THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

Streuss, in approaching the discussion of this mighty subject, says, "Here then we stand on that decisive point where, in the presence of the accounts of the miraculous resurrection of Jesus, we either acknowledge the inadmissibility of the natural and historical view of the life of Jesus, and must consequently retract all that precedes, and so give up our whole undertaking, or pledge ourselves to make out the possibility of the result of these accounts, i. 6., the origin of the belief in the resurrection of Jesus without any corresponding miraculous fact. The more immediately this question touches all Christianity to the quick, the more regard we must pay to the sensibility with which every unprejudiced word that is uttered about it is received, and even to the sensible effect which such words may have upon him who pronounces them; but the more important the point is, and the more decisive on the other side, for the whole view of Christianity, the more pressing is the demand upon the investigator to set aside all these considerations, and pronounce upon it in a perfectly unprejudiced, perfectly decided spirit, without ambiguity and without reserve."

Then, after alluding, with scarcely concealed contempt, to the views of those infidels who hold that the death of Jesus upon the cross was not real, he refers to Baur, his own master in the school of skeptical criticism of which he became the most distinguished representative, and adds, "Even Baur himself has vouchsafed to declare that the real nature of the Resurrection of Jesus lies outside the limits of historical investigation, and has accordingly, at least in words, avoided the burning question. For his words appear to mean that it can not be historically discovered, and that it is not even a problem for historical investigation to find out whether the Resurrection of Jesus was an objective occurrence, either miraculous or natural, or whether it was only the belief of his disciples." In this connection he speaks of "the apologists who would like to persuade the world that if the reality of the Resurrection is not recognized, the origin and rise of the Christian Church can not be explained," and continues: "No, says the historian, and rightly, only this much need be acknowledged, that the disciples firmly believed that Jesus had arisen; this is perfectly sufficient to make their further progress and operations intelligible J what that belief rested upon, what there was real in the resurrection of Jesus is an open question, which the investigator may answer one way or another, without the origin of Christianity being thereby made more or less conceivable." As for himself he can not accept the account given in the New Testament of the resurrection, "but we are prevented," he says, "by various reasons from adopting this view as our own. Whether we consider miracles in general as possible or not, if we are to consider a miracle of so unheard of a description as having really occurred, it must be proved to us by evidence in such a manner, that the untruth of such evidence would be more difficult to conceive than the reality of that which it was intended to prove,"- (Vol. I. pp. 397-398).

With all this the Christian may heartily agree. The literal resurrection of Jesus is indeed the decisive point upon which the whole of our faith turns, upon which the divine origin of the Bible turns, upon which the hope of mankind turns, so far as that hope is shaped by the life, the character, the teachings, the death of Christ; and Strauss well calls it "the burning question." We may even agree, in our anxiety to escape from dispute where it is possible to be avoided, that the origin and rise of the Christian Church can be explained without the necessity of recognizing the reality of the resurrection, if only thus much be acknowledged, that the disciples firmly believed that Jesus had arisen. It is still further agreed that a miracle of so unheard of a description must be proved by evidence in such a manner, that the untruth of such evidence would be more difficult to conceive than the reality of that which it was intended to prove. The argument, then, will rest entirely upon the premises which he lays down, and it is to be regretted that within the limits of a single public discourse he can not be followed step by step, and inch by inch, along the track of his wonderfully subtle reasoning; for it is certain that the heart of the believer would throb with quicker joy on the discovery that, after the utmost resources of human ability and ingenuity have been exhausted in attacking the foundation of his hope, his faith in the resurrection of Jesus stands firmer than ever; and he would surely accord with the judgment given by Schaff, that "the chapter on the resurrection of Jesus is the weakest part of Strauss's book, where his mythological hypothesis breaks down completely," (Person of Christ, p. 165).

It is important at the outset to inform those who have never read his book of his admissions concerning Jesus, admissions that constitute the basis of his argument and are built into the whole structure of his work; and it is fair to add that as it is a work which has never been equalled in the past by the enemies of Christianity, so it will never be surpassed in the future. Infidelity has no weapon left that lies outside the armory of Strauss, or that has not been used in his powerful but ineffectual assault. He admits that such a person as Jesus lived more than eighteen hundred years ago; that He taught very remarkable doctrines touching God and man; that He went about, accompanied by a number of disciples, proclaiming these doctrines, and doing many kind and benevolent acts; that in the course of His brief public career He announced that He was the Messiah mentioned by the Old Testament prophets, and was received as such by His followers; that He thus incurred the enmity of the Jewish rulers, and was at last put to death by order of the Roman governor of Judea, that shortly after His death, His disciples firmly believed that He was risen from the dead, and that He would come again, probably very soon, to establish His kingdom, and to reign over the earth. Upon this last point the admission of Strauss is so striking it must be quoted. Jesus, he says, "speaks in the Gospels not only of his resurrection on the third day, but also of the coming of the Son of man, i. e., of his own second coming at a later though not distant period, when he will appear in the clouds of heaven, in divine glory, and accompanied by angels to awake the dead, to judge the quick and the dead, and to open his kingdom, the kingdom of God or heaven [this lie proves by numerous references]. Here we stand face to face with a decisive point.. The ancient Church clung to this part of the doctrine of Jesus in its literal signification, nay it was properly speaking built upon this foundation, since without the expectation of a near return of Christ no Christian whatever would have come into existence. For us, on the contrary, Jesus has either no existence at all, or exists only as a human being. To a human being no such thing as he here prophesied of himself could happen. If he did prophecy it of himself and expect it himself, he is for us nothing but a fanatic: if, without any conviction on his own part he said it of himself, he was a braggart and an impostor," (Vol. I. p. 322).

