terms, unheeded indeed and not understood when they were uttered, but when the time came for the event, recalled and borne witness to by His very enemies, who set a guard to make His sepulchre sure on this very ground; and when it took place it was not hastily believed, but discredited at the first by the disciples, who were most of all interested in its truth, till they were made as sure and sensible of its reality as of their own existence, by the testimony of their senses through various opportunities of familiar conversation and intercourse, eating and drinking with Him, by the space of forty days, in the well-known appearance of His person, and the exhibition and examination of the wounds they had seen Him receive at the time of His death and crucifixion.

Now the effect of this our certain knowledge of the resurrection of our Lord, and of our own in the day of judgment, must needs be to cause us to be in earnest to approve ourselves Christians in very deed, by doing the word in which we profess that we believe, and to encourage us to persist, and to arm us with patience under all the trials to which we may be exposed. For whatever may be our lot here, the hope remains of a pure and uncorrupt life hereafter in the sight and enjoyment of God.

Well, therefore, might we congratulate each other this day, like them of the Eastern Church, saying one to another, "Christ is risen," "He is risen indeed," for His resurrection is the pledge and assurance of our own. And if for the hope of happiness, and of the glory that may belong to our

resurrection, we are indebted to Him, our Lord, in that He died upon the cross to make an atonement and obtain forgiveness for our sins, how shall we not faithfully and thankfully commemorate the same, as He commanded, partaking of the Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood this day, in which, according to His will and appointment, we worship and adore our great Creator and merciful Redeemer, and ascribe honour and glory to Him to whom they are so justly due, even to Him who liveth and reigneth with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for ever. Amen.

SERMON VI.

First Sunday after Easter.

LUKE Xxiv. 46.

"Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.”

HESE were the words of our Lord when He

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appeared to the apostles after His resurrection, as they were wondering and doubting among themselves of the fact which had been just told them. Their minds, like those of the two disciples going to Emmaus, were holden, so that they neither recollected their Master's words, nor understood the Scriptures that related to these things. It was one of the blessings which followed His resurrection, that their minds were enlightened; for then did our Lord Himself open their understandings, which had before been closed, that they might understand the Scriptures, in which He shewed them that it was thus written, and from whence He expounded to them that thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day. While the evidence of the Lord's resurrection was before them, and their minds, at first doubting, were lost in wonder and astonishment, certainly it must have had the

effect of giving their wonder its just direction, and of fixing their belief that Jesus was the Christ, and rendering their strong conviction immediately efficacious, to be thus made to understand that the Scriptures had foreshewn all, and that the extraordinary event which had taken place was no more than the necessary accomplishment of God's word and will.

It will be an exercise, brethren, most fitting for the day to review with reverence and devout attention the whole matter; to consider how the death and resurrection of Christ was foreshewn of old; how it was typified in the lives of the patriarchs and in the law, how it was foretold by the prophets; and then to consider the evidence with which the accomplishment has been recorded in the resurrection of our Lord; and, lastly, to lay well to heart the application of it to the reformation and real amendment of our lives.

And first for the types which the history of the patriarchs and the chosen race affords of the death and resurrection of Christ. There are five principal ones: first, that of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, whom, the Apostle says, he received from the dead also in a figure; next the history of Joseph, who suffered persecution from his brethren, exceeded only by the persecution of Christ,-whom they first resolved to kill, then sold for twenty pieces of silver; - Joseph, who was taken from prison and from judgment, and was exalted to be a prince and a saviour, and made to rule over the whole land; before whom his father and his brethren bowed themselves to

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the earth, and at whose hand they received their life and preservation.

Then Samson arose at midnight, and carried away the gates of the city in which he had been shut up, and so led captivity captive.

David also, after he had been anointed king, was made to go through many trials and afflictions before he received the kingdom.

And last of all, Jonah the prophet, who was for three days and nights in the belly of a fish, which the prophet aptly calls the belly of hell, that is, the grave; and then was miraculously cast out alive upon the sea-shore.

In the next place, of the rites, in which the law ordained by Moses shadowed out the same great event, we have two capital instances. In the one, a lamb having been slain as a sin-offering for the people, the high-priest was seen arraying himself in the garments of glory and beauty, was beheld purifying the several parts of the figurative tabernacle with the blood of the innocent that had been slain, and then entering within the veil into the Holy of Holies, to present that propitiating blood before the offended Majesty of heaven.

In the other instance it was ordained that the high-priest should wave a sheaf of the first-fruits on the morrow after the Sabbath, as an earnest of the future harvest; a rite typical of Christ's arising on the morrow after the Sabbath, and becoming the first-fruits of them that slept, an earnest of the future harvest of the general resurrection of the dead.