The Fountain of Life Opened

This Observation containing matter of fact, and that so plainly and faithfully delivered to us by the Pens of the several Evangelists; we need do no more to prepare it for our use, than to satisfy these two inquiries, why had Christ any funeral at all, since his Resurrection was so soon to follow his Death? And what manner of funeral Christ had?

This Observation containing matter of fact, and that so plainly and faithfully delivered to us by the Pens of the several Evangelists; we need do no more to prepare it for our use, than to satisfie these two inquiries, why had Christ any funeral at all, since his Resurrection was so soon to follow his Death? And what manner of funeral Christ had?

First, Why had Christ any funeral at all, since he was to rise again from the dead within that space of time that other men commonly have to lie by the wall, before their interment; and had it continued longer unburied, it could see no corruption, having never been tainted by sin. Why, though there was no need of it at all upon that account that a funeral is needful for other bodies; yet there were these four weighty ends and Reasons of it.

Reason 1. First, It was necessary Christ should be buried, to ascertain his death, else it might have been looked upon as a Cheat. For as they w•re ready enough to impose so gross a Cheat upon the world at his Resurrection, That the Disciples came by night and stole him away: much more would they have denied at once the reality both of his death and Resurrection, had he not been so perfumed and interred: but this cut off all pretensions. For in this kind of embalming his mouth, ears, nostrils were all filled with their Spices and odours. Bound up in Linen, and laid long enough in the Tomb to give full assurance to the world of the certainty of of his death. So that there could be no latent principle of life in him. Now since our eternal life is wrapped up in Christs death, it can never be too firmly established. To this therefore we may well suppose providence had special respect in his burial, and the manner of it.