Prey from the Mighty and a Captive from the strong and though he was in the very Iaws of Death yet he was not devoured Corruption the common Lot of Mortality seized not on him Worms and Putrefaction durst not approach him His Body was Sacred and inviolable as sweet under ground as above it and in Death it self retaining One of the highest Privileges of the Living 3. Come we now to the Last and principal thing proposed namely The Ground of Christ's Resurrection which was its absolute Necessity expressed in these Words Because it was not possible that He should be holden of it and that according to the strictest and most received sence of the word Possible For it was not only Par aequum that Christ should not always be detained under Death because of his Innocence as Grotius precariously and to serve an Hypothesis would have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signify but it was absolutely necessary that he should not and impossible that he should continue under the Bands of Death from the Peculiar Condition of his Person as well as upon several other Accounts And accordingly this Impossibility was founded upon these Five Things 1. The Union of Christ's Humane Nature to the Divine 2. God's Immutability 3. His Justice 4. The Necessity of Christ's being believed upon 5. And Lastly the Nature of his Priesthood First of all then The Hypostatical Vnion of Christ's Humane Nature to His Divine rendred a perpetual Duration under Death absolutely impossible For how could that which was united to the Great Source and Principle of Life be finally prevailed over by Death and pass into an Estate of perpetual darkness and oblivion Even while Christ's body was divided from his Soul yet it ceased not to maintain an intimate indissolvable Relation to his Divinity It was assumed into the same Person for according to the Creed of Athanasius As the Soul and Body make one Man so the Divine Nature and the Humane make One Christ. And if so is it imaginable that the Son of God could have one of his Natures rent wholly from his Person His Divinity as it were buoyed up his sinking Humanity and preserved it from a total Dissolution for as while the Soul continues joyned to the Body still speaking in sensu composito Death cannot pass upon it for as much as that is the proper Effect of their Separation So while Christ's Manhood was retained in a Personal conjunction with His Godhead the bands of death were but feeble and insignificant like the Wit hs and Cords upon Sampson while he was inspired with the mighty Presence and Assistance of God's Spirit It was possible indeed that the Divine Nature might for a while suspend its supporting influence and so deliver over the Humane Nature to pain and death but it was impossible for it to let go the relation it bore to it A Man may suffer his Child to fall to the ground and yet not wholly quit his hold of him but still Keep it in his power to recover and lift him up at his pleasure Thus the Divine Nature of Christ did for a while hide it self from his Humanity but not desert it put it into the Chambers of death but not lock the Everlasting Doors upon it The Sun may be clouded and yet not Eclipsed and Eclips'd but not stop'd in his Course and much less forced out of his Orb. It is a Mystery to be admired that any thing belonging to the Person of Christ should suffer but it is a Paradox to be exploded that it should perish For surely that Nature which diffusing it self throughout the Universe communicates an enlivening Influence to every part of it and quickens the least spire of grass according to the measure of its Nature and the proportion of its capacity would not wholly leave a Nature assumed into its Bosom and what is more into the very Unity of the Divine Person breathless and inanimate and dismantled of its Prime and Noblest Perfection For Life is so high a Perfection of Being that in this respect the least Fly or Mite is a more noble Being than a Star And God has expresly declared himself not the God of the Dead but of the Living and this in respect of the very Persons of Men but how much more with reference to what belongs to the Person of his Son For when Natures come to Unite so near as mutually to interchange Names and Attributes and to verify the Appellation by which God is said to be Man and Man to be God surely Man so privileg'd and advanced cannot for ever lie under Death without an insufferable invasion upon the entireness of that Glorious Person whose Perfection is as inviolable as it is incomprehensible 2. The Second Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's continuance under Death was that Great and Glorious Attribute of God His Immutability Christ's Resurrection was founded upon the same bottom with the consolation and Salvation of Believers expressed in that full declaration made by God of Himself Mala. 3.6 I the Lord change not therefore ye Sons of Jacob are not consumed Now the Immutability of God as it had an influence upon Christ's Resurrection was Two-fold First In respect