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fact ofttimes after death exposed to the ignominy of a gibbet; and those who (t) being dead were so hanged on a tree, were accursed by the Law. Now though Christ was not to die by the sentence of the Jews, who had lost the supreme power in causes capital, and so not to be condemned to any death according to the Law of Moses; yet the providence of God did so dispose it, that he might suffer that death which did contain in it that ignominious particularity to which the legal curse belonged, which is, the hanging on a tree. For he which is crucified, as he is affixed to, so he hangeth on the cross: and therefore true and formal crucifixion is often named by the general word (u) suspension; and the Jews themselves do commonly call our blessed Saviour by that very (x) name to which the curse is affixed by Moses; and generally have objected that he died a (y) cursed death.

Eph. ii. 15. Secondly, it was necessary to express our faith in Christ crucified, that we might be assured that he hath abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments; which if he had not done, the strength and power of the whole Law had still Deut.xxvii. remained: for all the people had said Amen to the curse upon Neh. x. 29. every one that kept not the whole law; and entered into a curse and into an oath, to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord their God, and his judgments and his statutes. Which was in the nature of a bill, bond, or obligation, perpetually standing in force against them, ready to bring a forfeiture or penalty upon them, in case of non-performance of the condition. But the strongest obligations may be cancelled; and one ancient custom of cancelling bonds was, by striking a nail through the writing: and thus God, by our crucified Saviour, Col. ii. 14. blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.

Thirdly, hereby we are to testify the power of the death of Christ working in us after the (2) manner of crucifixion. Rom. vi. 5, For we are to be planted in the likeness of his death; and that we may be so, we must acknowledge, and cause it to appear, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin Gal. v. 24. might be destroyed; we must confess, that they that are Christ's

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have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts; and they Gal. vi. 14. which have not, are not his. We must not glory, save in the cross

of our Lord Jesus Christ: nor can we properly glory in that, except by it the world be crucified unto us, and we unto the world.

Fourthly, by the acerbity of this passion we are taught to meditate on that bitter cup which our Saviour drank; and while we think on those nails which pierced his hands and feet, and never left that torturing activity till by their dolorous impressions they forced a most painful death, to acknowledge the bitterness of his sufferings for us, and to assure ourselves that by the (a) worst of deaths he hath overcome all kinds of death; and with patience and cheerfulness to endure whatsoever he shall think fit to lay upon us, who with all readiness and desire suffered far more for us.

Fifthly, by the ignominy of this punishment, and universal infamy of that death, we are taught how far our Saviour descended for us, that while we were slaves and in bondage unto sin, he might redeem us by a servile death: for he made himself Phil. ii. 7,8. of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant; and so he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross: teaching us the glorious doctrine of (b) humility and patience in the most vile and abject condition which can befall us in this world; and encouraging us to imitate him, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured Heb. xii. 2. the cross, despising the shame; and withal deterring us from that fearful sin of falling from him, lest we should crucify unto Heb. vi. 6. ourselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame, and so become worse than the Jews themselves, who crucified the Lord of life without the walls of Jerusalem, and for that unparalleled sin were delivered into the hands of the Romans, into whose hands they delivered him, and at the same walls in such multitudes were crucified, (c) till there wanted room for crosses, and crosses for their bodies.

Lastly, by the public visibility of this death, we are assured that our Saviour was truly dead, and that all his enemies were fully satisfied. He was crucified in the sight of all the Jews, who were made public witnesses that he gave up the ghost. There were many traditions among the Heathen, of persons supposed for some time to be dead, to descend into hell, and afterwards to live again; but the death of these persons was never publicly seen or certainly known. It is easy for a man that liveth to say that he hath been dead; and, if he be of great

authority, it is not difficult to persuade some credulous persons to believe it. But that which would make his present life truly miraculous, must be the reality and certainty of his former death. The feigned histories of Pythagoras and Zamolxis, of Theseus and Hercules, of Orpheus and Protesilaus, made no certain mention of their deaths, and therefore were ridiculous in the assertion of their resurrection from death. (d) Christ, as he appeared to certain witnesses after his resurrection, so he died before his enemies visibly on the cross, and gave up the ghost conspicuously in the sight of the world.

And now we have made this discovery of the true manner and nature of the cross on which our Saviour suffered, every one may understand what it is he professeth when he declareth his faith, and saith, I believe in Christ crucified. For thereby he is understood and obliged to speak thus much: I am really persuaded, and fully satisfied, that the only-begotten and eternal Son of God, Christ Jesus, that he might cancel the handwriting which was against us, and take off the curse which was due unto us, did take upon him the form of a servant, and in that form did willingly and cheerfully submit himself unto the false accusation of the Jews, and unjust sentence of Pilate, by which he was condemned, according to the Roman custom, to the cross; and upon that did suffer that servile punishment of the greatest acerbity, enduring the pain; and of the greatest ignominy, despising the shame. And thus I believe in Christ crucified.

