God that when Christ had satisfied his utmost Demands that any of the punishment due to our Sins for which he satisfied should have lain upon him longer for that would have been no other than punishing without an Offence Now nothing is clearer in Scripture than that Death is a punishment inflicted upon us for Sin Rom 6 23. So says the Apostle The Wages of Sin is Death And in another place and 5 1â— By Sin Death entred into the World and Death passed upon all because all have sinned From all which it follows that as Christ taking upon him our Sins became thereby liable to Death so having satisfied for our Sins and thereby freed himself from the Guilt that he lay under by Imputation he was no longer liable unto Death which is one part of the punishment he underwent so that it could not have been agreeable to infinite Justice that Christ should have been holden of Death who by his undergoing of Death hath sustained the whole Load of God's infinite Wrath and Displeasure and fully satisfied for all those Sins that were imputed to him and therefore ought in Justice to be acquitted from all Penalties and consequentially from Death Fourthly Christ could not be holden of Death because of his Mediatorship It was impossible Christ should be holden of Death in respect of his Office of Mediatorship For having as our Mediatour undertaken the desperate Service of bringing sinfull and fallen Man to Life and Happiness he must of necessity not only dye but rise again from the dead without which his Death and whatever else he did or suffered for us would have been of no avail There are two Things requisite before any real or eternal Benefit can become ours First A meritorious purchase procuring the Thing it self for us Secondly An effectual Application of that Benefit to us The Purchase of Mercy was made by the Death of Christ by which a full Price was paid down to the Justice of God But the effectual Application of Mercy is by the Life and Resurrection of Christ Wherefore if Christ had only dyed and not risen again if he had not overcome Death within its own Empire and triumph'd over the Grave in its own Territories it would have been to his Disappointment and not at all to our Salvation The Loss of Christ's Life would not have procured Life for us unless as he laid it down with Freedom so he had again restored it with Power Our hope of Salvation otherwise would have been buried in the same Grave with himself but what he died to procure he lives to confer It was Ignorance of Christ's Resurrection from the Dead Luk. 24.16 19 20 21. that so stagger'd the two Disciples going to Emaus They tell Christ himself a sad Story of one Jesus of Nazareth that was condemned and crucified who while he lived among us by his Word and Works testified himself to be the true Messiah we little thought of his Dying and when he told us of his Death he likewise foretold us of his Resurrection the third Day and behold the third Day is already come and yet is there no Appearance of this Jesus Verily we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel but now our Hopes grow faint and languish in us for certainly there can be no Redemption for Israel by him who cannot redeem himself from Death There was nothing in the World did so much prejudice the Gospel and hinder its taking place in the Hearts of Heathens in the Primitive Times as this of the Cross and Death of Christ for believing that he was lifted up upon the Cross but not believing that he was raised up from the Dead they assented to their Natural Reason which herein taught them that it was Folly to expect Life from him who could not either preserve or restore his own It is true it was Folly thus to hope but that his Life applies what his Death deserv'd and our Salvation begun on the Cross is perfected on the Throne And therefore the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 15.17 our Faith in a crucified Saviour and our Obedience to him is all vain if he had not risen again from the Dead For unless he had risen from the Dead he could not have acquitted us from the Guilt of Sin because he could not have been justified himself We are justified by the Righteousness of Christ as the Apostle speaks in his Epistle to the Romans Rom 4 25 which Righteousness he wrought out for us both by his perfect Obedience to the Law and by his Submission to the Punishment of the Law But yet this Righteousness could not have availed to our Justification had he not after the Fulfilling of it risen again from the Dead because he himself had not been justified much less could we have been justified by one who could not have justified himself And therefore we read 1 Tim. 3.16 Great is the Mystery of Godliness says the Apostle God manifested in the Flesh in his Incarnation justified in the Spirit by his Resurrection seen of Angels in his Ascension Had he not been raised and quickned by the Spirit that is by the glorious Power of his Divine Nature he had not been declared