<ftl)e Resurrection of Cljrist tl)e Justification of illusions 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED AT THE 
 
 SIXTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS 
 FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 MINNEAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 23, 1873 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JULIUS H. SEELYE 
 
 PROFESSOR IN AMHERST COLLEGE 
 
 V 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 $riittc& at tfjc ftitocr^itic 
 
 1873 
 
SERMON. 
 
 “ And was raised again for our justification.” Rom. iv. 25. 
 
 The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead is 
 undoubtedly set forth in the New Testament as a literal truth. 
 It is equally clear that the New Testament writers, whether de- 
 ceived or not themselves, had no intention of deceiving others. 
 They tell what they thought, at least, was the truth about their 
 Lord. That he died upon the cross, was buried, and rose again 
 the third day, and appeared to many, the same Jesus which was 
 crucified, is now admitted, — alike by the most intelligent ene- 
 mies of the gospel, as well as by its friends, — to have been the 
 belief of his original disciples. The most noted, and perhaps 
 the ablest of recent writers against the Christian faith — Strauss, 
 in his “New Life of Jesus” — fully allows “that the disciples 
 firmly believed that Jesus had arisen .” 1 He declares it to be 
 “ quite evident that the origin of the Christian Church was by 
 faith in the miraculous resurrection of the Messiah, and that the 
 disciples received an impression which lay at the bottom of their 
 future ministry, that he was a conqueror over death and the 
 grave, and was the Prince of Life .” 2 The supposition that the 
 disciples fabricated the story, and sought to impose it upon the 
 credulity of men, themselves knowing it to be false, may there- 
 fore be dismissed, as no longer needing a reply. 
 
 But if the disciples believed what they said, how could they 
 have been mistaken ? The evidence which wrought this belief 
 was of a sort easily tested. It lay in the sphere of their most 
 common and most undoubted capacity of judging. It did not 
 follow their preconceived notions, for the first announcement that 
 Christ had arisen seemed to them an idle tale, and they believed 
 it not. (Luke xxiv. 11.) It was not begotten of their desires 
 or hopes, for they were utterly cast down by the crucifixion, and 
 their only dreams of the Messiah had been of an earthly and 
 temporal prince and kingdom. (Luke xxiv. 21.) Their belief 
 was not sudden, nor did it grow rapidly. They sifted all the ev- 
 idence, which they finally accepted, only because they found it 
 1 VoL i. p. 399. 2 Ibid. p. 412. 
 
4 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 irresistible. During a period of forty days from the crucifixion, 
 Jesus is reported to have appeared to them, and to others who 
 knew him well, at times so numerous, and under circumstances 
 so various, that all doubts among them, though they were strong 
 and seemed likely to be persistent, were destroyed. He ap- 
 peared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them 
 with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed 
 not them which had seen him after he was risen. (Mark xxi. 
 14.) In the midst of their terror and affright at an event so 
 amazing, he reassured them by the most palpable proof of his 
 living and bodily presence w^th them. “ Behold my hands and 
 my feet,” he said, “ that it is I myself : handle me, and see ; for 
 a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And 
 when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his 
 feet.” (Luke xxiv. 39, 40.) To the doubting Thomas he said : 
 “ Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands ; and reach 
 hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side ; and be not 
 faithless, but believing.” (John xx. 27.) He is said to have 
 shown himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, 
 being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things 
 pertaining to the kingdom of God. (Acts i. 3.) The Apos- 
 tles became convinced of the great truth slowly, and they all 
 became convinced of it in the same degree of undoubting con- 
 fidence. No one of them, though persecuted, and at length 
 martyred for his faith, ever afterwards doubted that his crucified 
 Lord, in very deed and truth, had risen from the dead. More- 
 over others believed the same thing. Paul, writing to the Corin- 
 thian church, some twenty-five years afterwards, refers to five 
 hundred witnesses by whom the living Lord was seen at once, 
 the greater part of whom, he says, remain unto this present — 
 remain as vouchers for the fact. Now this belief, thus honestly 
 and confidently held, and by such large numbers of those most 
 competent to judge respecting it, is unaccountable on any other 
 supposition than that it was justified by the truth. To suppose 
 that Jesus did not die, but only swooned upon the cross, and 
 that he was laid in the tomb in a state of unconsciousness, from 
 which he afterwards revived, and then came forth and reappeared 
 to his disciples in his natural life, rouses far more difficult ques- 
 tions than it answers, and though once gravely put forth, is now 
 ridiculed even by those who disbelieve in a miraculous resurrec- 
 tion. For how could he come forth ? and what became of him 
 
