SECTION LXIV.

ST. MATTHEW, xxvii. 37.

AND set up over his head, accusation. His right; his triumph of love; our glory and salvation. That is seldom an accusation of the saints which the world thinks so.

Ver. 38. Then were there two thieves crucified with him. -He snatched one of them from the jaws of hell, to show the virtue of his cross to all repenting sinners. The other would not confess his sin, and died a thief. If thou wouldst not die a condemned man, look to Jesus.

Ver. 42. He saved others, himself he cannot save He would not save himself, that he might save others.

Let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He must, of all necessity, die there to be believed in. They, not knowing this, could believe nothing concerning him; and the same prejudice in them which had been proof against so many miracles, would not have yielded to this.

Ver. 44. The thieves also cast the same in his teeth. Probably both at first, though one immediately repented. Ver. 45. From the sixth hour there was darkness, &c.Universal and preternatural. The sun was not regularly eclipsed, it being then full moon.

Ver. 46. Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, &c. Come here, wretched man, and take some measure of thy guilt; thine, whoever thou art. Be warned by this loud cry, what vengeance is hanging over thy head, and every moment ready to crush thee, if thou hast not made. Christ thy hope. I say, take notice; let thy heart take. notice how he, who bore every thing, till now, with meek, silence, was so oppressed with the weight of man's sin, that it exercised all his own divine patience, and forced

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him to cry out in the anguish and bitterness of his soul, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Think of his love too, and what he endured that we might not be sentenced to depart from God, nor be totally forsaken of him.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?—He says, "My God, my God;" and dreadful as the desertion was, it could not deprive him of this faith. Observe it for thyself, distressed soul; he may be thy God in the utter want of sensible comfort, thy faith may be immoveable, and thy trust in him as strong as ever.

Ver. 47. This man calleth for Elias.- Wresting his word Eli, Eli, as if he was still in expectation of Elias's coming.

Ver. 48. And straightway one of them, &c. gave him to drink-As if by way of support, and to gain time for the coming of Elias; his forerunner, if he was the Christ.

Ver. 49. The rest said, Let be, &c.-Elias, if he will come, is help enough without the vinegar. All in scorn. Ver. 50. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice. Of joy and exultation, for man's redemption, for the work he had finished, and the glory that was to follow.

-Yielded up the ghost-Of his own accord, and by an act of his own power; dying by as great a miracle as he was born, or any he had wrought during his life. When he had purged our sins, he would not retain his spirit a moment longer, but went in haste to finish his conquests, by overcoming death.

Ver. 51. And behold the vail of the temple was rent— The mystery of the vail being rent, is explained, Heb. ix. 8, and x. 19, 20. It was the opening of heaven to all the world through his blood, by rending the vail of his flesh; but the vail still continues unrent to those who will not enter into the holiest by this way.

Ver. 51. And the earth did quake, and the rocks rent.— According to the reports of modern travellers, there is a rock still to be seen, so rent as to be a standing witness of this relation, and showing, plainly, that it could be the effect of nothing but an earthquake, or divine power.

Ver. 53. And came out of the graves after his resurrection-Not before, though it is here related. For Christ must rise first, and they could only rise in virtue of his resurrection. And farther, it cannot well be supposed that they arose only to appear to others, and then lie down in their graves again, but to ascend with him, soul and body, into heaven.

Ver. 54. Now when the centurion, &c. It is remarkable that the hearts of this heathen captain and his soldiers were shook with the earthquake, and other signs which accompanied the death of Jesus, while the Jews continued obdurate and incredulous.

- Truly this was the Son of God. The Spirit endited this Gospel by St. Matthew to bring us to this confession, and saying it, with a true faith, is salvation.

Ver. 55, 56. And many women were there, &c.—It is recorded for the honour of these women, that they followed Jesus from Galilee, ministered unto him, did not forsake him when the disciples fled, stayed to watch his sepulchre. Mary Magdalene especially, who is mentioned first, could not desert him, who had cast seven devils out of her. His love, when thou knowest it, will keep thee as close to him.

Ver. 57. A rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple-A much happier condition than that of great riches. Make it your own; and bless God that you may be "rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him."

Ver. 58. He went to Pilate, and begged the body of

Jesus-That it might have a decent burial, and not be laid amongst common malefactors. With what farther view Joseph did this, is hard to say; for it is not probable that he, any more than the other disciples, thought of Christ's resurrection. It was a new thing in the earth, and we must not wonder that they were all so slow of belief in this point before the event. Let us look back a moment upon the dark scene they passed through, to be thankful for the day-light we live in.

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The Seventh Day*.

Ver. 63. We remember that that deceiver said.-Now then turn this against them, and to your own benefit. If he did rise again, he was not a deceiver. He was, and is, all that thou wantest. He will raise thy soul out of its dead state, and thy body from the grave; he will dispel all thy fears, confirm thee in a state of lively hope, crown all thy wishes, and never leave thee nor forsake thee, till he has set thee at the right hand of God.

Ver. 66. So they went and made the sepulchre sure, &c. -It is a mighty confirmation of our faith in the article of Christ's resurrection, that his enemies took all this precaution to prevent his body being stolen away.

O Lord, be with us in the power of thy grace, as thou wast for us in thy death and resurrection; that in this belief we may walk comfortably before thee all the days of our lives; love God for the great love wherewith he loved us; die with thee to sin; take up our cross in meekness, self-denial, and patient suffering; answer the end of thy dying for us by being faithful to thee in all holy obedience; long for thy coming, and, through thy merits, be received into the innumerable company of those blessed spirits, whom thou hast redeemed to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.

* Ver. 62-66.

LECTURE.

GOD is just, and man is sinful. In these two points all must agree who ever think of God and themselves. But the heinous, accursed nature of sin, the greatness of God's displeasure against us for it, and the punishment to which it exposes us in a way of justice, we should never have known without the help of revelation; and our apprehensions of this matter are still wavering and confused, or, to speak the truth, we still continue, in general, blind and unbelieving, notwithstanding the clear light and positive assertions of Scripture. Come then to the cross, and there behold the terrible justice of God. See his eternal and only begotten Son dying for the redemption of sinners, and learn from thence that, without the shedding of his blood, there could be no remission, and what sin is which required such a sacrifice. Death, you see, it must have. Sin, we know, brought death into the world. But know also, that by that word is meant the loss of God's favour, even eternal death; and that if he had not sent his Son in our flesh, to deliver us from condemnation, by taking our sin and punishment upon himself, we all must have endured the misery of it for ever in our own persons. Have these great truths of Scripture been discovered to you, and are they weighty upon your souls? Do you understand that nothing is to be so much feared as sin, nothing so much to be desired and rejoiced in as the mercy of salvation from it? And are you set down in this belief, that you are saved only and altogether by mercy, not by any repentance, humblings, works, or holiness of your own, but snatched as brands out of the fire, to the end that you may give God the glory of his grace, and determine with yourselves, as Paul did, "to know nothing (for life) but Jesus Christ, and him crucified?"