These last few words exhibit the fatal weakness of his book as an argument. He takes it for granted that Jesus was a mere man, and then proceeds to explain away or flatly to deny everything that is inconsistent with his foregone conclusion. He assumes throughout the very point to be proved. For him, no matter what may be said, Jesus has either no existence at all, that is, there is no immortality even for the soul, or He exists only as a human being, and therefore Strauss would not be persuaded, "though one rose from the dead." He insists all the time without the slightest evidence upon forcing One, whom the writers of the New Testament everywhere represent as a supernatural being, into helpless subjection to the laws of nature, as they are called; and hence his objection to the statements of the writers that, when Jesus was risen from the dead. He suffered Himself to be touched, and partook of ordinary food, and also passed through closed doors into the presence of His disciples. "A body," says Strauss, "which can be touched, consequently has power of resistance, can not penetrate through closed doors, i. e., can not have at the same time that power of resistance; as, conversely, a body which penetrates through boards without opposition can have no bones, nor any organ by which to digest bread and fish," (Vol. I. p. 407). Can not even a child of common intelligence perceive that this is a shameful begging of the question in claiming, without a particle of proof, that the risen body of Christ was just like the body of an ordinary being! If Jesus was only a man, the elaborate, and often splendid reasoning of Strauss is indeed unanswerable; but if He was more than man, the stately superstructure of the skeptical critic tumbles about his ears in utter ruins.

That He was more than man has been already proved, and it may be proved again by the evidence of His real resurrection "in such a manner, that the untruth of such evidence would be more difficult to conceive than the reality of that which it was intended to prove."

I. As the argument is addressed, not to the Atheist, but the Theist, it will be admitted that it is a possible thing for God to raise the dead. Even the impersonal God of the Pantheist, and this is what Strauss seems to have been, may be manifested in the body of a risen man, however extraordinary the occurrence, as well as in any other of His strange and multitudinous forms. Fichte says, "The 'I' is the only object in the universe. 'Self' is the absolute principle of all philosophy. 'I' am the creator of the universe. "I make it to realize my own self-development. The thinking of the mind is the active existence of God — so that man and God are identical. I then am God." Hegel says, "God is a mere process, ever unfolding, realizing himself in the human consciousness. God is the dialectic process of thought. In another aspect, God is nature coming to self-consciousness — the absolute idea." But even if this is true, it will not be denied that God can realize his own self-development in a risen body, and become identical with such a body, and awake to self-consciousness in such a body, as a higher exhibition and outreaching of His infinite sufficiency, not less easily than in the thousand displays He is continually making of Himself above the regular routine of nature's laws. On the very threshold of the discussion, therefore, we meet the skeptic with the pertinent question which Paul put to king Agrippa, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" (Acts xxvi. 8).

II. It will be admitted that it is a possible thing for competent witnesses to have undoubted evidence of the resurrection of a person from the dead. No one can deny that there would be great danger of deception or delusion in asserting such a fact, for many have mistaken for death only a protracted swoon, or a long continued suspension of the vital powers; and many have supposed and even insisted that their departed friends have actually appeared to them, when they have had no other ground for their belief than the play of an excited imagination. But if a number of credible witnesses were intimately and constantly associated with a person during his life, if they had the most complete and unquestioned proof of his death, and if afterwards they distinctly and repeatedly saw him alive, under circumstances that could leave no room whatever for hallucination, attended by results of the most momentous character, that could not by any ingenuity be explained in any other way than by the genuineness of the resurrection, it is obvious "that the untruth of such evidence would be more difficult to conceive than the reality of that which it was intended to prove." It will not do for the skeptic to reply that it is impossible for the dead to arise, as this is a weak and puerile begging the question, that renders the man who obstinately urges it utterly unworthy of further notice. All will concede that it is impossible for a dead person to come forth from the grave; but it was not impossible for a divine person to arise out of the tomb, nor was it impossible for God to lift the iron crown of death from the brow of His only begotten and well beloved Son.

