3. We proceed to notice the NOBLE AVOWAL of their real sentiments and feelings, which Joseph and Nicodemus made on the occasion of our Lord's death. Joseph went boldly to the governor, and begged the body of Jesus; and Nicodemus united with him in wrapping the sacred corpse in spices and linen, and in committing it to its quiet resting. place. How strange that these men who begged the body of Jesus, and who united in showing the utmost respect to his lifeless remains, did not rise up, some hours before, to demand, or, at least, to solicit, his acquittal! It is a strange sight. Jesus has many friends; not a few amongst the multitude feel for him; even in the council some hearts beat with love to him; the judge is in an agony because he cannot acquit him ;-and yet, while the trial proceeds, no voice is heard on his behalf; he must be condemned-he must die. But no sooner is he condemned than tones of the bitterest woe are heard in the temple: it is Judas, exclaiming, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood!" As he is led away to be crucified amidst the tramp and confused noise of myriads moving in one mass through the streets of Jerusalem, you distinctly hear the sighs and cries of those who bewailed and lamented him. While he is hanging on the cross, the penitent malefactor testifies to his innocence, his power, and his grace. When he is dying, all nature sympathises with him; Gentile soldiers smite on their breasts, and exclaim, "This was the Son of God." And no sooner has he expired than the flame of love, which had been long pent up, blazes in the hearts of these noble counsellors, and a spirit of holy courage animates them, and they beg the body of Jesus; and they bury him with the profoundest respect, with their own hands performing the funeral rites.

The conduct of these noblemen appears remarkable when contrasted with that of the apostles. They all forsook him when he was apprehended; and afterwards, they seemed, for the most part, ashamed to show themselves openly. The apostles were not present at the funeral of their master; only John was there with the holy women from Gali. lee, who observed, in silent sorrow, the place where the Lord was laid. It was Joseph and Nicodemus who begged his body, and buried him.

Their conduct is still the more remarkable when taken in connexion with their own previous history. When Jesus was alive and at liberty, when all confessed his power, and the world went after him, their attachment to him was a secret; but now that he is publicly condemned and crucified, and his chosen disciples have deserted him, they come forward and beg his body, and honour his sacred remains. How strangely men change! Often do they change with circumstances; sometimes they change even against them. With what feelings did they bury him? With what faith? Did they still believe that he was the Messiah? We cannot tell. But certainly they did not bury him in the hope of a speedy resurrection. They did not write on the stone which they rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre, "He shall rise again." But they buried him with feelings of profound reverence for his worth and humble submission to one of the darkest dispensations of Providence. Their only consolation was, that the Judge of all the earth must do right, and their hope that, as time rolled on, this deep mystery would be made plain.

4. We must just advert to the BEARING OF THIS FACT ON THE EVIDENCE OF OUR LORD'S DIVINE MISSION, AND OF THE TRUTH OF HIS RESURRECTION. The fact that our Lord was buried by these noblemen in the grave of Joseph of Arimathea, affords one more evidence of his Divine mission: it was necessary to complete the proof of his Messiahship; for thus was fulfilled a very remarkable prophecy concerning him: "His grave was appointed with the wicked; but with the rich man was his tomb."* As "he was numbered with the transgressors," and died with malefactors as an evil-doer, "his grave was appointed with the wicked;" but, notwithstanding this, his tomb was actually with the rich man. A singular prediction, and very unlikely to be fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It was very unlikely, during any period of our Lord's life, that rich men would have buried him. He, whose first resting-place on earth was a stable, and who, after he had entered on his public ministry, had no certain dwellingplace, was not likely to find his last home in the tomb of a noble. During his public ministry, during his shameful trial, during the painful hours of his crucifixion, who would have said that men of the highest rank in the nation would, with their own hands, have wrapped his body in spices and linen, and have laid it in a sepulchre prepared for one of themselves? But this, too, was necessary; without this, the proofs of his Messiahship were not complete.

But this fact has also an important bearing on the resurrection of our Lord: it has served to render it undeniable. If Jesus had been buried with the malefactors with whom he suffered, in some common grave, his resurrection might have been very doubtful; an air of uncertainty might always have attached to it. But the circumstances of his burial were so ordered that there could be no possibility of a mistake touching his resurrection; that if he were not risen there could be no doubt about it, and that, if he were risen, the fact must be unquestionable. He was buried alone in a grave in which no other had ever been laid; he was buried in a tomb, hewn out of a rock, to which there was but one way of access; and a great stone was rolled on the mouth of the tomb, and made secure. His enemies distinctly understood that he had foretold his resurrection on the third day; they recollected this, and, on the very evening of his death, they came and informed Pilate of it. They obtained from him a guard as strong as they wished; they sealed the sepulchre, and set the watch. Their vigilance was not to be extended over any very lengthened period; it would necessarily terminate with the third day. If, at the close of that day, the body of Jesus were in the tomb, the controversy between him and the Jews had been for ever at an end; no one would then have ever heard of his resurrection; and the darkest spot on earth had been that grave. But, on the morning of the third day, the body of Jesus was missing: the seal was broken, the stone was rolled away, the grave-clothes were there, not thrown about in confusion, but laid carefully and in order, where the corpse had lain; BUT THE BODY WAS NOT THERE. How to account for this? There are but two ways of accounting for it. The first is that adopted by the enemies of our Lord, and the second is that adopted by

