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
Occasion to that fond Opinion of some that Christ descended into Hell and there underwent the Pains and Penalties of that infernal Place as full Satisfaction to the Justice of God and that these were the Pains God raised or loosed him from in his Resurrection But this Conceit is erroneous and extravagant and deserves no serious Confutation especially because it plainly contradicts Christ's Consummatum est upon the Cross for when Christ had undergone his Sufferings on the Cross Joh. 18.30 he said It is finished and so gave up the Ghost If Christ therefore did undergo any farther Sufferings and Pains than those Sufferings he underwent on the Cross those Sufferings would have been so far from being compleated and finished that they would have been but the Praeludium and Beginning of his Sorrows Having loosed the Pains of Death it implies no more but that God raised Jesus Christ from Death which after many dolorous Pains he suffered It follows It was not possible he should be holden of it This is that I intend principally to insist upon and here I shall shew upon what Accounts it was altogether impossible for Christ to be detained under the Power of Death and my Arguments for the Proof hereof are these that follow Reasons why Christ could not be held under the Power of Death First It was impossible Christ should be held under the Power of Death because of that great and ineffable Mystery of the Hypostatical Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in the Person of Christ Because of the Hypostatical Vnion There are three Unions the Belief of which are the Foundation of the greatest part of the Christian Religion which are wholly beyond the reach of Reason The Mystical Union of a Believer unto Christ The Union or rather Unity of the three Glorious Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost in one Nature and this Hypostatical Union of two Natures in one Person in the Mediator It is a Mystery Angels pry into and adore with Wonder and Astonishment how the Eternal only begotten Son of God should assume Flesh to himself in so close and intimate a Conjunction that though he be Eternal yet he should be born though he be Immortal yet he should truly die and though he were truly dead yet he should raise himself to Life again These are things that seem very inconsistent one with another yet they truly come to pass through this miraculous Union which transcends the Reach of Reason as far as these things do that of Nature That the same Person that is Eternal should be young yea be born in the Fulness of Time That the same Person that hath Immortality and Life dwelling in himself should also die a shameful and accursed Death That the same Person that was truly and really dead yet had a power to quicken and recover himself Joh. 10.18 And this was it which declared him to be the Son of God with Power as the Apostle speaks Rom. 1 4â— even by his Resurrection from the Dead And indeed if he had not risen from the Dead the Deity would have suffered in the Opinion of the World nor would they have believed him to be the Son of God who would suffer himself to lie under the Dominion of Death longer than the End of his Death required it And this I shall demonstrate to you by two Arguments only premising this which is a common and true Maxim among Divines That when the Natural Union between Christ's Body and Soul was dissolved yet both Soul and Body did retain the Hypostatical Union to the Divine Nature The Divine Nature was united to the Body of Christ when the Soul was separated from it I. If Christ could not have raised himself it must have been either from a Want of Power or from a Want of Will to do it He could not want Power to raise himself because he was God equal in Power and in all other Divine Attributes with the Father As the Resurrection of the Dead is not impossible to the infinite Power of God so neither can it be that that God who had a Will to assume our Flesh should want a Will to raise it up That that God who so lov'd the Humane Nature as to associate it into Oneness of Person with himself should yet suffer it to continue under the power of Death which is of all things most contrary to his natural Inclinations We see Christ in his Agony prayed most fervently that the bitter Cup might pass from him insomuch that he strained clotted Blood through him and certainly one Ingredient into that Cup was the Separation of Soul and Body by Death which is that which even innocent Nature it self abhorred as destructive to him yet having taken our Nature upon him for this very End that by Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death that is Heb. 2 14. the Devil he voluntarily submitted himself to undergo it and this End being fully accomplish'd by his Death and the Truth of his Death likewise attested by his lying three Days in the Earth it was altogether impossible that that Person who had an Abhorrence of Death and