uncontrouled Tyranny in the World He had withdrawn the far greatest part of Mankind from the worship of the true God and caused the worship of himself to become the publick Religion of all Nations except the Jews Even the Jews he had often seduced to Idolatry and Disobedience to the Divine Commands and had newly instigated them to imbrue their hands in the Blood of their Messias All these enormous Crimes this continued Rebellion against God and particularly the last and greatest the Death of Christ did require from the Judge of all the World a severe Punishment which is therefore called Judgment in the Text because a Sentence proceeding from the Rules of Justice This Sentence was to be executed under the Gospel of Christ as we are told above in the XII 31. Now is the judgment of this world now shall the prince of this world be cast out The Execution of it was to be performed by the Preaching of the Gospel which should destroy the Powers of Hell free Men from the Captivity of Sin and withdraw the World from the Worship of Devils This to those proud Spirits was the sharpest Punishment which could possibly be inflicted and this was begun by the Mission of the Holy Ghost and carried on and compleated by the Gifts and Graces derived down and continued to the Church from his blessed Influence From the Blessings of this day it was that the Apostles received Abilities and Courage to preach the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the Earth to beat down the strong holds of Sin to ruin the power of Satan to turn Men to the Knowledge and Obedience of God From the Continuation of these Blessings the Church hath been always defended from the secret and open Assaults of these infernal Spirits the Governors and Ministers of the Church have been enabled to preach the Truth and discharge their Office successfully and all the Members of the Church have been established in the Faith and supported against all the Temptations of wicked Spirits So eminently did God upon this day exercise Judgment upon the Prince of this World that thenceforward his Kingdom continually decreased his Oracles were silenced his Altars abandoned his Worship relinquished his Disciples diminished until a glorious Church was founded in all parts of the Earth which by a solemn Engagement her Vow in Baptism professeth Enmity unto him Upon all these accounts did the Holy Ghost as a most faithful Advocate at his first Mission plead the Cause of Christ against his Adversaries whether the Devil or the Jews his Persecutors and upon the same accounts doth that blessed Spirit who was promised to remain with the Church till the end of the World and execute the Office of Advocate till the Consummation of all things still continue to plead the Cause of Christ against all his Enemies and that he should do so is highly requisite The Devil still assaults the Church by open Force or secret Temptations and to these the Holy Spirit opposeth his Gifts and Graces Infidels and Hereticks still profess Unbelief to the Doctrines of it and to these he opposeth the same Arguments of Conviction which were before manifested to have proceeded from his Mission All these remain yet in their full force Lastly even in the bosom of the Church among the Professors of Christianity are many to be found against whom it is necessary that the Holy Spirit should still plead the Cause of Christ which they discredit by their Sins and blaspheme by their Lives crucifying afresh the Lord of life and putting him to an open shame In that no less guilty than all those Enemies of Christ which the Holy Ghost at his first Mission was to convince For did the Jews disbelieve the Doctrine of Christ before the undeniable Confirmation added to it in the Mysteries of this day These Men by their Actions proclaim their Unbelief even after the Reception of this Confirmation Did the Spirit of God take so much pains to manifest the unerring Justice of God in the distribution of Rewards and Punishments After all these Men live insensible of either slighting his Rewards and defying his Punishments Did Christ come into the World and die a painful Death Did God exert his Power in so many Miracles Did the Holy Spirit descend as upon this day to put an end to the Empire of the Devil These Men by Perseverance in Sin endeavour to re-establish it in the World and do effectually restore it in their own Souls Justly therefore may this Eternal Advocate implead these Men before the last Tribunal I have conveyed the Knowledge of the true God even to these Sinners I have convinced them of the Truth of the Christian Faith at least they will pretend themselves to have been convinced I have nourished this Knowledge by causing the Holy Scriptures to be writ for their Edification I have endeavoured the Improvement of it by the constant Exhortation of those my Officers which I have settled in the Church I have assisted it by the grant of all necessary Graces as often as desired yet notwithstanding all this they have lived as if they knew not of it much less as if they were convinced of it All my Graces and Sollicitations of them have produced no other effect than to render their Sin the more hainous in that they have wilfully disobeyed my Commands slighted my Directions contemned my Exhortations and stifled my Motions All false Perswasions which might betray them to Sin and Disobedience I have long since corrected If they imagine the Disbelief or which is all one the Neglect of my Doctrines to be no hainous Crime I have long since convinced the World of Sin If they fancy God not to be an unerring and infallible Judge in the Dispensation of Rewards and Punishments I have long ago reproved the World of Righteousness If they pretend the Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil to be irresistable I have long since judged the prince of this