finished, recommends his Spirit into the Hands of his Father, Cried with a loud Voice, bowed his Head, and gave up the Ghoft; which was an evident Proof, that he did not die, as other Men, by the mere finking of Nature, which was ftrong and vigorous in him; but when his Hour of dying was come, which is exprefly obferved to be the Ninth Hour, the Time of killing the Paffover, then he offered up his Soul to God: Which was fo extraordinary a manner of dying, that, as St. Mark exprefly obferves, it convinced the Centurion, that he was the Son of God, Mark xv. 39. And when the Centurion, which stood over against him, Jaw that he cried out and gave up the Ghost, he faid, truly this Man was the Son of God. I do not fuppofe, that this Roman Centurion understood the true Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity; but he had heard, that he had profeft himself to be the Son of God; anđ that even in the Pagan Theology, fignified fome-. thing more divine than a mere Man; and this he concluded was really fo from his manner of dying; for to give up our Souls when we pleafe, is as much above the Power of Nature, as to raise our dead Bodies to Life again. St. Luke indeed only obferves that the Centurion confeft, that he was a righteous" Man; and from hence fome conclude, that to be the Son of God, as St. Matthew and St. Mark exprefs it, fignifies nothing more, than what St. Luke calls a righteous Man. But it is more reasonable to think, that the Centurion owned both, that he was the Son of God, and a righteous Man, who died innocently, and that for different Reafons: God gave Teftimony to his Innocency, by the miraculous Darkness, Earthquakes, and other Prodigies, which attended his Death; which made the Centurion confefs, that he was a righteous and innnocent Man: But when he faw, how he died, that he cried with a loud Voice, and gave up the Ghost,

this had fomething fo divine in it, and above the Power of Nature, that he owned him to be the Son of God. To be the Son of God, and a righteous Man are very different Characters; though for different Reafons they may belong to the fame Perfon, they never fignify the fame thing in Scripture, much lefs did they fo in the Pagan Theology, and therefore this Roman Centurion could not underftand the fame thing by them. But this by the way. It is evident, that no forfeited Life can be a true and proper Sacrifice for Sin, and therefore the Saviour of Mankind must be under no other neceffity of dying himself, but his own Will and Choice, as he makes himfelf a willing Offering and Sacrifice for Sin. And thus our Saviour affures it was with him. No Man could take away his Life, but he laid it down of himfelf. He was condemned to death by Jews and Romans, and nailed in an infamous manner to the Crofs, as Sinners brought their Sacrifice to the Prieft, and offered it to Death; but after having endured all the killing Pains and Agonies of the Crofs, which was all that Men could do to kill him, he was a Prieft as well as Sacrifice himfelf, and offered up himfelf to God, commended his Spirit into his Hands, cried with a loud Voice, and gave up the Ghost.

But this feems to ftart a new Difficulty, how the human Nature of Chrift could be exempted from the Law of dying, from that Curfe of the Law, Duft thou art and to Duft thou shalt return, when all human Nature died in Adam, which brought Death upon all Mankind? Now it is commonly anfwered, and very truly, that this Sentence of Death affects only those who defcend from Adam by carnal Generation, for they and only they derive a corrupt and mortal Nature from him; but thus Chrift did not defcend from Adam, but had

his Body formed of the Subftance of the Virgin, by as immediate a divine Power, as Adam was at firft form'd by God of the Duft of the Earth; and therefore though he took the fame Flefh and Blood, which Adam and all his Pofterity have, he does not derive a corrupt Nature which is under the Sentence of Death, from him. And it being only a corrupt Nature derived from Adam, which fubjects all Mankind to Death, the human Nature of Chrift, which was immediately formed by a divine Power, and fanctified by the Holy Ghoft in the Womb of the Virgin, must be exempted from this Curfe.

