ness; and when we should see him, as having no beauty that we should desire him-characters, how opposite; yet how exactly verified in JESUS! We have seen him despised and rejected of men; a man truly of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: we have seen him oppressed and afflicted, yet opening not his mouth :— we have seen him taken from prison and from judgment, pouring out his soul unto death, and numbered amongst transgressors. We have seen the legs of malefactors broken on the cross, but his preserved from such cruelty; because the scriptures declared, that a bone of him should not be broken. We have seen his side pierced with a spear; for the same scriptures declared, that they should look on him whom they pierced. In him were these and many other prophecies, which have been referred to in the course of our meditations, exactly fulfilled; and so exactly, that they seem rather to have been a history of what had actually passed, than prophecies of what was to happen.

But one still remains in the occurrences of this day, to which we have not yet adverted. Mournful, and full of shocking barbarity, as were the scenes, which have been presented to us; yet the mind

is somewhat relieved by contemplating the pious solicitude, which was shown by some for the interment of the dead body. Amongst these were two of the council, who had not consented unto the deed of the rest, Joseph and Nicodemus. The former, a rich man of Arimathea, a good man and a just, who also himself waited for the kingdom of GOD, being a disciple of JESUS, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, gave a strong instance of his faith; and, with a courage which he had been afraid to show before, went in boldly unto Pilate, and begged that he might be allowed to take away the dead body, to preserve it from any further insults, and to give it decent burial.

Pilate hesitated at first, supposing it impossible, that JESUS should be so soon dead; but when he was informed by the centurion, that he really was so, he with willingness commanded the body to be delivered to Joseph: who being assisted in the pious office by Nicodemus, (which at the first came to JESUS by night,) and now brought a very large quantity of myrrh and aloes; took the body of JESUS from the cross, wound it in linen clothes, with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury, intending after the sabbath, for it was now too late, to embalm

业

it properly. And when they had done. this, they laid it in Joseph's own new tomb, which he had hewn in stone out of a rock; wherein was man never yet laid, in a garden near the place of execution.. Here was the prophecy above alluded to fulfilled, which saith, that he made his grave with the rich in his death. This being done, Joseph rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and then departed. And not only these two men employed themselves in the sad office of burying their deceased LORD, but several pious women also followed them, and sitting over against the sepulchre, beheld where and how his body was laid; who soon after went home, and prepared spices and ointments, that they might more effectually embalm him, after they had rested the sabbath-day, according to the commandment, a due observance of which they considered themselves bound to pay.

The occurrences of this day conclude with the decent depositing of the body of JESUS in the grave, which we have just considered. The copiousness of the narrative, which has employed our meditations at our several meetings in this week, has prevented me from making so many practical observations, as might easily have been drawn from the various trans

actions which have been presented to our view. These, if you have, and I trust you have, paid that attention to the subject, which it most powerfully demands of you, cannot but have led you to many very serious and important reflections : which, had I stopped to suggest them to you, would have detained you here much longer, at our different meetings, than would have been either convenient or expedient. The Week is not yet finished: The transactions of saturday, important indeed, but not very numerous, remain to be considered, and would afford sufficient matter for a separate discourse: but as it would very much hinder the preparations which must necessarily be made for the decent assembling of ourselves here on Easter-Day, were I to propose to meet you in this place again to-morrow evening; I think it most proper to decline it, and shall endeavour by GOD's blessing, on sunday evening, so to introduce what happened on the saturday with the great event of the following day, as that our meditations on both may be comprised in one discourse, I hope, to the praise and glory of GoD, and the edification and comfort of our own souls.

LECTURE VIII.

Matt. xxvii. 66.

THEY WENT AND MADE THE SEPULCHRE SURE, (UNTIL THE THIRD DAY, V. 64,) SEALING THE STONE, AND SETTING A WATCH.

I

ENTER now, my Brethren, on the occurrences of the last day of the Passion-Week, which, as I observed at the conclusion of my last discourse, were important, but not numerous. We left the body of the blessed JESUs, after all the indignities which had been shown it, and the bitter sufferings which he had undergone, decently interred by Joseph and Nicodemus, in a new sepulchre belonging to the former; both they and some pious women having prepared spices and ointments for the more proper embalming of the body, after the sabbath was over, the near approach of which, on the preceding evening had prevented them from doing it in that effectual manner it required.

And now the first thing we are inform