SERMON. 
 
 5 
 
 afterwards ? and how could such a person, weak as he must have 
 been, have given his disciples their undoubting conviction that 
 he was the conqueror of death ? To suppose that any one should 
 have succeeded, even should any one have attempted to personate 
 to the disciples their Master and friend, whom they had known 
 and loved and companied with so intimately and so long, would 
 be an improbability more wonderful by far than the literal truth 
 of the story which they relate. Such a deception would require 
 a miracle. It is just as improbable that all the disciples could 
 have come to believe, by a sort of hallucination, through nervous 
 excitement, in some unreal vision of Christ’s appearance . 1 Such 
 a vision might come to a single person. Individuals are liable 
 to hallucinations, which carry with them all the force of reality, 
 but this is never the case with a class possessing such different 
 temperaments as the Apostles, and having naturally such differ- 
 ent ways of looking at anything. Physiology puts its inexora- 
 ble bar in the way of a theory which attempts to account for 
 the same conviction in the sanguine Peter, and the choleric Paul, 
 and the melancholic John, through nervous excitement. Ner- 
 vous excitement in men so different, if we could conceive it to be 
 able to delude them all with subjective states which had no reality, 
 would have not the same, but very different manifestations. The 
 Apostles, however, had all of them the same belief that Jesus rose 
 from the dead. They all believed that they had seen him, and 
 talked with him, and touched him again and again, after they 
 had seen him crucified, and dead and buried. Instead of being 
 formed out of their subjective states, this belief, as we have seen, 
 contradicted all their prejudices. Still farther, if they were all 
 so ready to be imposed upon by fancied visions, how was it that 
 they held the first announcement of the resurrection by the 
 women to be an idle tale, or how could Mary believe that the 
 risen Saviour was the gardener, or again that the gardener was 
 the risen Saviour ; or, how could the two who walked with him 
 to Emmaus take an unknown man to be him, or talk so long 
 with him, and still think him a stranger ; or, how could the 
 assembled disciples have trembled before him, instead of rejoic- 
 ing at his appearance ; or, how could they have needed to be 
 convinced of the reality of his resurrection, by his partaking of 
 their meal and showing them the marks of his wounds ? 2 No, 
 no. There are no traces of delusion, any more than of dishonesty 
 
 1 Strauss. 2 Lange, Life of Christ, vol. v. p. 120. 
 
6 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 in this narrative. The accounts given us are sober statements, 
 by sober and trustworthy men. If ever there was clear and 
 credible testimony to a literal fact, we have it here. 
 