a Power to raise himself should continue longer under the Arrest and Dominion of it And this is the first Demonstration of the Necessity of the Resurrection of Christ upon the Account of both Natures in one Person As Man so he abhorred the Separation of Soul and Body as God so he was able to re-unite them So that having as Man a Desire to live and as God a Power to live it was impossible for him to be holden of Death II. Because of the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in the Person of Christ it was impossible that his Flesh should see Corruption which yet it must certainly have done had he not been raised in a short space after his Death For since Christ's Body was not a phantastical Body as some of old held but made of true Flesh and of the same Temper and Constitution with ours it must without a Miracle have undergone such Changes after Death as ours shall do and to imagine the contrary is but to feign one Miracle to avoid the necessity of another even of the Resurrection But now it was utterly impossible that that Body that was united to both Natures by so close and unconceivable a Bond should ever see Corruption that is a Putrefaction in the Grave This the Scripture clearly asserts to us Act. 2.28 Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see Corruption And also because all Bodies that are corrupted turn into some other Thing and some other Nature according to that undoubted Maxim of the Philosophers Corruptio unius est Generatio alterius And so this horrid and blasphemous Consequence would follow that the Divine Nature of the Son of God might have been joyned to some other So that it was necessary that Christ should be
Justice of God arrayed in all the terrible Circumstances of it that if Mercy cannot allure us Justice at least might affright us from our Sins And as those who are to travel thorow Wildernesses and Deserts carry Fire with them to terrify wild and ravenous Beasts and to secure themselves from their Assaults So doth the great God who hath to deal with brutish Men Men more savage than wild Beasts he kindles a Fire about him and appears to them all in Flames and Fury that so he might fright them from their bold Attempts who otherwise would be ready to run upon his Neck and upon the thick Bosses of his Buckler Job 15.26 And therefore in the four precedent Verses we find the Apostle threatning most tremendous Judgments against all that should wilfully trangress after they had received the knowledg of the Truth He tells us Verse 26. That there remains no more sacrifice for their Sins Nothing to expiate their Guilt but that they themselves must fall a Burnt-Sacrifice to the offended Justice of God consumed with that fiery Indignation that shall certainly seize and prey upon them for ever And in v. Heb. 10.28 29. 28 29. he sets forth the exceeding Dreadfulness of their Judgment by a comparison between those that violated the Law of Moses and those that renounce and annul the Law of Christ He that despised Moses 's Law who himself was but a Servant and his Laws consisted of inferiour and less spiritual Ordinances yet a Despiser and Transgressor of these was to die without Mercy certainly much sorer Judgments await those who reject the Laws of Christ and trample him who is the Son and Lord of the House under foot accounting his Blood unholy and prophane renouncing his Merits and blaspheming the Holy Spirit by which our Saviour acted Such as these says the Apostle shall eternally perish with less Mercy than those that died without Mercy Where by the way observe the strange Emphasis that the Apostle lays upon this dreadful Commination he tells us they shall be sorer punish'd than those that are punished without Mercy to let us know that as there are transcendent Glories such as Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor can it enter into the Heart of Man to conceive reserved in the highest Heavens for those that love God so also are there Woes and Torments such as Eye hath not seen Ear heard nor can it enter into the Heart of Man to conceive how great and insupportable they are prepared in Hell for those that hate him They shall die with less Mercy than those that die without Mercy Now that we might not wonder at such a Paradox as this the Apostle gives the Reason of it in my Text For we know him that hath said Vengeance belongeth unto me it is the Vengeance of God and a falling into the Hands of God and therefore it is no wonder if their Punishments shall be beyond all extremity They fall under the Power and Wrath of an infinite God which when we have heaped Superlatives upon Superlatives yet still we must express defectively and all that we can conceive of it falls vastly short of reaching but a faint and languishing resemblance thereof It is a State so full of perfect Misery that Misery it self is too easy a Name to give it yea whatsoever we can speak most appositly of it is but diminishing it for because it is the Wrath and