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"Old Guard"-the most valorous and effective division of his army-till he saw the ranks of the enemy beginning to waver; then he hurled this reserve like a thunderbolt upon the reeling foe and completed his discomfiture. Thus ought the preacher to act. In the sermon of Peter at the Pentecost, in that of Philip before the Jewish Sanhedrim, and in that of Paul before Agrippa, we are furnished with beautiful illustrations of this method of concluding

a sermon.

The work of constructing a sermon is, properly speaking, a work of thought, carried on within the laboratory of the mind. During its process you may, and probably will, use your pen more or less freely in sketching the outline and noting the main ideas, but when the mental elaboration is complete, when by continuous thinking you have mapped and constructed the sermon, then set to work in earnest and write it out. Even if you had enjoyed the benefit of a university education I would advise you to write your sermons; it is all the more necessary you should do so, considering the educational disadvantages under which you labour. I do not, however, say that in every instance it is imperative your sermons should be written; that would be exacting too much of It would even be to your advantage to venture at times on extemporaneous preaching; not preaching without previous thought, mind you, but without previous writing, or writing to any great But let it be the rule of your ministry to write your sermons. A time may perhaps come in your history when by reason of ripeness and pliancy of intellect you may be able to dispense in a great measure with writing for the pulpit, but you had better make up your minds to it that for years to come you will have to submit to this toil.

extent.

you.

The advantages of writing your sermons are numerous. It gives precision to thought. What is hazy and indefinite when confined within the region of the mind, becomes luminous and distinct when subjected to the manipulation of writing. It also gives completeness and consistency to thought. The slow process of writing enables the mind to detect many a hiatus, many a weak and imperfect link in the concatenation of ideas, which escaped cognizance while the sermon was being mentally elaborated. Finally, it enriches and enlarges your vocabulary. Hosts of words hanging on the outskirts of your mental horizon, and which would probably never become of much service to you if you trusted to extemporaneous speech, are by means of writing made familiar to your ken, and become your ready servants.

After writing your sermon commit it to memory, and commit it fully. Don't merely read it over two or three times and then leave yourselves to fill up what you forget by extemporaneous speech. This is a vicious plan, productive of great confusion in preaching.

Let your memory grasp and retain every sentence as you have written it, not that you may recite with literal exactitude the words of your MS., but that you may have absolute command of your MS.; that when preaching you may feel free to walk in the exact line you have mapped out, or diverge ever and anon into conterminous paths opened out by the inspiration of the hour.

Let me, in conclusion, remind you that it is of essential moment you should maintain in sermonising a right moral and spiritual tone of mind. Deep, heartfelt sympathy with the subject of study and with the ends of your ministry, loyalty to God, to truth, and to the spiritual interests of humanity, an honest, earnest desire to be good and to do good, these are moral conditions absolutely essential in the work of sermonising. An impure thought, a mercenary desire, an envious feeling will cloud your vision, paralyze your strength, and spread a vitiating influence through all your pulpit preparaTo be good sermonizers you must be good men.

tions.

ART. V.-THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.*

"Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." 1 Cor. xv. 12-17.

O determine the much debated question concerning the origin

spiritual purity was altogether impossible in connection with material organisation, maintained that evil had its cause in matter. A knowledge of this theory will aid us to understand both in its grounds and nature, the dogma respecting the general resurrection which was current in the Corinthian church. The resurrection of the body it was thought could not be, for that would be the perpetuation of evil, and would render the highest degree of blessedness unrealisable. This teaching the apostle meets by asserting the reality of Christ's resurrection. He who was purity itself had risen from the dead, and, as the Son of man, had ascended to the right hand of the Father. This was the pith and marrow of apostolic testimony, and how in contrariety to it could any member of the Christian church say the resurrection of the dead was impossible?

The resurrection of Christ upon which the apostle insists in the *The preparatory sermon of the Preachers' Association meeting, Sunderland district, 1865.

discussion conducted in this chapter is a point of the greatest importance in relation to the divine origin of the Christian faith. Let this resurrection be established as a fact, and it cannot then be questioned that Christianity is of God; for it lies not within the limits of human power that a man should raise either himself or his fellow from the dead. The apostle rests the entire question respecting the verity of the Christian faith upon this one fact. "If Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain-if Christ be not raised your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins"-but if Christ is risen from the dead, "How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ?” The truth of this and every other Christian doctrine necessarily follows if the fact of Christ's resurrection is admitted.

The first course of remark we intend pursuing relates to the point whether or not the resurrection of Christ comes within the limits of possibility.

