hands and feet, commanding them to examine and feel him. It was therefore with great power. the apostles gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. In a few weeks after the resurrection of our adorable Saviour, the testimony of the Apostles respecting it was cordially received, and firmly believed by many thousands, not in any desert part of the world, but in Jerusa lem where he had been crucified. The Holy Spirit also is a witness of his resurrection. So that our faith in this doctrine is founded on a divine foundation. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. And the Apostles went forth; and preached every where, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following. How nobly the Apostle Peter argued on this subject when he said to the Jews, Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. Divine power was evidently manifested in the resurrection of Christ from the dead; the apostle calls it the exceeding greatness of his power. The resurrection of the Redeemer is sometimes attributed to the Father; who as the Lawgiver had arrested and imprisoned him as the surety of poor sinners, wherein he manifested his hatred to sin, and his love to them. In writing to the Galatians Paul calls himself an apostle, (not of men neither by man,) but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. And in writing to the Romans he says, that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. The God of peace opened the prison door for him to come forth, proving thereby that the sinner's debt was cancelled, divine justice satisfied, and the law of God honored. The resurrection of Christ is also attributed to the Son himself, and that in reference to the merits of his sacrifice the blood of the everlasting covenant; and in reference to the power he possessed to lay down his life and take it up again. And sometimes it is attributed to the Holy Spirit. He was declared to be the Son of God with power, accord. ing to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. As the Lord of life and death, Jesus took a full pos session of the whole territory of death. He destroyed him who had the power of death; and snatched his iron rod from his hand. He crossed the dead sea ;— opened the gates of death,—and made an open passage through the cape of death to the pacific ocean on the other side, till the tops of the beautiful mountains of immortality, are to be seen through the spying glass of the Gospel, which the wise men of this world ever failed in contriving a glass, by which they could spy out the borders of the land of promise. -- The resurrection of Christ was the life of his peo ple and of his cause in the world at that time. All the disciples had hung their harps on the willows, by the rivers of Belial which had overflown all the meadows of Christianity. When Jesus arose from the dead, the tops of the hills are discovered and the meadows coming in sight, and his cause again encircled by the How it must have cheered the drooping spirits, and dried up the flowing tears of the weeping disciples; to see their beloved Lord alive again bow of the covenant. from the dead, and to hear his gracious words, while yet in sight of Calvary and the new grave, "Peace be unto you," "Because I live ye shall live also." Christ rose from the dead with such heavenly Majesty and glory that terrified his enemies. Alexander the great and Cæsar terrified many men, and demolished many strong and fortified cities, but they could not shake the earth with all their power and grandeur; but the Son of God was above them, he shook the earth to its foundations in dying, and in rising again from the grave his language in the earthquake was,-Know ye all the inhabitants of the earth that I am God, and there is none other. It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain; and all the inhabitants thereof, Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate, are as grasshoppers before him. It is he that bringeth princes to nothing, and maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. Their stock shall not take root in the earth; and he shall also blow upon them, all the powers of men and devils, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names, like the leader of an army calling them to the parade, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power not one faileth. Again; the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an infalli· ble proof of the truth and reality of the Christian religion. Pilate wrote the title of Christ in three languages on the cross;-and many have written well on the truth of the scriptures, and the reality of Christianity; but the writings of the invisible hand of the eternal power in raising up Jesus from the dead decides the controversy forever, and affords an ample and sure foundation for the faith and hope of all. If any one asks, whether the Christian religion is from heaven or from men, or from hell? Let him go to the new grave of Joseph of Arimathea, and behold the founder of Christianity, rising from the tomb the third day, according to the scriptures. Let him see the writings written there, by the finger of God, such as no one else in heaven, or earth, or hell could write, but himself. Caiaphas' feast of joy is turned to mourning, lamentation and woe; and the true christian is fully persuaded of the safety of his condition, while by faith, he is eating the flesh, and drinking the blood from the true sacrifice, and living, not to himself, but to God. The almighty power that can raise the dead is engaged on his behalf; the eternal God his refuge; the God manifested in the flesh-the Founder of Christianity the foundation of his hope. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Let us pity the poor deist, despise his weak reasoning and vain philosophy, and direct him to the death, the burial, and the resurrection of the judge of the world, before whose tribunal he must soon appear!-Upon these three pillars the Christian religion is founded; and all that is' necessary to make a man happy, to elevate him to the highest point of dignity, and to enable him to meet death without fear, may be fully derived from the above excellent, all important and well authenticated facts. If Christ is not risen from the dead, Christianity must unavoidably fall; but if Christ is risen indeed, the Christian religion is of God. This is the ground on which the apostle Paul stood when he was disputing with the Greeks, the Epicureans and the Stoics, the Areopagus, the Athenians and the Dogmatists of Corinth.Moreover I testify unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have be lieved in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures. The fact was then proved-thousands believed, and even the Saducees could not deny it. Even the enemies of Christ and christianity are sometimes constrained to speak the truth. I find no fault in this innocent man, was the testimony of Pilate. Have thou nothing to do with that just man, said the Governor's wife. Herod, upon the most mature deliberation of the subject, thought that there was nothing in him worthy of death. I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood, was the language of Judas. Pilate writing to Tiberius, the Emperor of Rome, said, that Jesus being raised from the dead, many believed him to be God. The Senators of Rome, upon this testimony, expressed no doubt of his being risen from the dead; the question with them was, whether he should be admitted as one of the gods of Rome, which was overruled by divine providence, for he that is higher than the heavens, brighter in glory, and greater in power and majesty than all the heavenly mansions, and all their illustrious inhabitants, was not to be compared with the dumb idols of the Roman Empire. The resurrection of the Son of God is, not only an infallible proof of the truth of Christianity-a sure and true testimony that the gospel is from heaven,-and that he that believeth it, shall never be confounded,but it is represented as being powerful-it is the exceeding greatness of his power to us ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead. This is like a river overflowing the banks of language, Let us examine the subject more minutely. Where can |