SERMON IX.

THE RISEN SAVIOUR'S INTERVIEW WITH

MARY MAGDALENE.

(FIRST SERMON ON THE TEXT.)

JOHN XX. 14—17.

WHEN SHE HAD THUS SAID, SHE TURNED HERSELF BACK, AND SAW JESUS STANDING, AND KNEW NOT THAT IT WAS JESUS. JESUS SAITH UNTO HER, WOMAN, WHY WEEPEST THOU ? WHOM SEEKEST THOU? SHE, SUPPOSING HIM TO BE THE GARDENER, SAITH UNTO HIM, SIR, IF THOU HAVE BORNE HIM HENCE, TELL ME WHERE THOU HAST LAID HIM, AND I WILL TAKE HIM AWAY. JESUS SAITH UNTO HER, MARY! SHE TURNED HERSELF, AND SAITH UNTO HIM, RABBONI; WHICH IS TO SAY, MASTER! JESUS SAITH UNTO HER, TOUCH ME NOT; FOR I AM NOT YET ASCENDED TO MY FATHER: BUT GO TO MY BRETHREN, AND SAY UNTO THEM, I ASCEND UNTO MY FATHER AND YOUR FATHER, TO MY GOD AND YOUR GOD.

WHEN we are first brought into a darkened room, the objects around us are for some

time hidden in the obscurity, and we cannot discern them. After a while, however, the eye becomes accustomed to the circumstances, in which it is placed; the objects, so indistinct at first, are more fully seen, and we discover beauties, which we could not have imagined to be so near us, when we entered,-beauties which the comparative darkness itself, serves rather to increase. If it had been in my power, duly to have improved the solemn ordinances of the past week, we should have been placed, spiritually, in circumstances like those already mentioned, and so familiar to the experience of our observation. The scene to which we were brought. when we were conducted to the cross, by the ministry of the word, that we might hear the cries uttered by the Son of God, in his last deep agony, was indeed dark and mysterious. The Sun of Righteousness Himself, who gives light and happiness and joy to all the new creation of God's redeemed, was eclipsed; and therefore,

Still,

gloom must have been spread over every object and event, connected with the great atoning act of his mediatorial love. dear brethren, the more steadfastly we looked to the cross-the more affectionately we endeavoured to fix our eyes upon Jesus dying there-the more earnestly we aimed to comprehend and apply the purport of his last sayings-and especially, the more largely the Spirit of God might give us those scriptural perceptions of the dying Saviour's love, which no words or efforts of man, could communicate, the more clearly must we have been led to perceive the glories of God in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, under all the obscurity, which his infinite sorrow and suffering drew around Him; and wherewith it seemed to veil Him. If one

of

you, dear friends, hath been taught to feel the Lord, who died for you, more precious from what you heard last week ; if one of you hath better learned the depth of your obligations to redeeming love,

I. THE PERSON WITH WHOM OUR LORD

HAD

THIS ENDEARING AND GRACIOUS

INTERVIEW.

St. Mark observes, that "when Jesus was risen early, the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven devils." The conduct of the Most High God towards men, compared with the conduct of men towards each other, amply vindicates the absolute sovereignty of his operations in the world of grace. Men act on the ground of merit on the one hand, and recompence on the other: but God, in the deep counsels of his mercy, often delights to "lift the beggar from the dunghill, and to set him with princes, even with the princes of his * people." "Where sin aboundeth, there doth grace often much more abound;" in order that the pride of human righteousness should be smitten down, and the broken-hearted penitent, who cries in his soul's conflict and anguish, "God be merciful to me a sinner," may be led in faith

to that blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanseth from all sin: and may hear the blessed voice of that blood, speaking in all its power of a perfect atonement-" Thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace." We know not, (and as the Holy Ghost hath cast a veil of inscrutable mystery over the matter, it would be vain to guess,) what was the nature of that tremendous Satanic possession, under which Mary had been bowed down, and which had excited the tender compassion, and had been removed by the Almighty power of Jesus Christ. Her soul had been assuredly like a cage of unclean birds; and the enemy, even Satan had bound her, not by one chain of demoniacal tyranny, but by seven. She seems, not improbably, to have been one among the most miserable and the most helpless of his bond-slaves: and he would doubtless exercise, to the full as sternly as was permitted him in the mysteriousness of God's dealing, the hold he obtained over her. But her deliverance had been wrought;