SERMON II.

THE RESURRECTION.

PREACHED ON EASTER DAY.

I. THESS. iv. 14.

"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."

NEVER while the Lord has a Church upon Earth, will the anniversary of His glorious resurrection come round without exciting a thrill of holy gladness in the hearts of His believing and blood-bought people. Even after the day more especially assigned to its commemoration has passed away, our thoughts go back again to the resurrection, and linger around the scenes of lofty interest with which it stands connected. Like the loving Mary, we cannot tear ourselves away from the sepulchre in which reposed the body of our

Lord, though assured as if by an Angel-voice that "He is not there, but is risen." And why is it, Beloved, that we delight to dwell on this familiar topic, this elementary truth ?— Why is it that a subject which haunted us in our cradles in infancy, becomes dearer and more precious as we advance in years? O is it not that in the assurance of the resurrection of Jesus, is wrapped up the germ of hope for us? The resurrection of Jesus! What truth so simple, so self-evident ? What child is there but believes and confesses that "Jesus died, and rose again?" And yet how much of deep, vital, all-important truth lies hidden beneath the surface of this simple declaration, "I believe that Jesus Christ, the God-man, who suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, rose again from the dead." Suppose that Jesus had not been raised again, suppose He had not burst away the barriers of the tomb, and come forth again to the light of Heaven : suppose He had not "ascended up on high" and "led captivity captive," then, where were our justification, where were our sanctification, where were our promise of glorification, where were all His ascension-gifts, gifts of grace, grants of glory? Buried in the tomb which held His body. O remember, Beloved, that

Christ's rising is as important to you as His dying; for, how did He rise? Not as a private, but as a public Person, as the federal Head of a purchased people, as the first-fruits of a magnificent harvest, to be hereafter gathered into the garner of God by His appointed Harvest-men, the Angels. And as a proof and pledge that when he rose, His people rose with Him, we read, that "after His resurrection many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their graves, and went into the Holy City, and appeared unto many." They left their tombs to attest His accomplished work, and to prove that those "which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him." True, they returned again to the sepulchre, and dropt again into the arms of corruption the grave-clothes they had for a moment laid aside, became again the mantle of their mortal bodies: death was only interrupted, not destroyed; but surely we have in their resurrection an earnest of a great and general rising, when death's dominion shall be for ever abolished, and the grave's victory for ever vanquished by Him who is "the Resurrection and the Life."

*Matt. xxvii. 52, 53.

It never occurred to me until very lately what appears a wise and beautiful arrangement, that the season at which we commemorate the spiritual, should accord so exactly with the season appointed for the natural resurrection. It seems as if God would have us look out upon the field of Nature, and read a sermon on the doctrine of the Resurrection from what we behold of His working there. 66 Look," He seems to say 66 on the natural world just awaking from the sleep of winter, and clothing itself in the beautiful dress of spring. There are the fields carpeted with fresh verdure, there are the trees sprouting with fresh blossoms, there are the corn-fields waving with fresh promise of a rich, and ripe, and abundant harvest. Seems it to you 6 thing incredible that God should raise the dead?'* If I cause the womb of nature to send forth the vigour of a new life through all the provinces of my wide creation, why should I not cause the womb of the grave to give forth a world of living tenants breathing with animation, and bounding with the consciousness of a renewed existence ?" OI would bid the sceptical denier of God's written book to

* Acts xxvi. 8.

a

go and study the book of Nature, equally the work and writing of Deity, and tell me whether the doctrine of a Resurrection is not written on every field, and fruit, and floweret. And this argument, the appeal to Nature, Christ Himself and His Apostle condescended to use. When Jesus was at Jerusalem, at the passover next before the crucifixion, He is represented as saying, "The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." * And St. Paul, in reply to a cavilling Corinthian, asking scornfully, "How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?" bursts forth into the indignant rebuke, "Thou fool! that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die :"† A corn of wheat is solitary and fruitless, except it die, but if it die, if it go through the necessary process of corruption, what then? Let the laughing

valley standing thick with

answer. And therefore we

corn give the say to the proud

scoffer at a Resurrection, asking with the infidel in St. Paul's days, "How are the dead

* John xii. 23, 24.

+1 Cor. xv. 35, 36.