Acts 24:15

And have hope . . . as they themselves . . . allow, that there shall be a resurrection, &c.--This appeal to the faith of his accusers shows that they were chiefly of the Pharisees, and that the favor of that party, to which he owed in some measure his safety at the recent council (Ac 23:6-9), had been quite momentary.

Reflecting the other day upon the sad state of the churches at the present moment, I was led to look back to apostolic times, and to consider wherein the preaching of the present day differed from the preaching of the apostles. I remarked the vast difference in their style from the set and formal oratory of the present age.

Reflecting the other day upon the sad state of the churches at the present moment, I was led to look back to apostolic times, and to consider wherein the preaching of the present day differed from the preaching of the apostles. I remarked the vast difference in their style from the set and formal oratory of the present age. I remarked that the apostles did not take a text when they preached, nor did they confine themselves to one subject, much less to any place of worship, but I find that they stood up in any place and declared from the fulness of their heart what they knew of Jesus Christ. But the main difference I observed was in the subjects of their preaching. Surprised I was when I discovered that the very staple of the preaching of the apostles was the resurrection of the dead. I found myself to have been preaching the doctrine of the grace of God, to have been upholding free election, to have been leading the people of God as well as I was enabled into the deep things of his word; but I was surprised to find that I had not been copying the apostolic fashion half as nearly as I might have done. The apostles when they preached always testified concerning the resurrection of Jesus, and the consequent resurrection of the dead. It appears that the Alpha and the Omega of their gospel was the testimony that Jesus Christ died and rose again from the dead according to the Scriptures. When they chose another apostle in the room of Judas, who had become apostate, Acts I.22, they said, “One must be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection;” so that the very office of an apostle was to be a witness of the resurrection. And well did they fulfil their office.

THE heathen had, somehow or other, spelled out the Truth of God that the soul of man is immortal. Almost all their religions implied this and some of their sages plainly taught it. But never had they imagined that this immortality might belong also to the body! The Doctrine of the Resurrection from the Dead was peculiar to Christianity. It was so novel and it seemed, at first, to be so absurd that when men heard the Apostles speak of such a resurrection they mocked and laughed them to scorn as fools. They called Paul, "a babbler," because of this. They believed he must be mad. Had they not seen the body sicken and die? Had they not marked it in various stages of decay? Did they not know that it was frequently dissolved into small dust, scattered to the manifold winds of Heaven, or that its fragments mingled with the waves of the sea, or that its various members were torn by wild beasts a

And have hope toward God, etc. - I not only do not hold any thing by which the general creed of this people might be altered, in reference to the present state; but, also, I hold nothing different from their belief in reference to a future state; for, if I maintain the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, it is what themselves allow.