will bestow upon us for his beloved Son's sake. The grave and gate of death is that passage, through which we must all travel to that happy country, which is the object of every good man's delight; and will be truly so if we know assuredly that our Redeemer liveth, and that he has been, and still continues to every faithful heart, the way, the life, and the truth, the leader of the way, the giver of life, and the author of eternal truth. How happy then to die with such an impression on the soul! when our faith is strong, and our hope stedfast, our passage will be safe through the valley of temporary darkness. We shall pass on rejoicing till the blaze of glory, emanating from the throne of God, and illuminating the person of Messiah, shall meet our enraptured sight, and we shall be introduced to scenes far above all mortal vision, scenes which defy description, and which even the inspired writers do not attempt to delineate. Wherever heaven and hell are alluded to in Scripture, it is in awful language; intelligible, though indescribable, sublime and magnificent though "shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it." "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea1." But though we can no more comprehend these things than

1 Job xi. 7, 8, 9.

St. Paul, when, whether in the body or out of the body, he heard the unspeakable words' of heaven, secret words which no man could utter', yet the indisputable veracity of Scripture confirms the truth of the revelation, and a death-bed is the test of our conviction.

There is still a difficulty connected with the Churchservice of this day, of the intermediate place of reception of our blessed Lord between the time of his death and his resurrection. "He descended into hell." Obscurity necessarily rests on this, as on the other declared receptacles for departed spirits. The spirits in prison are generally supposed to be those who occupy that unrevealed region where spirits, separated by mortality, are imagined to reside. Hell, or more correctly, Hades, a hidden place, according to our old language, is commonly designated by our best divines as that place. That our Lord descended into hades is most certain, as a testimony of his human nature, as well as of his divine. "He was delivered for our

offences, and was raised again for our justification". This descent has been called the darkest scene of our Lord's passion. Doubtless, it is so; although the word of prophecy is confirmed by the fact of the resurrection. Many interpretations, and great differences of opinion, have prevailed on this hidden subject; but a learned and pious expositor observes, that

1 2 Cor. xii. 4.

2 Erasmus in locum.

3 Rom. iv. 25.

its

"this article of our Lord's descent into hell owes obscurity more to the various fancies, whereby men have drawn a veil over it, and eclipsed the light, than to any want of clearness and certainty in the article itself1." It is our duty, after due reflection, to submit our wills to the language of Scripture, and wait for the due interpretation till this mortal shall have put on immortality. We are travelling on a road, where in the end, we shall find perfect satisfaction in all the dispensations of the Almighty. At all events, Christ is now with us, if we live to him, and he will be with us then, if we die to him; to live or die, therefore, in both cases will be gain. Oh! the supreme happiness of those who are not losing time on this, their last journey!

"It was a part of the covenant of grace," says a very pious and eminent Commentator, "and promised by the mouth of God's prophets, that after the death of Messiah, his animal frame should not continue like those of other men, in the grave, nor should corruption be permitted to seize on the body, by which all others were to be raised to incorruption and immortality. As members of Christ, this same promise and assurance is so far ours, that although our mortal part must see corruption, yet it shall not be finally left under the power of the enemy, but shall be raised again, and re-united to its old companion, the soul,

1 Beveridge, Art. III.

which exists, meanwhile, in secret and undiscerned regions, there waiting for the day when its Redeemer shall triumph over corruption in his mystical, as he hath already done, in his natural body 1.”

may

Reflections on a day like this, resembling the close of life, and having in view the dawn of a resurrection, are too valuable to be passed over as common thoughts. The sun, however brilliant, hides its beams daily beneath the horizon of the earth, yet the setting of the sun one day will be its last; and to the writer, or the reader, the present may be our last Lent. Happy it be for those who have passed this holy season with such a pious apprehension! The moving scenes of our blessed Saviour's death, will have accomplished one great purpose on the heart. He who has justified many, will justify us; and those infinite merits that have sustained our faith and piety in life, will protect us through the valley of the shadow of death, and will present us purified by his redeeming love, before his Father's throne.

1 Bp. Horne's Comm. on Psalm xvi. 10.

THE

RESURRECTION OF CHRIST:

OR EASTER.

"This is the highest of all feasts," says Epiphanius upon the day. "This day Christ opened to us the door of life, being the first-fruits of those that rose from the dead: whose resurrection was our life, for he rose again for our justification '."

"This was the birth-day of our Saviour in his state of glory and exaltation, as his first nativity was the birth-day to his state of humiliation. It was anciently called The great day. By Gregory Nazianzen, the feast of feasts. How could it be less; it being (by eminence) the day the Lord hath made? For the antiquity of the observation of this day, innumerable authors might be produced, but in a matter not at all controverted, it would edify little. I shall content myself with a reference to that known contest between the Churches of the East and West about it, whether it should be observed on the 14th of the first new moon in March, as they of the East pretended, or on the Lord's day, as the Western custom was. They who kept the fourteenth day, derived their practice from 1 Rom. iv. 25. Sparrow's Rationale.

Ps. cxviii. 24.