reason of the justice of God Sin is an offence or injuring of him who is mans Summum bonum or highest good and therefore to be expiated by the greatest punishment he therefore that was our surety was to taste of death by reason of the truth of God who spake concerning the fruit of the forbidden tree in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Gen. 2.17 It behoved Christ to die for the fulfilling of the prophesies and by reason of the prediction of Christ himself concerning his death Joh. 12.33 For the confirmation of the Testament of his grace which was to be performed by the death of the Son of God Heb. 9.6 From the death of Christ as it were out of a fountain floweth our redemption hence primarily is justification Rom. 8.34 hence regeneration or the restauration of corrupt nature our old man is destroyed by the power of Christs death and sanctification is obtained the death of Christ doth much weaken original sin in a Christian and although the death of Christ be past yet to this present time it doth mortifie our sins because its vertue and efficacy endureth for ever If so be that we apply this universal remedy of the heavenly chief Physician to our hearts Let us therefore with the Apostle exult for joy and say a Mors mortis morti mortem mors morte redemit O death where is thy sting c. 1 Cor. 15.55 This bondage of death Jesus undertook that he might procure unto us the liberty of eternal life True real death seiz'd upon him that we might attain to true life saith S. Ambrose But if Christ died for us Object why then must we die Answ We answer Our death is no satisfaction for sins but an admonition to us of the reliques of sin inherent in us a cleansing us from them and a passage into eternal life Holiness is the end of our redemption let us not then indulge our selves in pleasures The most sweet Jesus vouchsafed to die for our sins and because of this his unspeakable love we should rather choose to die then to rush into sin But oh the misery of it most holy Jesu how few mortals are so affected with sorrow for the dolours of thy death that they love holiness of life and piety Christ laid down his life for his friends yea for his enemies let us in like manner love others if occasion require which thing the most holy Apostle S. John urgeth in his 1 epist ch 3. v. 16. This love is heartily to be wished but can hardly be expected from a sort of men too too cruel To conclude death to beleevers is nothing but a disguised thing to scare them let us therefore be faithful unto death and not afraid to die Hitherto of the death of Christ his burial follows The bodies of the dead ought to be decently buried They are esteemed inhumane who neglect this Amongst these were the Lotophagi Historici Geographici passim a people of Africa who cast the bodies of their friends into the sea The Sabeans who threw the carcases of kings amongst dung-hils The Scythians who to honour those whom they loved did in their banquets devour their dead carcases The Hyrcanians who gave them to dogs or wilde beasts All these are detestable But although the death of Christ were ignominious yet his burial was very honourable For he was buried by men of quality Nicodemus a great Lawyer and Joseph a Counceller and Citizen of Jerusalem These were disciples before but secretly now they appear openly so great was the vertue of his passion Moreover many noble and religious women helped forward this work The honour of his burial is evident also by other circumstances his body was embalmed with abundance of spices and wrapped in costly fine linen Christ was buried in a new sepulchre hewn out of a rock lest that if another should have been buried there another might have been said to have risen as the Fathers note The New man would be buried in a new sepulchre and in a garden that his body might be sowen there and bring forth the fruit of resurrection That as in a garden Adams sin was committed so in a garden it might be expiated and satisfied for As his nativity was from the unstained bed or chamber of a Virgin so likewise his burial might not be defiled by any dead body He would be buried in another mans sepulchre that as he was born in another mans house so being dead he might lie in a grave that was another mans And he would not have a proper burial place or sepulchre of his own who had no proper cause of death in himself The sepulchre of Christ was a place of the chiefest devotion S. Jerom speaking of Paula saith That at her entrance into the sepulchre of the Lord she kissed the stone and the very place where Christ had lien The pilgrimage to this glorious sepulchre hath been most famous from all parts of the world The Turk a most malicious enemy getteth much profit by the visitation of the place which for this cause or for fear of punishment he hath not yet destroyed I think it not necessary for us to take so long a journey we may meditate on this matter more safely at home And although there is appointed a solemn procession at Lovain for the memory of Christs burial where the blessed Virgin and other women sorrowfully following the dead corps are wont to be represented yet we doubt not but that a pious soul may perform this without such pomp or ostentation Christ was buried that the types of the Old Testament might be fulfilled to wit that of Jonah and others As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale so Christ foretold concerning himself Matth. 