glorious issue. More than once had he fore- | to be landlord of the Lord of nfe! how well told thee this his victorious resurrection. is thy house-room repaid with a mansion not He, who had openly professed Jonas for his made with hands, eternal in the heavens! type, and had fore-promised in three days Thy garden and thy tomb were hard by to raise up the ruined temple of his body, Calvary, where thou couldst not fail of had doubtless given more full intimation many monitions of thy frailty. How oft unto thee, who hadst so great a share in hadst thou seasoned that new tomb with that sacred body of his. "The just shall sad and savoury meditations; and hadst oft live by faith." Lo! that faith of thine in his said within thyself, Here I shall once lie ensuing resurrection, and in his triumph down to my last rest, and wait for my reover death, gives thee life, and cheers up surrection. Little didst thou then think to thy drooping soul, and bids it, in a holy have been disappointed by so blessed a confidence, to triumph over all thy fears guest; or that thy grave should be again so and sorrows; and him, whom thou seest soon empty, and in that emptiness uncadead and despised, represents unto thee pable of any mortal indweller. How gladly living, immortal, glorious. dost thou now resign thy grave to him in whom thou livest, and who liveth for ever, whose soul is in Paradise, whose Godhead CONTEMPLATION XXXIII. THE RESURRECTION. everywhere! Hadst thou not been rich be GRACE doth not ever make show where it is. There is much secret riches both in the earth and sea, which never eye saw. I never heard any news till now of Joseph of Arimathea; yet was he eminently both rich and wise and good; a worthy, though close, disciple of our Saviour. True faith may be wisely reserved, but will not be cowardly. Now he puts forth himself, and dares beg the body of Jesus. Death is wont to end all quarrels. Pilate's heart tells him he hath done too much already, in sentencing an innocent to death: no doubt that centurion had related unto him the miraculous symptoms of that passion. He, that so unwillingly condemned innocence, could rather have wished that just man alive, than have denied him dead. The body is yielded and taken down; and now that which hung naked upon the cross is wrapped in fine linen; that which was soiled with sweat and blood is curiously washed and embalmed. Now even Nicodemus comes in for a part, and fears not the envy of a good profession. Death hath let that man loose, whom the law formerly overawed with restraint. He hates to be a night-bird any longer, but boldly flies forth, and looks upon the face of the sun, and will be now as liberal in his odours as he was before niggardly in his confession. O Saviour! the earth was thine, and the fulness of it: yet as thou hadst not a house of thine own while thou livedst, so thou hadst not a grave when thou wert dead. Joseph, that rich counsellor, lent thee his; lent it so as it should never be restored: thou tookst it but for a while; but that little touch of that sacred corpse of thine made it too good for the owner. O happy Joseph, that hadst the honour fore, this gift alone had enriched thee, and more ennobled thee than all thine earthly honour. Now great princes envy thy bounty, and have thought themselves happy to kiss the stones of that rock which thou thus hewedst, thus bestowedst. Thus purely wrapped, and sweetly embalmed, lies the precious body of our Saviour in Joseph's new vault. Are ye now also at rest, O ye Jewish rulers? is your malice dead and buried with him? hath Pilate enough served your envy and revenge? Surely it is but a common hostility that can die; yours surviveth death, and puts you upon a further project: "The chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that this deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again; command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure till the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say to the people, he is risen." How full of terrors and inevitable perplexities, is guiltiness! These men were not more troubled with envy at Christ alive, than now with fear of his resurrection. And what can now secure them? Pilate had helped to kill him; but who shall keep him from rising? Wicked and foolish Jews! how fain would ye fight against God, and your own hearts! how gladly would ye deceive yourselves, in believing him to be a deceiver, whom your consciences knew to be no less true than powerful! Lazarus was still in your eye: that man was no phantasm; his death, his reviving was undeniable; the so fresh resuscitation of that dead body, after four days' dissolution, was a manifest conviction of omnipotence. How do ye vainly wish, that he could deceive you in the fore-reporting of his own resur rection! Without a divine power, he could | have raised neither Lazarus nor himself: with, and by it, he could