III. It will be admitted that if competent witnesses of such a fact bear such testimony concerning it, that when carefully sifted and thoroughly tested by friend and foe, it is found to be altogether trustworthy in every respect, we are not only authorized, but morally bound, to receive it as true. The character of the witnesses must be closely scrutinized; they must bear the severest cross-examination without flinching, and without contradicting each other's testimony; they must have their motives and purposes in giving such testimony brought out into the clearest light; and they must submit to the most rigid inquiry with regard to the practical bearing and consequences of their assertion; but if after all this no flaw can be found in their story, the refusal to receive it will prove conclusively that the difficulty in the way of believing the resurrection of Jesus is not found in the head, unless it be the head of an idiot, but in the state of the heart as deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, as in itself enmity against God. His resurrection as everywhere set forth in the New Testament is not represented as a solitary fact, or as some unaccountable display of almighty power, but it is essentially connected with His high claims, previously noticed; and it forms so exclusively the foundation of every doctrine, every duty, every hope, every joy, held out to us by the sacred writers that, if torn away, the New Testament, the Church for eighteen centuries, Christianity itself, our departed friends, our own aspirations and longings, all, all instantly sink out of sight into profoundest darkness. There is, therefore, the most perfect agreement between His claims and His resurrection, for while he could die as the Son of man. He could not remain under the dominion of death as the Son of God, "because," as Peter says, "it was not possible that he should be holden of it," (Acts ii. 24).

IV. This brings us to glance at the relation between the resurrection of Jesus and the entire Bible, that are so linked together from first to last they must stand or fall together. Going back to the earliest records of the human race we are told that God said to the serpent, elsewhere called the devil and Satan, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed [not man's seed, it will be observed]: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," (Gen. iii. 15). From that time the promise of a divine Deliverer is set forth with ever-increasing brightness, in type, in prophecy, and in song; and it is a promise always involving His death and resurrection. For example, in the cure and cleansing of the leper, which could be effected only by the immediate interposition of God, we find that two birds were taken, one of which was killed in an earthen vessel over running water, and the live bird having been dipped in the blood of the slain bird was let go to soar away to heaven, bearing upon its wings, as it were, the token of accomplished sacrifice. (Lev. xiv. 5-7). So on the great day of atonement, two goats were chosen, one of which was slain, and its blood carried by the high priest into the most holy place, was sprinkled upon the mercy seat, and seven times before the mercy seat; and the live goat, having had all the sins and transgressions of Israel imputed to it, typically bore away their guilt, thus picturing the efficacy of the death and resurrection of One who was to die for the sins of the people, and to rise again. Still later we hear this august personage saying to His Father, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades [the place of departed spirits]; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption," (Ps. xvi. 10); and again, "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise," (Isa. xxvi. 19); and again, "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied," (Isa. liii. 10, 11).

These are mere illustrations of the general drift of the Old Testament concerning the predicted Messiah who, according to the declarations of the New Testament writers and of Jesus Himself, was held up in symbol to the contemplation of the Jews in all the services of the tabernacle and temple, in events of national importance and in the ordinary incidents of family and individual life, so that He became the sum and the substance, the centre and the circumference of the ancient Scriptures, that have no interest and no significance apart from His anticipated death and resurrection. Moreover the prophets rose to their loftiest and sublimest strains in foretelling, not His sufferings only, when wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, but especially in announcing His second advent to earth amid the pomp of supreme royalty and the pageantry of the skies. With this second advent all the hopes of the Hebrews as a people, so marvellously preserved through the ages, are bound up; and it is this alone that throws light upon their strange history, about which Hegel, it is said by his biographer, having often thought, and often changed his thoughts, confessed that "all his life long it tormented him as a dark enigma." It is the time when their banner, that has been trampled in the dust for twenty-five hundred years by the Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman, the Mohammedan, and the Gentile world at large, shall float again in triumph from the battlements of Mount Zion; but every one of the many scores of predictions of their present shame is connected with the death of their Messiah, as every prediction of their future glory is connected with His resurrection.

