Father As if Christ did not present our pleas and arguments as well as simple desires to God As if the choisest part of our prayers must be kept back because Christ presents our prayers to God No no Christs pleading is one thing ours another His and ours are not opposed but subordinated His pleading doth not destroy but makes ours successful God calls us to plead with him Isai. 1.18 come now let us reason together God as one observes reasoneth with us by his word and providences outwardly and by the motions of his Spirit inwardly but we reason with him by framing through the help of his Spirit certain holy arguments grounded upon allowed principles drawn from his nature name word or works And it is condemned as a very sinful defect in Professors that they did not plead the Churches cause with God Jer. 30.13 There is none to plead thy cause that thou maist be bound up What was Iacobs wrestling with the Angel but his holy pleading and importunity with God And how well it pleased God let the event speak As a Prince he prevailed and had power with God On which instance a Worthy thus glosseth Let God frown smite or wound Iacob is at a point a blessing he came for and a blessing he will have I will not let thee go saith he unless thou bless me His limbs his life might go but there is no going for Christ without a pawn without a blessing This is the man now what is his speed the Lord admires him and honours him to all generations What is thy name saith he q. d. I never met with such a man titles of honour are not worthy of thee Thou shalt be called not Iacob a shepherd with men but Iacob a Prince with God Nazianzen said of his sister Gorgonia that she was modestly impudent with God There was no putting her off with a denial The Lord on this account hath honoured his Saints with the title of his Recorders men fit to plead with him as that word mazkir signifies Isai. 62.6 Ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence give him no rest it notes the office of him that recorded all the memorable matters of the King and used to suggest seasonable Items and Memorandums of things to be done By these holy pleadings the King is held in his Galleries as it is Cant. 7.5 I know we are not heard either for our much speaking or our excellent speaking 't is Christs pleading in Heaven that makes our pleading on earth available but yet surely when the spirit of the Lord shall suggest proper arguments in prayer and help the humble suppliant to press them home believingly and affectionately when he helps us to weep and plead to groan and plead God is greatly delighted in such prayers Thou saidst I will surely do the good Said Iacob Gen. 32.12 It 's thine own free promise I did not go on mine own head but thou bidst me go and encouragest me with this promise O this is taking with God When by the spirit of Adoption we can come to God crying Abba Father Father hear forgive pity and help me am I not thy Child thy Son or Daughter to whom may a Child be bold to go with whom may a Child have hope to speed if not with his Father Father hear me The Fathers of our flesh are full of bowels and pity their children and know how to give good things to them when they ask them when they ask bread or cloaths will they deny them And is not the Father of Spirits more full of bowels more full of pity Father hear me This is that kind of prayer which is melody in the ears of God Corollary 3. What an excellent pattern is here for all that have the charge and government of others committed to them whether Magistrates Ministers or Parents to teach them how to acquit themselves towards their relations when they come to die Look upon dying Jesus see how his care and love to his people flamed out when the time of his departure was at hand Surely as we are bound to remember our Relations every day and to lay up a stock of prayers for them in the time of our health so it becomes us to imitate Christ in our earnestness with God for them when we die Though we die our prayers die not with us They out-live us and those we leave behind us in the world may reap the benefit of them when we are turned to dust For my own part I must profess before the world that I have a high value for this mercy And do from the bottom of my heart bless the Lord who gave me a Religious and tender Father who often poured out his soul to God for me He was one that was inwardly acquainted with God and being full of bowels to his children often carried them before the Lord prayed and pleaded with God for them wept and made supplication for them This stock of prayers and blessings left by him before the Lord I cannot but esteem above the fairest inheritance on earth O it is no small mercy to have thousands of fervent prayers lying before the Lord filed up in Heaven for us And oh that we would all be faithful to this duty Surely our love especially to the souls of our Relations should not grow cold when our breath doth O that we would remember this duty in our lives and if God give opportunity and ability fully discharge it when we die considering as Christ did we shall be no more but they are in this world In the midst of a defiled tempting troublesom world It 's the last office of Love that ever we shall do for them After a little while we shall be no longer sensible how it is with them for as the Church speaks Isai. 63.16 Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel acknowledgeth us not what Temptations and troubles may befal them we do not know O imitate Christ your pattern Corollary 4. To Conclude Hence ye may see what an high esteem and pretious value Christ hath of Believers this was the treasure which he could not be quiet he could not die till he had secured it in a safe hand I come unto thee holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me Surely Believers are dear to Jesus Christ. And good reason for he hath paid dear for them Let his dying language this last farewel speak for him how he prized them The Lords portion is his people Jacob is the Lott of his inheritance Deut. 32.9 They are a peculiar treasure to him above all the people of the earth Exod. 19.5 What is much upon our hearts when we die is dear to us indeed O how pretious how dear should Jesus Christ be to us were we first and last upon his heart did he mind us did he pray for us did he so wrestle with God about us when the sorrows
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
hands of Justice to be punished Even as condemned persons are by sentence of Law given or delivered into the hands of executioners So Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsell of God ye have taken and with wicked hands have slain And so he is said Rom. 8.32 To deliver him up to death for us all The Lord when the time was come that Christ must Suffer did as it were say O all ye roaring Waves of my incensed Justice now swell as high as heaven and go over his soul and body Sink him to the bottom let him go like Ionah his Type into the belly of Hell unto the roots of the Mountains Come all ye raging storms that I have reserved for this day of wrath beat upon him beat him down that he may not be able to look up Psal. 40.12 Go Justice put him upon the rack torment him in every part till all his bones be out of joynt and his heart within him be melted as wax in the midst of his bowels Psal. 22.14 And ye assembly of the wicked Jews and Gentiles that have so long gaped for his blood now he is delivered into your hands you are now permitted to execute your malice to the full I now loose your chain and into your hand and power is he delivered 4. Gods giving of Christ implys his application of him with all the purchases of his blood and setling all this upon us as an inheritance and portion Ioh. 6.32 33. My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven for the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world God hath given him as bread to poor starving creatures that by faith they might eat and live And so he told the Samaritaness Ioh. 4 10. If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith unto thee give me to drink thou wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living waters Bread and water are the two necessarys for the support of natural life God hath given Christ you see to be all that and more to the spiritual Life How this gift of Christ was the highest and fullest manifestation of the love of God that ever the world saw And this will be evidenced by the following particulars 1. If you consider how near and dear Jesus Christ was to the Father He was his Son his only Son saith the Text. The Son of his Love The darling of his soul. His other self Yea one with himself The express Image of his person The brightness of his Fathers glory In parting with him he parted with his own heart with his very bowels as I may say Yet to us a Son is given Esa. 9.6 And such a Son as he calls his dear Son Col. 1.13 A late writer tells us that he hath been informed that in the Famine in Germany a poor family being ready to perish with Famine the Husband made a motion to the Wife to sell one of the Children for bread to relieve themselves and the rest The Wife at last consents it should be so but then they began to think which of the four should be sold. And when the eldest was named they both refused to part with that being their first born and the