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 acknowledge, that he was to be slain: it followeth by their unwilling confessions and our plain approbations, that the promised Messias was ordained to die; which is our first assertion. Secondly, We affirm, correspondently to these types and promises, that "Christ our passover is slain;" (1 Cor. v. 7.) 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 who wished, they who thirsted for his blood, they who obtained, who effected, who 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 from ever rising up. But if they had denied or doubted 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 upon their breasts and return, but that they were assured it was finished, (John xix. 30.) 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 villany 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 of the Lord in the land of the living;" then was not particularly the land of and Isa. xxxviii. 11. " I said, I shall Canaan: nor can they persuade us not see the Lord, even the Lord in that it could not refer to Christ, bethe land of the living;" which is suf- cause he was never removed out of ficiently interpreted by the words that land: but to be cut off out of which follow: "I shall behold man the land of the living is, certainly, to no more with the inhabitants of be taken away from them which live the world." The land of the living upon the earth, that is, to die. the Church of Christ, teacheth us that he died 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?" (Rom. vi. 3.) The sacrament of the Lord's supper, the bread broken, and the wine poured forth, signify that he died who instituted it; and “as often as we eat this bread, and drink this cup, we shew forth the Lord's death till he come.” (1 Cor. xi. 26.) Dead then our blessed Saviour was upon the cross; and that not by a feigned or metaphorical, but by a true and proper, death. As he was truly and properly man, in the same mortal nature which the sons of Adam have; so did he undergo a true and proper death, in the same manner as we die. Our life appeareth principally in two particulars, motion and sensation;* and while both or either of these are perceived in a body, we pronounce it lives. Not that the life itself consisteth in either or both of these, but in that which is the original principle of them both, which we call the soul; and the intimate presence or union of that soul unto the body is the life thereof. The real distinction of which soul from the body in man, our blessed Saviour taught most clearly in that admonition, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." (Matt. x. 28.) Now being death is nothing else but the privation or recession of life,† and we are then properly said to die when we cease to live; being life consisteth in the union of the soul unto the body, from whence, as from the fountain, flow motion, sensation, and whatsoever vital perfection: death can be nothing else but the solution of that vital union, or the actual separation of the soul, before united to the body. As therefore when the soul of man doth Τὸ ἔμψυχον τοῦ ἀψύχου δυοῖν μάλιστα διαφέρειν δοκεῖ, κινήσει τε καὶ τῷ αἰσθάνεσθαι παρειλήφαμεν δὲ καὶ παρὰ τῶν προγενεστέρων σχεδὸν δύο ταῦτα περὶ ψυχῆς. Αrist. de Anim. l. i. c. 2. Ο διαφέρει τὰ ἄψυχα (leg. ἔμψυχα) τῶν ἀψύχων, τοῦτο ἔστι ψυχή· διαφέρει δὲ κινήσει, αἰσθήσει, φαντασίᾳ, νοήσει. Sallust, de Diis et Mundo, c. 8. + As Secundus: φυγὴ καὶ ἀπόκτησις βίου. Sentent. τί ἐστι θάνατος; p. 639. ed. Gale. 1688. διάλυσις, τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τοῦ σώματος, ἀπ' ἀλλήλοιν. in Gorgia, vol. iv. p. 166. And more plainly and fully yet: Ηγούμεθά τι τὸν θάνατον εἶναι; Πάνυ γ ̓, ἔφη ὑπολαβὼν ὁ Σιμμίας, Αρα μὴ ἄλλο τι ἢ τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος ἀπαλλαγήν; καὶ εἶναι τοῦτο τεθνᾶναι, χωρὶς μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἀπαλλαγὲν αὐτὸ καθ' ἑαυτὸ τὸ σῶμα γεγονέναι, χωρὶς δὲ τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦ σώματος ἀπαλλαγεῖσαν αὐτὴν καθ ̓ αὑτὴν εἶναι; ἆρα μὴ ἀλλο τι ῇ ὁ θάνατος ἢ τοῦτο; Οὐκ, ἀλλὰ τοῦτο, + As the philosophers have ancient- on. in Phædone, vol. i. p. 145. Thus ly expressed it, especially Plato, who with four several words, λvoig, diáby the advantage of an error in the λυσις, χωρισμός, and ἀπαλλαγὴ, doth original of souls, best understood the Plato express the separation of the end of life: Toutó ye dávaros óvoμá- soul from the body, andmaketh death ζεται, λύσις καὶ χωρισμὸς ψυχῆς ἀπὸ formally to consist of that separation. owparos. in Phadone, vol. i. p. 153. This salutation is excellently exAgain: 0 0ávatos тvyxáve v, wc pressed by Phocylides, Carm. admon. · ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἤ δυοῖν πραγμάτων ν. 97. 