world taken away his Kingdom and limited his Power These then are the most criminal Enemies of the Name of Christ who being by me convinced of their Duty to obey his Laws refused to perform them who serving under his banner and kindly intreated by him deserted his Service and delivered up themselves to his and their own Enemy from whose Tyranny I had before freed them What then shall we plead in behalf of our selves at that dreadful day Shall we alledge want of Conviction That we pretend not to or if we should the Holy Ghost hath by the Wonders and Benefits of this day effectually confuted that pretence Shall we say that we believed not God to have been in earnest when he allured us with Rewards or threatened us with Punishments That Plea is removed by the Assertion of the Righteousness of God made upon this day Or shall we excuse our selves with want of extraordinary Assistances and Graces of the Holy Spirit enabling us to perform our Duty and overcome
by whose Power the Soul of Christ was rejoyned to the Body 2. Christ was the Author of our Salvation the Founder of a revealed Religion and therefore it was not possible not convenient he should be holden of death The Resurrection of Christ was to be the ultimate and chief Proof of the Divinity of his Mission and Authority of his Revelations so clear a Testimony that the Reason of Man should not be able to withstand the Evidence thereof To this therefore he at all times refers as to the last and greatest Proof of his Mission This was the only Sign which he would give to the Jews demanding a Miracle in Confirmation of his Authority that as Jonas was three days and three nights in the Belly of the Whale so the Son of Man should be three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth Upon this he had fixed the Expectation of his Disciples and of all his Hearers and by this he was to set the Truth of his Doctrine and the Divinity of his Person beyond all Contradiction Had he left his Body in the Grave after all these Assurances the Jews might have insulted over his Disciples with as much Reason as Christians do over the Followers of Mahomet who promised to rise again after a Thousand years little imagining that his Name or Religion should continue so long in the World although now after more than a Thousand years expired the Impostor still lieth in Hell Had Christ not risen again the Apostle confesseth 1 Cor. XV. 14. Their preaching had been vain and your faith also vain But when so illustrious a Testimony of Divine Authority hath intervened when Heaven it self hath declared it so eminently to deny Assent would be to fight against God The Jews in the most violent Execution of their Hatred and Malice engaged to believe on him if he would come down from the Cross and save himself It had been no less easie for our Blessed Lord to have descended from the Cross than to have ascended from the Grave But first the Design of his Sufferings did not permit it since he was to lay down his Life as an Expiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the World and then he would not suffer the Exercise of Divine Power manifested in restoring himself to Life to Labour under any doubts Had he descended from the Cross before he died he could not have attoned for the Guilt of our sin Had he descended immediately after his Death it would have been pretended that he had not died yet even this they would have Confessed to be miraculous but perhaps referred the Cause of it as they did his former Miracles not to a Divine Power but to Magical Operation Whereas this Pretence did wholly vanish in the Miracle of his Resurrection Since no Magick or Diabolick Power remaineth after Death In short so great was the Evidence of the Divinity of Christ arising from his Resurrection so undeniable the Fact and so important that the Apostles in all their Sermons imployed this as the chief Argument of Conviction And when they chose Matthias to the Apostleship described his Office to be no other than to witness the Resurrection of Christ. God had more than once before his Crucifixion declared him by Voices from Heaven by constant Miracles to be his Son yet so far is the Evidence of this inferiour to that Proceeding from his Resurrection that he is in many places said to have then adopted Christ for his Son because he then eminently declared to him be so As Acts XIII 33. The Promise made unto the Fathers God hath fulfilled in that he hath raised up Jesus again as it is in the Psalm II. Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And Rom. I. 4. Jesus Christ our Lord declared to be the Son of God with Power by the Resurrection from the dead He was from all Eternity his Son as to his Divine Nature he was from the Incarnation his Son as to his Humane Nature but the Truth of this appeared to the World chiefly in his Resurrection 3. By the Resurrection of Christ we are assured chiefly that we also shall rise again and therefore it was not convenient that he should be holden of Death Christ had promised to his Disciples That where he was there they should be also When he therefore rose from the Dead and ascended into an incorruptible State of Glory they then raised their Hopes and conceived full assurance of Immortality Till then Mankind had found by long Experience that there was no Redemption from the Grave and by this alone could be convinced that either their Nature was capable of Immortality or that God would vouchsafe to confer it on them They might perceive in the Person of Christ the Dissolution of Death the Capacity of their Nature and the Favour of God and then considering their own Relation to Christ might hope to partake of the same Happiness Christ is the Head of his Church and what more natural than for the Members to follow their Head He was by his Resurrection declared to be the Son of God and himself hath often promised that his faithful Followers should be Co-heirs with him He is called the first born from the Dead the first fruits of the Resurrection which being accepted by God Entitled the whole Mass the whole race of Mankind to the same Favour Only it is required and that justly if that we desire to follow him in his Resurrection we must also imitate him in his Death For so the Promise runs in the whole VI. Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his Death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection If we crucifie our Sin as it is there expressed if we as fully forsake all vicious Habits as he who dieth is bereaved of vital Actions if farther we imitate the Death of Christ in the Perfection of it that as he died but once but liveth for ever so we henceforward be dead unto sin but alive unto righteousness then we may reasonably assure our selves that we shall follow the Example of him the forerunner in our Resurrection which we have so nearly expressed in our Death we are then truly Members of himself the Head being made conformable to his Sufferings we are sanctified by the gracious Acceptation and raising up of him the first fruits of them that slept while we inviolably continue our Relation to him Others indeed were before him raised from Dead to Life as those raised by Elijah Elishah and by Christ before and at his Crucifixion But these were all to die again and so thereby gave no assurance of immortality to Mankind It was Christ alone who being raised from the dead dieth no more who in behalf of Mankind hath taken Possession of immortality which he hath acquired for us and will communicate to us unless we chuse rather to imitate the imperfect Resurrection of those mortal Men
are quick and knowing Spirits they could not but immediately perceive their Unhappiness and make a just Estimate of the Greatness of it The Sense of this indeed could not but make them lament their Folly and repent also if a violent Sorrow only for past miscarriages could be called Repentance For that the Devils have such sorrow cannot be denied since in this consists their Torment but an unsuccessful Sorrow a Sorrow without submission to the just hand of God a Sorrow which God will not accept and which therefore will continue for ever heightened by the greatest Aggravations as being the result of an unspeakable and which is more irrecoverable Loss not to be ended by Death nor diverted by a stupid inconsideration but placed in a knowing active always thinking and immortal Spirit Such a Spirit endued with such active Faculties and tormented with such dismal Thoughts of Unhappiness may well be supposed to conceive the utmost Degree of Rage and Malice The Disappointment of Pride naturally produceth those Effects in Men which Effects could not but be so much the stronger in the fallen Angels by how much their Faculties were more lively and capacious In Men indeed there are many sins which they are not capable of as all those which arise from the inordinate Appetite of the Body as Lust Intemperance and Covetousness but there are others which are purely immaterial and take place only in the Soul as Malice Hatred Envy and Revenge These those unhappy Spirits possess in their full Perfection which they continually exert either aganist God who inflicted that Unhappiness as a Punishment upon them and altho' he might have annihilated them in their first Attempt yet continues their Existence to them and therein their Misery or against Man who by the Favour of God is made capable of attaining that Happiness which they lost and placed in Dignity above them who had endeavoured to set themselves above their fellow Angels and even equal to God himself Inspired with these wicked Thoughts they employ themselves continually in opposition to the Will of God and because this Opposition can take place only in hindring the Happiness of Man designed and desired by God use their utmost Endeavours to effect it The Disposition of all inanimate Bodies and the Course of the material World God hath determined by fixed and certain Laws of Motion which it exceeds their Power to reverse or change but Man being left to the use of his own Free-will and not determined by the Power of God to any certain Actions admits the interposition of evil Spirits It is true they alleviate not their own Torments nor gain any real Advantage hereby yet ought not this to make us believe that they do not busie themselves in tempting of us since it cannot be denied that Man reaps no real Profit by his sins and yet it is too sad a Truth that Men do often sin and that false satisfaction which Men receive from gratifying their Lusts the Devils obtain by serving their Revenge and Envy So then that the Devils should desire to draw us into the same Unhappiness with themselves is no wonder It is only somewhat difficult to conceive how they should effect their Desires and have any influence upon our Wills To satisfie this Difficulty many have entertained false Notions of things which it will be adviseable to remove before I enter into the direct Consideration of the manner whereby evil Spirits tempt us And first It were needless to refute the Errour of the Manichees or Valentinians who gave to the Devil an independent Existence from God and uncontrolable by him nay all the Attributes of God save that of Goodness allowed him an infinite Power whereby he could force the Wills of Men and bind them to the Observation of his wicked Counsels It is not much to be feared that any Christian would at this time be guilty of such an absurd Heresie Yet many perhaps from the frequent Experience of their own yielding to the Temptations of the Devil may be so far corrupted in Judgment as to believe them irresistible or at least plead this in excuse of their Impenitence To such it may not be amiss to observe that