beginning of their strength Well then they came to the second but could not yield that he should be sold being the very picture and lively image of his Father The third was named but that also was a child that best resembled the mother And when the youngest was thought on that was the Benjamin The child of their old age And so were content rather to perish altogether in the Famine than part with a child for relief And you know how tenderly Iacob took it when his Ioseph and Benjamin were rent from him What is a child but a piece of the parent wrapt up in another skin And yet our dearest children are but as strangers to us in comparison of the unspeakable dearness that was betwixt the Father and Christ. Now that he should ever be content to part with a Son and such an only one is such a manifestation of Love as will be admired to all Eternity And then 2. let it be considered to what he gave him even to death and that of the Cross to be made a curse for us To be the scorn and contempt of men To the most unparalell'd sufferings that ever were inflicted or born by any It melts our bowels it breaks our hearts to behold our children striving in the pangs of death But the Lord beheld his Son struggling under agonies that never any felt before him He saw him falling to the ground groveling in the dust sweating blood and amidst those agonies turning himself to his Father and with an heart rending cry beseeching him Father if it be pâ—ssible let this cup pass Luk. 22.42 To wrath to the wrath of an infinite God without mixture to the very torments of hell was Christ delivered and that by the hand of his own Father Sure then that love must needs want a name which made the Father of mercies deliver his own only Son to such miserys for us 3. It is a special consideration to enhance the love of God in giving Christ that in giving him he gave the richest Jewel in his Cabinet A mercy of the greatest worth and most inestimable value Heaven it self is not so valuable and precious as Christ is He is the better half of heaven And so the Saints account him Psal. 73.25 Whom have I in heaven but thee Ten thousand thousand worlds saith one as many worlds as Angels can number and then as a new world of Angels can multiply would not all be the balk of a ballance to weigh Christs Excellency Love and sweetness O what a fair one What an only one What an excellent lovely ravishing one is Christ. Put the Beauty of ten thousand Paradices like the garden of Eden into one put all Trees all Flowers all Smells all Colours all Tasts all Ioys all Sweetness all Loveliness in one O what a fair and excellent thing would that be And yet it should be less to that fair and dearest well beloved Christ than one drop of rain to the whole Seas Rivers Lakes and Fountains of ten thousand Earths Christ is heavens wonder and earths wonder Now for God to bestow the mercy of mercys the most precious thing in heaven or earth upon poor sinners and as great as lovely as excellent as his Son was yet not to account him too good to bestow upon us what manner of love is this 4. Once more let it be considered on whom the Lord bestowed his Son Upon Angels No but upon men Upon man his friend No but upon his enemies This is Love And on this consideration the Apostle lays a mighty weight in Rom. 5.8 9 10. But God saith he commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for
the High-Priests entring with the blood of the Sacrifice and sweet incense into the holy place Levit. 16.12 13 14. And he shall take the censer full of burning coals of fire from off the Altar before the Lord and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small and bring it within the vail and he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the Testimony that he die not And he shall take the blood of the bullock and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy-seat Eastward c. Christs offering himself on earth answered to the killing of the Sacrifice without and his entring into Heaven there to intercede was that which answered to the Priest going with blood and his hands full of incense within the vail So that this is a part yea a special part of Christs Priesthood and so necessary to it that if he had not done this all his work on earth had signified nothing nor had he been a Priest that is a compleat and perfect Priest if he had remained on earth Heb. 8.4 Because the very design and end of sheding his blood on earth had been frustrated which was to carry it before the Lord into Heaven So that this is the principal perfective part of the Priesthood He acted the first part on earth in a state of deep abasement in the form of a servant but he Acts this in glory whereinto he is taken up that he may follow on his design in dying and give the work of our Salvation its last compleating Act. So much is imported in this Scripture which tells us by reason hereof he is able to save to the uttermost c. The words contain an incouragement to believers to come to God in the way of faith drawn from the intercession of Christ in Heaven for them In which you may take notice of these three principal parts First The quality of the persons here incouraged who are described by a direct act of faith as poor recumbents that are going out of themselves to God by faith but conscious of great unworthiness in themselves and thence apt to be discouraged Secondly The incouragement propounded to such believers drawn from the ability of Jesus Christ in whose name they go to the Father to save them to the uttermost i. e. fully perfectly compleatly For so this Emphatical word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies The saving us wholly throughly compleatly and altogether giving our Salvation its last act and complement Thirdly The ground or reason of this his saving ability Seeing he ever liveth to make intercession i. e. he hath not only offered up his blood to God upon the tree as a full price to purchase pardon and grace for believers but lives in Heaven and that for ever to apply unto us in the way of intercession all the fruits blessings and benefits that that pretious blood of his deserves and hath procured as a price for them The words thus opened that point I shall single out from among many that lie in them as most suitable to my design and purpose is this DOCT. That Iesus our High-Priest lives for ever in the capacity of a potent intercessor in Heaven for believers Here we will enquire First what it is for Christ to be an intercessor Secondly By what acts he performs that work in Heaven Thirdly Whence the potency and prevalency of his intercession is Fourthly and Lastly How he lives for ever to make intercession for us First What it is for Christ to be an intercessor for us To intercede in general is to go betwixt two parties to intreat argue and plead with one for the other And of this there are two sorts First ex charitate ut fratres That whereby one Christian prays and pleads with God for another 1 Tim. 2.1 Secondly Ex officio mediatorio that whereby Christ as an act of office presents himself before God to request for us Betwixt these two is this difference that the former is performed not in our own but anothers name we can tender no request to God immediately or for our own sake either for our selves or for others Joh. 16.23 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he will give it you But the latter which is proper to Christ is an Intercession with God for us in his own name and upon the account of his proper merit The one is a private act of Charity the other a publick act of Office And so he is our Advocate or Court-friend as Satan our accuser or Court-adversary Satan is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that charges us before God 1 Pet. 5.8 And continually endeavours to make breaches between us and God Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Attorney Advocate or Lidger that pleads for us and continues peace and friendship between us and God 1 Joh. 2.2 If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous And thus to make intercercession is the peculiar and incommunicable prerogative of Jesus Christ. None but he can go in his own name to God And in that sense we are to understand that place Ezech. 44.2 3. Then said the Lord unto me this gate shall be shut it shall not be opened and no man shall enter in by it because the Lord the God of Israel hath entred in by it therefore it shall be shut It is for the Prince the Prince he shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord c. The great broad gate called here the Princes gate signifies that abundant and direct entrance that Christ had into Heaven by his own merits and in his own name this faith the Lord shall be shut no man shall enter in by it all other men must come thither as it were by collateral or side doors which looked all towards the Altar viz. by vertue of the Mediator and through the benefit of his death imputed to them And yet though God hath for ever shut up and bar'd this way to all the children of men telling us that no man shall ever have access to him in his own name as Christ the Prince had How do some notwithstanding strive to force open the Princes gate So do they that found the intercession of Saints upon their own works and merits thereby robbing Christ of his peculiar glory but all that so approach God approach a devouring fire Christ only in the vertue of his blood thus comes before him to make intercession for us Secondly We will inquire wherein the Intercession of Christ in Heaven consists or by what acts he performs this Glorious Office there And the Scriptures place it in three things First In his presenting himself before the Lord in our names and upon our accounts So we read in Heb. 9.24 Christ is entred into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us The Apostle manifestly alludes to
hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles through Iesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith That spirit that at first sanctified and since hath so often sealed comforted directed resolved guided and quickned your souls had not come to perform any of these blessed Offices upon your hearts if Christ had not died Thirdly All Eternal good things are the purchase of his blood Heaven and all the glory thereof is purchased for you that are Believers with this price Hence that glory whatever it be is called an inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for you to the lively hope whereof ye are begotten again by the resurrection of Christ from the dead 1 Pet. 1.3 4. Not only present mercys are purchased for us but things to come also As it is 1 Cor. 3.22 Man is a prudent and prospecting creature and is not satisfied that it 's well with him for present unless he have some assurance it shall be well with him for time to come His mind is taken up about what shall be hereafter and from the good or evil things to come he raiseth up to himself vast hopes or fears Therefore to compleat our happiness and fill up the uttermost capacity of our souls all the good of eternity is put into the account and Inventory of the Saints Estate and Inheritance This happiness is ineffable It 's usually distinguisht into what is essential and what is accessory to it The essentials of it as we in our embodied state can conceive is either the Objective Subjective or Formal happiness to be enjoyed in Heaven The Objective happiness is God himself Psal. 73.25 Whom have I in Heaven but thee If it could be supposed saith one that God should withdraw from the Saints in Heaven and say take Heaven and divide it among you but as for me I will withdraw from you the Saints would fall a weeping in Heaven and say Lord take Heaven and give it to whom thou wilt it 's no Heaven to us except thou be there Heaven would be a very Bokim to the Saints without God In this our glory in Heaven consists to be ever with the Lord. 1 Thes. 4.17 God himself is the chief part of a Saints inheritance in which sence as some will understand Rom. 8.17 they are called heirs of God The Subjective glory and happiness is the attemperation and suiting of the soul and body to God This is begun in sanctification perfected in glorification It consists in removing from both all that is indecent and inconsistent with a state of such compleat glory and happiness and in super-induceing and cloathing it with all Heavenly qualities The immunities of the body are its freedom from all natural infirmities which as they come in so they go out with sin Thenceforth there shall be no diseases deformities pains flaws monstrosities their good physitian death hath cured all this And their vile bodies shall be made like unto Christs glorious body Phil. 3.21 And be made a spiritual body 1 Cor. 15.44 For agility like the Chariots of Aminadab For Beauty as the top of Lebanon for incorruptibility as if they were pure Spirits The Soul also is discharged and freed from all darkness and ignorance of mind being now able to discern all truths in God that Chrystal Ocean of truth The leaks of the memory stopt for ever The roving of its fancy perfectly cured The stubbornness and reluctancy of the will for ever subdued and retained in due and full subjection to God So that the Saints in glory shall be free from all that now troubles them They shall never sin more nor be once tempted so to do for no serpent hisses in that paradise They shall never grieve or groan more for God shall wipe all tears from their eyes They shall never be troubled more for God will then recompense tribulation to their troubles and to them that are troubled rest They shall never doubt more for fruition excludes doubting The Formal happiness is the fulness of satisfaction resulting from the blessed sight and enjoyment of God by a soul so attemper'd to him Psal. 17.15 When I awake I shall be satisfied with thy likeness This sight of God in glory called the beatifical vision must needs yield ineffable satisfaction to the beholding soul in as much as it will be an intuitive vision The intellectual or mental eye shall see God 1 Ioh. 3.2 The corporeal glorified eye shall see Christ. Iob 19.26 27. What a ravishing vision will this be And how much will it exceed all reports and apprehensions we had here of it Surely the one half was not told us It will be a transformative vision it will change the beholder into its own image and likeness We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.2 As Iron put into the fire becomes all fiery so the soul by conversing with God is changed into his very similitude It will be an Appropriative vision whom I shall see for my self Job 19.26 27. In Heaven interest is clear and undoubted fear is cast out No need of marks and signs there for what a man sees and enjoys how can he doubt of It will be a ravishing vision these we have by faith are so how much more those in glory How was Paul transported when he was in a visional way wrapt up into the third Heaven and heard the unutterable things though he was not admitted into the blessed society but was with them as the Angels are in our assemblies a stander by a looker on If a spark do so inflame what is it to lie down like a Phoenix in her bed of Spices Like a Salamander to live and move in the fire of love It will also be an eternal vision vacabimus videbimus as Augustin said we shall then be at leisure for this imployment and have no diversions from it for ever No evening is mentioned to the seaventh days sabbath no night in the new Ierusalem And therefore Lastly It will be a fully satisfying vision God will then be all in all Etiam ipsa curiositas satietur curiosity it self will be satisfied The blessed soul will feel it self blessed filled satisfied in every part Ah what an happiness is here to look and love to drink and sing and drink again at the fountain head of the highest glory And if at any time its eye be turned from a direct to a reflex sight upon what it once was how it was wrought on how fitted for this glory how wonderfully distinguished by special grace from them that are howling in flames whilst himself is shouting aloud upon its bed of everlasting rest all this will enhaunce the glory And so also will the Accessories of this blessedness The place where God is enjoyed
the Empyrean Heaven the City of God wihther Christ ascended Where the great assembly are met Paradise and Canaan were but the Types of it More excelling and trascending the Royal Palaces of earthly Princes than they do a â—idgeon hold The company also with whom he is enjoyed adds to the glory A blissful society indeed Store of good neighbours in that City There we shall have familiar converse with Angels whose appearances now are insupportable by poor mortals There will be sweet and full closings also betwixt the Saints Luther and Zuinglius are there agreed here they could not fully close with one another And no wonder for they could not fully close with themselves But there is perfect harmony and unity All meeting and closing in God as lines in the Center This is a blessed glimpse of your inheritance Thirdly All this is purchased for Believers hence it 's call'd the Inheritance of the Saints in Light Col. 1.12 All is yours for ye are Christs that is the tenure 1 Cor. 3.23 So Rom. 8.30 Whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified Only those that are Sons are Heirs Rom. 8.17 The unrighteous shall not inherit 1 Cor. 6.9 It 's the Fathers good pleasure to give the Kingdom to the little flock Luk. 12.32 Inference 1. Hath Christ not only redeemed you from wrath but purchased such an eternal inheritance also by the overplus of his merit for you Oh how well content should Believers then be with their lot of providence in this life be it what it will Content did I say I speak too low overcome ravisht filled with praises and thanksgivings how low how poor how afflicted soever for present they are O let not such a thing as grumbling repining freting at providence be found or once named among the expectants of this Inheritance Suppose you had taken a beggar from your door and adopted him to be your Son and made him Heir of a large inheritance and after this he should contest and quarrel with you for a trifle could you bear it how to work the Spirit of a Saint into contentment with a Low condition here I have laid down several rules in another discourse to which for present I refer the Reader Inference 2. With what weaned affections should the people of God walk up and down this world content to live and willing to die For things present are theirs if they live and things to come are theirs if they die Paul expresses himself in a frame of holy indifferencie Phil. 1.23 Which to choose I know not Many