angels, as ready to appear to the rescue. Oh, what a blaze would have burst upon that night of black darkness, had not Omnipotence restrained the glowing legions. "But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" added the meek Saviour, and the thought of deliverance was past. Gabriel could not forget his own message to Daniel; the seventy weeks were accomplished, and Messiah must be cut off. Their intimate acquaintance with all that God has revealed, and the sure confidence they have, that whatever he hath spoken shall come to pass, even as he has said it, are to the angels instead of a foreknowledge that no creature may attain to and if we gave the like heed to what God has declared, and with the same simple faith and plain understanding received it, we should find ourselves far better forewarned than now we are for the changes of this worldly scene, and armed with a more perfect submission to what betides us.

The sad events of that evening in Gethsemane were followed, as we all know, by others more terrible far; and equally in the Jewish sanhedrin, in Pilate's house, and Herod's judgment-hall, in the streets of Jerusalem, and on Calvary, was the Lord Jesus “ seen of angels." They heard the false witness borne, the infamous sentence given; they saw the scourging, the crowning with a diadem of thorns, the reed placed in that hand, which in its protecting shadow had so long hidden the house of Israel from their foes! They heard the

scoffing homage tendered by rude idolatrous heathen soldiers to Him, whose regal glories filled all heaven with splendour: they saw the heavy cross laid on that shoulder whereon God hath laid the government of all created things; and they were constrained to witness the payment of the world's ransom in the trickling drops that oozed from those pierced hands and feet. The rocks were rent, but those awe-struck angels could not, if they would, have burst the bonds of obedience to the voice that bade them be still the sun hid himself, but through the darkness of that unnatural night, the bleeding Lamb of God was still seen of angels."

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Where were the heavenly hosts, while for the appointed time, the dead body of Jesus lay in the sepulchre? It was a Jewish sabbath, and it seems to have become a blank in time, because the light of the world was resting in the darkness of the grave. It was passed over-the ordinance transferred to the next glorious morning; and ever since, the first day of the week has been the Sabbath of the Christian world.

But now we shall find the holy angels thronging a spot of earth, with all their glowing characteristics developed in a remarkable manner. The suspicious murderers entertained a fear lest their Victim might yet rise again; and they obtained from the Roman governor permission to seal the stone that covered the entrance of the sepulchre, and to set a watch of soldiers over it. The strict discipline of the Roman army made this a most

efficient guard; but the debt was now fully cancelled. He who had died for our sins was to rise again for our justification; death had no more dominion over him. Nothing in the Bible is more splendid than the picture presented to the mind by the very brief recital of that glorious event. “ 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 it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men." Matt. xxviii. 2, 3. There is something very real in this description-very much opposed to the incorporeality of the angelic host. The act of rolling away the massive stone which the good Joseph of Arimathea had placed as a security against the enemies of that sacred body, and which the high priests had farther made sure, and moreover sealed it, as a barrier against his friends; and his seating himself upon it, we can hardly believe to have been only in semblance. The angel, the highly-privileged angel, who was sent, or rather who was permitted to rush upon this enrapturing service, seems to have alighted upon earth with a force that made it quiver; and to have rent, or spurned from its place, the stone that barred the egress of the Lord Jesus from his dark prison. No mortal eye beheld that egress; the countenance of the angel caused the keepers to become as dead men: knowing as they did that any violation of the

seal upon that stone would be visited on them with the extreme of punishment, they had yet no power to resist ; they fell prostrate, rendered senseless by terror; and no marvel, seeing what was the aspect of the angel. Our foolish and improper habit of using the most hyperbolical comparisons on ordinary occasions, deprives scripture of much of its due force. As quick as lightning,' 'as vivid as lightning,' are expressions in ordinary use among us; and when we read that the angel's countenance was like lightning, we do not perhaps recal one of those terrific flashes or blazes of electric fire, from which the boldest is constrained to avert his eyes; and add it to the highest possible expression of intellectual power. We do not even try to render that small measure of justice which our very imperfect faculties would enable us to yield to the might and majesty of an angelic envoy from Him who maketh his ministers a flaming fire. And we may well believe, that the triumphant joy, the holy indignation of the angel, who came to open the Lord's sepulchre, would shine forth from his countenance with a most heavenly radiance. The miserable children of the dust had so far been allowed to work their wicked will, and Satan, utterly crushed as his head now was through the assumption of all power, both in heaven and in earth, by his Almighty Conqueror, had still, with his inferior spirits, an hour during which they could boast that their conquest over vile man had laid the Lord of life in the grave. Very short, and fearfully em

bittered, was that season of hellish exultation; but it was enough to rouse the keenest emotions in the breast of a celestial spirit; and we may be assured, that when the longed-for command was issued, and the waiting angel sped his way to the garden of Joseph, the poor, wretched soldiers of Rome engaged but little of his attention, fixed as it must have been on the baffling of the malice of Satan. Not against the miserable sinners of earth, the poor heathen slaves who occupied an assigned post at the sepulchre, did the lightning of his countenance flash forth; but against those hostile legions who had wrought so much woe; against him who, having had the power of death, was now virtually destroyed by the dying of the Lord Jesus.

Although only one angel is named as having executed this commission, we know that many were present. No mortal was found worthy to witness that greatest event that creation ever viewed-the rising of the Son of God from the tomb; but "seen of angels" it unquestionably was; and they seem to have become visible under different circumstances, singly or not, to the individuals who came to the sepulchre. Thus we find that the angel who in the sight of the keepers sat upon the stone which he had just rolled away, was not found there by the women, but, finding the stone rolled away, 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. And he saith unto them, Be

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