Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

1. For the Position; the Scripture tells us that he rose again the third day. In this point I shall observe these particulars. 1. When he arose. 2. Why he arose. 3. How he arose.

1. When he arose; it was the third day after his crucifying.¹ As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whales belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. This was the time he had appointed: and this was the time appropriated to Christ, and marked out for him in the Calendar of the Prophets; of all those whom God raised from death to life; there is not one that was raised on the third day, but Jesus Christ; some rose afore, and some rose after; the Son of the Shunamite, ⟨p. 412⟩the son of the widow of Sarephtah, the daughter of Jairus, he of Nain, and some others rose afore; Lazarus, and the Saints that rose again from the dust when Christ rose, staid longer in the grave, but Christ takes the day, which discovers him to be the Messiah: ²Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day. Had he rose sooner a doubt might have been of his dying; and had he lain longer, a doubt might have been of his rising; he would rise no sooner, because in some diseases, as in the Apoplexy, or such like examples are given of such, as seeming to be dead, have indeed revived; and he would lie no longer in his grave, because in all dead carcasses (and especially in a wounded body) putrefaction and corruption begins the third day: this may be gathered by the Story of Lazarus in the Gospel, where Jesus commanding the stone to be rolled from his grave,³ Martha his Sister answered, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days. Now the body of Christ (as it was prophesied) must not corrupt; for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. Mark this Text: All men shall rise again, but their bodies must first see corruption; only the Messiah was to rise again before he saw corruption; and therefore he would not delay his resurrection after the third day.