man so privileged 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: '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 are expressly said, 'to have been determined by God.' 2 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.

1 Malachi, iii. 6.

And,

2 Acts, ii. 23.

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 itself 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 the concurrence of both, no less a power was employed to raise Christ out of the grave, than that which first raised the world itself out of nothing.

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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 lie! 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 gronnd. 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

Psalm xvi. 10.

might be fulfilled 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; 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 merely 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 taken away. For this therefore, we are to observe, that the schools distinguish of a two-fold necessity, physical and logical, or causal and consequential,

'John, xii. 39, 40.

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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 sense, neither the divine decree nor promise makes things necessary; for neither the decree nor promise, by itself, produces or effects the thing decreed or promised; nor exerts any active influence upon second causes, so as to impel 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 foreknowledge of any event, if it be true and certain, does certainly and necessarily infer, that there must be such an event: forasmuch as the certainty of knowledge depends upon the certainty of the thing known. And in this sense 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 Christ's detention under a state of death, was from the justice 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 recompense or satisfaction for sin. For though Christ was as pure and undefiled with the least spot of sin as purity and innocence itself: yet he was pleased to make himself the greatest sinner in the world, by imputation, and rendering himself a surety respon

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sible for our debts. For it is said, '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 snatched 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 cancels the bond. And that which Christ exhibited was full measure pressed down and running 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 inflamed by being paid, and punishment itself 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 12 Cor. v. 21.