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linen clothes. When "there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious, and she brake the box and poured it on his head;" Christ made this interpretation of that action, "she is come beforehand to anoint my body to the burying," Mark xiv. 3. When Christ was risen, "Mary Magdalen and the other Mary brought the spices which they had prepared, that they might come and anoint him," Luke xxiv. 1. Thus was there an interpreted and an intended unction of our Saviour, but really and actually he was interred with the spices which Nicodemus brought. The custom of wrapping in the linen clothes we see in Lazarus rising from the grave; for "he came forth bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin." In the same manner when our Saviour was risen, "Simon Peter went into the sepulchre, and saw the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself," John xx. 6. Thus, according to the custom of the Jews, was the body of Christ bound in several linen clothes with an aromatical composition, and so prepared for the sepulchre.

As for the preparation of the sepulchre to receive the body of our Saviour, the custom of the Jews was also punctually observed in that. Joseph of Arimathea had prepared a place of burial for himself, and the manner of it is expressed: for "in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein never man was laid, which Joseph had hewn out of a rock for his own tomb: there laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre." And so Christ was buried after the manner of the Jews, in a vault made by the excavation of the rocky firm part of the earth, and that vault secured from external injury by a great massy stone rolled to the mouth or door thereof. After which stone was once rolled thither, the whole funeral action was performed, and the sepulture completed; so that it was not lawful by the custom of the Jews any more to open the sepulchre, or disturb the interred body.

Thirdly; two eminent persons did concur unto the burial of our Saviour, a ruler and a counsellor, men of those orders among the Jews as were of greatest authority with the people; Joseph of Arimathea, rich and honorable, and yet inferior to Nicodemus, one of the great council of the Sanhedrim: these two, though fearful while he lived to acknowledge him, are brought by the hand of Providence to inter him; that so the prediction might be fulfilled which was delivered by Isaiah to this purpose. The counsel of his enemies, the design of the Jews, "made his grave with the wicked," that he might be buried with them who were crucified with him; but "because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth;" because he was no ways guilty of those crimes for which they justly suffered; that there might be a difference after their death, though there appeared little distinction in it; the counsel of his Father, the design of heaven, put him with the rich in his death, and caused a counsellor and a ruler of the Jews to bury him.

The necessity of this part of the article appeareth, first, in that it gives a testimony and assurance of the truth, both of Christ's death preceding, and of his resurrection following. Men are not put into the earth before they die. Pilate was very inquisitive whether our Saviour had been any while dead, and was fully satisfied by the centurion, before he would give the body to Joseph to be interred. Men cannot be said to rise who never died; nor can there be a true resurrection, where there hath not been a true dissolution. That therefore we might believe Christ truly rose from the dead, we must be first assured that he died and a greater assurance of his death than this we cannot have, that his body was delivered by his enemies from the cross, and laid by his disciples in the grave.

Secondly; a profession to believe that Christ was buried is necessary, to work within us a correspondence and similitude of his burial. For we are "buried with him in baptism, even buried with him by baptism unto death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life," Coloss. ii. 12; Rom. vi. 4; that nothing

may be done or suffered by our Saviour in these great transactions of the Mediator, but may be acted in our souls, and represented in our spirits.

