opinion, equally deducible from those words with the other just now mentioned. That remarkable expreffion, "I afcend to my Father," Chrift undoubtedly made ufe of upon this occafion to recall to his difciples minds the difcourfe he held to them three nights before, in which he explained fo clearly what he meant by "going to his Fa"ther," that they faid to him, "Lo! now fpeakeft thou plainly, and "fpeakeft no parable*." But this was not the only expreffion that puzzled them; they were as much in the dark as to the meaning of, "a little while and ye fhall not fee me, and again a little while and ye "fhall fee me," which they likewife confefled they did not understand. But Chrift did not think fit to clear up their doubts at that time, and left those words to be expounded by the events to which they feverally related, and which were then drawing on apace. For that very night he was betrayed, and seized, and deferted by his disciples, as he himfelf had foretold but a very few hours before, upon their profeffing "to believe that he came forth from God:" the next day he was crucified, expired upon the crofs, and was buried. Upon this meJancholy catastrophe the difciples could be no longer at a lofs to underftand what Chrift meant, when he faid to them," a little while and ye fhall not fee me:" he was gone from them, and, as their fears fuggefted, gone for ever, notwithstanding he had exprefsly told them, that he would come to them again; and to thofe words, "a little "while and ye fhall not fee me," he added, "and again a little while દર and ye fhall fee me." This latter expreffion, one would think, was full as intelligible as the former; and as the one, now expounded by the event, was plainly a prophecy of his death, fo muft the other be understood as a prophecy of his refurrection from the dead. But, if they understood it in that fenfe, they were very far from having a right notion of the refurrection from the dead; as is evident from their imagining, when Chrift firft fhewed himfelf to them after his paffion, that they faw a fpirit; even though they had juft before-declared their belief that he was rifen indeed, and had appeared to Si"" mon." The refurrection of the body, it fhould feem from this inftance, made no part of their notion of the refurrection from the dead: to lead them therefore into a right understanding of this most important article of faith, Chrift, in fpeaking to Mary Magdalene, and by her to his difciples, makes use of terms which ftrongly imply his being really, that is, bodily, rifen from the dead. "I am not yet," fays he, "afcended to my Father; but go unto my brethren, and say unto "them, I afcend unto my Father," &c. The words "I go to my "Father," Chrift, as has already been obferved, explained by the well-understood phrafe of leaving the world; and to this explanation the words immediately foregoing give fo great a light, that it is impoffible to miftake his meaning. The whole paffage runs thus, "I "came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; and again "I leave the world, and go to the Father." By the expreffion, "I "am come into the world," Chrift certainly meant to fignify his be ing and converfing visibly and bodily upon earth; and therefore by the other * John xvi. 29. ther expreffion, "I leave the world," he must have intended to deote the contrary to all this, viz. his ceafing to be and converse viibly and bodily upon earth; and fo undoubtedly the difciples undertood him to mean, when they faid to him, "now fpeakeft thou plainly, and speakest no parable." But as they very well knew that the afual road, by which all men quitted this world, lay through the gates of death, and were affured their mafter had trodden that irremeable path, they might naturally conclude, that what he had faid to them about "leaving the world and going to his Father" was accomplished in his death; and confiftently with that notion might imagine that, by his coming to them again, no more was intended, than his appearing to them in the fame manner as many perfons have been thought and faid to appear after their deceafe. To guard against this double error, which Chrift, to whom the thoughts of all hearts are open, perceived in the minds of his difciples, he plainly intimates to them in the words, "I am not yet afcended to my Father, but I do " (or fhall) afcend to my Father," that his dying, and his final leaving of the world, were diftinct things, the latter of which was ftill to come, though the former was paft: he had indeed died, like other mortals, and had, like them, left the world for a feafon, as he himself had often foretold them fhould come to pafs; but he was now rifen from the dead, returned into the world, and fhould not leave it finally till he afcended to his Father. Of his being returned into the world, his appearing to Mary Magdalene was doubtlefs intended for a proof; and yet of this it could be no proof at all, if what the faw was no more than what is commonly called a spirit; fince the spirits of many people have been thought to appear after their decease, who notwithstanding are fuppofed to have as effectually left this world by their death, as those who have never appeared at all. Lazarus, like Chrift, had died, and was by his' quickening word recalled to life, which confifts in the animation of the body by its