and all the creatures upon the earth will cry out with one universal, wailing cry, It is finished. That end however will only be the beginning. The power and the glory and the victory will again be with the Lord of Hosts: and that which shall arise out of the wreck of the world, will not be the Kingdom of Hell, but the Kingdom of Heaven.

SERMON XXI.

THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT.

LUKE XXIV. 5.

Why seek ye the living among the dead?

THIS question was put to the holy women, who came on the first day of the week to the sepulcre, bringing the spices and ointments they had prepared, to embalm the body of Jesus. St Luke tells us, that, when they came to the sepulcre, they found the stone rolled away from it; and they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplext thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, the men said to them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Thus this question, when it was first put, conveyed an assurance of the most blessed comfort. It told the women, that the Lord, whom they were seeking, and whose body, in their faithful love, they had come to embalm, was not dead, but living. As they were the first to visit the sepulcre, with the purpose of performing the last acts of love and reverence to the body of their Lord, they were also the first, among the whole race of man, to hear those joyful words, He is risen. Even if the question, when taken along with the words which follow it, was meant to imply a slight reproof to them, for not having relied with fuller confidence on their Lord's declaration, that He should rise again on the third

day, at all events nothing can be milder than the manner in which the reproof is exprest; and its effect is entirely swallowed up in the joy at the tidings which accompany it. For glad tidings indeed they were, that the two men in shining garments brought to the holy women, glad tidings for the whole world through all ages, glad tidings in the first instance especially to them.

Do you ask, how it came to pass that these women should be chosen by God to be the first persons to whom the blessed tidings of our Lord's Resurrection should be announced? how they came to be thus in a manner preferred and honoured above all the Apostles? Look at the story; and you will find a ready answer. They were the first to come to the sepulcre; and in this sense also it is true, that they who seek God early shall find Him. For diligence is one of the surest tokens of earnestness and zeal, and, even in the things of this world, will often bear away the prize. Moreover they had come with loving and dutiful hearts, to shew all the honour and reverence they could to the body of their Master; and many ages before this it had been declared, that those who honour God, He will honour (1 Sam. ii. 30).

So that the question in the text, even as it was put in the first instance to the women at the sepulcre, was, so to say, two-edged. There was a slight reproof contained in it, but a far more exceeding power of comfort and joy. In like manner, as there are divers senses in which the same question may be put to various persons under various circumstances, indeed as there is hardly anybody to whom it may not at times be put in one sense or other,so will it always be a two-edged question: and in proportion as we deserve the reproof, it will bring us reproof; in

proportion as we are ready to receive the comfort, it will bring us comfort. It brings reproof to those who persist in seeking the living among the dead: it brings comfort, prevailing above the reproof, to those who are willing to seek the living among the living. The ground too of the comfort will be found to rest mainly in each case on the very event, which was the ground of the comfort afforded by these words to the women at the sepulcre, the Resurrection of our blessed Lord.

Why seek ye the living among the dead? This question, I said, may be put in divers senses, and to various persons, under manifold circumstances. For we are all of us sadly prone to seek the living among the dead, and have been so ever since Adam sought wisdom in the forbidden fruit. The literal meaning of the words, as well as the occasion when they were spoken, leads us to apply the text in the first place to those who are mourning, as the holy women were, for a departed friend. Let them mourn. It is right and wholesome that they should. Sorrow refreshes and purifies the heart, which would else be sultry and sunburnt, even as a shower of rain freshens and purifies the summer air. Our Lord Himself wept at the grave of Lazarus: and a heart must be either of stone or of sand, if such a blow strikes it, without leaving a lasting impression. But our mourning, if it be possible, should be after the manner of those mourners, who are pronounced to be blessed, and of whom it is declared that they shall be comforted. We should mourn as not without hope for those who depart hence in the Lord.

To mourn without hope is indeed bitter. To mourn for those concerning whom we cannot cherish a hopeful trust that they have departed hence in the Lord, is the bitterest draught

VOL. II.

D D

in the cup of human sorrow. For the only thing that is really, lastingly bitter, is sin. Sin is the sting of death, and the bitterness of death, both when death is drawing nigh to our own souls, and when it falls on our friends. All other bitterness will turn to sweetness. Of this, we cannot understand how it will cease to embitter the joys of the blessed in heaven. To such mourners the words of the text will not apply: for they are not seeking the living among the dead. They who are dead in trespasses and sins, cannot be spoken of by angels as living. Such mourners are indeed mourning over the dead. Happily the abode of death is darkness; and they cannot pierce through its black veil. We know not what is behind that veil. We know not what may take place in the hour when the spirit is passing through the valley of the shadow of death. We know not how its eyes may be torn open by the light of another world bursting upon them. know not what effect may be produced by the shock, when the solid earth is cracking under our feet, and vanishing from us like a dream. It may be, that, when there is anything sound and true and loving in a spirit, although it has been crusted over by the scum and smoke of the world, this crust may be swept away, and the waters beneath may be enabled by God's grace to gush forth more freely and purely. We must not lean idly on such a staff as this, when we ought to be working in our task of duty: but, when we can find no other support, we may be allowed to rest on this. Only we must not let such an insecure reliance withhold us from seeking the path of life, while yet it is open before us, or from urging and warning others to seek it, and to depart from the paths of death. Bitter however as such sorrow must needs be, it may be made to

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