his refurrection, awakened no hopes in the minds of his difciples; the prejudices in favour of a temporal reign clouded their fpiritual understandings; yet in the people his warnings feem to have excited fome undefined apprehenfions of what might follow: His words were more particularly brought into recollection by the majefty which he difplayed in the fcene of death, and by the circumstances of gloom and terror which were exhibited in that tremendous hour.

An uncertain rumour began to circulate through the city, as if he fhould rife from the dead on the third day. This circumftance, joined to the confternation which was vifible in the countenances and gestures of the people as they returned from the mountain, gave ferious alarm to the rulers: they met early in the evening in clofe cabal; all was not right in their own bofoms; there was a terior of God in their affembly. Their guilty minds forboded dangers from every quarter: They dreadeda revolution in the paffions of the multitude; and the probable transition, from that univerfal dejection which pervaded Jerufalem, to tumult and vengeance. They even dreaded, that the difciples of Jefus, availing themfelves of the rumour of an expected refurrection, might carry off the corpfe, pretending that he was rifen; and thus the whole force of the popular rage might recoil against the rulers, as the murderers of the Meffiah, and deftroyers of the hope of Ifrael. Their first concern now, A 4 therefore,

therefore, was to make fure of the body, the only pledge of their fafety: that by publicly producing it a dead corpfe on the third day, they might vindicate what they had done, and extinguifh the laft rays of hope which any of the nation might have formed from Jefus of Nazareth. For this end the moft effectual precautions were taken which the cafe could poffibly admit. By application to the governor of the province, a company of Roman foldiers was procured, who at fun-fet, in the evening of the crucifixion-day, were pofted as a guard at the fepulchre; and the vaft ftone which clofed its entrance was fecured by the feal of the High Prieft; fo deeply in earneft were the rulers in this matter. The officer and the guard were inftructed, that they should be anfwerable to produce the feal unbroken, and the body fafe in the fepulchre on the third day.

But there were higher parties concerned in this cafe, of whofe interference the rulers were not aware; and against whom their guards and their feal could yield no protection. In fo far as refpected the difciples of Jefus indeed, the caution of the rulers was even exceffive; from this quarter no danger could reasonably be apprehended, whatever the fears of guilty men might fuggeft. The fituation of the eleven rendered them utterly unfit for enterprize they were plain and fimple men; all their hopes had expired with their Master; they lay under every circumftance of difcouragement

ragement and perplexity; they had trufted that it had been he who should have redeemed Ifrael: But his unrefifting fubmiffion, and his placid furrender of life, had filled them with utter amazement and dejection. Their cafe was mortifying and alarming in the highest degree: they now felt themselves without a leader, without a friend, exposed amidst a nationof enemies, as the poor remains of a broken and ruined party. They durft not even be feen, or ftir in the city, where every man's hand feemed to be lifted against them: left the ftorm which had overwhelmed their Mafter,. fhould burft alfo upon their heads. They had. forfaken him and fled at his trial; they had not even dared to mix with the crowd at the cruci fixion, but stood afar off: "The shepherd "was fmitten, and the fheep were scattered." The attempts of fuch men could not be formidable, nor require all this military apparatus of watching and defence. But the providence of God over-rules the counfels of men, that he may bring forth truth unto victory. The precautions of the rulers were, on this occafion, fubfervient to the cause which they meant to overthrow; they were carefully providing. evidence for their own confufion; not knowing what they did, they were stationing, at the grave of Jefus a band of neutral men, who,, being neither Chriftians nor Jews, and confcious of no intereft in the event, farther than to do their duty as Roman foldiers on guard,, were intended of Heaven to bear unexception

able teftimony to the fact, and to become, in the first inftance, the witneffes of the glory of the refurrection.

Such were the refpective fituations of the ru lers and the difciples, and fuch the ftate of things in Jerufalem, while the Captain of our falvation lay in the filence of the tomb. In. that feason the Roman foldiers were not the only guards of the fepulchre: The heavenly hofts were moved, the legions of God were. arrayed, to protect the facred depofit.. The preparations were now fully formed in both worlds, and all things ftood in readiness for the moment in which the arm of the Lord. thould be revealed..

Twice had the fun gone down upon the earth, and all, as yet, was quiet at the fepulchre: Death held his fceptre over the Son of God: Still, and filent,, the hours paffed on; the guards ftood by their poft, the rays of the midnight moon gleamed on their helmets, and on their spears: The enemies of Chrift. exulted in their fuccefs; the hearts of his friends were funk in defpondency and in forrow; the fpirits of glory waited in anxious fufpenfe to behold the event, and wondered at the depth of the ways of God. At length the morning ftar arifing in the caft, announced the approach of light; the third day began. to dawn upon the world, when, on a fudden, the earth treme bled to its centre, and the powers of heaven were fhaken; an angel of God defcended, the guards fhrunk back from the terror of his prefence,

prefence, and fell proftrate on the ground "His countenance was like lightning, and his “ raiment was white as fnow:" He rolled away the ftone from the door of the fepulchre, and fat upon it. But who is this that cometh forth from the tomb, with dyed garments from the bed of death? He that is glorious in his appearance, walking in the greatnefs of his ftrength? It is thy prince, O Zion; Chriftian, it is your Lord: He hath trodden the wineprefs alone; he hath ftained his raiment with blood; but now, as the first-born from the womb of nature, he meets the morning of his refurrection. He arifes a conqueror from the grave; he returns with bleffings from the. world of fpirits; he brings falvation to the fons of men. Never did the returning fun ufher in a day fo glorious: it was the jubilee. of the univerfe. The morning ftars fung together, and all the fons of God fhouted aloudfor joy: The Father of Mercies looked down from his throne in the heavens; with complacency he beheld his world reftored: he faw his work that it was good. Then did the defert rejoice; the face of nature was gladdened before him, when the bleflings of the Eternal defcended as the dew of heaven, for the refreshing of the nations..

This great fcene was appointed in the wif dom of God, and conducted by his power, for: the honour and reward of our crucified Mar