of them that are now in fruition of their inheritance above had vitam in patientia mortem in desiderio life in patience and death in desire while they tabernacled with us Oh cried one what would I give to have a bed made to my wearied soul in Christs bosom I cannot tell you what sweet pain and delightful torments are in his love I often challenge time for holding us assunder I profess to you I have no rest till I be over head and ears in Loves Ocean If Christs Love that fountain of delights were laid open to me as I would wish O how drunken would this my soul be I half call his absence cruel and the mask and vail on his face a cruel covering that hideth such a fair fair face from a â—ick soul. I dare not challenge himself but his absence is a mountain of Iron upon my heavy heart O when shall we meet How long is it to the dawning of the marriage day O sweet Lord Jesus take wide steps O my Lord come over mountains at one stride O my beloved flee like a Roe or young Hart upon the mountains of seperation O if he would fold the Heavens together like an old cloak and shovel time and days out of the way and make ready in hast the Lambs wife for her husband Since he looked upon me my heart is not mine own Who can be blamed for desiring to see that fair inheritance which is purchased for him But truly should God hold up the soul by the power of faith from day to day to such sights as these who would be content to live a day more on earth How should we be ready to pull down the Prison walls and not having patience to wait till God open the door As the Heathen said Victurosque dii celant ut vivere durant And truly the wisdom of God is in this specially remarkable in giving the new creature such an admirable crasis and even temper as that Scripture 2 Thes. 3.5 expresses The Lord direct your hearts into the Love of God and patient waiting for of Christ. Love inflames with desire patience allays that fervor So that fervent desires as one happily expresses it are allaied with meek submission Mighty love with strong patience And had not God twisted together these two principles in the Christians constitution he had framed a creature to be a torment to it self to live upon a very rack Inference 3. Hence we infer the impossibility of their Salvation that know not Christ nor have interest in his blood Neither Heathens nor meerly nominal Christians can inherit I know some are very indulgent to the Heathen and many formal Christians are but too much so to themselves but union by faith with Jesus Christ is the only way revealed in Scripture by which we hope to come to the heavenly inheritance I know it seems hard that such brave men as some of the Heathens were should be damned but the Scripture knows no other way to glory but Christ put on and applied by faith And it is the common suffrage of modern sound Divines that no man by the sole conduct of nature without the knowledge of Christ can be saved There is but one way to glory for all the world Ioh. 14.6 No man cometh to the Father but by me Gal. 3.14 The blessing of Abraham comes upon the Gentiles through faith Scripture asserts the impossibility of being or doing any thing that is truly evangelically good out of Christ. Joh. 15.5 Without me ye can do nothing and Heb. 11.6 Without faith it is impossible to please God Scripture every where connects and chains Salvation with vocation Rom. 8.30 and vocation with Gospel Rom. 10.14 To those that plead for the Salvation of Heathens and profane Christians we may apply that tart rebuke of Bernard that while some labour to make Plato a Christian he feared they therein did prove themselves to be Heathens Inference 4. How greatly are we all concerned to clear up our Title to the heavenly inheritance It 's horrible to see how industrious many are for an inheritance on earth and how careless for Heaven By which we may plainly see how vilely the noble soul is depressed by sin and sunk down into flesh minding only the concernments of the flesh Hear me ye that labour for
God and plenteous redemption for the greatest of Sinners that by Faith apply the blood of the Cross to their poor guilty Souls So speaks the Apostle Col. 1.14 In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins And 1 Ioh. 1.7 The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin Two things will make this demonstrable First That there is sufficient efficacy in this blood of the Cross to expiate the greatest Sins Secondly That the efficacy of it is designed and intended by God for believing sinners How clearly do both these propositions lie in the Word First That there is sufficient efficacy in the blood of the Cross to expiate and wash away the greatest sins This is manifest for it is pretious blood as it 's call'd 1. Pet. 1.18 Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the pretious blood of the Son of God This pretiousness of the blood of Christ rises from the union it hath with that person who is over all God blessed for ever And on that account is stiled the blood of God Acts 20.28 And so it becomes Royal Princely blood Yea such for the dignity and efficacy of it as never was created or shall ever run in any other veins but his The blood of all the creatures in the world even a Sea of humane blood bears no more proportion to the pretious and excellent blood of Christ than a dish of common water to a Rivâ—r of liquid Gold On the account of its invaluable pretiousness it becomes satisfying and reconciling blood to God So the Apostle speaks Col. 1.20 And having made peace through the Blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven The same blood which is Redemption to them that dwell on earth is Confirmation to them that dwell in Heaven Before the efficacy of this blood guilt vanishes and shrinks away as the the shadows before the glorious Sun Every drop of it hath a voice and speaks to the soul that sits trembling under its guilt better things than the blood of Abel Heb. 12.24 It sprinkles us from an evil i. e. an unquiet and accusing conscience Heb. 10.22 For having enough in it to satisfie God it must needs have enough in it to satisfie conscience Conscience can demand no more for its satisfaction nor will it take less than God demands for his satisfaction And in this blood is enough to give both satisfaction Secondly As there is sufficient Efficacy in this blood to expiate the greatest guilt so it 's as manifest that the vertue and efficacy of it is intended and designed by God for the Use of believing sinners Such blood as this was shed without doubt for some weighty end That some might be the better for it Who they are for whom it is intended is plain enough from Acts 13.39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses That the remission of the sins of believers was the great thing designed in the pouring out of this pretious blood of Christ appears from all the Sacrifices that figured it to the ancient Church The sheding of that Typical blood spake a design of pardon And the putting of their hands upon the head of the Sacrifice spake the way and Method of believing by which that blood was then applyed to them in that way and is still applyed to us in a more excellent way Had no pardon been intended no Sacrifices had been appointed Moreover let it be considered this blood of the Cross is the blood of a surety that came under the same obligations with us and in our name or stead shed it and so of course frees and discharges the principal offender or debtor Heb. 7.22 Can God exact satisfaction from the blood and death of his own Son the surety of Believers and yet still demand it from Believers It cannot be Who saith the Apostle shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that Iustifieth Who shall condemn It is Christ that died Rom. 8.33 34. And why are faith and repentance prescribed as the means of pardon Why doth God every where in his word call upon sinners to repent and believe in this blood Encouraging them so to do by so many pretious promises of remission and declaring the inevitable and eternal ruine of all impenitent and unbelieving ones who despise and reject this blood What I say doth all this speak but the possibility of a pardon for the greatest of sinners and the certainty of a free full and final pardon for all believing sinners O what a Joyful sound is this What ravishing voices of peace pardon grace and acceptance come to our ears from the blood of the Cross The greatest guilt that ever was contracted upon a trembling shaking Conscience can stand before the efficacy of the blood of Christ no more than the sinner himself can stand before the Justice of the Lord with all the guilt upon him Reader The word assures thee what ever thou hast been or art that sins of as deep a die as thine have been washt away in this blood I was a blasphemer a persecutor in urious but I obtained mercy saith Paul 1 Tim. 1.13 but it may be thou wilt object this was a rare and singular instance and it 's a great question whether any other sinner shall find the like grace that he did No question of it at all if you believe in Christ as he did for he tells us vers 16. For this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Iesus Christ might shew forth all long suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter belief on him to life everlasting So that upon the same grounds he obtained mercy you may obtain it also Those very men who had an hand in the sheding of Christs blood had the benefit of that blood afterwards pardoning them Act. 2.36 There is nothing but unbelief and impenitency of heart bars thy soul from the blessings of this blood Inference 2. Did Christ die the cursed death of the Cross for believers then though there may be much of pain there is nothing of curse in the death of the Saints It still wears its dart by which it strikes but hath lost its sting by which it hurts and destroys A Serpent that hath no sting may hiss and affright but we may take him in our hand without danger Death poured out all its poison and lost its sting in Christs side when he became a curse for us But what speak I of the innocency and harmlesness of death to believers It is certainly their friend and great benefactor As there is no curse so there are many blessings in it Death is yours 1 Cor. 3.22 Yours as a special priviledge and favour Christ hath not only conquered it but is more than a conqueror
