er been done before, and which, doubtless, will never be done again, viz: "" He instituted a memorial of that death, which he was just on the point of suffering. He foretold that he would suffer death from the chief priests, the scribes, and doctors of the law; which yet he might easily have avoided, if he would, by withdrawing into another place. But he rebuked the indiscreet zeal of Peter, who would have diverted him from that death: therefore, he considered it as an event which was to be attended with the happiest and most beneficial consequences to mankind. And with what happy consequences could his death have been attended, unless it was to have been immediately followed by his resurrection? "*

The prophecy of Jesus Christ, that he would be put to death, and that on the third day he would rise again, was by no means kept a secret among his disciples, but it was speedily divulged, and, as is evident from their language to Pilate, it soon reached the ears of his inveterate enemies, the chief priests and the Pharisees; who being thus duly warned, were prepared to take all necessary precautions, and put his pretensions to the test. As the great object of the enemies of Christianity (with the exception of Taylor, the unreasonableness of whose statements has been fully exposed) in their attacks upon the narrative of the death and resurrection of Christ is to invalidate the testimony of the evangelists, by pointing out what they term contradictions in their statements, they virtually acknowledge he did die upon the cross. And the evidence by which that fact is supported, is peculiarly clear and direct. Many circumstances relative to his seizure, his trial, his going to Calvary, and his crucifixion, are minutely specified. Various particulars of time, place, persons, discourses, &c., are set down. The chief priests are mentioned, and Pilate, and Herod as parties concerned. His crucifixion took place in the most public manner, in the suburbs of the city, which was the capital of the nation; during a solemn festival, when multitudes were assembled from different countries and from all parts of Judea. Moreover, it took place in the daytime, when all who were so disposed had an opportunity of witnessing the scene. These circumstances, together with his hanging six hours upon the cross, his being pierced in the side by one of the soldiers with his spear, and blood and water visibly flowing from the wound, are incontestible proofs that death must have taken place. Add to these circumstances, that as the Roman centurion was accountable for an escape, his duty would require of

*Horne, vol. i. p. 278.

him that he should not permit the body to be removed, until he was thoroughly convinced that life was extinct; and he would be more exact as the soldiers, seeing that Jesus was already dead, brake not his legs. Pilate had been threatened by the Jewish rulers with an accusation to the emperor, which influenced him to condemn Christ to crucifixion; lest he might afterwards be accused, would be careful that the body should not be removed until it was really dead. Accordingly, we learn that when Joseph of Aramathea craved of him the body of Jesus, he would not permit it to be removed until he had sent for the centurion "and asked him whether he had been any while dead ;" and not until he was satisfied from his testimony did he permit the body to be taken down.

As the chief priests and Pharisees were apprized of Christ's prediction, that on the third day he would rise again, they would take care that the body should not be taken down from the cross, until they were convinced that life was extinct. When the body was taken down, had his friends believed there were any remains of life they would not have wound it round so closely in linen clothes, with spices, as was the manner of the Jews. But if notwithstanding all the precautions taken, life was not extinct, when the body was removed from the cross and placed in the sepulchre, mangled and pierced as it was, and in this condition lying in a cold cave, so wrapt up as to be unable to stir, from six o'clock on Friday afternoon, till the dawn of the first day of the week, the body must have been truly dead. Further, the chief priests and the Pharisees, the day after his burial, came together to Pilate, that the necessary precautions might be taken to prevent any attempt, fraudulently to bring about an apparent accomplishment of his prophecy. Sir, said they, we remember that that deceiver said, wHILE HE WAS YET ALIVE, after three days I will rise again. (From this it is evident they were convinced he was dead.) Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day; 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. With this request, Pilate complied, giving them a guard of Roman soldiers, as large as they chose. The sepulchre was hewn out of a rock, and a great stone was rolled to the mouth of it. When the chief priests and Pharisees set the watch, they sealed this stone, and they would be careful to see that the body was within.t Than this, no arrangement could be bet

ter conceived, for thereby a double guard was placed over the body of Jesus; the watch to take care that the disciples should not steal it away; and the seal to prevent the guards from being corrupted so as to prevent the theft. Jesus Christ had declared that, on the third day, he would rise again. And the chief priests and Pharisees took every precaution which human policy and prudence could dictate, to prevent a resurrection, and to enable them to exhibit the body after the specified time had fully elapsed. The prediction of Christ was before the public. The precautions taken by the chief priests and the Pharisees were equally public; so that the matter was brought to a regular issue, and the entire question, whether he was or was not the Messiah? was suspended on the naked fact, whether he did or did not rise again on the third day?

