulness of pagan superstitions and corruptions. Only a living Christ could have created and upheld them.