just nor could he have justified us For this Declaration that Christ was just was made upon the Resurrection of his Body from the Dead by which he was set free from all those Penalties due to our Sins that were imputed to him If therefore the Justification and Salvation of Sinners was a Design laid by the infinite Wisdom of God it must needs follow that it was impossible for Christ to be kept under Death because that would have obstructed their Justification and Salvation and so would have brought a Disappointment upon the infinite Wisdom of God which was impossible to be done and therefore consequentially Christ could not be holden of Death The Application of this great Truth shall be briefly in these following Inferences Use I First then If it was impossible for Christ not to have risen from the Dead it is evident then that Christ is the true Messiah For had he been an Impostor or False Prophet it would have been so far from an Impossibility that he should not have been raised that it would have been a very Impossibility for him to have risen again for neither could he have raised himself being a mere Man neither would God have raised him being a mere Impostor and Cheat. When therefore the Jews call'd for a Sign from Christ to prove him to be the true Messiah he gives them the Sign of his Resurrection in Matth. 12.38 39. Master Matth. 12.38 39. say they we would see a Sign from thee He answered and said unto them An evil and adulterous Generation seeketh after a Sign and there shall be no Sign given to it but the Sign of the Prophet Jonas For as Jonas was three Days and three Nights in the Whale's Belly so
have mention made of the Condemnatition of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 That is that state of Woe and Wrath to which the Devil is for ever sentenced And Damnation Mat. 23.33 How can you escape the Damnation of Hell And sometimes it is termed Judgment Heb. 10.27 Heb. 10.27 A certain fearful looking for of Judgment and Fiery Indignation And in Jude 15. Jude 15. to execute Judgment upon all the Ungodly Which denotes that their Punishment shall be inflicted upon them from God as he is a Just and Righteous Judg. And Secondly God is an Avenger as well as a Judge He is a Party concerned as having been wronged affronted and injured by their Sins And in relation to this the Punishments that God will inflict upon them are called Wrath and Fury smoaking Anger and Jealousy Deut. 29.20 Deut. 29.20 The Anger of the Lord and his Jealousy shall smoak against that Man Also Fiery Indignation Heb. Heb. 10.27 10.27 All which we find amass'd and heaped together Zeph. Zeph. 3.8 3.8 My Determination saith God is to gather the Nations to pour upon them mine Indignation even all my fierce Anger for all the Earth shall be devoured with the Fire of my Jealousy Now all these Expressions signify to us the terribleness of that Vengeance which God will take For when the Wrath of Man only stirs him up to revenge an Injury he will be sure to do it to the very utmost extremity of all his Power And if the Revenge of a poor weak Man be so dreadful a thing how insupportable will be the Vengeance of the great God who assumes it to himself as part of his Royalty Vengeance is mine See that terrible place Nah. 1.2 Nahum 1.2 God is jealous and the Lord revengeth the Lord revengeth and is furious the Lord will take Vengeance on his Adversaries and he reserveth Wrath for his Enemies God reserveth Wrath for Sinners and keeps it up in store even that Wrath which they themselves have treasured up against the Day of Wrath. Hâ—h Now this Revenging-Wrath of God hath these two things in it that justly make it dreadful First In that Revenge always aims at Satisfaction and seeks to repair Injuries received by inflicting Punishment on the Offender This gives ease to the Party grieved and if this Revenge be commensurate to the greatness of the Offence he rests satisfied in it And therefore God speaking of himself according to the Passions and Affections of Men solaces himself in the thoughts of that Vengeance he would take upon Sinners Isa Isa 1.24 1.24 Ah I will ease me of mine Adversaries I will avenge me of mine Enemies And O think how dreadful that Revenge must needs be that shall ease the Heart of God and give him satisfaction for all the heinous Provocations that Sinners have committed against him For consider First How great and manifold our Sins and Offences have been and every act of Sin yea the least that ever we committed is an infinite Debt and carries in it an infinite Guilt because committed against an infinite Majesty For all Offences take their Measures not only from the Matter of the Act but from the Person against whom they are committed As a reviling injurious Word against our Equals will but bear an Action at Law but against the Prince it is High-Treason and punishable with Death So here the least Offence against the infinite Majesty of the great God becomes it self infinite The Guilt