APHORISM XVI.

LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE

Christ's death was both voluntary and violent. There was external violence: and that was the accompaniment, or at most the occasion, of his death. But there was internal willingness, the spiritual will, the will of the Spirit, and this was the proper cause. By this Spirit he was restored from death: neither indeed was it possible for him to be holden of it. Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, says St. Peter.

But he is likewise declared elsewhere to have died by that same Spirit, which here, in opposition to the violence, is said to quicken him. Thus Heb. ix, 14. Through the Eternal Spirit he offered himself. And even from Peter's words, and without the epithet eternal, to aid the interpretation, it is evident that the Spirit, here opposed to the flesh by body or animal life, is of a higher nature and power than the individual soul, which cannot of itself return to reinhabit or quicken the body.

If these points were niceties, and an over-refining in doctrine, is it to be believed that the Apostles, John, Peter, and Paul, with the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, would have laid so great stress on them? But the true life of Christians is to eye Christ in every step of his life--not only as their rule but as their strength: looking to him as their pattern both in doing and in suffering, and drawing power from him for going through both: being without him able for nothing. Take comfort, then, thou that believest! It is he that lifts up the soul from the gates of death: and he hath said, I will raise thee up at the last day. Thou that believest in him, believe him and take comfort. Yea, when thou art most sunk in thy sad apprehensions, and he far off to thy thinking, then is he nearest to raise and comfort thee: as sometimes it grows darkest immediately before day.