they would command a full view of it. Hence, according to the very correct expression of St. Mark, they had only to lift up their eyes in order to distinguish the sepulchre as they were coming towards it; and to perceive, as we are told they did, that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

It will be admitted that such a discovery would naturally strike them with surprise, and lead them to conclude from the first impression that, if the stone had been removed, the body must have been removed also. It should be remembered, too, that the guard would be still present when they arrived; they would see the vacant mouth of the cave beset by strangers: and laying this discovery along with the other, they could scarcely fail to conclude that the body had been removed, and that these men had been instrumental in removing it: they had come upon them in the act of so doing.

What then do we observe to take place? Mary Magdalene, a single woman, the youngest, and therefore the most active, of the party, runneth immediately, and cometh to Peter and John with a report to this effect-They have taken away the body of the Lord, and we know not where they have laid it. These words prove two things; first, that she has some particular persons in her eye when she says, They have taken away the body of the Lord-such as the guard might be; and secondly, that she was not alone, she had not made the observation by herself; there were others with her if she says We know not where they have laid it. Compare this language now, with what follows at verse 13, when she was unquestionably by herself, and is repeating the same declaration to the angels-They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.

There is then internal evidence in this passage that Mary Magdalene had either, in the first tumult of surprise and consternation, left Salome and the other Mary of her own accord, or had been sent back expressly by them, to communicate the above tidings; while they themselves went on to the tomb, intending, perhaps, to wait there for her return. Either of these suppositions will account for the sequel. But as to conjecturing that all turned back in conjunction, or that this report, ascribed to Mary, was the report made by all in common after each of them had visited and inspected the tomb; these are conjectures which would involve us in the greatest perplexity, and happily are not necessary.

To admit, for argument's sake, the latter. Mary of Magdala, on this principle, must have seen and heard the declarations of the angels, as well as her companions. But had this been the case, could she have said to the Apostles so soon afterwards, They have taken away the body of the Lord, and we know not where they have laid it? Are not these words spoken under a sincere conviction that this was the truth? Does she not still labour under this conviction when she returns to the tomb with Peter and John? Does she not remain behind, after they were gone, through the same belief? Does she not express the same conviction to the two angels directly after? Are not the tears, which she is described as shedding, the tears of a sincere grief, and the genuine tokens of a firm persuasion of the reality of her mistake? Does she not address our Lord himself, at first, like a person under the same impression? Could she have seen and heard the two angels once already, and not have known or suspected who they were, when they appeared and spoke to her a second time? It is morally impossible

that Mary of Magdala, had she been a party to the preceding visit throughout, or even even yet heard of what had happened to her former companions, could have acted thus strangely and inconsistently. The female disciples of our Lord, to their honour be it spoken, do not seem to have evinced from the first, the same incredulity as the men. They believed the assurance of the angels that he was risen: they recalled to mind his own predictions in time past; and were now convinced of their truth. They issued from the tomb with great joy and gladness, as well as astonishment; and they delivered an accurate report of what they had seen and heard, that so the rest, if they would, might believe as well as they.

The way, then, to harmonize the account of St. John with the accounts of the other three, is that which we have adopted: supposing that both parties of women had visited, and left the sepulchre, before Mary returned with Peter and John. This might easily happen if the second party arrived soon after the first; and the circumstance that both parties set out very nearly at the same time in the morning, renders it extremely probable that, though they might not come together, yet they would come within a little while of each other: and Mary had to go back to Bethany, and to return from Bethany again; which would take up two or three hours' time at least. It is morally certain that she in particular could have had no communication with her former companions, or with those of Johanna's party, before she had the vision of the angels herself; she must have been still ignorant of all which had passed, even when Jesus himself stood before her. Nor ought it to be objected that the visit of Peter, according to St. Luke, arose out of the report of the women whose names he mentions.

It arose out of their report, but not necessarily out of their report in common. St. Luke's conciseness in this part of his narrative is an answer to the whole objection. He asserts in general terms that the women made a certain report to the Apostles; and in equally general terms that, whatever it was, the Apostles did not believe it; only that Peter got up, and ran to the tomb, to have ocular testimony of what had happened: in all which he is confirmed by St. John. But he does not descend into particulars, nor ascribe the visit to the single report of Mary Magdalene; for this obvious reason, that he had mentioned no previous visit of Mary's. What, then, could he have said of any report which arose out of it, except as identified with the common report of the rest? Yet by mentioning Mary Magdalene before Johanna, as the author of the report, he may perhaps assert by implication that the report came first from her.

In fact, the Gospel of St. John has here one special object in view, and that, entirely a supplementary object; viz. to give an account of our Lord's personal manifestation to Mary Magdalene, memorable, as being the first manifestation which was made to any, yet only summarily mentioned by St. Mark, and totally omitted by St. Luke. This manifestation ensued on Mary's second visit to the tomb, along with himself and Peter; and his own visit and Peter's arose out of Mary's report upon her first. The accomplishment of such a design required him to begin with the account of this first visit, without which he could not proceed to the second; yet as neither Salome nor the other Mary had any concern in what followed, or were parties in the second visit, he confines his account of the first to the single case of Mary Magdalene in particular. Beginning with the relation of her visit, he

passes in due course to the circumstances of his own and Peter's and when they two were both gone away, he completes his original purpose by the account of the manifestation to Mary itself.

But this brings us at once to the consideration of these manifestations; on which we may enter with so much the more alacrity, that every difficulty in regard to the preceding question, which concerned the visits to the tomb, has now I trust been satisfactorily removed. There is much less of difficulty concerning this further question; and what there is, is due almost entirely to a single cause, the apparent incongruity between St. Matthew's account of the personal manifestations of our Lord after his resurrection, and the history of the same things by the rest. Of the eight or ten manifestations in all, which stand upon record, he has specified only two: but these, as I shall shew, were closely related to each other: and if the first of them, as I hope also to make it appear, was much later than Easter-day, even this incongruity between the several accounts will be completely and convincingly done away.

First, then, it is certain, from the testimony of St. Mark, that the first manifestation of our Lord, as again alive after his death and burial, was made to Mary of Magdala. If this was the manifestation minutely related by St. John, it was made to Mary when she was by herself, after her return to the sepulchre and the departure of Peter and John. It was a distinct thing, therefore, from the first of the manifestations recorded by St. Matthew; which was made to a number of women in conjunction, or at least not to Mary of Magdala by herself. The same conclusion is implicitly confirmed by St. Mark. Speaking of the visit to the tomb, he mentioned the presence of the other two besides Mary