SERMON I.

Acтs, x. 40, 41.

Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly; not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before of God.

THE prop and pillar of the Christian's hope (which being once removed the entire building would give way), is the great event which we at this season commemorate, the resurrection of our Lord; insomuch that the evidence of that fact may properly be considered as the seal of his pretensions, and of the expectation of his followers. If, notwithstanding the pure and holy life which Jesus led, the sublimity of the doctrine which he taught, and the natural excellence of the duties which he enjoined; if, after all the miracles which he performed, he was at last forsaken of the God to whose service his life had been devoted; if his soul at last was left in hell, and the Holy One of God was suffered, like a common man, to become the prey of worms and putrefaction, then truly is our preaching vain, and your faith is vain. It is to no purpose that we exhort you to sacrifice present interest to future hopes; to renounce the gratifications of sense for those promised enjoyments in the presence of God; to rely on his atonement for the pardon of involuntary

offences; and to trust to a continual supply of the Holy Spirit, proportioned to the temptations which the world presents. It is to no purpose that ye submit to a life of mortification and constraint, of warfare with the world, and of conflict with the sensual appetite it is to no purpose that ye stand in jeopardy every hour, in painful apprehension of the wiles of the great deceiver, the treachery of your own unguarded hearts, and the sallies of unconquered appetites. “If Christ be not risen from the dead," all promises that are made to you in his name are vain, and the contempt of the present world is folly. If Christ be not risen from the dead, the consequence must either be, that he was an imposter, and that his whole doctrine was a fraud; or if the purity of his life might still screen him from so foul an imputation, and the truth of his pretensions be supposed consistent with a failure of his predictions in the most important article, you would only have in him a discouraging example of how little estimation in the sight of God is the utmost height of virtue to which human nature can attain. If neither the unspotted sanctity of our Saviour's character, nor his intimate union with the first principle of life itself, could give him a deliverance from the bonds of death, what hope for us who have neither claim nor plea but what is founded on the value of the Redeemer's sufferings; no union with God but what we enjoy as the disciples and worshippers of his incarnate Son. But, beloved, "Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept." His resurrection was the accomplishment both of the ancient prophecies and of his own prediction; a declaration on the part of God that the great atonement was accepted; an attestation to the truth of our Sa

viour's doctrine and of his high pretensions; a confirmation of the hopes of his followers, which renders it no less unreasonable, as the case stands, to doubt of the ultimate completion of his largest promises, than it would have been to hope, had his promises been. actually found to fail in so principal an instance. We have reason, therefore, to be thankful, that in the first preaching of the Gospel, Providence ordained that a fact of such importance should be accompanied with irresistible evidence. Nor can we better employ the present season which the church devotes to the commemoration of this great event, than in considering how complete the evidence of the fact is, notwithstanding the cavils that may be raised against it. For this reason I have chosen for my text a passage of Holy Writ, in which, as it stands at least in our English Bibles, the evidence is set forth to the least advantage.

The proof of the fact arises, we are told, from the testimony of those, who, from the time of our Lord's first entrance on his ministry, had been his constant attendants. Their report was, that the sepulchre, in which his body had been laid, was found empty on the third morning from the day of his crucifixion, notwithstanding the precaution which the Jews had taken to set sentinels to prevent a fraudulent removal of the body by his disciples; that his resurrection was declared by angels to certain of his female attendants, who, for the purpose of embalming his body, made an early visit to the sepulchre ; — that he appeared to these women on their return to the city, and that same evening came unexpectedly upon the eleven apostles as they sat at meat; - that for forty days after this he appeared from time to time to the apostles,

sometimes partaking of their meals, discoursing with them upon the propagation of the Gospel, and showing himself alive by many infallible proofs.

The credibility of evidence in all cases arises from the number, the information, and the veracity of the witnesses. The number of the witnesses in the present case, if we reckon only the eleven apostles (and many more might be reckoned), was far greater than has ever been deemed sufficient to establish a fact in a court of justice in the most intricate and weighty causes. Their information upon the general point in question, "that our Lord was seen alive after his crucifixion," was the most complete that can be imagined: THEY could not be mistaken in his person, who had so long and so constantly attended him. The veracity of a witness is to be measured, not simply by the probity of his disposition and his habits of sincerity, but by the motives which circumstances may present to him to adhere to the truth, or to deviate from it. No man loves falsehood for its own sake no man, therefore, deliberately propagates a lie, but for the sake of some advantage to himself; and the advantage which a man pursues by falsehood must always be something in the present world: his ease and security, or the advancement of his fortune. For no one who looks forward to a future state thinks that his interest there may be served by falsehood. It always, therefore, heightens the credit of a witness, if he is materially a sufferer by the testimony which he gives, when he could not suffer, either in fortune, ease, or reputation, by a contrary testimony. The apostles asserted our Lord's resurrection to their own loss, and at the hazard of their lives. To have denied his resurrection, at least to have disproved it,