wings, and let it follow me thither. It was necessary that, having finished my work, I should quit the grave: it is no less necessary for me to leave the world and go to my Father. My exaltation does not terminate with my resurrection, great though that event is: it will remain imperfect till I have sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.-Again, Cling not to me, as if I were about to be taken up immediately. "I am not yet ascended." You are not going to lose me at once. A period is still to run, during which you will have opportunities of seeing my face, and enjoying intercourse with me. Other interviews will be vouchsafed to you. Be not, therefore, so strongly affected, as if it were the last occasion of showing me the homage you now pay, or testifying your regard to me. Still further, Cling not to me, for there is a present message on which I wish to despatch you. Arise, and carry to my brethren the intelligence that you have seen me; and make them acquainted with my purposed ascension. "Say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God." How sweet this language! Sweet in itself, it must appear peculiarly so when the circumstances of the disciples are considered. On the night of his apprehension they had all forsaken him and fled. One had denied him with oaths and curses.

Will he forgive this? He does not say so. In the mention of forgiveness, there is rebuke: but our Lord wishes in the meantime to console those to whom his message is directed, and not to rebuke them. His words, however, imply, that pardon, in the fullest measure, has been bestowed. "Go to my brethren," (they are his brethren still,) "and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God;" he owns them still as standing, on the footing of his suretyship, in a covenant relation to the Most High.

VIII. The last picture in the series is THE MESSAGE

DELIVERED.

The scene changes once more to Jerusalem. The disciples are there assembled, earnestly discussing the facts with which they are already acquainted; weighing the amount of proof for the reality of the resurrection, afforded by the absence of the body and the disposition of the grave-clothes, as witnessed by Peter and John. In these circumstances, Mary presents herself among them; tells them that Jesus has actually appeared to her; and delivers the message with which she is charged. Ver. 18.-" Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her." Her testimony would, no doubt, be an additional element in the scale, inclining John, and, in a less degree, Peter, to abide in their impression of the reality of the resurrection. But the generality of the disciples were so little prepared for such a conclusion, that (as we learn from another evangelist) they regarded the testimony of Mary, and that likewise of certain other persons, to whom Jesus subsequently appeared, as "idle tales." If, in this respect, they were guilty of an error, as we must allow them to have been, considering the distinctness with which Jesus had foretold that he would rise from the dead, at all events the incredulity which they at first manifested makes their decided subsequent acknowledgment of the truth, when evidence was afforded to themselves personally, more striking.

Such is the passage of which I proposed to take a rapid survey; and now that we have gone over it, cursory as our glance has been, what a natural exhibition of varied character has passed before us! What an illustration have we had of the infirmity remaining in even the sincerest Christians, particularly of that "slowness of heart to believe,"

which is the root of every other defect! More than all, how sweetly have the condescension and "gentleness of Christ" appeared in the incidents reviewed!

The apostles, even those (as I hinted a moment ago) who were at first most disposed to be sceptical regarding our Lord's resurrection, had all their doubts removed in due time. Thomas himself, whose demands for evidence were of an utterly unreasonable kind, could not but be satisfied, when he was permitted "to put his finger into the print of the nails" in his Lord's hands, "and to thrust his hand into his side." And in the faith of the original eyewitnesses of the resurrection, confirmed as that was by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the day of Pentecost, and by the miracles performed in the name of a risen Saviour, we have a most sufficient basis for our belief. If infidelity could even get over the circumstantial and well-supported narrative of the empty sepulchre-if its insinuation *could be allowed, that the apostles may have been deceived when they fancied that on several occasions they saw and talked with their most familiar friend, and probed with their fingers the deep scars of peculiar injuries which they knew him recently to have received-or if it could be listened to, when it hints that these same apostles who, in confirmation of what they affirmed, suffered the loss of all things, and cheerfully submitted to death itself, were deceivers,—the miracles wrought in attestation of the resurrection of Jesus would still remain;-miracles for the actual performance of which we have (need I remind you?) the implied testimony of vast multitudes, besides the individuals to whom our Lord "showed himself alive after his passion." The resurrection of Jesus, therefore, ranks not with "cunninglydevised fables," nor with matters of dubious credibility, but is AN ESTABLISHED FACT.

This fact is connected with our salvation, in the closest manner, and in a variety of ways. It showed Jesus to be

indeed "the Christ, the Son of the living God." It proved that his atoning sacrifice was accepted by the Father; and affords, therefore, to such as put their trust in him for pardon and acceptance, a glorious security that they shall obtain these inestimable blessings. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again." It is likewise by the grace and power of a risen Saviour, and through the instrumentality of that system of truth of which his rising from the dead forms the foundation, that believers are quickened, directed, and upheld in the divine life. The resurrection, too, of Christ, the Head, involves that of his people, the members. For "now is Christ risen, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits, and afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming." Let us, my friends, endeavour habitually to contemplate and improve the subject in these various respects. Let Jesus, "declared to be the Son of God, with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead," be willingly acknowledged by us, after the example of Thomas, as "our Lord and our God." Let us derive confidence from his resurrection, in looking to him as the propitiation for our sins. Let us seek each day of our lives to know more of him, in the sanctifying power of his resurrection. Let his resurrection have its appropriate influence with us, as a motive to holiness. And in fine, let us see in his resurrection a pledge that we too, if we are his disciples, shall be raised up hereafter from our graves, to reign with him in never-ending blessedness.

VII.

THE MIRROR.

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."-2 COR. iii. 18.

WHEN it is said that the glory of the Lord is beheld by believers with open face, a comparison is implied in these words, "with open face," between the circumstances of Old Testament and those of New Testament saints. Under the ancient economy, the glory of the Lord was displayed in the revelation then enjoyed; but, owing to the form of the revelation, it was displayed obscurely. A veil, so to speak, was betwixt the eyes of the beholders and the object of their contemplation. But there is no such veil in our case. What they saw indistinctly, we see in perfect fulness and unclouded beauty.

This remark will also make it evident what is to be understood by the glass or mirror in which the glory of the Lord is beheld. It is the incarnate Mediator, "the Word made flesh." A comparative dimness characterised all the manifestations which God made of himself to those who lived before the coming of Christ; but when "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father" appeared in the world, "he declared him ;" de