 But there are many men unwilling, and, perhaps, unable to 
 weigh considerately the argument for the truth of Christ’s res- 
 urrection, having the preconceived opinion that it cannot be 
 true because of the miracle which it involves. It is one of the 
 curious phases of modern opinion that men who are foremost in 
 their demand for actual facts, and in their defense of the Baco- 
 nian method, which requires that all prejudices be removed, and 
 the actual facts of observation be accepted whatever they may 
 be, should also, when the fact of a miracle is in question, be 
 equally forward to deny it, because a certain theory of nature 
 which they have come to entertain, makes a miracle impossible. 
 Now, such a theory not only contradicts the true method of sci- 
 entific inquiry, but it contradicts itself, as can be seen by any 
 one whose eyes are clear. For, to say that a miracle is impos- 
 sible because contrary to the facts of my experience, is absurd, 
 unless the facts of my experience embrace all the possible facts 
 of any experience ; to claim which would be a greater absurdity 
 still. Again, to say that no such fact as a miracle can be, be- 
 cause certain other facts which I have learned from this source 
 and that, and which I am pleased to call “ the order of nature,” 
 forbids it, leads one to ask for a more precise designation of 
 this order of nature, and for the proof that it actually exists. 
 This proof must either rest within or must reach beyond the 
 field of our experience ; that is, it must be a proof to which our 
 experience actually testifies, or one respecting which our expe- 
 rience has no witness whatever. But our experience, at the 
 farthest, only testifies to that which is, and never reaches to that 
 which can be. If my experience contain nothing miraculous, I 
 may, of course, deny the existence of a miracle so far as my ex- 
 perience reaches ; and if my judgments rest only on what I 
 have experienced, that is, if they be only inferences from what 
 I actually see, I am not entitled to make any affirmations re- 
 specting what lies beyond, and that a miracle has not taken 
 place in another experience than my own, is quite out of my 
 province to say. The moment I make such a sweeping asser- 
 tion as to affirm or deny anything universal, I must leave the 
 ground of my experience, which is necessarily partial and lim- 
 ited, and take my stand on a basis back of experience and reach- 
 
SEX MON. 
 
 7 
 
 ing beyond it. But such a groundwork lies also back of nature, 
 and inevitably leads the thought into the living presence of the 
 supernatural. Our natural science is fond of its generalizations, 
 but no generalization is possible without the supernatural. It is 
 an unmeaning babble to talk of comprehensive laws unless there 
 be a comprehending Reason and Will whose ideas and plans 
 these laws express. The current notion, in some quarters, that 
 we can gain, or have perchance got such universal conclusions 
 that nature can be shut in upon itself, and God shut out, is ex- 
 actly the absurdity of supposing that we see when we have 
 closed our eyes and turned the very light of all our seeing into 
 darkness. Every process of the human mind bears witness to 
 the Divine Mind. Every thought we can have of nature, when 
 profoundly questioned, is seen to rest upon the knowledge, un- 
 doubting and universal, that nature has its living author, its 
 spiritual Creator. But cannot he who has made nature also 
 unmake it if he will, or order in it 'whatever changes he may 
 please ? And if men who did not like to retain God in their 
 thoughts, professing themselves to be wise became fools, because 
 that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither 
 were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their 
 foolish hearts were darkened, what is to hinder him, if his love 
 impels it, from making such changes in nature as shall more 
 conspicuously manifest himself, and more gloriously carry for- 
 ward the eternal purpose for which he hath created all things by 
 Jesus Christ ? Such changes are miracles. They are not con- 
 tradictions to nature, but they are the carrying of nature upward 
 to a higher plane, and onward to grander results than nature in 
 its unhindered action alone could reach. They are not to be 
 considered as violations of the order of nature ; rather are they 
 the cropping out in nature of the higher order of the supernatu- 
 ral, without which the so-called order of nature would be but an 
 empty chaos ; they are rifts in the clouds of the earth’s atmos- 
 phere, through which the glories of the heavens, which make 
 the clouds resplendent and the earth radiant, can shine. They 
 are not the new development of some old force which had been 
 in nature from the beginning, but they are a new creation by 
 which new forces, henceforth to work on in harmony with the 
 old, are added to these. Surely such changes are possible for 
 God to make. Surely, he who hath created once, can do it 
 also again. Surely, if the inspiration of genius may sometimes 
 
