(19.) THE RESURRECTION.

THE dream of man, that there is something near to him mightier than he knows, or can grasp, is not a dream, but a reality. The vague fear of man, that what is near to him is not a thing bat a Person, is a verity. The vague hope of man, that this Person may be gracious and not malignant, the source of all the good which he beholds, or believes, or imagines, and not of any of the evil, is established. The sense in every human heart, that it must have one to lean upon, who is higher than itself, and to whom it may give up itself, from whom it may be every moment a receiver, is shown not to be a delusion. The conviction that He, to Whom the heart looks, is stronger than all the enemies, which are crushing it now, and threatening it hereafter,--than death, than the grave, than the formless abyss,--is ratified by Him, Who first inspired it.

See! The Source of Life is Himself renewing it in One who was dead. The Father has raised up the Son, and in raising Him hath raised us up, whose nature He took. He has declared to us, that the Life, which is in Him, is capable of quickening, and shall quicken, our souls and bodies,--that we are restored in Him to our rightful state of union with God, of dependence upon God,--that no power, visible or invisible, can break that union, which He has established between Himself and His creatures, in the Body and Blood of His Son.--Sermons on the Prayer Book, p. 299.

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