it exceeds the Power of any finite Being to force the Will of Man for that were to overthrow the very Essence of Man and thereby change the ordinary Laws of Nature to which all Creatures and amongst them Devils also are subjected Add to this the many Exhortations in Scripture to resist their Temptations which would have been vain if these had been irresistible the Promise of God also that we shall not be tempted above what we are able to bear which would not have taken place if we could not overcome all Temptations and the Experience of good Christians who daily resist and surmount them Even the worst of Men might baffle them if they would use the natural Power of their Souls assisted with that common Grace which is denied to none So that what the Aposte saith of some Men 2 Tim. II. 26. That they are taken captive by him at his Will is not to be understood without their own Consent yielding up themselves to his Conduct and voluntarily following his Suggestions which also appears from the Apostles command to Timothy in the precedent words of instructing them That they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil A second Errour in this Matter is that God giveth to the Devil an extraordinary Power of tempting Men a Mistake which may be observed in many of the ancient and even modern Writers who hence take occasion to magnifie the Grace of God and the Merits of Mans obedience the First in that God hath graciously contrived this impediment of obedience to Man that so his obedience might become the more meritorious and the latter in that Man performs his Duty notwithstanding so great Impediments This opinion altho' received would not in the least clear our doubt since it would still remain to be enquired in what manner the Devils exercise this delegated Power but that it should not be admitted it is enough to say That it is injurious to the Honour of God If it were is God might justly be said to tempt us contrary to what the Apostle teacheth Let no man when he is tempted say that he is tempted of God For God tempteth no man It is impossible that so excellent a Being should be guilty of such double Dealing as to command the Observation of his Laws and at the same time tempt us to the Violation of them to allure and enable us to obey him by Promises by Threats and by the assistance of his Holy Spirit and to divert us from it by the interposition of evil Spirits employed by him This were to ascribe no less Injustice to him than to the Devils themselves Nay to blacken Him and to clear them in the matter of Temptation For if the Devils herein act by the extraordinary Power of God they act
his Enemies as well as Friends at that time The Soldiers sent to break his Legs while hanging on the Cross that so they might hasten his Death whom they supposed not yet to have expired found him already dead Joseph of Arimathea and the devout Women which followed him taking him down from the Cross laid him in his Grave being well assured that he was then Dead His Disciples who if any shew of Reason might be offered would not easily believe him dead from whom they then expected a temporal Kingdom yet were so far perswaded of it that at his first appearing to them they were affrighted and supposed they had seen a Spirit To these Proofs nothing more could be added to Evince the reality of his Death an Evidence which is wanting to all the Relations of Men raised from the Dead opposed by the Heathens to the Resurrection of our Lord. They alledged from Plato the Story of Eris lying for many days among the dead Bodies and after that recovering Life again and pretended that Apollonius Tyaneus whom they set up in opposition to Christ had raised a certain Person to Life But the first was not related by any for more than a thousand years after the Fact was pretended to be done and in the second Case the Heathen Historian confesseth that he dare not affirm that the Person was truly Dead Nor after his Resurrection was it less evident that Christ was truly alive invested with Soul and Body All the Actions of Life and Arguments of a real Body met in his He was seen by a great number of his Disciples who judged it to be such He eat and drank with them which proved his Body not to have been a meer Phantasm or Aerial Apparition He talked and reasoned with them out of the Scriptures which demonstrated that Body to be indued with a rational Soul He appealed to their Sense of feeling commanded them to handle him said to unbelieving Thomas reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side which manifests that the Body which he then offered to that Tryal was that very Body which had suffered on the Cross and still retained the Print of the Nails and the Impression of the Spear That this same Body and Soul reunited was also joyned to the Divinity as before his Passion appeared from his many Miracles wrought after his Resurrection Thus we have a true proper and real Resurrection And that all these things were so we have the Testimony first of his own Disciples the Faith of whom although so nearly related to him cannot be called in question since they laid down their Lives in Confirmation of it Nor can it be imagined that any Men should die for the Testimony of what they knew to be false Of these the pious Women were first Blessed with the sight of him whether it were in Reward of their maintaining their Love and Fidelity to him when his Apostles had forsaken him or that they came into the Garden where the Sepulchre was immediately after the Resurrection and before he was yet departed out of it They saw him knew him and saluted him held him by the feet and worshipt him The Apostles being advertised of it by them hasted to see their Master and received not only a transient view of him but conversed with him for forty days together and by many infallible proofs were assured