to understand the meaning of the signs which Jesus had thrice given them,-" Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say unto the people He is risen from the dead; so the last error shall be worse than the first." But Pilate was angry with them and with himself, and not disposed to make any concession to them. He had refused to alter the title on the cross at their request; he had given up the body of Jesus to His friends; and now he repulses them: "Ye have a watch [perhaps a guard of Roman soldiers put at their disposal during the feast]; go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went and made. the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch" (Matt. xxvii. 62-66).

After the turbulent and tragical scenes of the Passion, after the intense spiritual interest of the Words on the Cross, after the deposition of the body in the new tomb in the garden, after all is over, a reaction seems to come over our minds, and a calm seems to spread itself over the history. "They rested the Sabbath-day, according to the commandment":— the early Church gave it the name of the Great Sabbath.

But the pause in the action of the history is only apparent. While the Sacred Body is being taken

down from the cross, and is resting in the tomb, it is our business to take up the history again at the moment when the Lord cried with a loud voice and yielded up the ghost.

When He "gave up the ghost," what was it which took place? It was the separation of the immaterial part of human nature from the material frame-work; in popular language, the separation of the soul from the body, which takes place at the death of every

man.

The body remained upon the cross till the pious care of Joseph and Nicodemus gave it sepulture.

What became of the human soul?

If angels waited about dying Lazarus to bear his soul to Abraham's bosom, may we not be sure that they awaited His death upon whom they were attending throughout His earthly career, and that His soul "was carried by the angels to Abraham's 'bosom," went to the place of departed spirits; in the language of the Creed, "descended into hell?"

But the Divine Nature? Is indissolubly united with the human nature, and went forth with it into Hades1 among the blessed dead, and there the Christ preached to them the glad tidings of the Incarnation

1 The opinion of the ancient theologians was, that since the body is a part of the human nature, the Divine nature remained also with the Sacred Body.

of the Son of God, and His victory over sin and death, and His accomplishment of the work of Redemption.1

1 The third of the Thirty-nine Articles had originally another clause in these words: "For the Body lay in the Sepulchre until the Resurrection, but His Ghost departing from Him was with the ghosts that were in prison, or in hell, and did preach to the same, as the place of St. Peter doth testify."

PART V-THE RISEN LIFE.

THE

CHAPTER XLII.

RESURRECTION.

N the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week . . .

Behold there was a great earthquake: for the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men." Such is St. Matthew's magnificent description of the outward terrors which accompanied our Lord's resurrection. He does not say that the stone was thus rolled away in order to make a way for the Lord to come forth. He who in His risen body could appear in the Upper Room, when "the doors were shut for fear of the Jews," could come forth from the sepulchre still closed and sealed. And it is the opinion of many of the great ancient

writers that our Lord had already risen, and gone forth; and that the appearances of the angels, who had, doubtless, been attendant upon the Resurrection, one opening the tomb and others sitting within it, was for the sake of the women,-as the angel and the attendant choir at the Nativity for the sake of the shepherds, and the two angels at the Ascension for the sake of the apostles, and all these things ultimately for the sake of the whole church.

We have not sufficient data for arranging all the events of this day with any certainty in the order of time in which they occurred, but the following sketch will help the reader to the probable arrangement, which has a large consensus of commentators in its favour.

It will be remembered that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, no doubt with the assistance of their servants, had placed the body of our Lord in the tomb, on Friday evening, "and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre and departed," just in time to avoid a breach of the Sabbath.

But "when the Sabbath was past" (Mark), “very early in the morning" (Luke), "when it was yet dark" (John)," as it began to dawn" (Matthew), the holy women set out to the sepulchre, bearing the spices which they had prepared, in order to proceed with the intended embalming. It is possible that the women came in two parties, one spoken of by