with that solemn declaration, "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," and with every attribute of the Most High. To the holy angels, who have joy in the presence of God over every sinner that re

grievous sins and provocations he was so bruised, so put to grief; while not one of the three especially selected out of the chosen twelve, no not even the beloved and loving John had a word of consolation, or a gesture, or a look of sympathy to ten-penteth, how inexpressibly beautiful and der; nor a movement of the heart towards him who could have read its most secret throb. All were sleeping, sleeping indeed for sorrow, but not with a sorrow like his, who was suffering for them. It seems to endear the holy angels, that one of their number should have been found, seeking to soften that unutterable bitterness of our Master's grief; and to strengthen him, when forsaken of all help, assailed by Satan, and with the keen prophetic anticipation of all the morrow's torments full on his spirit.

glorious must be this work of their Divine Master. Theirs was a privilege to behold him throughout every stage of its arduous progress, and we cannot enter into the deep feeling, the full comprehension, with which they pour forth the everlasting song, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!" It is marvellous how little some excellent people allow themselves to think about the angels, as connected with this theme: the blank left in their system by the omission of so very rich a part of God's revelation would, at least to us, be a very dreary one. We could not afford to forget that the Lord Jesus in all that he did and suffered for us was watched, marvelled at, and exceedingly glorified by those with whom we look to be hereafter equal, but to whom we are now so immeasurably inferior, that a single individual among them could, with a movement of his powerful arm, depopulate this land; or by the brightness of this appearance, if fully revealed to our sight, turn, as Daniel expressed it, "our comeliness into corruption."

But though only one appeared to help him, many were the angelic spectators of that night's agony. We know that Christ was "seen of angels ;" and we cannot believe that ever, for one moment of time, were their regards withdrawn from him. There is a remarkable passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, iii. 9-11, where the Apostle speaks of "the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ; to the intent that now under the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he proposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." By these principalities and powers in heavenly places, the angels must necessarily be meant: and the making known to them the manifold wisdom of God by the church, seems no less clearly to imply that the contemplation of the adorable mystery of man's redemption by the incarnation, sufferings, obedience, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, brought a vast accession of the knowledge of the glory ofceive the command. They had witnessed God, even to the highest of created intelligences. To the rebellious, "the wicked spirits in high places," was thereby shown forth in dazzling display, the immensity of the mercy and goodness against which they had irretrievably sinned; and of the wisdom that could devise, and the power that could accomplish the restoration of man from the ruin into which Satan had plunged him, in a way perfectly consistent

It is impossible to conceive what must have been the emotions with which the angelic host looked on, while the dreadful. work proceeded from the moment of our Lord's agony in the garden, to that of his being taken down from the cross. We can hardly read those words, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than ten legions of angels ?" without fancying every flaming sword among the listening myriads starting from its sheath, and every countenance blazing with ardour, to re

the detestable act of the mercenary traitor; they had seen Satan enter into him, and lead him to the guilty chief priests, and animate him to grasp with avaricious delight the wretched bribe, a goodly price that they valued Him at, whose is the silver, and whose is the gold, and whose is the round world and all that it contains! and now they beheld the wretched man conducting his midnight band to the gar

seen of angels."

Where were the heavenly hosts, while for the appointed time the dead body of Jesus lay in the sepulchre? It was a Jewish sabbath, and it seems to have become a blank in time, because the light of the world was resting in the darkness of the grave. It was passed over-the ordinance transferred to the next glorious morning; and ever since the first day of the week has been the Sabbath of the Christian world.

