suffering for Sin but his being punished for Sin And that I am sure is spoke so plain and loud by the Universal Voice of the whole Book of God that Scripture must be Crucified as well as Christ to give any other tolerable sence of it But since Heresy has made such bold invasions upon those Sacred Writings we will consider both those sences which these words are asserted to be capable of 1. First of all then some assert That to be stricken for Transgression imports not here a Punishment for Sins past but a Prevention or taking away of Sin for the future So that Christ is said to be stricken to suffer and to die for Sin because by all this He confirmed to us an Excellent and Holy Doctrine the belief of which has in it a natural Aptness to draw Men off from their Sins In a word because Christianity tends to make Men holy and cease from Sin and because Christ by His bloud sealed the Truth of Christianity therefore is He said to die for Sin A strange and remote deduction and such an one as the Common rules and use of speaking would never have suggested But then besides because it is easy to come upon the Authors of this perverse Interpretation by demanding of them what fitness there could be in Christ's death to confirm His Doctrine And what Reason the World could have to believe Christianity True because the Author of it a Pious Innocent Excellent Person was basely and cruelly put to Death Therefore they further say that this Effect of its confirmation is really and indeed to be ascribed to His subsequent Resurrection though only his Death be still mentioned that being the most difficult and Heroick passage of all that he either did or suffered for our sakes and consequently the greatest Instance of his Patience and perswasion of the Truth of that Doctrine for which he suffered But by their favour if Christ is said no otherwise to die for Sin than because he delivered a Doctrine the design of which was to draw Men off from Sin and which was confirm'd to be true only by his Resurrection How comes it to pass that this effect is still joyned with his Death but never with his Resurrection It being said over and over that He dyed for Sin suffered and bled for Sin but never that He rose again for Sin It is indeed said once that he rose again for our justification but in the very foregoing words it is said that he was delivered to death for our Offences Which shews that those words for our Offences and for our justification have there a very different sence and bear a different relation to the words with which they are joined in that as well as in the other Scriptures But this whole Invention is so forced and far fetched and so much out of the Road of Common reason that it is impossible it should gain but by the strengths and prepossessions of Prejudice and where prejudice stands for judgment for ought I see it is as vain to urge Arguments as to quote Scriptures 2. The other sence of these words and which alone the Catholick Church receives for true is That Christ's being stricken for Sin signifies his being punished for Sin The word For in this case denoting the Antecedent Meritorious cause of his suffering and not the Final as the School of Socinus does assert and consequently must directly relate to the removal of the guilt of Sin and not the Power as is also affirmed by the same Persons Now that Christ's suffering and being stricken for Transgression imports that suffering to have been Penal and Expiatory as it might with the highest Evidence be demonstrated from several Scriptures so at this time I shall confine my self within the limits of the Chapter from whence I took my Text and here I shall found the proof of it upon these two expressions First That Christ is said to have born our Sins in the 12. v. Now to bear Sin is an Hebrew Phrase for that which in Latin is Luere peccatum and in English to be punished for Sin And if to bear another Man's Sin or iniquity by suffering does not imply the undergoing of the punishment due to that Man's Sin We must invent a new way of expounding Profane Writers as well as Sacred and of interpreting the common speeches of Men as well as the word of God Secondly The other Argument shall be taken from that Expression which declares Christ to have been made a Sacrifice or an Offering for Sin in the 10. v. When Thou shalt make His Soul an Offering for Sin The proof of what I here affirm is grounded upon the use and design of a Sacrifice as it has been used by all Nations in the World which was to appease the Deity by paying down a Life for Sin and that by the substitution of a Sacrifice whether of Man or Beast to die and pay down his Life instead of the Sinner For there was a tacit acknowledgment universally fixt in the Hearts of all Mankind that the Wages of Sin was Death and that without shedding of bloud there could be no Remission upon which was built the reason of all their Sacrifices and Victims So surely therefore as Christ was a Sacrifice and as the design of a Sacrifice is to pay down a Life for Sin and as to pay down a Life for Sin is to be Punished for Sin so sure it is that Christ's Death and Sufferings were Penal Now it being clear that the foundation of all Punishment is compensation or exchange that is to say something paid down to divine Justice for something done against it and since all compensation implies a Retribution equivalent to the Injury done therefore that Christ might be qualified to be a Sacrifice fit to undergo the full Punishment due for the Sins of Mankind two things were required 1. An infinite dignity in