12.40 Besides he was buried that it might appear that he was truly dead and that we might know that our sepulchres are sanctified by his being buried no more to be horrid places but sweet and quiet chambers in which we may rest until we shall be raised up hence our burying places are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 places for the dead to rest or sleep in We therefore being buried with Christ by baptism into his death ought to walk in newness of life Rom. 6. v. 4. where the Apostle alludes to a rite of baptism which was by plunging for his body who was baptized in this manner was in a sort buried in the waters And they that were baptized were wont to be thus plunged thrice in the waters by an allegorical similitude to represent Christ dead and three days immersed or drowned in the Sepulchre But S. Chrysostom saith the tropological meaning of it was to signifie that as Christ by his corporal death is dead unto this world so we likewise by a spiritual death should die to the same world and to sin its lord and king and with a purpose to lead a new life as Tertullian expounds it Let
of his enemies Moreover Pilates wife In Chr. 10. An. Chr. 34. whom Lucius Dexter calls Claudia Procula was earnest with her husband that he would give no rigid sentence against Christ but the threats of the Jews did more sharply prick him then his wifes advice Perhaps Pilates wife dream'd that he should smart for it which afterwards fell out accordingly when he was sent an Exile into Vienna in France as Josephus Ado and others report and we read that afterwards out of desperation he laid violent hands upon himself Furthermore Christ suffered under Pilate an ordinary Judge that he might absolve us from the severe judgement of God and to conclude that his innocency might be demonstrated for Pilate gave him this testimony that he found no cause of death in him Joh. 18.38 Therefore God would have him examined and so by consequence it was very clear that Christ was delivered to death not for his own but for our sins Against this passion of Christ under Pilate it may be objected Object that he was slain from the beginning of the world Rev. 13.8 how therefore could this be under Pilate To this we answer Answ that Christ was slain from the beginning of the world by appointment election power efficacy acceptation but not by execution He was slain from the beginning in the minde and purpose of God in an ideal passion but under Pilate in a real But Pilate seems to be absolved from the guilt Object because he did nothing but what God decreed beforehand to be done Act. 4.28 Answ To this likewise it may be said that God did not preordain the hatred of the Jews towards Christ but foreknowing it did purpose to make good use of it and by his precognition or foreknowledge of the evil determined the redemption of mankinde by the death of Christ The action displeased him the passion was acceptable The shameful act of the Jews and Pilate displeased God extremely but the passion of Christ and the redemption of mankinde from thence arising was exceeding acceptable Prosp ad objecta Gallorum resp 13. decreed from eternity and preordained Which is Prospers and other Doctors judgement in the point From what hath been spoken it is manifest how that the wicked do execute the counsel of God although they purpose no such thing and yet notwithstanding are not exempted from blame But some one may say Object Christ ought to suffer and therefore neither Pilate nor the Jews may seem to have sinned He ought indeed upon supposition Answ a necessity being derived from a voluntary decree of his dying for Jesus suffered because he would otherwise he could have escaped his enemies hands Ye have heard that Christ suffered and under whom It follows in the Creed that he was crucified Mat. 27.23 And they are urgent to have this punishment of the cross inflicted on him before any other as being the most cruel lingring and shameful death of all The offender was exposed alive to the view and mockery of all people hanging on a tree he was accursed Deut. 21.23 All kinde of hanging not onely among the Jews but among the Romans also was of most extreme infamy and disgrace as both Seneca and Livy testifie Seneca epist 101. Liv lib. 14. And this seems to be the reason that he who is hang'd on high is judged in a manner unworthy to tread on the earth with his feet and therefore he is lifted up from it Wherefore Christ that he might make himself of no account did undergo