8 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 light up the human face with a glow which shows the glory of 
 the soul beyond all ordinary thoughts ; if the light of love may 
 sometimes lend a lustre to the eye through which there shines a 
 look of beauty before unknown, — much more may the aspect 
 of the things which are made, in which the eternal power and 
 Godhead of their Maker have, from the creation of the world, 
 been clearly seen, take on some altogether new expression, and 
 become radiant with a glory all undiscovered before, when he 
 would reveal through them also his forgiving and renewing love. 
 Surely, all this is possible, and miracles, instead of being irra- 
 tional, and inconceivable, are the very beauty of reason and the 
 very light of our thoughts respecting nature, when they are cor- 
 rectly apprehended. Creation itself is a miracle. The most 
 recent science, in profound mathematical demonstrations, re- 
 specting the mechanical theory of heat, has shown, on scientific 
 grounds alone, the need of some higher power than nature, in 
 order to its origination, and therefore miracles cannot be impos- 
 sible at any stage of nature’s continuance. 
 
 The only proper attitude towards this question, and the only 
 truly scientific method, is to inquire whether such occurrences 
 have actually taken place ; an inquiry whose answer is only to 
 be gained through a careful sifting of the evidence which de- 
 clares them. If we find wonders reported which turn out to be 
 no miracles, but only delusions of witchcraft or magic, these no 
 more militate against the reality of miracles than does an abun- 
 dance of counterfeits against the reality o*f genuine coin. If we 
 find some miracles reported for which the evidence fails, this no 
 more precludes our finding others of undoubted verity than do 
 false statements in other matters prevent us from learning any- 
 thing true. Let the quality of the reported miracle and its evi- 
 dence be sifted to the utmost, and while we reject nothing from 
 preconceived skepticism, let nothing be taken in credulous super- 
 stition. Let the eye be open and clear, and the heart receptive 
 and responsive only to the truth, and if miracles are proved by 
 sufficient testimony to have taken place, the wise man will ac- 
 cept them, and follow their conclusions, whatever they may be. 
 v., Setting aside then, as we should, all our prejudices and nar- 
 row notions, and looking for the true fact alone, with a single 
 willingness to receive it, the evidence for the resurrection of 
 Christ becomes overwhelming. It has been so from the first. 
 It convinced the Apostles, though prejudiced against it and re- 
 
SERMON. 
 
 9 
 
 ceiving it very slowly, and they maintained their faith through 
 ignominy and persecution, and in the face of death itself. It 
 convinced the people to whom it was first preached, and who 
 had every opportunity to test its truth. The proof is clear be- 
 yond all doubt, that the resurrection of Christ was believed in 
 Jerusalem itself, by thousands who had probably seen and cer- 
 tainly knew of his crucifixion, and who were led to believe that 
 he had risen from the dead by the irresistible evidence with 
 which the fact was attested. It has convinced candid and 
 thoughtful men in all subsequent time wherever the evidence 
 has been examined, and no prejudices have been allowed to 
 weaken its force. There is no historical fact whose literal 
 truth is more thoroughly established than this. 
 
 i. The place which this truth holds in the scheme of Christian 
 doctrine is very clear. The resurrection of Christ was a divine 
 seal set upon his work. It was the divine confirmation of all 
 his words. He was declared to be the Son of God with power, 
 according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the 
 dead. The declaration of his Messiahship is accomplished in 
 his resurrection. The promise which was made unto the fathers, 
 says Paul, that is, the promise of the Messiah, — “ God hath ful- 
 filled unto us their children in that he raised up Jesus again, as 
 it is also written in the second Psalm : Thou art my Son, this 
 day I have begotten thee.” In his incarnation and life upon the 
 earth, there is the manifested presence of God, condescending 
 to dwell with man. In his miracles, in his teachings, in his suf- 
 ferings and in his death, the Divine power and wisdom and 
 righteousness and love shine all gloriously. In them all there 
 stands revealed Immanuel, God with us, cheering and strength- 
 ening us by his sympathy and manifold bounty, but humbling 
 us also as he makes manifest our defilement by the revelation of 
 his purity and condescension and self-forgetting love. But in 
 his resurrection we come to know the grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who, though he was rich, became poor, that we, through 
 his poverty, might become rich. It is not simply God dwelling 
 with man, but man lifted to an eternal fellowship with God, which 
 we here behold. In his life, even to his death, there is a con- 
 stant conflict waged for us against foes aiming at our destruc- 
 tion, and whose destroying fury we had no means to restrain ; 
 but whether the conflict is of any avail for us — whether he 
 is victorious or vanquished at its close, who can tell ? The 
 