his Person for since the Evil and Demerit of Sin was Infinite and since Christ was so to suffer for it as not to remain under those sufferings for an Infinite duration that Infinity therefore was to be made up some other way which could not be but by the Infinite worth and Dignity of his Person grasping in all the Perfections and Glories of the Deity and by consequence deriving an Infinite Value to his Sufferings 2. The other Qualification required was a perfect Innocence in the Person to suffer for so much was specified by the Paschal Lamb of which we still read in Scripture That it was to be a Lamb without blemish And there is no doubt but had Christ had any Sin of his own to have satisfied for he had been very unable to satisfy for other Men's He who is going to Gaol for his own debts is very unfit to be a Security for anothers But now this perfect Innocence which I affirm necessary to render Christ a fit and proper Sacrifice is urged by our Adversaries to be the very Reason
the Concurrence of Both no less a Power was imployed to raise Christ out of the Grave than that which first raised the World it self out of Nothing 2. Let us consider God's immutability in respect of his Word and Promise for these also were engaged in this affair In what a clear Prophecy was this foretold and dictated by that Spirit which could not lye Psalm 16.10 Thou shalt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption And Christ also had frequently foretold the same of himself Now when God says a thing he gives his Veracity in pawn to see it fully performed Heaven and Earth may pass away sooner than one Iota of a Divine Promise fall to the ground Few things are recorded of Christ but the rear of the Narrative is still brought up with this That such a thing was done That it might be fullfilled what was spoken by such or such a Prophet Such a firm unshaken adamantine connexion is there between a Prophecy and its accomplishment All things that are written in the Prophets concerning Me says Christ must come to pass And surely then the most Illustrious Passage that concerned him could not remain under an uncertainty and contingency of event So that What is most Emphatically said concerning the persevering obstinacy and Infidelity of the Jews John 12.39 40. That they could not believe because that Esaias had said that God blinded their Eyes and hardened their Hearts that they should not see with their Eyes nor understand with their Hearts and so be converted and He should heal them The same I affirm may with as great an Emphasis and a much greater clearness to our Reason be affirmed of Christ that therefore Death could not hold him because the Kingly Prophet had long before sung the Triumphs of His glorious Resurrection in the forementioned Prediction In a Word whatsoever God purposes or promises passes from Contingent and meerly Possible into Certain and Necessary and whatsoever is Necessary the contrary of it is so far Impossible But when I say that the Divine decree or promise imprints a Necessity upon things it may to prevent misapprehension be needful to Explain what kind of Necessity this is that so the liberty of second Causes be not thereby wholly cashiered and took away For this therefore we are to observe that the Schools distinguish of a Two-fold necessity Physical and Logical or Causal and Consequential which Terms are Commonly thus explained viz. That Physical or Causal Necessity is when a thing by an Efficient Productive Influence certainly and naturally causes such an Effect and in this sence neither the Divine Decree nor Promise makes things necessary for neither the decree nor promise by it self produces or effects the Thing decreed or promised nor exerts any active influence upon Second Causes so as to impell them to do any thing but in point of Action are wholly ineffective Secondly Logical or Consequential Necessity is when a thing does not efficiently cause an Event but yet by certain infallible Consequence does infer it Thus the fore-knowledge of any Event if it be true and certain does certainly and necessarily infer that there must be such an event for as much as the certainty of knowledge depends upon the certainty of the thing known And in this sence it is that God's decree and promise give a necessary Existence to the thing decreed or promised that is to say they infer it by a necessary infallible consequence So that it was as impossible for Christ not to rise from the Dead as it was for God absolutely to decree and promise a thing and yet for that thing not to come to pass The Third Reason of the Impossibility of Christs detention under a State of Death was from the Iustice of God God in the whole procedure of Christ's sufferings must be considered as a Judge exacting and Christ as a Person paying down a recompence or satisfaction for Sin For though Christ was as pure and undefiled with the least spot of Sin as purity and innocence it self yet he was pleased to make himself the greatest Sinner in the World by Imputation and rendring himself a surety responsible for our debts For as it is said 2 Cor. 5.21 He who knew no Sin was made Sin for us When the Justice of God was lifting up the Sword of Vengeance over our Heads Christ snatch'd us away from the blow and substituted his Own Body in our Room to receive the whole stroke of that dreadful Retribution inflicted by the Hand of an Angry Omnipotence But now as God was pleased so to comport with his Justice as not to put up the injury done it by Sin without an Equivalent compensation so this being once paid