to my Father;" the exact meaning of which is apt to be overlooked or mistaken. Our common translation scarcely serves to bring out the idea intended to be conveyed. Our Saviour could not mean to forbid Mary to touch him, as if there were any thing wrong, improper, or unbecoming, in touching his body after his resurrection from the dead. For immediately after his parting from Mary, when he appeared to the other women as they went to announce the angel's message to the disciples, “they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.” (Mat. xxviii. 9.) When Jesus appeared in the midst of the Apostles gathered together, and his appearance threw them into consternation, he said unto them, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." (Luke xxiv. 39.) And when eight days thereafter he appeared to them again, when Thomas was with them, he said to the unbelieving disciple, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side." It could not be, then, that there was any such sacredness about the resurrection body of Jesus, as rendered it improper to be touched by sinful mortals, seeing the women were permitted, unreproved, to embrace his feet, and the disciples were by himself invited to handle him, and see that it was not a spirit that appeared unto them. The word here translated, "touch," is used by the Seventy to denote not only to touch, but " to lay hold on," to cleave to." (Job xxxi. 7.—Ezek. xli. 6.). And the sense of Jesus' words to Mary here, evidently is" Cling not to me; do not detain me at present; the time is precious; nor do I yet ascend to my father; I abide still for a time on earth, during which I will often see you all: hasten now therefore to the other disciples, and inform them of my resurrection; say to them I recognize them still as my brethren, and announce to them that I soon ascend to heaven."

1st. We proceed now to the consideration of the first point

in the message which Christ transmits to the disciples his recognition of them as his brethren.

1. It was full of comfort. It has often been remarked, that the evident purpose of Christ, in those messages which he transmitted to the body of the disciples after his Resurrection, before he appeared to them together, was to reassure their minds, when humbled and pained by the sense of self-condemnation, and to intimate his unabated regard for them, notwithstanding their unworthy treatment of him in the season of his calamity-notwithstanding the weakness and ingratitude they had shown. They had been all of them forward enough in their professions, but feeble in their fulfilment. They had declared their purpose to go with him to prison and to death. But having never really anticipated that such awaited their master, their declared purpose to abide with him amid these, had been made without due thought, and in ignorance of themselves. When, therefore, they saw their master in the hands of his enemies, and felt that to attempt resistance would be vain, they willingly availed themselves of that permission which Jesus seemed to give them to withdraw. They all forsook him and fled;" and the beloved disciple alone followed him to the judgment-ball, and stood beneath the cross. When their alarmed feelings and confused minds subsided into calmness— when they found leisure and quiet for taking a calm view of the agitating scenes through which they had passed, they must have bitterly reproached themselves for the weak and pusillanimous part they had acted. Their desertion of their Master in the time of his utmost need, did not arise from want of affection for him, but from weakness and confusion. Their affection for him was warm, honest, and sincere. But they no more dreamed of seeing him a passive and unresisting captive in the hands of his enemies, than of seeing the sun fall from heaven. Their prejudices and expectations prepared them for triumphs, not for trials; and when the

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one came instead of the other, when all their ideal schemes were levelled at a stroke, they were taken unprepared by the sudden and unexpected reverse, and neither acted firmly nor consistently. When they came to themselves, therefore, when they collected their scattered thoughts, and composed their agitated feelings, and looked back upon the past, they must have been ready to weep for very shame, to consume themselves with the bitterness of regret, at having so weakly and unkindly deserted so good a Master-at having done what they had solemnly protested they could never do-at having fallen away from Jesus in his time of need. And when the strange tale reached them that he was risen from the dead, that the guards were fled, and the sealed tomb rifled, and the stone rolled away, and the grave clothes left behind, and angels seen sitting in the empty tomb, while they desired, they must also have dreaded, to see again their beloved Master. Fear and shame must have held in their breast a painful struggle with affectionate desire; they must have been tortured by the anxious fear lest the Master and the cause they had dishonoured, should for ever renounce them -lest that countenance which had ever beamed with benignity towards them, should be arrayed in frowns when next it met their view. Aware, therefore, of the state of their minds, self-accusing and embittered-aware that they abhorred themselves, repenting in dust and ashes, the Saviour would not break but bind up the bruised reed-would not quench but fan the smoking flax-would not despise but cherish the broken and contrite spirit. To give them, therefore, instant assurance that he forgave them all the wrong they had done him that he pitied and pardoned their weakness-that he received them again to his heart, in the message he transmitted to them by Mary, he recognized them as knit to him by the closest bond of brotherhood-he accosted them as brethren; and the more to impress the idea upon their minds, he spoke of his father as their father, and his God as their God.

The term brethren as applied to his people by Jesus, is not an empty or unmeaning title. It expresses an endearing relationship to him, and one that includes high and precious privileges. It was not confined in its application to the apostles; it was not a title of honour which they merited from their apostolical office or their closer relation to Christ, as his personal attendants while on earth: it applies to all the faithful. If there be any doubt in the present passage, whether the Saviour included in the appellation any others besides the apostles, at least there can be no doubt of the wider application of the term in other passages. In the 2nd Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told of all that are sanctified by the Saviour, that "he is not ashamed to call them brethren." And in the account of the proceedings in the day of Judgment, in the 25th chapter of Matthew, when the righteous are approved for their kind compassion, and their generous aid towards the people of God, Christ is represented as saying to them: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." The humblest, then, of his people, the least of his sanctified ones, are yet his brethren--have the character and the privileges of this relation. Some of them in this imperfect state may grace the relationship more than others; some of them may be grown nearer the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus; some of them may have the family features more fully developed, more strikingly marked; but all who are sons of God, are brethren of Jesus. they have faith as a grain of mustard," even that weak faith links them to Jesus in the bond of brotherhood. And Christ disowns not the relationship even of the least of these his brethren. He owns them at last in the day of judgment, and not less does he own them now, though humble, suffering, and obscure; though unknown, forgotten, or despised by the world. When one said unto him, "Behold thy brethren (thine earthly relatives) stand without, desiring to speak

"If

with thee, he answered and said unto him that told himwho are my brethren ?—and he stretched out his hands to his disciples, and said, Behold-my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother." Wherever, indeed, the spirit of faith and obedience dwells, there the relationship exists. It all hangs on this condition: "If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.

2. It conveyed to them instruction on their duty to each other. The conduct of the Saviour towards his disciples in recognizing them all as his brethren, notwithstanding the weakness of their faith, their fears, failings, and inconsistencies, read an instructive lesson to the disciples as to the line of conduct it became them to pursue towards each other, as to that brotherly forbearance and forgiveness which they were required to exercise. Men who have taken a wrong step together, or have failed in their part, when they begin to be ashamed of their conduct, and to regret it, are very apt in order to escape from the pain of self-condemnation, to attempt each one to justify himself, and to throw the blame upon others. When God challenges Adam for eating the forbidden fruit, he attempts to roll the burden of the blame off himself, by saying, "The woman whom thou gavest me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat." And when he turns to the woman, she, too, would shift the blame from herself by saying, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Thus is it that those who are in a common fault are strongly tempted to mutual recriminations. Each one sees all the ill of his neighbour's conduct, and but half the ill of his own. He knows all the circumstances that extenuate his own misconduct, but may overlook those that palliate his neighbour's. Hence each companion in guilt usually thinks himself "more sinned against than sinning." The disciples in the circumstances in which they were placed by their own fault, might have

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