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    to those circumstances , seemed unable to comprehend the meaning of a resurrection , and believed that it was the sole office of the Messiah to restore a temporal kingdom to Israel . Their minds , from some cause or other , have evidently undergone a remarkable change . From being highly carnal , they have become eminently spiritual . Instead of shuddering at the idea of their Master ' s death and its attendant circumstances , they expatiate on it with enthusiasm , and make it the basis of their teachings , and the

    central point of their testimony . Instead of sinking , disheartened and despairing , beneath the total failure of their hopes of a temporal kingdom , they seem inspired with a new courage and confidence , entertaining the firmest conviction of their Lord ' s having passed into some invisible state , and anticipating his return at no very distant period to raise the dead and to judge the world . With the precise correctness of this last opinion , we have , at present , no concern ; it does not compromise the truth of Christianity ; we have only to examine the evidence of the facts from which it flowed , as a natural consequence in the then existing state of the public mind .

    If we turn to the apostles' own account of this extraordinary change , we find them ascribing it distinctly to the resurrection . Peter , and James , and John , who had been witnesses of this great event , were the first to announce it , in all their preachings , recorded in the earlier chapters of the Acts of the Apostles . And let us here recollect the previous incredulity of the eleven , when the women reported what they had seen at the sepulchre ; an incredulity which Peter overcame ( Luke xxiv . 12 ) only by running , with his characteristic eagerness , to the sepulchre , where , " stooping down , he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves , and" then " departed , wondering in himself at that which was come to pass . " Let us remember the still more solemn , direct , and explicit testimony of John , who was with Jesus through the whole of the transactions preceding and attending the

    crucifixion ; who saw him pierced on the cross ; who accompanied Simon Peter to the sepulchre , on the report of the women ; and who has described this whole occurrence in language bearing the strongest impress of truth and reality ( John xx . 4—9 ) : * ' So they ran both together : and the other disciple did outrun 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 4

    he saw , and believed . For as yet , " i . e . up to that time , * they knew not the Scripture , that he must rise again from the dead . " We must further keep in mind , that John adds to the striking declaration contained in the foregoing words , that , on several occasions subsequent to this , he had actually seen the risen Jesus , * and been the subject of a conversation between Jesus and Simon Peter , at which he himself was present . " This , " says

    he emphatically , " is the disciple which testifieth of these things , and wrote these things : and we know that his testimony is true . " Lastly , there is the remarkable testimony of Paul —of Paul , the bigot and

    * May not the singular language at the opening of John ' s First Epistle , * ' that which we have seen with our eyes > which we have looked upon , and our hands have handled , of the word of lite , " be ino ^ t naturally interpreted as an animated reference on the part of the Apostle to the Hcns-ible evidence which lie had enjoyed oi ihe actual , bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus ?

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    On the Evidence of the Resurrection . 149

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 149, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/5/