of the truth of it Afterwards he appeared to more than five hundred at once and at last ascended up to Heaven in the presence of them all To the witness of Friends we will add the Testimony of his Enemies which in all Cases is allowed to be of great weight The Soldiers who were employed by the Jews to watch his Sepulchre plainly saw the Effects of Divine Power which accompanied his Resurrection although being astonished and confounded at such unusual Prodigies they did not well perceive it or perhaps were not suffered by their Fears to stay till Christ should proceed out of the Sepulchre They felt the Earthquake which removed the stone rolled to the mouth of the Sepulchre they saw the countenance of an Angel like lightning and his raiment white as snow upon which they did shake and became as dead Men and coming into the City shewed to the chief Priests all the things that were done as we read Matth. XXVIII II. The Angels and heavenly Hosts had before joyned with Men in celebrating the Nativity of Christ and they here concurred in witnessing his Resurrection The Women coming to the Sepulchre betimes in the Morning presently after the Resurrection and looking for the Body of their beloved Lord in the Sepulchre found there two Angels in white sitting one at the head the other at the feet where the Body of Jesus had lain who said to them why seek ye the dead among the living he is not here he is risen come see the place where the Lord lay Lastly If we should imagine both his Friends and Enemies the report of Sense oft-times repeated to have been deceived in the Opinion of his Resurrection God hath been pleased to confirm the Truth of it and to set his Seal to it This he hath done not only by his Holy Spirit comforting enabling and encouraging the Apostles in Preaching the Mystery of Christ's Refurrection but also in confirming their Testimony with concurrent Miracles As it is Acts IV. 33. With great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus They openly affirmed it upon their own Knowledge and then in Proof of the truth of their Affirmation wrought Signs and Miracles which to the Spectators did as fully evince the Truth of the Relation as if they had seen it done with their own Eyes since it was impossible that God should exert his omnipotent Power in working Miracles for the Attestation of a Lye Thus much for the reality I proceed in the second place to the II. Manner of the Resurrection expressed in those words having loosed the pains of death which are variously interpreted some maintaining that they imply only a Deliverance from Death and rescue from the Grave others that they point out the dolorous Sufferings by which our Lord was brought to the Grave and raising him up to a state opposite to that Humiliation a third sort understanding by them a Destruction of the Power and Dominion of Death All these Opinions are supported with great Reasons nor will it here be proper to enter into a strict Examination which of them rather is to be embraced They are all rational Consonant to the Design of the Apostle and Significative of the manner of Christ's Resurrection I will therefore apply them all The first Opinion includeth only a Deliverance from Death that is a reunion of Soul and Body separated by Death In which Sense it chiefly referreth to the words of David and the Promises made to him here alledged by the Apostle David had been often brought
by his Enemies into extreme danger of Death which he commonly expresseth by the same or the like words as Psal. XVIII 4. The sorrows of death compassed me and Verse 5. The sorrows of hell compassed me about and Psal. CXVI 3. The sorrows of death compassed me the pains of Hell gat hold upon me Yet trusting in the Promises of God amidst all these Calamities he rested assured of Deliverance and expresseth his Confidence of it in the words cited by the Apostle in the following Verses My flesh shall rest in hope because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see Corruption It was a Matter at that time received and on all hands granted by the Jews that David was a Type of the Messias that his Actions Sufferings and Deliverance prefigured the Office the Death and Resurrection of Christ who should descend from him and particularly the Apostle sheweth how this Passage was much more evidently and literally fulfilled in Christ than in David He indeed was delivered from his Enemies and died in Peace yet die he did and after Death his soul was left in hell that is among the Dead or in the place of departed Souls and his Body did see Corruption having been buried many hundred years But as for Christ he died indeed yet his soul was not left in hell neither did his Body see Corruption His Soul was presently reunited to the Body and even during the Separation not left by the Divine Nature which still continued to be joyned to it neither was his Body corrupted but raised up and united to the Soul in less than forty hours in which time the Bodies of deceased Men are wont to be corrupted According to the second Interpretation Christ was raised from a painful Death to an opposite State to a condition of Glory Happiness Power and Immortality The Sufferings of our Lord so lively described to us in the Holy Offices of the last week we cannot forget and over all these he eminently triumphed in his Resurrection upon this day He was then made subject to Death but is now become the Lord of life and set above the reach of Death For Christ being raised from the Dead dieth no more Death hath no more Dominion over him Rom. VI. 9. He then bore the wrath of God for the sake of Man He now dispenseth the Favours of God granted to Men. He was then subjected to the Contradiction of Sinners to the Will of his own Creatures appeared as the vilest of Men suffered as a Malefactor he is now entred upon his Kingdom