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tent to be locked up in the prison of the grave, and to be arrested there this whole day, for our debt, by divine justice.

3. Observe how long Christ the Lord of life continued death's prisoner, the graye's captive: how long death had power and dominion over him, even to the third day. O how did devils triumph this day! We have not only bruised his heel, but his heart also, and behold he lieth in dust. How did wicked men rejoice! how did death domineer over him! Men have brought him into my territories, and there I hold him bound with my fetters. Now would his enemies say, Is this the light of the world, that lies so low in the land of darkness? Is this the teacher of the way to heaven, that cannot now move his tongue, or speak a word? Is this he that raised others from the dead, that lies himself among the dead? Well, but the triumph of these wicked ones was but short. Christ rose and put them all to silence.

4. Observe Christ's love, that was content to let devils insult and triumph over him for a while, that they might not triumph over you, O believer, for ever. He was humbled to lie in the grave for a while, that you might not lodge in hell for ever.

5. Observe, Christ lay buried this day, that he might bury all the elect's sins for ever out of God's sight, that they might never rise against them in judgment. O what comfort is this, O believer, thy sins are buried, and shall never appear against thee to thy condemnation.

6. Observe, Christ lay buried this day, that he might bury the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath, with all the rest of their Levitical types and ceremonies. Christ has taken off that

yoke from our necks, glory to his name.

7. Observe how Christ lay buried this day, that he might sweeten the grave, warm and perfume that cold unpleasant bed for believers to lie in. The grave was once a part of the curse denounced against fallen mankind, and it is so still to sinners out of Christ, Gen. ii. " Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return." The grave had the nature and use of a prison, to keep the body of sinners against the great assizes, and then to deliver them up to the hands of a great and terrible judge: But Christ, by lying in it all this day, has turned it from a prison to a bed of rest, Isa. Ivii. 2. “He

shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his righteousness." Why? as Christ there did rest in hope, so shall believers be partakers of his hope. See Psal. xvi. 10. "My flesh shall rest in hope." So Proverbs xiv. 32. "The righteous hath hope in his death."

Exhortation. As ye would partake of the virtue of Christ's lying in the grave, see that ye get union with Christ now by a true faith; death nor the grave will not loose this union, it is indissolvable. O believer, the grave shall be a sweet privileged place to you; sin nor guilt shall not lie down there with you. Sin is a bad bed-fellow, but a worse grave-fellow. That is a terrible word, Job xx. 11.

"His

bones are full of the sins of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust." It shall not be so with you. No, Christ has freed you of guilt, and has made your bed to sleep in; it is like a soft bed in a quiet room, where the weary shall be at rest. Christ himself keeps the keys of the room, and watches by you while you lie sleeping there, and will be ready to open the door to let you out again. "I have the keys of death," Rev. i. 18. None can take them out of his hand.

MEDITATION II.

On the Resurrection of JESUS CHRIST, from Thess. i. 10. "Whom God hath raised from the dead."

THE resurrection of Christ from the dead is a fundamental article of our religion, and serves to support all the rest: For

1. If Christ rose from the dead, then he was a person sent from God, to do that work in the world which he gave out; because the majesty of heaven would never have given an impostor such glorious credentials as a resurrection from the dead; a work which nothing but omnipotency could accomplish.

2. If Christ rose from the dead, all the promises of the gospel, relating to the enjoyments and blessings of a future

life, will certainly be fulfilled to them; and whatever Christ has said, may be depended on, and trusted to, as certainly to come to pass.

3. It is true indeed, the Christian religion is so framed, as in all respects to be admirably serviceable to the ends and purposes of a temporal felicity; for the devout and awful regard to God, and a future life, and those principles of generous love and charity, which it tends to inspire mankind with, contribute highly to the good order and peace of the world. If pride and envy, if covetousness and ambition, if malice and revenge, if falsehood and deceit; if such passions as these are the true causes of all those calamities and misfortunes which men groan under, then the gospel, which strikes so directly at all these, even in men's tempers and hearts, as well as in their outward conversation, doth lay the surest foundations possible for a quiet and comfortable life in the present world.

Yea, the gospel of Christ strengthens the obligations of the law of nature; it furnishes men with far nobler motives to perform all the duties of that law, and threatens severer punishments for the breach of it; and thus it highly conduceth to the welfare of society and government.