of it is far beyond whatsoever we can possibly conceive and yet what infinite Numbers of these infinite Sins have we committed The Psalmist tells us They are more than the Hairs of our Head Psal 40.12 Psalm 40.12 Yea we may well take in all the Sands of the Sea-shore to cast them up by Our Thoughts are incessantly in Motion they keep pace with the Moments and are continually twinkling and yet Every Imagination of the Thoughts of our Hearts is evil What Multitudes of them have been grosly wicked and impious Atheistical Blasphemous Unclean Worldly and Malicious and the best of them have been very defective and far short of that Spirituality and Heavenliness that ought to give a Tincture unto them And besides the Sins of our Thoughts how deep have our Tongues set us on the score We have talkt our selves in debt to the Justice of God and with our own Breath have been blowing up our everlasting and unquenchable Fire And add to these the numberless crowd and sum of our sinful Actions wherein we have busily imployed our selves to provoke the Holy and Jealous God to Wrath and we shall find our Sins to be doubly infinite in their own particular Guilt and Demerit And now O Sinner when an angry and furious God shall come to exact from thee a full satisfaction for all these Injuries a Satisfaction in which he may eternally rest and acquiesce such as may repair and recompence his wronged Honour think sadly with thy self how infinitely dreadful this must needs be Assure thy self God will not lose by thee but will fetch his Glory out of thee and take such a Revenge upon thee as shall as much please and content him as his infinite Mercy doth in those whom he saves and glorifies And how great then must this Vengeance be Secondly Consider how dreadful a Revenge God took on his own dear Son our Lord Jesus Christ when he came to satisfy his Justice upon him for our Sins His Wrath fell infinitely heavy upon him and the pressure of it was so intollerable that it squeezed out drops of clotted Blood from him in the Garden and that sad Cry on the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And yet First Our Lord Christ was supported under all his Sufferings by the ineffable Union of the Deity He had infinite Power for him as well as against him infinite Power to bear him up as well as to crush him In Christ's Sufferings the Power of God seem'd as it were to encounter with it self and to run contrary to it self in the same Channel And as he had the support of infinite Power in his Sufferings so likewise had he in the greatest of his Angonies the Ministry of Angels to comfort him and to refresh the Droopings and Faintings of his Humane Nature And Secondly The infinite Dignity of Christ's Person being God as well as Man might well compound for the Rigour of his Punishments and stamp such a Value upon his Humiliation that less degrees of Suffering from him might be fully satisfactory For indeed it cannot be but an infinite Punishment for an infinite Person to be punished But thou that art but a vile contemptible Creature made up of Mudd and Slime hast nothing in thy Nature wherewith to satisfy the dread Justice of God but only the eternal Destruction and Perdition of it Thou hast no Worth nor Dignity the consideration whereof might perswade the Almighty to mitigate the least of his Wrath and
raised again before any Corruption or Putrefaction by ordinary Course of Nature siezed upon him Thus I have proved by these two Arguments that because of the Hypostatical Union of the Divine and Humane Nature of Christ in one Person it was altogether impossible he could be holden of Death Secondly Another Argument is this It was impossible Christ should be holden of Death because of God's Veracity and the Truth of those Predictions which were before made concerning Christ in those many Types and Prophesies of the Old Testament all which God's Faithfulness stood engaged to fulfil I shall only mention that famous Prediction which St. Peter here subjoins as a Proof of the Subject I am now treating upon It was not possible Act. 2 25 27. says he that Christ should be holden of Death for God saith the Apostle as David saith concerning him Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell nor suffer thine Holy One to see Corruption And this Prophesie the Apostle quotes out of the Psalmist Psal 16.10 which that it did not belong to David nor did he speak it concerning himself when he indicted that Psalm the Apostle proves Act. 2.29 30. Ver. 29 30. of this Chapter where he proves that David was dead and buried and underwent the common Lot that all other dead Bodies did putrefying and mouldering away in the Earth and therefore he was not that Holy One that should never see Corruption because that Prophecy must belong to such an one who must so taste of Death and this is clearly implied in the former Expression Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell that is in the State of the Dead for so is Hell to