V. Such then to an intelligent faith was the expectation that waited on the coming of the Messiah; and apart from the fact that more than a hundred minute predictions concerning Him are said in the New Testament to have been fulfilled in the person, and ministry, and sufferings of Jesus, we discover that the latter distinctly and repeatedly spoke of His approaching death and resurrection. We need go no further at present than the Gospel of Matthew, which Strauss insists is the most trustworthy, and it is laden with the burden of His coming woe, but light with the victory that would follow. It is easy to perceive that from first to last He walked in the shadow of the cross, which He beheld looming against the sky, but beyond the gloom the future was radiant to His eye with the brightness of resurrection joy. Hence at the very beginning of His ministry He speaks of those who are reviled and persecuted for His sake (Matt. V. 11); of false prophets standing before Him in a day that lies on the other side of death (vii. 22); of taking the cross and following Him even to the grave (x. 38, 39); of continuing three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (xii. 40); and of sending forth His angels in the harvest of the world to gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity (xiii. 41). Still more distinctly, when Peter confessed Him to be the Christ, or Messiah, the Son of the living God, "from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day," (xvi. 21). Again, after the transfiguration, that gave a glimpse of His promised kingdom, while He and the disciples abode in Galilee, "Jesus said unto them. The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men; and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again," (xvii. 22, 23). This is succeeded by the announcement that those who had followed Him,, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of His glory, should also sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (xix. 28); and this by another distinct statement that "Jesus going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them,, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again," (xx. 17, 19).

Then comes the prediction of His death, as the Son of God, in the parable of the vineyard (xxi. 37-39); then His defence of the doctrine of the resurrection against the Sadducees in His significant reproof, "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God," and in the sublime declaration, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," (xxii. 29,32); then his sorrowful farewell to Jerusalem, whose children should see Him no more, till they would say in the extremity of their distress, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," (xxiii. 37-39); then two entire chapters declaring that immediately after a tribulation yet future, of which the destruction of the sacred city by Titus was a faint type, "shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory," (xxiv. 30); that when His Church is wrapped in the deep sleep of spiritual insensibility, at midnight a cry shall be heard, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him," (xxv. 6); that during the period of His absence from the earth He commits certain talents to His servants, and "after a long time, the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them," (xxv. 19); that "when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations," (xxv. 31); then His solemn testimony at His trial before the high priest, when put upon His oath, or adjured by the living God to say plainly whether He was the Christ, the Son of God, "I am," as Mark has it, and "hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven," (xxvi. 64); then the account of His death, followed by the statement that when His body was in the grave, "the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying. Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while lie was yet alive, After three days I will rise again," and procuring a band of soldiers to watch the tomb, "lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people,, He is risen from the dead; so the last error shall be worse than the first," (xxvii. 62-66); and then the narrative of His resurrection and His subsequent appearance to the disciples (xxviii). Such is an imperfect outline of the references to the resurrection contained in the Gospel of Matthew, which, you must remember, Strauss regards as the most trustworthy. These references are so interwoven with the entire structure of the book that, if removed, there would be no Gospel by Matthew; and although Jesus, in prophesying such things of Himself, may be for Strauss nothing but a fanatic, or a braggart and an imposter, still it is certain that He did repeatedly and constantly prophesy such things of Himself according to the testimony of one whom Strauss recognizes as the most trustworthy witness. It does not concern us to know what opinion Strauss chose to entertain of the character of Jesus, but it does concern us to know that Jesus plainly and frequently predicted His resurrection.

VI. This is a suitable connection in which to notice the various accounts of the resurrection, as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Would that there was time to take up one by one the charges which Strauss brings of conflicting and contradictory testimony in these accounts, that as his charges are confuted and completely swept away, the hearts of Christians might burn within them, like the hearts of the two disciples walking to Emmaus, when the risen Jesus talked with them by the way, and while He opened to them the scriptures. The mistake of Strauss and all his class of writers in dealing with the accounts of the resurrection. consists in their failure to see the different design of the Holy Ghost in each of the four Gospels, or, if this expression offends them, the different purposes of the four human writers. Thus it is apparent to all who have really studied the Gospels, that it was the purpose of Matthew to set forth Jesus specially in His relation to the Jews as the son of David, and son of Abraham, and Lion of the tribe of Judah, disowned and rejected indeed, and going out in grace to meet the need of sinful Gentiles. It was the purpose of Mark to proclaim Him as the obedient servant, prompt to do God's bidding, coming, not to be ministered unto, but to minister. It was the purpose of Luke to reveal Him in His broadest aspects as the Son of man; and it was the purpose of John to show Him to the world as the Son of God, the heavenly stranger, tarrying a little while on earth to die, that whosoever believeth on Him may not perish, but have everlasting life, and then returning to the bosom of the Father.

