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might not be changed concerning Daniel","-so also is it done now. But lo, a greater than Daniel is here even He of whom it is written, "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt Thou trample under feet *."

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And now, in exchange for the loving hearts which we lately heard of at the sepulchre of our Blessed REDEEMER, Roman soldiers are keeping guard there: "for if Love is strong as Death, Jealousy,' also adds the holy canticle, 'is cruel as the Gravey."" Those afflicted ones had gone sorrowing to their homes: but they were destined to experience the blessed truth that though "weeping may endure for a night," yet "joy cometh in the morning z."

The Prayer.

GRANT, O LORD, that as we are baptized into the death of Thy Blessed SON our SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, SO by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with Him; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for His merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, Thy SoN JESUS CHRIST our LORD.

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Amen.

y Williams, quoting Song of Sol. viii. 6.

Consider Gen. iii. 15. z Ps. xxx. 5.

A

PLAIN COMMENTARY

ON THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER OF

St. Matthew's Gospel.

1 CHRIST'S Resurrection is declared by an Angel to the women. 9 He Himself appeareth unto them. 11 The high Priests give the soldiers money to say that He was stolen out of His sepulchre. 16 CHRIST appeareth to His Disciples, 19 and sendeth them to baptize and teach all nations.

THE former Chapter ended with an account of the interment of CHRIST, the sealing of the Sepulchre, and the setting a watch.' These are the only recorded events of the last Jewish Sabbath,-on which day CHRIST rested in the grave from the work of Redemption, as 'in the beginning' He had rested on that day from the work of Creation. "The obligation of the Sabbath," (says Bp. Pearson,) "died and was buried with Him; but, in a manner, revived again at His Resurrection. And well might that day, which carried with it a remembrance of deliverance from Egyptian servitude, resign all the sanctity or solemnity due unto it, when that morning once appeared upon which a far greater Redemption was confirmed." A stronger reason, therefore, henceforth transferred the obligation of the Sabbath to another

a Deut. v. 15.

day: "and as there was a change in the year at the coming out of Egypt, by the command of GOD, so, at this time of a more eminent deliverance, a change was wrought in the weekly account.

XXVIII. In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

'The other Mary' was 'Mary the mother of James and Joses,' our LORD's cousins: that is, she was wife of Clopas, and sister to the Blessed Virgin. Joannas, and Salome, (the mother of St. James and St. John,) belonged also to the same company of women who visited the Sepulchre "very early in the morning, the first day of the week,.... at the rising of the sun,"-as St. Mark saysh or rather, as St. Mark explains; for the statements of the later Evangelist are often, (as here,) explanatory. Thus, the same blessed Writer will be found to explain that the object of these holy women in coming thus early to the grave was to anoint the dead Body of their LORD,—to bestow upon it that customary anointment previous to burial, which, by reason of their haste, Joseph and Nicodemus had not been able to provide; but

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which nevertheless the Son of Man had not lacked : for, as His own lips had declared, (but probably not in their hearing,) the Sister of Lazarus had already thus anointed His Bodyi.

Take notice that the great event with which the present chapter commences took place on the first day of the week.' CHRIST who is 'the true Light' comes forth on the same day in which He had anciently said—'Let there be Light!'.... The New Creation1 begins on the same day as the Old.

It was now, in fact, the beginning of the third day,'-and therefore after three days,' according to the well-known sacred method of speech, which it is not necessary here to illustrate by examples. This period is prophetically shadowed out in many an ancient history; but in none so clearly as in that of Jonah, to whose fate, as distinctly typical of His own descent into Hell and Resurrection from the dead, our LORD Himself appealed on a famous occasion. The great type in respect of the Day on which our SAVIOUR rose, was the waved sheaf in the feast of the first-fruits". The Priest was required to wave that sheaf, (the first-fruits of the Harvest,) before the LORD, 'on the morrow after the Sabbath:' and all the sheaves of the field became holy by the acceptation of that; for if the

iSee St. Matth. xxvi. 12: St. Mark xiv. 8: St. John xii. 7. k St. John i. 9, &c.

1 See the note on St. Matth. iii. 17: xxiv. 8: xxvi. 29. St. John ii. 1, &c.

m St. Matth. xii. 40.

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Concerning which, see Leviticus xxiii. 10 to 12.

first-fruits be holy, the lump is also holy." "By which, thus much was foretold and represented,that as the sheaf was lifted up and waved, so the promised MESSIAS was upon this Day to be lifted up and raised from the dead; or rather, to shake, and lift up, and present Himself to GOD, and so to be accepted for us all: that so, our dust might be sanctified, our corruption hallowed, our mortality consecrated to eternity."

But the Evangelist is describing the visit of the women to the Sepulchre on the morning when the great antitype of the wave-sheaf was revealed:

2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake for the Angel of the LORD descended from Heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon 3 it. His countenance was like lightning, and 4 his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

This is, of course, the account of what took place shortly before the women arrived, the description of what had terrified the soldiers who, (as the concluding verses of the former chapter explain,) were set to guard our LORD's Sepulchre. And well may such a spectacle have inspired them with terror. The men were already possessed with a sense of misgiving as to the awful nature of Him who slept P Bp. Pearson.

• Rom. xi. 16.

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