Page:Excellency of the knowledge of Christ crucified.pdf/17

( 17 ) had it been in their power. After they had murdered him, and laid him in his grave, under a triple ſecurity, the ſtone, the ſeal, and the watch; yet, according to his own prediction, he roſe the third day after his death. He did not indeed appear publicly before the Jewiſh nation after his reſurrection, as he had done before his death: but the whole college of the apoſtles, men of ſufficient abilities for diſcerning,——men of untainted candour and integrity, go to death, one after another, maintaining the ſame thing, viz. that they ſaw with their eyes Jeſus of Nazareth alive; that they eat and drank, and converſed familiarly with him, for no leſs than forty days after he had been both dead and buried. Thus the reſurrection of Chriſt, upon which the whole of chriſtianity depends, ſtands upon the moſt undoubted evidence*. Now, my brethren, beſides the external evidence for the truth of chriſtianity, ariſing from miracles and prophecies, which the acuteſt adverſaries have not yet been able to diſprove; real believers have the inward witneſs of the Spirit of God, convincing them of the truth of Chriſtianity, with a certainty beyond all moral fſions or mathematical demonſtrations in the world.

2. knowledge of Chriſt crucified excels all other Knowledge in point of eaſineſs and plainneſs. How 3