triumphant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 song of deliverance 1 Cor. 15.55 O Death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Deâ—truction Our Graves would not be so sweet and comfortable to us when we come to lie down in them if Jesus had not layen there before us and for us Death is a Dragon the Grave its Den a place of dread and terror but Christs goes into its Den there grapples with it and for ever overcomes it Disarms it of all its terror and not only makes it cease to be enemical but to become exceeding beneficial to the Saints A bed of rest and a perfumed bed They do but go into Christs bed where he lay before them For these ends he must be buried Secondly Next let us inquire what manner of funeral Christ had And if we intently observe it we shall find many remarkable properties in it First We shall find it to be a very obscure and private funeral Here was no external pomp or gallantry Christ affected it not in his life and it was no way suitable to the ends and manner of his death Humiliation was designed in his death And state is inconsistent with such an end Besides he dyed upon the Tree and persons so dying don 't use to have much ceremony and state at their funerals Three things shew it to be a very humble and obscure funeral as to what concerned outward glory with which the great ones of the earth are usually interred For First The dead body of the Lord was not brought from his own house as other mens commonly are but from the Tree They beg'd it of his Judge As who should say go bring the Corps from Tyburn Had they not obtained this favour from Pilate it must have been buried in Golgotha It had been tumbled into a pit digged under the Cross. Secondly As it was first beg'd then buried so it was attended with a very poor train A few sorrowful women followed the Bier Other men are accompanied to their Graves by their Relations and Friends The Disciples were all scattered from him Affraid to owne him dying and dead Thirdly And these few that were resolved to give him a funeral are forced by reason of the straights of time to do it in shuffling haste Time was short they take the next sepulcher they can get and hurry him away that evening into it For the preparation for the Passover was at hand This was the obscure â—uneral which the body of the Lord had Thus was the Prince of the Kings of the earth who hath the Keys of Death and Hell laid into his Grave Secondly Yet though men could bestow little honour upon it the heavens bestowed several marks of honour upon it Adorn'd it with divers Miracles which wiped off the reproach of his deaâ—h from him These Miracles were antecedent to his interment or concomitants of it First There was that extraordinary and preternatural Eclipse of the Sun Such an Eclipse as was never seen since it first shone in heaven The Sun fainted at the sight of such a ruful spectacle and cloathed the whole heaven in black The sight of this caused a great Philosopher who was then far from the place where this unparallel'd Tragedy was acting to cry out upon the sight of it either the God of nature now suffers or the frame of the world is now dissolved The same Dionysius writing to Apollophanes a Philosopher who would not embrace the Christian Faith thus goes about to convince him What thinkest thou saith he of the Eclipse when Christ was Crucified Were we not both of us then at Heliopolis and standing in the same place did we not see the Moon in a new manner following the Sun and not in the time of conjunction but from the ninth hour until the evening by a reason unknown in nature directly opposite to the Sun Didst thou not then being greatly terrified say unto me O my Dionysius what strange commutations of the heavenly bodies are these Such a preternatural Eclipse is remembred in no other History For it was not in time of conjunction but opposition the Moon being then at full From the sixth to the ninth hour the Sun and Moon were together in the midst of heaven but in the evening she appeared in the East her own place opposite to the Sun And then miraculously returning from East to West did not pass by the Sun and set in the West before it but kept it company for the space of three hours and then returned to the East again And whereas in all other natural Eclipses the Eclipse alwaies begins on the western part of the body of the Sun and that part is also first cleared it was quite contrary in this for though the Moon were opposite to the Sun and distant from it the whole breadth of heaven yet with a miraculous swiftness it overtook the Sun and darkned first the Eastern part of it and soon prevailed over its whole body Which caused darkness over all the the Land that is say some over the whole Earth or as others over the whole Land of Iewry Or as others over the whole Horizon and all places of the same altitude and latitude Which is most probable Secondly And as Christs funeral was adorned with such a miraculous Eclipse which put the heavens and earth into a mourning so the rocks did rend the vail of the Temple rent in twain from top to bottom The graves opened and the dead bodies of many Saints arose and went into the holy City and were seen of many The rending of the Rocks was a sign of Gods fierce indignation Nahum 1.6 And a discovery of the greatness of his power shewing them what they deserved and what he could do to them that had committed this horrid fact though he rather chose at this time to shew the dreadful effects of it upon inanimate Rocks than Rocky hearted sinners But especially it served to convince the world that it was none other but the Son of God that dyed Which was farther manifested by these concomitant Miracles As for the rending in twain of the vail It was a notable Miracle plainly shewing that all ceremonies were now accomplished and abolished No more vails now As also that believers have now most free access into heaven At that very instant when the vail rent the High Priest was officiating in the most holy place and the vail which hid him from the people being rent they might freely see him about his work in the holy of holies A lively Emblem of our High Priest whom now we see by faith in the heavens there performing his intercession work for us The opening of the Graves plainly shew'd the design and end of Christs going into it That it might not have dominion over the bodies of the Saints but being vanquisht and destroyed by Christ le ts go all that are his whom he ransomed from the Grave as a prey out of its paws A Specimen whereof was given in
illumination Ier. 31.34 Gratious softness and tenderness of heart Ezek. 11.19 The awful dread and fear of God Ier. 32.40 The Copy or transcript of his Laws on your hearts in gratious correspondent principles Ier. 31.33 These things speak you the Children of the Covenant the persons on whom all these great things are settled Inference 2. To conclude it is the indispensible duty of all on whom Christ hath settled such mercies to admire his Love and walk answerably to it First Admire the Love of Christ. O how intense and ardent was the Love of Jesus who designed for you such an inheritance with such a settlement of it upon you These are the mercies with which his Love had travailed big from eternity and now he sees the travail of his soul and you also have seen somewhat of it this day Before this Love let all the Saints fall down astonished-humbly professing that they owe themselves and all they are or shall be worth to eternity to this Love Secondly And be sure you walk becoming persons for whom Christ hath done such great things Comfort your selves under present abasures with your spiritual priviledges Iam. 2.5 And let all your rejoycing be in Christ and what you have in him whilst others are blessing themselves in vanity Thus we have finished the state of Christs humiliation and thence proceed to the second state of his Exaltation HAving finished what I designed to speak to about the work of Redemption so far as it was carried on by Christ in his humbled state we shall now view that blessed work as it is further advanced and perfected in his State of Exaltation The whole of that work was not to be finished on earth in a state of suffering and abasure therefore the Apostle makes his Exaltation in order to the finishing of the remainder of