of conversing with and enjoying God in Prayer is by acting faith on him through a Mediator so much of faith and Christ as is in a Duty so much comfort and true excellency there is in it and no more Oh then how indispensible is the knowledge of Christ to all that do adress themselves to God in any Duty Thirdly It 's fundamental to all comforts all the Comforts of believers are streams from this Fountain Jesus Christ is the very object-matter of a believers Joy Phil. 3.3 our rejoycing is in Christ Iesus take away the knowledge of Christ and a Christian is the most sad and melancholy creature in the world again let Christ but manifest himself and dart the beams of his light into their souls it will make them kiss the stakes sing in flames and shout in the pangs of death as men that divide the spoil Lastly this knowledge is fundamental to the eternal happiness of souls as we can perform no duty enjoy no comfort so neither can we be saved without it Joh. 17.3 this is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent and if it be eternal life to know Christ then it is eternal Damnation to be ignorant of Christ as Christ is the door that opens Heaven so knowledge is the key that opens Christ. The excellent gifts and renowned parts of the Moral Heathens though they purchased to them great esteem and honour among men yet left them in a state of perdition because of this grand defect they were ignorant of Christ 1 Cor. 1.21 thus you see how fundamental the knowledge of Christ is and essentially necessary to all the graces duties comforts and happiness of souls Thirdly The knowledge of Christ is profound and large all other Sciences are but Shallows this a boundless bottomless Ocean no creature hath a line long enough to fathom the depth of it there is height length depth and breadth ascribed to it Eph. 3.14 yea it passeth knowledge there is a manifold wisdom of God in Christ Eph. 3.10 It is of many sorts and forms of many folds and plights it is indeed simple pure and unmixed with any thing but it self yet it is manifold in degrees kinds and Administrations though something of Christ be unfolded in one age and something in an other yet eternity if self cannot fully unfold him I see something said Luther which blessed Austin saw not and those that come after me will see that which I see not it is in the studying of Christ as in the planting of a new discovered Country at first men sit down by the Sea side upon the skirts and borders of the Land and there they dwell but by degrees they search farther and farther into the heart of the Country ah the best of us are yet but upon the borders of this vast Continent Fourthly The study of Jesus Christ is the most noble Subject that ever a soul spent it self upon those that rack and toture their brains upon other studys like Children weary themselves at a low game the Eagle plays at the Sun it self the Angels study this Doctrine and stoop down to look into this deep abyss what are the Truths discovered in Christ but the very secrets that from eternity lay hid in the bosom of God Eph. 3.8 9. Gods heart is opened to men in Christ Ioh. 1.18 this makes the Gospel such a glorious dispensation because Christ is so gloriously revealed therein 2 Cor. 3.9 and the studying of Christ in the Gospel stamps such a Heavenly glory upon the contemplating soul v. 18. Fitâ—hly It is the most sweet and comfortable knowledge to be studying Jesus Christ what is it but to be digging among all the veins and springs of comfort and the deeper you dig the more do those springs flow upon you how are hearts ravished with the discoveries of Christ in the Gospel what extasies meltings transports do gratious souls meet there doubtless Philips extasie Ioh. 1.45 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have found Jesus was far beyond that of Archimedes a believer could fit from Morning to Night to hear Discourses of Christ his mouth is most sweet Cant. 5.16 Secondly Let us compare this knowledge with all other knowledge and thereby the excellency of it will farther appear First All other knowledge is natural but this wholly supernatural Matth. 11.27 no man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any the father save the Son and he to whom so ever the Son will reveal him the wisest Heathens could never make a discovery of Christ by their deepest searches into nature the most Eagle-eyed Philosophers were but Children in knowledge compared with the most illiterate Christians Secondly Oâ—her knowledge is unattainable by many all the helps and means in the world would never enable some Christians to attain the Learned Arts and Languages men of the best wits and most pregnant parts are most excellent in these but here is the mysterie and excellency of the knowledge of Christ that men of most blunt dull and contemptible parts attain through the teaching of the spirit to this knowledge in which the more acute and ingenious are utterly blind Matth. 11.25 I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes 1. Cor. 1.26 27. you see your calling brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called but God hath chosen the foolish things of the World to confound the wise c. Thirdly Other knowledge though you should attain the highest degree of it would never bring you to Heaven being defective and lame both in the integrity of parts the principal thing viz. Christ being wanting and in the purity of its nature for the knowing Heathens grew vain in their imaginations 1 Rom. 21. and in the efficacy and influence of it on the heart and life they held the truth in unrighteousness their lusts were stronger than their light 1 Rom. 18. but this knowledge hath potent influences changing souls into its own image 2 Cor. 3.18 and so proves a saving knowledge unto men 1 Tim. 2.4 and thus I have in a few particulars pointed out the transcendency of the knowledge of Christ. The use of all this I shall give you in a few Inferences on which I shall not enlarge the whole being only praeliminary to the Doctrine of Christ only for the present I shall hence infer The â—â—sufficiency of the Doctrine of Christ to make men wise unto salvation Paul deâ—ired to know nothing else and indeed nothing else is of absolute necessity to be known a little of this knowledge if saving and effâ—ctual upon thy heart will do thy soul more service than all the vain speculations and profound parts that others so much glory in poor Christian be not dejected because thou seest thy self out-stript and excelled by so many in other
Iudas his Tomb-stone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. let every one that beholds me learn to be godly indeed to be sincere in his profession and love Christ more unfeignedly than I did O Professors look to your foundation and build not upon the sand as this poor creature did That 's sound advice indeed which the Apostle gives 1 Cor. 10.12 Let him that thinks he he standeth take heed lest he fall O beware of a loose foundation If you begin your profession as Iudas did no wonder if it shall end as his did 1. Beware therefore you hold not the truth in unrighteousness Iudas did so he knew much but lived not up to what he knew for he was still of a worldly spirit in the height of his profession His knowledge never had any saving influence upon his heart He Preacht to others but he himself was a cast-away He had much light but still walked in darkness He had no knowledge to do himself good Secondly Beware you live not in a course of secret sin Iudas did so and that was his ruine He made a profession indeed and carried it smoothly but he was a thief Ioh. 12.6 He made no conscience of committing the sin so he could but cover and hide it from men This helped on his ruine and so it will thine Reader if thou be guilty herein A secret way of sinning under a covert of profession will either break out at last to the observation of men or else slide thee down insensibly to Hell and leave thee only this comfort that no body shall know thou art there Thirdly Beware of hypocritical pretences of Religion to accommodate self ends Iudas was a man that had notable skill this way He had a mind to fill his own purse by the sale of this costly ointment which Mary bestowed upon her Saviours feet And what a neat cover had he fitted for it to do his business clearly Why saith he this might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor Here was Charity to the poor or rather poor Charity for they were only a blind to his base self ends O Christian be plain hearted take heed of craft and cunning in matters of Religion This spoil'd Iudas Fourthly Beware of self confidence Iudas was a very confident man of himself Last of all Iudas said Master is it I Matth. 26.25 But he that was last in the suspicion was first in the transgression He that trusteth his own heart is a fool saith Solomon Prov. 28.26 such a fool was this great Professor It will be your wisdom to keep a jealous eye upon your own hearts and still suspect its fairest pretences Fifthly If you will not do as Iudas did nor come to such an end as he did take heed you live not unprofitably under the means of grace Iudas had the best means of grace that ever man enjoyed He heard Christ himself Preach he joyned often with him in prayer but he was never the better for it all it was but as the watering of a dead-stick which will never make it grow but rot it the sooner Never was there a rotten branch so richly watered as he was O 't is a sad sin and a sad sign too when men and women live under the Gospel from year to year and never the better I warn you to beware of these evils all ye that profess Religion Let these footsteps by which Iudas went down to his own place terrifie you from following him in them Corollary 2. Learn hence also that eminent knowledge and profession puts a special and eminent aggravation upon sin Judas Iscariot one of the twelve Poor wretch better had it been for him if he had never been numbred with them nor enlightned with so much knowledge as he was endued with for this rent his Conscience to pieces when he reflected on what he had done and presently run himself into the gulf of despair To sin against clear light is to â—in with an high hand It 's that which makes a sad waste of the Conscience That without doubt which now torments this poor soul in Hell is that he should go against his light against his profession to gratifie a base lust to his eternal ruine Had he known no better it had been more excusable Those that had a hand in the death of Christ through mistake and ignorance were capable to receive the pardon of their sin by that blood they so shed Act. 3.17 19. compared Take heed therefore of abusing knowledge and putting a force upon Conscience Corollary 3. Learn hence in the third place That unprincipled Professors will sooner or later become shameful Apostates â—udas was an unprincipled Professor and see what he came to Ambition invited Simon Magus to the profession of Christ he would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some great one And how quickly did the rottenness of his principles discover themselves in the ruine of his profession that which wants a root must needs wither as Christ speaks Matth. 13.20 21. that which is the predominant interest will prevail and sway with us in the day of our trial Hear me all you that profess Religion and have given your names to Christ if that profession be not built upon a sollid and real work of grace upon your hearts you shall never honour Religion nor save your souls by it O 't is your union with Christ that like a spring maintains your profession So much as you are united to Christ so much constancy steadiness and eavenness you will manifest in the duties of Religion and no more O Brethren when he that professes Christ for company shall be left alone as Paul was When he that made Religion a stirrup to help him into the sadle of preferment and honour shall see that he is so advanced to be drawn forth into Christs camp and endure the heat of the day and not to take his pleasure in a word when he shall see all things about him discouraging and threatning his dearest interest on earth exposed for Religion sake and he hath no faith to ballance his present losses with his future hopes I say when it comes to this you shall then see the rottenness of many hearts discovered And Iudas may have many fellows who will part with Christ for the world as he did O therefore look well to your foundation Corollary 4. Moreover in this example of Iudas you may read this truth That men and women are never in more eminent danger than when they meet with temptations exactly suited to their master-lusts to their own iniquity O pray pray that ye may be kept from a violent suitable temptation Satan knows that when a man is tried here he falls by the root The love of this world was all along Iudas his master-sin and some conjecture he was a married man and had a great charge but that is conjectural it was his predominant Lust. The Devil found out this and
full Satisfaction First The Matter or Substance of the Promise made by Christ viz that he shall be with him in Praradise By Paradise he means Heaven it self which is here shadowed to us by a place of delight and pleasure This is the receptacle of gratious souls when separated from their bodies And that Paradise signifies Heaven it self and not a third place as some of the Fathers fondly imagined is evident from 2 Cor. 12.2 4. where the Apostle calls the same place by the names of the third Heaven and Paradise This is the place of blessedness designed for the people of God so you find Rev. 2.7 To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God i. e. to have the fullest and most intimate communion with Jesus Christ in Heaven And this is the substance of Christs promise to the Thief Thou i. e. thou in spirit or thou in thy noblest part thy soul which here bears the name of the whole person thou shalt be with me in Paradise Secondly The Person to whom Christ makes this excellent and glorious promise It was to one that had lived lewdly and profanely a very vile and wretched man in all the former part of his time and for his wickedness now justly under condemnation Yea to one that had reviled Christ after that sentence was executed on him However now at last the Lord gave him a penitent believing heart Now almost at last gasp he is soundly in an extraordinary way converted and being converted he owns and professes Christ amidst all the shame and reproach of his death Vindicates his innocency and humbly supplicates for mercy Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom Thirdly The set time for the performance of this gratious Promise to him To day this very day shalt thou be with me in glory Not after the resurrection but immediately from the time of thy dissolution thou shalt enjoy blessedness And here I cannot but detect the cheat of those that deny an immediate state of glory to believers after death Who to the end this Scripture might not stand in full opposition to their as uncomfortable as unsound opinion loose the whole frame of it by drawing one pin yea by transposing but a comma putting it at the word day which should be at the word thee and so reading it thus verily I say unto thee to day referring the word day to the time that Christ made the promise and not to the time of its performance But if such a liberty as this be yielded what may not men make the Scriptures speak There can be no doubt but Christ in this expression fixes the time for his happiness To day shalt thou be with me Fourthly and Lastly You have here the Confirmation and Seal of this most comfortable Promise to him with Christs solemn asseveration verily I say unto thee Higher security cannot be given I that am able to perform what I promise and have not out promised my self for Heaven and the glory thereof are mine I that am faithful and true to my promises and never crackt or strained my credit with any I say it I solemnly confirm it verily I say unto thee to day shalt thou with me in Paradise Hence we have three plain obvious truths for our instruction and consolation Doct. 1. That there is a future eternal state into which souls pass at death Doct. 2. That all Believers are at their death immediatly received into a state of glory and eternal happiness Doct. 3. That God may though he seldom doth prepare men for this glory immediately before their dissolution by death These are the useful truths resulting from this remarkable word of Christ to the penitent Thief We will consider and inprove them in the order proposed DOCT. 1. That there is a future eternal state into which souls pass at death This is a principal foundation-stone to the hopes and happiness of souls And seeing our hopes must needs be as their foundation and ground work is I shall briefly establish this truth by these five Arguments The beeing of a God evinces it the Scriptures of truth plainly reveal it the Consciences of all men have resentments of it the incarnation and death of Christ is but a vanity without it And the immortality of humane souls plainly discovers it Arg. 1. The being of a God undeniably evinces a future state for humane souls after this life For if there be a God who rules the world which he hath made he must rule it by rewards and punishments equally and righteously distributed to good and bad Putting a difference betwixt the obedient and disobedient The Righteous and the wicked To make a species of creatures capable of moral government and not to rule them at all is to make them in vain and inconsistent with his glory who is the last end of all things To rule them but not suitably to their natures consists not with that infinite wisdom from which their beings proceeded and by which their workings are ruled and ordered To rule them in a way suitable to their natures viz. by rewards and punishments and not to perform or execute them at all is utterly incongruous with the veracity and truth of him that cannot lie This were to impose the greatest cheat in the world upon men and can never proceed from the holy and true God So then as he hath made a rational sort of creatures capable of moral government by rewards and punishments so he rules them in that way which is suitable to their natures promising it shall be well with the righteous and ill with wicked These promises and threatnings can be no cheat meerly intended to scare and fright where there is no danger or encourage where there is no real benefit but what he promises or threatens must be accomplished and every word of God take place and be fulfilled But it 's evident that no such distinction is made by the providence of God at least ordinarily and generally in this life but all things come alike to all and as with the righteous so with the wicked Yea here it goes ill with them that fear God they are oppressed They receive their evil things and wicked men their good Therefore we conclude the righteous Judge of the whole earth will in another world recompence to every one according as his work shall be Arg. 2. Secondly And as the very being of God evinces it so the Scriptures of truth plainly reveal it These Scriptures are the Pandect or System of the Laws for the goverment of men which the wise and holy Ruler of the world hath enacted and ordained for that purpose And in them we find promises made to the Righteous of a full reward for all their obedience patience and sufferings in the next life or coming world And threatnings made against the wicked of eternal wrath and anguish as the Just recompence of their sin
in Hell for ever Rom. 2.5 6 7 8 9 10. Thou treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous Iudgement of God Who shall render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life but unto them that are contentious and obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil c. So 2 Thes. 1.4 5 6 7. So that we our selves glory in you in the Churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure Which is a manifest token of the righteous Iudgement of God That ye may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God for which ye also suffer Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed from Heaven in flaming fire c. To these plain testimonies multitudes more might be added if it were needful Heaven and Earth shall pass away but these words shall never pass away Arg. 3. Thirdly As the Scriptures reveal it so the Consciences of all men have some resentments of it Where is the man whose Conscience never felt any impressions of hope or fear from a future world If it be said these may be but the effects and force of discourse or education we have read such things in the Scriptures or have heard it by Preachers and so raise up to our selves hopes and fears about it I demand how the Consciences of the Heathens who have neither Scriptures nor Preachers came to be imprest with these things Doth not the Apostle tells us Rom. 2.15 That their Consciences in the mean while work upon these things Their thoughts with reference to a future state accuse or else excuse i. e. their hearts are cheared and encouraged by the good they do and terrified with fears about the evils they commit Whereas if there were no such things Conscience would neither accuse or excuse for good or evil done in this world Arg. 4. Fourthly The incarnation and death of Christ is but a vanity without it What did he propose to himself or what benefit have we by his coming if there be no such future state Did he take our nature and suffer such terrible things in it for nothing If you say Christians have much comfort from it in this Life I answer the comforts they have are raised by faith and expectation of the happiness to be enjoyed as the purchase of his blood in Heaven And if there be no such heaven to which they are appointed No Hell from which they are redeemed they do but comfort themselves with a Fable and bless themselves in a thing of nought Their comfort is no greater than the comfort of a Beggar that dreams he is a King and when he awakes finds himself a Beggar still Surely the ends of Christs death were to deliver us from the wrath to come 1 Thes. 1.10 Not from an imaginary but a real Hell to bring us to God 1 Pet. 3.18 To be the Author of eternal Salvation to them that obey him Heb. 5.9 Arg. 5. Fifthly and lastly The immortality of humane souls puts it beyond all doubt The soul of a man vastly differs from that of a Beast which is but a material form and so wholly depending on must needs perish with the matter But it is not so with us Ours are reasonable spirits that can live and act in a separated state from the body Eccles. 3.21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of a Beast that goeth downward to the earth So that look as if a man dispute whether man be rational that his very disputing it proves him to be so so our disputes hopes fears and apprehensions of eternity prove our souls immortal and capable of that state Inference 1. Is there an Eternal State into which souls pass after this Life How pretious then is present time upon the improvement whereof that State depends O what a huge weight hath God hanged upon a small wyer God hath set us here in a State of Tryal according as we improve these few hours so will it fare with us to all Eternity Every day every hour nay every moment of your present time hath an influence into your Eternity Do ye believe this What and yet squander away pretious time so carelesly so vainly How do these things consist When Seneca heard one promise to spend a week with a friend that invited him to recreate himself with him He told him he admired he should make such a rash promise what said he cast away so considerable a part of your Life How can you do it Surely our prodigallity in the expence of time argues we have but little sence of great Eternity Inference 2. How rational are all the difficulties and severities of Religion which serve to promote and secure a future Eternal Happiness So vast is the disproportion betwixt Time and Eternity things seen and not seen as yet the present vanishing and future permanent state that he can never be justly reputed a wise man that will not let go the best enjoyment he hath on earth if it stand in the way of his eternal happiness Nor can that man ever escape the just censure of notorious folly who for the gratifying of his appetite and present accommodation of his flesh le ts go an eternal glory in heaven Darius repented heartily that he lost a Kingdom for a draught of water O said he for how short a pleasure have I sold a Kingdom It was Moses choice and his choice argued his wisdom he chose rather to suffer afflictions with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin which are but for a season Heb. 11.25 Men do not account him a fool that will adventure a Penny upon a probability to gain ten thousand pounds But sure the disproportion betwixt Time and Eternity is much greater Inference 3. If there certainly be such an Eternal State into which souls pass immediately after Death How great a change then doth Death make upon every man and woman O what a serious thing is it to die It 's your passage out of the swift river of Time into the boundless and bottomless Ocean of Eternity You that now converse with sensible objects with men and women like your selves enter then into the world of Spirits You that now see the continual revolutions of daies and nights passing away one after another will then be fixed in a perpetual NOW O what a serious thing is Death You throw a cast for Eternity when you die If you were to cast a Dye for your natural life oh how would your hand shake with fear how it would fall but what is that to this The souls of
grace which he had not and therefore we cannot expect such extraordinary and unusual conversions as he had This poor creature never heard in all likelihood one Sermon preached by Christ or any of the Apostles He lived the life of a Highway man and concerned not himself about Religion but we have Christ preached freely and constantly in our Assemblies We have line upon line and precept upon precept And when God affords the ordinary preaching of the Gospel he doth not use to work wonders When Israel was in the Wilderness then God baked their bread in Heaven and clave the Rocks to give them drink but when they came to Canaan where they had the ordinary means of subsistance the manna ceased Reason 2. Secondly Such a conversion as this may not be ordinarily expected by any man because such a time as that will never come again It 's possible if Christ were to die again and thou to be crucified with him thou mightest receive thy conversion in such a miraculous and extraordinary way but Christ dies no more Such a day as that will never come again Mr. Fenner in his excellent discourse upon this point tells us that as this was an extraordinary time Christ being now to be installed in his Kingdom and Crowned with glory and honour so extraordinary things were now done as when Kings are Crowned the Streets are richly hanged the Conduits run with wine great Malefactors are then pardoned for then they shew their munificence and bounty it is the day of the gladness of their hearts But let a man come at another time to the Conduits he shall find no wine but ordinary water there Let a man be in the Goal at another time and he may be hanged yea and hath no reason but to expect and prepare for it What Christ did now for this man was at an extraordinary time Reason 3. Thirdly Such a conversion as this may not ordinarily be expected for as such a time will never come again so there will never be the like reason for such a conversion any more Christ converted him upon the Cross to give an instance of his divine power at that time when it was almost wholy clouded Look as in that day the divinity of Christ brake forth in several miracles as the preternatural eclipse of the Sun The great earthquake the rending of the Rocks and vail of the Temple So in the conversion of this man in such an extraordinary way and all to give evidence of the divinity of Christ and prove him to be the Son of God whom they crucified But that is now sufficiently confirmed and there will be no more occasion for miracles to evidence it Reason 4. Fourthly None hath reason to expect the like conversion that enjoys the ordinary means because though in this convert we have a pattern of what free grace can do yet as Divines pertinently observe it 's a pattern without a promise God hath not added any promise to it that ever he will do so for any other And where we have not a promise to encourage our hope our hope can signifie but little to us Inference 1. Let those that have found mercy in the evening of their life admire the extraordinary grace that therein hath appeared to them O that ever God accept the Bran when Satan hath had the Flour of thy days The forementioned reverend Author tells us of one Marcus Cajus Victorius a very aged man in the primitive times who was converted from Heathenism to Christianity in his old age This man came to Simplicianus a Minister and told him he heartily owned and embraced the Christian faith But neither he nor the Church would trust him for a long time And the reason was the unusualness and strangeness of a conversion at such an age But after he had given them good evidence of the reallity thereof there were acclamations and singing of Psalms the people every where crying Marcus Caâ—us Victorius is become a Christian. This was written for a wonder Oh if God have wrought such wondrous salvations for any of you what cause have you to do more for him than others What to pluck you out of Hell when one foot was in To appear to you at last when so hardned by long custom in sin that one might say can the Ethiopian change his hue or the Leopard his spots O what riches of mercy have appeared to you Inference 2. Let this convince and startle such as even to their gray hairs remain in an unconverted state who are where they were when they first came into the world yea rather farther off by much Bethink your selves ye that are full of days and full of sin whose time is almost done and your great work not yet begun Who have but a few sands more in the upper part of the glass to run down and then your conversion will be impossible Your sun is setting your night is coming the shadows of the evening are stretched out upon you you have one foot in the grave and the other in Hell O think if all sense and tenderness be not withered up as well as natural verdure think with your selves how sad a case you are in God may do wonders but they are not seen every day then they would cease to be wondred at O strive strive while you have a little time and a few helps and means more Strive to get that work accomplished now that was never done yet Defer it no longer you have done so too much already It may be to use Seneca's expression you have been these sixty seventy or eighty years beginning to live about to change your practice but hitherto you still continue the same Do not you see how Satan hath gulled and cheated you with vain purposes till he hath brought you to the very brinks of the grave and Hell O 't is time now to make a stand and pause a little where you are and to what he hath brought you The Lord at last give you an eye to see and an heart to consider Inference 3. Lastly Let this be a call and caution to all young ones to begin with God betime and take heed of delays till the last as so many thousands have done before them to their eternal ruine Now is your time if you desire to be in Christ if you have any sense of the weight and worth of eternal things upon your hearts I know your age is voluptuous and delights not in the serious thoughts of death and eternity You are more inclined to mind your pleasures and leave these grave and serious matters to old age But let me perswade you against that by these considerations First Oh set to the business of Religion now because this is the moulding age Now your hearts are tender and your affections flowing Now is the time when you are most likely to be wrought upon Secondly Now because this is the freest part of your time It is in the morning
