ed them even his works of beneficence to
demoniacal power. They said, "He casteth out devils by the power
of Beelzebub, the prince of devils." So they acted in the present
case, and, notwithstanding the peerless miracle related by the
sentinels, still persisted in their alienation from the Christian
faith. Their intensely cherished preconceptions respecting the
Messiah, their persecution and crucifixion of Jesus, the glaring
inconsistency of his teachings and experience with most that they
expected, these things compelled their incredulity to every proof
of the Messiahship of the contemned and murdered Nazarene. For, if
they admitted the facts on which such proof was based, they would
misinterpret them and deny the inferences justly drawn from them.
This was plainly the case. It may be affirmed that the Jews
believed the resurrection, because they took no fair measures to
disprove it, but threatened those who declared it. Since they had
every inducement to demonstrate its falsity, and might, it seems,
have done so had it been false, and yet never made the feeblest
effort to unmask the alleged fraud, we must suspect that they were
themselves secretly convinced of its truth, but dared not let it
be known, for fear it would prevail, become mighty in the earth,
and push them from their seats. In the rage and blindness of their
prejudices, they cried, "His blood be on us and on our children!"
And from that generation to our own, their history has afforded a
living proof of the historic truth of the gospel, and of the
stability of its chief corner stone, the resurrection of Christ.
The triumphal progress of Christianity from conquering to
conquering, together with the baffled plans and complete
subjection of the Jews, show that their providential preparatory
mission has been fulfilled. If God is in history, guiding the
moral drift of human affairs, then the dazzling success of the
proclamation of the risen Redeemer is the Divine seal upon the
truth of his mission and the reality of his apotheosis. Planting
himself on this ground, surrounding himself with these evidences,
the reverential Christian will at least for a long time to come
cling firmly to the accepted fact of the resurrection of Christ,
regardless of whatever misgivings and perplexities may trouble the
mind of the iconoclastic and critical truth seeker.

The Christian Scriptures, assuming the resurrection of Christ as a
fact, describe it as a fulfilment of prophe