Christ, raised from the dead, hath become our Almighty King and Ruler, and to him we owe allegiance. That same almighty power by which Jesus overcame death, assures to all his faithful members, to all true believers, that they shall overcome the world. That same almighty power which raised him from the darkness of the grave, will raise them from the darkness of sorrow. He lives, to be their Comforter, their Guide, their Saviour. When temptation assails, and sorrow threatens to overwhelm them, let them remember that they are the disciples not only of a tempted and suffering, but of a risen and highly exalted Saviour; and that, after his resurrection, he became vested with all power in heaven and on earth, for the purpose of exerting it in succouring and comforting his faithful people, for whom, having been tempted like as they are, he is touched with the tenderest sympathy. What temptations are too strong to be overcome by those whose Leader is almighty? And what afflictions can depress those whose Friend and Comforter-once, like them, the victim of sorrow-is as full of tenderness to sympathize with them, as he is of power to relieve them? This is the consolation which results from the incomprehensible union of the divine and the human nature in the person of Christ: as man, he is sensible of our infirmities-as God, he is able to relieve them. Jesus Christ, our Friend, the Brother of our nature, is risen, almighty in power and dominion, to succour and to comfort his people. And we rejoice,

7. Lastly. Because the event which we this day celebrate, assures us of victory over death

Death, our last and terrible enemy. Brethren, is he not terrible? He extinguishes life in the darkness of the grave-he consigns the body to corruption-his domains are cheerless, and destitute of hope. But, Christian, thou hast no need to fear this enemy of thy race-he need not be terrible to thee: the resurrection of thy Saviour assures thee of victory over him. Nature, unenlightened by the faith of Jesus, shudders at the darkness of the grave, in which are extinguished that life to which we fondly cling, and all its powers, its hopes, and its joys. thou shudder at it, Christian? is that paradise to which thy his first penitent disciple, his companion in death, and which he still blesses with his presence; and where thy spirit shall abide in all the ecstacy of hope, till the day of thy full redemption.

But why shouldst The grave, to thee, Saviour went with

Nature shudders at the destiny which, in the tomb, awaits the body-where the worm becomes its couch, and the earth-worm its covering. But hear, Christian, the voice which issues from the sepulchre of Jesus" O death, I have been thy plagues; O grave, I have been thy destruction." "The bodies of those which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him; and their corruptible shall put on incorruption, and their mortal immortality."

Nature shudders at the silence which reigns through the domains of death. For aught that reason or nature can assure us, it is the silence to which never comes the voice of joy. Reason and nature may hope; but what are faint and 'feeble hopes to sustain the soul, doubting and shuddering at the silence, the dread silence of the tomb? Christian, he who holds the keys of death

and hell, proclaims the holy assurance-"I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” The silence of the tomb, Christian, is not the silence to which never comes the voice of joy: the strains of heaven are heard in it, and draw the enraptured soul to the bosom of endless felicity.

Exalted consummation of all the blessed effects of Christ's resurrection! when, in glorified bodies and purified souls, we shall unite in the hallelujahs of heaven before the throne of God. Let us love and serve that Redeemer who, by his resurrection from the dead, hath assured to us these exalted hopes. Let us commemorate, with penitence and faith, in the symbols of the altar, the sufferings and victories by which he effected our redemption, and there celebrate that victory over death which hath assured to us everlasting life. Let us live to him who died for us and rose again; and then, through his power, we shall pass through the grave and gate of death to a joyful resurrection, and be made partakers of bliss, both in body and soul, in his eternal and glorious kingdom.

SERMON XXIX.

THE EXCELLENCY OF FAITH.

JOHN XX. 29.

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

THE apostles, who beheld Christ after his crucifixion and burial, were satisfied, on the evidence of their senses, that he had risen from the dead. The certainty which they enjoyed of his resurrection was not so properly the result of faith as of knowledge. What we see, we know to be true : what we are assured of on sufficient testimony, we believe to be true. The evidence, therefore, which arises from testimony, though a sufficient foundation for faith, regulating our conduct in the most important events of life, and producing on the mind full conviction, is still not so striking nor so strong as that which is produced by our senses, and which leads to knowledge.

Let us then seriously consider the nature of that faith to which is annexed the promise of salvation, in reference to the exercises of the understanding, to the dispositions of the heart, to its moral effects, and to the divine agency by which it is produced.

Those of the apostles, therefore, who saw our blessed Lord, enjoyed the greatest possible certainty of his resurrection. But Thomas was not present when Christ appeared unto the rest of the

apostles; he refused, therefore, to believe, on their testimony, that Christ had risen, and required the evidence of his senses. "Except," says he, "I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." Jesus afterwards appeared unto the apostles when Thomas was present, and called to him: "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing." Convinced by this irresistible evidence, Thomas exclaimed, in the ecstacy of adoration, "My Lord and My Lord and my God."

Thomas was convinced of the resurrection of his Master on the evidence of sense. But belief founded on the evidence of testimony, on the statements of credible witnesses, is a law of our nature. To reject as false, every thing which we do not know from the evidence of our senses to be true, would so far abridge human knowledge, and diminish human activity, that the business of life would be arrested, and the human mind, now so complex and powerful in its operations, and extensive in its range, would sink into the mere instinct that guides the brutes to the preservation of animal existence. Confidence in the testimony of those who could not be deceived, who had no motive to deceive, or who are too honest to deceive, even if interest urged them to the attempt, is one of those laws incorporated with our nature by its Almighty Maker, on which all men act, which is essential in the daily intercourse of life, in the improvement of their minds, and in the enlargement of their knowledge; and without the agency of which, the beneficial and exalted operations of civil society could not proceed in guarding, strength