MARY AT THE SEPULCHRE OF JESUS. 159 emplify the glowing description given of charity by the apostle *! Did this disposition exist, altho' it were in an inferior degree, in the world, how speedily would it terminate feuds and broils! and strife and contention would soon cease. Let us seek an increase of this gracious temper, that we may thereby increasingly adorn the blessed gospel of Jesus our Lord, who was "meek and lowly in heart." 3. We observe the false estimate we are likely to make, and the erroneous and fatal choice we shall make, if we are regulated by outward appearances and carnal motives. Sodom was well watered,the plains were verdant, the prospects pleasing, -the land fertile; and, alas. Lot appears to have consulted nothing, save a suitable portion and provision for his flock and herds! The character of the inhabitants of the cities of the plain could not be unknown to him, though disregarded. The consequent danger and exposure of his family; his immediate departure from the counsel and pious example of Abram, and from the divine worship in Abram's house, appear to have had a small share in his consideration. Some have thought, that Lot was at this period unconverted; and that the trials he here met with, when his soul was vexed from day to day, was rendered instrumental to bring his wandering heart to God." 4. Behold a practical comment on the aphorism of our Lord"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."-The way to succeed, in a worldly respect, is frequently to recede from claiming our full right-to be submissive-quiet-calm; and to refer all to the appointment of infinite wisdom. Choose then my inhe ritance for me, O Lord: there is not any thing I so much dread as having my request in temporal things, but leanness in my soul. Abram gave up his just right to choose; but his covenant God appointed him the best portion here, which he could possess and enjoy with a calm and thankful mind, and the pleasing prospects of faith, into a better and a more enduring substance than the earthly Canaan. L-C--L. * 1 Cor. 13. MARY AT THE SEPULCHIRE OF JESUS. They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. John xx. 13. WHEN historians are about to commemorate any extraordinary action, or record any remarkable saying, it is common for them to take particular notice of the scene where such actions were per- · formed,—such words spoken; and it may be worth our while to observe where Mary was when she uttered the exclammation which stands at the head of this paper. She was in a garden: a place which, from its variegated beauties and charming scenery, has ever delighted the eye, and gladdened the heart of those who love to admire the great Creator in his works. It was a garden in Palestine; of the luxuriant vegetation of which, as well as the exquisite odours exhaled from its aromatic shrubs, we in these colder climes and more steril regions can form but very faint conceptions; and it was the garden of a rich man, -an honourable counsellor, in which cultivation was no doubt carried to its greatest perfection, and Nature assisted by every means that art could invent and munificence snpply. Mary appears, I think, from the scriptural accounts we have of her, a person who was not likely to be inattentive to the beauties of Nature or of Art. Whatever she might have been while seven demons raged within her bosom, there is in all her conduct subsequent to her deliverance by the hand of her compassionate Redeemer, a softness, —an affectionate fervour,-an ingenuousness,-an holy fortitude, which speaks her, at least to me, to have been a woman of peculiar susceptibility and greatness of soul. But, whatever she might have felt at another time, the charming scenes around had now no charms for her: the flowery tribes had no loveliness to attract her eye; the balmy perfumes no sweetness to regale her olfactory nerves. She is in search of a far different object; she seeks not her living Lord, whose soothing tenderness had so often chaced away her sorrows, whose delightful converse had so many times gladdened, while it improved her mind;-no: to these sweet privileges she had now bid her last adieu! But she comes to look for the dead body of her beloved Master, anxious to perform the last act of duty and affection; and to case her overloaded bosom, by bedewing his cold corpse with her tears. Full of these mournful thoughts, she weeps, she stoops, she looks into the sepulchre; and, what does she see there? Instead of a lifeless corpse, behold two glorious inhabitants of the invisible world! two radiant angels, shining in all the refulgence of immortal glory!-Surely, these bright appearances will arrest her attention, and divert her from her purpose!-Ah! no. They are, indeed, fairer than the sons of inen; but they are not her Jesus! and could all the bright orders of the celestial hierarchies descend to her view, they could not compensate her for his loss. She takes no notice of their superior beauties; she does not even start at their unexpected appearance, but immediately tells them the cause of her distress-They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him!" We will here take leave of Mary; but we will retain her lamentation, and see whether it may not, in some cases, be adopted as our own. In our necessary intercourse with mankind, we are frequently constrained to complain of the vanity and futility of every thing around us: conversation cannot long be kept up, even among the elegant and well-informed, with a proper zest; it soon degenerates, it ceases to interest,-it fatigues: and why is this? Alas! "They have taken away my Lord, and I know MARY AT THE SEPULCHRE OF JESUS. 161 not where they have laid him!" In a land professedly Christian (as a justly celebrated minister has lately observed) Christ is excluded from the court, the senate, and the camp; his life and his death, his resurrection and intercession, his perfect atonement and finished salvation, are regarded as obsolete and unfashionable topics; the introduction of which, in a polite circle, is highly indecorous, and immediately entitles the speaker to the name of Puritan, or Methodist ; and where these subjects, which comprehend all that is important to dying immortals, are exploded, who can wonder at the barrenness of our discourse? Sometimes I have entered a temple, dedicated to the Most High, and heard an eloquent and well-studied harangue: the preacher has displayed almost the powers of a Cicero or a Demosthenes; his language was floridhis periods well turned-his pronunciation regulated by the best rules of grammatical propriety - his gesture was perfection itself; yet, with all these attractions, my attention soon began to flag: my mind was unimproved; my heart unaffected; my soul unblest. I sought the reason, and I quickly found it: there was much logical definition; much acute argumentation: there was a great display of the preacher's erudition; perhaps, too, there was much Heathen morality; but one thing was wanting; - Christ was not there: "They had taken away my Lord, and I knew not where they had laid him!" and a Christless sermon, however eloquent, is to me as a body without a soul; for the Spirit of God as long since taught me, that " none but Jesus can do helpless sinners good."