Discourses, or, Sermons on several Scriptures

II. Because of the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in the Person of Christ, it was impossible that his Flesh should see Corruption; which yet it must certainly have done, had he not been raised in a short space after his Death. For since Christ's Body was not a fantastical Body, as some of old held, but made of true Flesh, and of the same Temper and Constitution with ours, it must, without a Miracle, have undergone such Changes after Death as ours shall do; and to imagine the contrary, is but to feign one Miracle, to avoid the necessity of another, even of the Resurrection. But now, it was utterly ⟨p. 105⟩impossible that that Body that was united to both Natures, by so close and unconceivable a Bond, should ever see Corruption; that is, a Putrefaction in the Grave: This the Scripture clearly asserts to us; ¹Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see Corruption. And also, because all Bodies that are corrupted turn into some other Thing, and some other Nature, according to that undoubted Maxim of the Philosophers, Corruptio unius est Generatio alterius: And so this horrid and blasphemous Consequence would follow, that the Divine Nature of the Son of God might have been joined to some other. So that it was necessary that Christ should be raised again, before any Corruption or Putrefaction, by ordinary Course of Nature, seized upon him.

II. Because of the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in the Person of Christ, it was impossible that his Flesh should see Corruption; which yet it must certainly have done, had he not been raised in a short space after his Death. For since Christ's Body was not a phantastical Body, as some of old held, but made of true Flesh, and of the same Temper and Constitution with ours, it must, without a Miracle, have undergone such Changes after Death as ours shall do; and to imagine the contrary, is but to feign one Miracle, to avoid the necessity of another, even of the Resurrection. But now, it was utterly ⟨p. 105⟩impossible that that Body that was united to both Natures, by so close and unconceivable a Bond, should ever see Corruption; that is, a Putrefaction in the Grave: This the Scripture clearly asserts to us;