as well raise himself as Lazarus. What need we other witnesses than your own mouths? that which he would do, ye confess he foretold; that the truth of his word might answer the power of this deed, and both of them might argue him the God of truth and power, and yourselves enemies to both. And now what must be done? the sepulchre must be secured, and you with it; a huge stone, a strong guard must do the deed; and that stone must be sealed, that guard of your own designing. Methinks I hear the soldiers and busy officers, when they were rolling that other weighty stone, for such we probably conceive, to the mouth of the vault, with much toil, and sweat, and breathlessness, how they bragged of the sureness of the place, and unremovableness of that load: and when that so choice a watch was set, how they boasted of their valour and vigilance, and said, they would make him safe from either rising or stealing. O the madness of impotent men, that think, by either wile or force, to frustrate the will and designs of the Almighty! How justly doth that wise and powerful Arbiter of the world laugh them to scorn in heaven, and befool them in their own vain devices! O Saviour, how much evidence had thy resurrection wanted, if these enemies had not been thus maliciously provident! how irre fragable is thy rising made, by these bootless endeavours of their prevention! All this while the devout Maries keep close, and silently spend their Sabbath in a mixture of grief and hope. How did they wear out those sad hours in bemoaning themselves each to other, in mutual relations of the patient sufferings, of the happy expiration of their Saviour, of the wonderful events both in the heavens and earth, that accompanied his crucifixion, of his frequent and clear predictions of his resurrection? and now they have gladly agreed, so soon as the time will give them leave, in the dawning of the Sunday morning, to visit that dear sepulchre. Neither will they go empty handed: she, that had bestowed that costly alabaster box of ointment upon their Saviour alive, hath prepared no less precious odours for him dead. Love is restless and fearless. In the dark of night, these good women go to buy their spices, and, ere the day break, are gone out of their houses, towards the tomb of Christ, to bestow them. This sex is commonly fearful: it was much for them to walk al ne in that unsafe season: yet, as despising all fears and dangers, they thms spend the night after their Sabbath. Might they have been allowed to buy their perfumes on the Sabbath, or to have visited that holy tomb sooner, can we think they would have staid so long? can we suppose they would have cared more for the Sabbath than for the "Lord of the Sabbath," who now kept his Sabbath in the grave? Sooner they might not come, later they would not, to present their last homage to their dead Saviour. Had these holy women known their Jesus to be alive, how had they hasted, who made such speed to do their last offices to his sacred corpse! for us, we "know that our Redeemer liveth,” we know where he is. O Saviour, how cold and heartless is our love to thee, if we do not haste to find thee in thy word and sacraments, if our souls do not fly up to thee, in all holy affections, into thy heaven! Of all the women, Mary Magdalene is first named, and in some Evangelists alone; she is noted above her fellows. None of them were so much obliged, none so zealously thankful. Seven devils were cast out of her by the command of Christ. That heart which was freed from Satan, by that powerful dispossession, was now possessed with a free and gracious bounty to her deliverer. Twice, at the least, hath she poured out her fragrant and costly odours upon him. Where there is a true sense of favour and beneficence, there cannot but be a fervent desire of retribution. O blessed Saviour, could we feel the danger of every sin, and the malignity of those spiritual possessions from which thou hast freed us, how should we pour out ourselves into thankfulness unto thee! Every thing here had horror. The place both solitary and a sepulchre; nature abhors, as the visage, so the region of death and corruption. The time, night; only the moon gave them some faint glimmering, for this being the seventeenth day of her age, afforded some light to the latter part of the night. The business, the visitation of a dead corpse. Their zealous love hath easily overcome all these. They had followed him in his sufferings, when the disciples left him; they attended him to his cross weeping; they followed him to his grave, and saw how Joseph laid him; even there they leave him not, but, ere it be day-light, return to pay him the last tribute of their duty. How much stronger is love than death! O blessed Jesu, why should not we imitate thy love to us? Those," whom thou lovest, thou lovest to the end," yea in it, yea after it: even when we are dead, not our souls