raised above the Earth seated at the right hand of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject unto him 1 Pet. III. 22. The words explained in their third Sense infer the overthrow of the Power and Dominion of Death effected by the Resurrection of Christ. The whole Design of our Lords Incarnation of his Death Burial and Resurrection was as it is expressed Hebr. II. 14. That he might destroy him that had the power of Death that is the Devil To do this all the parts of his Life contributed He converted Sinners from the Error of their way He confuted the Mistakes of the seduced World He founded a Church wherein open Enmity should be professed to the Devil He took upon himself the guilt of Death due to the sins of Men and all this Dispensation he gloriously finished in his Resurrection Therein he literally broke the bonds of Death he led Captivity Captive baffled the opposition and triumphed over all the Assaults of the Devil who had vainly imagined that by procuring the ever Blessed Jesus to be given up into the hands of wicked Men he had put an end to the Salvation of Mankind But to our eternal Happiness and to the Glory of our Redeemer his Designs and Attempts promoted that very end which he so much dreaded he knew not that it was the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God as it is in the precedent Verse that Christ should both die and rise again to perfect our Salvation that he was for a while to be subject to Death but that it was impossible he should be holden of it III. This was the third thing proposed to Discourse of that it was not possible that Christ should continue in the state of Death The Apostle foundeth the impossibility of it in this place upon the Determination of God to the contrary so that here it was not possible is no more than it was not Consonant to the decree of God it was not fit just or convenient as it is said Matth. IX It is not possible for the Children of the Bride-Chamber to mourn as long as the Bridegroom is with them that is it is not fit or convenient In this Sense then I shall consider it and 1. It was not possible or convenient that Christ should be holden of death because he was both God and Man the Divine was united to his Humane Nature It would have appeared surprizing to our Reason and been an Argument of little affection of God to Mankind if he should have suffered that very Body which had the Honour to be joyned to his own Nature wherein the fullness of the Godhead dwelled bodily to continue in Hell in the common state of Mortality or to see Corruption It was not possible that the Divinity should suffer that Nature to be corrupted or lye neglected among the Dead to which it self continued to be united even in the Grave This we of the Catholick Church do believe and if any should oppose this wonderful Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in the person of Christ his very Resurrection will convince their Error For to raise a dead Body to Life again must be allowed to be no less than the work of Omnipotence that it can be effected by God alone Yet it appeareth from the express words of Scripture that Christ had Power to raise up his own Body He saith of himself to the Jews John II. 19. Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up Speaking of the Temple of his Body as the Evangelist subjoyns And again John X. 18. No Man taketh my Life from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Our Lord who came into the World to do the Will of his Father and to glorifie him would never have claimed this Power had it not been inherent in himself He therefore by his own Power reunited his Soul to his Body I mean not in Exclusion to the other persons of the Blessed Trinity who all concurred therein For Power being an essential Attribute of the Divine Nature continueth undivided in the Persons of it And therefore it is no Objection against the Truth of this that the Father is said in many places of the New Testament to have raised up his Son since he is the chief Person in that Blessed Trinity
before mentioned that is unless we rise from Sin to die again Lastly the Justice of God and the incomparable Humility and Patience of Christ manifested in his Sufferings rendred it not possible not fit that he should be holden of Death He died not for his own but for the Sins of others and to demonstrate that his own Guilt drew not that Punishment upon him it was agreeable to the Justice of God to raise him up to relieve the Cause of oppressed Innocence and not suffer his Persecutors any longer to triumph in their wickedness Further by his exact Obedience by his inimitable Patience in suffering the Pains and his admirable Humility in undergoing the Shame of the Cross he did deserve to be raised up that as he had humbled himself in so extraordinary a manner so he should be exalted to a no less illustrious Glory And therefore the Sufferings and Humility of Christ are frequently assigned as the meritorious Cause of his Exaltation It was long before Prophesied of him Psal. CX 7. He shall drink of the brook in the way therefore shall he lift up his head And after his Passion and Ascension it is said of him by St. Paul Philip. II. He humbled himself and became obedient to death even the deash of the Cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him The first step of his Exaltation was his Resurrection which therefore was to relate to both those parts of his Humane Nature which had undergone that meritorious Humiliation Not only his Soul had suffered Agonies and the Contradiction of sinners had resigned it self intirely into the hands of God and submitted quietly to the Execution of that bitter Sentence which was inflicted on him as the Representative of sinful Men had endured the Shame of the Cross the insults of his Enemies a violent Separation from the Body with