of his Decree or Purpose Secondly In respect of his Word or Promise And First for his Decree God had from all Eternity designed this and sealed it by an irreversible Purpose For can we imagine that Christ's Resurrection was not decreed as well as his Death and sufferings and these in the 23. v. of this Chapter are expresly said to have been determined by God It is a known rule in Divinity that whatsoever God does in Time that He purposed to do from Eternity for there can be no new Purposes in God since he who takes up a new purpose does so because he sees some ground to induce him to such a purpose which he did not see before but this can have no place in an Infinite knowledge which by one Comprehensive Intuition sees all things as Present before ever they come to pass So that there can be no new Emergency that can alter the Divine Resolutions And therefore it having been Absolutely purposed to raise Christ from the Dead his Resurrection was as fixed and Necessary as the Purpose of God was Irrevocable A Purpose which Commenced from Eternity and was declared in the very Beginnings of Time a Purpose not to be Changed nor so much as bent and much less broke by all the Created Powers in Heaven and Earth and in Hell besides For though indeed Death is a great Conqueror and his Bands much too strong for Nature and Mortality Yet when over-matched by a Decree This Conqueror as old as he has grown in Conquest must surrender back his spoils unbind his Captives and in a word even Death it self must receive its Doom From all which it is manifest That where there is a Divine Decree there is always an Omnipotence to second it and Consequently That by
was not enough to cover the cheat or to palliate the Illusion But I suppose no body will be very importunate for any further proof of this That if Christ was raised it must be God who raised him The Angel might indeed roll away the stone from the Sepulchre but not turn it into a Son of Abraham and a less Power than that which could do so could not effect the Resurrection 2. I come now to the second thing which is to shew the manner by which God wrought this Resurrection set forth in those Words having loosed the Pains of Death An expression not altogether so clear but that it may well require a further explication For it may be enquired with what propriety God could be said to loose the Pains of Death by Christs Resurrection when those Pains continued not till the Resurrection but determined and expired in the Death of his Body Upon which ground it is that some have affirmed That Christ descended into the place of the damned where during his Body's abode in the Grave they say that in his Soul he really suffered the pains of Hell and this not unsutably to some Ancient Copies which read it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Pains of Death but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pains of Hell and this also with much seeming consonance to that Article of the Creed in which Christ is said to have descended into hell But to this I answer That Christ suffered not any such pains in Hell as the forementioned opinion would pretend which we may demonstrate from this That if Christ suffered any of those pains during His abode in the Grave then it was either in his Divine Nature or in his Soul or in his Body But the Divine Nature could not suffer or be tormented as being wholly impassible Nor yet could he suffer in his Soul for as much as in the very same day of his Death that passed into Paradise which surely is no place of pain Nor Lastly in his Body for that being Dead and Consequently for the time bereaved of all Sense could not be capable of any Torment And then for answer to what was alledged from the Antient Copies it is to be observed that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some render Hell indifferently signifies also the Grave and a state of Death And Lastly for that Article of the Creed in which there is mention made of Christ's descent into Hell there are various expositions of it but the most rational and agreeable is that it means His abode in the grave and under the State of Death three Days and three nights or rather three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. part of the First and Third so called by a Synechdoche of the part for the whole and the Second entirely Whereby as his Burial signified his entrance into the grave So his descending into Hell signified his continuance there and subjection to that Estate And thus the three parts of his humiliation in the last and grand Scene of it do most appositely answer to the three parts of his exaltation For First His Death answers to his Rising again Secondly His Burial answers to his ascending into Heaven And Thirdly His Descending into Hell answers to his sitting at the Right hand of God in a State of never dying Glory Honour and Immortality But however that his descending into Hell mentioned in the Creed cannot signify his Local descent into the place of the Damned the former Argument disproving