only, but our very dust is dearly respected of thee. What condition of thine should remove our affections from thy person in heaven, from thy limbs on earth? Well did these worthy women know what Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus had done to thee; they saw how curiously they had wrapped thee, how preciously they had embalmed thee: yet as not thinking others' beneficence could be any just excuse of theirs, they bring their own odours to thy sepulture, to be perfumed by the touch of thy sacred body. What thank is it to us, that others are obsequious to thee, while we are slack or niggardly? We may rejoice in others' forwardness, but if we rest in it, how small joy shall it be to us to see them go to heaven without us? When on the Friday evening they attended Joseph to the entombing of Jesus, they marked the place, they marked the passage, they marked that inner grave-stone, which the owner had fitted to the mouth of that tomb, which all their care is now to remove: "Who shall roll away the stone?" That other more weighty load wherewith the vault was barred, the seal, the guard set upon both, came not perhaps into their knowledge; this was the private plot of Pilate and the priests, beyond the reach of their thoughts. 66 I do not hear them say, How shall we recover the charges of our odours? or how shall we avoid the envy and censure of our angry elders, for honouring him whom the governors of our nation have thought worthy of condemnation? The only thought they now take is, Who shall roli away the stone?" Neither do they stay at home and move this doubt, but when they are well forward on their way, resolving to try the issue. Good hearts cannot be so solicitous for anything under heaven, as for removing those impediments, which lie between them and their Saviour. O blessed Jesu! thou, who art clearly revealed in heaven, art yet still both hid and sealed up from too many here on earth: neither is it some thin veil that is spread between thee and them, but a huge stone, even a true stone of offence, lies rolled upon the mouth of their hearts. Yea, if a second weight were superadded to thy grave here, no less than three spiritual bars are interposed betwixt them and the above; idleness, ignorance, unbelief. Who shall roll away these stones, but the same power that removed thine? O Lord, remove our ignorance, that we may know thee; our idleness, that we may seek thee; our unbelief, that we may find and enjoy thee. How well it succeeds when we go faithfully and conscionably about our work, and leave the issue to God! Lo, now God hath removed the cares of these holy women, together with the grave-stone. To the wicked, that falls out which they feared; to the godly, that which they wished and cared for, yea more. Holy cares ever prove well; the worldly dry the bones and disappoint the hopes. Could these good visitants have known of a greater stone sealed, of a strong watch set. their doubts had been doubled. Now God goes beyond their thoughts, and at once removes that which both they did, and might have feared. The stone is removed, the seal broken, the watch fled. What a scorn doth the Almighty God make of the impotent designs of men! they thought, the stone shall make the grave sure, the seal shall make the stone sure, the guard shall make both sure; now, when they think all safe, God sends an angel from heaven above, the earth quakes beneath, the stone rolls away, the soldiers stand like carcases, and, when they have got heart enough to run away, think themselves valiant! the tomb is opened, Christ is risen, they confounded. O the vain projects of silly men! as if, with one shovel-full of mire, they would dam up the sea; or, with a clout hanged forth, they would keep the sun from shining. O these spiders' webs, or houses of cards, which fond children have, as they think, skilfully framed, which the least breath breaks and ruins! worms, that we should look, in any business, to prevail against our Creator; what creature is so base, that he cannot arm against us to our confusion! The lice and frogs shall be too strong for Pharaoh, the worms for Herod. "There is no wisdom nor counsel against the Lord." Who are we, sorry O the marvellous pomp and magnifi. cence of our Saviour's resurrection! The earth quakes, the angel appears, that it may be plainly seen that this divine person, now rising, had the command both of earth and heaven. At the dissolution of thy human nature, O Saviour, was an earthquake; at the re-uniting of it, is an earthquake: to tell the world, that the God of nature then suffered, and had now conquered. While thou layest still in the earth, the earth was still; when thou camest to fetch thine own, The earth trembled at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob." When thou, our true Samson, awakedst and foundst thyself tied with these Philistine cords, and rousedst up, and breakedst those hard