IO 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 darkened sun, and quaking earth, and rending rocks tell the ter- 
 rors of the struggle and its awful import, but when he dies upon 
 the Cross, who, afterwards, can speak of life or salvation ? Can 
 he save others when himself he cannot save ? But when it was 
 not possible for him to be holden of death ; when he rises from 
 the dead, death having no more dominion over him, we rise with 
 him also victorious over death, and the believer in Jesus makes 
 the triumphant challenge : Who is he that condemneth, since 
 Christ who has died is rather risen again, who is even at the 
 right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us ? O 
 death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? 
 Thanks be unto God who givetli us the victory through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 In his death the chastisement of our peace was upon him, but 
 without his resurrection who could ever know that with his 
 stripes we are healed ? He died for sinners, whose curse he 
 bore. He rose again for sinners, whose justification he has now 
 become. In his crucifixion, he in whom was no sin was made 
 sin for us ; but through his resurrection we, in whom is no right- 
 eousness, find righteousness in him. “ For we believe in Him 
 who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered 
 for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.’’ 
 
 2. The ascendency which this truth was able to gain over the 
 lives x>f the Apostles illustrates the impulse which it ever gives 
 to Christian activity in the preaching of the gospel of Christ. 
 When Christ was apprehended, they were terror-stricken, and 
 they all forsook him and fled. When he was put to death, they 
 were appalled. But there never was a bolder set of men than 
 these same timid disciples, after they began to preach the resur- 
 rection of their Master. All their timidity and irresolution dis- 
 appear. Their dismay gives place to a joyous exultation. Scorn, 
 hatred, persecution, martyrdom have no terrors for them now. 
 These men who seemed settling down into the night of an un- 
 broken despondency, now stand out in the noon-tide of all cour- 
 age and hope and endurance, ready to face any difficulty, and 
 flinch at no dangers. This great change was wrought in them 
 wholly by the belief that Jesus, their Lord, was risen from the 
 dead. This belief all absorbs them. They can talk and think 
 of nothing else. They begin to preach, and their one topic is 
 Jesus and his resurrection. He died and he rose again, they 
 everywhere proclaim. All their views of Christ and his doc- 
 
SERMON. 
 
 1 1 
 
 trine take tone from this belief. Their narrow notion of the 
 Messiah who was to restore again the kingdom to Israel, drops 
 oft' like the hull from the germinating seed, while, with a living 
 power, the doctrine grows to an all-comprehending vision of the 
 Redeemer and Saviour of mankind, in whom we have redemp- 
 tion through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. The 
 mourner in Gethsemane, and the martyr upon Calvary, by his 
 resurrection, rises before them, no longer a sufferer or a victim, 
 but as the Lord of life, who hath tasted death for every man. 
 and who, for the suffering of death, is crowned with glory and 
 honor. They gain their hope of eternal life through his resur- 
 rection. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, they say, which according to his abundant mercy hath 
 begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ from the dead. They rest everything upon this 
 great truth. If Christ be not risen, they say, then is our preach- 
 ing vain, and your faith is also vain. 
 
 He was raised again for our justification ! The resurrection 
 of Christ, my brethren, has a farther influence upon us than 
 simply to secure our personal acceptance with God. We have 
 seen that to the Apostles it became a living inspiration to the 
 highest activity in the preaching of the gospel of their Lord. 
 If truly apprehended it will become the same to us. It was the 
 risen Lord who gave the great commission to his disciples : Go 
 ye into all the world and preach the gospel unto every creature, 
 — and the perpetual justification and inspiration for this grand 
 work is, that Jesus died and rose again. It is the risen and ever 
 living Lord who is with his disciples alway, even unto the end 
 of the world, giving them all power to preach repentance and 
 remission of sins through his name, among all nations. 
 
