THE RESURRECTION.
BY THE REV. CANON LIDDON. Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, Sunday Afternoon, April 5, li
" That I may know Him, and the power of His Resurrection. — Philippians iii. 10.
" The power " of Christ's resurrection here is one of those phrases which is only understood when we remember that it is in tacit contrast with another phrase which suggests it — power seems here to be in contrast with fact. In every occurrence, great or unimportant, there are to be considered, first, the fact — that which actually occurs— and, secondly, the consequences, actual or possible — what St. Paul calls " the power " of the fact. We know the fact of an occurrence when we have handled the proofs which show that it really took place ; when we know how it has been described, what were its several aspects, near or distant, from without or from within ; we know the fact when we have mastered its scene, its mechanism, its dimensions ; but we know of the " power " of the fact, or occurrence, when we can trace what its effects have been ; what but f or disturbing or unconceived of causes they might have been or might be — whether in the world at large or upon individuals, whether upon others or upon ourselves. It is easier to apprehend a fact than to take the measure of its consequences, its practical meaning, its power. If I throw a stone as f ar as I can, I can ascertain, without much difficulty, the weight of the stone, the moment at which it leaves my hand,
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the distance of the spot at which it touches the ground from the spot on which I am standing. So much for the fact. But what is hard to ascertain is the effect of the stone's passage through the air ; the thousands or millions of insects instantaneously disabled or destroyed by it ; the radiation of disturbance caused by the displacement of the atmosphere, and extending, it may be, into regions which defy altogether my calculations. We all of us understand more or less, at least, the gen-
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eral outline of the succession of recent events in Egypt ; but what will be, in the course of time, their import and influence upon the condition and history of our own country and of the world, who shall say ? This is a matter much less easy to determine — it needs the lapse of time, it needs observation, reflection, very varied experience, in order to do so with any approach to accuracy. On Good Friday morning we were all of us startled by hearing that a great lawyer and statesman had passed away ; and it is not necessary to subscribe to all of Lord Cairns' opinions in order to do justice to his consummate ability, and to the fearless conscientiousness which throughout marked his career. But what will be the eff ect, or, as St. Paul would say, the " power," of the withdrawal of so prominent a figure from the public li fe of this country, and at such a time as the present ? This question, also, can only be answered some months — perhaps some years — hence ; and even then
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the influence of a single mind upon those with whom its possessor acted and upon men in general, is not easy to measure with any thing li ke exactness. You see, my brethren, to apprehend a fact is one thing ; it is quite another to understand its power. When, then, St. Paul utters his earnest prayer that he may know " the power " of Christ's resurrection, he implies that already he has knowledge of the fact. He had, indeed, no sort of doubt about it. Here, perhaps, some of you may recall ground over which at this sacred season we have traveled together in former years — I mean the nature and the vigor of the witness which St. Paul in particular bears to the fact of the resurrection, and by which, accordingly, he unveiled before our eyes the basis of his own strong conviction. St. Paul wrote his first Epistle to the Corinthians before any one of the Gospels had yet been written, and that Epi stle is one of the four books in the New Testament against the genuineness and authenticity of which unbelieving criticism has found absolutely nothing to allege — there is, in fact, in the most purely skeptical judgment no more reason for doubting that St. Paul wrote that epistle than for doubting that Sir Walter Scott wrote " Waverly." And what does St. Paul tell the Corinthians about our Lord's resurrection ? He tells them that while he was writing there were more than two hundred and fifty persons still living who had seen our risen Lord on one occasion in Palestine. " He was seen of five hundred brethren at once, of whom
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the greater part remain until this present." Now, here was an assertion which the Corinthians might, if they would, verify for themselves. There was intercourse enough in those days between Greece and the coast of Syria, and any Corinthian who thought that St. Paul was too impetuous or too credulous, or any thing else of the kind, had only to investigate the accuracy of his statement by paying a visit to some of the two hundred and fifty survivors, and question them for himself. St. Paul's statement was in itself a challenge to do so ; and if, as far as we know, the challenge was not accepted, that will only have been because men felt that unless the apostle had been quite sure of his ground the statement would never have been made. Even those who do not, with the Church of God, perceive in St. Paul a glorious saint and apostle, enthroned, now that his life of toil and suffering is over, not f ar from the throne of Himself in heaven — even they must, and do gather from his writings that he was a remarkably clever man — a man of shrewd common sense ; and as such, putting for a moment his i nspiration aside, he never, we may be sure, would have made an assertion like that before us had he believed it to be liable to be disputed upon examination, had he been less than certain of its li teral and severe accuracy. St. Paul was convinced that Christ had risen for other reasons, as we know, but also for this — that more than two hundred and fifty people were still living who, if they were questioned, would say that they had seen him ; and St. Paul, being thus sure of the resurrection as a fact, was not embarrassed by an a priori doctrine forbidding him to ignore it. He was not like those old Schoolmen whom Lord Bacon condemned, and who,
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