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did the pious women receive it! Behold the tender care of Christ over his people! Angels have it immediately in charge to send the glad tidings to his disciples; and Jesus repeats and confirms them. Go tell my brethren, I am risen from the dead. Lord, is this thy language concerning those who but a few hours before had forsaken thee! and one of them, with such dreadful imprecations, denied thee! Yet even that disciple is not excluded; nay, to him is it peculiarly addressed: go tell my brethren, and in particular tell Peter, that he, poor mourner, may especially be comforted. Compassionate Redeemer, thou hast brought up from the tomb with thee that tenderness and goodness which laid thee there!

Such is the freedom and glory of thy grace, that thou sometimes dost first manifest thyself to those who were once in the most miserable bondage to Satan. Whenever this is the case, may the peculiar obligation be remembered! May every remainder of unbelief be subdued in our souls! and may we joyfully communicate to all around us the tidings of a risen Saviour, and the merciful discoveries of his presence to us!

SECTION II.

MATT. XXVIII. 11-15.

Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

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LUKE XXIV. 1-9, 11.

Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them; and they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and

found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: and as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words, and returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest. And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

Surely there is nothing in the whole sacred story which does in a more affecting manner illustrate the deplorable hardness of the human heart in this degenerate state, than the portion of it which is now before us. What but the testimony of an apostle could have been sufficient to persuade us, that men who had been but a few hours before the witnesses of such an awful scene, who had beheld the angel descending, had felt the earth trembling, and had seen the sepulchre bursting open by a Divine power, and had fallen down in helpless astonishment and confusion, perhaps expecting every moment to be themselves destroyed, should that very day, yea, that very morning, suffer themselves to be hired by a sum of money to do their utmost to asperse the character of Christ, and to invalidate the evidence of his resurrection, of which they were in effect eye-witnesses?

Nay, how astonishing is it, that the chief priests themselves, the public ministers of the Lord of hosts, could act such a part as this! They hear this full evidence that he, that Jesus whom they had murdered, was risen from the dead; and they well knew and remembered that he had himself put the proof of his mission on this very fact; a fact to which the prodigies at his death, which they themselves had seen and felt, added an inexpressible weight of probability. Who would not have expected that they should have been alarmed, convinced, and humbled; that they should have turned the remaining days of the passover into a public fast, and have solicitously sought out him who was so powerfully declared to be the Son of God, to cast themselves at his feet, and entreat his pardon and grace? But instead of this, with invincible and growing malice, they set themselves to oppose him, and bribe the soldiers to

testify a lie, the most to his dishonour of any that hell could invent. And surely, had not Christ been kept out of their sight and power, they would, notwithstanding all this, have endeavoured to bring him down to the tomb again, on the very same principles on which they would have slain Lazarus after his resurrection. (John xii. 10.) So true does it appear, in this renewed and unequalled instance, that if men hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. (Luke xvi. 31.)

No question but these very men, when pressed with the evidences of Christ's resurrection, answered, as succeeding infidels have presumptuously done, that he should have appeared to them, if he expected they should believe he was risen.' But what assurance can we have that the same prejudices which overbore the testimony of the soldiers, might not also have resisted even the appearance of Christ himself? Or, rather, that the obstinacy which led them to overbear conscience in one instance, might not have done it in the other? Justly therefore did God deny what wantonness, and not reason, might lead them to demand: justly did he give them up to dishonour their own understandings, as well as their moral character, by this mean and ridiculous tale, which brought men to testify what was done while they were asleep.

The most that common sense could make of their report, had they deserved the character of honest men, would have been, that they knew nothing of the matter.

And we have a thousand times more reason to admire the condescension of God, in sending his apostles to these wicked rulers with such additional proofs and messages, than to censure his providence in preventing Christ's public appearance. May he deliver us from the treachery and corruption of our own hearts! May he give us a holy tenderness and integrity of soul, that we may see truth wheresoever it is, and may follow it whithersoever it leads us; lest God should choose our delusions, and give us up in his righteous judgment to believe a lie, and to think ourselves wise in that credulous infidelity which is destroying its ten thousands amongst us!

SECTION III.

MARK XVI. 9. LUKE XXIV. 12. JOHN XX. 1-17. THE first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the

other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him: It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. Then arose Peter and that other disciple; and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home, wondering at that which was come to pass.

Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. But she stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre ; and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith

unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

Let the faith of what has been done with regard to our glorified Head, and shall at length be accomplished with respect to all his members, daily gladden our hearts. When our eyes are weeping, and our souls sinking within us, let us raise our thoughts to Jesus, our risen, and now ascended Redeemer, who says to all his brethren these gracious words (which may justly be received with transports of astonishment, and fill our hearts at the same time with joy unspeakable, and full of glory), "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God."

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is now, through the death and resurrection of his dear Son (whom by raising him from the dead he has so solemnly owned under that relation), become our Father and our God. As such let us honour him, love him, and rejoice in him: and when we must leave this world, which Christ has long since left, let it delight our souls to think that we shall likewise ascend after him, and dwell with him in his propitious Divine presence. In the mean time, if we are risen with Christ, let us seek those things which are above, where Christ now sitteth at the right-hand of God, (Col. iii. 1); and let us be willing, in whatever sense God shall appoint, to be made conformable to his death, that we may also be partakers of his resurrection and glory. (Phil. iii. 10, 11.)

SECTION IV.

MARK XVI. 10-13. LUKE XXIV. 14-35. JOHN XX. 18. AND Mary Magdalene came to the disciples, as they mourned and wept, and told them, that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.

After that he appeared in another form unto two of them. For behold two of them went that same day into the country, to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about three-score furlongs. And they talked together of all these things

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