and strong twists with a sudden power, no marvel if the room shook under thee. Good cause had the earth to quake, when the God that made it powerfully calls for his own flesh from the usurpation of her bowels; good cause had she to open her graves, and yield up her dead, in attendance to the Lord of life, whom she had presumed to detain in that cell of her darkness. What a seeming impotency was here, that thou, who art the true Rock of thy church, shouldst lie obscurely shrouded in Joseph's rock! thou, that art the true corner-stone of thy church, shouldst be shut up with a double stone, the one of thy grave, the other of thy vault! thou, "by whom we were sealed to the day of our redemption, should be sealed up in a blind cavern of earth. But now, what a demonstration of power doth both the world and I see, in thy glorious resurrection! the rocks tear, the graves open, the stones roll away, the dead rise and appear, the soldiers flee and tremble, saints and angels attend thy rising. O Saviour, thou liest down in weakness, thou risest in power and glory; thou liest down like a man, thou risest like a God. What a lively image hast thou herein given me of the dreadful majesty of the general resurrection, and thy second appearance! Then not the earth only, but "the powers of heaven shall be shaken:" not some few graves shall be open, and some saints appear, but all the bars of death shall be broken, and “all that sleep in their graves shall awake, and stand up from the dead," before thee. Not some one angel shall descend, but thou," the great angel of the covenant," attended with thousand thousands of those mighty spirits. And if these stout soldiers were so filled with terror, at the feeling of an earthquake, and the sight of an angel, that they had scarce breath left in them, for the time, to witness them alive; where shall thine enemies appear, O Lord, in the day of thy terrible appearance, when the earth shall reel and vanish, and the elements shall be on a flame about their ears, and the heavens shall wrap up as a scroll. O God, thou mightst have removed this stone by the force of thine earthquake, as well as rive other rocks; yet thou wouldst rather use the ministry of an angel; or thou, that gavest thyself life, and gavest being both to the stone and to the earth, couldst more easily have removed the stone than moved the earth: but it was thy plea sure to make use of an angel's hand. And now he, that would ask why thou wouldst do it rather by an angel than by thyself, may as well ask why thou dost not rather give thy law by thine own immediate hand, than by the ministration of angels; why by an angel thou struckest the Israelites with plagues, the Assyrians with the sword; why an angel appeared to comfort thee after thy temptation and agony, when thou wert able to comfort thyself: why thou usest the influences of heaven to fruiten the earth; why thou employest second causes in all events, when thou couldst do all things alone? It is good reason thou shouldst serve thyself of thine own: neither is there any ground to be required, whether of their motion or rest, besides thy will. Thou didst raise thyself, the angels re moved the stone. They that could have no hand in thy resurrection, yet shall have a hand in removing outward impediments; not because thou needst, but because thou wouldst like as thou alone didst raise Lazarus, thou badest others let him loose. Works of omnipotency thou reservest to thine own immediate performance; ordinary actions thou dost by subordinate means. Although this act of the angels was not merely with respect to thee; but partly to those devout women, to ease them of their care, to manifest unto them thy resurrection. So officious are those glorious spirits, not only to thee their Maker, but even to the meanest of thy servants, especially in the furtherance of all their spiritual designs. Let us bring our odours, they will be sure to roll away the stone. Why do not we imitate them in our forwardness to promote each other's salvation? we pray to do thy will here, as they do in heaven; if we do not act our wishes, we do but mock thee in our devotions. How glorious did this angel of thine appear! the terrified soldiers saw his face like lightning; both they and the women saw his garments shining bright and white as snow; such a presence became his errand. It was fit, that as in thy passion the sun was darkened, and all creatures were clad with heaviness, so, in thy resurrection, the best of thy creatures should testify their joy and exultation in the brightness of their habit; that, as we on festival days put on our best clothes, so thine angels should celebrate this blessed festivity with a meet representation of glory. They could not but enjoy our joy, to see the work of man's redemption thus fully finished; and if there be mirth in heaven at the conversion of one sinner," how much more when a world