from hearing the language of the Saviour's suffering, when he bare your sins in his own body on the tree; if one of you should have been led to ask, 'What reward shall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits which He hath done unto me,' my purpose has not been in vain in the Lord. May the glory be given to Him, who vindicates to Himself the sole and Almighty office of applying the gospel message to the hearts of its hearers.

The scene is now changed: the first day of the week has arrived. The Saviour hath ceased from his great work of making atonement unto God by his blood. He hath passed his Jewish Sabbath of rest in the grave; and is now come forth, not merely as the first fruits of the resurrection, but virtually bringing up with Him the whole blessed body of his true disciples, who descended with Him into the sepulchre ; who paid in Him the penalty of sin; and of whom, it is the unspeakably glorious privilege, that every one should behold the

debt discharged on the cross, and the acquital triumphantly given, in the resurrection of his Almighty head. "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

Our meditations during Passion Week, were directed to the seven last sayings of Jesus Christ, before He confirmed the testament of salvation to his Church, by the death of the testator. It remains for me to bespeak your attention this day1 to the words of the text, the first which He uttered, after He arose from the dead. And I pray that the Spirit of Him, who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, may dwell in us; and give us fellowship with Him; that we may know Him, and the power of his resurrection, unto an increasing conformity to Him by heavenly-mindedness and grateful love. We will consider

1 Easter Sunday.

and she had been some time sitting at the feet of Jesus, in her right mind; no longer a slave of Satan, but a lowly and a loving follower of the Great Deliverer: and now, she hath received double at the Lord's hand, for all her conflicts, all her miseries, and all her sins. She is now to be a monument of the riches of a Saviour's love. O how great is his condescension towards her; a condescension, in the view of which, the humblest and most despised member of his body is as much interested as herself. Who could apparently be further from the Lord, than one who had been thus possessed? Yet is she selected from all the disciples of her Redeemer, to behold, and converse with Him, and rejoice in the high triumph of his resurrection. And why is this, except to tell us, that while He hath offers of mercy for all, He especially and most tenderly regards those broken-hearted disciples, who have been long exercised with the power and temptations of Satan? Why is this, except to tell us, that He intimately knows

their sorrows, and delights to relieve them; -that He reserves, as it were, the greenest pasture, and the stillest waters of his fold, for those lambs of his flock, whom the enemy hath most fiercely torn? May we not thus learn, by a gospel instance, as well as by gospel declarations, that the riches of divine grace are frequently manifested to tempers the most unpromising, to hearts the most stubborn and rebellious; while they who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own regard, and high in their own estimation, entrenched within the ceremonies and forms of religion, live and die, without the knowledge of salvation through his name? O how awfully is this view of divine dealing calculated to "cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ!" Here is delightful consolation for the meekhearted, and solemn warning for the selfrighteous and high-minded.

Mary was seeking our Lord. She stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into it, to see if Jesus was still its tenant; and if she might have the opportunity of anointing his body with the spices she had prepared, as the last and only manifestation of love now in her power. She sought Him whom her soul loved; she sought Him, but she found Him not. Her heart and eye were both engaged; and all her affections went forth in the act of duty, that brought her thus early; while it was yet dark, to the place of her Lord's burial. Gloomy seasons, in Christian experience, and heavy frames of mind, in spiritual things, even much sadness of soul, are quite compatible with the life and love of God within the members of his mystical body and surely, they who go forth to look for Him, under whatever hindrances and discouragements, shall not have their labour in vain in the Lord. It is written -and their experience shall verify the