down that proceeding was to cease The Punishment due to Sin was Death which being paid by Christ Divine Justice could not any longer detain him in his Grave For what had this been else but to keep him in Prison after the debt was paid Satisfaction disarms Justice and payment cancells the Bond. And that which Christ exhibited was full measure pressed down and runing over even adequate to the nicest proportions and the most exact demands of that severe and unrelenting Attribute of God So that his Release proceeded not upon Terms of Courtesy but of Claim The gates of Death flew open before him out of duty and even that Justice which was Infinite was yet circumscribed within the inviolable limits of what was due Otherwise guilt would even grow out of expiation the reckoning be enflamed by being paid and punishment it self not appease but exasperate Justice Revenge indeed in the hand of a sinful mortal Man is for the most part vast unlimited and unreasonable but Revenge in the Hands of an Infinite Justice is not so Infinite as to be also Indefinite but in all its actings proceeds by Rule and Determination and cannot possibly surpass the bounds put to it by the Merits of the Cause and the Measure of the Offence It is not the effect of meer choice and will but springs out of the unalterable relation of Equality between Things and Actions In a word The same Justice of God which required him to deliver Christ to Death did afterwards as much engage him to deliver him from it 4. The Fourth Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's perpetual continuance under Death was the Necessity of his being Believed in as a Saviour and the impossibility of his being so without rising from the dead As Christ by his Death paid down a Satisfaction for Sin so it was necessary that it should be declared to the World by such Arguments as might found a Rational Belief of it So that Men's Unbelief should be rendred inexcusable But how could the World believe that he fully had satisfyed for Sin so long as they saw Death the known wages of Sin maintain its full force and power over him holding him like an obnoxious Person in Durance and Captivity When a Man is once imprison'd for debt
body and a leaden Soul against all the apprensions of ordinary sorrow so that there is need of some pain to awaken such an one and to convince him that he is alive but our Saviour who had an Understanding too quick to let any Thing that was Intelligible escape it took in the dolorous afflicting object in its full dimensions He saw the utmost Evil of every one of those strokes which the guilt of our Sins inflicted on Him And what His Eye saw His heart proportionably felt For surely they must needs have been inconceiveably afflicting in the Actual Endurance which were so dreadful in their very approach that the horror of them put the Man of God's right hand the Man made strong for that very purpose to start back and decline the Blow could the avoidance of it have stood with the Decrees of Heaven Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from Me. Which yet was not the Voice of cowardize but of humane Nature Nature which by its first and most Essential Principle would have saved it self might it have consisted with the Saving of the World Thirdly The third thing setting forth the greatness of this suffering is the Cause and Author of it which was God Himself The measure of every passion is the Operation of the Agent And then we know what Omnipotence can do Omnipotence imployed or rather inflamed by Iustice in whose Quarrel it was then Engaged We must not measure the Divine strokes by the proportion of those blows which are inflicted by the greatest and most exasperated mortal The Condition of whose Nature sets bounds to his Power when it cannot to his Rage So that in the utmost executions of it he acts but like a Wasp very angrily indeed but very weakly Every blow inflicted by the fiercest Tyrant can reach no further than the Body and the Body is but the dwelling place not any part of the Soul and consequently can no more communicate its Ruins to that than a Man can be said to be wounded in his Person because a wall of his House was broken down Upon which account there have been some whose Souls have been so fortifyed with Philosophy and great principles as to enable them to laugh in Phalaris's Bull to sing upon the Rack and to despise the flames For still when God Torments us by the Instrumental mediation of the Creature his Anger can fall upon us in no greater proportions than what can pass through the narrow capacities of a created Being For be the Fountain never so full yet if it communicates it self by a little pipe the stream can be but small and inconsiderable and equal to the measures of the Conveyance God can no more give His Power than His Glory to another there is no mortal arm can draw His bow God cannot Thunder or Lighten by Proxy He alone is the Father of Spirits and none can reach the Conscience but He who made it And therefore being to discharge the utmost of His Vindictive Justice upon the Sins of Mankind then charged upon our Saviour He took the Sword into His Own Hand entred the lists and dealt with Him immediately by Himself And then we find the Difference of our Saviour's suffering by the difference of His behaviour While He was Buffetted Scourged and Nailed to the Cross we hear nothing from Him but like a Lamb before the shearers He was dumb not because He could not but because He scorned to roar under the Impressions of a Finite anger But when God reached forth His Hand