I should not have noticed this word in our Concordance by way of explanation of the term, for that is unnecessaryevery one knows that it means a burial place, or grave; but the reason I have paused over this word, and for which I presume that the reader will desire to pause too, is in respect to that memorable one in which the holy body of the Lord Jesus for a space lay. Here the mind will find subject for unceasing meditation.
The sepulchre of the Lord Jesus, no doubt, became a sacred spot, dear to every beholder, as soon as the eastern world became subject to the christian faith. But the thorough change which took place at the overthrow of Jerusalem, which our Lord predicted, and which was literally fulfilled when "not one stone was left upon another that was not thrown down," totally altered the face of this sepulchre, as well as the whole of the holy city. They who have made again of relics, and got money by shewing spots and places, do, no doubt to this hour, pretend to shew the tomb where Jesus lay, and numberless circumstances connected with the history. But these things are impossible; hence in proof we know that Jesus suffered without the gate. (Hebrews 13:12) consequently Mount Calvary was without the gate; whereas now Calvary is almost in the centre of Jerusalem. So also Mount Zion, which in our Lord's days, and before, was on a hill, and the most beautiful eminence of the old Jerusalem, but is now excluded from the city, and the ditches around the base of it are filled in. So that it may with truth be said, that there are scarce any remains of the city as it was in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Yet" saith Dr. Shaw in his Travels, (page 334. folio edition) "notwithstanding these changes and revolutions, it is highly probable that a faithful traditon hath always been preserved of the several places that were consecrated, as it were, by some remarkable transaction relating to our Saviour and his apostles. For it cannot be doubted but that, among others, Mount Calvary, and the cave where our Saviour was buried were well known to his disciples and followers."
Indeed as a confirmation to this, it is well known that the emperor Adrian, the bitter enemy of Christianity, in contempt to Christ, caused an image of heathenish idolatry to be erected in those hallowed spots where Jesus was born, and another where he was crucified, and a third at his speulchre. And all these continued to the days of Constantine, when the whole empire becoming professors of christianity, the images were then removed, and churches built in their place.
But while it remains an impossibility in the present hour to ascertain the very spot of Christ's sepulchre, the sepulchre itself opens the same sacred subject of devout meditation. Here the faith of the believer may frequently take wing, and still hear by faith the angels invitation"Come, see the place where the Lord lay." From hence it was the first clear views were made of the invisible world; and from hence all the faithful are taught to follow, in sure and certain hope, their risen and ascended Saviour to the everlasting mansions of the blessed. That pure and holy corn of heavenly wheat which then fell into the ground did not abide alone, but by dying hath given life in his life to all his seed, and become thereby the first fruits of them that sleep. (John 12:24)