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whom we believe to be the true and only Meffias, did fo rise as it was promised and foretold. As the Meffias was to be the Son of David, fo was he particularly typified by him and promised unto him. Great were the oppofitions which David fuffered both by his own people and by the nations round about him; which he expreffed of himself, and forePfal. ii. 2. told of the Meffias in those words, The Kings of the earth fet themfelves, and the Rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed, that is, his Acts iv. 27, Chrift. From whence it came to pafs, that against the holy child Jefus, whom God had anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Ifrael, were gathered together to do whatfoever the hand and the counsel of God determined before to be done, which was to crucify and flay the Lord of Life. But notwithstanding all this oppofition and perfecution, it was fpoken of David, and foretold of the Son of Pfal. ii. 6, David, Yet have I fet mine Anointed upon my holy bill of Sion. I will declare the decree, the Lord hath faid unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. As therefore the perfecution in refpect of David amounted only to a depreffion of him, and therefore his exaltation was a fettling in the Kingdom; fo being the confpiration against the Meffias amounted to a real Crucifixion and Death, therefore the exaltation must include a Resurrection. And being he which rises from the Dead, begins as it were to live another life, and the grave to him is in the manner of a womb to bring him forth, therefore when God faid of his Anointed, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee, he did foretel and promife that he would raise the Meffias from death to life.

7.

But because this Prediction was fomething obfcured in the figurative expreffion, therefore the Spirit of God hath cleared it farther by the fame Prophet, fpeaking by the mouth of David, but fuch words as are agreeable not to the perfon, but the Son

of

4

of David, My flesh fhall reft in hope; for thou wilt Pfal. xvi. not leave my foul in hell, neither wilt thou fuffer thine 10. Holy One to Jee corruption. As for the Patriarch David, he is both dead and buried, and his flesh confumed in his fepulchre; but being a Prophet, and A&ts ii, 30% knowing that God had fworn with an oath to him, that 31. the fruit of his loins according to the flesh he would raife up Chrift to fit on his throne; he feeing this before, fpake of the Refurrection of Chrift, that his foul was not left in bell, neither his flesh did fee corruption. They were both to be separated by his Death, and each to be disposed in that place which was refpectively appointed for them; but neither long to continue there, the Body not to be detained in the Grave, the Soul not to be left in Hell, but both to meet, and being re-united to rife again.

Again, Left any might imagine that the Meffias dying once might rife from Death, and living after Death, yet die again, there was a farther Prophecy to affure us of the excellency of that Refurrection and the perpetuity of that Life to which the Meffias was to be raised. For God giving this promise to his People, I will make an everlafting covenant with Ifa, lv. 34 you (of which the Meffias was to be the Mediator, and to ratify it by his Death), and adding this expreffion, even the fure mercies of David, could fignify no less than that the Chrift, who was given first unto us in a frail and mortal condition, in which he was to die, fhould afterwards be given in an immutable state, and confequently that he being dead fhould rife unto eternal Life. And thus by virtue of these three Predictions we are affured that the Meffias was to rife again, as alfo by thofe Types which did represent and prefignify the fame. Jofeph, who was ordained to fave his Brethren from death who would have flain him, did reprefent the Son of God, who was flain by us, and yet dying faved us; and his being in the dungeon typified Chrift's death; (s) his being taken out from thence represented his Refurrection,

Refurrection, as his evection to the power of Egypt next to Pharaoh, fignified the Seffion of Chrift at the Right Hand of his Father. Ifaac was facrificed, and yet lived, to fhew that Chrift should truly die, and truly live again. And Abraham offered him up, Heb. xi. 19. accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence alfo be received him in a figure. In Abraham's intention Ifaac died, in his expectation he was to rife from the Dead, in his acceptation being fpared he was received from the Dead, and all this acted to (t) prefignify, that the only Son of God was really and truly to be facrificed and die, and after Death was really and truly to be raised to Life. What was the intention of our Father Abraham not performed, that was the refolution of our heavenly Father and fulfilled. And thus the Refurrection of the Meffias was reprefented by Types, and foretold by Prophecies; and therefore the Chrift was to rife from the Dead.

As i. 3.