den, the scene of that terrible agony, and | ted things; and they were constrained to that beauteous submission to the Father's witness the payment of that world's ranwill; they beheld him approach and sa- som in the trickling drops that oozed from lute his Divine victim; they saw the in- those pierced hands and feet. The rocks constant Peter, now fully roused from were rent, but those awe-struck angels sleep, fighting for him with whom he could not if they would, have burst the would not watch; they saw the bands, the bonds of obedience to the voice that bade cords and fetters, the preparation for such them be still: the sun hid himself, but horrors, as surely they could not expect to through the darkness of that unnatural have beheld their heavenly King sub-night, the bleeding Lamb of God was still jected to; and they heard those words of conscious power and majesty, in which he named them-them, his own loyal, loving angels, as ready to appear to the rescue. Oh, what a blaze would have burst upon that night of black blackness, had not Omnipotence restrained the glowing legions! "But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" added the meek Saviour, and the thought of deliverance was past. Gabriel could not forget his own message to Daniel; the seventy weeks were accomplished, But now we shall find the holy angels and Messiah must be cut off. Their in- thronging a spot of earth, with all their timate acquaintance with all that God has glowing characteristics developed in a rerevealed, and the sure confidence they markable manner. The suspicious murhave, that whatever he hath spoken shall derers entertained a fear lest their Victim come to pass, even as he has said it, are might yet rise again; and they obtained to the angels instead of a foreknowledge from the Roman governor permission to that no creature may attain to: and if we seal the stone that covered the entrance give the like heed to what God has de- of the sepulchre, and to set a watch of solclared, and with the same simple faith and diers over it. The strict discipline of the plain understanding receive it, we should Roman army made this a most efficient find ourselves far better forewarned than guard; but the debt was now fully cannow we are for the changes of this worldly celled. He who had died for our sins was scene, and armed with a more perfect sub- to rise again for our justification: death mission to what betides us. had no more dominion over him. Nothing The sad events of that evening in Geth-in the Bible is more splendid than the picsemane were followed, as we all know, by ture presented to the mind by the very others more terrible far; and equally in brief recital of that glorious event. the Jewish sanhedrim, in Pilate's house, behold, there was a great earthquake; for and Herod's judgment hall, in the streets the angel of the Lord descended from of Jerusalem, and on Calvary, was the heaven, and came and rolled back the Lord Jesus "seen of angels." They stone from the door, and sat upon it. His *heard the false witness borne, the infa- countenance was like lightning, and his mous sentence given; they saw the raiment white as snow; and for fear of scourging, the crowning with a diadem of him the keepers did shake, and became as thorns, the reed placed in that hand, dead men." Matt. xxviii. 2, 3. There is which in its protecting shadow had so something very real in this descriptionlong hidden the house of Israel from their very much opposed to the incorporeality foes! They heard the scoffing homage of the angelic host. The act of rolling tendered by rude, idolatrous heathen sol- away the massive stone which the good diers to Him, whose regal glories filled all Joseph of Arimathea had placed as a heaven with splendour: they saw the security against the enemies of that saheavy cross laid on that shoulder where cred body, and which the high priests had God has laid the government of all crea- farther made sure, and moreover sealed it,

"And

longed-for command was issued, and the waiting angel sped his way to the garden of Joseph, the poor, wretched soldiers of Rome engaged but little of his attention, fixed as it must have been on the baffling of the malice of Satan. Not against the miserable sinners of earth, the poor heathen slaves who occupied an assigned post at the sepulchre, did the lightning of his countenance flash forth; but against those hostile legions who had wrough so much wo; against him who, having had the power of death, was now virtually destroyed by the dying of the Lord Jesus.

as a barrier against his friends, and his seating himself upon it, we can hardly believe to have been only in semblance. The angel, the highly-privileged angel, who was sent, or rather who was permitted to rush upon this enrapturing service, seems to have alighted upon earth with a force that made it quiver; and to have rent or spurned from its place the stone that barred the egress of the Lord Jesus from his dark prison. No mortal eye beheld that egress; the countenance of the angel caused the keepers to become as dead men: knowing as they did that any violation of the seal upon the stone would be visited on them with the extreme of pun- Although only one angel is named as ishment, they had no power to resist; they having executed this commission, we know fell prostrate, rendered senseless by terror; that many were present. No mortal was and no marvel, seeing what was the as- found worthy to witness that greatest pect of the angel. Our foolish and im- event that creation ever viewed-the rising proper habit of using the most hyperbolical of the Son of God from the tomb; but comparisons on ordinary occasions, de- "seen of angels" it unquestionably was; prives Scripture of much of its due force. and they seem to have become visible unAs quick as lightning, as vivid as lightning, der different circumstances, singly or not, are expressions in ordinary use among us; to the individuals who came to the sepuland when we read that the angel's counte- chre. Thus we find that the angel who nance was like lightning, we do not per- in the sight of the keepers sat upon the haps recall one of those terrific flashes or stone which he had just rolled away, was blazes of electric fire, from which the bold-not found there by the women, but, findest is constrained to avert his eyes; and ing the stone rolled away, "and entering add to it the highest possible expression into the sepulchre, they saw a young man of intellectual power. We do not even sitting on the right side, clothed in a long try to render that small measure of justice white garment; and they were affrightwhich our very imperfect faculties would ed. And he saith unto them, Be not enable us to yield to the might and ma- affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, jesty of an angelic envoy from Him who which was crucified: he is risen; he is maketh his ministers a flaming fire. And not here: behold the place where they we may well believe, that the triumphant laid him. But go your way: tell his disjoy, the holy indignation, of the angel, ciples and Peter that he goeth before you who came to open the Lord's sepulchre, into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he would shine forth from his countenance said unto you." Mark xvi. 5-7. Here with a most heavenly radiance. The mi- we read of no lightning, nothing to terserable children of the dust had so far been rify: the angel's aspect is that of a young allowed to work their wicked will, and Sa- man, and his words full of gentleness and tan, utterly crushed as his head now was peace. He speaks as one intimately ac through the assumption of all power, both quainted with all that so thrillingly interin heaven and in earth, by his almighty ested them: he refers to what had been Conqueror, and still, with his inferior spoken to them by their Lord; and Peter, spirits, an hour during which they could whose heart was still writhing under the boast that their conquest over vile man conscious guilt of his denial, is particularly had laid the Lord of life in the grave. named, to assure him of his being still inVery short, and fearfully embittered was cluded among the beloved followers of the that season of hellish exultation; but it Lord. was enough to rouse the keenest emotions in the breast of a celestial spirit; and we may be assured, that when the

