know. He says himself to Cornelius, We did " eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead." (Acts x. 41.) Those who in modern times say they are not con- vinced, may as well say that they are determined not to believe any evidence at all.
Let us all thank God that we have such a cloud of witnesses to prove that our Lord rose again. The resur- rection of Christ is the grand proof of Christ's divine mission. He told the Jews they need not believe He was the Messiah, if He did not rise again the third day. — The resurrection of Christ is the top-stone of the work of redemption. It proved that He finished the work He came to do, and, as our Substitute, had overcome the grave. — The resurrection of Christ is a miracle that no infidel can explain away. Men may carp and cavil at Balaam's ass, and Jonah in the whale's belly, if they please, but till they can prove that Christ did not rise again we need not be moved. — Above all, the resurrec- tion of Christ is the pledge of our own. As the grave could not detain the Head, so it shall not detain the members. Well may we say with Peter, " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrec- tion of Jesus Christ from the dead." (1 Peter i. 3.)
Notes. John xxi. 1 — 14.
The last chapter of St. John's Gospel requires a few prelim- inary observations. Certain very objectionable theories have been propounded about it. {a) Some, as Grotius, maintain that the chapter was not written by John at all, that his Gos- pel ended with the last verse of the twentieth chapter, and that the twenty-first chapter is the work of another writer, per- haps one John, an Ephesian presbyter ! (p) Others do not go so far as this, and yet maintain that the chapter must be regarded as a postscript or appendix to the Gospel, and was probably added, as an afterthought, by St. John himself, some years af- ter the rest of the Gospel. The chief ground on which these theories are bailt is the passage with which the twentieth chapter ends. Men tell us that the two concluding verses of