A SERMON

BY

THE REV. MARCUS RAINSFORD,

Preached on Sunday Morning, April 17th, 1870.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."-1 PETER, i. 3-5.

FASTER DAY is a day of joy and jubilee. It celebrates

the period of the Church's deliverance from her foes, and of her victory in her risen Head over Death and Hell. It dates a new era in the history of our humanity. From the dreary hour that sin entered into our nature, and death by sin, one long, sad wail has echoed through this vale of tears: "He is dead!" "She is dead!" Heard in the palaces of the great-heard in the hovels of the poor;— "He is dead!" "She is dead!" Now, for the first time, a new sound is uttered in earth and heaven, and angels came down to announce it, "He is risen!" Of Lazarus it was said, he was raised, and of others it might have been said, they were raised; but now for the first time, "He is risen!" We look for a song then to celebrate an

SERM. III.

occasion such as the present, the morning upon which we commemorate the resurrection from the dead of the great Shepherd of the sheep, "through the blood of the everlasting covenant." And the text seems to supply one. It is the new song of the redeemed; not even the angels can sing this song. Happy are they that have learnt it; they are the redeemed from among men. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible." Note the title here given to the great God. In Old Testament times, he was celebrated as the "God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"-" the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage." But here he appears in a new style—“ the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope." Here is a higher name, here is a greater deliverance, here is a more stupendous triumph, here is the manifestation of more abundant mercy-by the resurrection from the dead of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the eternal results connected with it. Our God loves to reveal himself to us sinners, as abounding in the things we most need. If you examine the word of God you will find that whatever you most need, God is revealed as abundantly possessing and freely bestowing. Is it more grace? He is "the God of all grace." Is it comfort? He is "the God of comfort and of all consolation." Is it peace? He is "the God of peace, bringing again from the dead the Lord Jesus."

Lost sinners-do we need salvation? He is the God of salvation. Need we mercy? He is abundant in mercy; "He delights in mercy." You are aware, my friends, that “mercy" is a relative term; it implies need and misery in the object to whom it is extended, moreover the word implies the freeness and fulness with which that mercy so needed by the miserable is bestowed.

We have several things here in the text characterizing the abundant mercy sealed in and flowing from the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, well worthy of your attention. Paul prayed that he might know the power of Christ's resurrection: may our hearts unite in praying, "Great God, may we know the power of Christ's resurrection!"

And first, observe, we are begotten again by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. We are begotten again. You remember it is written of him that he was the first-begotten from the dead. God made man originally in his image, but he lost that image and became the heir of death, not of life. And the Lord Jesus our nature, and took

in the fulness of time came down into

our place; but this was but a first step towards giving us the new nature—the new birth, of which the text speaks. In our nature the God-man expiated our sin, paid the penalty, died upon the cross, and went down into the deep dark womb of death; and then arose out of death, out of the grave into which we had consigned our hopes, the tomb into which we had consigned our immortality, the living Christ arose, in the power of an endless life, the first-born from the dead, taking life out of the very ruins of the Fall, and

going up to his Father and to our Father, and to his God and to our God. He sent down the Holy Ghost to beget in us, by the word, his own life, thus uniting us with himself in resurrection, and begetting us into the family of God, so that every one united by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ is identified with him in his resurrection, and placed in a position (observe you) beyond the confines of death, beyond the condemnation of law, beyond the horizon of judgment, up where Jesus sits at the right hand of God. No accusation can assail us there, no temptation can overcome us there, no separation can be experienced by us there. "Neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus." "Begotten again by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead." Every soul that believes on him, born by the word through the operation of the Spirit into communion with the risen Christ, is already in his or her soul, a partaker of the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every believer in believing participates in that resurrection. I have often pointed out to you one of the many passages which states this, the nineteenth verse of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, where the apostle declares that the working of the power of God

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upon us who believe" is "according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to