m Heb. xii. 29, " Ilcb. x. 19—22, o 1 Pet, ii, 9, Rev, i, 5, 6.
Matt, xxvii. 62 — 66. Notv the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the Chief Priests and Pharisees came to- gether unto Pilate, saying. Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, ivhile he was yet alive, After three days I loill rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away, and say unto the people. He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch : go your way ; mahe it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a ivatch.
THE enmity of the human heart against God will never cease to operate, till the heart itself be changed by divine grace. One would have hoped that, when so many wonders had been wrought during the cruci- fixion of Christ, when the whole multitude that were spectators of it smote their breasts with grief, when the Centurion and others of the heathen soldiers were constrained to attest his innocence, and to proclaim him to be the Son of God, and, lastly, when they had seen some of their own body, even members of the supreme council, paying the most marked respect to his dead body, and committing it to the tomb with funeral honours ; one would have hoped, I say, that the malice of the chief priests and Pharisees would have somewhat abated. But they were still restless: not content with having put him to death, and thereby destroyed, as they imagined, all his influence in the world, they pretended to fear that his Disciples would come and take him from the tomb, and spread abroad a report that he had risen from the dead. They cer- tainly had no reasonable ground for such a fear : for, to what purpose could it be for the Disciples to carry on such a delusion, when they could not gain any thing by it but misery in this world, and destruction in the world to come ? But the chief priests wanted to pluck up by the very roots this dangerous heresy, as they esteemed it ; and to prove to all that Jesus