and darted His immediate Rebukes into His very Soul and Spirit as He did while He was hanging upon the Cross then He cries out My God My God why hast Thou forsaken Me Silence upon such a loss would have been but stupidity and patience an absurdity for when God withdrew his Presence from him that Darkness which then covered the face of the whole Earth was but a faint Embleme of that Blacker Cloud of despair which had overcast His Soul It is not possible for us to conceive the utmost weight of those heavy strokes inflicted by the Almighty Himself upon our Saviour All the Representations and little draughts of them made by Words and Fancy are vastly short of the keen impressions of Sense But yet that which gives us the nearest resemblance of them surely is the Torment of a guilty mind under a State of Desertion when God shall turn the worm of Conscience into a Scorpion and smite it with the secret invisible stings of his Wrath such as shall fester and rage inwardly gnaw and rake the very entrails of the Soul The Burden and anguish of this has been sometimes so insupportable that some have professed themselves to envy the condition of Iudas and the Damned Spirits as thinking the Endurance of those flames more tolerable than the expectation and accordingly have done violence to their own lives and so fled to Hell as to a Sanctuary and chose Damnation as a Release Far were such persons God knows from bettering their Condition by completing that which they could not bear in the very beginnings and foretasts of it yet however it demonstrates to us the unspeakable wretchedness of a guilty Soul Labouring under the Hand of God And by the way let the boldest the hardiest and the securest Sinner know that God is able without ever touching him either in his Estate his Health his Reputation or any other outward enjoyment dear to him but meerly by letting a few drops of his Wrath fall upon his guilty Conscience so to scald and gall him with the lively Sense of Sin that he shall live a continual Terror to himself carry about him an Hell in his own Breast which shall Echo to him such Peals of Vengeance every Hour that all the Wine and Musick all the Honours and Greatness of the World shall not be able to minister the least ease to his heart-sick and desponding Soul Now in these Torments of a guilty Conscience we have some little Image of the pains then suffered by our Saviour the greatness of both being founded upon the same Reason Namely That God is the sole and immediate Inflicter of such strokes And then surely the suffering must needs be grievous when Infinite Justice passes Sentence and Infinite Power does Execution And thus I have finished the first general thing proposed from the Text which was the Suffering it self expressed in these words He was stricken and that by considering the Latitude the Intenseness and also the Cause of it All of them so many Arguments to demonstrate to us its unparallel'd Greatness 2. The Second general thing proposed was the Nature and quality of this suffering Namely That it was Penal and Expiatory He was stricken for Transgression And to prove that it was Penal there needs no other Argument to any clear unbiassed Understanding than the natural genuine and unconstrained use of the Word For what other sence can there be of a Man's being stricken or
why Christ's sufferings could not be Penal since Punishment in the very Nature and Essence of it imports a Relation to Sin To this I answer That Punishment does indeed import an Essential Relation to Sin but not of Necessity to the Sin of the Person upon whom it is inflicted as might be evinced by innumerable Instances as well as undeniable reasons If it be replyed that God has declared that the Soul that Sins shall die I answer That this is only a Positive Law according to which God declares he will proceed in the ordinary course of his Providence but it is not of Natural and Eternal Obligation so as Universally to bind God in all cases but that he may when he Pleases deal otherwise with his Creature But this will receive further light from the Discussion of the third and last General head to which we now proceed Namely 3. The ground and Cause of this suffering which was God's Propriety in and relation to the Persons for whom Christ suffered specified in these words My People For the Transgression of my People was He stricken If it be here asked upon what account the Persons here spoken of were denominated and made God's People I answer that they were so by an Eternal Covenant and Transaction between the Father and the Son by which the Father upon certain Conditions to be performed by the Son consigned over some Persons to him to be His People For our better understanding of which we are to observe that the business of Man's Redemption proceeds upon a two-fold Covenant First An Eternal Covenant made between the Father and the Son by which the Father agreed to give both Grace and Glory to a certain Number of Sinners upon Condition that Christ would assume their Nature and pay down such a Ransom to his Justice as should both satisfy for their Sin and withal Merit such a measure of Grace as should effectually Work in them all things necessary to their Salvation And this Covenant may be properly called a Covenant of suretiship or Redemption Upon which alone and not upon any Covenant made between God and Men in their own Persons is built the Infallibility of the future Believing Repenting and finally Persevering of such as Christ from all Eternity undertook to make his People Secondly The other is a Covenant