That Jefus, whom we believe to be the true and only Meffias, did rife from the Dead according to the Scriptures, is a certain and infallible truth, delivered unto us, and confirmed by teftimonies human, angelical and divine. Those pious Women which thought with sweet spices to anoint him dead, found him alive, held him by the feet, and worshipped bim, and as the first preachers of his Refurrection, with fear and great joy ran to bring his Difciples word, The bleffed Apoftles follow them, to whom also he fbewed himself alive after his paffion by many infallible iv. 33. proofs: who with great power gave witness of the Refurrection of the Lord Jefus, the principal part of whofe office confifted in this teftimony, as appeareth upon the election of Matthias into the place of Atsi. 21, Judas, grounded upon this neceffity: Wherefore of thefe men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jefus went in and out among us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his Refurrection. The rest of the Disciples teftified the fame, to whom

22.

he alfo appeared, even to five hundred brethren at 1 Cor. xv. once. These were the witneffes of his own family, of fuch as worshipped him, fuch as believed in him. And because the teftimony of an adverfary is in fuch cafes thought of greatest validity, we have not only his Difciples, but even his Enemies to confirm it. Thofe Soldiers that watched at the fepulchre, and pretended to keep his body from the hands of his Apoftles; they which felt the earth trembling under them, and faw the countenance of an Angel like lightning, and his raiment white as fnow; they who upon that fight did shake and became as dead men, while he whom they kept became alive; even fome of these came into the city and fhewed unto the chief Priefts all the things that were done. Thus was the Refurrection of Chrift confirmed by the highest human teftimonies, both of his Friends and Enemies, of his Followers and Revilers.

:

But fo great, fo neceffary, fo important a mystery had need of a more firm and higher teftimony than that of Man and therefore an Angel from Heaven, who was minifterial in it, gave a prefent and infallible witnefs to it. He defcended down, and came and rolled back the ftone from the door, and fat upon it. Nay, two Angels in white, fitting the one at the head, John xx. the other at the feet where the body of Jefus had lain, faid unto the Women, Why feek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is rifen. These were the Witneffes fent from Heaven, this the angelical teftimony of the Resurrection.

12.

And if we receive the witnefs of Men, or Angels, 1 John v.9. the witness of God is greater, who did fufficiently atteft this Resurrection: not only because there was no other power but that of God which could effect it, but as our Saviour himself faid, The Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he fhall teftify of me; adding these words to his Apoftles, and ye fhall bear witness, becaufe ye have been with me from the beginning. The Spirit of God fent down upon the

Apolites

Apostles did thereby teftify that Chrift was rifen, bei cause he sent that Spirit from the Father; and the Apostles witnessed together with that Spirit, because they were enlightened, comforted, confirmed and ftrengthened in their teftimony by the fame Spirit. Acts x. 40, Thus God raised up Jefus, and fhewed him openly; not

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to all the people, but unto witnesses chofen before of God, even to those who did eat and drink with him after be rofe from the dead. And thus, as it was foretold of the Meffias, did our Jefus rife; which was the first part of our enquiry.

For the fecond, concerning the reality and pro priety of Chrift's Refurrection, expreffed in that term, from the dead, it will be neceffary firft to confider what are the effential characters and proprieties of a true Refurrection; and fecondly, to fhew how those proprieties do belong and are agreeable to the raifing of Chrift. The proper notion of the Refur rection confists in this, that it is a fubftantial change by which that which was before, and was corrupted, is re-produced the fame thing again. It is faid to be a change, that it may be diftinguished from a fecond or new creation. For if God fhould annihilate a Man or Angel, and make the fame Man or Angel out of nothing, though it were a Reftitution of the fame thing, yet were it not properly a Refurrection, because it is not a change or proper mutation, but a pure and total production. This change is called a fubftantial change, to distinguish it from all accidental alterations: he which awaketh from his fleep, arifeth from his bed, and there is a greater change from fickness to health, but neither of these is a Resurrection. It is called a change of that which was, and hath been corrupted, because things immaterial and incorruptible cannot be faid to rife again; Refurrection implying a re-production, and that which after it was, never was not, cannot be re-produced. Again, of those things which are material and corruptible, of fome the forms continue

and