union with the foul. Now had Chrift called up nothing but the fpirit of Lazarus, and left his body to putrefy and perish in the grave, would not Lazarus, I afk, have ftill been reputed dead, and confequently confidered as out of this world, though his fpirit had appeared to a thousand different people? If Chrift therefore was rifen from the dead, as the angels affirmed he was; if he had not yet finally left the world, as the words, "I am not yet "afcended to my Father," plainly import; and if his appearing to Mary Magdalene was intended for a proof of thofe two points, as un doubtedly it was; it will follow that he was really, that is, bodily, rifen from the dead; that he was ftill in the world in the fame manner as when he came forth from the Father, and came into the "world ;" and that it was he himself, and not a spirit without fefh and bones, that appeared to Mary Magdalene. Before I conclude this argument, I muft beg leave to make one obfervation more upon the term "afcend," twice ufed by our Saviour in the compass of these few words. In the difcourfe here alluded to by Chrift, he told his difciples that he fhould go to his Father, and he now bids Mary Magdalene tell them that he fhould afcend to his Father; Father; a variation in the phrafe, which I am perfuaded had its particular meaning, and that not very difficult to be discovered. For as by the former expreffion he intended, as we have seen; to fignify in general his final departure out of this world, fo by the latter is the particular manner of that departure intimated; and doubtless with a view of letting his difciples know the precife time after which they fhould no longer expect to fee and converfe with him upon earth, but wait for the coming of that Comforter which he promised to fend them in his room, and who, unless he departed from them, was not to come. Jefus made frequent vifits to his disciples after his paffion*, 66 being feen of them, fays St. Luke, " forty days, and fpeaking of "the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." Between fome of thefe vifits were pretty long intervals †, during which he seems to have disappeared, i. e. not to have refided upon earth. Had Chrift therefore left his difciples without any mark or token by which they might be able to distinguish his final departure from those that were only temporary, they would probably have taken each vifit for the laft; or have lingered after his final departure, in a fruitless expectation of seeing him again; either of which ftates of uncertainty, and especially the laft, were liable to many inconveniences, to doubts and jealoufies, and fears, which it was goodnefs as well as wifdom in our Saviour to prevent. Nor was the preventing these evils the only advantage that flowed from this early intimation of the manner of Chrift's final departure out of this world, implied in the words, "I afcend to my Father," and verified in his afcenfion into heaven. "For as this could not have been effected without the power of God co-operating with him, so neither could it have been fore-known by hira, without the communication of that spirit which only knows the counfels of God. When the difciples therefore beheld their master‡ "taken up into heaven, and received out of their fight by a cloud of "glory," they could not but know affuredly that this was the event foretold about forty days before to Mary Magdalene; and knowing that, could no longer doubt whether it was Chrift himself who appeared and spoke thofe prophetic words to her; how little credit foever they had given to her, when she first told them the "had feen " the Lord.” And thus, (as I have endeavoured to make appear) in these comprehenfive words of Chrift spoken to Mary Magdalene, "Touch me 66 not, for I am not yet afcended to my Father; but go to my bre"thren, and fay to them, I afcend to my Father," are implied three particulars. ft, A renewal of the feveral promifes made by him to his difciples, the night in which he was betrayed, one of which was the promise of coming to them again before his final departure out of this world. Of his intention to perform which promife, I take his forbidding Mary Magdalene to touch or embrace him, to be an earnest or token. 2dly, An intimation, that as his death and his final departure out of this world were two diftinct things, the latter of which Acts, ch. i. and iii. † See John xx. 21. was was yet to come; fo, by his rifing from the dead, they were to underftand his returning and being in the world, in the fame manner with those who have not yet quitted the world by death, and confequently that he was really, that is bodily, rifen from the dead, of which his appearing to Mary Magdalene, and saying those words, was an undoubted evidence. And, 3dly, a prophetical account of the manner of his departing finally out of the world, viz. by afcending into heaven. From which feveral particulars it was impoffible, as I faid before, for the difciples to draw any other conclufion than that it was Chrift himself who appeared and fpoke to Mary Magdalene. I do not fay the difciples muft neceffarily have perceived, at the very first hearing these words, the feveral inferences which I have drawn from them; but when they came to confider them attentively, to reflect upon what their Mafter had faid to them in the night in which he