his work so necessary a part of his Priesthood that without it he could not have been a Priest Heb. 8.4 If he were on earth he should not be a Priest i. e. if he should have continued alwaies here and had not been raised again from the dead and taken up into glory he could not have been a compleat and perfect Priest For look as it was not enough for the sacrifice to be slain without and his blood left there but after it was shed without it must be carried within the vail into the most holy place before the Lord Heb. 9.7 So it was not sufficient that Christ shed his own blood on earth except he carry it before the Lord into heaven and there perform his intercession work for us Moreover God the Father stood engaged in a solemn Covenant to reward him for his deep humiliation with a most glorious and illustrious advancement Isa. 49.5 6 7. And how God as it became him made this good to Christ the Apostle very clearly expresses it Phil. 2.9 Yea Justice required it should be so For how could our surety be detained in the prison of the Grave when the debt for which he was imprisoned was by him fully discharged so that the Law of God must acknowledge it self to be fully satisfied in all its claims and demands His Resurrection from the dead was therefore but his discharge or acquittance upon full payment Which could not in Justice be denyed him And indeed God the Father lost nothing by it for there never was a more glorious manifestation made of the name of God to the World than was made in that work Therefore it 's said Phil. 2.11 Speaking of one of the designs of Christs Exaltation it was saith the Apostle That every Tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father O how is the Love of God to poor sinners illustriously yea astonishingly displayed in Christs Exaltation When to shew the Complacency and delight which he took in our recovery he hath openly declared to the world that his exalting Christ to all that glory such as no meer creature ever was or can be exalted to was bestowed upon him as a reward for that work that most grateful work of our Redemption Phil. 2.9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him there is an Emphatical Pleonasmus in that word our English is too flat to deliver out the elegancy of the Original it is Super-Exaltation The Seriack renders it he hath multiplyed his Sublimity The Arabick he hath heightened him with an height Iustin he hath famously exalted him Higher he cannot raise him a greater Argument of his high satisfaction and content in the recovery of poor sinners cannot be given For this therefore God the Father shall have glory and honour ascribed to him in Heaven to all Eternity Now this singular Exaltation of Jesus Christ as it properly respects his humane nature which alone is capable of advancement for in respect of his divine nature he never ceased to be the most high So it was done to him as a common person and as the head of all believers their representative in this as well as in his other works God therein shewing what in due time he intends to do with the persons of his Elect after they in Conformity to Christ have suffered a while What ever God the Father intendeth to do in us or for us he hath first done it to the person of our representative Iesus Christ. And this if you observe the Scriptures carry in very clear and plain expressions through all the degrees and steps of Christs Exaltation viz. his Resurrection Ascension Session at the right hand of God And returning to Iudge the World Of which I purpose to speak distinctly in the following Sermons He rose from the Dead as a common person Col. 3.1 If ye then be risen with Christ saith the Apostle so that the Saints have Communion and fellowship with him in his Resurrection He Ascended into Heaven as a common person for so it 's said in Eph. 2.6 He hath raised us up or exalted us together with Christ. He sits at Gods right hand as a common person for so it follows in the next clause and hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Iesus We sit there in our representative And when he shall come again to Judge the World the Saints shall come with him So it is Prophesied Zech. 14.6 The Lord my God shall come and all the Saints with thee And as they shall come with Christ from Heaven so they shall sit on Thrones with him judging by way of suffrage They shall be assessors with the Judge 1 Cor. 6.2 This deserves a special remark that all this honour is given to Christ as our head and representative for thence results abundance of comfort to the people oâ— God Carry it therefore along with you in your thoughts throughout the whole of Christs advancement Think when you shall hear that Christ is risen from the dead and is in all that glory and authority in Heaven How sure the salvation of his Redeemed is 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 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
not so then would the holy and divinely inspired Apostles be found false witnesses 1 Cor. 15.15 For they all with one mouth constantly and to the death affirmed it If Christ be not risen then are believers yet in their sins 1 Cor. 15.17 For our Justification is truly ascribed to the Resurrection of Christ Rom. 4.25 While Christ was dying and continued in the state of the dead the price of our Redemption was all that while but in paying the payment was compleated when he revived and rose again Therefore for Christ to have continued alwaies in the state of the dead had been never to have compleatly satisfiâ—d hence the whole force and weight of our Justification depends upon his Resurrection Nay had not Christ risen the dead had perished 1 Cor. 15.17 Even the dead who dyed in the Faith of Christ and of whose salvation there now remains no ground to doubt Moreover Had he not revived and risen from the dead how could all the Types that prefigured it have been satisfied Surely they must have stood as insignificant things in the Scriptures and so must all the predictions of his Resurrection by which it was so plainly foretold See Matth. 12.40 Luk. 24.46 Psal. 16.10 1 Cor. 15.4 To conclude had he not risen from the dead how could he have been install'd in that glory whereof he is now possessed in heaven and which was promised him before the world was upon the account of his death and sufferings For to this end Christ both dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14.9 And that in this state of dominion and glorious advancement he might powerfully apply the vertues and benefits of his blood to us which else had been as a pretious Cordial spilt upon the ground So then there remains no doubt at all of the certainty of Christs Resurrection it was so and upon all accounts it must needs be so for you see how great a weight the Scriptures hang upon this nail And blessed be God it 's a nail fastned in a sure place I need spend no more words to confirm it but rather choose to explain and open the nature and manner of his Resurrection which I shall do by shewing you four or five properties of it And the first is this First Christ rose from the dead with awful Majesty So you find it in Matth. 28.2 3 4. And behold there was a great Earthquake for the Angel ef the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sate upon it his countenance was like lightning and his rayment white as Snow and for fear of him the Keepers did shake and became as dead men Humane infirmity was not able to bear such heavenly Majesty as attended the business of that morning Nature â—ank under it This Earthquake was as one calls it Triumphale Signum A sign of Triumph or token of Victory given by Christ not only to the Keepers and the neighbouring City but to the whole world that he had overcome Death in its own dominions and like a conqueror lifted up his head above all his enemies So when the Lord fought from heaven for his people and gave them a glorious though but Temporal deliverance see how the Propheâ—ess drives on the triumph in that Rhetorical Song Iudg. 5.4 5. Alluding to the most awful appearance of God at the giving of the Law Lord when thou wentest out of Seir when thou marchedst out of the field of Edome the Earth trembled and the heavens droped the clouds also droped water The mountains melted before the Lord even that Sinai from before the lord God of Israel Our Lord Jesus went out of the Grave in like manner and marched out of that bloody field with a pomp and Majesty becoming so great a conqueror Secondly And to increase the splendor of that day and drive on the Triumph his Resurrection was attended with the Resurrection of many of the Saints who had slept in their Graves till then and then were awakned and raised to attend the Lord at his rising So you read Matth. 