Again, when Mary Magdalen was there alone indulging her grief, "as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sep

of Abraham, and the promise to nim of Christ as his seed, or, to the very last, with the single exception of Cornelius the centurion, all to whom we are told they

ham's race. We are fully assured, that to every child of God they render the same offices of love and care as to the ancient people of the Lord; but, together with the Jewish dispensation, under which we include the Church of the circumcision in Judea, up to the final scattering of the people, ended the personal intercourse of

ulchre, and seeth two angels in white, sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Be-appeared in that capacity, were of Abracause they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." John xx. 11-13. It seems as though the angel, knowing how often our Lord had spoken of his resurrection from the dead, marveled how any one who loved him could weep at the evident fulfilment of that glorious prediction. During the forty days of our Lord's far-angels with the children of men in the ther continuance on earth, we may be as- flesh; and those concerning whom we are sured that he was still "seen of angels," now to speak, were Jews. who surrounded his path, adoring him, When our Lord was about to ascend ministering unto him, and eagerly looking into heaven, his disciples, true to their naforward to the moment when they should tional feelings and scriptural expectations, escort him to his throne above, with the asked him, "Lord, wilt thou at this time rejoicing song, "Lift up your heads, O ye restore again the kingdom unto Israel?" gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting But that period was yet far distant, and doors, and the King of Glory shall come he answered them, "It is not for you to in!" Those forty days that intervened | know the times or the seasons which my between the rising again and the ascen- Father hath put in his own power." Acts sion into heaven of the Lord Jesus, were a precious type of the coming time, when earth shall once more enjoy the presence of her heavenly King, and bask in the brightness of his divine glory, while angels tread her peaceful surface, and that which is now but a howling wilderness of sin, shall blossom like a rose, and become as the garden of Eden. May the Lord hasten that day, when his children, no longer buffeted by messengers of Satan, and pining for communion with Him, too often in vain through the abounding of temptations, and the deep knowledge and subtlety of those with whom they must continually wrestle, shall serve him with out fear, while dwelling in the presence of his millennial glory!

SECTION VIII.

i. 6, 7. It was enough that the promise had been given, and that the restoration of the kingdom of Israel was sure; but a militant, not a triumphant church, was that of which they were to be constituted pillars; and they must sow in tears, in humiliations, persecutions, afflictions, and distresses, the great harvest to be reaped when the King should come, and all his saints with him, to that restored kingdom,

The Lord was parted from them; a cloud received him up out of their sight; but they were loath to believe he was indeed gone. Knowing him of a certainty as their Messiah, and also knowing that their Messiah would assuredly be a deliverer, a prince, a ruler, over the Jewish nation in particular, while his dominion should extend throughout the whole earth, they who had now seen the great work of man's redemption perfected, looked for the glorious sequel, of which they knew that a leading sign would be the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. They seem to have expected that he would no longer

THE APOSTLES A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. delay this great consummation, but fulfil

Ir is a remarkable circumstance, that whereas we do not read of any visible interposition of angels in the affairs of men, as ministering spirits, until after the call

now his own and his Father's repeated promise; and the ascension of their Lord left them very desolate, disappointed, perhaps shaken in faith. "They looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went