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 λvoas, 'having loosed,' which is properly applicable to

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 'ban, not by Σχοινία, cords or bands, but by ώδίνας, 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

1 Matt. xxiv. 15.

then conquered and completely triumphed over. Captivity under death and the grave was the effect and consequent of those pains; and therefore the same deliverance which discharged Christ from the one, might not improperly be said to loose him from the other. And thus, Christ was no sooner bound, but within a little time he was loosed again. He was not so much buried, as for a while deposited in the grave for a small inconsiderable space; so that even in this respect he may not inelegantly be said to have tasted of death; for a taste is transient, short, and quickly past. God rescued him from that estate, as a prey from the mighty, and a captive from the strong; and though he was in the very jaws 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 itself 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 sense of the word (possible.) For it was not only just and equal 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, possible, 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 human 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 union of Christ's human nature to his divine, rendered a perpetual duration under death absolutely impossible. For, how could that which was united to the great source and principle of life, he 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 human 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 joined 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 withs 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 awhile suspend its supporting influence, and so deliver over the human 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 awhile hide itself 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 eclipsed, but not stopped 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 itself 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 expressly 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,