4. The true foundation and origin of atheism or deism, is a man's coming under a stated resolution to endure no curb or restraint in the prosecution of his design of being happy in this world, by the enjoyment of its pleasures; and therefore the scripture or the gospel, which pretend to abridge men of this liberty, and would oblige them to a strictly abstemious and self-denying life, and a ready submission to all sufferings which the power and malice of the world may at any time inflict for the profession of it, must of course be rejected as any divine revelation, and made the mere invention of a set of crafty designing men, who were fond to be the heads of a new religion, and of bringing the world to submit to their imposition.

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5. As for the religion of Mahomet, he was a man of a vicious profligate life; and he framed it to serve a carnal worldly interest; it was planted in the world by force and violence, and never offered any other arguments to persuade men of the truth of it, but the sword and heavy taxes and exactions. But, with respect to the Christian religion no. thing of this kind can be pretended.

6. The law of nature is a divine impression on the reasonable nature of man, by which he is informed what is good and evil, and directed how to behave himself as a rational creature ought to do. Now, the gospel adopts and enforces this law with the strongest arguments and considerations.

7. Many who are baptized into the name of Jesus Christ, do treat him in such a manner, as Mahometans, who are his professed enemies, would abhor to do. The Mahometans do honour him with the venerable titles of the Word and Power of God. And though they will not allow him to be so great a prophet as Mahomet, yet their prophet has taught them so much respect, and so high an esteem for ours, that, should they be witnesses to the affronts some offer him here, they would be ready to revenge them upon them.

8. Some matters of fact may be so convincingly made out by the testimony of others, as to bring men to a perfect assurance of the truth of them, so as there can be no room left to suspect any fraud or deceit therein. For if we must not thus believe the testimony of others, there could be no administration of justice in the world; for legislators and governors cannot be in every place to observe what is done by every person, but must depend on the testimony of others in dispensing rewards and punishments to good and bad, according to their several merits. Again, all our civil interests and privileges depend on this kind of testimony; for how can we justify our claim to houses, lands. goods, or effects, which we come to possess by virtue of birth or parentage, will or testament, disposition or sale, but by the testimony of others? Again the refusal of this testimony would cut off all kind of history, geography, or chronology, as useless, or as mere fable and romance. We should not believe there was ever any such thing as the Roman empire, or Roman emperors; we should not believe there is any kingdom or city in the world, but such as we have seen with our eyes.

9. All sects and parties of men, since Christ's days, have granted, that there was such a person as Jesus Christ, who was born at Bethlehem in Judea. in the reign of Augustus Cæsar, and crucified at Jerusalem in the reign of Tiberius,

Pontius Pilate being then the Roman governo The Mahometans acknowledge all this frankly last part, out of an excess of respect to Jesus will by no means allow of his infamous cru death, but affirm, that he was taken up into some image of him only left upon the cross in which the Jews, as well as his own followers, w ed to be witnesses of the fact, were imposed o to believe that he suffered, when in reality he d this is a groundless fiction, contrary to all sense like many others in their Alcoran. But howev own that there was such an excellent person, wh a life, taught such doctrine, and wrought such Christians give out.

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10. The Jews freely own there was such a died such a death at Jerusalem: And hence the reproachful name on Him, of Talui, c was hanged, and call the Christians, the servan Though they disown him to be the Messiah, yet refuse there being such a person. Their learn man, Josephus (no Christian) his testimony cond is well known to all the learned world, Antiq. Ju cap. 4. p. 261. Edit. Genev. 1935, where he plai of the life, miracles, crucifixion and resurrectio Christ, and of the fulfilling of the prophecies in the wonderful conversion both of Jews and Gen

faith of his gospel. Some indeed question the of this passage of Josephus, but without just g we find this testimony taken notice of as his b cient writers, as Eusebius in Hist. Eccles. lib. page 30. Edit. Paris, 1659, in vita Tiberii: al cephorus Calistus, by Sozomen, by Jerom, by Is lusiola, &c.

Object. This passage is not taken notice of by t defenders of Christianity, as Justin Martyr, Orige lian, &c. Ans. The reason of this might be, the Josephus they chanced to make use of might wan timony, which, in all likelihood, was razed out of copies as the malicious Jews could come at: For timony of such a famous man as Josephus, one of country and religion, against the Jews, for treatin

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