that was mainly in two particulars viz. the begging and perfuming of the body His body could not be buried till by begging his friends had obtain'd it is as a favour from his Judge The dead body was by Law in the power of Pilate who adjudged it to death as the bodies of those that are hanged are in the power of the Judge to dispose of them as he pleases And when they had gotten it from Pilate they winde it in fine linen cloaths with Spices But what need of Spices to perfume that blessed body His own Love was perfume enough to keep it sweet in the remembrance of his people to all generations However by this they will manifest as they are able the dear affection they have for him The bearers that carried his body to its Grave Ioseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus two secret Disciples They were both men of estate and honour None could imagine that these would have appeared at a time of so much danger with such boldness for Christ. That ever they would have gone openly and boldly to manifest their love to Christ when dead who were afraid to come to him except by night when he was living But now a spirit of Zeal and courage is come upon them when those that made greater and more open confessions of him are gone Thirdly The attendants who followed the Hearse were the women that followed him out of Galilee Among whom the two Marys and the Mother of Zebedes children whom Mark calls Salome are only named Fourthly The Grave or Sepulcher where they laid him It was in Iosephs new Tomb which he had prepared in the garden near unto Golgotha where our Lord died Two things are remarkable about this Tomb. It was anothers Tomb and it was a new Tomb. It was anothers For as he had not an house of his own wherein to lay his head whilst he lived so he had not a Tomb of his own to lay his body in when dead As he lived in other mens houses so he lay in another mans Tomb. And it was a new Tomb wherein never man was yet laid Doubtless there was much of providence in this for had any other been laid there before him it might have proved an occasion both to shake the Credit and slur the glory of his Resurrection by pretending it was some former body and not the Lords that rose out of it In this also divine providence had a respect to that Prophesie Esa. 53.9 Which was to be fulfill'd at this funeral He made his Grave with the rich because he had done no violence c. Fifthly The disposition of the body in that Tomb. 'T is true there is no mention made of the groans and tears with which they laid him in his Sepulcher yet we may well presume they were not wanting in plentiful expressions of their sorrow that way For as they wept and smote their breasts when he dyed Luk. 23.48 So do doubt they laid him with melting hearts and flowing eyes in his Tomb when dead Sixthly And lastly the last remarkable particular in the Text is the solemnity with which his funeral rites were performed and they were all suitable to his humbled state It was indeed a funeral as decently order'd as the straights of time and state of things would then permit but there was nothing of pomp or outward state at all observed Few marks of honour set by men upon it Only the heavens adorned it with diverse miraculous works which in their proper place will be spoken to Thus was he laid in his Grave where he continued for three incompleat daies and nights in the territories of Death in the Land of darkness and forgetfulness Partly to correspond with Ionah his Type and partly to ascertain the world of the reality of his Death Whence our observation is DOCT. That the dead Body of our Lord Iesus Christ was decently interr'd by a small number of his own Disciples and continued in the state of the dead for a time This Observation containing matter of fact and that so plainly and faithfully delivered to us by the Pens of the several Evangelists we need do no more to prepare it for our use than to satisfie these two inquiries why had Christ any funeral at all since his Resurrection was so soon to follow his Death And what manner of funeral Christ had First Why had Christ any funeral at all since he was to rise again from the dead within that space of time that other men commonly have to lie by the wall before their interment and had it continued longer unburied it could see no corruption having never been tainted by sin Why though there was no need of it at all upon that account that a funeral is needful for other bodies yet there were these four weighty ends and Reasons of it Reason 1. First It was necessary Christ should be buried to ascertain his death else it might have been looked upon as a Cheat. For as they wâ—re ready enough to impose so gross a Cheat upon the world at his Resurrection That the Dâ—sciples came by night and stole him away much more would they have denied at once the reality both of his death and Resurrection had he not been so perfumed and interred but this cut off all pretentions For in this kind of embalming his mouth ears nostrils were all filled with their Spices and odours Bound up in Linen and laid long enough in the Tomb to give full assurance to the world of the certainty of of his death So that there could be no latent principle of life in him Now since our eternal life is wrapt up in Christs death it can never be too firmly established To this therefore we may well suppose providence had special respect in his burial and the manner of it Reason 2. Secondly He must be buried to fulfill the Types and Prophesies that went before His abode in the Grave was prefigured by Ionahs abode three daies and nights in the belly of the Whale Matth. 12.40 So must the Son of man be three daies and threee nights in the heart of the earth Yea the Prophet had described the very manner of his funeral and long before he was born foretold in what kind of Tomb his body should be laid Isa. 53.9 He made his Grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death Pointing by that expression at this Tomb of Ioseph who was a rich man and the Scriptures cannot be broken Reason 3. Thirdly He must be buried to compleat his humiliation this being the lowest step he could possibly descend in his abased state They have brought me to the dust of Death Lower he could not be laid and so low he must lay his blessed head else he had not been humbled to the lowest Reason 4. Fourthly But the great end and reason of his interment was the conquering of Death in its own dominion and territories which victory over the Grave furnisheth the Saints with that
us When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Who would part with a Son for the sake of his dearest friends but God gave him to and delivered him for enemies O Love unspeakable 5. Lastly let us consider how freely this gift came from him It was not wrested out of his hand by our importunity for we as little desired as deserved it It was surprizing preventing eternal love that delivered him to us Not that we loved him but he first loved us 1 Ioh. 4.19 Thus as when you weigh a thing you cast in weight after weight till the scales break so doth God one consideration upon another to overcome our hearts and make us admiringly to cry what manner of Love is this And thus I have shewed you what Gods giving of Christ is And what matchless love is manifested in that incomparable gift Next we shall apply this in some practical Corolaries Corolary 1. Learn hence the exceeding preciousness of Souls and at what an high rate God values them that he will give his Son his only Son out of his bosom as a ransom for them Surely this speaks their preciousness God would not have parted with such a Son for small matters All the world could not redeem them Gold and Silver could not be their ransom 1 Pet. 1.18 So speaks the Apostle You were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the precious blood of Christ. Such an esteem God had of them that rather than they should perish Jesus Christ shall be made a man yea a curse for them O then learn to put a due value upon your own souls Don't sell that cheap which God hath paid so dear for Remember what a treasure you carry about you The glory that you see in this world is not equivolent in worth to it Matth. 16.26 What shall a man give in exchange for his Soul Corolary 2. If God have given his own Son for the world then it follows that those for whom God gave his own Son may warrantably expect any other Temporal mercies from him This is the Apostles Inference Rom. 8.32 He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up to death for us all how shall he not with him freely give us all things And so 1 Cor. 3.21 22. All is yours for ye are Christs i. e. They hold all other things in Christ who is the Capital and most comprehensive mercy To make out the grounds of this comfortable deduction let these four things be pondered and duly weighed in your thoughts 1. No other mercy you need or desire is or can be so dear to God as Jesus Christ is He never layed any other thing in his bosom as he did his Son As for the world and the comforts of it it is the dust of his feet he values it not As you see by his providential disposals of it having given it to the worst of men All the Turkish Empire said Luther as great and glorious as it is is but a crum which the Master of the family throws to the Dogs Think upon any other outward enjoyment that 's valuable in your eyes and there is not so much compare betwixt it and Christ in the esteem of God as is betwixt your dear Children and the Lumber of your houses in your esteem If then God have parted so freely from that which was infinitly dearer to him than these how shall he deny these when they may promote his glory and your good 2. As Jesus Christ was nearer the heart of God than all these so Christ is in himself much greater and more excellent than them all Ten thousand worlds and the glory of them all is but the dust of the ballance if weighed with Christ. These things are but poor creatures but he is over all God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 They are the common gifts but he is the gift of God Joh. 4.10 They are ordinary mercys but he is the mercy Luk. 1.72 As one Pearl or precious stone is greater in value than ten thousand common pebbles Now if God have so freely given the greater how can you suppose he should deny the lesser mercys Will a man give to another a large inheritance and stand with him for a trifle How can it be 3. There is no other mercy you stand in want of but you are entitled to it by the gift of Christ. It is as to right conveyed to you with Christ. So in the forecited 1 Cor. 3.21 22 23. The world is yours yea all is yours for ye are Christs So 2 Cor. 1.20 For all the promises of God in Christ in him they are yea and in him Amen With him he hath given you all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 6.17 Richly to enjoy The word signifies rem aliquam cum laetitia percipere To have the sweet relish and comfort of an enjoyment So have we in all our mercys upon the account of our title to them in Christ. 4. Lastly if God have given you this nearer greater and all comprehending mercy when you were enemies to him and alienated from him it is not imaginable he should now deny you any inferiour mercy when you are come into a state of reconciliation and amity with him So the Apostle reasons Rom. 5.8 9 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life And thus you have the second Inference with its grounds Corolary 3. If the greatest love hath been manifested in giving Christ to the world then it follows that the greatest evil and wickedness is manifested in despising slighting and rejecting Christ. 'T is sad to abuse the love of God manifested in the lowest gift of providence but to sleight the richest discoveries of it even in that peerless gift wherein God commends his love in the most taking and astonishing manner this is sin with a witness Blush O heavens and be astonished O earth yea be ye horribly afraid No guilt like this The most flagitious wretches among the barbarous Nations are innocent in comparison of these But are there any such in the world Dare any slight this gift of God indeed if mens words might be taken there are few or none that dare do so but if their lives and practices may be believed this this is the sin of the far greater part of the Christianized world Witness the lamentable stupidity and supiness witness the contempt of the Gospel witness the hatred and persecution of his Image Laws and People What is the language of all these but a vile esteem of Jesus Christ. And now let me a little expostulate with these ungrateful souls that trample underfoot the Son of God That value not this love that gave him forth What is that mercy which you so contemn and undervalue Is it so vile and cheap a thing as your entertainment speaks it to
that have need of it unbelievers have no share in it They reject it Such have no part in it If then he neither dyed for himself as I proved before nor for Angels nor unbelievers either his blood must be shed with respect to believers or which is most absurd and never to be imagined shed as water upon the ground and totally cast away So that you see by all this it was for our Sakes as the Text speaks that he sanctified himself And now we may say Lord the Condemnation was thine that the Iustification might be mine The Agony thine that the Victory might be mine The Pain was thine and the Ease mine The Stripes thine and the Healing Balm issuing from them mine The Vinegar and Gall was thine that the Honey and Sweet might be mine The Curse was thine that the Blessing might be mine The Crown of Thorns was thine that the Crown of Glory might be mine The Death was thine the Life purchased by it mine Thou payedst the Price that I might enjoy the Inheritance We come next to the Inferences of truth deducible from this point Which follow Inference 1. If Jesus Christ did wholly set himself apart for believers How reasonable is it that believers should Consecrate and set themselves apart wholly for Christ Is he all for us and shall we be nothing for him What he was he was for you What ever he did was done for you And all that he suffered was suffered for you Oh then I beseech you Brethren by the mercys of God present your Bodys i. e. your whole selves for so body is there Synechdochically put to signifie the whole person I say present your bodys a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your reasonable Service Rom. 12.1 As your good was Christs end so let his glory be your end Let Christ be the end of your conversation Heb. 13.7 As Christ could say to me to live is you So do you say for us to live is Christ Phil. 1.21 O that all who profess Faith in Christ could subscribe Cordially to that profession Rom. 14.8 None of us liveth to himself and no man dyeth to himself but whether we live we live to the Lord and whether we die we die to to the Lord so then whether we live or die we are the Lords This is to be a Christian indeed What is a Christian but an holy dedicated thing to the Lord And what greater evidence can there be that Christ set himself apart for you than your setting your selves apart for him This is the marriage Covenant Hos. 3.3 Thou shalt be for me and not for another so will I be for thee Ah what a life is the life of a Christian Christ all for you and you all for him Blessed exchange Soul saith Christ all I have is thine Lord saith the Soul and all I have is thine Soul saith Christ my person is wonderful but what I am I am for thee My life was spent in labour and travel but I lived for thee And Lord saith the believer my person is vile and not worth thy accepting but such as it is it 's thine my Soul with all and every faculty my body and every member of it my gifts time and all my Talents are thine And see that as Christ bequeathed and made over himself to you so ye in the like manner bestow and make over your selves to him He lived not neither dyed as you hear for himself but you O that you in like manner would down with self and up with Christ in the room of it Woe woe is me saith one that the holy profession of Christ is made a stagâ—e garment by many to bring home a vain fame And Christ is made to serve mens ends This is to stop an Oven with a Kings Robes Except men Martyr and slay the body of sin in sanctified self-denyal they shall never be Christs Martyrs and faithful Witnesses Oh if I could be master of that house-Idol my self Mine own Mine own wit will credit and ease how blessed were I O but we have need to be redeemed from our selves rather than from the Devil and the world Learn to put out your selves and to put in Christ for your selves I should make a sweet bargain and give old for new if I could shuffle out Self and substitute Christ my Lord in place of my self to say not I but Christ not my will but Christs not my ease not my lusts not my credit but Christ Christ. O wretched Idol my self when shall I see thee wholly decourted and Christ wholly put in thy Room O if Christ had the full place and Room of my self that all my aims purposes thoughts and desires would coast and land upon Christ and not upon my self He set himself apart for you Believers and no others No not for Angels but for you will ye also set your selves apart peculiarly for Christ be his and no others Let not Christ and the world share and divide your Hearts in two halves betwixt them let not the world step in and say half mine You will never do Christ right nor answer this Grace till you can say as it is Psal. 73.25 whom have I in Heaven but thee and on Earth there is none that I desire in comparison of thee None but Christ none but Christ is a proper Motto for a Christian. He left the highest and best injoyments even those in his Fathers bosom to set himself apart for Death and sufferings for you are you ready to leave the bosom of the best and sweetest injoyments you have in this world to serve him if you stand not habitually ready to leave Father Mother Wife Children Lands yea and life too to serve him You are not worthy of him Mat. 10.37 He was so wholly given up to your service that he refused not the worst and hardest part of it even bleeding groaning dying work his love to you sweetned all this to him can you say so too do you account the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the Treasures of Egypt as Moses did Heb. 11.26 He had so intirely devoted himself to your work that he could not be at rest till it was finished He was so intent upon it that he forgot to eat Bread Joh. 4.31 32. so it should be with you His service should be Meat and Drink to you to conclude He was so wholly given up to your work and service that he would not suffer himself to be in the least diverted or taken off from it And if Peter himself counsel him to favour himself he shall hear get thee behind me Satan Oh happy were it if our Hearts were but so engaged for Christ. In Gallens time it was proverbial when they would express the impossibility of a thing You may assoon take off a Christian from Christ. Thus you see what use you should make of Christs sanctifying himself for you Inference 2. If Christ have sanctified or consecrated himself for us
do your souls good Psal. 4.4 Commune with your own hearts Thirdly Labour to see and ingenuously confess the insufficiency of all your other knowledge to do you good What if you had never so much skill and knowledge in other mysteries What if you be never so well acquainted with the letter of the Scripture What if you had angelical illumination this can never save thy soul. No all thy knowledge signifies nothing till the Lord shew thee by special light the deplored state of thy own heart and a saving sight of Jesus Christ thy only remedy Inference 4. Since then there is a common light and special saving light which none but Christ can give it 's therefore the concernment of every one of you to try what your light is We know saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 8.1 that we all have knowledge O but what and whence is it Is it the light of life springing from Jesus Christ that bright and morning star Or only such as the Devils and damned have These lights differ First in their very kinds and natures The one is Heavenly supernatural and spiritual the other earthly and natural the effect of a better constitution or education Iam. 3.15 17. Secondly They differ most apparently in their effects and operations The light that comes in a special way from Christ is humbling abasing and soul emptying light By it a man sees the vileness of his own nature and practice which begets self loathing in him but natural light on the contrary puffs up and exalts makes the heart swell with self conceitedness 1 Cor. 8.1 The Light of Christ is practical and operative still urging the soul yea lovingly constraining it to obedience No sooner did it shine into Pauls heart but presently he asks Lord what wilt thou have me to do Act. 9.6 It brought forth fruit in the Collossians from the first day it came to them Col. 1.6 but the other spends it self in impractical notions and is detained in unrighteousness â— Rom. 1.18 The light of Christ is powerfully transformative of its subjects changing the man in whom it is into the same image from glory to glory 2 Cor. 3. ult but common light leaves the heart as dead carnal and sensual as if no light at all were in it In a word All saving light endears Jesus Christ to the soul and as it could not value him before it saw him so when once he appears to the soul in his own light he is appreciated and endeared unspeakably then none but Christ. All is but dung that he may win Christ. None in Heaven but him nor on earth desirable in comparison of him But no such effect flows from natural common knowledge Thirdly They differ in their Issues Natural common knowledge vanisheth as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 13.8 It 's but a May flower and dies in its month Doth not their excellency that is in them go away Job 4.21 But this that springs from Christ is perfected not destroyed by death It springs up into everlasting life The soul in which it is subjected carrys it away with it into glory Ioh. 17.2 this light is life eternal Now turn in and compare your selves with these rules Let not false light deceive you Inference 5. Lastly How are they obliged to love serve and honour Iesus Christ whom he hath enlightned with the saving knowledge of himself O that with hands and hearts lifted up to Heaven ye would adore the free grace of Jesus Christ to your souls How many round about you have their eyes closed and their hearts shut up How many are in darkness and there are like to remain till they come to the blackness of darkness which is reserved for them O what a pleasant thing is it for your eyes to see the light of this world but what is it for the eye of your mind to see God in Christ To see such ravishing sights as the objects of faith are And to have such a pledge as this given you of the blessed visions of glory for in this light you shall see light Bless God and boast not Rejoyce in your light but be not proud of it And beware ye sin not against the best and highest light in this world If God were so incensed against the Heathens for disobeying the light of nature what is it in you to sin with eyes clearly illuminated with the purest light that shines in this world You know God charges it upon Solomon in 1 King 11.9 that he turned from the way of obedience after the Lord had appeared unto him twice Jesus Christ intended when he opened your eyes that your eyes should direct your feet Light is a special help to obedience and obedience a singular help to increase your light The ELEVENTH SERMON HEB. IX XXIII It was therefore necessary that the partners of things in the Heavens should be purified with these but the Heavenly things themselves with better Sacrifices than these SAlvation as to the actual dispensation of it is revealed by Christ as a Prophet procured by him as a Priest applied by him as a King in vain is it revealed if not purchased in vain revealed and purchased if not applied How it is revealed both to us and in us by our great Prophet hath been declared And now from the Prophetical Office we pass on to the Priestly Office of Jesus Christ who as our Priest purchased our Salvation In this Office is contained the grand relief for a soul distressed by the guilt of sin When all other reliefs have been essayed 't is the blood of this great sacrifice sprinkled by faith upon the trembling conscience that must cool refresh and sweetly compose and settle it Now seeing so great a weight hangs upon this Office the Apostle industriously confirms and commends it in this Epistle and more specially in this ninth Chapter Shewing how it was figured to the world by the Typical blood of the sacrifices but infinitely excels them all And as in many other most weighty respects so principally in this that the blood of these Sacrifices did but purifie the Types or patterns of the Heavenly things but the blood of this Sacrifice purified or consecrated the Heavenly things themselves signified by those Types The words read contain an Argument to prove the necessity of the offering up of Christ the great Sacrifice drawn from the proportion betwixt the Types and things Typified If the Sanctuary Mercy-seat and all things pertaining to the service of the Tabernacle was to be consecrated by blood those earthly but sacred Types by the blood of Bulls and Lambs c. much more the Heavenly things shadowed by them ought to be purified or consecrated by better blood than the blood of beasts The blood consecrating these should as much excel the blood that consecrated those as the Heavenly things themselves do in their own nature excel those earthly shadows of them Look what proportion there is betwixt the Type and Anti-Type
sacrifice the meritorious cause so of necessity there must be faith the instrumental cause And these concauses do all sweetly meet in their influences and activities in our remission and tranquility of conscience and are all suo genere in their kind and place absolutely necessary to the procuring and applying of it What the near that the blood of Christ is shed if I have no interest in it no saving influences from it O be convinvinced this is the end the business of life Faith is the Phoenix grace as Christ is the Phoenix mercy He is the gift Joh. 4.10 And this is the work of God Ioh. 6.29 the death of Christ the offers and tenders of Christ never saved one soul in themselves without believing application But wo is me how do I see sinners either not at all toucht with the sense of sin and so being whole need not the Physitian or if any be sâ—â—â—g and wounded with guilt how do they lick themselves whole with their own duties and reformations as Physitians say of wounds let them but be kept clean and nature will find balsom of its own to heal them If it be so in spiritual wounds what need Christ to have left the Fathers bosom and come down to dye in the quality and nature of a Sacrifice for us O if men can but have health pleasure riches honours and any way make a shift to still a brawling conscience that it may not check or interrupt them in these enjoyments Christ may go where he will for them And I am assured till God shew you the face of sin in the glass of the Law Make the Scorpions and fiery Serpents that lurk in the Law and in your own consciences to come hissing about you and smiting you with their deadly stings till you have had some sick nights and sorrowful days for sin you will never go up and down seeking an interest in the blood of this sacrifice with tears But Reader if ever this be thy condition then wilt thou know the worth of a Christ. Then thou wilt have a value for the blood of sprinkling As I remember it 's storied of our Crook-back Richard when he was put to a rout in a field battel and flying on foot from his pursuing enemies he cried out O now said he a Kingdom for a Horse So wilt thou cry a Kingdom for a Christ. Ten thousand Worlds now if I had thâ—m for the blood of sprinkling Corollary 3. Is Christ your High-Priest and is his Priestood so indispensably necessary to your salvation then freely acknowledge your utter impotency to reconcile your selves to God by any thing you can do or suffer And let Christ have the whole glory of your recovery ascribed to him It 's highly reasonable that he that laid down the whole price should have the whole praise If any man think or say he could have made an attonement for himself he doth therein cast no light reproach upon that profound wisdom which laid the design of our redemption in the death of Christ. But of this I have spoken elsewhere And therefore Corollary 4. In the last place I rather choose to perswade you to see your necessity of this Priest and his most excellent sacrifice and accordingly to make use of it The best of you have polluted natures poisoned in the womb with sin those natures have need of this sacrifice They must have the benefit of this blood to pardon and cleanse them or be eternally damned Hear me ye that never spent a tear for the sin of nature if the blood of Christ be not springled upon your natures it had been better for you that you had been the generation of beasts the off-spring of Dragons or Toads They have a contemptible but not a vitiated sinful nature as you have Your Actual sins have need of this Priest and his sacrifice to procure remission for them If he take them not away by the blood of his cross they can never be taken away They will lie down with you in the dust They will rise with you and follow you to the Judgement seat crying we are thy works and we will follow thee All thy repentance and tears shouldst thou weep as many tears as there be drops in the Ocean can never take away sin Thy duties even the best of them need this sacrifice It is in the verture thereof that they are accepted of God And were it not God had respect to Christs offering he would not regard or look towards thee or any of thy duties Thou couldst no more come near God than thou couldst approach a devouring fire or dwell with everlasting burnings Well then say I need such a Priest every way Love him in all his offices See the goodness of God in providing such a sacrifice for thee Meat drink and air not more necessary to maintain thy natural life than the death of Christ is to give and maintain thy spiritual life O then let thy soul grow big whilst meditating of the usefulness and excellency of Christ which is thus displaied and unfolded in every branch of the Gospel And with a deep sence upon thy heart let thy lips say blessed be God for Iesus Christ. The TWELFTH SERMON HEB. X.XIV. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified AFter this more general view and consideration of the Priesthood of Christ method requires that we come to a nearer and more particular consideration of the parts thereof which are his Oblation and Intercession answerable to the double office of the High-Priest offering the blood of the Sacrifices without the holy place which Typed out Christs oblation and then once a year bringing the blood before the Lord into the most holy place presenting it before the Lord and with it sprinkling the mercy-seat wherein the intercession of Christ the other part or Act of his Priesthood was in a lively manner Typified to us My present business is to open and apply the Oblation of Christ. The efficacy and excellency whereof is excellently illustrated by a comparison with all other oblations in the precedent context and with a singular Encomium commended to us in these words from the singularity of it It is but one offering one not only specifically but one numerically considered But once offered and never more to be repeated For Christ dieth no more Rom. 6.9 He also commends it from the efficacy of it By it he hath perfected i. e. not only purchased a possibility of salvation but all that we need to our full perfection It brings in a most intire compleat and perfect righteousness All that remains to make us perfectly happy is but the full application of the benefits procured by this Oblation for us Moreover it 's here commended from the extensiveness of it Not being restrained to a few but applicable to all the Saints in all the ages and places of the world For this indefinite them that are sanctified is
