there would ever remain some plausibility in the assertion, that the Disciples had stolen away the body, and that some other man had personated him in his various appearances, and thereby deceived the multitude. But behold, the enemies of Christ themselves destroy all foundation for such a conceit : and the very means they used to subvert the religion of Christ, have established it on a basis that can never be shaken. By the placing of a guard, the Roman soldiers themselves became wit- nesses of his resurrection ; they immediately declared the event to the chief priests and Pharisees, who gave them large sums of money to conceal the matter* ; and thus the priests them- selves, even the whole Sanhedrim, became witnesses of the same. They were forced to invent some story to justify their continued rejection of Christ; but the idea of the whole guard (it is thought of sixty soldiers) being asleep at once, when the penalty of death was annexed to that offence, and the Disciples being able to remove the large stone from the door of the sepulchre, and to take away the body without so much as waking one of the soldiers, is too ridiculous to obtain the smallest degree of credit. That this should be done, too, and no one of the soldiers be called to an account for it, when their neglect had, on this supposition, defeated the most ardent wishes of the Jewish rulers, is inconceivable, especially when we know what was the state of the rulers' minds at that time. Now we can easily conceive what would have been the effect, if Jesus had not risen, and the Jewish rulers had been able, at the expiration of the third day, to bring forth the body, and to shew it to the people : they would thus have proved indisput- ably that Jesus was an impostor, and would have destroyed in a moment all the influence of his name. But their defeat has established the truth of our religion beyond a possibility of con- tradiction : Yes, we desire no better evidences of its truth, than those which the Roman soldiers and the Jewish Sanhedrim have this unwittingly afforded us^: so that we may well say, " Their last error was worse than the first :" for, if their forbearance gave Jesus an opportunity of propagating his religion, this device of theirs proved to demonstration the fact on which his religion rests ; and has thereby precluded all excuse for their obstinate unbelief.]
We would now suggest, III. Some general deductions from the subject —
Truly this is a triumphant subject to the Christian : for though we cannot but mourn at the idea that our blessed Lord sliould be treated with such indignities, we are constrained to triumph, when we see how
a Matt, xxviii. 11 — 15. VOL. XI. R R