made it the symbol of Christianity, had but the three baptismal articles : to be baptised into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 2. And that the rest were added, for the exposition of these three. 3. And that the errors that rose up occasioned the additions. Some denied Christ's real humanity, and some his death, and said, that it was another in his shape that died and this occasioned these expository articles. 4. But the Apostles, and other preachers, expounded more to those whom they catechised than is put into the Creed: and more is implied in that which is expressed and had any heretics then denied Christ's perfect righteousness, and victory in temptation, it is like it would have occasioned an article for these. 5. But Christ would not have his Apostles put more into the Creed than was needful to be a part of the test of Christianity. And he that understandingly, consentingly, and practically believeth in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, shall be saved. 6. And as to Christ's miracles; yea, and his holiness, they are contained in the true meaning of believing in the Holy Ghost, as I shall after show. Q. 2. But why is none of Christ's sufferings mentioned before that of his being crucified? A. This, which is the consummation, implieth the humiliation of his life: his mean birth and education, his mean estate in the world, his temptations, accusations, reproaches, buffeting, scourging, his agony, his betraying, his condemnation as a malefactor, by false witness, and the people's clamour, and the rulers' malice and injustice: his whole life was a state of humiliation, finished in his crucifixion, death, and burial. Q. 3. What made the Jews so to hate and crucify him?! A. Partly a base fear of Cæsar, lest he should destroy them, in jealousy of Jesus, as a king: and having long revolted from sincerity in religion, and become ceremonious hypocrites, God left them to the blindness and hardness of their hearts, resolving to use them for the sacrificing of Christ, the redemption of the world, and the great enlargement of his church. Q. 4. Why is Pontius Pilate named in the Creed? A. Historically, to keep the remembrance of the time when Christ suffered and to leave a just shame on the name of an unjust judge. g Matt. xxviii. 19. h Phil. ii. 7-9; Heb. xii. 2-4. i Job. xi. 48, 50. k 1 Tim. vi. 13; Col. i. 20, and ii. 14; Eph. ii. 16; Gal. iii. 13. Q. 5. Why was crucifying the manner of Christ's death? A. 1. It was the Roman manner of putting vile malefactors to death. 2. And it was a death especially cursed by God ; and Christ foretold it of himself. Q. 6. Was it only Christ's body that suffered, or also his soul and Godhead? A. The Godhead could not suffer; but he that was God suffered in body and soul.! Q. 7. What did Christ's soul suffer? A. It suffered not by any sinful passion, but by natural, lawful fear of what he was to undergo, and feeling of pain, and especially of God's just displeasure with man's sin, for which he suffered; which God did express by such withholdings of joy, and by such inward, deep sense of his punishing justice as belonged to one that consented to stand in the place of so many sinners, and to suffer so much in their stead." Q. 8. Did Christ suffer the pains of hell, which the damned suffer? A. The pains of hell are God's just punishment of man for sin, and so were Christ's sufferings, upon his consent. But, 1. The damned in hell are hated of God, and so was not Christ. 2. They are forsaken of God's Holy Spirit and grace, and so was not Christ. 3. They are under the power of sin, and so was not Christ. 4. They hate God and holiness, and so did not Christ. 5. They are tormented by the conscience of their personal guilt, and so was not Christ. Christ's sufferings and the damned's vastly differ. Q. 9. Why must Christ suffer what he did? A. 1. To be an expiatory sacrifice for sin. God thought it not meet, as he was the just and holy Ruler of the world, to forgive sin, without such a demonstration of his holiness and justice as might serve as well to the ends of his government as if the sinners had suffered themselves. 2. And he suffered to teach man what sin deserveth, and what a God we serve, and that we owe him the most costly obedience, even to the death, and that this body, life, and world, are to be denied, contemned, and forsaken, for the sake of souls, and of life everlasting, and of God, when he requireth it. The cross of Christ is much of the Christian's book." 1 Matt. xxvi. 38; John xii. 27. m Luke xxii. 44. Heb. ix. 26, and x. 12; 1 Cor. v. 7 ; Luke xiv. 33; 1 Cor. ii. 2; Gal. ii. 2; iii. 1; v. 24, and vi. 14; Phil. ii. 8; and iii. 7—9. Q. 10. What sorts of sin did Christ die for? A. For all sorts, except men's not performing those conditions which he requireth of all that he will pardon and save. Q. 11. For whose sins did Christ suffer? A. All men's sins were instead of a meritorious cause of Christ's sufferings; he suffered for mankind as the Saviour of the world and as to the effect, his suffering purchased a conditional gift of free pardon and life to all that will believingly accept it, according to the nature of the things given. But it was the will of the Father and the Son not to leave his death to uncertain success, but infallibly to cause the elect to believe and be saved. Q. 12. Was it just with God to punish the innocent? A. Yes, when it was Christ's own undertaking, by consent, to stand as a sufferer in the room of the guilty. Q. 13. How far were our sins imputed to Christ? A. So far as that his consent made it just that he suffered for them. He is said to be made sin for us, who knew no sin, which is, to be made a curse or sacrifice for our sin. But God never took him to be really, or in his esteem, a sinner: he