equivalent to a universal and is as much as if he had said to all and every Saint from the beginning to the end of the world Lastly He commends it from its perpetuity It perfects for ever That is it is of everlasting efficacy It shall abide as fresh vigorous and powerful to the end of the world as it was the first moment it was offered up All runs into this sweet truth DOCT. That the Oblation made unto God by Iesus Christ is of unspeakable value and everlasting efficacy to perfect all them that are or shall be Sanctified to the end of the world Out of this fountain flow all the excellent blessings that believers either have or hope for Had it not been for this there had been no such things in rerum natura as Justification Adoption Salvation c. peace with God and hopes of glory pardon of sin and divine acceptation These and all other our best mercies had been but so many entia rationis meer conceits A man as one saith might have haply imagined such things as these as he may golden Mountains and Rivers of liquid gold and rocks of Diamonds but these things could never have had any real existance extramentem had not Christ offered up himself a Sacrifice to God for us It is the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered up himself without spot to God that purges the Conscience from dead works Heb. 9.14 That is from the sentence of condemnation and death as it is reflected by Conscience for our works sake His appearing before God as our Priest with such an offering for us is that which removes our guilt and fear together He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself Heb. 9.26 Now for as much as the point before us is of so great weight in it self and so fundamental to our safety and comfort I shall endeavour to give you as distinct and clear an accompt of it as can consist with that brevity which I must necessarily use And therefore Reader apply thy mind attently to the consideration of this excellent Priest that appears before God and the Sacrifice he offers with the properties and adjuncts thereof The Person before whom he brings and to whom he offers it The Persons for whom he offers and the end for which this Oblation is made First The Priest that appears before God with an Oblation for us is Jesus Christ God-man The dignity of whose person dignified and derived an inestimable worth to the offering he made There were many Priests before him but none like unto him either for the purity of his person or the perpetuity of his Priesthood They were sinful men and offered for their own sins as well as the sins of the people Heb. 5.3 But he was holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners Heb. 7.2 He could stand before God even in the eye of his Justice as a Lamb without spot Though he made his soul an offering for sin yet he had done no iniquity nor was any guile found in his mouth Isa. 53.9 And indeed his offering had done us no good if the least taint of sin had been found on him They were mortal men that continued not by reason of death Heb. 7.23 But Christ is a Priest for ever Psal. 110.4 Secondly The Oblation or offering he made was not the blood of beasts but his own blood Heb. 9.12 And herein he transcended all other Priests that he had something of his own to offer He had a body given him to be at his own dispose to this use and purpose Heb. 10.10 He offered his body Yea not only his body but his soul was made an offering for sin Isa. 53.10 We had made a forfeiture of our souls and bodies by sin and it was necessary the Sacrifice of Christ should be answerable to the debt we owed And when Christ came to offer his Sacrifice he stood not only in the capacity of a Priest but also in the capacity of a surety and so his soul stood in the stead of ours and his body in the stead of our bodies Now the excellency of this Oblation will appear in the following adjuncts and properties of it This Oblation being for the matter of it the soul and body of Jesus Christ is therefore First Invaluably pretious So the Apostle stiles it 1 Pet. 1.19 Ye were redeemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the pretious blood of the Son of God And such it behoved him to offer For it being offered as an expiatory Sacrifice it ought to be aequivalent in its own intrinsick value to all the souls and bodies that were to be redeemed by it And so it was and more also for there was a redundancy of value an overplus of merit which went to make a purchase for the redeemed as will be opened in its place So that as one rich-Diamond is more worth than a thousand Pebbles one piece of Gold than a many Counters so the soul and body of one Christ is much more excellent than all the souls and bodies in the world And yet I dare not affirm as some do that by reason of the infinite pretiousness of Christs blood one drop thereof had been sufficient to have redeemed the whole world for if one drop had been enough why was all the rest even to the last drop shed Was God cruel to exact more from him than was needful and sufficient Besides we must remember that the passions of Christ which were inflicted on him as the curse of the Law these only are the passions which are sufficient for our redemption from the curse of the Law now it was not a drop of blood but death which was contained in the curse This therefore was necessary to be inflicted But surely as none but God can estimate the weight and evil of sin so none but he can comprehend the worth and pretiousness of the blood of Christ shed to expiate it And being so infinitely pretious a thing which was offered up to God it must Secondly Needs be a most compleat and alsufficient Oblation fully to expiate the sins of all for whom it was offered in all ages of the world The vertue of this Sacrifice reacheth backward as far as Adam and reacheth forward to the last person of of the Elect springing from him That the efficacy of it thus reached back to Adam is plain for on the account thereof he is stiled the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world Rev. 13.8 And to the same sence a Judicious Expositor understands those words of Christ. Joh. 8.58 before Abraham was I am And look as the Sun at mid-day extends his light and influence not only forward towards the West but also backward towards the East where he arose so did this most efficacious Sacrifice reach all the Elect in the vertue of it who died before Christ came in the flesh It is therefore but a vain cavil that some make against the
SERMON GAL. III. XIII Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us YOU have seen the general nature necessity and parts of Christs Priesthood viz. his Oblation and Intercession Before you part from this office it 's necessary you should further take into consideration the principal fruits and effects of his Priesthood Which are compleat Satisfaction and the Aquisition or purchase of an eternal inheritance The former viz. the satisfaction made by his blood is manifestly contained in this excellent Scripture before us wherein the Apostle having shewn before at the tenth verse that whosoever continues not in all things written in the Law to do them is cursed declares how notwithstanding the threats of the Law a Believer comes to be freed from the curse of it Namely by Christs bearing that curse for him and so satisfying Gods justice and discharging the Believer from all obligations to punishment More particularly in these words you have the Believers discharge from the curse of the Law and the way and manner thereof opened First The Believers discharge Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law The Law of God hath three parts Commands Promises and Threatnings or Curses The Curse of the Law is its condemning sentence whereby a sinner is bound over to deaâ—h even the death of soul and body The chains by which it binds him is the guilt of sin and from this none can loose the soul but Christ. This curse of the Law is the most dreadful thing imaginable It strikes at the life of the sinner Yea his best life the eternal life of the soul. And when it hath condemned it is inexorable No cries nor tears no reformations or repentance can loose the guilty sinner for it requirâ—s for its reparation that which no meer creature can give even an infinite satisfaction Now from this curse Christ frees the Believer That is he dissolves the obligation to punishment Cancels the hand-writing Looses all the bonds and chains of guilt So that the curse of the Law hath nothing to do with him for ever Secondly We have here the way and manner in an by which this is done And that is by a full price paid down and that price paid in the room of the sinner both making up a compleat and full satisfaction He pays a full price every way adequate and proportionable to the wrong So much this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate redeemed imports He hath bought us out or fully bought us That is by a full price This price with which he so fully bought or purchased our freedom from the curse is not only called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 20.28 a ransom But more emphatically 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 1 Tim. 2.5.6 which might be translated an adequate or fully answerable ransom And so his freeing us by this price is not only expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast bought us to God by thy blood Rev. 5.9 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath fully perfectly bought us out And as the price or ransom paid was full perfect and sufficient in it self so it was paid in our room and upon our account So saith the Text by his being made a curse for us The meaning is not that Christ was made the very curse it self Changed into a curse no more than when the word is said to be made flesh the divine nature was converted into flesh but it assumed or took flesh and so Christ he took the curse upon himself Therefore it 's said 2 Cor. 5.21 He was made sin for us who knew no sin That is our â—in was imputed to our surety and laid upon him for satisfaction And so this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for implies a substitution of one in the place and stead of another Now the price being full and paid in lieu of our sins and thereupon we fully redeemed or delivered from the curse It follows as a fair and just deduction that DOCT. The death of Christ hath made a full satisfaction to God for all the sins of his Elect. He to wit our surety Christ was oppressed and he was afflicted saith the Prophet Isai. 53.7 it may be as fitly rendred and the words will bear it without the least force it was exacted and he answered But how being either way translated it establisheth the satisfaction of Christ may be seen in our learned Annotations on that place So Col. 1.14 in whom we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sin Here we have the benefit viz. redemption interpreted by way of Apposition even the remission of sins and the matchless price that was laid down to purchase it the blood of Christ. So again Heb. 9.12 by his own blood he entred once into the holy place having obtained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eternal redemption for us Here 's eternal redemption the mercy purchased His own blood the price that procur'd it Now for as much as this Doctrine of Christs satisfaction is so necessary weighty and comfortable in it self and yet so much opposed and intricated by several enemies to it the method I shall take for the clearing establishing and preparing it for use shall be First To open the nature of Christs satisfaction and shew what it is Secondly To establish the truth of it and prove that he made full satisfaction to God for all the sins of the Elect. Thirdly To answer the most considerable Objections made against it And Lastly to Apply it First What is the satisfaction of Christ and what doth it imply I answer Satisfaction is the Act of Christ God-man presenting himself as our surety in obedience to God and love to us to do and suffer all that the Law required of us and thereby freeing us from the wrath and curse due to us for our sins First It is the Act of God-man no other was capable of giving satisfaction for an infinite wrong done to God But by reason of the union of the two natures in his wonderful person he could do it and hath done it for us The humane nature did what was necessary in its kind it gave the matter of the Sacrifice the divine nature stampt the dignity and value upon it which made it an adequate compensation So that it was opus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the act of God-man Yet so that each nature retained its own properties notwithstanding their joynt influence into the effect If the Angels in Heaven had laid down their lives or if the blood of all the men in the world had beeen poured out by Justice this could never have satisfied because that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worth and value which this Sacrifice hath would have still been wanting It was God that redeemed the Church with his own blood Act. 20.28 If God redeem with his own blood he redeems as God-man without any dispute Secondly If he
satisfie God for us he must present himself before God as our surety in our stead as well as for our good else his obedience had signified nothing to us to this end he was made under the Law Gal. 4.4 comes under the same obligation with us and that as a surety For so he is called Heb. 7.22 Indeed his obedience and sufferings could be exacted from him upon no other account It was not for any thing he had done that he became a curse It was prophesied of him Dan. 9.26 the Messiah shall be cut off but not for himself and beeing dead the Scriptures plainly assert it was for our sins and upon our account So 1 Cor. 15.3 Christ dyed for our sins according to the Scriptures And it 's well observed by our Divines who assert the vicegerency and substitution of Christ in his sufferings that all those Greek particles which we translate for when applied to the sufferings of Christ do note the meritorious deserving procuring cause of those sufferings So you find Heb. 10.12 He offered one Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for sins 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ once suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for sins Rom. 4.25 He was delivered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our offences Matth. 20.28 He gave his life a ransom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for many And there are that confidently affirm this last particle is never used in any other sense in the whole book of God As an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth i. e. one in lieu of another Just as those whom the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men that exchanged lives or gave life for life staking down their own to deliver anothers As Philumene did for Aristides And so the Poet Virgil speaks Si fratrem Pollux alterna morte redemit And indeed this very consideration is that which supports the doctrine of Imputation the imputation of our sins to Christ and the imputation of Christs righteousness unto us For how could our sins be laid on him but as he stood in our stead or his righteousness be imputed to us but as he was our surety performing it in our place So that to deny Christs sufferings in our stead is to loose the corner stone of our Justification and overthrow the very pillar which supports our faith comfort and salvation Indeed if this had not been he would have been the righteous Lord but not the Lord our righteousness as he is stiled Ier. 33.16 So that it is but a vain distinction to say it was for our good but not in our stead For had it not been in our stead we could not have had the good of it Thirdly The internal moving cause of Christs satisfaction for us was his obedience to God and love to us That it was an act of obedience is plain from Phil. 2.8 He became obedient unto death even the death of the cross Now obedience respects a command and such a command Christ received to dye for us as himself tells us Joh. 10.18 I lay down my life of my self I have power to lay it down and power to take it again this commandment have I received of my Father So that it was an act of obedience with respect to God and yet a most free and spontaneous act with respect to himself And that he was moved to it out of pity and love to us himself assures us Gal. 5.2 Christ loved us and gave himself for us an offering and a Sacrifice to God upon this Paul sweetly reflected Gal. 2.20 who loved me and gave himself for me As the external moving cause was our misery so the internal was his own love and pity for us Fourthly The matter of Christs satisfaction was his active and passive obedience to all that the Law of God required I know there are some that doubt whether Christs active obedience have any place here and so whether it be imputed as any part of our righteousness It is confâ—ssed the Scripture most frequently mentions his passive obedience as that which made the attonement and procures our redemption Matth. 26.28 Matth. 20.28 Rom. 3.24 25. alibi but his passive obedience is never mentioned exclusively as the sole cause or matter of satisfaction But in those places where it 's mentioned by it self it 's put for his whole obedience both active and passive by an usual Trope and in other Scriptures it is ascribed to both as Gal. 4.4 he is said to be made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law Now his being made under the Law to this end cannot be restrained to his subjâ—ction to the curse of the Law only but to the commands of it also So Rom. 5.19 As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous It were a manifest injury to this text also to restrain it to the passive obedience of Christ only To be short this twofold obedience of Christ stands opposed to a twofold obligation that fallen man is under the one to do what God requires the other to suffer what he hath threatned for disobedience We owe him active obedience as his creatures and passive obedience as his prisoners Suitably to this double Oblation Christ comes under the Commandment of the Law to fulfil it actively Matth. 3.15 and under the malediction of the Law to satisfie it passively And whereas it is objected by some if he fulfilled the whole Law for us by his active what need then of this passive obedience We reply great need because both these make up that one entire and compleat obedience by which God is satisfied and we justified It 's a good rule of Alsted obedientia Christi est una copulativa The whole obedience of Christ both active and passive make up one intire perfect obedience and therefore there is no reason why one particle either of the one or of the other should be excluded Fifthly the effect and fruit of this his satisfaction is our freedom ransom or deliverance from the wrath and curse due to us for our sins Such was the dignity value and compleatness of Christs satisfaction that in strict Justice it merited our redemption and full deliverence Not only a possibility that we might be redeemed and pardoned but a right whereby we ought to be so As the learned Dr. Twiss judiciously argues If he be made a curse for us we must then be redeemed from the curse according to justice so the Apostle argues Rom. 3.25 26. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God to declare I say at this time his righteousness that God might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Iesus Mark the design and end of God in exacting satisfaction from Christ it was to declare his righteousness in
remission of sin to believers and lest we should lose the Emphatical word he doubles it to declare I say his righteousness Every one can see how his mercy is declared in remission but he would have us take notice that his justification of Believers is an act of Justice and that God as he is a just God cannot condemn the believer since Christ hath satisfied his debts This attribute seems to be the main bar against remission but now it 's become the very ground and reason why God remits Oh how comfortable a text is this Doth Satan or Conscience set forth thy sin in all its discouraging circumstances and aggravations God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation Must justice be manifested satisfied and glorified So it is in the death of Christ ten thousand times more than ever it could be in thy damnation Thus you have a brief account of the satisfaction made by Jesus Christ. Secondly We shall gather up all that hath been said to establish the truth of Christs satisfaction Proving the reality of it that it is not an improper catechristical fictitious satisfaction by divine acceptilation as some have very diminutively called it but real proper and full and as such accepted by God For his blood is the blood of a surety Heb. 7.22 who came under the same obligations of the Law with us Gal. 4.4 and though he had no sin of his own yet standing before God as our surety the iniquities of us all were laid upon him Isai. 53.6 and from him did the Lord with great severity exact satisfaction for our sins Rom. 8.32 punishing them upon his soul. Matth. 27.46 and upon his body Act. 2.23 and with this obedience of his Son is fully pleased and satisfied Eph. 5.2 And hath in token thereof raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand 1 Tim. 3.16 And for his righteousness sake acquitted and discharged believers who shall never more come into condemnation Rom. 8.1 34. All this is plain in Scripture and our faith in the satisfaction of Christ is not built on the wisdom of man but the everlasting sealed truth of God Yet such is the perverse nature of man and the pride of his heart that whilst he should be humbly adoring the grace of God in providing such a surety for us he is found accusing the justice and diminishing the mercy of God and raising all the objections which Satan and his own heart can invent to overturn that blessed foundation upon which God hath built up his own honour and his peoples salvation Thirdly In the next place therefore we shall reject those doctrines and remove the principal of those objections that are found militating against the satisfaction of Christ. And in the first place we reject with deep abhorrence that doctrine which ascribes to man any power in whole or in part to satisfie God for his own or other mens sins This no meer creature can do by active obedience were it so compleat that he could never sin in thought word or deed any more but live the most holy life that ever any lived For all this would be no more than his duty as a creature Luk. 17.10 and so can be no satisfaction for what he is by nature or hath done against God as a sinner Nor yet by sufferings For we have offended an infinite God and can never satisfie him by our finite sufferings We also with like detestation reject that doctrine which makes the satisfaction of Christ either impossible or fictitious and inconsistent with grace in the free pardon of sin Many are the cavils raised against Christs satisfaction the principal are such as these that follow The Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction is absurd for Christ say we is God if so then God satisfies himself then which what can be more absurd to imagine I Answer God cannot properly be said to satisfie himself for that would be the same thing as to pardon simply without any satisfaction But there is a twofold consideration of Christ. One in respect of his Essence and divine nature in which sence he is the object both of the offence and of the satisfaction made for it Another in respect of his person and oeconomy or office in which sense he properly satisfies God being in respect of his manhood another and inferior to God Ioh. 14.28 the blood of the man Christ Jesus is the matter of the satisfaction The divine nature dignifies it and makes it of infinite value A certain family hath committed treason against the King and are all under the condemnation of the Law for it the Kings Son moved with pity and love resolves to satisfie the Law and yet save the Family in order whereunto he marries a daughter of the family whereby her blood becomes Royal blood and worth the blood of the whole family whence she sprang this Princess is by her Husband executed in the room of the rest In this case the King satisfies not himself for the wrong but is satisfied by the death of another equivalent in worth to the blood of them all This similitude answers not to all the particulars as indeed nothing in nature doth or can but it only shews what it was that satisfied God and how it became so satisfactory If Christ satisfied by paying our Debt then he should have endured eternal torments For so we should and the damned shall We must distinguish betwixt what is essential and what is accidental in punishment The primary intent of the Law is reparation and satisfaction he that can make it at one intire payment as Christ could and did ought to be discharged He that cannot as no meer creature can ought to lye for ever as the damned do under sufferings If God will be satisfied for our sin before he pardon them how then is pardon an Act of Grace Pardon could not be an act of pure grace if God received satisfaction from us but if he pardon us upon the satisfaction received from Christ though it be of debt to him it is of grace to us For it was grace to admit a surety to satisfie more grace to provide him and most of all to apply his satisfaction to us by uniting us to Christ as he hath done But God loved us before Christ died for us for it was the love of God to the world that moved him to give his only begotten Son Could God love us and yet not be reconciled and satisfied Gods complacential love is indeed inconsistent with an unreconciled state He is reconciled to every one he so loves But his benevolent love consisting in his purpose of Good may be before actual reconciliation and satisfaction Temporal death as well as eternal is a part of the curse if Christ have fully satisfied by bearing the curse for us how is it that those for whom he bare it dye as well as others As Temporal death is a
the severity of the Law that when it is once offended it will never be made amends again by all that we can do It will not discharge the sinner for all the sorrow in the world Indeed if a man be in Christ sorrow for sin is something and renewed obedience is something God looks upon them favourably and accepts them gratiously in Christ but out of him they signifie no more than the intreaties and cries of a condemned malefactor to reverse the legal sentence of the Judge You may toyl all the day of your life and at night go to bed without a candle To that sense that Scripture sounds Isa. 50. ult Behold all ye that kindle a fire that compass your selves about with sparks walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks that you have kindled this shall ye have of mine hand ye shall lie down in sorrow By fire and the light of it some understand the sparkling pleasures of this life and the sensitive joys of the creatures but generally it 's taken for our own natural righteousness and all acts of duties in order to our own justification by them before God And so it stands opposed to that faith of recumbency spoken of in the verse before By their compassing themselves about with these sparks understand their dependence on these their duties and glorying in them But see the fatal issue ye shall lie down in sorrow That shall be your recompence from the hand of the Lord. That 's all the thanks and reward you must expect from him for slighting Christs and prefering your own righteousness before his Reader be convinced that one act of faith in the Lord Jesus pleases God more than all the obedience repentance and strivings to obey the Law through thy whole life can do And thus you have the first special fruit of Christs Priesthood in the full satisfaction of God for all the sins of Believers The FIFTEENTH SERMON GAL. IV. IV V. But when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the Adoption of Sons THis Scripture gives us an account of a double fruit of Christs death viz. the payment of our debt and the purchase of our inheritance First The payment of our debt expressed by our redemption or buying us out from the obligation and curse of the Law which hath been discoursed in the last exercise Secondly the purchase of an inheritance for those redeemed ones expressed here by their receiving the Adoption of Sons Which is to be our present subject Adoption is either civil or divine Of the first the Civil Law gives this difinition that it is A Lawful Act in imitation of nature invented for the comfort of them that have no children of their own Divine Adoption is that special benefit whereby God for Christs sake accepteth us as Sons and makes us heirs of eternal life with him Betwixt this Civil and Sacred Adoption there is a twofold agreement and disagreement They agree in this that both flow from the pleasure and good will of the Adoptant And in this that both confer aright to priviledges which we have not by nature but in this they differ One is an Act imitating nature the other transcends nature The one was found out for the comfort of them that had no children the other for the comfort of them that had no Father This Divine Adoption is in Scripture either taken properly for that act or sentence of God by which we are made Sons or for the priviledges with which the Adopted are invested And so it 's taken Rom. 8.23 and in this Scripture now before us We lost our inheritance by the fall of Adam we receive it as the Text speaks by the death of Christ which restores it again to us by a new and better title The Doctrine hence is DOCT. That the death of Iesus Christ hath not only satisfied for our debts but over and above purchased a rich inheritance for the children of God For this end or cause he is the Mediator of the New-Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Heb. 9.15 We will here first see what Christ paid Secondly what he purchased Thirdly for whom First What Christ paid Our Divines comprize the vertue and fruits of the Priesthood of Christ in these two things viz. solutio debiti acquisitio haereditatis payment and purchase answerably the obedience of Christ hath a double relation ratio legalis justiciae the relation of a legal righteousness an adequate and exactly proportionated price And it hath also in it ratio super legalis meriti the relation of a merit over and beyond the Law To object as some do the satisfaction of Christ was more than sufficient according to our Doctrine and therefore could not be intended for the payment of our debt is a senseless cavil For surely if Christ paid more than was owing he must needs pay all that was owing to divine Justice And truly it is but a bad requital of the Love of Jesus Christ who beside the payment of what we owed would manifest his bounty by the redundancy of his merit which he paid to God to purchase a blessed inheritance for us This overplus of satisfaction which was the price of that inheritance I am now to open is not obscurely hinted but plainly expressed twice in Rom. 5.15 But not as the offence so also is the free gift for if through the offence of one many be dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Iesus Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath abounded or flowed abundantly unto many So vers 17. For if by one mans offence death raigned by one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much more they which receive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the overflowings or abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall raign in life by one Iesus Christ. In both which places Christ and Adam are compared as the two roots or common heads of mankind both agreeing in this property of communicating their conditions to those that are theirs yet there is a great deal of difference betwixt them for in Christ the power is all divine and therefore infinitely more active and effectual He communicates abundantly more to his than they lost in Adam So that this blood is not only sufficient to redeem all those that are actually redeemed by it but even the whole world also And were there so many worlds of men as there are men in the world it would be sufficient for them also and yet still there would be an overplus of value For all those worlds of men would rise but to a finite bulk but this blood is infinite