* Isaiah liii. 9, Lowth's translation.

his apostles. How did the Sanhedrim attempt to account for the fact that the body of Jesus was missing from the grave which they had so securely guarded? They got the soldiers who watched the sepulchre to say," His disciples came and stole him away while we slept." ~ Of all lame accounts ever given by lying lips, surely this was the lamest. How improbable that the poor timid disciples would have attempted this! They had fled in terror at the first appearance of danger; they had forsaken their Lord when he surrendered himself to his enemies, and were now under serious apprehensions respecting their own safety; and were they likely to run into the very face of danger, to expose themselves to certain destruction by attempting the equally absurd and fraudulent act which is here attributed to them? I said attempting, for success was impossible-detection was inevitable. The sepulchre was within the walls of the city. Jerusalem was thronged with persons who had come from all parts of the world to celebrate the passover. It is probable that persons would be passing and repassing during the greater part of the night; and it was full moon, so that there was no congenial darkness to hide the dark deed. The guard consisted of Roman soldiers-about the best disciplined in the world. For the soldier to sleep at his post was death; the probability is, therefore, that none of them slept. Surely they were not all asleep together; and the certainty is that they would not have acknowledged it had they not received assurances of protection and impunity. Besides, if they were asleep, they could not tell how the body came to be missing. Why, ye foolish guards! if ye were asleep, how know ye that "his disciples came and stole him away"? Why may it not have been some one else? Was it not Pilate, think ye, had done it to spite the Jews? Nay, He may not have been stolen away at all. It may have been that an angel came down from heaven, and rolled away the stone, and that the mighty Captive, having laid aside his grave-clothes, calmly stepped forth a conqueror over death, and the grave, and all his foes. Verily, it may have been even so; ye cannot tell, for ye were asleep!

It is unnecessary to notice the way in which the apostles account for the great fact that the grave in which their Lord was laid was found empty on the morning of the third day. With John we enter the sepulchre; we examine it carefully; and, with all the light which prophecy and history have thrown into it, we are inexcusable if, with him, we do not see and believe." Yes! the place in which He lay proves to me that "the Lord is risen indeed."

THE BRITISH ANTI-STATE-CHURCH ASSOCIATION.

66
TO THE EDITOR OF THE BAPTIST RECORD."

DEAR SIR,-I have long wanted to invite the candid attention of my fellow-Dissenters to the Constitution and Claims of the British Anti-statechurch Association, but have hitherto been deterred by the apprehension of appearing to assume a position to which I have no title. Necessity, however, is now laid upon me, and I throw aside, therefore, every other consideration

than that of a sense of duty. The necessity to which I refer, does not arise from the crippled or embarrassed state of the Society, but solely from the aspect of the times which are passing over us, and the character of those events which are distinctly casting their shadows before them. The providence of God has placed us in the present age, and a devout study of its signs is one of our most obvious duties. The unreflecting may shrink from this obligation, and content themselves with a limited sphere of action and solicitude. What is beyond the present moment, and without the range of the most obvious and palpable duty, may be decried as doubtful or presumptuous;-the resource of indolence; the plea which partial worldliness employs to justify its neglect of the more spiritual and self-denying departments of Christian labour. These things are, in substance, daily repeated, and on some minds they make a powerful impression. To myself they are idle and impotent, discreditable to the judgment of the parties who utter them, a gross violation of Christian charity, and the sign of an imperfect and very partial apprehension of duty. I shall not, however, now stop to expose them. I note them only to point out "a more excellent way." To the mind of large and reflective habits nothing will be foreign which affects the purity of the Christian church, the efficacy of religious truth, the spirituality of our high vocation, or the exclusive supremacy of our Lord. Whatever does this injuriously will be regarded with aversion. It will not be necessary that the effect should be immediate and palpable, that it should stand out in bold relief, and be admitted on every hand as the direct and undoubted sequence of the system to be denounced. To such minds the latent tendencies of things will be viewed with distinctness, and be regarded as legitimate grounds for strenuous and persevering hostility. Such views, amongst others, have influenced the founders of the Anti-state-church Association, and I seriously, but with much earnestness and all becoming respect, entreat my fathers and brethren to give the Society-its constitution, its objects, the plans it adopts, the publications it has issued, and the spirit its conductors have evinced their patient and candid consideration. I ask nothing more than this, and can be satisfied with nothing less. Taking, then, the lowest ground which can be assumed, I say we have made out a case which deserves, nay, which demands, conside ration. One with you in principle, earnestly intent, as we believe, on the same spiritual interests as yourselves, concerned alike for the welfare of our churches and the extension of the faith of our common Lord, we have felt necessity laid upon us to protest against the wrong done to religion, and the treason enacted against its Lord, by the incorporation of the Church with the State-the mixing up in unholy brotherhood of things spiritual and secular-the word of truth and the sword of the magistrate. The same sense of duty which impels the protest, necessitates, in our judgment, some organisation to give that protest effect. Combination is strength: combination, on a sound basis, regulated by wisdom, and directed to a righteous end, is omnipotent. Let it be carried so far as identity of principle warrants, and duty enjoins, and no evil can stand before it. Truth is always more powerful than error, and requires only "a clear stage" in order to overcome it. Should the Voluntaries of Britain once be roused to a due estimation of their principles, and a confiding trust in them, no authority could perpetuate the ecclesiastical establishments of these realms. The secular power would be constrained to recede from the province it has usurped, and a greater triumph be wrought for the church than has been achieved since the days of Luther.