 All the meditation we can give upon the crucifixion of Christ 
 furnishes food for the spiritual life. We need not cease to con- 
 template the cross. We should think often of Gethsemane and 
 Calvary, the bloody sweat, and bitter shame, and cruel death ; 
 and should grow in penitence and humbleness and love, when 
 we remember why it is that he who was so rich became so poor. 
 But it is not the highest type of the Christian experience that 
 lingers always at the cross. He who was delivered for our of- 
 fenses was raised again for our justification. The open sepul- 
 chre that he has left, the preaching of the angels that he has 
 risen from the dead, and the showing of himself to his disciples, 
 
12 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 whom he constituted the witnesses of his resurrection, and com- 
 missioned to declare it to his Church, — this is the cheering 
 truth by which we gain the answer of a good conscience towards 
 God, and become able to walk in newness of life, knowing that 
 if we were planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall 
 be also in the likeness of his resurrection. 
 
 In like manner we are in no danger of holding up too promi- 
 nently before the world the atoning sacrifice and death of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. The banner of the Captain of our salvation 
 is the banner of the cross. But he who leads the hosts of his 
 elect in their triumphant progress, and who gives them all the 
 strength for the struggle and the victor}', is the risen Saviour, 
 the Lord, their righteousness ; no longer in his humiliation, but 
 now glorified, with all power given unto him in heaven and in 
 earth, and who is with his disciples as they fulfill his great com- 
 mission, alway, even unto the end of the world. The resur- 
 rection of Christ, which turned the sorrows of his first disciples 
 into joy, is the perpetual witness of his all-victorious power. 
 Though when we look upon the world, its sin and wretchedness 
 are so dark and terrible and wide-reaching, that there seems no 
 room for hope, and thoughtful and loving souls, brooding over 
 the ills around them, give up all for lost, yet when the vision of 
 the victorious Redeemer rises upon us, and we see the com- 
 pleteness of his conquest over sin and death and the grave, the 
 greatness of his purpose, and the glory of his power to save, 
 shine all resplendent, and the sorrow which abideth for a night 
 gives place to the joy which cometh in the morning. The light 
 which shines from his sepulchre drives away the darkness which 
 hung around his cross, while the cross becomes luminous with a 
 glory which can irradiate the world. 
 
 When we see his resurrection, we learn also how it is that his 
 crucifixion becomes the crisis of the world’s history, that his 
 cross becomes his throne, before which and by which, the prince 
 of this world is cast out, and with believing hope we hear and 
 echo his exulting cry : “ And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
 will draw all men unto me.” 
 
 This gospel of the resurrection of our Lord needs to be 
 preached everywhere, not only as an encouragement and inspi- 
 ration to the activity of his Church, but as a corrective to all the 
 false views of the world regarding him. The literal truth of his 
 resurrection as an historical fact which courts every scrutiny 
 
SERMON. 
 
 13 
 
 and defies all criticism, has a power, when clearly set forth, to 
 remove all skepticism of the intellect ; and from the day of Pen- 
 tecost till now, its preaching has been accompanied by that 
 power of the Holy Ghost which can overcome the deeper skepti- 
 cism of the will. While the gospel, when correctly apprehended, 
 commends itself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God ; 
 while every Christian truth, when clearly stated^ will be seen to 
 carry its own witness within itself to the truth, — so deeply do 
 God’s ways correspond in the human soul, made in God’s like- 
 ness, to its own original insight of him ; yet the power of sin 
 is so subtle, and the will has such sophistries of its own where- 
 with to entangle and hoodwink the intellect, that we need con- 
 tinually to appeal, in attestation of the doctrine, to outward facts 
 which the senses can apprehend, as Leverrier and Adams needed 
 the actual discovery of the new planet, in order to prove the 
 value of their calculations to others, if not also to confirm them 
 to themselves. 
 
