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Clergyman, whom the Author had known from childhood, was in Cambridge when the next Lecture was delivered, and with him the Author conversed respecting the recent accident, of which that friend had heard on his way to Cambridge. And little did it then seem likely that he also, within eight days from that time, would be removed to another state of being. The Author cannot refrain from embracing this opportunity of bearing testimony to the steady and beneficent lustre of those truly Christian virtues, which characterised the lives of the Rev. Thomas Wilson, and the Rev. Walter Smith. Their memory will doubtless ever be embalmed in the hearts of their parishioners, and relatives, and friends; and "though they have been punished in the sight of men, yet was their hope full of immortality."-The former died Oct. 12; the latter Oct. 29. A. D. 1821.

LECTURE XVII.

THE METHOD IN WHICH OUR LORD EVIDENCED THE REALITY OF HIS RESURRECTION, AND HIS REASONINGS ON PROPHECY AFTER THAT EVENT.

THE

DISTINGUISHING PECULIARITIES

CHRISTIAN FAITH.

OF THE

St. LUKE XXIV. 44-48.

And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Then opened he their understandings, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.

THESE words are ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth; to him, into whose name we were baptized, and whose religion we profess. And what are the things of which he spoke, but those indignities, and sufferings, which did indeed end in death, but which were followed by his resurrection from the dead? He, whose words we have read, had D D

been apprehended, condemned, and crucified by the Jews. He had died, and he had been buried. But he now visibly appeared, and stood alive before those, who had so lately misunderstood, and denied, and forsaken him; and who, even then, scarcely had recovered from their disappointment and despondency. At this, as well as at all previous seasons, Jesus is found to be his own apologist. No sooner are the requisite data furnished, and circumstances brought into a posture, which admits an explanation and defence of his pretensions, than he proceeds to obviate the doubts and difficulties of those around him, and to draw, from familiar and acknowledged facts, the most important inferences respecting the evidence, nature, and purposes of his mission.

Whether, or not, the resurrection of Jesus be found to rest upon satisfactory evidence, there can at least be no hesitation, in the most sceptical mind, with respect to the reality of his death. If, indeed, there could be any doubt of that event, it would be mere trifling to talk of his having risen from the dead. But the proofs that Jesus truly died were both public and various. Not to mention the miraculous circumstances which attended the death of Jesus, and which added an awful solemnity to the conviction of its reality; would not the attention of the surrounding multitude be attracted by the loud voice

with which he cried out, "It is finished," and "commended his Spirit into the hands of the Father?" Even if the darkness, which until the ninth hour overspread the land, prevented some from seeing how "he bowed his head," when "he gave up the ghost;" would they not draw near, to behold the paleness of death sitting on his brow? Would not a decided conviction of the fact have been universal among "all the people that came together to that sight," ere they, "beholding the things that were done, smote their breasts and returned"?" What was the declaration of the centurion, "who stood over against Jesus," but a testimony to the character of one, whom he believed to be dead; occasioned indeed by his "seeing him so cry out and give up the Ghost?" Why did they omit to break the legs of Jesus, as they did those of the malefactors, but because they saw that he was already dead? The symptoms of a violent and painful death are not indeed either imitable or equivocal. But lest we should have any ground for supposing that they continued such in the case of Jesus, while he yet remained on the cross, the spear of the soldier pierced his side; and that weapon which would have produced the extinction of life, if any had

John xix. 30.
Mark xv. 39.

a Matt. xxvii. 50-53. e Matt. xxvii. 54.

b Luke xxiii. 44-49.

d John xix. 31-33.

remained, gave the demonstration that life had then already departed, by the out-pouring of blood and water. Of which transaction, St. John, "who saw it, has borne record, and his record is true, and he knew that he said what was true, that we might believe"." When Joseph applied for permission to take down the body from the cross, he too must have had the full conviction, that it was in a state fit only for interment. Pilate, who "marvelled if Jesus were already dead," inquired of the centurion himself; and not until he knew it of the centurion did he give the body to Joseph." And assuredly both Joseph and Nicodemus, who wound the body in linen clothes with spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury; and the women also, who sat over against the sepulchre, and beheld both where, and how the body was laid; all these could have no reason but to be fully satisfied that they had thus committed to the sepulchre a lifeless corpse; and, if it were otherwise, they must have discovered it. And those, who had accomplished the execution of Jesus, could have no doubt that they really had taken away the life of Jesus. For if otherwise, why did they "make the sepulchre sure, and seal the stone, and set a watch?" Why this precaution,

a John xix. 34, 35.

c Matt. xxvii. 59-61. -56. John xix. 39-42.

b Mark xv. 42-45. Mark xv. 46, 47. Luke xxiii. 50

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