his suffering the Pains of Hell will by an easy Change of the Terms sufficiently evince this also For First Christ could not descend according to His Divine Nature since that which is Infinite and fills all places could not acquire any new place And as for his Soul that was in Paradise and his body was laid in the Grave and being so what part of Chirst could descend into Hell the whole Christ being thus disposed of needs a more than Ordinary apprehension to conceive We are therefore in the next place to see how we can make out the Reason of this Expression upon some other and better ground In order to which it is very observable that the same word which in the Greek Text is rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the English by Pains in the Hebrew signifies not only pain but also a cord or band according to which it is very easy and proper to conceive that the Resurrection discharged Christ from the bands of Death besides that this rendition of the Word seems also most naturally to agree with the genuine meaning of some other words in the same verse as of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having loosed which is properly applicable to bands and not to pains as also of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies properly to be bound with some cord or band So that undoubtedly this exposition would give the whole verse a much more natural and apposite Construction and withal remove the diffiulty But Secondly Because the Evangelist St. Luke follows the Translation of the Septuagint who little minding the Hebrew pointings rendred the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cords or Bands but by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pains we are therefore not to baulk so great an Authority but to see how the Scheme of the Text may be made clear and agreeable even to this Exposition To this therefore I answer First That the Words contain in them an Hebraism viz. the pains of death for a painful death as it is said Matth. 24.15 The abomination of desolation for an abominable desolation and so the Resurrection loosed Christ from a painful Death not indeed painful in sensu Composito as if it were so at the time of his release from it but in a divided sence as the Logicians speak it loosed him from a Continuance under that Death which relating to the Time of his suffering it was so painful 2. But Secondly I answer further That though the pains of Death ceased long before the Resurrection so that this could not in strictness of sence be said to remove them yet taking in a Metonymy of the Cause for the Effect the Pains of Death might be properly said to have been loosed in the Resurrection because that Estate of Death into which Christ was brought by those foregoing pains was then conquered and completely Triumph'd over Captivity under Death and the Grave was the Effect and Consequent of those Pains and therefore the same Deliverance which discharged Christ from the one might not improperly be said to loose Him from the other And thus Christ was no sooner bound but within a little time he was loosed again He was not so much buryed as for a while deposited in the Grave for a small inconsiderable space So that even in this respect he may not inelegantly be said to have tasted of Death for a taste is transient short and quickly past God rescued him from that Estate as a
none can conclude the debt either paid by him or forgiven to him but by the release of his person Who could believe Christ to have been a God and a Saviour while he was hanging upon the Tree A dying crucified God a Saviour of the World who could not save himself would have been exploded by the Universal consent of Reason as an horrible Paradox and absurdity Had not the Resurrection followed the Crucifixion that scoff of the Jews had stood as an unanswerable Argument against him Mark 15.31 Himself He cannot save and in the 32. v. Let Him come down from the Cross and we will believe in Him Otherwise surely that which was the lowest instance of humane weakness and mortality could be no competent demonstration of a Deity To save is the effect of Power and of such a Power as prevails to a compleat victory and a Triumph But it is expresly affirmed 2 Cor. 13.4 That Christ was crucified through weakness Death was too hard for his humanity and bore away the spoils of it for a Time So that while Christ was in the Grave Men might as well have expected that a person hung in chains should come down and head an Army as imagine that a dead body continuing such should be able to Triumph over Sin and Death which so potently Triumphs over the Living The discourse of the Two Disciples going to Emmaus and expecting no such thing as a Resurrection was upon that supposition hugely rational and significant Luk. 24.21 We trusted said they that this had been He who should have redeemed Israel thereby clearly implying that upon his Death they had let that confidence fall to the ground together with Him For they could not imagine that a breathless