NINETEENTH SERMON PHIL. II. VIII And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the cross THis Scripture hath been once already under consideration and indeed can be never enough considered It holds forth the humbled state of the Lord Jesus during the time of his abode on earth The sum of it was delivered you before in this point DOCT. That the state of Christ from his Conception to his Resurrection was a state of deep abasement and humiliation The Humiliation of Christ was proposed to us under the three general heads or branches of his Humiliation in his Incarnation his Humiliation in his life and his Humiliation in his death How he was humbled by Incarnation hath been opened above in the eighteenth Sermon How he was humbled in his life is the design of this Sermon yet expect not that I should give you here an exact History of the life of Christ. The Scriptures speak but little of the private part of his life and it is not my design to dilate upon all the memorable passages that the Evangelists those faithful Narrators of the life of Christ have preserved for us but only to observe and improve those more observable particulars in his life wherein especially he was humbled and such are these that follow First The Lord Jesus was humbled in his very Infancy by his Circumcision according to the Law For being of the stock of Israel he was to undergo the Ceremonies and submit to the Ordinances belonging to that people and thereby to put an end to them for so it became him to fulfil all Righteouness Luk. 2.21 And when eight daies were accomplished for the Circumcising of the Child his name was called Iesus Hereby the Son of God was greatly humbled especially in these two respects First In that hereby he obliged himself to keep the whole Law though he were the Law-maker Gal. 5.3 For I testifie again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law The Apostles meaning is he is a debtor in regard of duty because he that thinks himself bound to keep one part of the Ceremonial Law doth thereby bind himself to keep it all for where all the parts are inseparably united as they are in the Law of God we pull all upon us by engaging or medling with any one And he that is a debtor in duty to keep the whole Law quickly becomes a debtor in regard of penalty not being able to keep any part of it Christ therefore coming as our surety to pay both those debts the debt of duty and the debt of penalty to the Law he by his circumcision obliges himself to pay the whole debt of duty by fulfilling all Righteousness and though his obedience to it was so exact and perfect that he contracted no debt of penalty for any transgression of his own yet he obliges himself to pay that debt of penalty we had contracted by suffering all the pains due to transgressors This was that intollerable yoak that none were able to bear but Christ. Acts 15.10 And it was no small abasure of Christ to bind himself to the Law as a Subject made under it For he was the Law-giver above all Law and herein that Soveraignty of a God one of the choice flowers in the Crown of Heaven was obscured and vailed by his subjection Secondly Hereby he was represented to the world not only as a Subject but also as a Sinner For though he was pure and holy yet this ordinance passing upon him seemed to imply as if corruption had indeed been in him which must be cut off by mortification For this was the mysterie principally intended by circumcision It served to mind and admonish Abraham and his seed of the natural guiltiness uncleanness and corruption of their hearts and natures So Jer. 4.4 Circumcise your selves unto the Lord and take away the foreskins of your hearts ye men of Judah i. e. the sinfulness and corruption of them Hence the rebellious and unmortified are called stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart as it is Acts 7.51 and as it served to convince of natural uncleanness so it signified and sealed the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh as the Apostle phraseth it Col. 2.11 Now this being the end of God in the institution of this ordinance for Abraham and his ordinary seed Christ in his infancy by submitting to it did not only vail his Soveraignty by subjection but was also represented as a sinner to the world though most holy and pure in himself Secondly Christ was humbled by persecution and that in the very morning of his life He was banisht almost as soon as born Matth. 2.13 Flee into Aegypt saith the Angel to Ioseph and be thou there until I bring thee word for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him Ungrateful Herod was this entertainment for a Saviour what raise the Country against him as if a destroyer rather than a Saviour had landed upon the coast what deny him the protection of those Laws under which he was born and that before he had broken the least punctilio of them the child of a beggar may claim the benefit and protection of Law as his birthright and must the Son of God be denied it But herein he fulfilled the Scriptures whilst venting his own lusts For so it was foretold Ier. 31.15 And this early persecution was not obscurely hinted in the title of the 22 Psalm that psalm which looks rather like an History of the new than a prophecy of the old Testament For as it contains a most exact description of Christs sufferings so it 's fitted with a most suitable Title To the chief Musitian Aiâ—eleth Shabar which signifies the Hind of the morning or that Deer which the Hunter rouzes betime in the morning and singles out to hunt down that day And so they did by him as the 16. verse will tell you for saith he Dogs have compassed me the Assemble of the wicked have enclosed me Upon which Musculus sweetly and ingeniously descants O what sweet Venison saith he is the flesh of Christ abundantly sweeter to the believing soul than that which the Nobles of this world esteem most delicate And lest it should want the highest and richest favour to a delicate palate Christ our Hart was not only killed but hunted to the purpose before he was killed even as great men use by hunting and chasing before they cut the throat of the deer to render its flesh more sweet tender and delicate Thus was Christ hunted betimes out of the Country he was born in And no doubt but where such dogs scent and wind the Spirit of Christ in any they would pursue them also to destruction did not a gratious providence rate them off But to return how great an Humiliation is this to the Son of God not only to become an Infant but in his
rule of contraries for the most part Where it fixes its marks of hatred we may usually find that which invites our respect and Love It should trouble us the less to be under the slights and disrespects of a blind world I could be even proud upon it said Luther that I see I have an ill name from the world And Ierome blessed God that counted him worthy to be hated of the world Labour to stand right in the Judgement of God and trouble not thy self for the rash and headlong censures of men Let wicked men said one cut the throat of my credit and do as they like best with it when the wind of their calumnies hath blown away my good name from me in the way to Heaven I know Christ will take my name out of the mire and wash it and restore it to me again Inference 7. From the whole of Christs Humiliation in his life learn you to pass through all the troubles of your life with a contented composed spirit as Christ your forerunner did He was persecuted and bare it meekly Poor and never murmured Tempted and never yielded to the Temptation Reviled and Reviled not again When ye therefore pass through any of these trials look to Jesus and consider him See how he that passed through those things before you managed himself in like circumstances yea not only beat the way by his pattern and example for you but hath in every one of those conditions left a blessing behind him for them that follow in his steps Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ. The TWENTIETH SERMON JOH XVII XI And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world and I come to thee holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one as we are WE now come to the Last and Lowest step of Christs Humiliation which was in his submitting to Death even the Death of the Cross. Out of this death of Christ the life of our souls springs up and in this blood of the Cross all our mercies swim to us The blood of Christ runs deep to some eyes The Judicious Believer sees multitudes multitudes of inestimable blessings in it By this Crimson Fountain I resolve to sit down and concerning the death of Christ I shall take distinctly into consideration the preparations made for it the nature and quality of it The Deportment and carriage of dying-Jesus The Funeral-solemnities with which he was buried And lastly the blessed designs and glorious ends of his death The preparatives for his death were six Three on his own part and three more by his enemies The preparations made by himself for it were the solemn recommendation of his friends to his Father The institution of a commemorative sign to perpetuate and refresh the memory of his death in the hearts of his people till he come again And his pouring out his soul to God by prayer in the garden which was the posture he chose to be found in when they should apprehend him This Scripture contains the first preparative of Christ for death whereby he sets his house in order prays for his people and blesses them before he dies The love of Christ was ever tender and strong to his people but the greatest manifestations of it were at parting And this he manifested two waies especially viz. in leaving singular supports and grounds of comfort with them in his last heavenly Sermon in Chap. 14.15 16. and in pouring out his soul most affectionately to the Father for them in this Heavenly Prayer Chap. 17. In this Prayer he gives them a Specimen or Sample of that his glorious intercession-work which he was just then going to perform in Heaven for them Here his heart overflowed for he was now leaving them and going to the Father the last words of a dying man are remarkable how much more of a dying Saviour I shall not lanch out into that blessed Ocean of pretious matter contained in this Chapter but take immediately into consideration the words that I have read wherein I find a weighty petition strongly followed and set home with many mighty Arguments First We have here Christs petition or request in behalf of his people Not only those on the place but all others that then did or afterwards should believe on him And the sum of what he here requests for them is that his Father would keep them through his name Where you have both the mercy and the means of attaining it The mercy is to be kept Keeping implies danger And there is a double danger obviated in this request danger in respect of sin and danger in respect of ruine and destruction To both these the people of God lie open in this world The means of their preservation from both is the name i. e. the power of God This name of the Lord is that strange Tower to which the Righteous flie and are safe Prov. 18.10 Alas it is not your own strength or wisdom that keeps you but ye are kept by the mighty power of God This protecting power of God doth not however exclude our care and diligence but implies it therefore he adds ye are kept by the mighty power of God through faith to Salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 God keeps his people and yet they are to keep themselves in the Love of God Iude 21 to keep their hearts with all diligence Prov. 4.23 This is the sum of the petition Secondly The Arguments with which he urgeth and presses on this request are drawn partly from his own condition I am no more in the world i. e. I am going to die within very few hours I shall be separated from them in regard of my corporal presence Partly from their condition but these are in the world i. e. I must leave them in the midst of danger and partly from the joint interest that his Father and himself had in them Keep those that thou hast given me With several other most prevalent pleas which in their proper places shall be anon produced and displaied to illustrate and confirm this pretious truth which this Scripture affords us DOCT. That the Fatherly care and tender love of our Lord Iesus Christ was eminently discovered in that pleading prayer he poured out for his people at his parting with them It pertained to the Priest and Father of the family to bless the rest especially when they were to be separated from them by death This was a rite in Israel When good Iacob was grown old and the time was come that he should be gathered to his Fathers then he blessed Joseph Ephraim and Manasseth saying God before whom my Fathers Abraham and Isaack did walk the God which fed me all my life long unto this day the Angel which redeemed me from all evil bless the Lads Gen. 48.15 16. this was a prophetical and patriarchical blessing Not that Iacob could bless as God blesses he could speak the words
Historie to great indignation against Pilate the Jews and the rude and bloody Souldiers and could not contain himself but cried out as the Bishop was reading O that I had been there with my French-men I would have cut all their throats who so barbarously used my Saviour To allude to this When the Believer considers and remembers that sin put Christ to all that shame and ignominy that he was wounded for our transgressions he is filled with hatred of sin and cries out O sin I will revenge the blood of Christ upon thee thou shalt never live a quiet hour in my heart And Secondly It produces an humble adoration of the goodness and mercy of God to exact satisfaction for our sins by such bloody stripes from our surety Lord what if this wrath had seised on me as it did on Christ what had been my condition then If these things were done in the green tree what had been the cafe of the dry tree Sometimes representations and not common ones are made of the Love of Christ who assumed a body and soul on purpose to bear the wrath of God for our sins And when that surpassing Love breaks out in its glory upon the soul how is the soul transported and ravished with it crying out what manner of Love is this Here 's a Love large enough to go round the heavens and the Heaven of heavens Who ever loved after this rate to lay down his life for enemies O Love unutterable and unconceivable How glorious is my Love in his red garments Sometimes the fruits of his death are there gloriously displaied Even his satisfaction for sin and the purchase his blood made of the eternal inheritance And this begets thankfulness and confidence in the soul. Christ is dead and his death hath satisfied for my sin Christ is dead therefore my soul shall never die Who shall separate me from the Love of God These are the fruits and this is the nature of that remembrance of Christ here spoken of Secondly What aptitude or conducency is there in this Ordinance to bring Christ so to remembrance Much every way For it is a sign by him appointed to that end and hath as Divines well observe a threefold use and consideration viz. as it is memorative as it is significative and as it is instructive First As it is memorative and so it hath the nature and use of a pledge or token of Love left by a dying to a dear surviving friend And so the Sacrament as was said before is like a Ring pluckt off from Christs Finger or a Bracelet from his Arm or rather his Picture from his Breast delivered to us with such words as these as oft as you look on this rememember me Let this help to keep me alive in your remembrance when I am gone and out of your sight It conduces to it also Secondly As it is a significative sign most aptly signifying both his bitter sufferings for us and our strict and intimate union with him Both which have an excellent usefulness to move the heart and its deepest affections at the remembrance of it The breaking of the Bread and shedding forth the Wine signifies the former our eating drinking and incorporating them is a lively signification of the other Thirdly Moreover this Ordinance hath an excellent use and advantage for this affectionate remembrance of Christ as it is an instructive sign And it many waies instructs us and enlightens our mind particularly in these truths which are very affecting things First That Christ is the Bread on which our souls live proper meat and drink for Believers the most excellent New-Testament food It 's said Psal. 78.25 man did eat Angels food He means the manna that fell from Heaven Which was so excellent that if Angels who are the noblest creatures did live-upon material food they would choose this above all to feed on And yet this was but a Type and weak shadow of Christ on whom Believers feed Christ makes a royal feast of his own flesh and blood Isai. 25.6 all our delicates are in him Secondly It instructs us that the New-Testament is now in its full force and no sustantial alteration can be made in it since the the Testator is dead and by his death hath ratified it So that all the excellent promises and blessings of it are now fully confirmed to the believing soul. Heb. 9.16 17. All these and many more choice truths are we instructed in by this sign And all these waies it remembers us of Christ and helps powerfully to raise warm and affect our hearts with that remembrance of him Thirdly The last enquiry is how Christ hath hereby left such a special mark of his care for and love to his people And that will evidently appear if you consider these five particulars First This is a special mark of the care and Love of Christ in as much as hereby he hath made abundant provision for the confirmation and establishment of his peoples faith to the end of the world For this being an evident proof that the New-Testament is in its full force Matth. 26.28 this is the Cup of the New-Testament in my blood it tends as much to our satisfaction as the legal execution of a deed by which we hold and enjoy our estate So that when he saith take eat it is as much as if God should stand before you at the Table with Christ and all the promises in his hand and say I deliver this to thee as my deed What think you doth this promote and confirm the faith of a Believer if it do not what doth Secondly This is a special mark of Christs care and Love in as much as by this he hath made like abundant provision for the enlargement of his peoples joy and comfort Believers are at this Ordinance as Mary was at the Sepulcher with fear and great joy Matth. 28.8 Come Reader speak thy heart if thou be one that heartily lovest Jesus Christ and hast gone many daies possibly years mourning and lamenting because of the inevidence and cloudiness of thine interest in him that hast sought him sorrowing in this Ordinance and in that in one duty and another if at last Christ should take off that mask that cruel covering as one calls it from his face and be known of thee in breaking bread Suppose he should by his Spirit whisper thus in thine ear as thou sittest at his Table dost thou indeed so prize esteem and value me will nothing but Christ and his Love content and satisfie thee then as sweet lovely and desireable as I am know that I am thine Take thine own Christ into the arms of thy faith this day Would not this breed in thy soul a joy transcendent to all the joys and pleasures in this world what thinkest thou of it Thirdly Here is a signal mark of Christs care and Love in as much as this is one of the highest and best helps for the mortification of the
corruptions of his people Nothing tends more to the killing of sin than this doth Christs blood as it's food to faith so it 's poyson to our Lusts. O what a Pill is wrapt up in that Bread what an excellent Potion is in that Cup to purge the soul One calls that Table an Altar on which our corruptions are sacrificed and slain before the Lord. For how can they that there see what Christ suffered for sin live any longer therein Fourthly Moreover his care and Love appear in providing such bellows as these to excite and blow up his peoples Love into a lively flame When Ioseph made himself known to his Brethren I am Ioseph your Brother whom ye sold be not grieved Oh what a showr of tears and dear affections was there How did they fall upon each others necks so that the Aegyptians wondred at the matter How doth the soul if I may so speak passionately love Jesus Christ at such a time O what a Christ is my Christ the fairest among ten thousand What hath he done what hath he suffered for me what great things hath my Jesus given and what great things hath he forgiven me a world a thousand worlds cannot shew such another Here it 's melted down by Love at his feet It 's pain'd with Love Fifthly To conclude Christs care and Love are farther manifested to his people in this Ordinance as it is one of the strongest bonds of union betwixt themselves that can bee 1 Cor. 10.17 We being many are one bread and one body for we are all partakers of that one bread And though through our corruptions it falls out that that which was intended for a bond of union proves a bond of contention yet in as much as by this it appears how dearly Christ Loved them for as much also as here they are sealed up to the same inheritance their dividing corruptions here slain their Love to Christ and consequently to each other here improved it is certainly one of the strongest ties in the world to wrap up gratious hearts in a bundle of Love And thus I have dispatcht the doctrinal part of this point The improvement of it is in the following Inferences Inference 1. Did Christ leave this Ordinance with his Church to preserve his remembrance among his people then surely Christ foresaw that notwithstanding what he is hath done suffered and promised yet to do for his people they will for all this be still apt to forget him A man would think that such a Christ should never be one whole hour together out of his peoples thoughts and affections that where ever they go they should carry him up and down with them in their thoughts desires and delights That they should let their thoughts work towards Christ as the longing thoughts of her that is with Child do work after that she longs for That they should lie down with Christ in their thoughts at night and when they awake be still with him That their very dreams in the night should be sweet visions of Christ and all their words savour of Christ. But O the baseness of these hearts Here we live and converse in a world of sensible objects which like a company of thieves rob us of our Christ and lay the dead Child in his room Woe is me that it should be so with me who am so obliged to Love him though he be in the highest glory in Heaven he doth not forget us he hath graven us upon the palms of his hands we are continually before him He thinks on us when we forget him The whole honour and glory paid him in Heaven by the Angels cannot divert his thoughts one moment from us but every trifle that meets us in the way is enough to divert our thoughts from him Why do we not abhor and loath our selves for this What is it a pain a burden to carry Christ in our thoughts about the world as much a burden if thy heart be spiritual as a Bird is burdened by carrying his own wings Will such thoughts intrude unseasonably and thrust greater things than Christ out of our minds For shame Christian for shame let noâ— thy heart play the wanton and gad from Christ after every vanity In Heaven nothing else takes up the thoughts of Saints to eternity and yet there is no tireing no saciety O learn to live nearer that heavenly life Never leave praying and striving till thou canst say as it is Psal. 63.5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips whilst I remember thee on my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches Inference 2. Hence also we infer that Sacrament seasons are heart melting seasons because therein the most affecting and heart-melting recognitions and representations of Christ are made As the Gospel offers him to the ear in the most sweet affecting sounds of grace so the Sacrament to the eye in the most taking visions that are on this side Heaven There hearts that will not yield a tear under other Ordinances can pour out floods Zech. 12.10 They shall look upon me whom they have pierced and mourn Yet I dare not affirm that every one whose heart is broken by the believing sight of Christ there can evidence that it is so by a dropping eye No we may say of tears as it 's said of Love Cant. 8.7 If some Christians would give all the treasures of their house for them they cannot be purchased Yet they are truly humbled for sin and seriously affected with the grace of Christ. For the support of such I would distinguish and have them to do so also betwixt what is essential to spiritual sorrow and what is contingent Deep displeasure with thy self for sin hearty resolutions and desires of the compleat mortification of it this is essential to all spiritual sorrow but tears are accidental and in some constitutions rarely found If thou have the former trouble not thy self for want of the later though 't is a mercy when they kindly and undisâ—embledly flow from a heart truly broken And surely to see who it is that thy sins have pierced How great how glorious how wonderful a person that was that was so humbled abased and brought to the dust for such a wretched thing as thou art cannot but tenderly affect the considerating soul. If it was for a lamentation in the Captivity that Princes were hanged up by the hands and the faces of the Elders were not reverenced Lam. 5.12 And if at the death of Abner David could lament and say a Prince and a great man is fallen in Israel this day 2 Sam. 3.38 If he could so pathetically lament the death of Saul and Ionathan saying Daughters of Israel weep over Saul who cloathed you in scarlet The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places Ah how much more should it affect us to see the beauty of Heaven fallen the Prince of life hang dead upon a
Christ as many of his other enemies did of whom it 's said 1 Cor. 2.8 That had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of glory But he did it for mony to make his market of Christ. He sold Christ as a man would sell an Ox or a Sheep to the Butcher for profit He was fully of the mind of the Pope whose motto was the smell or savor of gain is sweet let it rise out of what it will If he can get any thing by Christs blood it shall be a vendible commodity with him What will ye give me saith he and I will betray him Matth. 26.15 Fourthly He sells him and he sells him at a low rate too which shewed how vile an esteem he had of Christ. He is content to part with him for thirty pieces of silver If these pieces or sheckles were the sheckles of the sanctuary they amounted but to three pounds fifteen shillings But it 's supposed they were the common sheckles which were mostly used in buying and selling and then his price that he put upon the Saviour of the world was but one pound seaventeen shillings and six pence A goodly price as the Prophet calls it that he was valued at Zech. 11.12 13. I confess it 's a wonder he asked no more knowing how much they longed for his blood and â—hat they offered no more for him but how then should the Scriptures have been fulfilled O what a sale was this to sell that blood which all the Gold and Silver in the world is not worth one drop of for a trifle Still the wickedness of this fact rises higher and higher Fifthly He left Christ in most Heavenly and excellent imployment when he went to make this soul undoing bargain For if he went away from the Table as some think then he left Christ instituting and administring those Heavenly Signs of his body and blood There he saw or might have seen the bloody work he was going about acted as in a figure before him If he sate out that Ordinance as others suppose he did Then he left Christ singing an Heavenly hymn and preparing to go where Iudas was preparing to meet him When the Lord Jesus was in the most serious and heavenly exercise the wretch slinked away from him into the City or else went under pretence to buy some necessaries But his design was not to buy but to sell whatever his pretences were Nay Sixthly What he did was not done by the perswasions of any The High-Priest sent not for him and without doubt was surprised when he he came to him on such an errand For it could never enter into any of their hearts that any of his own Disciples could ever be drawn into a confederacy against him No he went as a Voluntier offering himself to this work which still heightens the sin and makes it out of measure sinful Seaventhly The manner in which he executes his treasonable design adds further malignity to the fact He comes to Christ with fawning words and carriages Hail Master and kist him Here 's hony in the tongue and poyson in the heart Here 's hatred hid under lying lips This was the man and this was his fact Let us enquire Thirdly The cause and motives of this wickedness how he came to attempt and perpetrate such a villany Maldonate the Iesuit criminates the Protestant Divines for affirming that God had an hand in ordering and overruling this fact But we say that Satan and his own Lust was the impulsive cause of it That God as it was a wicked treason permitted it And as it was a delivering Christ to death was not only the permitter but the wise and holy director or orderer of it and by the wisdom of his providence overruled it to the great good and advantage of the Church in respect of which happy issue Iudas his treason is called faelix scelus a happy wickedness Satan inspired the motion Luk. 22.3 4. Then entred Satan into Judas sirnamed Iscariot and he went his way c. his own Lusts like dry tinder kindled presently his heart was covetous there was predisposed matter enough for the Devil to work on so that it was but touch and take Vers. 25. They covenanted to give him mony and he promised c. The holy God disposed and ordered all this to the singular benefit and good of his people Acts 4.28 they did whatsoever his hand and counsel had before determined to be done And by this determinate counsel of God was he taken and slain Acts 2.23 Yet this no way excuses the wickedness of the Instruments For what they did was done from the power of their own lusts most wickedly what he did was done in the unsearchable depth of his own wisdom most holy God knows how to serve his own ends by the very sins of men and yet have no communion at all in the sin he so overrules If a man let go a Dog out of his hand in pursuit of a Hare the Dog hunts meerly for a prey but he that let him go uses the sagacity and nimbleness of the Dog to serve his own ends by it Iudas minded nothing but his own advantage to get mony God permitted that Lust to work but overruled the issue to his own eternal glory and the salvation of our souls Fourthly Lastly but what was the end and issue of this fact As to Christ it was his death for the hour being come he doth not meditate an escape nor put forth the power of his Godhead to deliver himself out of their hands Indeed he shewed what he could do when he made them go back and stagger with a word He could obtain more than twelve legions of Angels to have been his life-guard one of whom had been sufficient to have coped with all the Roman legions but how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled or our Salvation accomplished No he resists not but Iudas delivering him into their hands at that time was his death And what got he as a reward of his wickedness It ended in the ruine both of his soul and body For immediately a death-pang of despair seized his Conscience which was so intollerable that he ran to the halter for a remedy And so falling headlong he burst assunder and all his bowels gushed out Acts 1.18 And now he that had no bowels for Christ hath none for himself As for his soul it went to its own place vers 25. Even the place appointed for the son of perdition as Christ calls him Iohn 17.12 His name retains an odious stench to this day and shall to all generations It 's a by-word A Proverb of reproach This was his end We will next improve it Corollary 1. Hence in the first place we learn that the greatest professors had need be jealous of their own hearts and look well to the grounds and principles of their professions One of the Antients would have had this Epitaph engraven upon
