The Forty Days After Our Lord's Resurrection

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868. Excerpt: ... VIII. THE GREAT COMMISSION.1 The very fact that among those who saw Christ upon the mountain side of Galilee, there were some who doubted, convinces us that more than the eleven must have been present at the interview. For after his repeated appearances to them in Jerusalem, after his meeting with them, and eating with them, and showing them his hands and his side, and asking them to handle him, -that any of the eleven should at this after stage have doubted is scarcely credible. And our impression of the incredibility of this is deepened hy reflecting that it was to a place of his own appointment they now went, and that for the very purpose of seeing and conversing with him once more. There are other and still weightier reasons, which leave no ground fr 1 Matt, xxviii. 16-20. doubt, that the appearance of the risen Saviour recorded by St. Matthew--the only one which this evangelist does record, and to which we may therefore conclude that a peculiar importance attached--was the same with that to which St. Paul refers, when he says, After that he was seen of five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. / It was the will of Christ to show himself alone after his resurrection, once, and once only, to the whole collective body of his disciples; to as many, at least, as could conveniently be congregated at one time, and in one place. It was in Galilee that this purpose could best be accomplished. There, and there only, could so many as five hundred of his disciples be found, and brought safely together. After the ascension, when all assembled at Jerusalem that the city and its neighbourhood could supply, the number of them gathered there was only one hundred and twenty. Hence, perhaps, one reaso...