habere quam mortis_: being come into this life
in our mortal nature, he could not go out of this life any other way but
by death. _Ideo dictum_, says he, therefore it is said, _to God the Lord
belonged the issues of death; ut ostenderetur moriendo nos salvos
facturum_, to show that his way to save us was to die. And from this
text doth Saint Isidore prove that Christ was truly man (which as many
sects of heretics denied, as that he was truly God), because to him,
though he were _Dominus Dominus_ (as the text doubles it), God the Lord,
yet to _him, to God the Lord belonged the issues of death_; _oportuit
eum pati_; more cannot be said than Christ himself says of himself;
_These things Christ ought to suffer_;[375] he had no other way but
death: so then this part of our sermon must needs be a passion sermon,
since all his life was a continual passion, all our Lent may well be a
continual Good Friday. Christ's painful life took off none of the pains
of his death, he felt not the less then for having felt so much before.
Nor will any thing that shall be said before lessen, but rather enlarge
the devotion, to that which shall be said of his passion at the time of
due solemnization thereof. Christ bled not a drop the less at the last
for having bled at his circumcision before, nor will you a tear the less
then if you shed some now. And therefore be now content to consider with
me how _to this God the Lord belonged the issues of death_. That God,
this Lord, the Lord of life, could die, is a strange contemplation; that
the Red Sea could be dry, that the sun could stand still, that an oven
could be seven times heat and not burn, that lions could be hungry and
not bite, is strange, miraculously strange, but super-miraculous that
God _could_ die; but that God _would_ die is an exaltation of that. But
even of that also it is a super-exaltation, that God should die, must
die, and _non exitus_ (said Saint Augustine), God the Lord had no issue
but by death, and _oportuit pati_ (says Christ himself), all this Christ
ought to suffer, was bound to suffer; _Deus ultimo Deus_, says David,
God is the God of revenges, he would not pass over the son of man
unrevenged, unpunished. But then _Deus ultionum libere egit_ (says that
place), the God of revenges works freely, he punishes, he spares whom he
will. And would he not spare himself? he would not: _Dilectio fortis ut
mors, love is strong as death_;[376] stronger, it drew in death, that
natura