Vengeance of an infinite God it can no more be known by us than God himself Plunge your Thoughts as deep into it as you can yet still there remains an infinite Abysse which you can never fathom And O that the consideration of this Wrath might cause us all to tremble before this great and terrible God that we might so fear it as never to feel it and be perswaded to fall down at his Feet that we may never fall into his Hands And that we may be thus affected I have chosen this Text to set forth the Greatness and Dreadfulness of that Wrath and Vengeance which the righteous God will execute upon all stubborn and disobedient Wretches A Text that speaks to us as God did to the Israelites from Mount Sinai out of the midst of the Fire and Blackness Darkness and Tempest in the Voice of a Trumpet And truly we have all need to have such rousing Truths frequently inculcated upon us for the best of us are Lethargical and though sometimes when our Consciences are pincht hard by a severe and searching Truth we start up and look abroad yet as soon as the present Impression is over we suddenly close our Eyes and fall asleep again in Sin and Security There is a strange Dullness and Stupor hath seiz'd us that we can no longer keep waking than we are shook And therefore as we use to apply Fire and burning Coals to Lethargick Persons to awaken them so we have need to heap Coals of Fire upon Mens Heads to speak with fiery Tongues and thunder Woe and Wrath and Judgments against them that we may rouze the secure stupid World and so at least scorch them into Life and Sense In the Words we have these two Parts observable First An Appropriation of Vengeance unto God Vengeance belongeth unto me I will recompence saith the Lord. Secondly The Dreadfulness of that Vengeance inferred from the consideration of the Author and Inflicter of it It is a fearful thing to fall into the Hands of the living God I begin with the first of these God's appropriating and challenging Vengeance unto himself Vengeance belongeth unto me I will recompence saith the Lord. Which Passage the Apostle cites out of Deuteronomy ch Deut. 32.35 32.35 36. To me belongeth Vengeance and Recompence and the Lord shall judge his People It is his great and royal Prerogative that he doth sometimes make use of in inflicting Judgments upon the Wicked in this World but most especially in the World to come And to this future Vengeance the Words ought particularly to be applyed Now from this consideration That Vengeance in a peculiar Manner belongs unto the great God hence we may observe That God himself will be the immediate Inflicter of the Punishments of the Damned It is therefore here likewise called a falling into the Hands of the living God which denotes his immediate Efficiency in their Torments It is true God doth use several Instruments of Torture in Hell There is the Worm that never dies and the Fire that never goes out which I suppose to be not only a Metaphorical but possibly a Material Fire elevated to such a degree of Subtilty as that it shall at once torture the Soul and not consume the Body And this Fire the Devils who are their Executioners will be still very officiously raking about them using all their malicious Art to increase their eternal Misery But yet these things are but small Appendages and only the slighter Circumstances of their Torments the most exact and intolerable part of
which he will set himself about when all the rest of his Works are done when he hath folded up the World and laid it aside as a Thing of no further use then will God set himself to this great Work and pour out all the Treasures of his Wrath upon damned Wretches as if God would so wholly mind this Business that he would lay all other Affairs aside that he might be intent only upon this having no other thing to interrupt him Think then how full of Dread and Terror this must needs be when God will as it were employ all his Eternity about this and have no other thing to take him off from doing it with all his Might God hath reserved two Works and but two for the other World One is the Salvation of the Elect and the other is the Damnation of Reprobates Now it is remarkable that God's last Works do always exceed his former And therefore we find in the Creation 〈…〉 World God still proceeded on from more imperfect kind of Creatures to those that were more perfect until he had fully built and finished yea carved and as it were painted this great House of the Universe and then he brings Man into it as his last Work as the Crown and Perfection of the rest So God likewise acted in the manner of revealing his Will unto Mankind first he spake to them by Dreams and Visions but in the last Days as the Apostle expresseth it he hath spoken unto us by his Son So also in the Dispensation of the Covenant of Grace and Exhibition of the Messiah first he was made known only by Promise to the Fathers then in Types and obscure Resemblances to the Jews but in the latter Days himself