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But it is notorious-and on this point I wish for no concealment that a large proportion of English Dissenters have hitherto stood aloof from the Association. Amongst these are to be counted several of distinguished name-men whose praise is in all our churches, and whose hearty concurrence must be desired, as it would greatly aid our "work and labour of love.".

I deeply regret this fact. So unfeigned is my respect for many of these dissentients, that I have been led by it to review, again and again, the ground of my own decision. The result has been what my conduct has shown; but in proportion as my own sense of duty has deepened, a conviction has been induced that there must be some strange misapprehension on the part of those who stand aloof from us; more especially of such as misrepresent our spirit, and speak with bitterness of our proceedings. I would interpret their conduct with the same candour with which I wish to be judged; and, therefore, throw from me the many unworthy motives which a suspicious judgment would suggest.

Sufficient time has elapsed since the formation of the Society, to allow all personal considerations to be forgotten. It matters not now whether the Society originated in London or in the midland counties; whether its first advocates were in one section of Dissent or another; whether they occupied the high places, or were known only by their zealous advocacy of our cause. These considerations were powerful at the time, and in themselves—if I mistake not-determined the course of many. But they are too mean and selfish to be allowed a permanent lodgment in any generous mind. They may influence for a moment, but are sure to be indignantly rejected whenever their real nature is seen. We are now free to look at the Association in its own character, and are therefore in a condition to form a fairer and more impartial judgment. Few of our brethren profess to dissent from the main principle of the Association, or to differ from us as to the desirableness of the object at which it aims. So far from this, their agreement is usually avowed as preliminary to their refusal of aid. "We agree with you in principle-we are as thorough and firm Dissenters as yourselves-we appreciate as highly as you can do the importance and the desirableness of the separation at which you aim. In our several circles, and according to our respective voca tions, we avow our creed, and endeavour to commend its doctrines, believing the interests of spiritual religion to be identified with them." Such, in substance, is the language commonly used; and it would be strange were it otherwise, as the fundamental principle of the Society, "that all legislation by secular governments, in affairs of religion, is an encroachment upon the rights of man, and an invasion of the prerogatives of God," is clearly that on which our dissent is based. Equally unexceptionable is the object contemplated. This is defined in the Society's Scheme of Organisation to be "the liberation of religion from all governmental or legislative interference," which, it is further affirmed, is to "be sought by lawful and peaceful means, and by such means only." Against this no exception can be taken by the parties I address. They concur in it, they are forward in avowing its adoption, and frequently paint in glowing colours the advantages which will accrue to religion from its achievements. Whence, then, Mr. Editor, I respectfully ask, arises their difference or hostility? How has it happened, that so many who agree with our principle and objects stand aloof from us, and in some cases refer to our proceedings with disingenuousness and temper? I do not question the sincerity of their profession, but I am compelled to doubt the consistency of their procedure. That procedure, in order to be justified, must be based on something exceptionable in ourselves, or in the conduct we have pursued. To the former I have already adverted, and to the latter it may be permitted me in a few words now to refer.

Some of our brethren object to all organisation having for its object what we propose. Their number I apprehend to be small, and their plea is singu larly wanting in harmony with the other parts of their conduct. They enforce the propriety of organisation in other matters, have been parties to it in the great achievements of recent times, are amongst its most zealous advocates in the moral and religious enterprises of the day, and are now actively employed, at an immense cost of time, energy, and money,-in enforcing it

VOL. III. NO. XII.

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