awful period shall arrive when you are called to bid an everlasting farewell to all on earth, you may then say, "It is finished. The warfare is accomplished. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. I know in whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

SERMON XVII.

1 CORINTHIANS XV. 20.

"NOW IS CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD.”

THE fact of the resurrection of Jesus is one of the many pillars on which the fabric of christianity rests. But, however strong the other numerous columns which sustain the edifice may be, if it were possible that this essential support could be removed, the whole building must necessarily fall to the ground. Could any evidence be produced to invalidate the truth of the resurrection of Christ, the christian's hope of salvation would immediately be overthrown; and the book which he loves, the charter of his salvation, must be relinquished as "a cunningly devised fable;" an idea, the very supposition of which fills the mind with a degree of horror. If the resurrection of the Redeemer be not a fact, then all the millions who have believed, and who now believe in him for salvation, have been deluded and ruined. For, says the apostle, "if Christ be not risen, our preaching is vain; ye are yet in your sins, yea and we are found false witnesses of God. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." But the truth of the resurrection of the Saviour is built upon

an infidel or a Jew might say that the evidences of the resurrection of Christ, arise from the credibility due to the writers of the New Testament. Allow me, then, here to ask, where can any writers be found who deserve credit, if the authors of the New Testament do not? Were they not capable of giving a true account of the facts they record? Are there not the most evident marks of integrity in their writings? Do not their books contain the most genuine testimonies of their veneration for God, and of their benevolence to man? Is it credible that men who speak so honourably of God, and who insist on the necessity of being devoted to his service, should themselves be imposters? Can it possibly be imagined, that writers who maintain that "all liars shall have their portion in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone," should themselves be guilty of forging the most gross and wicked falsehood that the father of lies could put into their mind? It may also be asked, does not the nature of their testimony, in respect to the resurrection of Jesus, render it credible? Of what did they bear witness?-a plain matter of fact. It was not an hypothesis depending upon argument; but an evident fact, of which the writers, as well as many hundred others, had ocular testimony. To all which it may be added that they sealed their testimony with their blood. They triumphantly laid down their lives for the sake of him of whose resurrection they bore witness, and from whom they confidently expected everlasting salvation. But can it be imagined