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Thirdly; it was most convenient that those pious solemnities should be performed on the body of our Saviour, that his disciples might for ever learn what honor was fit to be received and given at their funerals. When Ananias died, though for his sin, yet they "wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him;" when Stephen was stoned, "devout men carried him to his burial, and made great lamentation over him:" and when Dorcas died, they washed her, and laid her in an upper chamber;" so careful were the primitive Christians of the rites of burial; Acts v. 6; Acts viii. 2; Acts ix. 37. Before, and at our Saviour's time, the Greeks did much, the Romans more, use the burning of the bodies of the dead, and reserved only their ashes in their urns: but when Christianity began to increase, the funeral flames did cease, after a few emperors had received baptism, there was not a body burnt in all the Roman empire. For the first Christians wholly abstained from consuming of the dead bodies with fire, and followed the example of our Saviour's funeral, making use of precious ointments for the dead, which they refused while they lived, and spending the spices of Arabia in their graves. The description of the persons who interred Christ, and the enumeration of their virtues, and the everlasting commendation of her who brake the box of precious ointment for his burial, have been thought sufficient grounds and encouragements, for the careful and decent sepulture of Christians. For as natural reason will teach us to give some kind of respect unto the bodies of men, though dead, in reference to the souls which formerly inhabited them; so, and much more, the followers of our Saviour, while they look upon our bodies as living temples of the Holy Ghost, and bought by Christ, to be made one day like unto his glorious body, they thought them no ways to be neglected after death, but carefully to be laid up in the wardrobe of the grave, with such due respect as might become the honor of the dead, and comfort of the living. And this decent custom of the primitive Christians was so acceptable unto

God, that by his providence it proved most effectual in the conversion of the heathens and propagation of the gospel.

Thus I believe the only-begotten and eternal Son of God, for the confirmation of the truth of his death already past, and the verity of his resurrection from the dead suddenly to follow, had his body, according to the custom of the Jews, prepared for a funeral, bound up with linen clothes, and laid in spices; and after that accustomed preparation, deposited in a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, in which never man was laid before, and by the rolling of a stone unto the door thereof, entombed there. I believe that Christ was buried.

Thus

ARTICLE V.

He descended into Hell: the third day he rose again from the dead.

THE former part of this article, of the descent into hell, hath not been so anciently in the Creed, or so universally, as the rest. The first place we find it used in was the church of Aquileia; and the time we are sure it was used in the creed of that church was less than four hundred years after Christ. After that it came into the Roman creed, and others, and hath been acknowledged as a part of the apostles' Creed ever since.

Indeed the descent into hell hath always been accepted, but with a various exposition; and the church of England at the reformation, as it received the three creeds, in two of which this article is contained, so did it also make this one of the articles of religion, to which all who are admitted to any benefice, or received into holy orders, are obliged to subscribe. And at the first reception it was propounded with a certain explication, and thus delivered in the fourth year of king Edward the sixth, with reference to an express place of scripture interpreted of this descent; "That the body of Christ lay in the grave until his resurDiv. No. XIV.

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rection but his spirit, which he gave up, was with the spirits which were detained in prison, or in hell, and preached to them, as the place in St. Peter testifieth." So likewise after the same manner in the Creed set forth in metre after the manner of a psalm, and still remaining at the end of the psalms, the same exposition is delivered in this staff:.

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"And so he died in the flesh, But quickened in the spirit:

His body then was buried,

As is our use and right.

"His spirit did after this descend
Into the lower parts,

Of them that long in darkness were
The true light of their hearts."

But in the synod ten years after, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, the articles, which continue still in force, deliver the same descent, but without any the least explication or reference to any particular place of scripture, in these words "As Christ died for us and was buried, so also it is to be believed that he went down into hell." Wherefore seeing our church hath not now imposed that interpretation of St. Peter's words, which before it intimated; seeing it hath not delivered that as the only place of scripture to found the descent into hell upon; seeing it hath alleged no other place to ground it, and delivered no other explication to expound it; we may with the greater liberty pass on to find out the true meaning of this article, and to give our particular judgment in it, so far as a matter of so much obscurity and variety will permit.

First then, it is to be observed, that as this article was first in the Aquileian creed, so it was delivered there not in the express and formal term of hell, but in such a word as may be capable of a greater latitude, descendit in inferna:" which words as they were continued in other creeds, so did they find a double interpretation among the Greeks; some translating "inferna," hell; others, the lower parts: the first with relation to St. Peter's words of Christ, "Thou shalt not, leave my soul in hell;" the second referring to that of St. Paul," He descended into the lower parts of the earth."

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