27 52 53. And the Graves were opened and many bodies of the Saints which slept arose and came out of the Graves after his Resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many This wonder was designed both to adorn the Resurrection of Christ and to give a specimen or handsel of our Resurrection which also is to be in the vertue of his This indeed was the Resurrection of Saints and none but Saints the Resurrection of many Saints yet it was but a special Resurrection intended only to shew what God will one day do for all his Saints And for present to give Testimony of Christs Resurrection from the dead They were seen and known of many in the City who doubtless never thought to have seen them any more in this world To enquire curiously as some do who they were what discourse they had with those to whom they appeared and what became of them afterwards is a vain thing God hath cast a vail of silence and secresie upon these things that we might content our selves with the written Word and he that will not believe Moses and the Prophets neither will he believe though one arise from the dead as these Saints did Thirdly As Christ rose from the dead with those Saâ—ellites or attendants who accompanied him at his Resurrection so it was by the power of his own God-head that he quickned and raised himself and by the vertue of his Resurrection were they raised also who accompanied him It was not the Angel who rolled back the stone that revived him in the Sepulchre but he râ—sumed his own life so he tells us Ioh. 10.18 I lay down my life that I might take it again Hence in 1 Pet. 3.18 He is said to be put to death in the flesh but quickned by the Spirit i. e. by the power of his God-head oâ— divine nature which is opposed there to flesh or his humane nature By the eternal Spirit he offered himself up to God when he dyed Heb. 9.14 i. e. by his own God-head not the third person in the Trinity for then it could not have been ascribed to him as his own act that he offer'd up himself And by the same spirit he was quickned again And therefore the Apostle well observes Rom. 1.4 That he was declared to be the Son of God with power by his Resurrection from the dead Now if he had been raised by the power of the Father or Spirit only and not by his own how could he be declared by his Resurrection to be the Son of God What more had appeared in him than in others For others are raised by the power of God if that were all So that in this respect also it was a marvellous Resurrection Never any did or shall rise as Christ rose by a self-quickning principle For though many dead Saints
another body to be raised instead of this it would not be a Resurrection but a Creation for non Resurrectio dici poterit ubi non resurgit quod cecidit That can't be call'd a Resurrection where one thing falls and another thing rises as Gregory long since pertinently observed Secondly His body was raised not by a word of power from the Father but by his own spirit So will ours Indeed the power of God shall go forth to unburrough sinners and fetch them forcibly out of their Graves but the Resurrection of the Saints is to be effected another way as I opened but now to you Even by his spirit which now dwelleth in them That very spirit of Christ which effected their spiritual Resurrection from sin shall effect their corporal Resurrection also from the Grave Thirdly His body was raised first he had in this as well as in other things the preheminence so shall the Saints in respect of the wicked have the preheminence in the Resurrection 1 Thes. 4.16 The dead in Christ shall rise first They are to attend the Lord at his coming and will be knockt up â—ooner than the rest of the world to attend on that service As the Sheriff with his men go forâ—h to meet the Judge before the Jaylor brings forth his prisoner Fourthly Christs body was marvelously improved by the Resurrection and so will ours It fell in weakness but was raised in power no more capable of sorrows pains and dishonours In like manner our bodies are sown in weakness but raised in strength sown in dishonour raised in glory Sown natural bodies raised spiritural bodies as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 15.43 44. Spiritual bodies not properly but Analogically No distempers hang about glorified bodies nor are they thence forth subject to any of those natural necessities to which they are now tyed There are no flaws defects or deformities in the children of the Resurrection What members are now defective or deformed will then be restored to their perfect being and beauty for if the universal death of all parts be rescinded by the Resurrection how much more the partial Death of any single member As Turtullian speaks and from thence forth they are free from the Law of mortality they can die no more Luk. 20 35 36. Thus shall they be improved by their Resurrection Fifthly To conclude Christs body was raised from the Dead to be glorified and crowned with honour Oh it was a joyful day to him and so will the Resurrection of the Saints be to them the day of the gladness of their hearts It will be said to them in that morning awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust as Isa. 26.19 O how comfortable will be the meeting betwixt the glorified soul and its new raised body Much more comfortable than that of Iacobs and Iosephs after twenty years absence Gen. 46.29 Or that of Davids with Jonathan when he came out of the Cave to him 1 Sam. 20.41 Or that of the Father of the prodigal with his Son who was dead and is alive was lost and is found As he speaks Luk. 15. And there are three things will make it so First The gratifications of the Soul by the satisfaction of its natural appetite of union with its own body For even glorified souls in heaven have such an appetition and desire of re-union Indeed the Angels who are pure spirits as they never hâ—d union with so they have no inclination to matter but souls are otherwise tempered and disposed We are all sensible of its affection to the body now in its compounded state we feel the tender care it hath for the body the sympathy with it and loathness to be separated from it It 's said 1 Cor. 5.6 To be at home in the body And had not God implanted such an inclination to this its Tabernacle in it it would not have paid that due respect it ows the body while it inhabited in it nor have regarded what became of it when it left it This inclination remains still with it in heaven it reckons not it self compleatly happy till its old dear Companion and partner be with it and to that sence some understand those words Iob 14.14 All the daies of my appointed time i. e. of the time appointed â—or my body to remain in the Grave will I wait till my change viz. that which will be made by the Resurrection come for it 's manifest enough he speaks there of the Resurrection Now when this its inclination to its own body its longings and hankerings after it are gratified with a sight and enjoyment of it again oh what a comfortable meeting will this make it Especially if we consider Secondly The excellent temper and state in which they shall meet each other For as the body shall be raised with all the improvements and endownments imaginable which may render it amiable and every way desireable so the soul comes down immediatly from God out of Heaven shining in its holiness and glory It comes perfumed out of those Ivory Palaces with a strong scent of Heaven upon it And thus it re-enters its body and animates it again But Thirdly And principally that wherein the chief joy of this meeting consists is the end for which the glorified soul comes down to quicken and repossess it Namely to meet the Lord and ever to be with the Lord. To receive a full reward for all the labours and services it performed to God in this world This must needs make that day a day of Triumph and Exaltation It comes out of the grave as Ioseph out of his prison to be advanced to highest honour O do but imagine what an extasie of Joy and ravishing pleasure it will be for a soul thus to resume its own body and say as it were unto it come away my dear my ancient friend who servedst and sufferedst with me in the world come along with me to meet the Lord in whose presence I have bee ever since I parted with thee Now thy bountiful Lord hath remembred thee also and the day of thy glorification is come Surely it will be a joyful awaking For do but imagine what a Joy it is for dear friends to meet after long separation how do they use to give demonstrations of their love and delight in each other by Embraces Kisses Tears c. Or frame but to your selves a notion of perfect health when a sprightly vivacity runs through every part and the spirits do as it were dance before us when we go to any business Especially to such a business as the business of that day will be to receive a Crown and a Kingdom Do but imagine then what a Sun-shine morning this will be and how the pains and agonies cold sweats and bitter groans at parting will be recompenced by the joy of such a meeting And thus I have shewed you briefly the certainty of Christs Resurrection the nature and properties of it the threefold influence it hath on the