"But

In the several reports of this fundamental fact of the Christian scheme there is considerable variation of detail, as every reader of the Gospels knows, and perhaps it may be beyond the power of the highest critical skill to obviate every difficulty arising from this difference in statement. But there are considerations which serve to show that these dissimilarities are only such as might be reasonably expected. For instance, there is the change from a depressed state of mind to a condition of high excitement which the disciples experienced. After the death of Christ his chosen circle of followers seem to have yielded to considerable, if not to great mental depression. Their feelings are mournfully and naturally expressed by the two who journeyed to Emmaus. we trusted" said they to their stranger associate, "that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel." This trust had been shaken and the consequence was a dejection corresponding to the liveliness and ambition of their previous hopes. The change experienced when it was reported that he had risen did not unfit them to testify to a matter of fact; but we have in it reason to suppose that while the main fact was affirmed by each of the witnesses many points of detail would be overlooked, and others differently related. A second consideration is, that no two men in relation either to an occurrence or statement occupy precisely the same standpoint. What arrests the attention of one man and impresses him deeply has very little effect upon his fellow. Men are affected by what they see and hear according to their peculiar temperaments and predominant habitudes of thought. And whenever any statement is volunteered concerning what has been seen or heard, the person offering the statement gives particular prominence to what specially arrested his attention, and most forcibly impressed his mind. So fully are we convinced of this, that, when in any report

of an occurrence by two or three different persons we have absolute sameness in spirit and form, we invariably regard it as indicative of collusion and furnishing grave reason for suspicion. Now let these considerations be duly weighed in relation to the accounts furnished by the evangelists concerning the resurrection of Christ, and we shall not be at all surprised that, while the main facts are stated in each narrative, there is considerable diversity in the manner of narration as well as in minor details. Indeed this will be regarded more as a recommendation than otherwise; a warrant of the honesty and truthfulness of the reports.

The resurrection of Christ falls within the province of miracle. It is indeed in the Christian system the miracle of miracles. From time to time there has been decided objection taken to the miraculous. Miracle has been affirmed to be incredible. The ground of this objection has been rather ambiguously stated as the general experience of men. The laws of nature are invariableday and night-summer and winter-growth and decay-all the changes and processes with which men are conversant are under settled and fixed law. The human mind possesses no more settled belief than that of the invariableness of nature. On the other hand men are given to lying; their testimony cannot always be depended upon. Interest, prejudice, caprice, and many other causes contribute to determine men to speak falsely. There is nothing better known than this frequent falsity of testimony. From these premises it therefore follows that it is more reasonable to consider testimony false than to believe natural law has been interfered with. This objection has been often met, but perhaps never more forcibly than by Dr. Chalmers. He does not lay any very great stress upon the ambiguity of the objection, nor trouble himself much with the distinction between particular and general experience. He grapples with the objection upon its own ground. There is a kind of testimony which has never proved false: for instance, when the main subjects of the testimony are more or less unpalatable, things which men have no desire to hear-when there can be nothing gained by the testimony, but when it involves great sacrifice and loss;-now experience certifies as strongly as it does to the unvariableness of natural law, that this kind of testimony in relation to what is said to have been witnessed has never proved false and this kind of testimony is offered in support of the reality of New Testament miracles, and of the resurrection of Christ in particular. The only way in which an attempt can be made to invalidate testimony of this sort is to show that though the witnesses are fully persuaded that what they affirm is true, yet it is possible they are deceived. That a position like this cannot be maintained in relation to the disciples will be shown when we come to consider the resurrection of Christ as an event which has actually transpired.

We are not prepared to deny that testimony is often false-this is granted. But at the same time it may be proper to observe that testimony is often true; and what is more, that testimony of a given kind (the circumstances of the witnesses having been such as to furnish the necessary data), has never been found false. Experience is as decisive here as in relation to any question with which it is competent to deal; so that at least as much may be said upon the ground of experience on behalf of miracles as can be said against them.

It is also alleged that miracle is impossible. This objection, to say the least of it, is pretentious. The knowledge of the man who ventures to postulate a statement like this must be wide and diversified. Indeed it seems almost necessary that he should be acquainted with whatever is possible; in fact be a miracle in himself, in order to render this assertion of any real value. But pretentiousness is not the worst that may be affirmed of this objection, there is in it a touch of impiety; were it not for this it would be rather amusing that a man, but of yesterday, and whose entire compass of life is only a span, should undertake to say what can be, and what cannot be, within the illimitable reaches of creative energy. There is nothing which appears more like usurping the place of God, and speaking as God, than for man to say that this or that thing, which involves in its accomplishment no direct contradiction, cannot be brought to pass even by divine power.

It seems singular that any enlightened theist should maintain the impossibility of miracle. This position can only be made good by showing, either, that the power of the operator is inadequate to the work alleged, or that the accomplishment of the work involves a positive contradiction. In reference to miracle as the work of God, the former cannot be advanced except in so far as it implies the latter. Now those who advocate that miracle is impossible, urge that interference with the regular order of things does involve positive contradiction. But is this really the case? We are guilty of positive contradiction when we affirm that a thing has been, or is, otherwise than it can possibly be, agreeably to its nature and the conditions of its being. If it be possible for it to be otherwise than it is, then to say that at a given time, or in a given case, it has been otherwise does not involve a positive contradiction however much what we call regular order may have been disturbed. Is then the existing arrangement of phenomena the only one possible? If any other arrangement be possible, or if any modification of the existing arrangement be possible, then miraculous interference cannot be affirmed impossible, for it involves no real contradiction. If we were to maintain that two straight lines could be drawn parallel to each other through the same point without coinciding, or that by the addition of equals to unequals the result would be equal, we

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