be understood there as I shall shew more at large Neither could it belong to any of those who before Christ were raised miraculously from the Dead and brought back out of the State of Death yet was it not in such a manner that they were not to return again to it So that if they did not in the first yet in their second Dying they saw Corruption This then could belong to none of them and therefore must of necessity belong to Christ And since the Apostle lays so much stress on this Argument give me leave a little to consider the meaning of it and how it is applicable to him And here I shall not trouble you with the various Opinions of those that have attempted to interpret these Words Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell that by this Hell into which Christ descended is meant the place of the Damned where he preached the Gospel to them freeing those that would beleive from their Pains Others think that this Hell into which Christ descended was one great Partition of it called Lymbus Patrum the Repository of the Souls of those Fathers who died in Obedience to God and in Faith to the Messias before Christ came in the Flesh And the Reason of his Descent thither was that he might release those Souls from Chains and carry them with him to Heaven so that ever since that Mansion in Hell hath been left void without any Inhabitants But this Opinion is not capable of any sufficient Proof I shall therefore give you that Interpretation and Judgment which carries with it the strongest Current both of Scripture and Reason The Word Hades that we translate Hell is very often by the Septuagint in the Old Testament used to signifie the Grave or the State of the Dead So in Gen. 44. Ishades Gen. 44 31 we translate it the Grave but it is the same Word that is used for Hell in the Text. And thus the Word is used in other places of Scripture as also in other Authors to signifie the Place and State of the Dead and of separate Souls And for the leaving the Soul of Christ in Hades or in Hell we must know that it is a thing that is not unusual in Scripture to call a Man that is dead by the Name of Soul So the Septuagint translate that place in Leviticus Levit. 21.11 They shall not be defiled with dead Souls meaning dead Carcases neither shall they go into any dead Souls the Word is dead Bodies But not to detain you any longer on this Speculation though of great use for the right understanding of this excellent place of Scripture If we take Hell for the Grave we must take the Soul for the Body Thou wilt not leave my Body in the Grave But if by Hell be here understood the State of Death that is the State of Separation of Soul and Body the Interpretation will be more easie and natural Thou wilt not leave my Soul in a State of Separation from the Body but wilt certainly unite them together again and raise me up before I shall feel Corruption Thus I have given you the Interpretation of the Prophecy of David which upon the Account of God's Truth and Veracity was to take effect in the Resurrection of our Saviour and therefore being foretold he should not see Corruption the Faithfulness of God was obliged within that time inviolably to raise him up And that is the second Reason why it was impossible Christ should be holden of Death because it was foretold of him that his Soul should not rest in Hell that is either his Body in the Grave or his Soul in a State of Separation from his Body Thirdly God's Justice would not suffer Christ to lie in the Grave Another Argument is this It was impossible Christ could be holden by Death upon the Account of God's Justice For Justice as it doth oblige to inflict Punishment upon the Guilty so also to absolve and acquit the Innocent Now though Christ knew no Sin yet was he made Sin for us that is our Sins were imputed to and charged upon him and so through a voluntary Susception and Undertaking of them he became guilty of them Hereupon Divine Justice siezed upon him as being our Surety and demanded Satisfaction from him for our Offences Now no other Satisfaction would be acceptable unto God nor commensurate to our Sins but the bearing of an infinite Load of Wrath and Vengeance which if it had been laid upon us must have been prolonged to an Eternity of Sufferings for because we are finite Creatures we cannot bear infinite Degrees of Wrath at once and therefore we must have lain under those infinite Degrees of Wrath to an infinite Duration But now Christ being God he could bear the Load of infinite Degrees of Wrath at once upon him In that one bitter Draught the whole Cup of that Fury and Wrath of God that we should have been everlastingly a drinking off by little Drops Christ drank off at once Now it is the Nature and Constitution of all Laws that when a Person by undergoing the Penalty that those Laws require hath made satisfaction for the Offence committed the Person satisfying ought to be protected as innocent It could not therefore consist with the Justice of