as the place where he suffered, Golgotha, so called from the skulls of malefactors executed there. Here he was crucified between two thieves. Instead of a cup of wine with frankincense, they gave Christ vinegar mixed with gall. They parted his garments, and cast lots upon his vesture; by which it seems that he was crucified naked, the more to expose him to shame and contempt. He endured the trial of cruel mockings; and for three hours together, whilst he was on the cross, there was darkness over all the land. And when this was over, he quickly gave up the ghost. Let it be observed, that Christ was put to death in the flesh; as the apostle expresses it, 1 Pet. iii. 18. that is, in the body; that only suffered death; not his soul, that died not; but was commended into the hands of his divine Father: nor his Deity, or divine nature, which was impassable, and not capable of suffering death. The death of Christ was real, not in appearance only, as some of the ancient heretics affirmed. And lastly, his death was voluntary; he gave himself freely to be a sacrifice.

Now, besides this corporal death which Christ endured, there was a death in his soul, though not of it, which answered to a spiritual and an eternal death. The sorrows of hell compassed him about, Eternity is not of the essence of punishment; and only takes place when the person punished cannot bear the whole at once, as that cannot be sustained by a finite creature, it is continued ad infinitum; but Christ being an infinite Person, was able to bear the whole at once; and the infinity of his Person abundantly compensates for the eternity of the punishment.

II. Let us next enquire into the cause, reason, and occasion of the sufferings and death of Christ; and how he came to undergo them. 1. With respect to God, and his concern in them. To trace this we must go back as far as the eternal purposes of God. The moving cause of all was, the great love he bore to his chosen ones in Christ. II. With respect to Christ, we must have recourse to the council and covenant grace and peace; in which the plan of salvation was form

of

ed upon his death. III. With respect to Satan, it arose from that old enmity that was between him and the woman's seed. IV. With respect to men; these acted from different motives: Judas from covetousness, the Jews from envy, Pilate to continue an interest in the affections of the Jews, and retain the good will of the Roman emperor. v. But the true causes and reasons why it was the pleasure of God, and the will of Christ that he should suffer, were their sins and transgressions; to make satisfaction for them.

III. The effects of the sufferings and death of Christ, are many. 1. The redemption of his people from sin, from Satan, and from the wrath to come, Heb. ii. 10. II. Reconciliation, Rom. v. 10. III. Pardon of sin, Matt. xxvi. 28. IV. Justi fication, Rom. v. 9. v. In short, complete salvation. vI. In all which the glory of God is great; the glory of his mercy, grace, and goodness; the glory of his wisdom, truth, and faithfulness; the glory of his power, and the glory of his justice and holiness.

IV. The properties of Christ's death and sufferings. I. They were real, and not imaginary. 11. They were volun tary; he freely surrendered himself. 111. They were necesIV. They were efficacious, or effectual to the purposes for which they were endured. v. They are expiatory and satisfactory.

sary.

OF THE BURIAL OF CHRIST.

THE last degree of Christ's humiliation, and which it end. ed in, is his being laid in the grave. This is one of the articles of the christian faith, that he was buried, according to the scriptures, 1 Cor. xv. 4. Wherefore it will be proper to ob

serve,

I. That Christ was to be buried, according to the scripture prophecies and types. I. Scripture prophecies; which are the following. 1. Psal. xvi. 10. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Some understand this text of his descent into hell;

but it is certain, that the soul of Christ, upon its separation from his body, went not to hell, but to heaven. Now this prophecy manifestly implies that Christ's dead body souid be laid in the grave, though it should not be left there; and and though it should not lie there so long as to be corrupted. 2. Another passage is in Psal. xxii. 15. Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. 3. Some take the words in Isai. xi. 10. to be a prophecy of Christ's burial; And his rest shall be glorious. The vulgate Latin version of the words is, His grave shall be glorious. 4. Isai. liii. 9. And he made his grace with the wicked, and with the rich in his death. The general sense of the words may be this, that after his death both rich men and wicked men were concerned in his burial, and were about his grave. 11. There was a scripture-type of his burial, and which our Lord himself takes notice of; for as fonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shail the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, Matt. xii. 40.