 Moreover, a clear view of the resurrection of Christ, as an his- 
 torical truth, is necessary to a clear knowledge of redemption. 
 The fall of man is an historical fact. Sin has entered the human 
 race and penetrated its whole history with death. Redemption 
 from sin, if ever accomplished, must be just as actual a fact of 
 history as is sin itself. He who is to redeem us from sin must 
 actually stand in our place and be wounded for our transgres- 
 sions, and be bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of 
 our peace must be upon him before we can be healed. All we, 
 like sheep, have gone astray, and there must be laid upon him 
 the iniquity of us all, before it can be lifted from ourselves. He 
 who is to deliver us from the power of death must break that 
 power, through his own victorious deliverance ; and he who is to 
 be our eternal life must show himself to us the Prince of Life, 
 through his actual triumph over death and the grave. However 
 ideally perfect a system of salvation might be conceived to be, 
 unless it should find expression in such actual facts as these, it 
 must be powerless to save. It is thus that philosophy must ever 
 prove itself inadequate for salvation, and that any education or 
 culture, however extended, will always lack power to purify or 
 give life to the world. 
 
 Man, as a personal sinner, needs a personal Saviour. No 
 thought, no system of doctrine, no enlightenment of the in- 
 tellect, will ever break the bondage of the will to sin. We 
 
14 
 
 SERMOiV. 
 
 only get liberty and life through love ; but no description of 
 love ever inspires us with love, any more than we can find 
 warmth from all our knowledge of the sunlight. The warm 
 ray alone can warm us ; the loving deed alone can give us love. 
 The glory of the risen Saviour can melt all the stubbornness of 
 the frozen heart, and the power of his life in his conquest of 
 death, if everywhere preached, would give light and life to all 
 the world. 
 
 If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your 
 faith is also vain. But now is Christ risen from the dead and 
 become the first-fruits of them that slept, and he must reign till 
 he hath put all enemies under his feet. 
 
 Oh, my brethren, what a kindling impulse to all missionary 
 efforts have we here ! What courage, what fortitude, what high 
 hopes, what wide reaching plans, what earnest and increasing 
 endeavor, what an undying impulse to evangelize the world, does 
 the resurrection of our Lord incite in his Church ! Who that 
 has any living view of this great truth ; who that has felt its 
 power in his own forgiveness and renewal and eternal life, can 
 be slow of effort, or of weak desire in preaching the gospel of a 
 risen Saviour unto every creature ? We are not ashamed of 
 this gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation 
 to every one that believeth. We have no tame apologies begot- 
 ten of timid belief, as we point perishing men to a dying and 
 risen Saviour. We have no abatement to make from the super- 
 natural and miraculous claims of this gospel to the intellectual 
 assent of a scornful and skeptical world. To all the forms of 
 unbelief rife in Christian lands we proclaim a gospel with suffi- 
 cient proof, which is cogent both to convince the understanding 
 and to convert the heart. Here is a truth also, which, clearly 
 preached, can dispel the error with which the unrenewed heart de- 
 ceives itself when it seeks its salvation through meritorious works 
 of its own. He who beholds the all sufficient work of the risen 
 Redeemer can feel the need of nothing more, and must feel the 
 fruitlessness of anything less. Who can go about to establish 
 his own righteousness, that has once discerned and submitted to 
 this righteousness of God ? Here also is a truth which, from its 
 first proclamation, has ever shown itself mighty to the pulling 
 down of the strongholds of superstition in unchristian lands. 
 The cold and blind and arbitrary will, without justice and with- 
 out love, which the followers of the false prophet declare to be 
 
SERMON. 
 