made in time and actually enter'd into by God and Men by which God on his part Promises to Men Eternal Salvation upon Condition of Faith and Repentance on Theirs And this is called in Scripture the second Covenant or the Covenant of Grace and stands opposed to that which is there called the First Covenant or the Covenant of Works Now by that Eternal Compact or Transaction between the Father and the Son of which alone we now speak was this Donation of a certain determinate number of Persons made to Christ to be his People by virtue of which Agreement or Transaction he was in the fullness of time to suffer for them and to accomplish the whole Word of their Redemption from first to last For to affirm that Christ dyed only to verify a Proposition That whosoever believed should be saved but in the mean time to leave the whole issue of things in reference to Persons so loose and undetermined That it was a Question whether ever any one should actually believe and very possible that none ever might and consequently that after Christ had suffered had been stricken and dyed for Transgression yet for any thing that he had done in all this he might never have had a People this certainly is a strange and new Gospel and such as the Doctrine of our Church seems utterly unacquainted with Having thus shewn the Foundation upon which the Persons here spoken of are called by the Prophet God's People Namely An Eternal Covenant in which God the Father and the Son mutually agreed upon the Terms of their Redemption We are now to observe that the same Thing that thus denominates and makes them God's People makes them under the same Relation to belong also to Christ and that not only upon the Account of his Nature that he was God but chiefly of his Office that he was their Mediator which capacity made him equally concerned in that Eternal Covenant He accepting and agreeing to those Terms that were proposed and offered him by the Father By His Acceptance of which he became both a Mystical head and a Surety to those for whom he so undertook And this Relation of his to them was the Cause why he both might be and actually was stricken by God for their Transgression without any Violation of the Divine Justice notwithstanding the perfect Innocence of his Person For to render it just to inflict a Punishment upon an Innocent Person instead of another either of these two Causes are sufficient First An intimate Conjunction between those Persons and that either Natural as between Father and Son or Political as between King and People and the like Or Secondly The Voluntary Consent and Will of an Innocent Person to undergo the Punishment due to the Nocent as it is between a Man and his Surety Accordingly from that Covenant by which the Father made over a certain number of Persons to the Son to be His People there arose this twofold Relation of Christ to them 1. Of a King to his People or of a Mystical Head to his Members so that Legally and Politically they suffered as really in Christ as the whole body suffers when the head is wounded or struck through with a dart 2. The other Relation is of a Surety so that the Satisfaction paid down by Christ to God's Justice for Sin is in estimation of Law as really accounted to be paid down by the Saints as if they had paid it in their own Persons And this is a further and withall a full answer to that objection formerly hinted from the Innocence of Christ's Person as if it rendered him uncapable of Punishment For his own free voluntary consent to be a Surety for Sinners and responsible for all that Divine Justice could charge them with Transferred the guilt and obligation from their Persons to his Own In a word the Compact between Christ and his Father made him a King a Mystical Head and also a Surety to some certain Persons and his being so made them His People and their being his People did upon that account make it both just and equitable for him to suffer and to be stricken for their Transgression which is the result of the Text and the Thing undertook by us to be proved I have now finished the several things proposed from the Text. In which having set before you how much Christ has suffered and all for our sakes I hope it will kindle the Workings of a pious Ingenuity in every one of our Breasts For I am sure if Christ's suffering for us were the Doctrine Gratitude should make our Readiness to suffer for Him the Application Christianity I shew was
Prey from the Mighty and a Captive from the strong and though he was in the very Iaws of Death yet he was not devoured Corruption the common Lot of Mortality seized not on him Worms and Putrefaction durst not approach him His Body was Sacred and inviolable as sweet under ground as above it and in Death it self retaining One of the highest Privileges of the Living 3. Come we now to the Last and principal thing proposed namely The Ground of Christ's Resurrection which was its absolute Necessity expressed in these Words Because it was not possible that He should be holden of it and that according to the strictest and most received sence of the word Possible For it was not only Par aequum that Christ should not always be detained under Death because of his Innocence as Grotius precariously and to serve an Hypothesis would have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signify but it was absolutely necessary that he should not and impossible that he should continue under the Bands of Death from the Peculiar Condition of his Person as well as upon several other Accounts And accordingly this Impossibility was