Hence it was not the wish of either to furnish a complete narrative of the resurrection, or of many other facts in the life of our Lord, but only the features that were in accordance with the aim of each book; and this is found upon examination to be true in their accounts of the resurrection which, however diversified in certain details, and independent in one sense, are in perfect harmony with each other, and with the end each writer had in view in preparing his particular history. But would it not have been an easy task to make their accounts precisely similar in every respect? One of these books was written before the others, Matthew, the most trustworthy, according to Strauss, being the first, and as previously shown, it was soon publicly read at least once every week in a multitude of congregations. When Mark, Luke, and John subsequently concluded, speaking after the manner of men, to furnish their own narratives, it would have been a very simple thing, which a child could accomplish, to copy word for word, the account already given by Matthew. Yet if this had been done, what a howl would have been raised by infidelity, calling attention to the positive proof of collusion and forgery! As it was not done, infidelity turns upon you with the assertion that the accounts contain contradictory testimony, showing how utterly impossible it is to satisfy a skeptical spirit, no matter what the Bible says. But even the most skeptical spirit will be compelled to admit that the four Gospels precisely agree in all the leading facts connected with the resurrection. They all agree in asserting the real death of Jesus on the Cross. They all agree in saying that His body was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, with whom, John adds, Nicodemus also came, having obtained permission from Pilate to dispose of the remains; for as Strauss says, "there was a Roman law which gave the bodies of criminals so executed to their relations or friends, if they themselves asked for them," (Vol. I. p. 396). They all agree in regard to the statement that certain women went first to the sepulchre early on the morning of the first day of the week; they all agree that these women found the stone rolled away from the mouth of the sepulchre, and the sepulchre itself empty; and they all agree that the resurrection had previously occurred; though no one of them tells us that any mortal eye saw Him rise, nor do they inform us as to the manner of His resurrection, which they would surely have done, if the story had been an invention of their own.

Let us now bring these separate accounts together in their minutest particulars, and see whether Christians will not have occasion to admire and adore the divine wisdom and love that so marvellously protected the obviously honest narratives against every theory which would deny their perfect credibility. Jesus hanging on the cross, having cried, not with a faint voice indicating a swoon, but with a loud voice, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. It was about the ninth hour, or three o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, that is, three hours before the commencement of the Jewish Sabbath. Because it was the preparation, soldiers came at the request of the Jewish rulers, and with the consent of Pilate, to hasten the death of the three who were crucified, and who might have lingered in their agony for a day or two; but finding that Jesus was already dead, they brake not his legs, though one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, making his death doubly sure. Immediately afterwards, Joseph of Arimathea arrived, and with the assistance of Nicodemus, took down the body, and having wrapped it in a linen cloth, with such perfumes as the latter brought, he placed it, Matthew says, in his own new tomb, which Mark tells us was hewn out of a rock, and Luke and John add, "wherein never man before was laid." Matthew and Mark state that Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James and Joses, among other women, beheld where He was laid, while Luke describes them as the women "which came with him from Galilee,'^ and also states that they returned to the city, "and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the sabbath day, according to the commandment." The first day of the week, very early in the morning according to Luke, when it was yet dark according to John, as it began to dawn according to Matthew, these women came, bringing the spices they had prepared as Mark and Luke assert, Mark telling us that though it was very early in the morning when they left home, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun, and we know how brief is the interval in that latitude between the dawn and the morning. John mentions only Mary Magdalene, but he states that when she saw the empty sepulchre, she ran at once to Peter and John, who are always represented as intimately associated, exclaiming, "They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and ice know not where they have laid him." She did not say, J know not, but we know not, furnishing the strongest, because unintentional, evidence that other women were with her. It is pitiful weakness on the part of Strauss, utterly unworthy of his tine intellect, to accuse the four Evangelists of contradicting each other, because they do not mention the same number of women, or of angels, or because Matthew speaks of the angel that sat on the stone at the time of the earthquake, and Mark describes him as sitting in the sepulchre when the women entered. Four Americans on a visit to London might see the Queen accompanied by her children and officers riding in state through the streets on some occasion of national interest. One of them might write home saying that the Queen had appeared on the streets; another that the Queen and the Prince of Wales had appeared; another that the Queen and the Prince and Princess had appeared; another that the royal household had appeared; but there would be no contradiction in their testimony unless one or the other of the writers should affirm that only those they had chosen to name had been seen.

So it is here. John speaks of Mary Magdalene; Matthew speaks of Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary; Mark speaks of Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome; Luke speaks of Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them; and there is no contradiction whatever. The same remark may be made concerning the angels who are represented as appearing at different times and places in connection with the momentous event, now sitting on the stone, then in the sepulchre, then speaking to the women. The same remark may be made about the actions of the women, for Mary ran back to the disciples the moment she perceived that Jesus was not in the sepulchre, while the others remained and saw the angels. Peter and John at once proceeded with her, the latter outrunning the former, and, looking into the empty sepulchre,, believed; but the former was simply perplexed, and wondering in himself, departed. Luke mentions only Peter, but he does not say that John was not with him, nor does he say that Peter did not visit the sepulchre twice that great morning, as he probably did at the time the Lord appeared to him alone. Meanwhile the other women having fled in terror, speaking to no one by the way, but hurrying at once to the disciples, Mary stood without weeping, and it was during this second visit Jesus appeared to her, as He was in the act of ascending to the Father. The disciples generally regarded the words of the women, who reported the vision of angels, as idle tales, and two of them immediately left the city for the village of Emmaus, not having received the latest intelligence. But at least one of the women had returned to the sepulchre, and in company with Mary Magdalene was coming into the city the second time when Jesus met them, saying, "All hail!" and permitted them to fall at His feet and worship Him. Even then the disciples believed not, nor would they credit His resurrection until He had appeared to the entire number.