 15 
 
 the only God ; the vague and impersonal essence, empty of 
 thought, and unmoved by feeling, into whose limitless and un- 
 conscious void the Brahmin hopes to be absorbed ; the helpless 
 and hopeless presence through whose repeated incarnations the 
 Buddhist is taught that existence is only a curse, and that anni- 
 hilation is the only salvation ; the ruder and cruder forms of un- 
 tutored faith, where people of appalling wretchedness and degra- 
 dation find objects of worship which take on the shape of their 
 own defilement ; all systems of false religion, which nevertheless 
 in their way may be seeking the Lord, if haply they might feel 
 after and find him, can only be banished from the world, can 
 only lose their hold upon the mind by the truth of a living and 
 loving Divine Lord, who, having taken upon himself their na- 
 ture, and manifested himself by Divine works and words, as God 
 actually present with men, and having taught men by his life 
 the glory of the Divine purity and sympathy and condescending 
 grace, showed them also by his death the wonders of a Divine 
 sacrifice for sin, and then made manifest by his resurrection from 
 the dead that there needs no other sacrifice. The entrance of 
 this truth giveth light ; it giveth understanding unto the simple. 
 Before its coming the shadows flee, as the night before the 
 morning. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the darkness which still rests upon the 
 world, the news of the great salvation is steadily extending. 
 Within the last fifty years, there have been opened, outside of 
 nominal Christendom, more than four thousand centres of Chris- 
 tian influence from which the light of the gospel shines. Dark 
 places of the earth, which were full of the habitations of cruelty, 
 have become homes of light and peace and joy, through the sav- 
 ing power of that godliness which hath the promise of the life 
 that now is, as well as of that which is to come. The weight of 
 the world’s conversion rests upon the Church, and inspires a 
 missionary zeal, and leads to efforts more abundant and more 
 fruitful at the present day, than ever before. But it is not upon 
 this that we base our hope of the world’s conversion. Some 
 trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the 
 name of the Lord our God. The promise of God made unto 
 the fathers, and which he fulfilled in that he raised up Christ 
 from the dead, is our sure reliance. We trust that promise. 
 We know in whom we have believed, and are sure that he is 
 able to keep what is committed to his hands. His resurrection, 
 
i6 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 by which he is declared to be the Son of God with power, proves 
 that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of 
 our Lord and of his Christ, and that he shall reign forever and 
 ever. All kings shall fall down before him, yea, all nations shall 
 serve him. 
 
 In the great work of seeking to hasten this blessed consumma- 
 tion, we bow before our risen and ascended Redeemer, exclaim- 
 ing : Hitherto hath the Lord helped us, and henceforth our trust 
 shall be only in him. May he pour upon us his blessed spirit 
 that we may know more of him and the power of his resurrec- 
 tion ! We acknowledge our dependence upon his right arm 
 which hath gotten for itself the victory. We abandon all re- 
 liance upon devices or achievements of our own. But with in- 
 creasing hope in him, through the increasing faith which he 
 permits us to cherish in his victorious power, we joyfully go for- 
 ward as workers together with him, and call upon all the world 
 to receive his great salvation. We need not speak of duty here, 
 but of life and joy, and blessed communion with our Lord in his 
 glorious work. His language to his disciples is : “ Henceforth I 
 call you not servants ; for the servant knoweth not what his 
 Lord doeth : but I have called you friends ; for all things that I 
 have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.” We 
 know what his purpose is, and that nothing shall swerve him 
 from its full accomplishment. All power is given unto him in 
 heaven and in earth, and his purpose cannot fail. He is the 
 Saviour of sinners and the life of the world, for he was delivered 
 for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. All 
 hail the power of Jesus’ name! We catch the echo and send it 
 round the world. All hail, we cry, to this dying but deathless 
 Prince ! Lift up your heads O ye gates ; and be ye lifted up, 
 ye everlasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come in ! 
 Let every knee bow to him, and every tongue confess that 
 Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.