treasure is? Where should your affections be, but where your Lord and Saviour is, the best friend, the greatest treasure that you have in the whole world? Let us therefore now bid adieu to all things here below, and go up to live with Christ in heaven;' that our hearts may be there now, where we hope both our souls and bodies shall be for ever, in and through him who is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.' SERMON VI. 1 CORINTHIANS, xv. 12. Now, if Christ be preached, that he rose from the dead, how say some among you, that there is no resurrection of the dead? THAT Jesus Christ, after he was put to death upon the cross, was raised again to life, is not only one of the articles of our Christian faith, but that upon which all the rest are founded; so that take away this, and the others would all fall to the ground, together with all our hopes of pardon and salvation : for as the apostle here observes, 'If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and our faith is also vain.'' Not only in that all that we believe besides, stands upon the same bottom with this, but likewise, because without this we could never attain the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls, that depending upon the intercession which Christ maketh for us in heaven: which he could never have made if he had not risen from the dead; especially that great article, the resurrec 11 Cor. xv. 14. |