law: that law did but make punishment our due, and not Christ's, but not bind God to inflict it on us, when his wisdom knew a better way. It is not that law as fulfilled that justifieth us, but another, even the law of grace. Satisfaction is not the fulfilling of the penal law."

Q. 16. Did not Christ fulfil the commands of the law for us by his holiness and perfect righteousness? What need was there that he suffer for us?

A. The law, or covenant, laid on him by his Father was, that he should do both; and therefore both is the performance of that condition on which God gave us to him to be pardoned and saved by him. If he had fulfilled the commands of the law by perfect holiness and righteousness, in our legal persons, so as that God and his law would have reputed us to have done it by him, then, indeed, being reputed perfect obeyers, we could not have been reputed sinners, that needed suffering or pardon. But Christ's habitual, active, and passive righteousness, were (all the parts of his one condition) performed by him, to be the meritorious cause of our justification."

Q. 17. Why is Christ's death and burial named besides his crucifixion?

A. Those words have been since added, to obviate their error who thought Christ died not on the cross.

Q. 18. What is meant by his descending into hell?

A. Those words were not of some hundred years in the Creed, and since they were put in, have been diversely understood. There is no more certain nor necessary to be believed, but that 1. Christ's soul was, and so ours are, immortal, and remained when separated from the body. 2. And that as death (being the separation of soul and body) was threatened by God, as a punishment to both, so the soul of Christ submitted to this penali separation, and went to the place of separated souls, as his body did to the grave.t

Q. 19. Of what use is this article to us?

A. Of great and unspeakable use. 1. We learn hence what sin deserveth. Shall we play with that which must have such a sacrifice ?u

Rom. iii. 19, 20, 21, 28; iv. 13, 15, and x. 4; Gal. ii. 16, 21, and iii. 11, 13, 18, 19, 24.

Matt. iii. 15, and v. 17; Isa. liii. 11; 1 Cor. i. 30; 2 Cor. v. 21.

* 1 Cor. xv. 4, 5; Psalm xvi. 9, 10; 1 Pet. iii. 18-21.

Heb. ix. 21; 1 Col. i. 20; Eph. i. 7; 1 Pet. i. 2, 19; Rom. iii. 25; Heb. ii. 14; 1 John ii. 1-3, and iv. 10; Heb. ix. 14; Eph. ii. 13; Rev. i, 5; v, 9; vii. 14, and xiv. 20.

2. We learn hence that a sufficient expiatory sacrifice is made for sin, and therefore that God is reconciled, and we need not despair, nor are put to make expiation ourselves, or by any other.

3. We learn that death and the grave, and the state of separate souls, are sanctified, and Satan conquered, as he had the power of death, as God's executioner; and therefore that we may boldly die in faith, and commit soul and body into the hand of him that died for them.

Q. 20. But did not Christ go to Paradise, and can that be penal?

A. Yes, and so do faithful souls. But the soul and body are a perfect man, and nature is against a separation and as the union of Christ's soul and glorified body now in heaven is a more perfect state than that was of his separated soul, so the deprivation of that union and perfection was a degree of penalty, and therefore it was the extraordinary privilege of Enoch and Elias not to die.

CHAP, XIV.

"The third Day he rose again from the Dead."

Q. 1. How was Christ said to be three days in the grave? A. He was there part of the sixth day, all the seventh, and part of the first.x

Q. 2. Is it certain that Christ rose from the dead the third day?

A. As certain as any article of our faith: angels witnessed it. Mary first saw him, and spake with him. Two disciples, going to Emmaus, saw him, to whom he opened the Scriptures concerning him. Peter, and others fishing, saw him, and spake, and eat with him. The eleven assembled saw him. Thomas, that would not else believe, was called to see the print of the nails, and put his finger into his pierced side. He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once. He gave the apostles their commission, and instructions, and his blessing, and ascended bodily to heaven in their sight; and afterwards appeared in glory to Stephen and Paul. But I have before given you the proof of the gospel, and must not repeat it."

* Matt. xii. 39, 40; xvi. 4; John xx.; Matt. xxviii. y 1 Cor. xv. 5, 6.

Q. 3. Was it foreknown that Christ would rise?

A. Yes; it was foretold by the prophets, and expressly and often by himself, to his apostles and the Jews, and therefore they set a sealed stone, with a guard of soldiers, on the sepulchre, to watch it."