Now this is true, and abfolutely neceffary to exempt the human Nature of Chrift from Mortality and Corruption; but this alone could not make him immortal; for Adam himself, tho' immediately formed by God in a State of perfect Purity and Innocence, was not by Nature immortal, but fhould have been fo, had he not finned, by virtue of the Tree of Life: And had Chrift been a mere Man, he could have been no more immortal than Adam was before the Fall; and therefore though he had been exempted from Adam's Curfe, yet without the Tree of Life he had been mortal ftill; but Chrift was not a imere Man, a fingle human Perfon, but the Divine Word, the Eternal Son of God perfonally united to Human Nature: and this makes Human Nature immortal, that it is united to an immortal Perfon, who is Eternal Life, the Refurrection and the Life, the true Tree of Life in the midft of the Paradife of God: And human Nature, though in its own Conftitution mortal, when perfonally united to Eternal Life can never die, but by the Will and Choice of that Perfon whofe Nature it is; and thus Chrift might, and actually did, lay down his Life, and was in the moft proper Notion both Prieft and Sacrifice, who willingly

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willingly offered himself to God for the Redemption of Mankind.

This is fufficient to fatisfy us, that human Nature, the very fame human Nature that Adam had, but perfect and innocent, and exempted from the Law of dying it felf, is the only proper Sacrifice to be offered to God for the Redemption of Mankind; because that alone can fatisfy the Juftice of that Law, which threatned Death against human Nature in the Perfon of Adam.

So that here we have found a Sacrifice; but where is the Prieft, who by Death can abolish Death, and redeem human Nature and all Mankind from the Dominion of it? This was the principal Part of the Prieftly Office by the Death of the Sacrifice, and fprinkling the Blood upon the Altar in Testimony of it, as an Oblation to God, to make Atonement for the Sinner, and to redeem him from the Sentence of Death, which was, in a Figure, to give a new Life to him: For all expiatory Sacrifices were for the Redemption of a Life, which without fuch Sacrifices was by the Law forfeited to God; and there is no Notion of a Sacrifice, nor of the Expiation of a Sacrifice, without the Redemption of Life: So that the Expiation of a Sacrifice was a Figure of the Refurretion, was giving a new Life to the Sinner; and therefore our true High Prieft, and true Sacrifice, muft do that in Truth and Reality, which the typical Priefts and Sacrifices of the Law could do only in a Figure. Under the Law a Beaft was a Sacrifice for Man, and in that cafe the Sacrifice was not raised again from the Dead to make the Atonement, but the Beaft died and the Life of the Man was faved; but a Beaft is not a true and proper Sacrifice for a Man: No Sacrifice, as I have already fhewn you, can fatisfy the Law, but the Death of that fame Nature which finned; fo

that human Nature, which finned in the Perfon of Adam, muft it felf die a Sacrifice for Sin; the Nature which is to be redeemed from Death, must it felf die. Now if there be no Atonement and Propitiation made by Sacrifice without restoring a new Life to the Sinner, the Prieft, who is to make this Atonement by the Death and Sacrifice of human Nature, muft raise it again from the Dead, and present it alive to God: This is the Propitiation of a Sacrifice, to give a new Life, to redeem from Death; and when the Sacrifice that dies is the very fame Nature which must be redeemed by the Sacrifice, the Sacrifice it felf must be redeemed from Death or no Atonement is made.

This I take to be the true Notion of the Refurrection of Chrift, that it is a Sacerdotal Act, the Act of a Prieft in reftoring a loft or forfeited. Life, which is the true Atonement and Propitiation made by Sacrifice, the Redemption of human Nature from Death. All Chriftians own that the Refurrection of Chrift is the laft and great Proof of the Truth of Chriftianity, a vifible Evidence of God's Acceptance of his Perfon and Sacrifice, and an ocular Demonftration of another Life; but it is all this, as it is the Completion and Perfection of his Sacrifice, the vifible Atonement and Propitiation of his Sacrifice in abolishing Death, and redeeming human Nature from the Dominion of it; for this is the true Virtue and Efficacy of an expiatory Sacrifice, to restore Life; and if Chrift, who died a Sacrifice for Sin, had not rifen again from the Dead, his Death had made no Expiation, had not redeemed human Nature from Death. Thus St. Paul reafons, 1 Cor. xv. 14, 17. And if Chrift be not rifen, then is our preaching vain, and your Faith is alfo vain; and if Chrift be not raised, your Faith is vain, ye are yet in your Sins; there can be no Expiation made for Sin by the Death of Christ,

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