therefore will get the fairest hand he can to manage it with the less suspicion Corollary 11. Did Iudas one of the twelve do this Then certainly Christians may approve and join with such men on earth whose faces they shall never see in Heaven The Apostles held communion a long time with this man and did not suspect him O please not your selves therefore that you have communion with the Saints here and that they think and speak charitably of you All the Churches shall know saith the Lord that I am he that searcheth the heart and reins and will give to every man as his work shall be Rev. 2.23 In Heaven we shall meet many that we never thought to meet there and miss many we were confident we should see there Corollary 12. Lastly Did Iudas one of the twelve a man so obliged raised and honoured by Christ do this Cease then from man be not too confident but beware of men Trust ye not in a friend put no confidence in a guide keep the door of thy lips from her that lieth in thy bosom Mica 7.5 Not that there is no sincerity in any man but because there is so much hypocrisie in many men and so much corruption in the best of men that we may not be too confident nor lay too great a stress upon any man Peters modest expression of Sylvanus is a pattern for us Sylvanus a faithful brother unto you as I suppose 1 Pet. 5.12 The time shall come saith Christ that brother shall betray brother to death Matth. 10.11 Your Charity for others may be your duty but your too great confidence may be your snare Fear what others may do but fear thy self more The TWENTY FOURTH SERMON LUK. XXIII XXIII XXIV And they were instant with loud voices requiring that he might be crucificed and the voices of them and of the Chief-Priests prevailed And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required JVdas hath made good his promise to the High-Priest and delivered Jesus a prisoner into their hands These Wolves of the evening no soonner seize the Lamb of God but they thirst and long to be sucking his pretious inuocent blood Their revenge and malice admits no delay as fearing a rescue by the people When Herod had taken Peter he committed him to prison intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people Acts 12.4 but these men cannot sleep till they have his blood and therefore the preparation of the Passover being come they resolve in all haste to destroy him yet lest it should look like a downright murder it shall be formalized with a trial This his trial and condemnation are the two last acts by which they prepared for his death and are both contained in this context in which we may observe First The Enditement Secondly The Sentence to which the judge proceeded First The Enditement drawn up against Christ wherein they accuse him of many things but can prove nothing They charge him with sedition and blasphemy but faulter shamefully in the proof However what is wanting in evidence shall be supplied with clamour and importunity For saith the Text they were instant with loud voices requiring that he might be crucified and their voices prevailed when they can neither prove the sedition or blasphemy they charged him with then crucifie him crucifie him must serve the turn instead of all witnesses and proofs Secondly The Sentence pronounced upon him Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required i. e. he sentenced Christ to be nailed to the Cross and there to hang till he was dead From both these we observe these two doctrinal conclusions Doct. 1. First That the trial of Christ for his life was managed most malitiously and illegally against him by his unrighteous Iudges Doct. 2. Secondly Though nothing could be proved against our Lord Iesus Christ worthy of death or of bonds yet was he condemned to be nailed to the Cross and there to hang till he died I shall handle these two points distinctly in their order beginning with the first namely DOCT. 1. That the trial of Christ for his life was managed most malitiously and illegally against him by his unrighteous Iudges Reader here thou maist see the Judge of all the world standing himself to be judged He that shall judge the world in righteousness judged most unrighteously He that shall one day come to the throne of judgement attended with thousands and ten thousands of Angels and Saints standing as a prisoner at mans bar and there denied the common right which a thief or murderer might claim and is commonly given them To manifest the illegallity of Christs trial let the following particulars be heedfully weighed First That he was inhumanely abused both in words and actions before the Court met or any examination had been taken of the fact For as soon as they had taken him they forthwith bound him and led him away to the High-priests house Luk. 22.54 and there they that held him mocked him and smote him blindfolded him stroke him on the face and bid him prophesie who smote him and many other things blasphemously spake they against him vers 63 64 65. how illegal and barbarous a thing was this When they were but binding Paul with thongs he thought himself abused contrary to law and asked the Centurion that stood by is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned q. d. is this legal What punish a man first and judge him afterwards But Christ was not only bound but horribly abused by them all that night dealing with him as the Lords of the Philistines did with Sampson to whom it was a sport to abuse him No rest had Jesus that night no more sleep for him now in this world O it was a sad night to him And this under Caiphas's own roof Secondly As he was inhumanely abused before he was tried so he was examined and judged by a Court that had no Authority to try him Luk. 22.66 as soon as it was day the elders of the people and the Chief-Priests and the Scribes came together and led him into their Concil This was the Ecclesiastical Court The great Sanhedrim which according to its first constitution should consist of seventy grave honourable and learned men to whom were to be referred all doubtful matters too hard for inferiour Courts to decide And these were to Judge impartially and uprightly for God as men in whom was the Spirit of God According to Gods counsel to Moses Numb 11.16 c. In this Court the Righteous and innocent might expect relief and protection And that is conceived to be the meaning of Christs words Luk. 13.33 It cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Jerusalem that is their Righteousness and Innocency may expect protection But now contrary to the first constitution it consisted of a pack fo malitious Scribes and Pharisees men full of revenge malice and all
this very ground Solomon concludes and very rationally that God will call over things hereafter at a more righteous Tribunal And moreover I saw under the Sun the place of Iudgement that wickedness was there and the place of righteousness that iniquity was there I said in my heart God shall judge the righteous and the wicked for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work Eccles. 3.16 17. Some indeed on this ground have denied the divine providence but Solomon draws a quite contrary conclusion God shall Iudge surely he will take the matter into his own hand he will bring forth the righteousness of his people as the light and their just dealing as the noon day It 's a mercy if we be wronged in one Court that we can appeal to another where we shall be sure to be relieved by a just impartial Judge Be patient therefore my brethren saith the Apostle until the coming of the Lord. Jam. 5.6 7 8. Inference 3. Again here you see how Conscience may be over-born and run down by a fleshly interest Pilates Conscience bid him beware and forbear his interest bid him act his fear of Caesar was more than the fear of God But oh what a dreadful thing is it for Conscience to be ensnared by the fear of man Prov. 29.25 To guard thy soul Reader against this mischief let such considerations as these be ever with thee First Consider how dear those profits or pleasures cost which are purchased with the loss of inward peace there is nothing in this word good enough to recompence such a loss or ballance the misery of a tormenting Conscience If you violate it and prostitute it for a fleshly lust it will remember the injury you did it many years after Gen. 42.21 Iob. 13.26 It will not only retain the memory of what you did but it will accuse you for it Matth. 27.4 It will not fear to tell you that plainly which others dare not whisper It will not only accuse but it will also condemn you for what you have done This condemning voice of Conscience is a very terrible voice You may see the horror of it in Cain the vigor of it in Iudas the doleful effects of it in Spira It will from all these its offices produce shame fear and despair if God give not repentance to life The shame it works will so confound you that you will not be able to look up Iob. 31.14 Psal. 1.5 The fear it works will make you wish for a hole in the rock to hide you Isai. 2.9 10 15 19. And its despair is a death pang The cutting off of hope is the greatest cut in the world O who can stand under such a load as this Prov. 18.14 Secondly Consider the nature of your present actions they are seed sown for eternity and will spring up again in suitable effects rewards or punishments when you that did them are turned to dust Gal. 6.7 what a man sows that shall he reap and as sure as the harvest follows the seed time so sure shall shame fear and horror follow sin Dan. 12.2 What Zeuxis the famous Limner said of his work may much more truly be said of ours eternitati pingo I paint for eternity said he when one asked him why he was so curious in his work Ah how bitter will those things be in the account and reckoning which were pleasant in the acting and committing 'T is true our actions physically considered are transient how soon is a word or action spoken or done and there is an end of it but morally considered they are permanent being put upon Gods book of account O therefore take heed what you do So speak and so act as they that must give an account Thirdly Consider how by these things men do but prepare for their own torment in a dying hour There 's bitterness enough in death you need not add more gall and wormwood to add to the bitterness of it What is the violencing and wounding of Conscience now but the sticking so many pins or needles in your death-bed against you come to lie down on it this makes death bitter indeed How many have wisht in a dying hour they had rather lived poor and low all their daies than to have strained their Consciences for the world Ah how is the face and aspect of things altered in such an hour No such considerations as these had any place in Pilates heart for if so he would never have been courted or scared into such an act as this Inference 4. Did Christ stand arraigned and condemned at Pilates Bar then the believer shall never be arraigned or condemned at Gods Bar. This sentence that Pilate pronounced on Christ gives evidence that God will never pronounce sentence against such For had he intended to have arraigned them he would never have suffered Christ their surety to be arraigned and condemned for them Christ stood at this time before a higher Judge than Pilate He stood at Gods Bar as well as his Pilate did but that which Gods own hand and Counsel had before determined to be done And what God himself at the same timeâ— did Though God did it Justly and Holily dealing with Christ as a Creditor with a Surety Pilate most wickedly and basely dealing with Christ as a corrupt Judge that shed the blood of a known innocent to pacifie the people But certain it is that out of his Condemnation flows our Justification And had not Sentence been given against him it must have been given against us Oh what a melting consideration is this that out of his agony comes our Victory out of his condemnation our Justification out of his Pain our Ease out of his Stripes our Healing out of his Gall and Vinegar our Hony out of his Curse our Blessing out of his Crown of Thorns our Crown of Glory out of his Death our Life if he could not be released it was that you might If Pilate gave sentence against him it was that the great God might never give sentence against you If he yielded that it should be with Christ as they required it was that it might be with our souls as well as we can desire And therefore Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift The TWENTY FIFTH SERMON LUK. XXIII XXVII XXVIII c. And there followed him a great company of people and of women which also bewailed and lamented him But Iesus turning unto them said Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children THE sentence of death once given against Christ the execution quickly follows Away they lead him from Gabbatha to Golgotha longing as much to be nailing him to the Cross and feeding their eyes with his torments as the Eagle doth to be tearing the flesh and drinking the blood of that Lamb she hath seised in her Tallons and is carrying away to the top of some rock to devour The Evangelist here observes
Christs death was Justice and Mercy In respect of man it was murder and cruelty In respect of himself it was obedience and humility Hence our note is DOCT. That our Lord Iesus Christ was not only put to death but to the worst of deaths even the death of the Cross. To this the Apostle gives a plain testimony Phil. 2.8 He became obedient to death even the death of the Cross where his humiliation is both specified he was humbled to death and aggravated by a most emphatical reduplication even the death of the Cross. So Act. 5.30 Iesus whom ye slew and hanged upon a tree q. d. it did not suffice you to put him to a violent but you also put him to the most base vile and ignominious death you hanged him on a tree In this point we will discuss these three particulars viz. the nature or kind the manner and reasons of Christs death upon the tree First I shall open the kind or nature of this death by shewing you that it was a violent painful shameful cursed slow and succourless death First It was a violent death that Christ died Violent in it self though voluntary on his part He was cut off out of the land of the living Isai. 53.8 And yet he laid down his life of himself no man took it from him Joh. 10.17 I call his death violent because he died not a natural death i. e. he lived not till nature was consumed with age as it is in many who live till their balsamum radicale radical moisture like the oyl in the Lamp be quite consumed and then go out like an expiring Lamp It was not so with Christ. For he was but in the very flower and prime of his time when he died And indeed he must either die a violent death or not die at all partly because there was no sin in him to open a door to natural death as it doth in all others Partly because else his death had not been a sacrifice acceptable and satisfactory to God for us That which died of it self was never offered up to God but that which was slain when it was in its full strength and health The Temple was a Type of the body of Christ. Now when the Temple was destroyed it did not drop down as an antient structure decayed by time but was pulled down by violence when it was standing in its full strength Therefore he is said to suffer death and to be put to death for us in the flesh 1 Pet. 3.18 That 's the first thing It was a violent though a voluntary death For violent is not opposed to voluntary but to natural Secondly The death of the Cross was a most painful death Indeed in this death were many deaths contrived in one The Cross was a Rack as well as a Gibber The pains Christ suffered upon the Cross are by the Apostle emphatically stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 2.24 the pains of death but properly they signifie the pangs of travail yea the birth pangs the most acute sorrows of a travailing woman His soul was in travail Isai. 53. His body in bitter pangs and being as Aquinas speaks optime complectionatus of the most excellent Crisis exact and just temperament his sences were more acute and delicate than ordinary and all the time of his suffering so they continued not in the least blunted dulled or rebated by the pains he suffered The death of Christ doubtless contained the greatest and acutest pains imaginable Because these pains of Christ alone were intended to equalize all that misery which the sin of man deserved all that pain which the damned shall and the Elect deserved to feel Now to have pains meeting at once upon one person equivalent to all the pains of the damned Judge you what a plight Christ was in Thirdly The death of the Cross was a shameful death Not only because the crucified were stripped quite naked and so exposed as spectacles of shame but mainly because it was that kind of death which was appointed for the basest and vilest of men Their Free-men when they committed capital crimes were not condemned to the Cross. No that was looked upon as the death appointed for slaves Tacitus calls it servile supplicium the punishment of a slave and to the same sense Iuvenal speaks pone crucem servo put the Cross upon the back of a slave As they had a great esteem of a Free-man so they manifested it even when they had forfeited their lives in cutting them off by more honourable kinds of death This by hanging on the tree was alwaies accounted most ignominious To this day we say of him that 's hanged he dies the death of a dog And yet it 's said of our Lord Jesus Heb. 12.2 he not only endured the Cross but also despised the shame Obedience to his Fathers will and zeal for your Salvation made him digest the shame of it and despise the baseness that was in it Fourthly The death of the Cross was a cursed death Upon that account he is said to be made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a curse for us for it is written cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree Gal. 3.13 This refers to Deut. 21.23 His body shall not remain all night upon the Tree but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day for he that is hanged is accursed of God The very Symbol of lifting them up betwixt heaven and earth carryed much shame in it For it implied this in it that the person so used was so execrable base and vile that he deserved not to tread upon the earth or touch the surface of the ground any more And the command for burying them that day doth not at all mitigate but rather aggravates this curse speaking the person to be so abominable that as he is lifted up into the air and hanging between heaven and earth as unworthy ever to set foot more upon the earth so when dead they were to hasten to bury him that such an abominable sight might be removed assoon as might be from before the eyes of men And that the earth might not be defiled by his lying on the surface of it when taken down However as the Learned Iunius hath Judiciously observed that this curse is only a Ceremonial curse For otherwise it 's neither in it self nor by the Law of nature or by civil Law more execrable than any other death And the main reason why the Ceremonial Law affixed the curse to this rather than any other death was principally with respect to the death Christ was to die And therefore Reader see and admire the providence of God that Christ should die by a Roman and not by a Iudaick Law For Crucifying or Hanging on the Tree was a Roman punishment and not in use among the Jews But the Scriptures cannot be broken Fifthly The death of the Cross was a very slow and lingering death They died leisurably
Which still increaseth and aggravateth the misery of it If a man must die a violent death it 's a favour to be dispatcht As they that are pressed to death beg for more weight And it 's a favour to those that are hanged to be smitten on the breast or plucked by the heels by their friends On the contrary to hang long in the midst of tortures to have death coming upon us with a slow pace that we may feel every tread of it as it comes on is a misery The Tyrant that heard the poor Martyr was dead under his first torments said as one disappointed Evasit He hath escaped me For he intended to have kept him much longer under torments And it was the cruel counsel of another to his executioner Let him die so as he may feel himself how he dies And surely in this respect it was worse for Christ than any other that was ever nailed to the Tree For all the while he hanged there he remained full of life and acute sence His life departed not gradually but was whole in him to the last Other men die gradually and towards their end their sence of pain is much blunted They faulter fumble and expire by degrees but Christ stood under â—he pains of death in his full strength His life was whole in him This was evident by the mighty outcry he made when he gave up the Ghost Which argued him then to be full of strength contrary to the experience of all other men Which made the Centurion when he heard it to conclude Surely this was the Son of God Mark 15.37 39. Sixthly It was a succourless and helpless death to Christ. Sometimes they gave to malefactors amidst their torments Vinegar and Myrh to blunt dull and stupifie their Sences And if they hanged long would break their bones to dispatch them out of their pains Christ had none of this favour Instead of Vinegar and Myrh they gave him Vinegar and Gall to drink to aggravate his torments And for the breaking of his bones he prevented it by dying before they come to break his legs For the Scriptures must be fulfilled which saith not a bone of him shall be broken This now was the kind and nature of that death he died Even the violent painful shameful cursed slow and succourless death of the Cross. An Ancient punishment both among the Romans and Carthaginians But in honour of Christ who died this death Constantine the great abrogated it by Law ordaining that none should ever be Crucified any more because Christ died that Death Secondly As to the manner of the execution They that were condemned to the death of the Cross saith a Learned Antiquary of our own bare their Cross upon their own shoulders to the place of execution Then was stript of all their cloaths for they suffered naked And then were fastned to the Cross with nails The manner how that was done one gives us in these words They stretch him out meaning Christ like another Isaac upon his own burden the Cross that so they might take measure of the holes And though the Print of his blood upon it gave them the true length of his body yet how strictly do they take it longer than the truth Thereby at once to Crucifie and rack him Then being nailed like as Moses lifted up the Serpent so was the Son of man lifted up And when the Cross with the Lord fastned on it fell into its socket or basis it Jerked the whole and every part of his sacred body And the whole weight hanging on his nailed hands the wounds by degrees grew wider and wider till at last he expired in the midst of those tortures And that the equity of their proceedings might the better appear to the people the cause of the punishment was written in Capital Letters and fixed to the Tree over the head of the Malefactor Of this appendant to this kind of death I shall speak distinctly in the next Sermon before I come to handle the manner of his death there being so much of providence in that circumstance as invites us to spend more than a few transient thoughts upon it Mean while in the next place Thirdly We will enquire briefly into the reasons why Christ died this rather than any other kind of death And amongst others these three are obvious First Because Christ must bear the curse in his death and a curse by Law affixed to no other kind of death as it was to this The Learned Masius upon Iosuah 2.29 Commenting upon the death of the King of Ai who was hanged on the Tree until evening tells us that the principal reason of the malediction and execrableness of this death was because the death of Christ was prefigured in that mysterie Christ came to take away the curse from us by this death and so must be made a curse On him must all the curses of the Moral Law lie which were due to us And that nothing might be wanting to make it a full curse the very death he died must also have a Ceremonial curse upon it Secondly Christ died this rather than any other kind of death to fulfil the Types and prefigurations that of old were made with respect to it All the Sacrifices were lifted up from the earth upon the Altar But especially the brassen Serpent prefigured this death Numb 21.9 Moses made a Serpent of Brass and put it upon a pole And saith Christ Ioh. 3.14 As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness so must the Son of man be lifted up that so he might correspond with that lively Type made of him in the wilderness Thirdly Christ died this rather than any other death because it was predicted of him and in him must all the predictions as well as Types be fully accomplished The Psalmist spake in the person of Christ of this death as plainly as if he had rather been writing the History of what was done than a Prophesie of what was to be done so many years afterwards Psal. 22.16 17. For dogs have compassed me about the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me they pierced my hands and my feet I may tell all my bones they look and stare upon me Which hath a manifest reference to the distâ—ntion of all his members upon the Tree which was as a rack to him So Zech 12.10 They shall look upon me whom they have pierced Yea Christ himself had foretold the death he should die in the forecited Ioh. 3.14 Saying he must be lifted up i. e. hanged between heaven and earth And the Scriptures must be fulfilled Thus you have a brief account both of the kind manner and reasons of this death of Christ. The improvement of it you have in the following Inferences of truth diducible from it Inference 1. Is Christ dead And did he die the violent painful shameful cursed slow and succourless death of the Cross Then surely there is forgiveness with
for he hath made it beneficial and very serviceable to the saints When Christ was nailed to the tree then he said as it were to death which came to grapple with him there O death I will be thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction And so he was for he swallowed up death in victory Spoiled it of its power So that it drives but a poor trade now among believers frighting some weak ones among them though it cannot hurt them at all Inference 3. If Christ died the cursed death of the Cross for us how cheerfully should we submit to and bear any cross for Iesus Christ He had his cross and we have ours but what feathers are ours compared with his His cross was a heavy cross indeed yet how patiently and meekly did he support it He endured his cross we cannot endure or bear ours though they be not to be named with his Three things would marvellously strengthen us to bear the cross of Christ and bring up a good report upon it in the world First That we shall carry it but a little way Secondly Christ bears the heaviest end of it Thirdly innumerable blessings and mercies grow upon the Cross of Christ. First We shall bear it but a little way It should be enough to me saith a holy one that Christ will have joy and sorrow halfers of the life of the saints And that each of them should have a share of our daies as the night and day are kindly partners of time and take it up betwixt them But if sorrow be the greediest halfer of our days here I know joys day shall dawn and do more than recompence all our sad hours Let my Lord Jesus since he will do so weave my bit and span length of time wiâ—h white and black well and wo. Let the rose be neighbour with the thorn When we are over the water Christ shall cry Down Crosses and up Heaven for evermore Down Hell and down Death and down Sin and down Sorrow and up Glory up Life up Joy for evermore 'T is true Christ and his Cross are not separable in this life how be it Christ and his Cross part at Heavens door For there is no house-room for crosses in Heaven One tear one sigh one sad heart one fear one loss one thought of trouble cannot find lodging there Sorrow and the saints are not married together or suppose it were so Heaven shall make a divorce Life is but short and therefore crosses cannot be long Our sufferings are but for a while 1 Pet. 5.10 They are but the sufferings of the present time Rom. 8.18 Secondly As we shall carry the Cross of Christ but a little way so Christ himself bears the heaviest end of it There is a fellowship in sufferings betwixt Christ and his saints And as one happily expresses he saith of their crosses half mine He divideth sufferings with them and takes the largest share to himself O how sweet a sight saith one sweetly is it to see a cross betwixt Christ and us To hear our Redeemer say at every sigh at every blow and every loss of a Believer half mine For they are called the sufferings of Christ and the reproach of Christ. Col. 2.24 Heb. 11.26 As when two are partners and owners of a Ship half of the gain and half of the loss belongeth to either of the two So Christ in our sufferings is half gainer and half loser with us yea the heaviest end of the black tree lyeth on your Lord. It falleth first upon him and but rebounds from him upon you the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me Psal. 69.9 Nay to speak as the thing is Christ doth not only bear half or the better part but the whole of our cross and burden Yea he bears all and more than all for he bears us and our burden too or else we should quickly sink and faint under it Thirdly As we have not far to carry it and Christ carries the haviest part yea all the burden for us yea us and our burden too So in the last place it's reviving to think what an innumerable multitude of blessings and mercies are the fruit and off-spring of a sanctified cross Since that tree was so richly watered with the blood of Christ what store of choice and rich fruits doth it bear to believers Our sufferings saith one are washed in the blood of Christ as well as our souls For Christs merits bought a blessing to the crosses of the sons of God Our troubles owe us a free passage through him Devils and men and crosses are our debtors and death and all storms are our debtors to blow our poor tossed bark over the water fraught-free and to set the Travellers in their own known ground Therefore we shall die and yet live I know no man hath a velvet cross but the cross is made of what God will have it but verily how be it it be no warrantable market to buy a cross yet I dare not say O that I had liberty to sell Christs cross lest therewith also I should sell joy comfort sence of love patience and the kind visits of a Bridegroom I have but small experience of sufferings for Christ but let my Judge and witness in Heaven lay my soul in the ballance of Justice If I find not a young Heaven and a little Paradise of glorious comforts and soul delighting love kisses of Christ in suffering for him and his truth My prison is my palace my sorrow is with child of Joy My losses are rich losses my pain easie pain my heavy days are holy days and happy days I may tell a new tale of Christ to my friends Oh what owe I to the file and to the hammer and to the furnace of my Lord Jesus who hath now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is that goes through his mill and his oven to be made bread for his own Table Grace tried is better than grace and more than grace It 's glory in the Infancy Who knows the truth of grace without a trial O how little getteth Christ of us but what he winneth to speak so with much toil and pains And how soon would faith freeze without a Cross bear your Cross therefore with joy Inference 4. Did Christ die the death yea the worst of deaths for us Then it follows that our mercies are brought forth with great difficulties and that which is sweet to us in the fruition was costly and hard to Christ in the acquisition Surely upon every mercy we have this motto is written The price of blood Col. 1.14 In whom we have redemption through his blood upon which a late neat Writer delivers himself thus The way of grace is here considerable life comes through death God comes in Christ and Christ comes in blood the choicest mercies come through the greatest miseries prime favours come swiming in blood to us Through a red sea Israel came to
