THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

WITH no true believer in the Revelation which God has given, can it be for a moment questioned that the doctrine of the Resurrection stands prominent and preeminent among the disclosures of that sacred volume. The dark guessings of the ancient philosophies-the dim intimations-the uncertain hopes-the timorous deductions of the universal reason-that man, in his essential being, shall survive the triumphs of the tomb, and possess immortal life, are all confirmed, authenticated, and assured to his faith, by the teachings of Him, who hath brought life and immortality to light." Upon the impregnable rock of the same authority stands the asserted fact of the resurrection of Christ himself, who rose "as the first fruits of them that slept." The fact of our resurrection is indissolubly connected with that of his, with only those differences which must necessarily accrue, in the nature of the case, from the difference that separates man from the God-man. The great mystery of godliness-"God manifest in the flesh"-the true constitution of the theanthropic person of Christ, we assume not to fathom. We receive it as an ultimate fact, resting upon the sole authority of the inspired word, that in the economy of redemption, the

Divinity came into union with the humanity, and tabernacled in the flesh. We receive it, also, that this Divine Person died on the cross, so far as he could die, and that he rose from the dead as truly as he died. So far we are occupying ground common to all evangelical Christians. With them, also, we fully agree in the impor tance of this fact, as the great central truth of Christianity, and the demonstrated pledge of the doctrine of the resurrection of the saints. The return to life on the third day of the august Lord of life, ever has been, and ever is to be, the assured seal and earnest of the living again of those who have slept in Jesus. But how far the resurrection of Christ is to be regarded as an exact pattern of the resurrection of the saints, can only be determined by determining how far, from the nature of each, the conditions of the one could find a parallel in those of the other. It is certain that the body of Christ did not see corruption." It is certain that the bodies of the saints do see corruption. This establishes at once an immeasurable diversity, in this respect, between the two. In the one case, a body is made the subject of a change called resurrection, while its organic integrity remains unimpaired; in the other, if the common view be admitted, bodies which have been dissolved, dissipated, and formed into countless new combinations, are to be reconstructed, and vivified anew by their respective souls or spirits, and thus made to live again as the identical bodies which died. If this be not the commonly received view, we would gladly be informed what it is.

Again, it is clear that the divino-human constitution. of our Lord's person must be the ground of an immense difference in the conditions of his state and that of his

people, both after and before his resurrection. We can not justly reason from the one to the other. It does not follow, that because man, from the laws of his nature, goes into a resurrection-state as soon as he dies, without reference to his gross material body, that the same holds good of the risen Jesus. Nor can any thing be more unjust than to attach such a consequence to a train of reasoning designed to show that the true doctrine of the resurrection of mankind does not involve or imply the resurrection of the same body.

The question, then, comes fairly for consideration respecting the nature of Christ's resurrection, and the quality of the body with which he emerged from the tomb of Joseph, and in which he appeared, from time to time, during the forty days previous to the ascension from the Mount of Olives. In determining this question, we readily admit that our only source of informa tion is the inspired oracles. Reason and science are utterly at fault in the attempt to solve a problem which involves the nature and laws of that existence upon which He entered at his resurrection, who says so sublimely of himself, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." We are thrown entirely upon the disclosures of revelation for the needed light upon this subject, and by the teachings of that word we readily abide. What is its testimony?

Before entering upon the inquiry, it may be well to advert to an objection of somewhat grave character urged against the evangelical narrative of the resurrection of Christ, founded upon the fact, that it was not strictly a public event so ordered as to have been universally or generally visible. So far from this having been

the case, we are expressly told by Peter, Acts, 10: 40, 41, that though God had raised him up on the third day, and in a certain sense had shown him " 'openly," yet "not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with him, after he rose from the dead." Now, as our Lord's resurrection was designed to be the grand and crowning proof of the truth of his mission and his religion, why was the evidence of this great fact confined within such narrow limits? Why was not a broader blazon given to it? Why did he not after his resurrection appear openly to the chief priests and rulers of the Jews? Why not to the body of the people? As his commission related in an especial manner to them-as he says of himself, "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"-why should not the main credentials of his mission be laid before them, who were mainly concerned in the evidence of its divinity?

These interrogations will seem reasonable to those to whom the demand of the Jews, at his crucifixion, would have seemed reasonable: "If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him." This differed in reality but little from saying, that if the Saviour by coming down from the cross, and foregoing crucifixion, would prove that he was not the Christ, they would believe that he was. Every part of his work, to its minutest details, was the accomplishment of a profound plan of infinite wisdom, which often orders its procedures in a method directly opposite to that which would have been adopted by the carnal, narrow, and short-sighted wisdom of man. Yet, in a deeper scanning of the Divine

counsels, we frequently find our own limited conclusions rebuked by the obvious propriety of the course which we learn to have been actually chosen by Him who "sees the end from the beginning." In the present case it is clear, that, although our Lord's commission had indeed embraced a special and primary reference to the Jews, yet it included also a higher and wider designation, which was to be developed upon his rejection by those to whom he originally came. While he was indeed the Messiah promised to the Jews, he was also appointed to be the great High Priest and Saviour of the world. During his lifetime he had by his miracles and teachings afforded all requisite evidence of the truth of his claims. He had fed the famishing, healed the sick, and raised the dead. He had done the works which no man could do unless God, in a pre-eminent sense, were with him. They were, therefore, left without excuse, and the multiplication of miracles beyond a certain point would be merely accumulating the grounds of condemnation. It would be little else than intensifying the light which, through their own perverseness, was putting out their eyes. Accordingly, in his last public address to the people, Matt. 23. 37-39, he says, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! hold, your house is left unto you desolate. say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

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This was a virtual closing his commission to that