dust shalt thou return," has, for many a generation, been accomplished on Jesse's Royal Son. The remains of this mighty monarch cannot now be distinguished from those of earth's meanest slave. They are alike mingled in the dust of death, and must remain hid from the eye of man until the archangel's trump shall sound, and the command be given, Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment. The hell (in Hebrew, scheol) here alluded to, cannot be that place of torment, prepared for the devil and his angels, from which a soul never did or will escape. When once consigned to that abode of wo, there is a great gulf fixed, even the unchangeable decree of Omnipotence; a barrier stronger than walls of brass, and cannot be surmounted, or destroyed. The word here rendered hell, (in the Greek, hades,) is the same as the Jews, before the Babylonish captivity, used for the grave, and is the sense in which it must be here understood. This verse is prophetic of the resurrection of the Messiah; which doctrine is taught in many parts of the Old Testament, by type, figure, and prophecy; in the New, we behold it clearly confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus. The circumstances

* Luke xvi. 26.

attending this great event are repeatedly described, and the evidence clear and conclusive. The witnesses to this important fact are not few; both enemies and friends unite in giving their testimony to his death and resurrection. The soldiers having taken the dead body of Jesus from the cross, his friends deposit it in the tomb. We cannot but stop here, and admire the overruling hand of Providence in the more minute circumstances connected with the interment of the body of the Redeemer. The sepulchre was hewn out of the solid rock. No access could be gained to it but by one opening, on which a ponderous stone was placed, a seal set thereon, and the entrance strictly guarded by Roman soldiers. But wherefore all this care and attention over the dead body of one crucified at Golgotha? It is by order of the High Priest and Pharisees, who had requested Pilate to allow them to make the grave sure, as Jesus had declared he would rise again after three days. They, fully convinced of his death, and disbelieving his ́divinity, fear that the disciples should steal the dead body of their Master, and declare that he had risen; and thus the last error would be worse than the first. But we have cause to rejoice that they used so much caution, for it tends to establish the truth, and confirm the testimony, of the

disciples. It fully proves the death and burial of Jesus, and that the body did not remain in the grave. On the first day of the week, certain women of the company hasted early to the sepulchre, to embalm, after the custom of the east, the body of their beloved Master; but lo, to their astonishment and grief, it is gone! They indeed see the place where the Lord had lain; for an angel, by an earthquake, had rolled away the stone; at whose appearance the keepers became as dead men; but to the women, filled with sorrow and surprise on not finding the body of their Lord, this heavenly messenger proclaimed the resurrection of that Jesus whom they sought. And as they run to tell the disciples, Jesus himself met them, saying, All hail! and they held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Some of the watch, also, went into the city, and told the Chief Priests all that was done; who, having assembled a council, give large sums of money to the soldiers to say, that the disciples came by night, and stole him away, whilst they slept. This report, though commonly believed amongst the Jews until this day, will not bear examination. The more we consider this tale, the clearer will the fact of the resurrection of Jesus appear. If the body was indeed stolen, why are the soldiers allowed to go

unpunished for their neglect, as they say it was stolen whilst they slept. We should not expect to find a Roman sentinel asleep at his post of duty, for their military discipline was the most severe in the world. Even if the soldiers had fallen asleep whilst watching the entrance of the sepulchre, it appears impossible for a number of persons to remove so ponderous a stone without considerable noise and bustle, or to pass among the guards without awaking some of them. But even allowing the body to have been gone whilst they slept, how could they possibly know, that it was the disciples who had taken it? But is it at all probable, that a few timid disciples, who had fled from their Master on his first apprehension, should now dare to go, in the face of a guard of Roman soldiers, justly famed for their courage, and attempt to steal, and much more to carry off, the body! Let it be observed, that though the disciples had hoped Jesus "had been he who would have redeemed Israel;" yet, when they saw him laid in the grave, all their hopes that he was the Messiah fled, for the minds of the disciples were strongly tainted by the Jewish prejudice, that the Messiah's would be a temporal kingdom. Their dreams of earthly splendour now vanished, and they were about to return to their occupations in com

mon life; in fact, some had done so. Is it reasonable to imagine that the others would engage in a plan fraught with danger, for the sake of obtaining the body of one, in whom they began to imagine themselves deceived? Besides, what advantage could they hope to gain by such a scheme? What end was it designed to answer? They could not expect to keep the act concealed; and if discovered, they were fully convinced it would bring upon them the severest punishment. But if, as the soldiers proclaimed, the disciples did steal him away, why are these handful of fishermen allowed to retain possession? Why did not the Chief Priest, at the head of the Jewish Sanhedrim, supported by the Roman authority, instantly compel them to surrender the body? Why are not these men of Galilee brought to a judicial tribunal, examined, and openly punished, that the truth of the soldiers' tale may bear even the appearance of fact? Surely this neglect is most extraordinary in men who had shown such vigilant care over the body when in the tomb. The more we examine the conduct of the parties, the more inconsistent does the Jewish tale appear. It is evident, the disciples were as ignorant as the rest of the nation, as to what the resurrection from the dead should mean.