of sinners is perfectly ransomed from death, and restored to salvation? Certainly, if but one or two appeared, all rejoiced, all triumphed. Neither could they but be herein sensible of their own happy advantage, who by thy mediation are confirmed in their glorious estate; since thou, by the blood of thy cross, and power of thy resurrection, hast "reconciled things not in earth only, but in heaven." But, above all other, the love of thee, their God and Saviour, must needs heighten their joy, and make thy glory theirs. It is their perpetual work to praise thee: how much more now, when such an occasion was offered as never had been since the world began, never could be after! when thou the God of Spirits hadst vanquished all the spiritual powers of darkness! when thou, the Lord of life, hadst conquered death for thee and all thine, so as they may now boldly insult over their last enemy!"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Certainly, if heaven can be capable of an increase of joy and felicity, never had those blessed spirits so great a cause of triumph and gratulation as in this day of thy glorious resurrection. How much more, O dear Jesu, should we men, whose flesh thou didst assume, unite, revive; for whose sake, and in whose stead, thou didst vouchsafe to suffer and die; whose arrearages thou paidst in death, and acquittedst in thy resurrection; whose souls are discharged, whose bodies shall be raised by the power of thy rising; how much more should we think we have cause to be overjoyed with the happy memory of this great work of thy divine power and inconceivable mercy! Lo now, how weak soever I am in myself, yet, in the confidence of this victorious resurrection of my Saviour, I dare boldly challenge and defy you, O all ye adverse powers! Do the worst ye can to my soul; in despite of you, it shall be safe. Is it sin that threatens me? Behold, this resurrection of my Redeemer publishes my discharge. My surety was arrested, and cast into the prison of his grave; had not the utmost farthing of mine arrearages been paid, he could not have come forth: he is come forth; the sum is fully satisfied. What danger can there be of a discharged debt? Is it the wrath of God? Wherefore is that but for sin? If my sin be defrayed, that quarrel is at an end: and if my Saviour suffered it for me, how can I fear to suffer it in myself? That infinite justice hates to be twice paid. He is risen, therefore he hath satisfied: "Who is he that condemn eth? It is Christ that died; yea, rather that is risen." Is it death itself? Lo! my Saviour, that overcame death by dying, hath triumphed over him in his resurrection. How can I now fear a conquered enemy? what harm is there in the serpent, but for his sting? "The sting of death is sin :" that is pulled out by my powerful Redeemer; it cannot now hurt me; it may refresh me to carry this cool snake in my bosom. O then, my dear Saviour! I bless thee for thy death; but I bless thee more for thy resurrection. That was a work of wonderful humility, of infinite mercy; this was a work of infinite power: in that was human weakness; in this divine omnipotence: in that thou didst "die for our sins;" in this thou didst "rise again for our justification." And now how am I conformable to thee, if, when thou art risen, I lie still in the grave of my corruptions? How am I a limb of thy body, if, while thou hast that perfect dominion over death, death hath dominion over me? if, while thou art alive and glorious, I lie rotting in the dust of death? I know the locomotive faculty is in the head: by the power of the resurrection of thee, our head, all we, thy members, cannot but be raised. As the earth cannot hold my body from thee in the day of the second resurrection, so cannot sin withhold my soul from thee in the first. How am I thine, if I be not risen? and if I be risen with thee, why do I not seek the things above, where thou sittest at the right hand of God? The vault or cave, which Joseph had hewn out of the rock, was large, capable of no less than ten persons: upon the mouth of it, eastward, was that great stone rolled; within it, at the right hand, in the north part of the cave, was hewn out a receptacle for the body, three handfuls high from the pavement; and a stone was accordingly fitted for the cover of that grave. Into this cave the good women, finding the stone rolled away, descended to seek the body of Christ, and in it saw the angels. This was the goal to which Peter and John ran, finding the spoils of death, the graveclothes wrapped up, and the napkin that was about the head folded up together, and laid in a place by itself; and as they came in haste, so they returned with wonder. I marvel not at your speed, O ye blessed disciples, if, upon the report of the woman, ye ran, yea flew upon the wings of zeal, to see what was become of your Master. Ye had wont to walk tamiliarly together in the |