ll condemn?" Here is a clear evidence,
that he hath paid the debt wholly, and satisfied justice fully. Since he
was under the power of death, imprisoned by justice, certainly he would
not have won free, if he had not paid the uttermost farthing, therefore
his glorious resurrection is a sure manifestation of his present
satisfaction--it is a public acquittance and absolution of him from all our
debt, and so by consequence, of all he died for. For their debt was laid
upon him, and now he is discharged. And therefore the believing soul may
tremblingly boast, who shall condemn me? For it is God that justifieth.
Why? Because all my sins were laid on Christ, and God hath in a most
solemn manner acquitted and discharged him from all, when he raised him
from the dead, and therefore he cannot, and none other can sue me, or
prosecute a plea against me, since my Cautioner is fully exonered of this
undertaking, even by the great Creditor God himself. But then, his
resurrection is a pawn or pledge of the spiritual raising of the soul from
sin, as the death of Christ is made the pledge of our dying to sin, so his
rising, of our living to God, Rom. vi. 4, 5. These are not mere patterns
and examples of spiritual things, but assured pledges of the divine virtue
and power which he, being raised again, should send abroad throughout the
world. For, as there are coronation gifts when kings are solemnly
installed in office, so there are coronation mercies, triumphal gifts.
When Christ rose and ascended, he bestowed them on the world, Eph. iv. And
certainly these are the greatest, the virtue of his death to kill the old
man, and the power of his resurrection to quicken the new. And by faith, a
believer is united and ingrafted into him, as a plant into a choice stock,
and by virtue and sap coming from Christ's death and resurrection, he is
transformed into the similitude of both, he groweth into the likeness of
his death, by dying to sin, by crucifying these inward affections and
inclinations to it, and he groweth up into the similitude of his
resurrection, by newness of life, or being alive to God, in holy desires
and endeavours after holiness and obedience. And thus the first
resurrection of the soul floweth from Christ's resurrection.

But add unto this, that Christ's rising is the pledge and pawn of the
second resurrection, that is, of the body, for he is the head, and we are
the members. Now, it is the most incongruous, that the head should