-Again, I sometimes go into the society which is far dearer to me than any other the world can afford; I mean that of the people of God. Here I expect, and generally find, improvement and pleasure going hand in hand: but it is not always so; there are periods when, even among these much-endeared connec tions, I feel dulness and languor, dissatisfaction and satiety, creeping upon me; our hours drag heavily along; and we neither receive nor communicate any real good: the cause is evident,Christ is not in the company; or at least if, in fulfilment of his own gracious promise, he is present, he is an almost unnoticed guest; the world has been suffered to intrude; and, instead of talking" of all he did, and said, and suffered for us here below; the path he marked for us to tread, and what he is doing for us now," we are considering what we shall eat, and drink, and wear; rehearsing the news of the day, and an hundred other frivolous topics: these have found admission, and they have hid our Jesus from our mental eyes;-"They have taken away our Lord, and we know not where they have laid him." May we not go one step further; and enquire whether the closet of the believer is not sometimes witness to a similar disappointment? When the child of God is in his right mind, this is the seat of his highest enjoyment: here he meets, and sweetly communes with him whom his soul loveth: here he forgets the world, with all its cares, and all its allurements; and antedates his future glorious rest "In secret silence of the mind, "Our Heav'n, and there our God we find." But are we always thus blest?-Ah! no: sometimes the grand adversary finds admission even there; and brings with him some "tempting bait," some vain and foolish thing, to draw off our minds from God, and "thrust our Saviour from our arms." Instead of meditating upon holy and heavenly themes, our hearts. are like the fool's eye, roving even to the ends of the earth; prayer is no longer a delightful privilege, but a burdensome task; and if we spend our accustomed time, it is because it is accustomed; and we secretly long till the tedious hour is over. O, my Christian friends, what seasons are these! we may take up our Bibles, -we may bend our knees; but, without fixedness of heart,without the aid of the Holy Spirit,-and a sweet and solemnizing sense of the Divine Presence, our devotion is an empty form; like Mary, we are present at the sepulchre; but they have taken away our Lord, and we know not where they have laidhim!" 66 If these observations are just, they tend to confirm this point,that Christ is all in all. Ordinances and means, public and private, may be diligently attended, and it is right they should; but it is His presence that must put energy into them, and make them beneficial to the soul. Christian friendship may and ought to be cultivated; but unless all our communication with each other tend to lead our minds up to that "Friend, who sticketh closer than a brother," they only glew the mind faster to the creature, and eventually do us more harm than good. The works of creation deserve the most attentive investigation; but, except we look "through Nature up to Nature's God," all our philosophic attainments will but swell our pride, and pervert us from the simplicity of the Gospel. O, that from henceforth I may seek Christ in every thing, and never rest satisfied till I find him! Whenever terrene objects would allure my senses, and engage my affections, may I be enabled to turn from them all, and continue my anxious search until, by the eye of faith, I can see my Redeemer, and embrace him with sensations similar to those which filled the enraptured heart of Mary, when she exclaimed Rabboni ! Sandwich. E. T. MORAL INABILITY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. ALTHOUGH much has been ably written on the subject of natural and moral inability, its nature and importance do not ap pear to be well understood by many readers. Probably this may be owing, in some measure, to the want of a few plain Scripture MORAL INABILITY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 163 examples. If two or three may be likely to yield more satisfaction, with some description of professors, than the usual laboured mode of some writers to explain it, it were easy to select them. Thus, in Luke xi. 7, 8, where the person applies to his friend at midnight for a few loaves, his excuse for declining the application, "I cannot rise and give thee,"-our Lord interprets by "will not." I say unto you, though he will not rise,' &c.The young man (Matthew xxi) that was commanded to sell his property, and give to the poor, with the promise of a treasure in Heaven (see v. 29) had it as much in his power to comply, in a natural sense, as the man in the above parable. Both, however, wanted inclination and will (or moral ability); and neither could properly plead any other excuse for non-compliance than was owing to this cause. When the apostle John observes, that "whosoever is born of God cannot sin, because he is born of God," none will dispute, and all will perceive, that such a person has it as much in his power to sin, as to natural ability, as ever: but his inclination and will are now against sin; and he is no otherwise unable to sin than in this view and on this account: the love of holiness morally disables him from sinning. In some such sense as this, we must probably understand the limitations of the Divine Power itself: for God's ability can be subject to no other restrictions than what his sovereign purpose and will have imposed. He has, unquestionably, natural ability to save all; but, according to his purpose and will, he is able finally to save only those that come unto him by Christ Jesus.* We, cannot, however, lay the blame of a disobedient life any where but on our own evil, perverse, natures: for we pursue our own will and inclination, in preferring folly to wisdom, and iniquity to holiness. We love darkness rather than light, while our deeds are evil: and this is, undeniably, our reason for following the works of darkness; and not because we have no natural ability to renounce them. Nor, had we any other plea for rejecting Christ and his kingdom, in our natural state, than what ought to be sought for in the perverseness of our wills," we would not have this man to reign over us:" we did not like it. Hence it happeneth, that when once sinners are willing, in earnest, to be saved, all difficulties in the way presently vanish: they find a willing Christ and faithful promises; and along with these, ability to forsake all for them. So true is it, that nothing keeps us from Christ but the disinclination of a sensual mind and unbelieving heart +. We will not come to Christ for happiness, but are quite willing to go elsewhere; because that better suits our foolish imagination and depraved taste. This is our cannot, which leaves us under all the guilt of a will not §. - Heb. vii. 25. + John v, 40. § Isa. i. 19, 20. Ps. lexxi. 11, 12, |