Discourses, or, Sermons on several Scriptures

I. If Christ could not have raised himself, it must have been either from a Want of Power, or from a Want of Will to do it. He could not want Power to raise himself, because he was God, equal in Power, and in all other Divine Attributes, with the Father. As the Resurrection of the Dead is not impossible to the infinite Power of God, so neither can it be that that God who had a Will to assume our Flesh, should want a Will to raise it up: That that God who so loved the Humane Nature, as to associate it into Oneness of Person with himself, should yet suffer it to continue under the power of Death, which is, of all things, most contrary to his natural Inclinations. We see Christ, in his Agony, prayed most fervently that the bitter Cup might pass from him, insomuch that he strained clotted Blood through ⟨p. 103⟩him; and certainly, one Ingredient into that Cup was the Separation of Soul and Body by Death; which is that which even innocent Nature it self abhorred, as destructive to him; yet having taken our Nature upon him for this very End, that by Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death, that is, ¹the Devil, he voluntarily submitted himself to undergo it; and this End being fully accomplished by his Death, and the Truth of his Death likewise attested by his lying three Days in the Earth, it was altogether impossible that that Person who had an Abhorrence of Death, and a Power to raise himself, should continue longer under the Arrest and Dominion of it. And this is the first Demonstration of the Necessity of the Resurrection of Christ, upon the Account of both Natures in one Person: As Man, so he abhorred ⟨p. 104⟩the Separation of Soul and Body; as God, so he was able to re-unite them: So that having, as Man, a Desire to live, and as God, a Power to live, it was impossible for him to be holden of Death.

I. If Christ could not have raised himself, it must have been either from a Want of Power, or from a Want of Will to do it. He could not want Power to raise himself, because he was God, equal in Power, and in all other Divine Attributes, with the Father. As the Resurrection of the Dead is not impossible to the infinite Power of God, so neither can it be that that God who had a Will to assume our Flesh, should want a Will to raise it up: That that God who so lov'd the Humane Nature, as to associate it into Oneness of Person with himself, should yet suffer it to continue under the power of Death, which is, of all things, most contrary to his natural Inclinations. We see Christ, in his Agony, prayed most fervently that the bitter Cup might pass from him, insomuch that he strained clotted Blood through