Dead.

THOUGH crucifixion of itself involveth not in it certain death, and he which is fastened to a cross is so leisurely to die, as that he being taken from the same may live; though when the insulting Jews in a malicious derision called to our Saviour Matt. xxvii. to save himself, and come down from the cross; he might have come down from thence, and in saving himself have never saved us yet it is certain that he felt the extremity of that punishment, and fulfilled the utmost intention of crucifixion: so that, as we acknowledge him crucified, we believe him dead.

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For the illustration of which part of the Article, it will be necessary, first, to shew that the Messias was to die; that no sufferings, howsoever shameful and painful, were sufficiently satisfactory to the determination and predictions divine, without a full dissolution and proper death: secondly, to prove that our

Jesus, whom we believe to be the true Messias, did not only suffer torments intolerable and inexpressible in this life, but upon and by the same did finish this life by a true and proper death: thirdly, to declare in what the nature and condition of the death of a person so totally singular did properly and peculiarly consist. And more than this cannot be necessary to shew we believe that Christ was dead.

I

First then, we must consider what St. Paul delivered to the 1 Cor. xv. 3. Corinthians first of all, and what also he received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; that the Messias was the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world, Rev. xiii. 8. and that his death was severally represented and foretold. For though the sacrificing Isaac hath been acknowledged an express and lively type of the promised Messias; though, after he was bound and laid upon the wood, he was preserved from the fire, and rescued from the religious cruelty of his father's knife; though Abraham be said to have offered up his only-begotten son, when Heb. xi. 17. Isaac died not; though by all this it might seem foretold that the true and great promised seed, the Christ, should be made a sacrifice for sin, should be fastened to the cross, and offered up to the Father, but not suffer death: yet being without effusion Heb. ix. 22. of blood there is no remission, without death no sacrifice for sin; being the saving of Isaac alive doth not deny the death of the antitype, but rather suppose and assert it as presignifying his resurrection from the dead, from whence Abraham received him Heb. xi. 19. in a figure; we may safely affirm the ancient and legal types did represent a Christ which was to die. It was an essential part of the Paschal Law, that the lamb should be slain: and in the sacrifices for sin, which presignified a Saviour to sanctify the Heb. xiii. people with his own blood, the bodies of the beasts were burnt, 12. without the camp, and their blood brought into the sanctuary.

Nor did the types only require, but the prophecies also foretell,

his death. For he was brought, saith Isaiah, as a lamb to the Isaiah liii. slaughter: he was cut off out of the land of the living, saith the 7, 8, 10. same Prophet; and made his soul an offering for sin. Which are so plain and evident predictions, that the (e) Jews shew not the least appearance of probability in their evasions.

Being then the obstinate Jews themselves acknowledge one Messias was to die, and that a violent death; being we have already proved there is but one Messias foretold by the Prophets, and shewed by those places, which they will not acknow

ledge, that he was to be slain: it followeth by their unwilling confessions and our plain probations, that the promised Messias was ordained to die: which is our first assertion.

Secondly, we affirm, correspondently to these types and pro1 Cor. v. 7. phecies, that Christ our Passover is slain; that he whom we believe to be the true and only Messias did really and truly die. Which affirmation we may with confidence maintain, as being secure of any even the least denial. Jesus of Nazareth upon his crucifixion was so surely, so certainly dead, that they which wished, they which thirsted for his blood, they which obtained, which effected, which extorted his death, even they believed it, even they were satisfied with it: the chief priests, the scribes and the Pharisees, the publicans and sinners, all were satisfied; the Sadducees most of all, who hugged their old opinion, and loved their error the better, because they thought him sure for ever rising up. But if they had denied or doubted of it, the very stones would cry out and confirm it. Why did the sun put on mourning? why were the graves opened, but for a funeral? Why did the earth quake? why were the rocks rent? why did the frame of nature shake, but because the God of nature died? Why did all the people, who came to see him crucified, and love to feed their eyes with such tragic spectacles, why did they beat their breasts and return, but that they were John xix. assured it was finished, there was no more to be seen, all was done? It was not out of compassion that the merciless soldiers brake not his legs, but because they found him dead whom they came to dispatch; and being enraged that their cruelty should be thus prevented, with an impertinent villainy they pierce his side, and with a foolish revenge endeavour to kill a dead man; thereby becoming stronger witnesses than they would, by being less the authors than they desired, of his death. For out of his sacred but wounded side came blood and water, both as evident signs of his present death, as certain seals of our future and eternal life. These are the two blessed sacraments of the spouse of Christ, each assuring her of the death of her beloved. The sacrament of Baptism, the water through which we pass into the Church of Christ, teacheth us that he died Rom. vi. 3. to whom we come. For know you not, saith St. Paul, that so many of us as are baptized into Jesus Christ, are baptized into his death? The sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the bread broken, and the wine poured forth, signify that he died which instituted

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