carcase could chase away the Roman Eagles and so recover the Kingdom and Nation of the Jews from under their subjection which was the Redemption that even the Disciples till they were further enlightened promised themselves from their Messiah But the Argument would equally nay more strongly hold against a Spiritual Redemption supposing his continuance under a State of Death as being a thing in it self much more difficult For how could such an one break the Kingdom of darkness and set his Foot upon Principalities and Powers and Spiritual Wickednesses in High places Who himself fell a Sacrifice to the wickedness of mortal Men and remained a Captive in the lower parts of the Earth reduced to a Condition not only below Men's Envy but below their very Feet 5. The Fifth and Last Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's perpetual continuance under a State of Death was the Nature of the Priesthood which he had took upon him The Apostle Heb. 8.4 says That if He were upon Earth He should not be a Priest Certainly then much less could he be so should He continue under the Earth The two great works of his Priesthood were to offer Sacrifice and then to make intercession for Sinners correspondent to the two works of the Mosaical Priesthood in which the Priest first slew the Lamb and then with the bloud of it entred into the Holy of Holies there to appear before God in the behalf of the People Christ therefore after that he had offered himself upon the Cross was to enter into Heaven and there presenting himself to the Father to make that Sacrifice effectual to all the Intents and Purposes of it Upon which Account the Apostle to express his fitness for the Priesthood infinitely beyond any of the Sons of Aaron states it upon this Heb. 7.25 That He lives for ever to make intercession for us and upon that very score also is able to save to the uttermost But surely the dead could not intercede for the Living nor was the Grave a Sanctum Sanctorum Had not Christ risen again His bloud indeed might have cryed for Vengeance upon his Murderers but not for Mercy upon Believers In short It had spoke no better things than the bloud of Abel which call'd for nothing but a fearful Judgment upon the Head of him who shed it Christ's Death merited a Redemption for the World but Christ while dead could not shew forth the full effects of that Redemption He made the purchace at his Death but He could not take Possession till he was returned to Life Ever since Christ ascended into Heaven He has been pursuing the great Work begun by him upon the Cross and applying the vertue of his Sacrifice to those for whom it was offer'd It is affirmed by some and that not without great probability of Reason That the Souls of the Saints who dyed before Christ's resurrection did not actually enter into a State of Compleat Glory till Christ the Great Captain of their Salvation upon his Ascension first entred into it himself and then made way for others So that according to that Divine Anthem of the Church After that he had overcome the sharpness of death then at length and not till then He opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers And thus I have given five several reasons why it was not possible that a State of Death should finally prevail over Christ which was the thing to be proved And I have nothing further to recommend to your consideration but only Two things which the very Nature of the Subject seems of it self to imprint upon all pious Minds 1. The First is a Dehortation from Sin and that indeed the strongest that can be For can we imagine that the Second Person in the Glorious Trinity would concern himself to take upon him our Flesh and to suffer and die and at length rise again only to render us the more secure and confident in our Sins Would he neither see nor endure any Corruption in his Dead Body that we should harbour all the Filth and Corruption imaginable in our Immortal Souls Did he Conquer and Triumph over Death that we should be the Slaves and Captives of that which is worse than Death Christ has declared that he will dwell in those whom he assumes into the Society of his Mystical Body But can we think that he who passed from a clean new Sepulchre into an Heavenly Mansion will descend from thence to take up his Habitation in the Rotten Sepulchre of an heart possessed and polluted with the Love of that which he infinitely Hates It will little avail us That Christ rose from a Temporal Death unless we also rise from a Spiritual For those who do not Imitate as well as Believe Christ's Resurrection must expect no benefit by it 2. Christ's Resurrection is an high and Soveraign Consolation against Death Death we know is the Grand Enemy of Mankind the Merciless Tyrant over Nature and the King of Terrors But Blessed be God Christ has given a Mortal blow to his Power and broke his Scepter And if we by a through Conquest of our Sins and Rising from them can be but able to say O Sin where is thy Power We may very Rationally and Warrantably say thereupon O