think they had never been better provided to cope with them Lot fell after yea presently after the Lord had thrust him out of Sodom and his eyes had seen the direful punishment of sin Hell as it were rained upon them out of Heaven Noah in like manner immediately after Gods wonderful and astonishing preservation of him in the Ark when he saw a world of men and women perishing in the floods for their sins David after the Lord had setled the Kingdom on him which for sin he rent from Saul and given him rest in his house Hezekiah was but just up from a great sickness wherein the Lord wrought a wonderful salvation for him Did such men and at such times when one would think no temptations should have prevailed fall and that so fouly Then let him that thinks he standeth take heed lest he fall O be not high-minded but fear Inference 2. Did Christ stand his ground and go through with his suffering-work when all that had followed him forsook him Then a resolved adherence to God and duty though left alone without company or encouragement is Christ-like and truly excellent You shall not want better company than that which hath forsaken you in the way of God Elijah complains 1 Kings 19.10 They have forsaken thy Covenant thrown down thine Altars and slain thy Prophets with the sword and I even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away And yet all this did not damp or discourage him in following the Lord for still he was very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts Paul complains 2 Tim. 4.16 At my first answer no man stood by me all men forsook me nevertheless the Lord stood with me And as the Lord stood by him so he stood by his God alone without any aids or support from men How great an Argument of integrity is this He that professes Christ for company will also leave him for company But to be faithful to God when forsaken of men to be a Lot in Sodom a Noah in a corrupted generation oh how excellent is it 'T is sweet to travel over this Earth to Heaven in the company of the Saints that are bound thither with us if we can but if we can meet no company we must not be discouraged to go on It 's not unlike but before you have gone many steps farther you may have cause to say as one did once never less alone than when alone Inference 3. Did the Disciples thus forsake Christ and yet were all recovered at last Then though believers are not priviledged from back-slidings yet they are secured from final apostacy and ruine The new creature may be sick it cannot die Saints may fall but they shall rise again Mica 7.8 The highest flood of natural zeal and resolution may ebb and be wholly dried up but saving grace is a well of water still springing up into everlasting life Ioh. 4.14 Gods unchangeable Election the frame and constitution of the New Covenant the meritorious and prevalent intercession of Jesus Christ does give the believer abundant security against the danger of a total final apostacy My Father which gave them me saith Christ is greater than all and none is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand Joh. 10.29 And again the foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth who are his 2 Tim. 2.19 Every person committed to Christ by the Father shall be brought by him to the Father and not one wanting God hath also so framed and ordered the New Covenant that none of those souls who are within the blessed clasp and bond of it can possibly be lost It 's setled upon immutable things and we know all things are as their foundations be Heb. 6.18 19. Among the many glorious promises contained in that bundle of promises this is one I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me And as the fear of God in our hearts pleads in us against sin so our potent Intercessor in the heavens pleads for us with the Father and by reason thereof we cannot finally miscarry Rom. 8.34 35. Upon these grounds we may as the Apostle in the place last cited doth triumph in that full security which God hath given us and say what shall separate us from the love of God Understand it either of Gods to us as Calvin Beza and Martyr do or of our Love to God Ambrose and Augustine do it 's true in both senses and a most comfortable truth Inference 4. Did the Sheep flie when the Shepherd was smitten such men and so many forsake Christ in the trial Then learn how sad a thing it is for the best of men to be left to their own carnal fears in a day of temptation This was it that made those good men shrink away so shamefully from Christ in that Trial the fear of man brings a snare Prov. 29.25 in that snare these good souls were taken and for a time held fast Oh what work will this unruly passion make if the fear of God do not overrule it Is it not a shame to a Christian a man of faith to see himself out done by an Heathen Shall natural Conscience and courage make them stand and keep their places in times of danger when we shamefully turn our backs upon duty because we see duty and danger together When the Emperour Vespasian had commanded Fluidius Priscus not to come to the Senate or if he did to speak nothing but what he would have him The Senator returned this brave and noble answer that as he was a Senator it was fit he should be at the Senate and if being there he were required to give his advice he would speak freely that which his Conscience commanded him The Emperour threatning that then he should die he returned thus did I ever tell you that I was immortal Do you what you will and I will do what I ought It is in your power to put me to death unjustly and in me to die constantly O think what mischiefs your fear may do your selves and the discovery of them to others O learn to trust God with your lives liberties and comforts in the way of your duty and at what time you are afraid trust in him and do not magnifie poor dust and ashes as to be scared by their threats from your God and duty The politick design of Satan herein is to affright you out of your Coverts where you are safe into the net I will enlarge this no farther I have else where laid down fourteen Rules for the cure of this in what of mine is publick Inference 5. Learn hence how much a man may differ from himself according as the Lord is with him or withdrawn from him Christians do not only alwaies differ from other men but sometimes
the Parent wrapt up in another Skin O the care the cost the pity the tenderness the pains the fears they have exprest for you It 's worse than Heathenish ingratitude not to return Love for Love This filial Love is not only in it self a duty but to be the root or spring of all your other dutys to them Thirdly Obedience to their commands is due to them by the Lords strict and special command Eph. 6.1 Children obey your Parents in the Lord for this is right Honour thy Father and thy Mother which is the first Commandment with promise Filial obedience is not only founded upon the positive Law of God but also upon the Law of nature For though the subjection of Servants to Masters came in by sin yet the subjection of Children to Parents is due to them by natural right therefore saith the Apostle this is right i. e. right both according to natural and positive Law However this subjection and obedience is not absolute and universal God hath not devested himself of his own authority to cloath a Parent with it Your obedience to them must be in the Lord i. e. in such things as they require you to do in the Lords authority In things consonant to that divine and holy will to which they as well as you must be subject and therein you must obey them Yea even the wickedness of a Parent exempts not from obedience where his command is not so Nor on the other side must the holiness of a Parent sway you where his Commands and Gods are opposite In the former case the Canonists have determined that the command must be distinguisht from the person In the latter it 's a good rule My Parents must be loved but my God must be preferred Yield your selves therefore chearfully to obey all that which they lawfully enjoin and take heed that black character fixed on the Heathens who know not God be not found upon you disobedient to Parents Rom. 1.30 Remember your disobedience to their just commands rises higher much higher than an affront to their persons and authority it 's disobedience to God himself whose commands second and strengthen theirs upon you Fourthly Submission to their Discipline and rebukes is also your duty Heb. 12.9 We had Fathers of our flesh that corrected us and we gave them reverence Parents ought not to abuse their authority Cruelty in them is a great sin but wrath and rebellion in a Child against his Parents is monstrous It 's storied of Aelian that having been abroad at his return his Father asked him what he had Learned since he went from him he answered you will know shortly I have learned to bear your anger quietly and submit to what you please to inflict Two considerations should especially mould others into the like frame especially to their godly Parents The end for which and the manner in which they manifest their anger to their Children Their end is to save your souls from Hell They judge it better for you to hear the voice of their anger than the terrible voice of the wrath of God To feel their hand than his They know if you fall into the hands of the living God you will be handled in another manner And for the manner in which they rebuke and chasten it is with grief in their hearts and tears in their eyes Alas it 's no delight to them to cross vex or afflict you Were it not meer conscience of their duty to God and tender love to your souls they would neither chide nor smite And when they do how do they afflict themselves in afflicting you When their faces are full of anger their bowels are full of compassion for you and you have no more reason to blame them for what they do than if they cry out and violently snatch at you when they see you ready to fall from the top of a Rock Fifthly Faithfulness to all their interests is due to them by the natural and positive Law of God What in you lies you are bound to promote not waste and scatter their substance To assist not to defraud them Who so robbeth his Father or Mother and saith it is no transgression the same is the companion of a destroyer Prov. 28.24 This saith one as far excells your wronging another as parricide is a greater crime than man-slaughter or as Reubens incest was beyond common fornication God never meant you should grow up about your Parents as suckers about a Tree to impoverish the root But for a Child out of a covetousness after what his Parents have secretly to wish their death is a sin so monstrous as should not be once named much less found among persons professing Christianity To desire their death from whom you had your life is unnatural wickedness to dispose of their Goods much more of your selves without their consent is ordinarily the greatest injustice to them Children are obliged to defend the Estates and persons of their Parents with the hazard of their own As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man so are Children of the youth Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them They shall not be ashamed but they shall speak with the enemy in the gates Psal. 127.5 Sixthly And more especially requital of all that love care and pains they have been at for you is your duty so far as God enables you and those things are requitable 1 Tim. 5.4 Let them learn to shew piety at home and to requite their Parents The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies to play the Stork to imitate that creature of whom it 's said that the young do tenderly feed the old ones when they are no longer able to fly abroad and provide for themselves Hence those that want bowels of natural affection to their Relations are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1.30 worse than Storks O 't is a shame that Birds and Beasts should shew more tenderness to their Dams than Children to their Parents It 's a saying frequent among the Jews a Child should rather labour at the Mill than suffer his Parents to want And to the same sence is that other saying your Parents must be supplyed by you if you have it if not you ought to beg for them rather than see them perish It was both the comfort and honour of Ioseph that God made him an instrument of so much succour and comfort to his aged Father and distressed family Gen. 47.13 And you are also to know that what you do for them is not in the way of an alms or common Charity For the Apostle saith it is but your requiting them and that 's Justice not Charity And it can never be a full requital Indeed the Apostle tells us 2 Cor. 12.14 That Parents lay up for their Children and not Children for the Parents and so they ought but sure if providence blast them and bless you an honourable
been long preparing for it but the suddenness and greatness of the change is amazing to our thoughts For a soul to be now here in the body conversing with men living among sensible objects and within a few moments to be with the Lord. This hour on earth the next in the third heavens Now viewing this world and anon standing among an innumerable company of Angels and the Spirits of the Just made perfect O what a change is this What! but wink and see God! Commend thy soul to Christ and be transferred in the arms of Angels into the invisible world the world of Spirits To live as the Angels of God! To live without eating drinking sleeping To be lifted up from a bed of sickness to a Throne of Glory To leave a sinful troublesom world a sick and pained body and be in a moment perfectly cured and feel thy self perfectly well and free from all troubles and distempers You cannot think what this will be Who can tell what sights what apprehensions what thoughts what frames believing souls have before the bodies they left are removed from the eyes of their dear surviving friends Inference 2. Are believers immediatly with God after their dissolution Where then shall unbelievers be and in what state will they find themselves immediatly after death hath closed their eyes Ah what will the case of them be that go the other way To be pluckt out of house and body from among friends and comforts and thrust into endless miseries into the dark vault of Hell never to see the light of this world any more Never to see a comfortable sight Never to hear a joyful sound Never to know the meaning of rest peace or delight any more O what a change is here To exchange the smiles and honours of men for the frowns and fury of God To be cloathed with flames and drink the pure unmixed wrath of God who was but a few days since cloathed in silks and fill'd with the sweet of the creature how is the state of things altered with thee It was the lamentable cry of poor Adrian when he felt death approaching Oh my poor wandring soul alas whither art thou now going Where must thou lodge this night Thou shalt never jest more never be merry more Your term in your houses and bodies is out and there is another habitation provided for you but 't is a dismal one When a Saint dyes heaven above is as it were moved to receive and entertain him at his coming he is received into everlasting habitations Into the inheritance of the Saints in light When an unbeliever dies we may say of him alluding to Isa. 14.9 Hell from beneath is moved for him to meet him at his coming it stirreth up the dead for him No more sports nor plays no cups of wine nor beds of pleasure The more of these you enjoyed here the more intolerable will this change be to you If Saints are immediately with God others must be immediatly with Satan Inference 3. How little cause have they to fear death who shall be with God so soon after their death Some there are that tremble at the thoughts of death That cannot endure to hear its name mentioned That would rather stoop to any misery here yea to any sin than die because they are afraid of the exchange but you that are interessed in Christ need not do so You can lose nothing by the exchange The words Death Grave and Eternity should have another kind of sound in your ears And make contrary impressions upon your hearts If your earthly Tabernacles cast you out you shall not be found naked You have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And it is but a step out of this into that O what fair sweet and lovely thoughts should you have of that great and last change But what speak I of your fearlesness of death Your Duty lies much higher than that far Inference 4. If Believers are immediatly with God after their dissolution then it 's their Duty to long for their dissolution And cast many a longing look towards their Graves So did Paul I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better The advantages of this exchange are unspeakable You have Gold for Brass Wine for Water Substance for shadows solid Glory for very Vanity O if the dust of this earth were but once blown out of your eyes that you might see the divine glory how weary would you be to live How willing to die But then be sure your title to heaven be sound and good Leave not so great a concernment to the last For though it is confessed God may do that in an hour that never was done all your days yet it is not common Which brings us to our Third and Last observation DOCT. 3. That God may though he seldom doth prepare men for glory immediately before their dissolution by death There is one parable and no more that speaks of some that were called at the last hour Matth. 20.9 10. And there is this one instance in the text and no more that gives us an account of a person so called We acknowledge God may do it his grace is his own He may dispense it how and where he pleaseth We must always salve divine prerogative Who shall fix bonds or put limits to free grace but God himself whose it is If he do not ordinarily shew such mercies to dying sinners as indeed it doth not yet it is not because he cannot but because he will not Not because their hearts are so hardned by long custom in sin that his grace cannot break them but because he most justly withholds that grace from them When blessed Mr. Bilney the martyr heard a Minister preaching thus O thou old sinner that hast lain these fifty years rotting in thy sin dost thou think now to be saved That the blood of Christ shall save thee O said Mr. Bilney what preaching of Christ is this If I had heard no other preaching than this what had become of me No no old sinners or young sinners great or small sinners are not to be beaten off from Christ but encouraged to repentance and faith For who knows but the bowels of mercy may yearn at last upon one that hath all along rejected it This thief was as unlikely ever to have received mercy but a few hours before he died as any person in the world could be But surely this is no encouragement to neglect the present seasons of mercy because God may shew mercy hereafter To neglect the ordinary because God sometimes manifests his grace in ways extraordinary Many I know have hardened themselves in ways of sin by this example of mercy But what God did at this time for this man cannot be expected to be done ordinarily for us And the reasons thereof are Reason 1. First Because God hath vouchsafed us the ordinary and standing means of
but you must work to obey the commands of Christ into whose right ye are come by Redemption You must work to testifie your thankfulness to Christ for the work he finished for you You must work to glorifie God by your obedience Let your light so shine before men For these and divers other such ends and reasons your life must be a working life God preserve all his people from the gross and vile opinions of Antinomian Libertines who cry up grace and decry obedience Who under specious pretences of exalting a naked Christ upon the throne do indeed strip him naked of a great part of his glory and vilely dethrone him My pen shall not english what mine eyes have read Tell it not in Gath. But for thee Reader be thou a follower of Christ imitate thy pattern Yea let me perswade thee as ever thou hopest to clear up thine interest in him imitate him in such particulars as these that follow First Christ began early to work for God He took the mornning of his life the very top of the morning to work for God How is it said he to his Parents when he was but a child of about twelve years that ye sought me Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business Reader if the morning of thy life be not gone oh devote it to the work of God as Christ did If it be ply thy work the closer in the afternoon of thy life If a man have any great and necessary business to do it 's good doing in the morning afterwards a hurry of business and diversion comes on Secondly As Christ began betime so he followed his work close He was early up and he wrought hard so hard that he forgat to eat bread Joh. 31 32. So zealous was he in his Fathers work that his friends thought he had been besides himself Mark 3.21 So zealous that the zeal of Gods house eat him up He flew like a Seraphim in a flame of zeal about the work of God O be not ye like Snales What Augustus said of the young Roman well becomes the true Christian whatsoever he doth he doth it to purpose Thirdly Christ often thâ—ught upon the shortness of his time and wrought hard because he knew his working time would be but little So you find it Joh. 9.4 I most work the works of him that sent me whilst it is day the night cometh when no man can work O in this be like Christ. Rouze your hearts to diligence with this consideration If a man have much to write and be almost come to the end of his paper he will write close and pack much matter in a little room Fourthly He did much work for God and made little noise He wrought hard but did not spoil his work when he had wrought it by vain ostentation When he had exprest his Charity in acts of mercy and bounty to men he would humbly seal up the glory of it with this charge see ye tell no man of it Matth. 8.4 he affected not popular air All the Angels in Heaven could not do what Christ did and yet he called himself a worm for all that Psal. 22.6 O imitate your pattern Work hard for God and let not pride blow upon it when you have done It 's hard for a man to do much and not value himself for it too much Fifthly Christ carried on his work for God resolvedly No discouragements would beat him off though never any work met with more from first to last How did Scribes and Pharisees Jews Gentiles yea Devils set upon him by persecutions and reproaches violent oppositions and subtil temptations but yet on he goes with his Fathers work for all that He is deaf to all discouragements So it was foretold of him Isai. 42.4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged O that more of this spirit of Christ were in his people O that in the strength of love to Christ and zeal for the glory of God you would pour out your hearts in service and like a River sweep down all discouragements before you Sixthly He continued working whilst he continued living His life and labour ended together He fainted not in his work Nay the greatest work he did in this world was his last work O be like Christ in this be not weary of well doing Give not over the work of God while you can move hand or tongue to promote it And see that your last works be more than your first O let the motions of your soul after God be as all natural motions are swiftest when nearest the center Say not it is enough whilst there is any capacity of doing more for God In these things Christians be like your Saviour Inference 6. Did Christ finish his work Look to it Christians that ye also finish your work which God hath given you to do That you may with comfort say when death approaches as Christ said Joh. 17.4 I have glorified thee on earth I have finished the work thou gavest me to do and now O Father glorifie thou me with thine own self Christ had a work committed to him and he finished it you have a work also committed to you O see that you be able to say it 's finished when your time is so O work out your own Salvation with fear and trembling and that I may perswade you to it I beseech you lay these considerations close to heart First If your work be not done before you die it can never be done when you are dead There 's no work nor knowledge nor device in the grave whither thou goest Eccles. 9.5 10. They that go down to the pit cannot celebrate the name of God Isai. 38.18 Death binds up the hand from working any more strikes dumb the tongue that it can speak no more for then the composition is dissolved The body which is the souls tool to work by is broken and thrown aside The soul it self presented immediately before the Lord to give an account of all its works O therefore seeing the night cometh when no man can work as Christ speaks Ioh. 9.4 make haste and finish your work Secondly If you finish not your work as the season of working so the season of mercy will be over at death Do not think you that have neglected Christ all your lives you that could never be perswaded to a laborious holy life that ever your cries and entreaties shall prevail with God for mercy when your season is past No no it 's too late Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him Job 27.9 The season of mercy is then over as the tree falls so it lies Then he that is holy shall be holy still and he that is filthy shall be filthy still Alas poor souls you come too late The Master of the house is risen up and the doors are shut Luk. 19.42 the season is over Happy had it been if ye had known the day of your
visitation Lastly If your work be not finished when you come to die you can never finish your lives with comfort He that hath not finished his work with care can never finish his course with joy Oh what a dismal case is that soul in that finds it self surprized by death in an unready posture To lie shivering upon the brink of the grave saying Lord what will become of me O I cannot I dare not die For the poor soul to shrink back into the body and cry Oh it were better for me to do any thing than die Why what 's the matter Oh I am in a Christless state and dare not go before that awful Judgement-seat If I had in season made Christ sure I could then die with peace Lord what shall I do How dost thou like this Reader Will this be a comfortable close When one asked a Christian that constantly spent six hours every day in prayer why he did so He answered O I must die I must die Well then look it that ye finish your work as Christ also did his The THIRTY SIXTH SERMON LUK. XXIII XLVI And when Iesus had cried with a loud voice he said Father into thy hands I commend my spirit and having said thus he gave up the ghost THese are the last of the last words of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross with which he breatheth out his soul. They were Davids words before him Psal. 31.5 and for substance Stephens after him Act. 7.57 They are words full both of faith and comfort Fit to be the last breathings of every gratious soul in this world They are resolvable into these five particulars The Person depositing or committing The Lord Iesus Christ who in this as well as in other things acted as a common person as the head of the Church This must be remarked carefully for therein lies no small part of a believers consolation When Christ commends his soul to God he doth as it were bind up all the souls of the Elect in one bundle with it and solemnly present them all with his to his Fathers acceptance To this purpose one aptly sences it This commendation made by Christ turns to the singular profit and advantage of our souls in as much as Christ by this very prayer hath delivered them into his Fathers hand as a pretious treasure when ever the time comes that they are to he loosed from the bodies which they now inhabit Jesus Christ neither lived nor dyed for himself but for believers What he did in this very act refers to them as well as to his own Soul You must look therefore upon Christ in this last and solemn act of his life as gathering all the souls of the Elect together and making a solemn tender of them all with his own soul to God Secondly The depository or person to whom he commits this pretious treasure and that was his own Father Father into thy hands I commit Father is a sweet encouraging assuring Title Well may a Son commit any concernment how dear soever into the hand of a Father Especially such a Son into the hands of such a Father By the hands of the Father into which he commits his soul we are not to understand the naked or meer power but the Fatherly acceptation and protection of God Thirdly The depositum or thing committed into this hand my Spirit i. e. my soul now instantly departing upon the very point of separation from my body The soul is the most pretious of all treasures it 's call'd the darling Psal. 35.17 Or the only one i. e. that which is most excellent and therefore most dear and pretious A whole world is but a trifle if weighed for the price of one soul Matth. 16.26 This inestimable treasure he now commits into his Fathers hands Fourthly The Act by which he puts it into that faithful hand of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I commend We rightly render it in the present tense though the word be future For with these words he breathed out his Soul This word is of the same import with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I present or tender it unto thy hands It was in Christ an act of Faith A most special and excellent act intended as a president for all his people Fifthly And Lastly the last thing observable is the manner in which he uttered these words And that was with a loud voice He spake it that all might hear it and that his enemies who judged him now destitute and forsaken of God might be convinced that he was not so But that he was dear to his Father still and could put his soul confidently into his hands Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Taking then these words not only as spoken by Christ the Head of all believers and so commending their souls to God with his own but also as a pattern teaching them what they ought to do themselves when they come to die We observe DOCT. That dying believers are both warranted and encouraged by Christs example believingly to commend their pretious Souls into the hands of God Thus the Apostle directs the Faith of Christians to commit their souls to Gods tuition and Fatherly protection when they are either going into prisons or to the stake for Christ 1 Pet. 4.19 Let them saith he that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing as unto a faithful Creator This Proposition we will consider in these two main branches of it sc. what is implied and carryed in the souls commending it self to God by Faith when the time of separation is come And what warrant or encouragement gratious souls have for their so doing First What is implyed in this Act of a believer his commending or committing his soul into the hands of God at Death And if it be throughly weighed you will find these six things at least carried in it First It implies this evidently in it that the soul out-lives the body and fails not as to its being when its body fails It feels the house in which it dwelt dropping into ruins and looks out for a new habitation with God Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit The soul understands it self a more noble being than that corruptible body to which it was united and is now to leave in the dust It understands its relation to the Father of spirits and from him it expects protection and provision in its unbodied state and therefore into his hands it puts it self If it vanished or breathed into air and did not survive the body if it were annihilated at death it were but a mocking of God to say when we die Father into thy hand I commend my Spirit Secondly It implies the souls true rest to be in God See which way its motions and tendencies are not only in life but in death also It bends to its God It rolls it even puts
