1. The preparations that were made for it, and that was mainly in two particulars, viz. the begging and perfuming of the body. His body could not be buried, till, by begging, his friends had obtained it as a favour from his judge. The dead body was by law in the power of Pilate, who adjudged it to death, as the bodies of those that are hanged, are in the power of the judge to dispose of them as he pleases. And when they had gotten it from. Pilate^
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they wind it in fine linen clothes with spices. But what need of spices to perfume that blessed body ? His own love was perfume enough to keep it sweet in the remembrance of his people to all generations : however, by this they will manifest, as far as they are able, the dear affection they have for him.
% The Bearers that carried his body to its grave, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, two secret disciples ; they were both men of estate and honour : none could imagine that these would have appeared at a time of so much danger, with such boldness for Christ ; that ever they would have gone openly, and boldly to ma- nifest their love to Christ, when dead, who were afraid to come to him (except by night) when he was living. Rut now a spirit of zeal and courage is come upon them, when those that made greater and more open confessions of him are gone.
#. The Attendants who followed the hearse, were the women that followed him out of Galilee : among whom the two Marys, and the mother of Zebedee's children (whom Mark calls Salome) are only named.
4. The grave, or sepulchre, where they laid him : It was in Joseph's new tomb, which he had prepared in a garden near unto Golgotha, where our Lord died. Two things are remarkable about this tomb ; it was another's tomb, and it was a new tomb. It was another's ; for he had not an house of his own to lay his body in when dead. As he lived in other men's houses, so he lay in another man's tomb ; and it was a new tomb, wherein never man was yet laid. Doubtless there was mueh of providence in this ; for had any other been laid there before him, it might have proved an occasion both to shake the credit and slur the glory of his resurrection, by pretending it was some former body, and not the Lord's, that rose out of it. In this also divine Providence had a respect to that prophecy, Isa. liii. 9- which was to be fulfilled at his funeral : " He made his grave with the rich, because he had " done no violence," §c.
5. The disposition of the body in that tomb. It is true, there is no mention made of the groans and tears with which they laid him in his sepulchre ; yet we may well presume, they were not wanting in plentiful expressions of their sorrow that way ; for as they wept, and smote their breasts when he died, Luke xxiii. 48. so no doubt, they laid him with melting hearts, and flowing eyes in his tomb, when dead.
6. And lastly, The last remarkable particular in the text, is the solemnity with which his funeral rites were performed, and they were all suitable to his humbled state : it was, indeed, a funeral as decently ordered, as the straits of time, and state of things would then permit ; but there was nothing of pomp or outward
456 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SERM. XXXVII.
state at all observed : few marks of honour set by men upon it ; only the heavens adorned it with divers miraculous works, which in their proper place will be spoken to. Thus was he laid in his grave, where he continued for three incomplete days and nights in the territories of death, in the land of darkness and forgetl'ulness : partly to correspond with Jonah his type, and partly to ascertain the world of the reality of his death. Whence our observation is,
Doct. That the dead body of our Lord Jesus Christ was decently interred by a small number of his own disciples, and continued in the state of the dead for a time.
This observation containing matter of fact, and that so plainly and faithfully delivered to us by the pens of the several evangelists, we need do no more, to prepare it for our use, than to satisfy these two enquiries : why had Christ any funeral at all, since his resur- rection was so soon to follow his death ? And what manner of funeral Christ had ?
First, Why had Christ any funeral at all, since he was to rise again from the dead, within that space of time that other men commonly have to lie by the wall before their interment ; and had. it continued longer unburied, it could see no corruption, having never been tainted by sin ? Why, though there was no need of it at all upon that account that a funeral is needful for other bodies, yet there were these four weighty ends and reasons for it.
Reason 1. First, it was necessary Christ should be buried, to ascertain his death ; else it might have been looked upon as a cheat : for, as they were ready enough to impose so gross a cheat upon the world at his resurrection, " That the disciples came by night, " and stole him away," much more would they have denied at once the reality, both of his death and resurrection, had he not been so perfumed and interred. But this cut off all pretensions ; for in their kind of embalming, his mouth, ears and nostrils were all filled with their spices and odours ; bound up in linen, and laid long enough in the tomb to give full assurance to the world of the certainty of his death ; so that there could be no latent principle of life in him. Now, since our eternal life is wrapt up in Christ's death, it can never be too firmly established. To this, therefore, we may well suppose Providence had special respect in his burial, and the manner of it.
Reason 2. Secondly, He must be buried, to fulfil the types and prophecies that went before. His abode in the grave was prefigured by Jonah's abode three days and nights in the belly of the whale, Matt. xii. 40. So must the Son of man be three days and three
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nights in the heart of the earth. Yea, the prophet had described the very manner of his funeral, and, long before he was born, foretold in what kind of tomb his body should be laid, Isa. liii. 9. " He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his " death :" pointing, by that expression, at this tomb of Joseph, who was a rich man ; and the scriptures cannot be broker*.
Reason 3. Thirdly, He must be buried, to complete his humilia- tion ; this being the lowest step he could possibly descend to in his abased state. They have brought me to the dust of death ; lower he could not be laid ; and so low he must lay his blessed head, else he had not been humbled to the lowest.