invincible Patience and Charity But also his Body had partaken in his Agony had sweat drops of Blood had endured Scourgings and Buffettings Crucifixion and the wound of the Spear Both Soul and Body therefore were to share in the Reward of all these Sufferings which began to be bestowed on him in his Resurrection His Body was to be raised from the Grave and his Soul being in no other Sense capable of Resurrection was to be reunited to the Body and both to continue for ever joyned since by his Death and Resurrection he is become the Mediator of a new and eternal Covenant Thus I have passed through the several parts of the Text and from the whole I shall make but one Inference proper to the Solemnity of this day If the Resurrection of Christ be the great and ultimate Confirmation of the Christian Religion that upon which our Faith is founded our hopes are raised that by which the Mystery of our Redemption is compleated the Author of it Crowned and advanced to be the Head of all the faithful who look for the same Resurrection it becomes us to celebrate this Festival Dedicated to the Memory of it with a suitable Religion We are not to account it an Arbitrary institution or the invention of the Church that this day is accounted Sacred beyond all others of the Year Our Lord hath made it so by rising from the Dead and compleating the Redemption of Mankind on it No revealed Religion was yet ever professed in the World which did not celebrate some certain and solemn Festivals at fixed times of the year and to cast off the publick Solemnization of those Festivals upon which the most illustrious Acts of the Life of our Saviour were performed is no other than in Fact to deny all belief in him and relation to him It is not enough to say that he hath declared he will be worshipped in Spirit and Truth He was himself then going up to Jerusalem to celebrate a solemn Festival when he spake those words And surely unless there be solemn times and places of worshipping him in Spirit and Truth it will never appear that he is so worshipped nor is he worshipped in Truth when Men pay no external Acknowledgments of those eminent Benefits which he hath truly obtained to them Himself hath consecrated this day by his rising from the Grave on it The Apostles have Dedicated it to this sacred Use by their own and by Divine Authority The Jews had before celebrated one day in seven in Recognition of their adoring that God who had created the World in Six days and rested on the Seventh and that Seventh day which they celebrated rather than any other of the Week was sanctified in Memory of their Deliverance out of Egypt wrought upon that day as it is Deut. V. 15. Remember that thou wast a Servant in the Land of Egypt and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day As the Jews therefore dated their Seventh day for ever from that day of their Deliverance out of Egypt so the Apostles began and the Church hath to this day continued to date their Seventh day from the day upon which their Redemption was compleated A Redemption so far greater than that given to the Jews from the Bondage of Egypt that well might the day instituted in remembrance of their Deliverance give way to the day celebrated in Honour of our Redemption This change therefore was made by the Apostles immediately upon the Resurrection of our Lord and even before his Ascension and so no doubt by his personal Direction and Approbation For all the religious Assemblies we find of them both before and after his Ascension were upon the first day of the Week That so as the Jews acknowledged their belief in God the Creator of the World by celebrating one day in seven and manifested their Worship of that God who brought them out of Egypt by Solemnizing for ever that Seventh day in which he brought them out So we Christians should declare that we worship the same God the Creator of the World by celebrating one day in seven and also manifest that we worship him in and through Jesus Christ by Sanctifying for ever that Seventh day upon which the great and last Act of our Redemption wrought by him was performed which is therefore in Scripture called the Lords Day Rev. I. 10. Farther as the particular Day of the weekly Festival of the Jews was determined by their Deliverance out of Egypt wrought upon the Seventh day so the far greatest of their Annual Solemnities was instituted in Commemoration of that Deliverance effected in the first Month of the year This God did institute by a special Command which was at large repeated to you in the first Lesson of this day And exacted the Observation of it with so great Rigour that he declared That Soul which did not keep this annual Feast should be cut off from Israel And can we imagine that God should require such eminent external Testimonies
would gladly be esteemed to act Reasonably in shaking off this encumbrance from them and therefore pretend they cannot believe the Divinity of that Religion which lays it on them Whereas in truth they seldom consider the Arguments recommending the Truth of any Religion least the Obligation of it also should return into their Minds Or if they cannot avoid the Thoughts of it yet their Wills struggle against their Understanding They would esteem it the greatest Unhappiness which can befal them to be thoroughly convinced of that Truth which if obeyed would deprive them of all their darling Pleasures For the Truth of what I here advance I appeal to your own Experience View all these Scepticks in Religion and see if you can find any in all your Knowledge who make any Conscience of observing moral Vertues of being Chast Temperate and Just. It is the Imposition and enforcing of these Vertues which hath made the Christian Religion grievous and distasteful to such Men not the want of Evidence of the Truth of it These Pretenders are seldom of such