II. As Christ should be buried according to prophecy and type, so in fact he was buried, as all the evangelists relate; from the whole we learn,-1. That the body being begged of Pilate by Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, it was taken down from the cross, and was wrapped or wound about in fine clean linen, as was the manner of the Jews; see John xi. 44. 2. Nicodemus, another rich man, brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight; which spices, along with the linen clothes, were wound about the body of Christ. 3. The body being thus enwraped was laid in Joseph's own tomb, a new one, in which no man had been laid; and this was cut out of a rock. It was a new tomb in which Christ was laid; which was so ordered in providence, that it might not be said that not he but another man rose from the dead. Moreover, his tomb was hewn out in the rock, and this prevented any such objection to be made to the resurrection of Christ, that the apostles through some subterraneous passages, got to the body of Christ and took it away. 4. The tomb in

which Christ's body was laid was in a garden; nor was it unusual for great personages to have their sepulchres in a garden, and there to be buried. Manasseh and Amon his son, kings of Judah, were buried in a garden, 2 Kings xxi. 18, 19. Christ's sufferings began in a garden, and the last act of his humiliation was in one. A garden is a place where fruit trees grow, and fruit is in plenty; and may direct us to think of the fruits of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. 5. The persons concerned in the burial of Christ, and attended his grave, were many and of divers kinds, and on different accounts; the persons principally concerned in the interment of him, were Joseph of Arimathea aud Nicodemus, both rich men. That it might appear, that though Christ was loaded with the reproaches of the multitude of the people of all sorts, yet he had ' some friends among the rich and honourable. There were some women also who attended his cross, and continued sitting over against the supulchre. Here the power and grace of God were seen spiriting and strengthening the weaker vessels to act for Christ, and shew their respect to him, when all his disciples forsook him and fled; and this conduct of the women was a rebuke of theirs. Besides these, there were the Roman soldiers, who were placed as a guard about the sepulchre; and which not only gave proof of the truth of his death, and of the reality of his burial; but also of his resurrection; though they were tampered with to be an evidence against it. The continuance of Christ in the grave, was three days and three nights; that is, three natural days, or parts of them which answered the type of Christ's burial, Jonas, who lay so long in the belly of the whale, Matt. xii. 40. Christ was buried on the sixth day, and so lay in the grave part of that natural day, and the whole seventh day, another naturalday, and rose again on the first day, and so must lie a part of that day in it; and in like manner, and no longer, it may reasonably be supposed, Jonas lay in the whale's belly.

III. The ends, uses, and effects of Christ's burial, require some notice. 1. To fulfil the prophecies, and type

before

1

mentioned; for as this was predicted of him, it was necessary it should be fulfilled in him. 2. To shew the truth and reality of his death. 3. That it might appear, that by his death and sacrifice, he had made full satisfaction for sin; his body being taken down from the cross, and laid in the grave, was a token that the curse was at an end, agreeably to the law, in Deut. xxi. 23, 4. To sanctify the grave, and make that easy and familiar to the saints, and take off the dread and reproach of it. Christ pursued death, the last enemy, to his last quarters and strong hold, the grave; and drove him out from thence, and snatched the victory out of the hand of the grave; so that believers may, with pleasure, go and see the place where the Lord lay. For,-5. In Christ's burial, all the sins of his people are buried with him; as the old man was crucified with him; that the body of sin might be destroyed, Rom. vi. 6. 6. This is an instance of the great humiliation of Christ, not only to be brought to death, but to the dust of death. But though he died once, he will die no more; death shall have no more dominion over him; though whilst he was in the grave it had dominion over him; now he is loosed from the cords and pains of death, and lives forevermore, having the keys of hell and death.

OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST FROM

THE DEAD.

HAVING gone through Christ's state of humiliation, I pass on to his estate of exaltation; which immediately took place on the ending of the former; these two are closely connected by the apostle, Phil. ii. 6-10. The several steps and instances of his exaltation are, his resurrection from the dead, ascension to heaven, session at the right hand of God, and his second coming to judge the world at the last day. I shall be. gin with the first of these.

I. I shall first consider the prophecies and types of Christ's resurrection from the dead, and how they have been fulfilled. 1. Scripture prophecies; and the apostle Paul takes notice of several of them in one discourse of his, in Acts xiii. 33-35.