But surely it is needless to push this investigation farther. If any honest inquirer after truth will take four Bibles and, opening to the accounts of the resurrection, will place them side by side, carefully comparing them in all their details, he will soon become convinced that the apparent discrepancies are easily reconciled, and that too by no forced interpretation, nor by the suppression of a single fact recorded in any of the narratives. Nay, the transparent candor and perfect credibility of each writer, and the entire freedom, that is manifest, from all straining at effect and all anxiety as to the reception of the story, will grow upon him with increasing power, and he will say to himself again and again, it is absolutely impossible that these narratives could have been the inventions of forgery, or the products of an excited imagination, for the art required to produce them would be in itself something supernatural. They are narratives which for eighteen hundred years have been most closely and critically scanned by thousands, and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands, of the ablest minds of Christendom, for it is by no means true that all the intellectual greatness and honesty and learning belong to the infidels, and not only have these minds failed to discover the slightest discrepancy in the accounts of the resurrection, but they have studied them year after year with an ever-deepening impression of their truth and beauty and divinity. Especially have they poured out unto God the sacrifice of gladness and gratitude, when they have found in the Gospel history of the resurrection of Jesus, at once so simple and so sublime, the crowning proof of His rightful claims upon their confidence and love, the sure evidence of their eternal oneness with a risen Christ, and the strong foundation of every doctrine taught, and every duty enjoined, and every hope held forth in the New Testament.

VII. The statement just made will be fully confirmed if we look for a moment at the use of the resurrection of Jesus made by the Apostles. It will be seen that every doctrine, every duty, and every hope, are so intimately blended with the fact of His resurrection, that the denial of the latter leads to the instant and total annihilation of the former. Of this Strauss takes no notice whatever, and yet every one must perceive that it is too important to be overlooked. Thus the opening statement of the book called "The Acts of the Apostles" assures us that the risen Jesus showed Himself to His disciples, or as the Greek word properly means. He demonstrated Himself to be 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. This is followed by the statement that when He had given His last command to His disciples, while they beheld, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight, and this again by the statement that in the selection of one to take the place of Judas, it was an essential qualification of an Apostle that he must be a personal witness with the others of the resurrection of Jesus, (Acts i. 3, 9, 22). In the next chapter, recording the transactions that occurred on the day of Pentecost, we find Peter with the eleven standing in Jerusalem, where fifty days before Jesus had been put to death, and charging the Jews with the crime of having crucified and slain Him, "whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that he should be holden of it; . . .  this Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses," (Acts ii. 24, 32). Was there any denial of the bold charge! Was there any attempt to rebut the positive testimony, where it could have been so readily disproved, if it were untrue? Not the slightest; but on the other hand the record states, and its correctness has never been questioned, that three thousand of the Jews, pierced to the heart with conviction, were then and there baptized in the name of the risen Jesus. Why did not the rulers of the Jews expose the body of Jesus, and thus crush Christianity with a blow? Or why did they not prove that the witnesses to the resurrection had stolen the body? Or why did these witnesses, but a few days before, according to their own admission, so discouraged and desponding that they fled like a flock of frightened sheep, suddenly stand forth with an audacity that has never been equalled to assert, not in some distant corner of the land, but in the very city where Jesus had been crucified, His resurrection from the dead? The whole scene is inconceivable and impossible, if the Apostles did not only firmly believe, but knew, that He was actually risen.