this most vile and accursed kinde of death and took that curse upon himself that was due to us Gal. 3.13 But wherefore would God have his Son rather to be crucified then otherwise punished the reason was saith Tertullian That he who overcame by the tree to wit the Devil by his envious working might be overcome also by the tree Secondly that by his suffering of the most cruel punishment he might procure for us a most copious redemption by satisfying to the full the Divine justice so others and from hence cometh our chiefest consolation Thirdly to satisfie the figures and oracles of the Prophets Ità S. August lib 6. de Civ Dei c. 32. in the which it was fore-signified For the brasen serpent being lifted up in the wilderness Num. 21. Joh. 3. the sacrifices which were lifted up on high Levit. 7. were the types of Christ crucified And as Isaac bare the wood whereon he was afterwards laid Gen. 22. so likewise did Christ the wood of the Cross One part of the mount Moriah was without Jerusalem wherein S. Jerom informs us out of a tradition of the Jews that Isaac and Christ likewise were offered up This place was afterwards called the mount of Calvary by reason of the sculls of the condemned that were there put to death Here Adams scull as some think was found whom Tertullian and other of the Ancients deemed to have been buried under the Cross some also affirming that the bloud of Christ hanging upon the Cross ran down upon Adams scull which manifests to us that he and his posterity beleeving in Christ should be saved by his bloud and this was beleeved by the godly as S. Cyprian averrs in a Discourse of the Resurrection Which opinion is pious enough but I know not how true In general it is evident that from the bloud of Christ there is a vertue derived most efficacious unto salvation Let us in the mean time bewail our sins for the which Christ was pierced through with nails and as the Israelites looked on the brazen serpent let us in like manner by the eyes of faith look upon Jesus and we shall be healed and as much as in us lies let us be crucified unto the world for this cause let him be wholly fixed in our heart who was wholly fastned upon the Cross for us And so pass we from his crucifixion to his death The Lamb of God expired on the Cross at the same time that the evening lamb or the daily sacrifice was offered up in the Temple to wit at the ninth hour with the Jews which answers to our third hour in the afternoon The death of Christ was voluntary no man took his life from him but he laid it down of himself Joh. 10.18 which is certainly apparent from his strong cry on the Cross when others being about to die lose their speech and do onely wheez in the throat Not without cause said the Centurion greatly admiring This is the Son of God Mat. 27.54 The bowing of his head sheweth the same whereas other men die before they bow their head And because the death of Christ was voluntary therefore meritorious otherwise he would not have been punished for our disobedience Secondly his death was innocent which the whole History proveth and the confession of his enemies Thirdly his death was precious the dignity whereof was from the dignity of the Person and so equivalent to eternal death Christ ought to die by
not sin therefore reign in our mortal bodies that we should obey it in the lusts thereof let us not be buried as it were in sleep and wine but let us reckon our selves dead unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The death of Christ is explained proceed we to his descension into hell Hell in the Scriptures is taken many ways properly for the place of the damned metaphorically for the greatest sorrows and infernal anguishes moreover for the grave and sometimes for extreme ignominy Hence arise the diversities of opinions concerning this Article Some interpret it of the grave but if so the same should be twice put in and declared by a more obscure one which in so perspicuous a Compendium it is not likely would be done It matters not much that this Article was left out in the Nicene Creed perchance the reason of it was because it never came into disputation Howsoever Eusebius who was present at the Council delivereth the same as also S. Athanasius in his Creed received by the Church although he omits the burial Others expound it of the torments of hell Which if they understand thus that Christ before his death felt torments equal to the infernal this opinion is pious enough but if their meaning be that after his death he did really feel the pains of hell it is impious for before this all things were finished If we say as Durandus doth that Christ descended into hell vertually or effectively that is to destroy hell in the behalf of the faithful or if with others that Christ descended to the lowest degree of exinanition or emptying himself verily these opinions contain nothing in them of falshood But some refer this descension to the soul of Christ This opinion that you