unbelieving people. What farther claim could they prefer to the demonstrations of his Messiahship? "Ye shall not see me henceforth" was the knell of their destiny. As to appearing to them again after his resurrection, it was utterly inconsistent with this assurance. They were not to see him, as a people, after his death, till they could see him with blessings on their lips.

The resurrection was to be henceforth the basis of a new and wider relation which the Saviour was to sustain to the world at large. It was in connexion with this event that "all power was to be given to him in heaven and on earth." He was now to be raised to the dignity of an ecumenical kingdom. The disciples, no longer restricted to the bounds of Jewry, were to go and "teach all nations." The evidences of the great fact of the resurrection of Christ, therefore, concerned that people in no especial manner. It were quite as fitting that he should subsequently have manifested himself to the members of the Roman Senate, as to those of the Jewish Sanhedrim, as the Roman empire was henceforth to become the grand theatre for the proclamation of the good tidings which were to be assured to "all people" on the ground of the certified fact of the Lord's resurrection. The apostles were chosen to be witnesses of this fact, because they were appointed as heralds to announce it to the world, and if any kind of incompetency could be for a moment supposed to detract from the value of their testimony, the idea is at once countervailed by the words of Peter, Acts 5: 32, "And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him." The co-witnessing power of the Holy Spirit was a pledge

of the truth of their verbal testimony, for it is not conceivable that he should have imparted his influences to confirm a lie.

It is evident, therefore, that the divine wisdom can be in no measure impugned on the score of the publicity of the circumstances attending the resurrection of Christ. There were ample reasons for restricting the number of the witnesses-reasons which applied to the ascension as well as to the resurrection; for it appears that the asscension itself was not strictly a public miracle. Though the scene of it was in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem, yet it is never appealed to as an event that was openly visible in the view of the inhabitants, nor is there the least evidence that it was witnessed by any but a select number of disciples.

The great question, then, concerns the real character of the event itself, and the nature of the body in which our Lord arose. The complete discussion of this subject would, perhaps, properly involve the consideration of the various details of the resurrection, as related by the different evangelists, and which involve some apparent discrepancies of statement. But the recent essay of Prof. Robinson (Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. II. No. V., Feb. 1845), with a view to harmonize the accounts, I regard as, on the whole, so able and satisfactory that it will be sufficient to refer the reader to his results, which, with the exception of particular inferences here and there, I cordially adopt. So far as he endeavors to show that the resurrection of Christ was the resurrection of his unchanged material body, I differ from him entirely, and hope to prove that I have valid grounds for so doing.

Matt. 28: 1-8.

I. First Appearance.

Mark 16: 1-8. Luke 24: 1, 11. John 20: 1, 2.

The first visitants to the sepulchre on the morning of the third day, were a company of women who came with spices to embalm the Lord's body. They found the stone rolled away from the mouth of the sepulchre, and entering in perceived that the body was not there, and a moment after were accosted by two angels in human form, and in shining garments, who asked them why they sought the living among the dead, and then went on to inform them that Christ was risen according as he had said, and to command them to go quickly and communicate the fact to his disciples, together with an assurance that he would meet them in Galilee. In regard to these incidents, it is worthy of notice that the angels appear to have been invisible when the women first entered the sepulchre, though it was undoubtedly a small excavated apartment in the rock. The narrative informs us that they "entered in and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold two men stood by them in shining garments." Now, what we would have especially noticed in this connexion is, that in a small room they should have stood some time perplexed on finding it vacated of the body, and yet not have seen two angels in glittering robes if they had been actually there in visible forms. Would they not have been the very first objects to strike their vision, had they been actually there in a form and aspect to be seen? No one can imagine for a moment that they entered the sepulchre from without after the women went in. What, then, is the infer

ence? What can we conclude but that the angels were, in some sense, previously there, and that they were now miraculously made visible, and that, too, by a subjective miraculous effect, wrought upon the women themselves, whose spiritual eyes were opened to discern these beings of a spiritual rank? But even if this solution be questioned for the present, still, here is the palpable fact of the sudden and miraculous revelation of two spiritual bodies to the astonished sight of the women, which they did not see upon their first entrance into the tomb. The fact shows, at any rate, that a spiritual body may become, in some way, suddenly visible. A very similar incident is recorded in Acts 1. 10, " And while they looked steadfastly towards heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel." It is not improbable that these were the same two angels that had previously appeared to the women, and subsequently to Mary Magdalene, but whether they were or not, it is clear that the apparition was equally sudden. Nothing is said of their previous descent from heaven, but the first intimation they had of their coming was their actual presence in the midst of them, or standing by their side. How natural the inference that the inward eyes of the disciples were now opened to behold them! But we proceed with the narrative.

II. Second Appearance.*

John 20: 3-18. Luke 24: 12. Mark 16: 9-11.

The women, with the exception of Mary Magdalene,

* In Mark, 16: 9, it is said of the appearance to Mary Magdalene that it was the first: "Now being risen early the first day of

who seems to have run immediately back without waiting for her company to inform Peter and John, return

the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene." The mode in which this statement is made to harmonize with Matthew's account of the appearance to the other women on their return from the sepulchre, which Prof. Robinson has adopted, we think to be the true one. It is thus stated: Mark narrates three and only three appearances of our Lord; of these three that to Mary Magdalene takes place first (prov), and that to the assembled disciples the same evening occurs last (orεpov), v. 14. Now in any series or succession of events where Tρтоv and "orepov are employed, whatever may be the number of intervening terms, prov marks the first of the series, and σrepov the last of the same series, and no other. So here in Mark, ὕστερον is put with the third appearance narrated; but had four been mentioned, "Tεpov could not have stood with the third, but must have been used with the fourth or last; and so in every case.* Hence as ὕστερον is here put relatively, and therefore does not exclude the subsequent appearance of our Lord to Thomas and in Galilee; so too pшTOV stands relatively, and does not exclude the previous appearance to :he other women. A similar example occurs in 1 Cor. 15: 5-8, where Paul enumerates those to whom the Lord showed himself after his resurrection, viz. to Peter, to the twelve, to five hundred brethren, to James, to all the apostles, and last of all (vøтатov návτwv) to Paul also. Now had Paul written here, as with strict propriety he might have done, 66 he was seen first of Cephas" wp0п пρŵтоν Kпpi, assuredly no one would ever have understood him as intending to assert that the appearance to Peter was the first absolutely; that is, as implyiug that Jesus was seen of Peter before he appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other women. In like manner when John declares (21: 14) that Jesus showed himself to his disciples by the lake of Galilee for the third time after he was risen from the dead; this is said relatively to the two previous appearances to the assembled apostles; and does by no means exclude the four still earlier appearences, viz. to Peter, to the two at Emmaus, to Mary Magdalene, and to the other women-one of which John himself relates in full. In this way the

*See for this use of vσrepov, Matt. 21:37. 22: 27. 26: 60.