100. Οὐ καλὸν ἁρμονίην ἀναλυέμεν ἀνθρώποιο, Ψυχαὶ γὰρ μίμνουσιν ἀκήριοι ἐν φθιμένοισι. leave the habitation of its body, and being the sole fountain of vitality bereaves it of all vital activity, we say that body or that man is dead: so when we read that Christ our Savi›our died, we must conceive that was a true and proper death, and consequently that his body was bereft of his soul, and of all vital influence from the same. Nor is this only our conception, or a doubtful truth; but we are as much assured of the propriety of his death, as of the death itself. For that the unspotted soul of our Jesus was really and actually separated from his body, that his flesh was bereft of natural life by the secession of that soul, appeareth by his own resignation, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit;" and by the evangelist's expression, “and having said thus, he gave up the ghost." (Luke xxiii. 46.)* When he was to die, he resigned his soul; when he gave it up, he died; when it was delivered out of the body, then was the body dead † and so the eternal Son of God upon the cross did properly and truly die. Πνεῦμα γάρ ἐστι Θεοῦ χρῆσις θνητοῖσι καὶ εἰκών. Which is a full expression of the secession of the soul from the body, and consequently of death, which is, in the language of Secundus: πvεúμatos áñóoraois. Sentent. rí kori Jávaros ; p. 639. So Tertullian: 'Opus autem mortis and St. John Tapidwкe Tò πveŭμa. in medio est, discretio corporis animæque.' De Anim. c. 51. 'Si mors non aliud determinatur quam disjunctio corporis animæque, contrarium morti vita non aliud definietur, quam conjunctio corporis animæque.' Ibid. c. 27. This description of death is far more philosophical than the notion of Aristotle, who makes it to consist in the corruption of natural heat: Ανάγκη τοίνυν ἅμα τῷ τε ζῆν ὑπάρχειν · καὶ τὴν τοῦ Θερμοῦ φυσικοῦ σωτηρίαν, καὶ τὸν καλούμενον θάνατον εἶναι τὴν TOÚTOV popáv. de Juventut. &c. c. 4. "Inasmuch as the soul is not that natuoral heat, and the corruption of that heat followeth upon the separation of the soul. + These three points or distinctions of time I have therefore noted, that I might recur to any objection which possibly might arise out of the ancient philosophical subtilty, which Aulus Gellius reports to be agitated at the table of Taurus. The question was propounded thus: Quæsitum est, quandomoriens moreretur, cum jam in morte esset, an tum etiam cum in vita foret?' I. vi. c. 13. Where Taurus admonisheth the rest, that this was no light question; for, says he: 'GravisThis is expressed three ways, all simi Philosophorum super hac re serio signifying the separation of his soul quæsiverunt; et alii moriendi verbum from his body. St. Mark and St. Luke atque momentum manente adhuc vita ›¿ÉTVEVOɛ, which is of the same force dici atque fieri putaverunt; alii nihil with ʊxe. But because xav in illo tempore vitæ reliquerunt, todoth not always signify an absolute tumque illud quod mori dicitur morti expiration, but sometimes a lipothy- vindicarunt.' Ibid. The aucienter my only; (as Hesychius, 'Ex↓úxova, philosophers were divided; some say· λειποθυμοῦσι. So Hippocrates useth ing a man died in the time of his sit: Eloi dè ¿žúratoi (xaipoi) öσois ǹik↓ú- - life, others in the time of his death: · Xovoi det̃ ti wpeλñoaɩ. 1. i. de Morbis, but Plato observed a contradiction in c. 3. and again: 'Expúxovoi dè dià roũ αἵματος τὴν μετάστασιν ἐξαπίνης γινομévnv.) lest therefore we should take ¿žéπvevσe in such an imperfect sense, St. Matthew hath it áøñke rò πveõua, both; for a man can neither be said to die while he is alive, nor when he is dead: ́et idcirco peperit ipse aliud quoddam novum in confinio tempus, quod verbis propriis atque integris This reality and propriety of the death of Christ is yet farther illustrated from the cause immediately producing it, which was an external violence and cruciation, sufficient to dissolve that natural disposition of the body which is absolutely necessary to continue the vital union of the soul: the torments which he endured on the cross did bring him to that state, in which life could not longer be naturally conserved, and death, without intervention of supernatural power, must necessarily follow. For Christ who took upon him all our infirmities, sin only excepted, had in his nature not only a possibility and aptitude, but also a necessity of dying; and as to any extrinsical violence, able, according to the common course of nature, to destroy and extinguish in the body such an aptitude as is indispensably required to continue a union with the soul, he had no natural preservative; nor was it in the power of his soul, to continue its vital conjunction unto his body bereft of a vital disposition. It is true that Christ did voluntarily die, as he said of himself, "No man taketh away my life 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. 