Counsellor and a Ruler of the Jews to bury Him."
-That Counsellor, (by which is meant a member
of the high court of Sanhedrin,) had craved of
Pilate the Body of JESUS:

And Pilate marvelled if He were already 44 dead:

Rather, "that He was." The Roman Governor was surprised to find that life was so soon extinct : for crucifixion was a very lingering death. He considered not the amazing sufferings through which the SAVIOUR of the World had gone ever since the previous evening; and which had so enfeebled His sacred limbs and human frame, that at the end of six hours of anguish on the bitter Cross, His Soul had become severed from His Body. This circumstance, however, of His speedy Death, "can hardly be regarded otherwise than as miraculous","

and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether He had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he 45 gave the Body to Joseph. And he bought 46 fine linen, and took Him down, and wrapped Him in the linen, and laid Him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.

"Not in vain" (remarks Origen) "is it said that the Body was wrapped in clean linen, and laid in Bp. Lonsdale and Archd. Hale.

47

a new tomb, and a great stone rolled to the mouth: but to shew that everything touching the Body of JESUS must be clean, and new, and very great."

Thus He who, in life, "had not where to lay His Head "," in death also was indebted to a stranger for the resting place of His Body. "And what could He have to do with a sepulchre, to whom Death could not properly belong? What had He to do with a tomb on Earth, whose seat was in Heaven? and who was only in the grave for three days; not so much like one lying in death, as like one resting upon a bed ¶ ?”

And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where He was laid.

"Sitting over against the sepulchre,❞—as St. Matthew declares". "There sat they in the most blessed of all employments,—namely, in meditation on CHRIST's Death." "While the rest," (says Jerome,) "left the LORD, the women continued in their offices, as expecting what JESUS had promised. And on this account they deserved to be the first to see the Resurrection; for he that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved.'"

St. Matth. viii. 20. 9 Augustine.

St. Matth. xxvii. 61.

PLAIN

A

COMMENTARY

ON THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER OF

St. Mark's Gospel.

1 An Angel declareth the Resurrection of CHRIST to three women. 9 CHRIST Himself appeareth to Mary Magdalene: 12 to two going into the country: 14 then to the Apostles, 15 whom He sendeth forth to preach the Gospel: 19 and ascendeth into Heaven.

'AS CHRIST died for us and was buried, so is it to be believed that He went down into Hella." This momentous doctrine, forming as it does a distinct clause in the Apostles' Creed, has been judged by our Church worthy of being contained in a separaté Article. The event alluded to obtains no historical notice indeed in the Gospel; but it belongs to the present place,—the interval of time, namely, between the burial of our LORD'S Body, and His rising to life again on the third day.

Our LORD's Soul did not, of course, descend into that dismal region where the fallen angels are "reserved in everlasting chains under darkness until the judgment of the great Day" but only into that invisible place which is the appointed habitation of departed souls until the general Resurrecb St. Jude, ver. 6.

a Article III.

tion and to that part of it where the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burthen of the flesh, are in joy and felicity. This great Truth may be gathered with certainty from several places of Scripture which it shall suffice to indicate at the foot of the paged: from the two last it will be discovered that the HOLY SPIRIT has seen fit further to reveal the purpose with which our SAVIOUR'S Soul went among the souls of men 'in safe keeping." "That He should go to that place was a necessary branch of the general scheme and project of Redemption, which required that the Divine WORD should take our nature upon Him, and fulfil the entire condition of Humanity in every period and stage of man's existence,-from the commencement of life, to the extinction and renewal of ite."

But the course of the Evangelical narrative now invites our attention to the history of the morning of the first Easter Day:

XVI. AND when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint Him.

But Mary, the sister of Lazarus, had come beforehand, (as our LORD Himself declared,) 'to anoint His Body to the burying?' Take notice

• Burial Service.

d Ps. xvi. 10, quoted and explained by St. Peter, in Acts ii. 25 to 31-Ephes. iv. 9:-1 St. Peter iii. 18 to 20: iv. 6.

• Bp. Horsley,

f St. Mark xiv. 8,

that she who is here called 'Mary the Mother of James,' and in the last verse of the former chapter

Mary the Mother of Joses,' was lately styled 'Mary the Mother of James the less and of Josesh

And very early in the morning the first 2 day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

Concerning these two verses of Scripture, see what has been already offered on St. Matthew xxviii. 1.—As these holy women approached the Sepulchre, when it was yet dark',' they were full of anxiety as to how they should proceed when they reached the place of their LORD's rest:

And they said among themselves, Who 3 shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre ?

:

And when they looked, they saw that the 4 stone was rolled away for it was very great. 5 And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment: and they were affrighted.

The supernatural means by which the rolling away of the stone had been effected, St. Matthew i St. John xx. 1.

8 St. Mark xv, 47.

St. Mark xv. 40.