meet with in Noels Catechism our Church seems to approve of in this sense Christ is said to have descended into hell that he might demonstrate himself to be Conquerer over the devil and all the infernal host that he might strike terrour into the devils and triumph most powerfully over them Many write many things concerning this matter But my judgement is that this Article ought not to be handled subtilly or scrupulously Our English Confession hath so appointed it in the third Article Even as Christ died for us and was buried so also is it to be beleeved that he went down into hell Here is nothing determined of the manner of his descension Let idle wits by their curious speculations search out this and here if I be not deceived they will finde somewhat to do Let it suffice us to beleeve that Christ descended into hell and hath performed all things necessary to our salvation but for the manner how this hereafter will be better known The Papists who have been bold very accurately to describe the parts of hell are not yet agreed whether Christ descended onely into the limbo of the fathers or into Purgatory also whether he delivered any from thence out of his special grace and favour as Thomas doth conjecture or whether he delivered all as Bonaventure and Gabriel or whether also he descended into the place of the damned as Bellarmine affirms They feign that he descended that he might deliver the Fathers out of limbo but we say plainly that limbo is not known or mentioned in Scripture that the souls of the godly were in the hand of God not in hell that the Fathers were redeemed by vertue of the merit of Christ the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world and not at length freed by Christs descension Neither is it any obstacle Object that Christ did preach to the spirits in prison 1 Pet. 3.19 Answ That place is thus explained Christ by the spirit that is by his divinity went that is being sent to the Church by the Father from the beginning and preached not by himself but by Noah to the spirits in prison that is to men whose souls are now in hell who were in time past disobedient that is before the floud while they then lived But it may be objected out of the same Apostle Object that the Gospel was preached to them that were dead 1 Pet. 4.6 Here lieth the fallacy in the words or sentence Answ The Gospel is preached to the dead that is to those who were dead when Peter wrote these sayings but it was preached to them when they were yet alive Others with S. Austin interpret this verse of the Gentiles being spiritually dead before conversion I confess many places out of the Fathers are brought against the Protestants but this consequence holds not good some affirm it therefore it is true We must know also that the Fathers have uttered many things Rhetorically concerning the efficacy of Christs descension into hell and have amplified them in lofty expressions acting like Ecclesiastical Orators and therefore making use of Rhetorical figures not onely to teach magisterially but also to perswade and move the affection Let others contend concerning this matter but thou O. Christian soul hold this faith that thou hast faith sufficient to beleeve that the descension of Christ is the cause of thy ascension on high And so from the degrees of Christs exinanition and the state wherein he was before he made it evident that he was alive let us pass to the degrees of his exaltation amongst which the first that offers it self is the resurrection from the dead The third day he rose again from the dead Christ is said to have risen again on the third day not fully complete but being begun which is typified by Jonah Matth. 12.40 It seemeth notwithstanding that Christ was not three nights in the Sepulchre no not so much as by parts but onely the night of the Sabbath and of the Lords day Here therefore it is to be noted that their days were reckoned from one mid-night 〈◊〉 the other Christ was in the Sepulchre part of Good Friday all the Sabbath day and part of the Lords day on the which he rose early in the morning And so the Romans who then ruled over the Jews did compute their days and nights Christ rose on the third day not sooner that it might manifest him to be truly dead not later because he would not hold his disciples and others any longer comfortless He rose that by his resurrection from the dead he might declare himself with power to be the Son of God And this was merely an effect of his divinity to quicken himself by his own vertue and power wherewith being the Son of God he was invested That the Father is said to have raised the Son is no hinderance to this Eph. 1.20 Object This cometh to pass by reason of the unity of essence in both Answ which is so great that whatsoever the Father doth the same also is the Son said simply to do He rose that he might demonstrate himself to have satisfied for our sins and to have purchased true righteousness for us Unless he had risen we had