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hope. Go and ask the son or the daughter, where the parent is who nursed their helpless infancy, and sung to their childhood amidst its sunshines and showers, and loved, counselled, suffered and still forgave; - ask them where that parent is, now that the face of father or mother is seen no more. They will say, In heaven! Ask the parents, where that child is whom they so lately held and led by the hand, listening to its fresh wonder, cheered by its cheerfulness, and taught by its questionings and its purity. They may not be able to speak, but they will look upwards, and their hearts will answer, In heaven! There they have placed its image; there they see it smiling brightly upon them, in the labors of the day, and in the silent watches of the night and all the hundred hands of impiety and unbelief cannot tear it down. Nor can they take from the weary pilgrim the hope of his rest, from the traveller the sight of his home, from the virtuous and the lovers of virtue the prospect of a better world.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

Comparing the effects of the death of Christ with those of his resurrection, we shall exclaim with the apostle, "It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again."

But the truth is, that these great events in our Saviour's history can hardly be disjoined, when we are considering the effects of both, on our faith and acceptance with God. When we look at them in their connexion with each other, we shall see how necessary they are to each other. "Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead." If he had not died, he could not NO. 211.

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have risen. If he had not died, he would not have conquered death, nor taught us that we should also conquer it. If he had not descended into the tomb, he could not have burst it open, nor showed us that its gates could not detain us captive. It is on this account, and in this connexion, that he is called "the prince of life; or, to interpret the original more literally, "the leader on to life." He has gone with us down in to the vale of death, that he might go before us to life and immortality. He has taken his place with us in the grave, that he might prepare a place for us in the mansions of Heaven. He has pierced and rent asunder the veil of darkness which hung between two worlds, and led his followers on to life and light. Thus the resurrection itself may be called one end or object of the death of Christ, though in its immediate influences it is to be preferred before it. His death was necessary to his resurrection, but his resurrection confers on his death its chief importance. They are indissolubly united, however, as parts of the Gospel dispensation, and constitute together the firm ground of Christian faith and hope.

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This event is to be regarded, also, as one to which Jesus himself most earnestly appealed, as a final test of his high pretensions. On a certain occasion the Jews said unto him, "What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed

the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said." This declaration had been understood, however, in its proper sense by many of his enemies; for we are told by Matthew, that the day after the crucifixion, "the chief Priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead; so the last error shall be worse than the first." Now if this confident prediction of Jesus had not been fulfilled; if, after solemnly asserting that he should rise from the dead, he had not risen, but had remained in the tomb, what would have been the inference? Truly, either that he had deceived himself, or had attempted to deceive the world. The dilemma is inevitable; and in either case, though our admiration of his teachings might remain, our reliance upon himself could not have been what it now is.

As Jesus himself appealed to this event as a proof of his heavenly mission, so also did his disciples, the first preachers of his Gospel, proclaim it as the principal evidence of the great truths which they taught. "God," said the apostle Paul to the Athenians," 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." "Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Finally, the resurrection of Christ is the chief doctrine

of Christianity; the doctrine on which all the rest depend for their main support, and on which Christianity, as a system of facts, depends for its principal distinction. What is it which makes the Gospel promises so precious, but their expected fulfilment in another life? What makes its threatenings so awful, but that they point to a retribution hereafter? How would even the value of our Saviour's death be diminished, were it not that after death he rose again to life. This is the glorious truth on which we are to stand, as on the firmest ground of the believer's hope. Hear on this point the words of the apostle of the Gentiles; listen to the belief of Paul. "It is Christ that died," he says, yea, rather, that is risen again." "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain."

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yet in your sins." "Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." It is impossible for language to be more explicit, or more forcible; and if they are in error who exalt the resurrection as the principal doctrine of salvation, then surely Paul was in error too. *

The resurrection preached and testified unto by the apostles, is not a theory, not a belief to be supported only by abstract argument, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ their Lord, a fact, which precedes and gives assurance of the resurrection of the faithful, and which is inseparably connected with the whole scheme of a proper Christian faith. It was not for a resurrection depending on impression and inference, that they toiled and suffered and died; it was not such a faith which wrought in them that wonderful change which they experienced after the death of Jesus. They must have been familiar with such a resurrection before. They must have known

that it was held by the contemporary Pharisees. But if it had wrought no change in the Pharisees, it would have. wrought no change in them. The resurrection which they preached, and for which they suffered, was a resurrection which they had seen; and therein was its might, and its worth, and its glory, making immortality visible. It was the resurrection of a descendant of David; and thereby connected with the ancient promises of God. It was the resurrection of a prophet and teacher; and thereby conferring supreme authority on his precepts, and stamping his commandments with a divine seal. It was the resurrection of a holy one and just; and thereby connected with all the love and sympathy which clings round a form of perfect purity, benevolence, dignity, especially if it be wronged and injured, and wronged and injured for our sakes. It was the resurrection of him who ascended to his Father, and sits on the right hand of God, and is the Head of the Church, and the appointed Judge of men; and thereby associated with the highest reverence and hope and fear, with unseen wonders, with conversation in heaven, with preparation for the judgment and the future world. Is not this a very different resurrection from a reasoned and argued resurrection; from a resurrection without a Lord of life, and Son of God, who rises from the dead and ascends into heaven? The resurrection which the apostles preached and taught, is the rssurrection of Jesus Christ; salvation to Jews and Gentiles, to the primitive believers, and to all believers till this world shall end.

Now, my friends, what do they do, who deny the resturrection of Christ, even though they may maintain, as the Pharisees formerly did, a resurrection of their own? In the first place they reject, and lose, and make of no

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