,
concentrating on it their desires and expectations, heart and
soul. But he really did not do this at all. He did not even make
them understand what his vaticinations of the resurrection meant.
And when they saw his untenanted body hanging on the cross, they
slunk away in confusion and despair. Admit, again, that Christ was
enthusiast, or impostor, or both: these qualities exist not in the
grave. Here was their end. They could neither raise him from the
dead nor move him from the tomb. No considerations in any way
connected with Christ himself, therefore, can account for the
occurrences that succeeded his death.

Secondly, if the resurrection did not take place, what became of
the Savior's body? We have already given reasons why the disciples
could not have falsely pretended the resurrection. It is also
impossible that they obtained, or surreptitiously disposed of, the
dead and interred body; because it was in a tomb of rock securely
sealed against them, and watched by a guard which they could
neither bribe nor overpower; because they were too much
disheartened and alarmed to try to get it; because they could not
possibly want it, since they expected a temporal Messiah, and had
no hope of a resurrection like that which they soon began
proclaiming to the world. And as for the story told by the watch,
or rather by the chief priests and Pharisees, it has not
consistency enough to hold together. Its foolish unlikelihood has
always been transparent. It is unreasonable to suppose that fresh
guards would slumber at a post where the penalty of slumbering was
death. And, if one or two did sleep, it is absurd to think all
would do so. Besides, if they slept, how knew they what transpired
in the mean time? Could they have dreamed it? Dreams are not taken
in legal depositions; and, furthermore, it would be an astounding,
gratuitous miracle if they all dreamed the same thing at the same
time.

Finally, a powerful collateral argument in proof of the
resurrection of Christ is furnished by the conduct of the Jews. It
might seem that if the guards told the chief priests, scribes, and
Pharisees, of the miracles which occurred at the sepulchre, they
must immediately have believed and proclaimed their belief in the
Messiahship and resurrection of the crucified Savior. But they had
previously remained invulnerable to as cogent proof as this would
afford. They had acknowledged the miracles wrought by him when he
was alive, but attribut