but to wear for ever that scarred body which he has brought with him out of the sepulchre. "I am he that liveth, and was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore ! 1_We learn, 3. That this event was effected by Divine power : "him hath GOD raised up."-This circumstance perhaps may excite no wonder in your minds; for who, you may say, can raise the dead, but God only ? ' Unquestionably, he alone, who first "breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life," can restore it after he hath taken it away: and therefore we might have been sure before hand, that, if Jesus were raised to life, it must be by the power of God. Call to mind, however, what he himself had openly declared, long before his death- No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.' And therefore let us not conceive of God the Father, in this case, as acting alone or as doing that for the Son, which the Son was now unable to do for himself. No-Jesus was as able to rise from his own grave, as he had been to call forth Lazarus from his. The Divine Person still lived, although the human body was dead. 3 And in fact Scripture teaches us, that each Person in the blessed Trinity took his share in effecting this glorious Resurrection. First, the Father-" The God of peace. ... brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus." Secondly, the Son-" Destroy this temple,” of my body, " and in three days I will raise it up. Thirdly, the Holy Ghost-Jesus is "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead; or again-he was ، put to death in the flesh, but quick 1 Rev. i. 18. 66 995 4 John ii. 19. 4 ened by the Spirit." These would be contradictory statements, were it not for that mysterious doctrine, that our God is one God in three Persons. That doctrine reconciles all; while it still calls upon us to wonder and adore. But let us now, after noticing the Fact, observe II. THE REASON ASSIGNED FOR IT. The power of death was in this case relaxed, "because it was not possible that he should be holden of it." 66 Had Jesus so willed, death could not have taken hold of him; nor could it keep its hold one moment longer, when God commanded, Loose him and let him go."-The impossibility here dwelt upon, however, seems to mean something more than that arising from God's irresistible power. There were, in fact, several reasons which rendered it impossible, that Christ should still be holden in captivity by the grave. It could not be, 2 1. Because Prophecy had long ago foretold, that it should not be ; "and the Scripture cannot be broken." St. Peter himself argues this point, by the application of the sixteenth Psalm to Christ-" that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption." You will find a similar prediction in Isaiah liii. 10. "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.... he shall prolong his days." Add to these, the distinct and frequent predictions of Christ himself (predictions, which seem to have been more clearly understood by his enemies than by his friends), and you will soon come to the conclusion, that, if God was to be true, and the word of Jesus to be fulfilled, it was impossible that he should be detained in the grave.-Again, it could not be, 1 1 Peter iii. 18. 2 Verse 31. 2. Because no good end would have been answered, by the continuance of Christ under the power of death. All that he had suffered was in order to his being "the propitiation for our sins" 1-both the death which he died, and the agonies which led to it. Now those agonies needed not to be eternal, although they were an equivalent to that eternal punishment which is our desert; they needed not to be eternal-for they made up in value, what they wanted in duration. The Sufferer being infinite, the merit of his sufferings was so likewise. And for the same reason, the humiliation of the grave, once submitted to, was enough, since it was the infinitely glorious Son of God who condescended to endure it. Just as 66 one offering" sufficed for "the sins of many," "2 so one short sojourn in the tomb of dishonour was sufficient to earn its infinite reward. More was not required-and God does nothing unnecessarily.-Again, it could not be, 3. Because Satan's apparent triumph would then have been a real one.- -What was the chief end of Christ's coming? was it not to " destroy the works 1 1 John ii. 2. 5 3 1 John iii. 8. 5 1 Peter i. 12. possibly began to boast, that he had now triumphed over the only Redeemer of men. And had Jesus still lain in the corruption of the grave, who could have gainsaid this boast? St. Paul himself allows, that it would have been the ruin of our hopes; "if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain-ye are yet in your sins." "1 Jesus, therefore, must needs rise again: he could do no other: it was not possible that he should continue under the power of the grave.-Once more, it could not be, 4. Because he had still one perpetual work to perform on behalf of his people, which required his entire presence, as perfect Man, before God.-As our Priest, he had offered the sacrifice for sins; in the same character, he had now to make continual "intercession for us. ”— He might have done this,' you say, 'in his divine Person, or by his human soul in glory.' Why not as well say, he might have made atonement without a human body? No-the presence of that living body is indispensable, as an evidence of his merit, as the pledge of his claims. Seated at God's right hand are continually seen the wounded limbs, the pierced side, the "marred visage," the scourged back, of our atoning Priest. They cannot now be overlooked or forgotten; they plead for sinners, in language not to be resisted "Deliver them from going down to the pit-I have found a ransom."4 Such, brethren, is the Victory won by our Redeemer, over Sin and Satan, over Death and the Grave !—Are you" warring a good warfare" against his enemies and yours? Then you shall ere long share in his complete triumph, and be " more than conquerors through him that hath loved you." 11 Cor. xv. 17. 2 Rom. viii. 34. 3 Isa. lii. 14. 4 Job xxxiii. 24. SERMON XX. LUKE xxiv. 32.—And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures? It is not too much to say, that all the histories which were ever written cannot produce a narrative more touching, more beautiful, more instructive, than that with which my text stands connected. The circumstances described took place on the third day after Jesus of Nazareth had suffered death as a criminal. Two of his disciples, overwhelmed with sadness for the loss of their Master, were retiring from Jerusalem, apparently through fear of his persecutors, to a village seven or eight miles distant-Emmaus; and with the intention, perhaps, of returning to their former worldly occupations. There was also in the party a third person-a stranger, who had joined them by the way; a man, ignorant, as it seemed, of what had been lately happening at Jerusalem-more ignorant, indeed, than they thought even a stranger could possibly have been. Nevertheless, no sooner do they explain their reasons for doubting whether the crucified Jesus could be their long-expected Redeemer, than this same stranger begins to reproach their ignorance, and their disbelief of the Scriptures. Moreover, by a long list of quotations from every part of the Old Testament, he convinces them that Christ was to suffer by the hands |