Let us learn firom the case of Joseph of Arimathsea, to be charitable and hopeful in our judgments. All is not barren in this world, when our eyes perhaps see nothing. There may be some latent sparks of light when all appear dark. Little plants of spiritual life may be existing in some remote Romish, or Gfreek, or Armenian congregations, which the Father Himself has planted. Grains of true faith may be lying hid in some neglected English parish, which have been placed there by God. There were seven thousand true worshippers in Israel of whom Elijah knew nothing. The day of judgment will bring forward men who seemed last, and place them among the first. (1 Kings xix. 18.)
We see, secondly, from these verses the reality of Chrisfs death. This is a fact which is placed beyond dispute, by the circumstances related about His burial. Those who took His body from the cross, and wrapped it in linen, could not have been deceived. Their own senses must have been witnesses to the fact, that He whom they handled was a corpse. Their own hands and eyes must have told them, that He whom they laid in Joseph's sepulchre was not alive but dead.
The importance of the fact before us, is far greater than a careless reader supposes. If Christ did not really die, there would be an end of all the comfort of the Gospel. Nothing short of His death could have paid man's debt to God. His incarnation, and sermons, and parables, and miracles, and sinless obedience to the law, would have availed nothing, if He had not died. The penalty threatened to the first Adam, was death eternal in hell. If the second Adam had not really and actually