raised Capacities as to discern between true and false reasoning with greater accuracy than other Men or to discover the weakness of an Argument which before their Sagacious Enquiry was universally allowed They wilfully betray their Judgment or rather the Pretence of it to the depraved inclination of their Wills which that they may enjoy they are content to undergo the Ignominy of groping at Noon-day and not discovering a Truth set in so great a Light But this Consideration being more general I dismis it only reminding you how unjustly an Objection is raised by these Men from Christ's not publickly appearing after his Resurrection since if he had so done the Evidence of his Resurrection at this distance of time could have been no more than now it is Farther not only would the publick appearance of our Lord after his Resurrection have been of no advantage to us but would even have failed of convincing at least converting the Jews who should have been Spectators of it The Jews had continued their Infidelity notwithstanding so many hundred Miracles that it could not be hoped the Addition of one Miracle more should create a Belief among them They had rejected all those many undeniable Proofs which our Lord was pleased to offer to them in Testimony of his Divine Mission and after the long Experience of such a strange Perverseness it is scarce credible that the Resurrection alone should effect what all other Arguments and Proofs joyned together could not perform In the first Place the Prophesies contained in the Old Testament to the Divine Authority of which the Jews did own Submission all the Predictions and Descriptions concerning the Messias delivered in it were to them the most cogent Argument which could be offered By the Concurrence and Completion of all these Prophesies in the Person of Jesus it did so evidently appear that he was the Christ that they could not deny it without proclaiming at the same time their disbelief of those sacred Oracles And then as our Lord truly said in a not unlike Case If they would not believe Moses and the Prophets neither would they have been perswaded though one rose from the dead although himself had rose from the Grave in the sight of the whole Nation If the greatest Argument had no effect upon their Minds lesser Proofs would certainly lose their Force However because it may with some shew of Reason be alledged that however the Concurrence of the ancient Prophesies in his Person were in the Nature of things the better Argument yet that Miracles as being more surprizing and more affecting the Mind of Man were the more effectual Demonstration let us compare the Miracles of Christ wrought before his Crucifixion with the Evidence which would have been produced by his Resurrection if he had been pleased visibly to manifest it to the whole Nation of the Jews The number of Miracles which we find recorded in the Evangelists is very great and yet St. John assureth us That what is written contains but a small part of the Actions of Christ. Every one of these Miracles gave as full a Proof of that Divine Power by which they were wrought as the Resurrection could have done The Resurrection indeed is infinitely more considerable to us Christians than any other Miracle because it is the assurance of our own Resurrection the entrance of our Lord upon his state of Glory But to Unbelievers it is of no more Efficacy than the many other Miracles wrought by him What could be more admirable than that he commanded the Elements the winds and the seas and they obeyed him That he removed Infirmities and cured all manner of Diseases immediately and by a single Command What greater Proof could be offered of his own Divinity than that he did this by his own Authority without invoking the name of God or intreating his Presence If stupendious Acts were required what more wonderful than his feeding whole multitudes with a few Loaves If nothing less than the sensible Experience of his raising the Dead to Life could convince them what more notorious than the raising of Lazarus known to the whole City of Jerusalem than the raising of the Widows Son of Naim performed in Presence of the whole City attending him to his Grave than the Bodies of Saints departed arising at his Crucifixion entring into Jerusalem and appearing unto many If in all his Miracles precedent to his Death the Jews not able to deny the Fact pretended they were done by a Diabolick Power a Pretence more than once alledged in their own Talmud extant at this day and published by themselves the same Pretence would with equal Reason have been retained after his Resurrection For if the absolute disposal of Life and Death were to them the only confessed Proof of a truly Divine Power it was offered to them in raising those to Life whom I before mentioned Although by other Arguments he had given abundant Demonstration that he acted not by any Commission from infernal Spirits The whole Design of his Doctrine tended to overthrow the Power and Dominion of the Devil to root out Idolatry and Sin whereby Mankind was held Captive to the Devil to establish Truth and Piety than which nothing could be more contrary to the interest of Hell His Miracles consisted chiefly in casting out Devils from the Bodies of unhappy Persons whom they had possessed than which nothing could be more ungrateful to them in relieving the Wants and curing the Infirmities of Mankind than which nothing could be more opposite to their Practice and Inclinations who always endeavoured the Destruction but never the benefit of Mankind This same Power of working Miracles he communicated to his Disciples long before his Crucifixion which refuteth the idle Pretence of the Jews in the Talmud that his miraculous Power was a personal Quality obtained by unfolding a Spell placed of old by Solomon in the Temple All these Proofs of