From the course pursued by the chief priests and Pharisees, who, with all their pretended zeal for the sabbath, were very busy on that day, consulting and making their preparations, it is very evident that their design was, on the third day, to produce the dead body of Christ, and triumphantly to exhibit it to the entire conviction of the populace, and to the utter confusion of his now confessedly deluded followers. But what happened when the fatal day arrived? Did they produce the body? Nothing of the sort. Notwithstanding their precautions, the public seal upon the stone, and the guard of Roman soldiers, which had been set to watch the sepulchre, to prevent the possibility of any fraud on the part of the disciples, early in the morning, at dawn, or a little before it, it was found that the body was missing, and it could not be produced. Yet none of the watch had deserted their post while it was in the sepulchre, nor was any force used against the soldiers, or any arts of persuasion employed, to induce them to take it away, or to permit any other person to remove it. But that the body was missing, is a fact in which both the Jewish council and the apostles were agreed; the difficulty is how the fact is to be satisfactorily accounted for. The disciples of Jesus accounted for it in one way, and the Jewish council in another. We will attend to both. 1st. The Christian mode. The lately terrified and scattered disciples now came boldly forward, and declared that he had actually risen from the dead, and had thus accomplished his own prophecy. They alleged that they themselves had repeatedly seen him, and conversed with him, and even eaten with him, and handled him. And so fully did they seem impressed with the truth of their testimony, that from this time all their courage returned, and they boldly preached him as the promised Messiah, on the express ground of his resurrection.

As no four distinct witnesses in a court of justice among whom there is no collusion, when giving their testimony to the same facts, will relate precisely the same circumstances, and in exactly the same way, so the accounts of the four evangelists who have narrated the circumstances attending the resurrection of Jesus Christ, do not each relate all the circumstances; but, by a collection and comparison of their several narratives, in which there is nothing discordant, the following is the substance of their testimony, abridged from the unanswerable treatise of Mr. West, on the resurrection.

66

Very early in the first day of the week (the day immediately following the sabbath, and the third from the death of Christ) Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, in pursuance of the design of embalming the Lord's body, which they had concerted with the other women who attended him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and for the performing of which they had prepared unguents and spices, set out, in order to take a view of the sepulchre, just as the day began to break; and about the time of their setting out, "there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and sat upon it: his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men," during whose amazement and terror, Christ came out of the sepulchre; and the keepers being now recovered out of their trance and fled, the angel, who till then sat upon the stone, quitted the station on the outside, and entered into the sepulchre, and probably disposed the linen clothes and napkin in that order in which they were afterwards found and observed by John and Peter. Mary Magdalene, in the meanwhile, and the other Mary, were still on their way to the sepulchre, where, together with Salome, (whom they had either called upon or met as they were going,) they arrived at the rising of the sun. And as they drew near, discoursing about the method of putting their intent of embalming the body of their Master into execution," they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? for it was very great;" and they themselves (the two Maries at least) had seen it placed there two days before, and seen with what difficulty it was done. But in the midst of their deliberation about removing this great and sole obstacle to their design, (for it does not appear that they knew any thing of the guard,) lifting up their eyes, while they were yet at some distance, they perceived it was already rolled away. Alarmed at so extraordinary and so unexpected a circumstance, Mary Magdalene, con

cluding that, as the stone could not be moved without a great number of hands, so it was not rolled away without some design, and that they who rolled it away could have no other design but to remove the Lord's body; and being convinced by appearances that they had done so, ran immediately to acquaint Peter and John with what she had seen and what she suspected, leaving Mary and Salome there, that if Joanna and the other women should come in the meantime, they might acquaint them with their surprise at finding the stone removed and the body gone, and of Mary Magdalene's running to inform the two above-mentioned apostles of it. While she was going on this errand, Mary and Salome went on, and entered into the sepulchre, and there saw an angel sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted; ye seek Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified; he is risen, he is not here; behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples, and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him, as he said unto you. And they went out quickly and fled from the sepulchre, for they trembled and were amazed; neither said they any thing to any man, for they were afraid." After the departure of Mary and Salome, came John and Peter, who, having been informed by Mary Magdalene that the body of the Lord was taken away out of the sepulchre, and that she knew not where they had laid him, "ran both together to the sepulchre, and the other disciple [John] outran Peter, and came first to the sepulchre; and he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying, yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw and believed; for as yet they knew not the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home. But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping; and as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels in white, sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain; and they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, sup