founded upon these Five Things 1. The Union of Christ's Humane Nature to the Divine 2. God's Immutability 3. His Justice 4. The Necessity of Christ's being believed upon 5. And Lastly the Nature of his Priesthood First of all then The Hypostatical Vnion of Christ's Humane Nature to His Divine rendred a perpetual Duration under Death absolutely impossible For how could that which was united to the Great Source and Principle of Life be finally prevailed over by Death and pass into an Estate of perpetual darkness and oblivion Even while Christ's body was divided from his Soul yet it ceased not to maintain an intimate indissolvable Relation to his Divinity It was assumed into the same Person for according to the Creed of Athanasius As the Soul and Body make one Man so the Divine Nature and the Humane make One Christ. And if so is it imaginable that the Son of God could have one of his Natures rent wholly from his Person His Divinity as it were buoyed up his sinking Humanity and preserved it from a total Dissolution for as while the Soul continues joyned to the Body still speaking in sensu composito Death cannot pass upon it for as much as that is the proper Effect of their Separation So while Christ's Manhood was retained in a Personal conjunction with His Godhead the bands of death were but feeble and insignificant like the Wit hs and Cords upon Sampson while he was inspired with the mighty Presence and Assistance of God's Spirit It was possible indeed that the Divine Nature might for a while suspend its supporting influence and so deliver over the Humane Nature to pain and death but it was impossible for it to let go the relation it bore to it A Man may suffer his Child to fall to the ground and yet not wholly quit his hold of him but still Keep it in his power to recover and lift him up at his pleasure Thus the Divine Nature of Christ did for a while hide it self from his Humanity but not desert it put it into the Chambers of death but not lock the Everlasting Doors upon it The Sun may be clouded and yet not Eclipsed and Eclips'd but not stop'd in his Course and much less forced out of his Orb. It is a Mystery to be admired that any thing belonging to the Person of Christ should suffer but it is a Paradox to be exploded that it should perish For surely that Nature which diffusing it self throughout the Universe communicates an enlivening Influence to every part of it and quickens the least spire of grass according to the measure of its Nature and the proportion of its capacity would not wholly leave a Nature assumed into its Bosom and what is more into the very Unity of the Divine Person breathless and inanimate and dismantled of its Prime and Noblest Perfection For Life is so high a Perfection of Being that in this respect the least Fly or Mite is a more noble Being than a Star And God has expresly declared himself not the God of the Dead but of the Living and this in respect of the very Persons of Men but how much more with reference to what belongs to the Person of his Son For when Natures come to Unite so near as mutually to interchange Names and Attributes and to verify the Appellation by which God is said to be Man and Man to be God surely Man so privileg'd and advanced cannot for ever lie under Death without an insufferable invasion upon the entireness of that Glorious Person whose Perfection is as inviolable as it is incomprehensible 2. The Second Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's continuance under Death was that Great and Glorious Attribute of God His Immutability Christ's Resurrection was founded upon the same bottom with the consolation and Salvation of Believers expressed in that full declaration made by God of Himself Mala. 3.6 I the Lord change not therefore ye Sons of Jacob are not consumed Now the Immutability of God as it had an influence upon Christ's Resurrection was Two-fold First In respect of his Decree or Purpose Secondly In respect of his Word or Promise And First for his Decree God had from all Eternity designed this and sealed it by an irreversible Purpose For can we imagine that Christ's Resurrection was not decreed as well as his Death and sufferings and these in the 23. v. of this Chapter are expresly said to have been determined by God It is a known rule in Divinity that whatsoever God does in Time that He purposed to do from Eternity for there can be no new Purposes in God since he who takes up a new purpose does so because he sees some ground to induce him to such a purpose which he did not see before but this can have no place in an Infinite knowledge which by one Comprehensive Intuition sees all things as Present before ever they come to pass So that there can be no new Emergency that can alter the Divine Resolutions And therefore it having been Absolutely purposed to raise Christ from the Dead his Resurrection was as fixed and Necessary as the Purpose of God was Irrevocable A Purpose which Commenced from Eternity and was declared in the very Beginnings of Time a Purpose not to be Changed nor so much as bent and much less broke by all the Created Powers in Heaven and Earth and in Hell besides For though indeed Death is a great Conqueror and his Bands much too strong for Nature and Mortality Yet when over-matched by a Decree This Conqueror as old as he has grown in Conquest must surrender back his spoils unbind his Captives and in a word even Death it self must receive its Doom From all which it is manifest That where there is a Divine Decree there is always an Omnipotence to second it and Consequently That by