Q. 4. It is a wonder that the Jews then believed not in him, A. The rulers were now more afraid than before that Christ would by the people be proclaimed their King, and then the Romans destroy their city and nation, for they feared men more than God: and withal they had put him to death on that account, as if his making himself a King had been rebellion against Cæsar, and King of the Jews was written, as his crime, by Pilate on his cross, and so they were engaged against him as a rebel, though he told them his kingdom was not a worldly one: and they seemed to believe that he did all his miracles by the devil, as a conjurer, and therefore that he was raised by that devil:a which was the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. And as for the common people, they deceived them by hiring the soldiers to say, that his disciples stole his body while they slept." Q. 5. But why would Christ appear to none but his disciples? A. We are not fit to give God a law: his works are done in infinite wisdom. But we may see, 1. That they who had hardened their hearts against all his doctrine, and the miracles of his life, and maliciously put him to death as a blasphemer, a conjurer, and a traitor to Cæsar, were unworthy and unmeet to be the witnesses of his resurrection: and it is like it would but have excited their rage to have tried a new persecution. His resurrection being the first act of his triumphant exaltation, none were so fit to see him as those that had followed him to his sufferings: even as wicked men are not meet (as Paul was) to be rapt up into Paradise and the third heavens, and hear the unutterable things.c

2. The witnesses whom he chose were enow, and fit persons for that office, being to be sent abroad to proclaim it to the world.

And God confirmed their testimony by such abundant miracles, of which you heard before.d

z Acts xxvi. 23; Matt. xx. 19; Mark viii. 31; ix. 31, and x. 34; Luke xxiv. 7, 46; John xx. 9; Rom. xiv. 9; 1 Thess. iv. 14.

a Matt. xii.

b Matt. xxviii. 3.

e Acts x. 41; i. 2-5, 22; iv. 2, 33, and xvii. 18; Heb. vi. 2. d 1 Cor. xv. 4,6; Heb. ii. 3-5.

3. And yet he left not the infidels without convincing means: as he before told them that he would raise in three days the temple of his body, when they destroyed it, so they saw the earth quake, the sun darkened, the veil of the temple rent at his death, and their soldiers saw the angels that terrified them, and told the rulers what they saw: and, after all, it was to Paul, a persecutor, (and partly to his company,) that Christ appeared.

Q. 6. Why must Christ rise from the dead?

A. You may as well ask why he must be our Saviour?

1. If he had not risen, death had conquered him, and how could he have saved us that was overcome and lost himself?

2. He could not have received his own promised reward, even his kingdom and glory: it was for the joy that was set before him, that he endured the cross and despised the shame; therefore God gave him a name above every name, to which every created knee must bow.g

3. His resurrection was to be the chief of all those miracles by which God witnessed that he was his Son, and the chief evidence by which the world was to be convinced of his truth,h and so was used in their preaching by the apostles. That Christ rose from the dead, is the chief argument that makes us Christians.

4. The great executive parts of Christ's saving office were to be performed in heaven, which a dead man could not do. How else should he have interceded for us, as our heavenly High Priest? How should he have sent down the Holy Ghost to renew us? How should he, as King, have governed and protected his church on earth unto the end? How should he have come again in glory to judge the world? And how should we have seen his glory (as the Mediator of fruition) in the heavenly kingdom?!

Q. 7. I perceive, then, that Christ's resurrection is to us an article of the greatest use. What use must we make of it?

A. You may gather it by what is said. 1. By this you may be sure that he is the Son of God, and his gospel true. 2. By this you may be sure that his sacrifice on the cross was accepted as sufficient. 3. By this you may be sure that death is cone Matt. xxvi., and xxvii; Luke xxiii.; Acts ix. f 1 Cor. xv. 13, 14, 20.

Heb. xii. 3, 4; Phil. ii. 7, 8.

h Rom. i. 4; 1 Pet. i. 3, 4, and iii. 21; John xi. 24, 25.

1 Pet. i. 3, 4, and iii. 21; Phil. iii. 10, 11, 19, 20, 21; Rom. vi. 5; Heb.

iv. 14, 15 ; vi. 20; vii.16–18; viii. 1—3, and x. 21, 22.

quered, and we may boldly trust our Saviour, who tasted and overcame death, with our departing souls. 4. By this we may be sure that we have a powerful High Priest and Intercessor in heaven, by whom we may come with reverend boldness unto God. 5. By this we may know that we have a powerful King, both to obey and to trust with the church's interest and our own. 6. By this we may know that we have a Head still living, who will send down his Spirit to gather his chosen, to help his ministers, to sanctify and comfort his people, and prepare them for glory. 7. By this we are assured of our own resurrection, and taught to hope for our final justification and glory. 8. And by this we are taught that we must rise to holiness of life.k

CHAP. XV.

"He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty."

Q. 1. How long was it between Christ's resurrection and his ascension?

A. Forty days: he rose on the day which we call Easter day, and he ascended on that which we call Ascension day, or Holy Thursday."

Q. 2. Did Christ stay all this while among his disciples visibly?

A. No; but appeared to them at such seasons as he saw meet.b

Q. 3. Where was he all the rest of the forty days?

A. God hath not told us, and therefore it concerneth us not to know.

Q. 4. He showed them that he had flesh and blood, how then was he to them invisible the most part of the forty days?

A. The divine power that raised Christ, could make those alterations on his body which we are unacquainted with. Q. 5. How was Christ taken up to heaven?

A. While he was speaking to his apostles of the things concerning the kingdom of God, and answering them that hoped it

Rom. viii. 34; Col. ii. 12, 15; Col. iii. 1-5.

Acts i. 3, 4; Matt. xxviii.

VOL. XIX.

John xx., and xxi.

G