18.) For it was in his power to suffer or not to suffer the sentence of Pilate, and the nailing to the cross; it was in his power to have come down from the cross, when he was nailed to it: but when by an act of his will he had submitted to that death, when he had accepted and embraced those torments to the last, it was not in the power of his soul to continue any longer vitality to the body, whose vigour was totally exhausted. So not by a necessary compulsion, but voluntary election, he took upon him a necessity of dying. It is true that "Pilate marvelled he was dead so soon,' (Mark xv. 44.) and the two thieves lived longer to have their legs broken, and to die by the accession of another pain: but we read not of such long furrows on their backs as were made on his, nor had they such kind of agony as he was in the night before. What though he cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost?" What though "the centurion, when he saw it, said, Truly this man, was the Son of God?" (Mark xv. 37. 39.) The miracle was not in the death, but in the voice: the strangeness was not that he should die, but that at the point of death he should cry out so loud: he died not by, but with, a miracle. Should we imagine Christ to anticipate the time of death, and to subtract his soul from future torments necessary to cause an expiration; we might rationally say the Jews and Gentiles were guilty of his death, but we could not properly say they slew him guilty they must be, because they inflicted those torments on which in time death must necessarily follow; but slay him actually they did not, if his death proceeded from any other cause, and not from the wounds which they inflicted: whereas St. Peter expressly chargeth his enemies, "Him ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain;" (Acts ii. 23.) and again, "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, and hanged on a tree." (Acts v. 30.)* Thus was the Lamb properly slain, and the Jews authors of his death, as well as of his crucifixion. Wherefore being Christ took upon himself our mortality in the highest sense, as it includeth a necessity of dying; being he voluntarily submitted himself to that bloody agony in the garden, to the hands of the ploughers, who made long their furrows, and to the nails which fastened him to the cross; being these torments thus inflicted and continued did cause his death, and in this condition he gave up the ghost: it followeth that the only-begotten Son of God, the true Messias promised of old, did die a true and proper death. Which is the second conclusion in this explication. But, thirdly, Because Christ was not only man, but also God, and there was not only a union between his soul and body while he lived, but also a conjunction of both natures, and union in his person: it will be farther necessary, for the understanding of his death, to shew what union was dissolved, what continued; that we may not make that separation either less or greater than it was. Whereas then there were two different substantial unions in Christ, one of the parts of his human nature each to other, in which his humanity did consist, and by which he was truly man; the other of his natures, human and divine, by which it came to pass that God was man, and that man God: first, it is certain, as we have already shewn, that the union of the parts of his human nature was dissolved on the cross, and a real separation made between his soul and body. As far then as humanity consists in the essential union of the parts of human nature, so far the humanity of Christ upon his death did cease to be, and consequently he ceased to be man. But, secondly, the union of the natures remained still as to the parts, nor was the soul or body separated from the Divinity, but still subsisted as they did before, by the subsistence of the second person of the Trinity. The truth of this assertion appeareth, first, from the lan guage of this very CREED. For as we proved before, that * In both which places the original + Credimus certe non in solum sheweth more expressly, that by their Deum Patrem; sed et in Jesum crucifixion they slew him: in the Christum Filium ejus unicum, Doformer thus, dia xɛipŵv ávóμwv πроσ- minum nostrum. Modo totum dixi, THEαVTES, ȧveiλETE. In the latter thus, in Jesum Christum Filium ejus uniὃν ὑμεῖς διεχειρίσασθε κρεμάσαντες ἐπὶ cum, Dominum nostrum: totum ibi ξύλου. intellige, et Verbum, et animam, et |