was betrayed (to which those words evidently referred), and when, after having handled his feet and hands, they were by their own fenfes convinced that he was bodily rifen from the dead; and, laftly, when they had seen those words, "I ascend to my Father," verified in his afcending into heaven before their eyes; then, I think, they could hardly avoid perceiving the feveral inferences, and drawing from them the conclufion above mentioned. For if it was not Chrift who appeared to Mary Magdalene, it must have been fome fpirit, either good or bad; or fome man, who, to impofe upon her, counterfeited the perfon and voice of Chrift; or, laftly, the whole muft have been forged and invented by her. The firft of thefe fuppofitions is blafphemous; the second, abfurd; and the third, improbable. For, allowing her to have been capable of making a lie, for the carrying on an imposture from which the could reap no benefit, and to have been informed of what our Saviour had spoken to his difciples the night in which he was betrayed, which does not appear, it must have been either extreme madness or folly in her to put the credit of her tale upon events, fuch as the appearing of Chrift to his difciples, and his afcending into heaven, which were so far from being in the number of contingencies, that they were not even within the powers and operations of what are called natural caufes. The fame answer may be made to the fuppofition, that the appearance of Chrift to the other Mary and Salome was likewise a forgery of those women; and with this I fhall conclude the fecond head. $15. 3dly, Of the many appearances of Chrift to his difciples, for the forty days after his paffion, the facred writers have mentioned particularly but very few; imagining, doubtlefs, thofe few fufficient to prove that fundamental article of the Chriftian faith, and refurrection of Jefus. And, indeed, whoever attends to the nature and variety of the evidence contained even in those few particulars which they have tranfmitted to us, cannot, I think, but acknowledge that thofe who were appointed to be the witneffes of the refurrection, had every kind of proof, that in the like circumftance either the moft fcrupulous could demand, or the moft incredulous imagine. This I doubt VOL. V. A a not not but to be able to make appear in the course of the following obfervations; in which I fhall confine myself to the examination of thofe appearances only, whofe circumftances the evangelical hiftorians have thought proper to record, and upon which the faith of the Apoftles was principally eftablifhed. 66 The firft of thefe, though but barely mentioned by St. Mark, is very particularly related by + St. Luke, in the following words: "And behold two of them went the fame day to a village called Em"maus, which was from Jerufalem about threefcore furlongs; and "they talked together of all these things which had happened; and "it came to pass, that while they communed together, and reasoned, "Jefus himself drew near, and went with them but their eyes were "holden, that they should not know him. And he said unto them, "What manner of communications are these, that ye have one to "another, as ye walk, and are fad?' And one of them whose name was Cleopas, anfwering, faid unto him, Art thou only a ftranger “in Jerufalem, and haft not known the things which are to come to "pafs there in thefe days? And he said unto them, 'What things?' "And they faid unto him, Concerning Jefus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the "people; and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to "be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trufted "that it had been he which should have redeemed Ifrael: and befide "all this, to-day is the third day fince these things were done. Yea, "and certain women alfo of our company made us astonished, which "were early at the fepulchre; and when they found not his body, 66 they came, faying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which "faid that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us, 66 went to the fepulchre, and found it even fo as the women had faid: "but him they faw not.' Then he said unto them, ' O fools, and flow "of heart to believe all that the prophets have fpoken! Ought not "Chrift to have fuffered these things, and to enter into his glory?' "And beginning at Mofes and all the prophets, he expounded unto "them in all the fcriptures the things concerning himself. And they "drew nigh unto the village whither they went, and he made as "though he would have gone farther. But they constrained him, faying, Abide with us, for it is towards evening, and the day is "far spent.' And he went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, 66 as he fat at meat with them, he took bread and blessed it, and brake "and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew "him; and he vanifhed out of their fight. And they faid one to "another, Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with "us by the way, and while he opened to us the fcriptures?' And they "rofe up the fame hour, and returned to Jerufalem, and found the "eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, faying, "The Lord is rifen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.' And "they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread." Two |