earth, we must not look upon those nights as distinct from the days, but as Moses spake, "the evening and the morning," that is, the night and the day, "were the first day;" and as the saint spake unto Daniel," Unto two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings," intending thereby so many days. Nor must we imagine that those three days were completed after our Saviour's death, and before he rose; but that upon the first of those three days he died, and upon the last of those three days he rose ;-as we find that "eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child;" and yet Christ was born upon the first, and circumcised upon the last of those eight days: nor were there any more than six whole days between the day of his birth and the day of his circumcision; the one upon the five and twentieth of December, the other upon the first of January. And as the Jews were wont to speak, the priests in their courses by the appointment of David were to minister before the Lord eight days, whereas every week a new course succeeded, and there were but seven days service for each course, the sabbath on which they began, and the sabbath on which they went off, being both reckoned in the eight days; so the day on which the Son of God was crucified, dead, and buried, and the day on which he revived and rose again, were included in the number of three days. And thus did our Saviour rise from the dead upon the third day properly, and was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth synecdochically.⠀

This is sufficient for clearing the precise distance of Christ's resurrection from his crucifixion, expressed in the determinate number of three days: the next consideration is, what day of the week that third day was, on which Christ did actually rise, and what belongeth to that day in relation to his resurrection. Two characters there are which will evidently prove the particularity of this third day; the first is the description of that day in respect of which this is called the third, after the manner already delivered and confirmed; the second is the evangelists' expression of the time on which Christ rose.

t

The character of the day in which our Saviour died is undeniable, for it is often expressly called the preparation; as we read, they therefore laid Jesus in the garden,

"because of the Jews' preparation day, for the sepulchre was nigh at hand;" and "the next day that followed the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees" asked a guard, John xix. 42; Matt. xxvii. 62. Now this day of preparation was the day immediately before the sabbath or some other great feast of the Jews, called by them the eve of the sabbath or the feast; and therefore called the preparation, because on that day they did prepare whatsoever was necessary for the celebration of the following festival, according to that command in the case of manna, "It shall come to pass that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily," Exod. xvi. 5. This preparation being used both before the sabbath and other festivals, at this time it had both relations; for first, it was the preparation to a sabbath, as appeareth by those words of St. Mark, "Now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath;" and those of St. Luke, "That day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on." Secondly; it was also the eve of a festival, even of the great day of the paschal solemnity, as appeareth by St. John, who saith, when Pilate sat down in the judgment-seat, "it was the preparation of the passover." And that the great paschal festivity did then fall upon the sabbath, so that the same day was then the preparation or eve of both, appeareth yet farther by the same evangelist, saying, "The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath-day, for that sabbath day was an high day;" that is, not only an ordinary or weekly sabbath, but also a great festival, even a paschal sabbath. Now seeing the sabbath of the Jews was constant and fixed to the seventh day of the week, it followeth that the preparation or eve thereo. must necessarily be the sixth day of the week; which from the day, and the infinite benefit accruing to us by the passion upon that day, we call Good Friday. And from that day being the sixth of one week, the third must consequently be the eighth, or the first of the next week.

The next character of this third day is the expression
Div.
No. XV.

2 H

this temple, and in three days any one of you may raise it up;" for when life was restored unto it by God, any one of them might have lifted it up, and raised it out of the grave, and have shown it alive.

This answer therefore is a mere shift; for to raise a body which is dead, is, in the language of the scriptures, to give life unto it, or to quicken a mortal body; "for as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will," John v. 21. He then who quickeneth the dead bodies of others when he raiseth them, he also quickened his own body when he raised that. The temple is supposed here to be dissolved, and being so to be raised again; therefore the suscitation must answer to the dissolution. But the temple of Christ's body was dissolved when his soul was separated, nor was it any other way dissolved than by that separation. God suffered not his Holy One to see corruption, and therefore the parts of his body, in respect of each to other, suffered no dissolution. Thus as the apostle desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ, so the temple of Christ's body was dissolved here, by the separation of his soul; for the temple standing was the body living, and therefore the raising of the dissolved temple was the quickening of the body. If the body of Christ had been laid down in the sepulchre alive, the temple had not been dissolved; therefore to lift it up out of the sepulchre when it was before quickened, was not to raise a dissolved temple, which our Saviour promised he would do, and the apostles believed he did.

Again; it is most certainly false that our Saviour had power only to lift up his body when it was revived, but had no power of himself to re-unite his soul unto his body, and thereby to revive it. For Christ speaketh expressly of himself, "I lay down my life (or soul) that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again," John x. 17. The laying down of Christ's life was to die, and the taking of it again was to revive; and by his taking of his life again he shewed himself to be "the resurrection and the life;" for he which was "made of the seed of David according to

the flesh, was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead," Rom. i. 3. But if Christ had done no more in the resurrection, than lifted up his body when it was revived, he had done that which any other person might have done, and so had not declared himself to be the Son of God with power. It remaineth therefore that Christ, by that power which he had within himself, did take his life again which he had laid down, did re-unite his soul unto his body, from which he separated it when he gave up the ghost, and so did quicken and revive himself; and so it is a certain truth, not only that God the Father raised the Son, but also that God the Son raised himself.

From this consideration of the efficient cause of Christ's resurrection, we are yet farther assured, that Christ did truly and properly rise from the dead in the same soul, and in the same body. For if we look upon the Father, it is bebeyond all controversy that he raised his own Son: and as while he was here alive, God spake from heaven, saying, "This is my well-beloved Son;" so after his death it was the same person, of whom he spake by the prophet, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." If we look upon Christ himself, and consider him with power to raise himself, there can be no greater assurance that he did totally and truly rise in soul and body, by that divinity which was never separated either from the body or from the soul. And thus we have sufficiently proved our second particular, the verity, reality, and propriety of Christ's resurrection, contained in those words, he rose from the dead.

The third particular concerns the time of Christ's resurrection, which is expressed by the third day: and those words afford a double consideration; one in respect of the distance of time, as it was after three days; the other in respect of the day, which was the third day from his passion, and the precise day upon which he rose. For the first of these, we shall show that the Messias, who was foretold both to die and to rise again, was not to rise before, and was to rise upon, the third day after his death; and that in correspondence to these predictions, our Jesus, whom we believe

to be the true Messias, did not rise from the dead until, and did rise from the dead upon, the third day.

The typical predictions of this truth were two, answering to our two considerations; one in reference to the distance, the other in respect of the day itself. The first is that of the prophet Jonas, who "was in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights," and then by the special command of God he was rendered safe upon the dry land, and sent a preacher of repentance to the great city of Nineveh. This was an express type of the Messias then to come, who was to preach repentance and remission of sins to all nations; that " as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so should the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth;" and as he was restored alive unto the dry land again, so should the Messias, after three days, be taken out of the jaws of death, and restored unto the land of the living.

The type in respect of the day was the waved sheaf in the feast of the first-fruits, concerning which this was the law of God by Moses: "When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then shall ye bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest: and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted for you; on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf, an he-lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt-offering unto the Lord," Lev. xxiii. 10. Under the Levitical law all the fruits of the earth in the Land of Canaan were profane; none might eat of them till they were consecrated; and that they were in the feast of the first-fruits. One sheaf was taken out of the field and brought to the priest, who lifted it up as it were in the name of all the rest, waving it before the Lord, and it was accepted for them; so that all the sheaves in the field were holy by the acceptation of that; "for if the first-fruits be holy, the lump also is holy," Rom. xi. 16. And this was always done the day after the sabbath, that is, the paschal solemnity, after which the fulness of the harvest followed: by which thus much was foretold and represented, that as the sheaf was