came and took upon him the form of a Servant and wrought out a compleat Redemption for us So usually the last Works of God are more compleat perfect and excellent than the former Now God's punishing-Work is his last Work and therefore it shall exceed in Greatness all that ever went before it In his first Work the Creation of the World he demonstrated his infinite Power Wisdom and Godhead but in the Destruction of Sinners which is his last Work 〈◊〉 will manifest more of Power and Wisdom than he did in his creating them and how fearful a Destruction then must this needs be God hath variety of Works that he is carrying on in this World and if his Glory doth not perfectly appear in one he may manifest it in another But when he shall confine himself only to two as he will in the World to come the saving of the Godly and the damning of the Wicked and this without any variety or change certainly then these shall be performed to the very utmost of what God can do for as he will save the Saints to the very utmost so likewise will he damn and destroy Sinners to the very utmost Fifthly Another Demonstration of the dreadfulness of this Wrath shall be drawn from this Consideration That God will for ever inflict it for the glorifying of his Power on the Damned Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his Wrath and make his Power known And 2 Thess 1.9 They shall be punish'd with everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his Power Now certainly if God will inflict eternal Punishments upon them to shew forth his Power their Punishments must needs be infinitely great For First All those Works wherein God shews forth his Power are great and stupendous Consider what Power it was for God to lay the Beams of the World and to erect so stately a Fabrick as Heaven and Earth The Apostle therefore tells us That by the Creation of the World is understood the eternal Power of God Rom. 1.20 When God shewed his Power in creating O what a great and stupendous Work did he produce And therefore certainly when God shall likewise shew his Power in destroying the Punishments he will inflict will be wonderful and stupendous Secondly Consider God can easily destroy a Creature without shewing any great Power or putting forth his Almighty Arm and Strength to do it If he only withdraw his Power by which he upholds all things in their Beings we should quickly fall all abroad into nothing So easy is it for God to destroy the well-being of all his Creatures But now if God will express the greatness and infiniteness of his Power in destroying Sinners whom yet he can destroy without putting forth his Power yea only by withdrawing and withholding it O how fearful must this Destruction needs be Alas we are crusht before the Moth and must needs perish if God doth but suspend the influence of his Power from us How dreadfully then will he destroy when he shall lay forth his infinite Power to do it who can easily do it without Power And thus I have laid down some Demonstrations of the dreadfulness of the Wrath and Vengeance of God five of them drawn from the Words of the Text and five drawn from other Considerations I shall now shut up with two or three Words of Application Vse 1 First Then be perswaded to believe that there is such a dreadful Wrath to come I know well you all profess that you do believe that as there are unconceivable Rewards of Glory reserved in Heaven for the Saints so that there are inexhaustible Treasures of Wrath reserved and laid up in Hell for all ungodly and impenitent Sinners But O how few are there that do really and cordially believe these things Mens own Lives may be evident Convictions to themselves of their Atheism and Infidelity For the true reason of all that dissoluteness which we see abroad in the World proceeds much from hence because Men are not perswaded that these dreadful Terrors of the Lord which have now been set before us are any thing but an honest Artifice They look upon them as things only invented to scare the World into good order and to awe Men into some compass of Civility and Honesty They think all those tremendous Threatnings that God hath denounced in his Law to be things intended rather to fright Men than to do execution upon them And whereas one of the most effectual Motives to Piety and an holy Life is to be perswaded of the Terrors of the Lord these are not yet perswaded that there are any such Terrors But assure your selves these are not the extravagant Dreams of Melancholy Fancies nor the Politick Impostures of Men that design to amuse the World with frightful Stories but they are sad and serious Truths such as however you may now slight contemn yet shall you be wofully convinced of by your own experience when after a few years or possibly a few days you shall be sunk down into that Place of Torment that Gulph and Abyss of Misery where the great God shall for ever express the Art and the Power of his Vengeance in your everlasting Destruction Vse 2