To have no funeral, is accounted a judgment, Eccles. vii. 4. or to be tumbled into a pit without any to lament us, is as lamentable. We read of many solemn and mournful funerals in scripture*, wherein the people of God have affectionately paid their respects and honours to the dust of the saints, as men that were deeply sensible of their worth, and how great a loss the world sustains by their remove. Christ's funeral had as much of decency and so- lemnity in it, as the time would permit; though he was a stranger to all pomp, both in life and death.
Corol. 2. Did Joseph and Nicodemus so boldly appear at a time of so much danger, to beg the body, and give it a funeral? Let it he for ever a caution to strong Christians, not to despise or glory over the weak. You see here a couple of poor, low-spirited, and timorous persons, that were afaid to be seen in Christ's company, when the other disciples professed their readiness to die with him : yet those flee, and these appear for him, when the trial comes indeed. If God desert the strong, and assist the weak, the feeble shall be as David, and the strong as tow. I speak not this to discourage any man from striving to improve inherent graces to the utmost ; for it is ordinarily found in experience, that the degrees of assisting grace, are given out according to the measures of inherent grace : but I speak it to prevent a sin incident to strong Christians, which is to despise the weak, which God corrects by such instances and examples as this before us.
Corol. 3. Hence we may be assisted in discerning the depths of Christ'1 s humiliation for us : And see from what, to what his love brought him. It was not enough, that he who was in the form of God, became a creature, which was an infinite stoop, nay, to be made a Man, an inferior order of creatures ; nay, to be a poor man, to spend his days in poverty and contempt, but also to be a dead corpse for our sakes. O what manner of love is this !
Now, the deeper the humiliation of the Son of God was, the more satisfactory to us it must needs be ; for as it shews us the heinousness of sin, that deserves all this, so the fulness of Christ's satisfaction, whereby he makes up that breach. O, it was deep humiliation indeed ! how unlike himself is he now become ! doth he look like the Son of God ? What ! the Son of God, whom all the angels adore, to be hurried by three or four persons into his grave in an evening ! to be carried from Golgotha to the grave in this manner, and there lie as a captive to death for a time ! Never
* Gen. xxiii. 2. Gen. xxxv. 19. Gen. 1. 10. Numb. vx. 29. 2 Chrcra. xxxv. 24, John xi. 31. Acts viii. 2.
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was the like change of conditions ; never such an abasement heard of in the world.
Corol. 4. From this funeral of Christ results the purest, and strongest consolation and encouragement to believers, against the fears of death and the grave. If this be so, that Jesus hath lain in the grave before you ; let me say then to you, as the Lord spake to Jacob, Gen. xlvi. 2, 3. " Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I " will go down with thee, and I will also surely bring thee up again." So here, fear not believer, to go down to the grave, for God will be with thee there, and will surely bring thee up thence. This consideration that Jesus Christ hath lain in the grave himself, gives manifold encouragements to the people of God, against the terrors of the grave.
First, The grave received, but could not destroy Jesus Christ : death swallowed him, as the whale did Jonah his type, but could not digest him when it had swallowed him, but quickly delivered him up again. Now Christ's lying in the grave, as the common head and representative of believers, what comfort should this in- spire into their hearts : for, as it fared with Chrisfs body personal, so it shall with Chrisfs body mystical : it could not retain him ; it shall not for ever retain them. This resurrection of Christ out of his grave, is the very ground of our hope for a resurrection out of our graves. " Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first- fruits of them that slept," 1 Cor. xv. 20.
Secondly, As the union betwixt the body of Christ, and the Di- vine nature was not dissolved, when that body was laid in the grave, so the union betwixt Christ and believers is not, cannot be dissolved, when their bodies shall be laid in their graves. It is true, the natural union betwixt his soul and body was dissolved for a time ; but the hypostatical union was not dissolved, no, not for a moment : that body was the body of the Son of God, when it was in the sepulchre. In like manner, the natural union betwixt our souls and bodies is dissolved by death ; but the mystical union be- twixt us and Christ, yea, betwixt our very dust and Christ, can never be dissolved.
Thirdly, As Christ's body, when it was in the grave, did there rest in hope, and was assuredly a partaker of that hope ; so it shall fare with the dead bodies of the saints, when they lay them down also in the dust : " My flesh also shall rest in hope," ' saith Christ, Psal. xvi. 9, 10, 11. In like manner the saints commit their bodies to the dust in hope : " The righteous hath hope in his " death," Prov. xiv. 32. And as Chrisfs hope was not a vain hope, so neither shall their hope be vain.
Fourthly, and lastly, Chrisfs lying in the grave before us, hath quite changed, and altered the. nature of the grave ; so that it is
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not what it was : it was once a part of the curse. " Dust thou " art, and unto dust thou shalt return," was a part of the threaten- ing, and curse for sin. The grave had the nature and use of a prison, to keep the bodies of sinners against the great assizes, and then deliver them up into the hands of a great and terrible God ; but now it is no prison, but a bed of rest : yea, and a perfumed bed, where Christ lay before us. Which is a sweet consideration of the grave indeed ; " Thev shall enter into peace, they shall rest in " their beds,"" Isa. lvii. 2. O then let not believers stand in fear of the grave. He that hath one foot in heaven need not fear to put the other into the grave. " Though I walk through the valley of " the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me," Psal. xxiii. 4.