that, having all along affirmed himself to be so, he made good the truth of what he had so affirmed by his miraculous rising again, and so gave as strong a proof of his Messiahship, as infinite power, joined with equal veracity, could give. And upon this account we have his resurrection alleged by St. Peter for the same purpose, here in the text, which was part of his sermon to the Jews, concerning Jesus Christ; whom he proves to be their true and long-expected Messiah, against all the cavils of prejudice and unbelief, by this one invincible demonstration.

In the text then we have these three things considerable:

First, Christ's resurrection and the cause of it, in these words, whom God hath raised up.'

Secondly, The manner by which it was effected, which was by loosing the pains of death.' And, Thirdly, and lastly, The ground of it, which was its absolute necessity, expressed in these words: 'It was not possible that he should be holden of it.' And,

1. For the first of these, The cause of the resurrection set forth in this expression, whom God hath raised up.' It was such an action as proclaimed an omnipotent agent, and carried the hand of God writ upon it in broad characters, legible to the meanest reason. Death is a disease which art cannot cure: and the grave a prison which delivers back its captives upon no human summons. To restore life is only the prerogative of him who gives it. Some indeed have pretended by art and physical applications to recover the dead, but the success has sufficiently upbraided the attempt. Physic may repair and piece up

nature, but not create it. Cordials, plaisters, and fomentations cannot always stay a life when it is going, much less can they remand it when it is gone. Neither is it in the power of a spirit or demon, good or bad, to inspire a new life. For it is a creation; and to create is the incommunicable prerogative of a Power infinite and unlimited. Enter into a body they may, and so act and move it after the manner of a soul: but it is one thing to move, another to animate a carcass. You see the devil could fetch up nothing of Samuel at the request of Saul, but a shadow and a resemblance, his countenance and his mantle, which yet was not enough to cover the cheat, or to palliate the illusion. But I suppose nobody will be very importunate for any further proof of this, that if Christ was raised, it must be God who raised him. The angel might indeed roll away the stone from the sepulchre, but not turn it into a 'son of Abraham;' and a less power than that which could do so, could not effect the resurrection.

2. I come now to the second thing, which is to show the manner by which God wrought this resurrection, set forth in those words, having loosed the pains of death.' An expression not altogether so clear, but that it may well require a further explication. For it may be enquired, with what propriety God could be said to loose the pains of death,' by Christ's resurrection, when those pains continued not till the resurrection, but determined and expired in the death of his body? Upon which ground it is, that some have affirmed, that Christ descended into the place of the damned; where during his body's abode in the grave, they say, that in his soul he really suffered the pains of

hell; and this not unsuitably to some ancient copies, which read it not ὠδῖνας θανάτω • the pains of death,' but diras de 'the pains of hell;' and this also with much seeming consonance to that article of the creed in which Christ is said to have descended into hell.' But to this I answer, That Christ suffered not any such pains in hell, as the forementioned opinion would pretend, which we may demonstrate from this, that if Christ suffered any of those pains during his abode in the grave, then it was either in his divine nature, or in his soul, or in his body. But the divine nature could not suffer, or be tormented, as being wholly impassible. Nor yet could he suffer in his soul; for as much as in the very same day of his death, that passed into paradise, which surely is no place of pain. Nor lastly, in his body; for that being dead, and consequently for the time bereaved of all sense, could not be capable of any torment. And then, for answer to what was alleged from the ancient copies, it is to be observed that the word gde (which some render hell,) indifferently signifies also the grave, and a state of death. And lastly, for that article of the creed in which there is mention made of Christ's descent into hell, there are various expositions of it, but the most rational and agreeable is, that it means his abode in the grave and under the state of death three days and three nights, or rather three vuxnμepa, viz. part of the first, and third, (so called by a synecdoche of the part for the whole,) and the second entirely. Whereby, as his burial signified his entrance into the grave, so his descending into hell signified his continuance there and subjection to that estate. And thus the three parts of his humiliation in the last and grand

scene of it, do most appositely answer to the three parts of his exaltation. For, first, his death answers to his rising again. Secondly, His burial answers to his ascending into heaven. And thirdly, His descending into hell answers to his sitting at the right hand of God, in a state of never-dying glory, honour, and immortality. But, however, that his descending into hell, mentioned in the creed, cannot signify his local descent into the place of the damned, the former argument disproving his suffering the pains of hell, will, by an easy change of the terms, sufficiently evince this also. For, first, Christ could not descend according to his divine nature; since that which is infinite and fills all places, could not acquire any new place. And as for his soul, that was in paradise, and his body was laid in the grave; and being so, what part of Christ could descend into hell, (the whole Christ being thus disposed of,) needs a more than ordinary apprehension to conceive.

We are, therefore, in the next place to see, how we can make out the reason of this expression upon some other and better ground. In order to which, it is very observable, that the same word which in the Greek text is rendered by wdivas, and in the English by pains, in the Hebrew signifies not only pain, but also a cord or band,' according to which it is very easy and proper to conceive, that the resurrection discharged Christ from the bands of death: besides, that this translation of the word seems also most naturally to agree with the genuine meaning of some other words in the same verse; as of λúσaç, having loosed,' which is properly applicable to

6

See Dr. Hammond's Annot. on the place.

bands and not to pains; as also of кparεłodaι, which signifies properly to be bound with some cord or band: so that undoubtedly this exposition would give the whole verse a much more natural and apposite construction, and withal remove the difficulty. But,

Secondly, because the evangelist St. Luke follows the translation of the Septuagint, (who, little minding the Hebrew pointings, rendered the word 'an, not by Σχοινία, cords or bands, but by ὠδῖνας, pains ;) we are, therefore, not to baulk so great an authority, but to see how the scheme of the text may be made clear and agreeable, even to this exposition.

To this therefore I answer :—

First, that the words contain in them an Hebraism, viz. the pains of death, for a painful death. The abomination of desolation, for an abominable desolation; and so the resurrection loosed Christ from a painful death, not indeed painful in sensu composito, as if it were so at the time of his release from it, but in a divided sense (as the logicians speak) it loosed him from a continuance under that death; which, relating to the time of his suffering it, was so painful.

2. But secondly, I answer further. That, though the pains of death ceased long before the resurrection, so that this could not in strictness of sense be said to remove them; yet, taking in a metonomy of the cause for the effect, the pains of death might be properly said to have been loosed in the resurrection, because that estate of death into which Christ was brought by those foregoing pains, was

Matt. xxiv. 15.