In the next chapter we find Peter and John saying to the Jewish rulers, "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses," (Acts iii. 14, 15). In the next chapter they say, "Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth', whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand before you whole," (Acts iv. 10). In the next chapter Peter and the other Apostles say to the Sanhedrim, "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins," (Acts v. 30, 31). Can any one believe that they would have spoken in this manner to their own civil and ecclesiastical rulers, unless they knew that the ground on which they stood was unassailable? But it would be wearisome, if not unprofitable, to continue these quotations, when chapter after chapter brings out the same thing over and over again. If we look at Peter preaching to the Roman centurion in Caesarea, he tells him that the Apostles are witnesses of all things which Jesus did, "whom they slew and hanged on a tree; Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly," (Acts x. 40). If we look at Paul preaching to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, he tells them of Jesus, and says, "God raised him from the dead: and he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people," (Acts xiii. 30, 31). Or if we look at Paul preaching to the cultivated Athenians on Mars' Hill, he tells them of "Jesus and the resurrection," adding that God "hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained: whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead," (Acts xvii. 18, 31). Or if we look at Paul preaching in chains to King Agrippa, imprisoned, as the Roman Festus explained to his royal guest, on account of certain questions which the Jews had "against him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to he alive," (Acts XXV. 19), we find him testifying that he said "none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead," and moreover affirming that "this thing was not done in a corner," and so powerfully affecting his distinguished auditor that "Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian," (Acts xxvi. 22-28). Again let the question be asked, can any one believe that Paul would have made such an assertion, in such a presence, unless lie not only firmly believed, but knew whereof he affirmed? Would it not have been instantly contradicted and disproved, leaving Paul convicted as an impostor or as insane? Everywhere in the preaching of the Apostles, the resurrection of Jesus, not as a fancy which they fondly cherished, but as a fact of which they were competent witnesses, was their unvarying theme to the high and the low, to the rich and the poor, to the king and the peasant, to the philosopher and the child, to the Jew and the Gentile.

But this is not all, nor the half. It is indissolubly linked with every part and particular of the Christian faith. (1) It is an essential element of the Gospel. "I declare unto you," says Paul, "the gospel which I preached unto you," and then he defines the gospel; "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," (1 Cor. xv. 1-4); "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel," (2 Tim. ii. 8). (2) It is essential to our salvation. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved," (Rom. x. 9). (3) It is essential to our justification. Righteousness shall be imputed to us also, "if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification," (Rom. iv. 24 25). (4) It is essential to our sanctification. "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life: . . . Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him; . . .  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God," (Rom. vi. 4-9; vii. 4). (5) It is essential to our consecration. "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again," (2 Cor. v. 14, 15; "for to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living," (Rom. xiv. 9); "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God," (Col. iii. 1). (6) It is essential to our safety. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again," (Rom. viii. 34); "God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together," (Eph. ii. 4-6); "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead," (Col. ii. 12). (7) It is essential to our hope. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," (1 Pet. i. 3). (8) It is essential to our own resurrection. "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you," (Rom. viii. 11); "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him," (1 Thess. iv. 14); "Every man in his own order; Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's, at his coming," (1 Cor. xv. 23). Such are mere examples of the way in which the resurrection of Jesus is presented throughout the New Testament; and even in the closing book, acknowledged by Strauss to be the genuine work of John, He is everywhere described as risen, and ascended, and swaying the sceptre of empire amid the storms that shall shake the pillars of the earth in the last and perilous days, and coming again with clouds, when "every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him," (Rev. i. 7). Take away the literal resurrection of Jesus from the Bible, and as Renan says about the consequences of His removal from humanity and the world, you will rend it to its foundations.

VIII. The resurrection of Jesus, thus proclaimed all through the Bible, from the first of Genesis to the last of Revelation, could not possibly have been a myth, but must have been a real, and historical fact. A myth is the representation of a religious truth in the form of a fictitious narrative, but without any consciousness of the difference between them; and Strauss labors hard to prove that there was no objective occurrence which gave rise to the belief in the resurrection of Jesus, which he admits the Apostles firmly held, but only a subjective impression produced on their minds by a vision which they imagined they had seen. With due respect for one whose intellect we are compelled to admire, it may be safely said that a more absurd conceit was never hatched outside the brain of a madman. A number of men who did not exhibit a single trait of fanaticism, possessing none of its credulity, extravagance, ignorance, rashness, self-conceit, who were manifestly calm, cool, collected, judicious, giving to the world confessedly the noblest code of morals it has ever known, imparting the most exalted and the most rational conceptions of God, leaving on record commands and precepts affecting all the relations of life that even the bitterest skeptic acknowledges are eminently wise, and all of which are based on the reality of the resurrection of Jesus, who say of themselves that at the time of His death they obstinately and utterly rejected the first reports of His resurrection, went all over the world asserting that they saw Him after His resurrection, that they saw Him repeatedly, that they saw Him in the day time, that He spoke to them again and again, directing them how to proceed in their work, that He breathed upon them, saying, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, that He ate with them, that He showed them the print of the nails in His hands and of the spear wound in His side, that He demonstrated Himself to be alive after His passion by many infallible proofs during the space of more than a month, and that, they beheld Him visibly ascending to heaven; and yet Strauss gravely asks us to believe that all this was a fancy, a dream, a delusion!