to make it good when the time of the Promise is come as at death it is It cannot be Multitudes of Promises the whole Covenant of Promises give security to the soul against the fears of rejection or neglect by God And the souls dependance upon God and hanging upon a promise it s every rolling it self upon God from the incouragement the word gives it adds to the ingagement upon God When he sees a poor soul that he hath made redeemed sanctified sealed and by solemn Promise engaged himself to receive coming to him at death rolling it self upon his faithfulness that promised saying as David 2 Sam. 23.5 Though Lord there be many defects in me yet thou hast made a Covenant with me well order'd in all things and sure and this is all my salvation and all my hope Lord I am resolved to send out my soul in an act of Faith I will venture it upon the credit of thy Promise How can God refuse such a soul How can he put it off when it so puts it self upon him Sixthly But this is not all the gratious soul sustains many intimate and dear relations to that God into whose hands it commends it self at death It 's his Spouse and the consideration of such a day of Espousals may well encourage it to cast it self into the bosom of Christ its head and husband It is a member of his body flesh and bones Eph. 5.30 It is his child he its everlasting Father Isai. 9.6 It 's his friend Hence forth saith Christ I call you not servants but friends Joh. 15.15 What confidence may these and all other the dear relations Christ owns to the renewed soul beget in such an hour as this is What husband can throw off the dear wife of his bosom who in distresses casts her self into his arms What Father can shut the door upon a dear child that comes to him for refuge saying Father into thy hands I commit my self Seventhly and Lastly The unchangableness of Gods love to his people gives confidence they shall in no wise be cast out They know Christ is the same to them at last he was at first The same in the pangs of death as he was in the comforts of life Having loved his own which were in the world he loved them to the end Ioh. 13.1 He doth not love as the world loves only in prosperity But they are as dear to him when their beauty and strength is gone as when it was in the greatest flowrish If we live we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord so then whether we live or die we are the Lords Rom. 14.8 take in all these things and weigh them both apart and together and see whether they amount not to a full evidence of the truth of this point that dying believers are both warranted and incouraged to commend their souls into the hands of God Whether they have not every one of them cause to say as the Apostle did 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have believed and am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day The improvements of all this you have in the following practical Diductions Diduction 1. Are dying believers only warranted and encouraged thus to commend their souls into the hands of God What a sad straight then must all dying unbelievers be in about their souls Such souls will fall into the hands of God but that 's their misery not their priveledge They are not put by faith into the hands of mercy but fall by sin into the hands of justice Not God but the Devil is their Father Iob. 8.44 Whither should the child go but to its own Father They have not one of those forementioned encouragements to cast themselves into the hands of God except the naked relation they have to God as their Creator and that 's as good as none without the new creation If they have nothing but this to plead for their salvation the Devil hath as much to plead as they It 's the new creature that brings the first creation into repute again with God O dismal O deplorable case A pool soul is turning out of house and home and knows not where to go It departs and immediately falls into the hands of justice The Devil stands by waiting for such a soul whom God will throw to him as a Dog for a crust Little ah little do the friends of such a one think whilst they are honouring his dust by a splendid and honourable funeral what a case that poor soul is in that lately dwelt there and what fearful straights and extremities it is now exposed to They will cry indeed Lord Lord open to us Matth. 7.22 But to how little purpose are their vain cries Will God hear him when he cries Iob. 27.9 It 's a lamentable case Diduction 2. Will God gratiously accept and faithfully keep what the Saints commit to him at death how careful then should they be to keep what God commits to them to be kept for him while they live You have a great trust to commit to God when you die and God hath a great trust to commit to you whilst you live you expect that he should faithfully keep what then you shall commit to his keeping and he expects you should faithfully keep what he now commits to your keeping O keep what God commits to you as you expect he should keep your souls when you commit them unto him If you keep his truths he will keep your souls Because thou hast kept the word of my patience I also will keep thee c. Rev. 3.10 Be faithful to your God and you shall find him faithful to you None can pluck you out of his hand see that nothing wrest his truths out of your hands If we deny him he also will deny us 2 Tim. 2.12 Take heed lest those estates you have gotten as a blessing attending the Gospel prove a temptation to you to betray the Gospel Religion saith one brings forth Riches but the Daughter devours the Mother How can you expect acceptance with God who have betrayed his truth and dealt perfidiously with him Diduction 3. If believers may safely commit their souls into the hands of God How confidently may they commit all lesser interests and lower concernments into the same hand Shall we trust him with our souls and not with our lives liberties or comforts Can we commit the treasure to him and not a trifle Whatever you enjoy in this world is but a trifle to your souls Sure if you can trust him for eternal life for your souls you may much more trust him for the daily bread for your bodies I know it is objected that God hath made over temporal things to his people upon conditional promises and an absolute faith can never be grounded upon conditional promises But what means this objection Let your faith be but suitable to these conditional promises
that is believe they shall be made good to you so far as God sees them good for you Do you but labour to come up to those conditions required in you and thereby God will have more glory and you more comfort If your prayers for these things proceed from pure ends the glory of God not the satisfaction and gratification of your lusts If your desires after them be moderate as to the measure content with that proportion the infinite wisdom sees fittest for you If you take Gods way to obtain them and dare not strain Conscience or commit a sin though you should perish for want If you can patiently wait Gods time for enlargements from your straits and not make any sinful haste You shall be surely supplied And he that remembers your souls will not forget your bodies But we live by sense and not by faith Present things strike our affections more powerfully than the invisible things that are to come The Lord humble his people for this Diduction 4. Is this the priveledge of believers that they can commit their souls to God in a dying hour then how pretious how useful a grace is faith to the pleople of God both living and dying All the graces have done excellently but faith excels them all Faith is the Phoenix grace the Queen of graces Deservedly is it stiled pretious faith 2 Pet. 1.1 The benefits and priviledges of it in this life are unspeakable and as there is no comfortable living so no comfortable dying without it First While we live and converse here in the world all our comfort and safety is from it for all our union with Christ the fountain of mercies and blessings is by faith Eph. 3.17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith No faith no Christ. All our communion with Christ is by it He that cometh to God must believe Heb. 11.6 The souls life is wrapt up in this communion with God and that communion in faith All communications from Christ depend upon faith for look as all communion is founded in union so from our union and communion are all our communications All communications of quicknings comforts joy strength and whatsoever serves to the well-being of the life of grace are all through that faith which first knit us to Christ and still maintains our communion with Christ believing we rejoyce 1 Pet. 1.8 The inner man is renewed whilst we look to the things that are not seen 2 Cor. 4.18 Secondly And as our life and all the supports and comforts of it here are dependent on faith so you see our death as to the safety and comfort of our souls then depends upon our faith He that hath no faith cannot commit his soul to God but rather shrinks from God Faith can do many sweet offices for your souls upon a death bed when the light of this world is gone and all joy ceases on earth It can give us sights of things invisible in the other world and those sights will breathe life into your souls amidst the very pangs of death Reader do but think what a comfortable foresight of God and the joys of salvation will be to thee when thine eye-strings are breaking Faith cannot only see that beyond the grave which will comfort but it can cling about its God and clasp Christ in a promise when it feels the ground of all sensible comforts trembling and sinking under thy feet My heart and my flesh faileth but God is the strength or rock of my heart and my portion for ever Reeds fail but the rock is firm footing Yea and when the soul can no longer tabernacle here it can carry the soul to God cast it upon him with Father into thy hands I commend my spirit O pretious faith Diduction 5. Do the souls of dying believers commend themselves into the hands of God Then let not the surviving relations of such sorrow as men that have not hope A Husband a Wife a Child is rent by death out of your arms well but consider into what arms into what bosom they are commended Is it not better for them to be in the bosom of God than in yours Could they be spared so long from Heaven as to come back again to you but one hour how would they be displeased to see your tears and hear your cries and sighs for them They would say to you as Christ said to the daughters of Ierusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and your children I am in a safe hand I am out of the reach of all storms and troubles O did you but know what their state is who are with God you would be more than satisfied about them Diduction 6. Lastly I will close all with a word of counsel Is this the priviledge of dying believers to commend their souls into the hands of God Then as ever you hope for comfort or peace in your last hour see that your souls be such as may be then fit to be commended into the hands of an holy and just God See that they be holy souls God will never accept them if they be not holy Without holiness no man shall see God Heb. 12.24 He that hath this hope viz. to see God purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 Joh. 3.3 Indeavours after holiness are inseparably connected with all rational expectations of blessedness Will you put an unclean filthy defiled thing into the pure hand of the most holy God O see they be holy and already accepted in the beloved or wo to them when they take their leaves of those tabernacles they now dwell in The gratious soul may confidently say then Lord Iesus into thy hands I commend my spirit O let all that can say so then now say Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ. The THIRTY SEVENTH SERMON JOH XIX XL XLI XLII Then took they the body of Iesus and wound it in linen cloaths with the spices as the manner of the Iews is to bury Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new Sepulchre wherein was never man yet laid There laid they Iesus therefore because of the Iews preparation day for the Sepulchre was nigh at hand YOU have heard the last words of dying Jesus commending his spirit into his Fathers hands and now the life of the world hangs dead upon a Tree The light of the world for a time muffled up in a dismal cloud The Son of Righteousness set in the region and shadow of Death The Lord is dead and he that wears the keys of the grave at his girdle is now himself to be lockt up in the grave All you that are the friends and Lovers of Jesus are this day invited to his â—â—neral Such a funeral as never was since Graves were first digged Come see the place where the Lord lay There are six remarkable particulars about this funeral in these three verses The preparations that were made for it and
pleasures and enjoyments of the wicked which feed them for the day of slaughter How little stomach can a man have to those dainties that understands the end and meaning of them Give not sleep therefore to thine eyes Reader till thou have got good evidence that thou art of that number whom Iesus hath delivered from wrath to come Till thou canst say he is a Jesus to thee This may be made out to thy satisfaction three waies First If Iesus have delivered thee from sin the cause of wrath thou maist conclude he hath delivered thee from wrath the effect and fruit of sin Upon this account the sweet name of Iesus was imposed upon him Matth. 1.21 Thou shalt call his name Iesus for he shall save his people from their sins Whilst a man lies under the dominion and guilt of sin he lies exposed to wrath to come and when he is delivered from the guilt and power of sin he is certainly delivered from the danger of this coming wrath Where sin is not imputed wrath is not threatened Secondly If thy soul do set an inestimable value on Iesus Christ and be endeared to him upon the account of that inexpressible grace manifested in this deliverance it 's a good sign thy soul hath a share in it Mark what an Epithite the Saints give Christ upon this account Col. 1.12 13. Giving thanks to the Father who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his Dear Son Christ is therefore Dear and dear beyond all compare to his saved ones I remember it 's storied of the poor enthralled Grecians that when Titus Flamminius had restored their ancient liberties and proclamation was to be made in the Market place by an Herald They so prest to hear it that the Herald was in great danger of being stifled and prest to death among the people but when the Proclamation was ended there were heard such shouts and joyful acclamations that the very birds of the air fell down astonished with the noise while they continued to cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Saviour a Saviour and all the following night they continued dancing and singing about his Pavilion If such a deliverance so indeared them to Titus How should the great deliverance from wrath to come endear all the Redeemed to love their dear Iesus This is the native effect of mercy on the soul that hath felt it Thirdly To conclude a disposition and readiness of mind to do or endure any thing for Christs sake upon the account of this deliverance from the wrath to come is a good evidence you are so delivered Col. 1.10 11. That we may walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing being fruitful in every good work There 's readiness to do for Christ. Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long suffering with Ioyfulness There 's a chearful readiness to endure any thing for Christ. And how both these flow from the sence of this great deliverance from wrath the 12. vers will inform you which was but now cited Oh then be serious and assiduous in the resolution of this grand case Till this be resolved nothing can be pleasant to thy Soul End 2. As the Typical blood was shed and sprinkled to deliver from danger so it was shed to make attonement Levit. 4.20 He shall expiate We translate attone the sin The word imports both And the true meaning is that by the blood of the Bullock all whose efficacy stood in its relation to the blood of Christ signified and shadowed by it the people for whom it was shed should be reconciled to God by the expiation and remission of their sins And what was shadowed in this Typical blood was really designed and accomplisht by Jesus Christ in the shedding of his blood Reconciliation of the Elect to God is therefore another of those beautiful births which Christ travailed for So you find it expresly Rom. 5.10 If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son This if is not a word of doubting but argumentation The Apostle supposes it as a known truth or principle yielded by all Christians that the death of Christ was to reconcile the Elect to God And again he affirms it with like clearness Col. 1.20 And having made peace by the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things And that this was a main and principal end designed both by the Father and Son in the humiliation of Christ is plain from 2 Cor. 5.18 19. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself God filled the humanity with grace and authority The Spirit of God was in him to qualifie him The authority of God was in him by Commission to make all he did valid The grace and love of God to mankind was in him and one of the principal effects in which it was manifested was this design upon which he came viz. to reconcile the world to God Upon which ground Christ is called the propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 2.2 Now Reconciliation or attonement is nothing else but the making up of the ancient friendship betwixt God and men which sin had dissolved and so to reduce these enemies into a state of concord and sweet agreement And the means by which this blessed design was effectually compassed was by the death of Christ which made compleat satisfactâ—on to God for the wrong we had done him There was a breach made by sin betwixt God and Angels but that breach is never to be repaired or made up Since as Christ took not on him their nature so he never intended to be a mediator of reconciliation betwixt God and them That will be an Eternal breach But that which Christ designed as the end of his deaâ—h was to reconcile God and man Not the whole species but a certain number whose names were given to Christ. Here I must briefly open First how Christs death Reconciles Secondly why this Reconciliation is brought about by his death rather than any other way Thirdly what are the Articles according to which it 's made And Fourthly what manner of Reconciliation this is First How Christ Reconciles God and men by his death And it must needs be by the satisfaction his Death made to the Justice of God for our sins And so reparation being made the enmity ceases Hence it 's said Isa. 53.5 The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes are we healed That is as our English Annotators well sense it He was chastized to procure our peace by removal of our sins that set God and us assunder the guilt thereof being discharged with the price of his blood Now this Reconciliation is made and continued betwixt God and us three waies namely by the oblation of Christ which was the price that procured it and so we were virtually or meritoriously reconciled By the application of Christ and his benefits to
us through faith and so we are actually reconciled And by the virtual continuation of the sacrifice of Christ in heaven by his potent and eternal intercession and so our state of reconciliation is confirmed and all future breaches prevented But all depends as you see upon the death of Christ. For had not Christ died his death could never be applied to us nor pleaded in heaven for us How the death of Christ meritoriously procures our reconciliation is evident from that forecited Scripture Rom. 5.10 When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son i. e. Christs death did meritoriously or virtually reconcile us to God who as to our state were enemies long after that reconciliation was made That the application of Chriâ—t to us by faith makes that virtual reconciliation to become actual is plain enough from Eph. 2.16.17 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross having slain the enmity thereby And came and Preached peace to you that were afar off and to them that were nigh Now therefore as it is added vers 19. Ye are no more strangers and foraigners but fellow Citizens with the Saints c. And that this state of friendship is still continued by Christs intercession within the vail so that there can be no breaches made upon the state of our peace notwithstanding all the daily provocations we give God by our sins is the comfortable truth which the Apostle plainly asserts after he had given a necessary caution to prevent the abuse of it in 1 Ioh. 2.1 2. My little children these things write I unto you that ye sin not and if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation c. Thus Christ reconciles us to God by his death Secondly And if you enquire why this reconciliation was made by the death of Christ rather than any other way Satisfaction is at hand in these two answers First That we can imagine no other way by which it could be compassed And Secondly If God could have Reconciled us as much by another way yet he could not have Obliged us so much by doing it in another way as he hath by doing it this way Surely none but he that was God manifest in our flesh could offer a sacrifice of sufficient value to make God amends for the wrong done him by one sin much less for all the sins of the Elect. And how God should especially after a peremptory threatening of death for sin re-admit us into favour without full satisfaction cannot be imagined He is indeed inclin'd to acts of mercy but none must suppose him to exercise one attribute in prejudice to another That his Iustice must be Eclipsed whilst his mercy shines But allow the infinite wisdom could have found out another means of reconciling us as much can you imagine that in any other way he could oblige us as much as he hath done by reconciling us to himself by the death of his own Son It cannot be thought possible This therefore was the most effectual just honourable and obliging way to make up the peace betwixt him and us Thirdly This reconciliation purchased by the blood of Christ is offered unto men by the Gospel upon certain Articles and conditions upon the performance whereof it actually becomes theirs and without which notwithstanding all that Christ hath done and suffered the breach still continues betwixt them and God And let no man think this a derogation from the freeness and riches of Grace for these things serve singularly to illustrate and commend the grace of God to sinners As he consulted his own glory in the terms on which he offers us our peace with him so 't is his grace which brings up souls to those terms of reconciliation And surely he hath not suspended the mercy of our reconciliation upon unreasonable or impossible conditions He hath not said if you will do as much for me as you have done against me I will be at peace with you But the two grand Articles of peace with God are Repentance and faith In the first we lay down arms against God and it 's meet it should be so before he re-admit us into a state of peace and favour in the other we accept Christ and pardon through him with a thankful heart yielding up our selves to his government Which is equally reasonable These are the terms on which we are actually reconciled to God Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon So Rom. 5.1 Being justified by faith we have peace with God And surely it would not become the holy God to own as his friend and favorite a man that goes on perversely and impenitently in the way of sin not so much as acknowledging or once bewailing the wrong he hath done him purposeing to do so no more or to receive into amity one that slights and rejects the Lord Jesus whose pretious blood was shed to procure and purchase peace and pardon for sinners But if there be any poor soul that saith in his heart it repents me for sinning against God and is sincerely willing to come to Christ upon Gospel terms he shall have peace And that peace Fourthly Is no common peace The reconciliation which the Lord Jesus died to procure for broken hearted believers it is First A firm well bottom'd reconciliation putting the reconciled soul beyond all possibility of coming under Gods wrath any more Isai. 54.10 Mountains may depart and hills be removed but the Covenant of this peace cannot be removed Christ is a surety by way of caution to prevent new breaches 2 Iohn 1.2 Secondly This reconciliation with God is the fountain out of which all our other comforts flow to us this is plainly carried in those words of Eliphaz to Iob. Chap. 22.21 Acquaint now thy self with him and be at peace thereby good shall come unto thee As trade flowrishes and riches come in when peace is made betwixt States and Kingdoms so all spiritual and temporal mercies flow into our bosoms when once we are reconciled to God What the comfort of such a peace will be in a day of straights and dangers and what it will be valued at in a dying day who but he that feels it can declare And yet such a one cannot fully declare it for it passes all understanding Phil. 4.7 We shall now make some improvement of this and pass on to the third end of the death of Christ. Inference 1. If Christ died to reconcile God and man How horrid an evil then is sin And how terrible was that breach made betwixt God and the creature by it which could no other way be made up but by the death of the Son of God! I remember I have read that when a great chasm or breach was made
when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his Life Surely it cannot be supposed but he is able to save to the uttermost all them that come to God by him Seeing he ever lives to make intercession Heb. 7.25 Think how safe the people of God in this world are whose head is in Heaven It was a comfortable expression of one of the Fathers incouraging himself and others with this truth in a dark day Come said he why do we tremble thus do we not see our head above water If he live believers cannot die Ioh. 14.19 Because I live ye shall live also And let no mans heart suggest a suspicious thought to him that this wonderful advancement of Christ may cause him to forget his poor people groaning here below under sin and misery For the temper and disposition of his faithful and tender heart is not changed with his condition He bears the same respect to us as when he dwelt among us For indeed he there lives and acts upon our account Heb. 7.25 1 Ioh. 2.1 2. And how seasonable and comfortable will the meditations of Christs Exaltation be to the believer when sickness hath wasted thy Body wither'd its beauty and God is bringâ—ng theâ— to the dust of Death Ah think then that that vile Body shall be conformed to the glorious Body of Christ Pâ—al 3.21 As God hath glorified and highly exalted 〈◊〉 Son whose form was mar'd more than any mans so will he exalt thee also I do not say to a parity or equality in glory with Christ for in heaven he will be discerned and distinguished by his peculiar glory from all the Angels and Saints as the Sun is known by its excelling glory from the lesser Star But we shall be conform'd to this glorious head according to the proportion of members O whither will Love mount the believer in that day Having spoken this much of Christs exalted state to cast some general light upon it and engage your attentions to it I shall now according to the degrees of this his wonderful exaltation briefly open it under the forementioned heads viz. His Resurrection Ascension Session at the Fathers right hand and his return to Judge the World The THIRTY NINHTH SERMON MATTH XXVIII VI He is not here for he is risen as he said come see the place where the Lord lay WE have finished the Doctrine of Christs humiliation wherein the Sun of righteousness appeared to you as a setting Sun gone out of sight but as the Sun when it 's gone down to us begins a new day in another part of the world so Christ having finisht his course and work in this world rises again and that in order to the acting another glorious part of his work in the world above In his death he was upon the matter totally Eclipsed but in his Resurrection he begins to recover his light and glory again God never intended that the darling of his soul should be lost in an obscure Sepulchre An Angel descends from heaven to roll away the stone and with it the reproach of his death And to be the heavenly Herald to proclaim his Resurrection to the two Mary's whose love to Christ had at this time drawn them to visit the Sepulchre where they lately left him At this time the Lord being newly risen the keepers were trembling and become as dead men So great was the terrible Majesty and awful solemnity attending Christs Resurrection but to encourage these good souls the Angel prevents them with these good tidings He is not here for he is risen as he said come see the place where the Lord lay q. d. Be not troubled though you have not the end you came for one sight more of your dear though dead Iesus yet you have not lost your labour for to your eternal comfort I tell you he is risen as he said And to put it out of doubt come hither and satisfie your selves see the place where the Lord lay In which word we have both a Declaration and Confirmation of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead First A Declaration of it by the Angel both Negatively and Affirmatively Negatively he is not here Here indeed you laid him here you left him and here you thought to find him as you left him but you are happily mistaken he is not here However this giving them no satisfaction for he might continue dead still though removed to another place as indeed they suspected he was Ioh. 20.13 Therefore his resurrection is declared Positively and Affirmatively he is risen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word imports the active power or self quickening principle by which Christ raised himself from the state of the dead Which Luke takes notice of also Acts 1.3 Where he saith he shewed or presented himself alive after his Passion It was the divine nature or God-head of Christ which reviv'd and rais'd the man-hood Secondly Here is also a plain confirmation of Christs Resurrection and that first from Christs own Prediction he is risen as he said He â—oretold that which I declare to be now fulfill'd Let it not therefore seem incredible to you Secondly by their own sight come see the place where the Lord lay The Grave hath lost its guest it 's now empty death hath lost its prey It receiv'd but could not retain him Come see the place where the Lord lay Thus the Resurrection of Christ is declar'd and confirm'd Hence our Observation is DOCT. That our Lord Iesus Christ by the Almighty power of his own God-head revived and rose from the Dead to the terror and consternation of his enemies and the unspeakable consolation of Believers That our Lord Jesus Christ though laid was not lost in the Grave but the third day revived and rose again is a truth confirmed to us by many infallible proofs as Luke witnesseth Act. 1.3 We have Testimonies of it both from heaven and earth and both infallible From Heaven we have the Testimony of Angels and to the Testimony of an Angel all credit is due for Angels are holy Creatures and cannot deceive us The Angel tells the two Mary's in the Text he is risen We have Testimonies of it from men holy men who were eye witnesses of this truth to whom he shew'd himself alive by the space of forty days after his Resurrection by no less than nine solemn Apparitions to them Sometime five hundred Brethren saw him at once 1 Cor. 15.6 These were holy persons who durst not deceive and who confirmed their Testimony with their blood So that no point of Religion is of more confessed truth and infallible certainty than this before us And blessed be God it is so For if it were not then were the Gospel in vain 1 Cor. 15.14 Seeing it hangs the whole weight of our Faith hope and salvation upon Christ as risen from the dead If this were
