Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/267

 Church wherein  He  promised  to  abide  forever,  must be infallible  beyond  all  doubt. For Christ  had  said: " I  have  power  to  lay  down  My  life,  and  I  have  power to  take  it  up  again,"  words,  which,  if  justified  by  the event, proclaim  the  speaker  to  have  been  a  God. Lazarus, and  other  few  before  and  since,  have  been recalled to  life,  but  always,  mind  you,  by  a  power other than  their  own,  but  only  God,  the  Arbiter  of life  and  death,  could  say:  "  I  die  at  pleasure  and  at pleasure  do  I  rise  again." In fact  on  this  one  truth, viz., that  He  should  rise  again,  Christ  staked  His reputation as  a  man  and  His  claim  as  God  upon the world's  credence  and  fidelity. All His  other miracles had  a  distinct  purpose  immediately  in  view, whether it  was  that  He  pitied  the  widow  of  Nairn,  or had  compassion  on  His  famished  followers,  or  rescued them  from  shipwreck;  and  invariably  He enjoined  silence  concerning  such  evidences  of  His Godhead, until  He  should  be  risen  from  the  dead. Nay, when  pressed  by  His  enemies  for  a  proof  of  His divinity, He  refused  the  sign  they  asked,  saying: " No  other  proof  shall  be  given  you  but  that  of Jonas  the  prophet,  who  after  three  days  came  forth from  the  whale  even  as  I  shall  from  the  tomb,  for  if you  destroy  this  temple,  My  body,  in  three  days  I shall  raise  it  up  again." His position,  therefore,  was that His  Resurrection  was  to  be  the  crowning  proof of His  divinity  and  that  without  His  Resurrection  He and  all  His  teaching  and  wonder-working  would have come  to  naught. Not only  Christianity,  but  all religion from  the  beginning,  would  have  been  dis-