But on the theory that the resurrection was a myth it is simply impossible to account for the conduct of one of these witnesses, who, for a considerable period after the death of Jesus, was not only an unbeliever, but a ferocious persecutor of His disciples. This man, on one of his persecuting excursions, as he drew near to Damascus, was suddenly arrested, as he declares, by a great light from heaven flashing about him at mid-day, and by the sound of a voice saying in articulate language, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me!" Overwhelmed with amazement and awe, he replied, " Who art thou f when again came the audible words, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." It is childish in Strauss to attempt to set aside the credibility of the narrative, because in one account it is said, that the men which journeyed with Saul stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no man, and in another account that they saw indeed the light, and were afraid, but they heard not the voice. It is Luke who gives, in the words of Paul, both accounts, and surely it would have been easy enough for him to avoid the contradiction if any had existed. But he speaks after the manner of the Bible, that always recognizes the difference between the circumcised and uncircumcised ear, and it is obvious that he means to say, his companions heard the sound, but did not understand the words that were uttered, just as Jesus a little while before His death heard the voice of His Father, articulately saying, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again," while the people that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered, (John xii. 28, 29). This explanation is fully confirmed by the meaning of the Greek word, which implies both "to perceive sound," and "to understand." If the narrative is not true, why did not some of the soldiers who travelled with him contradict it? Why did Ananias come on the strength of Paul's myth to this arch enemy of Christianity? Why did Paul challenge investigation both before the whole multitude of Jews in Jerusalem, (Acts xxii.), and before king Agrippa, (Acts xxvi.); and above all, why did Paul become a Christian and constantly affirm that he had seen the risen Jesus? "Am I not an apostle? am 1 not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?" (1 Cor. ix. 1). Baur, the teacher of Strauss, at the close of his long and critical studies, honestly confessed that the conversion of Paul was a mystery which could be explained only by "the miracle of the resurrection," (Christianity and the Christian Church in the First Three Centuries, p. 45). It is not unkind to say that if Strauss had been as magnanimous as he was able, he would have made the same confession, and so given up his whole undertaking; for the untruth of such evidence is surely more difficult to conceive than the reality of that which it was intended to prove.

Hear this last, and in some respects, most important witness, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, which Strauss and all other skeptical critics acknowledge to be genuine. After stating that the resurrection of Jesus is a fundamental part of the gospel, he says, "He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present [about thirty years after], but some are fallen asleep. [Did they all have a vision, or dream, or mere subjective impression without any objective fact to justify it, and all at the same time?] After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time," (1 Cor. XV. 5-8). Here then according to the testimony of a man whose honesty only a fool or a knave can question, in an Epistle of undisputed authenticity, we have a number of appearances, which added to those in the four Gospels and Acts, make at least twelve, under circumstances that utterly preclude the idea of myth. Rejecting the literal resurrection, there is no alternative but the conclusion that Paul and the other Apostles were deliberate and wilful liars, and this conclusion is so monstrous it is scorned even by skeptics who pretend to any decency. No wonder, therefore, Paul adds, "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished," (1 Cor. xv. 14-18).

Yes, they are perished, and we too must soon lie down in the dust, not only beside a dead Christ, bat beside a dead Christianity, a dead Bible, a dead world. We look up in our helplessness for help, but there is no living and personal God to meet our cry of agony with a fatherly response, or to bend the laws of nature even once before the expression of His infinite love. He is not the kind Master, but the bound slave of His own laws; and under His government darkness is superior to the One who announced that He was the "Light;" the chains of the lost are stronger than the One who proclaimed that He was the "Way;" falsehood is mightier than the One who declared He was the "Truth;" and death has conquered Him who is everywhere revealed in the Gospels as the "Life." If the resurrection of Jesus is a myth, all the teachings of the scriptures that rest upon it are myths, all the faith* and courage and endurance of the martyrs are myths, all the achievements of His disciples are myths, all the benevolence, all the charity, all the victory gained over selfishness and sin, all the stimulus to human enterprise, all the alleviation of human sorrow, all the history of the race for fifteen hundred years, all the guidance in perplexity, all the solace in affliction, all the hope in living, all the triumph iu dying, known by countless millions, all, all are myths, and Jesus Himself is a myth.

"But now IS Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept;" for as Beyschlag has well said, "it is infinitely easier to admit that the Christian Church is the offspring of a miracle, than to imagine it born of a lie." The miracle of His resurrection is the earnest and forerunner of even a grander and vaster miracle, when His glad shout shall ring through the silence of the tomb, and a great multitude that no man can number, coming forth in glorious, powerful, and immortal bodies, shall be caught up in clouds with living saints, changed in a moment, to meet Him in the air; "and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." If it please Him to tarry yet longer, the believer will soon enter the grave, as a quiet resting place from the strife and toil of earth; but his Christian friends can gather around it to lift the Hymn of Praise,

"Thou hast been here, Lord Jesus!
     But Thou art here no more;
The terror and the darkness,
     The night of death, are o'er.
Great Captain of salvation!
     Thy triumphs now we sing;
O Grave, where is thy victory?
     O Death, where is thy sting?"