rose at that time also Yet it was by the vertue of Christs Resurrection that their Graves were opened and their bodies quickned In which respect he saith Ioh. 11.25 when he raised dead Lazarus I am the Resurrection and the life i. e. the principle of life and quickning by which the dead Saints are raised Fourthly And therefore it may be truly affirmed that though some dead Saints were raised to life before the Resurrection of Christ yet that Christ is the first-born from the dead as he is call'd Col. 1.18 For though Lazarus and others were raised yet not by themselves but by Christ. It was by his vertue and power not their own And though they were raised to life yet they died again Death recovered them again but Christ dieth no more Death hath no dominion over him He was the first that opened the womb of the Earth the first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preheminence Fifthly But lastly Christ rose as a publick or common person As the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15.20 I desire this may be well understood â—or upon this account it is that our Resurrection is secured to us by the Resurrection of Christ and not a Resurrection only but a blessed and happy one for the first fruits both assured and sanctified the whole crop or harvest Now that Christ did rise as a publick person representing and comprehending all the Elect who are called the children of the Resurrection is plain from Eph. 2.6 Where we are said to be risen with or in him So that as we are said to die in Adam who also was a common person as the branches die in the death of the root so we are said to be raised from death in Christ who is the head root and representative of all his Elect seed And why is he called the first-born and first begotten from the dead but with respect to the whole number of the Elect that are to be born from the dead in their time and order also and as sure as the whole harvest follows the first fruits so shall the general Resurrection of the Saints to life eternal follow this birth of the first-born from the dead It shall surely follow it I say and that not only as a consequent follows an antecedent but as an effect follows its proper cause Now there is a three fold causality or influence that Christs Resurrection hath upon the Saints Resurrection of which it is both the meritorious efficient and exemplary cause First The Resurrection of Christ is the meritorious cause of the Saints Resurrection as it compleated his satisfaction and finished his payment and so our Justification is properly assigned to it as before was noted from Rom. 4.25 This his Resurrection was the receiving of the acquittance the cancelling of the bond And had not this been done we had still been in our sins as he speaks 1 Cor. 15.17 And so our guilt had been still a bar to our happy Resurrection But now the price being paid in his Death which payment was finished when he revived and the discharge then received for us now there is nothing lies in bar against our Resurrection to eternal life Secondly As it is the meritorious cause of our Resurrection so so it is the efficient cause of it also For when the time shall come that the Saints shall rise out of the dust they shall be raised by Christ as their head in whom the effective principle of their life is Your life is hid with Christ in God as it is Col. 3.3 As when a man awakes out of sleep the animal spirits seated in the brain being set at liberty by the digestion of those vapours that bound them up do play freely through every part and member of the body so Christ the believers mystical head being quickned the spirit of life which is in him shall be diffused through all his members to quicken them also in the morning of the Resurrection Hence the warm animating dew of Christs Resurrection is said to be to our bodies as the dew of the morning is to the withered languishing plants which revive by it Isa. 26.19 Thy dew is as the dew of Herbs and then it follows the earth shall cast forth her dead So that by the same Faith we put Christs Resurrection into the Premises we may put the believers Resurrection into the Conclusion And therefore the Apostle makes them convertibles reasoning forward from Christs to ours and back again from ours to his 1 Cor. 15.12 13. Which is also the sence of that Scripture Rom. 8.10 11. And if Christ be in you the body indeed is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness i. e. though you are really united to Christ by the Spirit yet your bodies must die as well as other mens but your souls shall be presently upon your dissolution swallowed up in life And then it follows vers 11. But if the spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you i. e. though your bodies must die yet they shall live again in the Resurrection and that by vertue of the spirit of Christ which dwelleth in you and is the bond of your mystical union with him your head You shall not be raised as others are by a meer word of power but by the spirit of life dwelling in Christ your head which is a choice prerogative indeed Thirdly Christs Resurrection is not only the meritorious and efficient cause but it is also the exemplary cause or pattern of our Resurrection He being the first and best is therefore the pattern and measure of all the rest So you read Phil. 3.21 Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body Now the Conformity of our Resurrection to Christs stands in the following particulars Christs body was raised substantially the same so will ours His body was raised first so will ours be raised before the rest of the dead His body was wonderfully improved by the Resurrection so will ours His body was raised to be glorified and so will ours First Christs body was raised substantially the same that it was before and so will ours Not another but the same body Upon this very reason the Apostle usâ—s that idential expression 1 Cor. 15.53 This corruptible must put on incorruption and thâ— mortal immortality Pointing as it were to his own body when he spake it the same body I say and that not only Specifically the same for indeed no other Species of flesh is so priviledged but the same numerically that very body not a new or another body in its steed So that it shall be both the what it was and the who it was And indeed to deny this is to deny the Resurrection it self For should God prepare
Saints Resurrection and the conformity of ours unto his in these five respects His body rose substantially the same so shall ours His body was raised by the spirit so shall ours Not by the God-head of Christ as his was but by the Spirit who is the bond of our union with Christ. He was raised as the first begotten from the dead so the dead in Christ shall rise first His body was improved by the Resurrection so shall ours From the consideration of all which Inference 1. We Infer That if Christ was thus raised from the dead then death is fairly overcome and smallowed up in Victory Were it not so it had never let Christ escape out of the Grave The prey of the terrible had never been thus rescued out of its paws Death is a dreadful enemy it defies all the Sons and Daughters of Adam None durst cope with this King of terrors but Christ. And he by dying went into the very den of this Dragon fought with it and foiled it in the Grave its own territories and dominions and came off a Conqueror For as the Apostle speaks Acts 2.24 It was impossible it should hold or detain him Never did death meet with its over match before it met with Christ. And he conquering it for us and in our names rising as our representative now every single Saint triumphs over it as a vanquisht enemy 1 Cor. 15.55 O death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Victory Thanks be to God who hath given us the Victory through our Lord Iesus Christ. Thus like Ioshua they set the foot of faith upon the neck of that King and with an holy scorn deride its power O death where is thy Sting If it be objected that it 's said 1 Cor. 15.26 The last enemy that is to be destroyed is Death And if so then it should seem the Victory is not yet atchieved and so we do but boast before the Victory It is at hand to reply that the Victory over death obtained by Christs Resurrection is twofold either personal and incompleat or general and compleat He actually overcame it at his Resurrection in his own person perfectly and vertually for us as our head but at the general Resurrection of the Saints which his Resurrection as the first fruits assures them of then it 's utterly vanquisht and destroyed Till then it will exercise some little power over the bodies of the Saints in which respect it 's called the last enemy For sin the chief enemy that let it in that was conquered utterly and eradicated when they died but death holds their bodies in the Grave till the coming of Christ and then it is utterly to be vanquished For after that they can die no more Luk. 20.35 And then shall be brought to pass that saying that is written death is swallowed up in Victory Then and not till then will that conquest be fully compleated in our persons though it be already so in Christs incompleatly in ours and then compleatly and fully for ever For the same word which signifies Victory doth also signifie Perpetuity and in this place a final or perpetual conquest And indeed it drives but a poor trade for present smiting only with its Dart not with its Sting and that but the believers body only and the body but for a time remains under it neither So that there is no reason why a believer should stand in a slavish fear of it Inference 2. Is Christ risen and hath his Resurrection such a potent and comfortable influence into the Resurrection of the Saints Then it is the duty and will be the wisdom of the people of God so to Govern dispose and imploy their bodies as becomes men and women that understand what glory is prepared for them at the Resurrection of the Iust. Particularly First Be not fondly tender of them but imploy and use them for God here How many good duties are lost and spoiled by sinful indulgence to our bodies Alas we are generally more solicitous to live long than to live usefully How many Saints have active vigorous bodies yet God hath little service from them If your bodies were animated by some other souls that love God more than you do and burn with holy Zeal to his service more work would be done for God by your bodies in a day than is now done in a month To have an able healthy body and not use it for God for fear of hurting it is as if one should give you a strong and stately Horse upon condition you must not work or ride him Wherein is the mercy of having a body except it be imployed for God Will not its reward at the Resurrection be sufficient for all the pains you now put it to in his service Secondly See that you preserve the due honour of your bodies Possess them in Sanctification and honour 1 Thes. 4.4 O let not those eyes be now defiled with sin by which you shall see God Those ears be in-lets to vanity which shall hear the Alaleujahs of the blessed God hath designed honour for your bodies O make them not either the instruments or objects of sin There are sins against the body 1 Cor. 6.18 Preserve your bodies from those defilements for they are the Temples of God If any man defile the Temple of God him will God destroy 1 Cor. 3.17 Thirdly Let not the contentment and accomodation of your bodies draw your souls into snares and bring them under the power of Temptations to sin This is a very common case O how many thousands of pretious souls perish eternally for the satisfaction of a vile body for a momenâ— Their Souls must because their bodies cannot suffer It is recorded to the immortal honour of those worthies in Heb. 11.35 That they accepted not deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection They might have had a Temporal Resurrection from death to life from reproach to honour from poverty to riches from pains to pleasure but upon such terms they Judged it not worth acceptance They would not expose their souls to secure their bodies They had the same natural affections that other men have They were made of as tender flesh as we are but such was the care they had of their souls and the hope of a better Resurrection that they listned not to the complaints and whinings of their bodies O that we were all in the same resolutions with them Fourthly Withhold not upon the pretence of the wants your own bodies may be in that which God and conscience bids you to communicate for the refreshment of the Saints whose present necessities require your assistance O be not too indulgent to your own flesh and cruel to others Certainly the consideration of that reward which shall be given you at the Resurrection for every act of Christian Charity is the greatest spur and incentive in the world to it And to that end it 's urged as a motive to Charity Luk. 14.13 14.
When thou makest a feast call the poor the maimed the lame the blind and thou shalt be blessed for they cannot recompence thee for thou shalt be recompensed at the Resurrection of the Iust. It was the opinion of an eminent modern Divine that no man living fully understands and believes that Scripture Matth. 25.40 In as much as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me How few Saints would be exposed to daily wants and necessities if that Scripture were but fully understood and believed Inference 3. Is Christ risen from the dead and that as a publick person and representative of believers How are we all concerned then to secure to our selves an interest in Christ and consequently to this blessed Resurrection What consolation would be left in this world if the hope of the Resurrection were taken away 'T is this blesed hope that must support you under all the Troubles of life and in the Agonies of Death The securing of a blessed Resurrection to your selves is therefore the most deep concernment you have in this world And it may be secured to your selves if upon serious heart examination you can discover the following Evidences Evidence 1. First If you are regenerated Creatures brought forth in a new nature to God for we are begotten again to a lively hope by the Resurrection of Iesus Christ from the dead Christs Resurrection is the ground-work of our hope And the new birth is our title or evidence of our interest in it So that until our souls are partakers of the spiritual Resurrection from the death of sin we can have no assurance our bodies shall be partakers of that blessed Resurrection to life Blessed and holy saith the Spirit is he that hath part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power Rev. 20.6 Never let unregenerated souls expect a comfortable meeting with their bodies again Rise they shall by Gods terrible Citation at the sound of the last trump but not to the same end that the Saints arise nor by the same principle They to whom the spirit is now a principle of Sanctification to them he will be the principle of a joyful Resurrection See then that you get gratious souls now or never expect glorious bodies then Evid 2. If you be dead with Christ you shall live again by the life of Christ. If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection Rom. 6.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Planted together some refer it to believers themselves Jews and Gentiles are planted together in Christ. So Erasmus believers grow together like branches upon the same root which should powerfully inforce the great Gospel duty of unity among themselves But I would rather understand it with reference to Christ and believers with whom believers are in other Scriptures said to suffer together and be glorified together to die together and live together to be Crucified together and buried together all noting the communion they have with Christ both in his death and in his life Now if the power of Christs death i. e. the mortifying influence of it have been upon our hearts killing their Lusts deading their affections and flatting their appetites to the Creature then the power of his life or Resurrection shall come like the animating dew upon our dead withered bodies to revive and raise them up to live with him in glory Evid 3. If your hearts and affections be now with Christ in Heaven your bodies in due time shall be there also and conformed to his glorious body So you find it Phil. 3.20 21. For our conversation is in heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Iesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body The body is here called vile or the body of our vileness Not as God made it but as sin hath marred it Not absolutely and in it self but relatively and in comparison of what it will be in its second edition at the Resurrection Then those scattered bones and dispersed dust like pieces of old broken battered Silver will be new cast and wrought in the best and newest fashion even like to Christs glorious body Whereof we have this evidence that our conversation is already heavenly The temper frame and disposition of our souls is already so therefore the frame and temper of our bodies in due time shall be so Evid 4. If you strive now by any means to attain the Resurrection of the dead no doubt but you shall then attain what you now strive for This was Pauls great ambition that by any means he might attain the Resurrection of the dead Phil. 3.11 He means not simply a Resurrection from the dead for that all men shall attain whether they strive for it or no. But by a metonymy of the Subject for the Ajunct he intends that compleat holiness and perfection which shall attend the state of the Resurrection so it is expounded vers 12. So then if God have raised in your hearts a vehement desire and assiduous endeavour aftâ—r a perfect freedom from sin and full Conformity to God in the beauties of holiness that very love of holiness your present pantings and tendencies after perfection speaks you to be persons designed for it Evid 5. If you are such as do good in your Generation If you be fruitful and useful men and women in the world you shall have part in this blessed Resurrection Ioh. 5.29 All that are in the Graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life Now it is not every act materially good that entitles a man to this priviledge but the same requisites that the School-men assign to make a good prayer are also necessary to every good work The person matter manner and end must be good Nor is it any single good act but a series and course of holy actions that is here meant What a spur should this be to us all as indeed the Apostle makes it closing up the Doctrine of the Resurrection with this solemn exhortation 1 Cor. 15. Last with which I also close mine Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable Gift The FORTIETH SERMON JOH XX. XVII Iesus saith unto her touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father but go to my Brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God IN all the former Sermons we have been following Christ through his Humiliation from the time that he left the blessed bosom of his Father and now having finished the whole course of his obedience on
Mr. Coverdale well translates filii non negantes such as will keep touch with me and will answer their Covenant engagements And again surely thou wilt fear me thou wilt receive instruction And shall not all this engage you to God What! neither the antient and bountiful love of God in contriving your Redemption from eternity nor the bounty of God in rewarding all and every piece of service you have done for him Nor yet the pleasure he takes in your obedience and upright walking Nor the incouraging promises he hath made thereto nor yet his confident expectations of such a life from you whom he hath so many waies obliged and endeared to himself will you forget your antient friend Contemn his rewards take no delight or care to please him Slight his promises and deceive and fail his expectations Be astonished O ye Heavens at this And be horribly afraid Consider how God the Father hath fastned this five fold cord upon your Souls and shew your selves Christians yea to use the Prophets words Esa. 46.8 Remember this and shew your selves men Secondly You are yet farther engaged to this precise and holy life by what the Son hath done for you is not this pure and holy life the very aim and next end of his death Did he not shed his blood to redeem you from your vain conversations 1 Pet. 1.18 Was not this the design of all his sufferings that being delivered out of the hands of your enemies you might serve him in righteousness and holiness all the daies of your life Luk. 1.74 75. And is not the Apostles inference 2 Cor. 5.14 15. highly reasonable if one dyed for all then were all dead and that he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves but to him that dyed for them Did Christ only buy your Persons and not your services also No no who ever hath thy time thy strength or any part of either I can assure thee Christian that Christ hath paid for it and thou givest away what is none of thine own to give Every moment of thy time is his Every Talent whether of grace or nature is his And dost thou defraud him of his own Oh how liberal are you of your pretious words and hours as if Christ had never made a purchase of them Oh think of this when thy life runs muddy and â—oul When the fountain of corruption flows out at thy tongue in idle frothy discourses or at thy hand in sinful unwarrantable actions doth this become the redeemed of the Lord Did Christ come from the bosom of his Father for this Did he groan sweat bleed endure the Cross and lay down his life for this Was he so well pleased with all his sorrows and sufferings his pangs and agonies upon the account of that satisfaction he should have in seeing the travail of his Soul Isa. 53.11 as if he had said Welcome Death welcome Agonies welcome the bitter cup and heavy burthen I chearfully submit to all this These are travailing pangs indeed but I shall see a beautiful birth at last These throws and Agonies shall bring forth many lively Children to God I shall have joy in them and glory from them to all Eternity This blood of mine these sufferings of mine shall purchase to me the Persons Duties Services and obedience of many thousands that will Love me and Honour me Serve me and Obey me with their Souls and Bodies which are mine And doth not this engage you to look to your lives and keep them pure Is not every one of Christs wounds a mouth open to plead for more holiness more service and more fruit from you Oh what will engage you if this will not But Thirdly This is not all as a man when he weigheth a thing casteth in weight after weight till the scales are counterpoised so doth God cast in engagement after engagement and argument upon argument till thy heart Christian be weighed up and won to this heavenly life And therefore as Elihu said to Iob cap. 36.22 Suffer me a little and I will shew thee what I have yet to speak on Gods behalf Some Arguments have already been urged on the behalf of the Father and Son for purity and cleanness of life and next I have something to plead on the behalf of the Spirit I plead now on his behalf who hath so many times helped you to plead for your selves with God He that hath so often refreshed quickened and comforted you he will be quenched grieved and displeased by an impure loose and careless conversation and what will you do then Who shall comfort you when the Comforter is departed from you When he that should releive your souls is far off Oh grieve not the holy Spirit of God by which you are sealed to the day of Redemption Eph. 4.30 There is nothing grieves him more than impure practices For he is a holy Spirit And look as water damps and quenches the fire so doth sin quench the Spirit 1 Thes. 5.19 Will you quench the warm affections and burning desires which he hath kindled in your bosoms if you do it is a question whether ever you may recover them again to your dying day the Spirit hath a delicate Sence It is the most tender thing in the whole world He feels the least touch of sin and is grieved when thy corruptions within are stirred by temptations and break out to the defiling of thy life then is the holy Spirit of God as it were made sad and heavy within thee As that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes. 4.30 may be rendred For thereby thou both resistest his motions whereby in the way of a loving constraint he would lead and guide thee in the way of thy Duty yea thou not only resistest his motions but crossest his grand design which is to purge and sanctifie thee wholly and build thee up more and more to the perfection of holiness And when thou thus forsakest his conduct and crossest his design in thy soul then doth he usually with-draw as a man that is grieved by the unkindness of his friend He draws in the beams of his evidencing and quickning grace Packs up all his divine Cordials and saith as it were to this unkind and disingenious Soul Hast thou thus requited me for all the favours and kindnesses thou hast received from me Have I quickened thee when thou wast dead in transgressions did I descend upon thee in the Preaching of the Gospel and communicate life even the life of God to thee leaving others in the state of the Dead Have I shed forth such rich influences of grace and comfort upon thee Comforting thee in all thy troubles helping thee in all thy duties satisfying thee in all thy doubts and perplexities of soul saving thee and pulling thee back from so many destructive temptations and dangers What had been thy condition if I had not come unto thee Could the Word have converted thee without me
Canaan Many a man lost his life and much blood shed the very land flowing with milk and honey was first made to flow with blood e're Israel could inherit the promise Seven nations were destroyed e're the Land of Canaan was divided to the Israelites Act. 13.19 Sin makes mercy so deadly hard to bring forth To Christen every pretious child every Benâ—amin Benoni every son of Gods right hand a son of sorrow and death to her that brings him forth Adams sweets had no bitter till he transgressed Gods will One mercy did not die to bring forth another till he died But oh how should this raise the value of â—ur mercies What the price of blood the price of pretious blood the blood of the Cross O what an esteem should this raise Things as the same ingenious Author adds are prized rather as they come than as they are Far fetcht and dear bought makes all the price and gives all the worth with us weak creatures Upon this ground the Scripture when it speaks of our great fortune tells the great price it cost as eying our weakness who look more at what things cost than at what they are And as knowing if any thing will take with us this will To him that loved us and washed us from our sin in his own blood Rev. 1.5 Man is a Legal creature and looks much at what is given for a thing What did this cost Why it cost Christs own blood Colour is more than the cloth with us and scarlet colour is a general taking colour and therefore is Christs garments dipt in blood and he admired in this habit Who is this that comes from Edom with garments dyed red from Bozra Beware then you abuse not not any of the mercies that Christ brought forth with so many bitter pangs and throws And let all this endear Christ more than ever to you and make you in a deep sense of his grace and love to say Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ. The TWENTY SEVENTH SERMON LUK. XXIII XXXVIII And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latine and Hebrew This is the King of the Iews BEfore I pass on to the manner of Christs death I shall consider the Title affixed to the Cross in which very much of the wisdom of providence was discovered It was the manner of the Romans that the equity of their proceedings might the more clearly appear to the people when they crucified any man to publish the cause of his death in a Table written in Capital Letters and placed over the head of the crucified And that there might be at least a shew and face of Justice in Christs death he also shall have his title or superscription The worst and most unrighteous actions labour to cover and shroud themselves under pretensions of equity Sin is so shameful a thing that it cares not to own its name Christ shall have a Table written for him also This writing one Evangelist calls the Accusation Matth. 27.37 Another calls it the Title Joh. 19.19 Another the Inscription or Superscription so the Text. And another the Superscription of his Accusation Mark 15.26 In short it was a fair legible writing intended to express the fact or crime for which the person died This was their usual manner though sometime we find it was published by the voice of the common Cryer As in the case of Attalus the martyr who was led about the Amphitheater one proclaiming before him This is Attalus the Christian. But it was customary and usual to express the crime in a written Table as the Text expresses it Wherein these three things offer themselves to your consideration First The Character or Description of Christ contained in that writing And he is described by his Kingly dignity This is the King of the Iews That very office which but a little before they had reproached and derided bowing the knee to him in mockery saying Hail King of the Iews the providence of God so orders it that therein he shall be vindicated and honoured This is the King of the Iews Or as the other Evangelists compleat it This is Iesus of Nazareth the King of the Iews Secondly The person that drew his Character or Title It was Pilate he that but now condemned him he that was his Iudge shall be his Herald to proclaim his glory For the Title is honourable Surely this was not from himself for he was Christs enemy but rather than Christ should want a tongue to clear him the tongue of an enemy shall do it Thirdly The time when this honour was done him it was when he was at the lowest ebb of his glory when shame and reproach were heaped on him by all hands When all the Disciples had forsaken him and were fled Not one left to proclaim his innocency or speak a word in his vindication Then doth the providence of God as strangely as powerfully overrule the heart and pen of Pilate to draw this Title for him and affix it to his Cross. Surely we must look higher than Pilate in this thing and see how providence serves it self by the hands of Christs adversaries Pilate writes in honour of Christ and stiftly defends it too Hence our observation is DOCT. 1. That the dignity of Christ was openly proclaimed and defended by an enemy and that in the time of his greatest reproaches and Sufferings To open this mystery of providence to you that you may not stand idly gazing upon Christs Title as many then did we must first consider the nature and quality of this Title Secondly what hand the providence of God had in this matter Thirdly and then draw forth the proper Uses and improvements of it First To open the nature and quality of Christs Title or Inscription let it be throughly considered and we shall find First That it was an extraordinary Title varying from all examples of that kind and directly crossing the main design and end of their own custom For as I hinted before the end of it was to clear the equity of their proceedings and shew the people how justly they suffered those punishments inflicted on them for such crimes But Lo here is a Title expressing no crime at all and so vindicating Christs innocency This some of them perceived and moved Pilate to change it not this is but this is he that said I am the King of the Jews In that as they conceived lay his Crime O how strange and wonderful a thing was this But what shall we say It was a day of wonders and extraordinary things As there was never such a person Crucified before so there never was such a Title affixed to the Cross before Secondly As it was an extraordinary so it was a publick Title both written and published with the greatest advantages of spreading it self far and near among all people that could be For it was written in three Languages and those most known