took not our fault to become his fault, but only the punishment for our faults to be due to him. Else sin itself had been made his own, and he had been relatively and properly a sinner, and God must have hated him as such, and he must have died for his own sin when ours was made his own: but none of this is to be imagined.P Q. 14. How far are Christ's sufferings imputed to us? A. So far as that we are reputed to be justly forgiven and saved by his grace, because he made an expiation by his sacrifice for our sins: but not so as if God mistook us to have suffered in Christ, or that he or his law did judge that we ourselves have made satisfaction or expiation, by Christ. Q. 15. Was not that penal law" In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die," and " The soul that sinneth shall die," fulfilled by execution for us all in Christ, and now justifieth us as so fulfilled? A. No: that law condemned none but the sinner himself, and is not fulfilled unless the person suffer that sinned. That law never said, "Either the sinner, or another for him, shall die." Christ was given us by God as above his law, and that he might justly and mercifully forgive sin, though he executed not that • Rom. v. 6, 8, and xiv. 9, 15; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15; Heb. ii. 9; 1 Tim. ii. 6; 1 John ii. 2; John i. 29; iii. 16, 18, 19; iv. 42, and vi. 51. P 1 Pet. ii. 22. 41 Pęt. iii. 18; Acts xxvi. 18. law: that law did but make punishment our due, and not Christ's, but not bind God to inflict it on us, when his wisdom knew a better way. It is not that law as fulfilled that justifieth us, but another, even the law of grace. Satisfaction is not the fulfilling of the penal law." Q. 16. Did not Christ fulfil the commands of the law for us by his holiness and perfect righteousness? What need was there that he suffer for us? A. The law, or covenant, laid on him by his Father was, that he should do both; and therefore both is the performance of that condition on which God gave us to him to be pardoned and saved by him. If he had fulfilled the commands of the law by perfect holiness and righteousness, in our legal persons, so as that God and his law would have reputed us to have done it by him, then, indeed, being reputed perfect obeyers, we could not have been reputed sinners, that needed suffering or pardon. But Christ's habitual, active, and passive righteousness, were (all the parts of his one condition) performed by him, to be the meritorious cause of our justification." Q. 17. Why is Christ's death and burial named besides his crucifixion? A. Those words have been since added, to obviate their error who thought Christ died not on the cross. Q. 18. What is meant by his descending into hell? A. Those words were not of some hundred years in the Creed, and since they were put in, have been diversely understood. There is no more certain nor necessary to be believed, but that 1. Christ's soul was, and so ours are, immortal, and remained when separated from the body. 2. And that as death (being the separation of soul and body) was threatened by God, as a punishment to both, so the soul of Christ submitted to this penal separation, and went to the place of separated souls, as his body did to the grave. Q. 19. Of what use is this article to us? A. Of great and unspeakable use. 1. We learn hence what sin desérveth. Shall we play with that which must have such a sacrifice?" Rom. iii. 19, 20, 21, 28; iv. 13, 15, and x. 4; Gal. ii. 16, 21, and iii. 11, 13, 18, 19, 24. Matt. iii. 15, and v. 17; Isa. liii. 11; 1 Cor. i. 30; 2 Cor. v. 21. * 1 Cor. xv. 4, 5; Psalm xvi. 9, 10; 1 Pet. iii. 18-21. " Heb. ix. 21; 1 Col. i. 20; Eph. i. 7; 1 Pet. i.2, 19; Rom. iii. 25; Heb. ii. 14; 1 John ii. 1—3, and iv. 10; Heb. ix. 14; Eph. ii. 13; Rev. i. 5; v. 9;. vii. 14, and xiv. 20. 2. We learn hence that a sufficient expiatory sacrifice is made for sin, and therefore that God is reconciled, and we need not despair, nor are put to make expiation ourselves, or by any other. 3. We learn that death and the grave, and the state of separate souls, are sanctified, and Satan conquered, as he had the power of death, as God's executioner; and therefore that we may boldly die in faith, and commit soul and body into the hand of him that died for them. Q. 20. But did not Christ go to Paradise, and can that be penal? A. Yes, and so do faithful souls. But the soul and body are a perfect man, and nature is against a separation: and as the union of Christ's soul and glorified body now in heaven is a more perfect state than that was of his separated soul, so the deprivation of that union and perfection was a degree of penalty, and therefore it was the extraordinary privilege of Enoch and Elias not to die. CHAP, XIV. “The third Day he rose again from the Dead.” Q. 1. How was Christ said to be three days in the grave? A. He was there part of the sixth day, all the seventh, and part of the first.* Q. 2. Is it certain that Christ rose from the dead the third day? A. As certain as any article of our faith: angels witnessed it. Mary first saw him, and spake with him. Two disciples, going to Emmaus, saw him, to whom he opened the Scriptures concerning him. Peter, and others fishing, saw him, and spake, and eat with him. The eleven assembled saw him. Thomas, that would not else believe, was called to see the print of the nails, and put his finger into his pierced side. He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once. He gave the apostles their commission, and instructions, and his blessing, and ascended bodily to heaven in their sight; and afterwards appeared in glory to Stephen and Paul. But I have before given you the proof of the gospel, and must not repeat it.” * Matt. xii. 39, 40; xvi. 4; John xx.; Malt. xxviii. y 1 Cor. xv. 5, 6. |