the account of his Office and the benefits we receive by him We are obliged even on the score of gratitude and ingenuity to obey him For he is sent in the quality of an Advocate to help us to pray To indite our requests for us To teach us what and how to ask of God Rom. 8.26 He comes to us as a Comforter Ioh. 14.16 And none like him His work is to take of Christs and shew it to us i. e. to take of his death Resurrection Ascension yea of his very present Intercession in Heaven and shew it to us He can be with us in a moment he can as one well observes tell you what were the very last thoughts Christ was thinking in Heaven about you It was he that formed the body of Christ in the womb and so prepared him to be a sacrifice for us He filled that humanity with his unexampled fullness So fitting and anointing him for the discharge of his Office 'T is he thaâ— puâ—s efficacy into the Ordinances and without him they would be but a dead letter 'T was he that blessed them to your conviction and câ—nversion For if Angels had been the Preachers no conversion had followed without the Spirit 'T is he that is the vinculum unionis bond of union betwixt Christ and your souls without which you could never have had interest in Christ or Communion with Christ. 'T was he that so often hath helped your infirmities when you knew not what to say Comforted your hearts when they were overwhelmed wiâ—hin you and you knew not what to do Preserved you many thousand times from sin and ruine when you have been upon the slippery brâ—nk of it in temptations 'T is he in his sanctifying work that is the best evidence your souls have for Heaven It were endless to enumerate the mercies you have by him And now Reader dost thou not blush to think how unworthily thou hast treated such a friend For which oâ— all these his Offices or benefits dost thou grieve and quench him O grieve not the holy Spirit whom Christ sent assoon as ever he came to Heaven in his Fathers name and in his own name to perform all these Offices for you Inference 5. Is Christ ascended to the Father as our fore-runner then the door of Salvation stands open to all believers and by vertue of Christs ascension they also shall ascend after him far above all visible Heavens O my friends what place hath Christ prepared and taken up for you What a splendid habitation hath he provided for you God is not ashamed to be called your God for he hath prepared for you a City Heb. 11.16 In that City Christ hath provided mansions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 resting places for your everlasting abode Ioh. 14.2 and keeps them for you till your coming O how August and glorious a dwelling is that where Sun Moon and Stars shall shine as much below your feet as they are now above your heads Yea such is the love Christ hath to the believer that as one saith if thou only hadst been the chosen of God Christ would have built that house for himself and thee Now it is for himself for thee and for many more who shall inherit with thee God send us a joyful meeting within the vail with our fore-runner and sweeten our passage into it with many a fore-sight and fore-tast thereof And mean time let the Love of a Saviour inflâ—me our hearts so that when ever we cast a look towards that place where our fore-runner is for us entred our souls may say with melting affections Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ and again Blessed be God for his unspeakable Gift The FORTY FIRST SERMON HEB. I.III. part of the Verse When he had by himself purged our sins sate down at the right hand of the Majesty on high CHrist being returned again to his Father having finished his whole work on earth is there bid by the Father to sit down in the seat of honour and rest A seat prepared for him at Gods right hand that makes it honourable and all his enemies as a footstool under his feet that makes it easie How much is the state and condition of Jesus Christ changed in a few days Here he groaned wept laboured suffered sweat yea sweat blood and found no rest in this world but when he comes to Heaven there he enters into rest Sits down for ever in the highest and easiest throne prepared by the Father for him when he had done his work When he had by himself purged our sins he sate down c. The scope of this Epistle is to demonstrate Christ to be the fulness of all Legal Types and Ceremonies and that whatever light glimered to the world through them yet it was but as the light of the day Star to the light of this Sun In this Chapter Christ the subject of the Epistle is described and particularly in this third verse he is described three ways First By his Essential and primaeval glory and dignity he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brightness of his Fathers glory the very splendor of glory the very refulgency of that Son of glory The primary reason of that appellation is with respect to his eternal and ineffable generation light of light as the Nicene Creed expresses it As a beam of light proceeding from the Sun And the secondary reason of it is with respect to men for look as the Sun communicates its light and influence to us by its beams which it projects so doth God communicate his goodness and manifest himself to us by Christ. Yea he is the express Image or Character of his person Not as the impressed Image of the Seal upon the Wax but as the engraving in the Seal it self Thus he is described by his essential glory Secondly He is described by the work he wrought here on earth in his humbled state and it was a glorious work and that wrought out by his own single hand when he had by himself purged our sins A work that all the Angels in Heaven could not do but Christ did it Thirdly and Lastly He is described by his glory the which as a reward of that work he now enjoys in Heaven When he had by himself purged our sins he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high i e. the Lord cloathed him with the greatest power and highest honour that Heaven it self could afford for so much this phrase of sitting down on the right hand of Majesty imports as will appear in the explication of this point which is the result of this clause viz. DOCT. That when our Lord Iesus Christ had finished his work on earth he was placed in the seat of the highest honour and authority at the right hand of God in Heaven This truth is transformingly glorious Stephen had but a glimpse of Christ at his Fathers right hand
written by his Judge and fixed on the ignominous Tree to the name that shall be now seen on his Vesture and on his Thigh Lord of Lords and King of Kings Secondly This will be a display of his glory in the highest before the whole world For there will be present at once and together all the Inhabitants of Heaven and Earth and Hell Angels must be there to attend and minister those glistering Courtiers of Heaven must attend his person So that Heaven will for a time be left empty of all its Inhabitants Men and Devils must be there to be judged And before this great Assembly will Christ appear in Royal Majesty that day He will to allude to that Text Isa. 24.23 raign before his Ancients gloriously For he will come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe 2 Thes. 1.10 The inhabitants of the three Regions Heaven Earth and Hell shall rejoyce or tremble before him that day And acknowledge him to be supream Lord and King Thirdly This will roll away for ever the reproach of his death For Pilate and the High Priest that Judged him at their bars shall now stand quivering at his bar with Herod that set him at nought the Souldiers and Officers that traduced and abused him There they that reviled him on the Cross wagging their heads will stand with trembling knees before his Throne For every eye shall see him and they also that pierced him Rev. 1.7 O what a contemptible person was Christ in their eyes once As a worm and no man Every vile wretch could freely tread and trample on him but now such will be the brightness of his glory such the awful beams of Majesty that the wicked shall not stand in his presence or be able to rise up as that word imports Psal. 1.5 before him So that this will be a full and Universal vindication of the death of Christ from all that contempt and ignominy that attended it We next improve it Inference 1. Is Jesus Christ ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead great then is the security believers have that they shall not be condemned in that day Who shall condemn when Christ is Judge If believers be condemned in Judgement Christ must give Sentence against them Yea and they must condemn themselves too I say Christ must give Sentence for that is the proper and peculiar Office of Christ. And to be sure no Sentence of condemnation shall in that day be given by Christ against them For First He died to save them and he will never cross and overthrow the designs and ends of his own death That cannot be imagined nay Secondly They have been cleared and absolved already And being once absolved by divine Sentence they can never be condemned afterward For one divine Sentence cannot cross and rescind another He justified them here in this world by Faith Declared in his Word which shall then be the rule of Judgement Rom. 2.16 That there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Rom. 8.1 And surely he will not retract his own Word and give a Sentence quite cross to his own Statute-book out of which he hath told us they shall be Judged Moreover Thirdly The far greatest part of them will have past their particular Judgement long before that day and being therein acquitted by God the Judge of all and admitted into Heaven upon the score and account of their Justification it cannot be imagined that Christ should now condemn them with the World Nay Fourthly He that Judgeth them is their head husband friend and brother who loved them and gave himself for them Oh then with what confidence may they go even unto his Throne And say with Iob though he try us as fire we know we shall come forth as Gold We know that we shall be justified Especially if we add that they themselves shall be assessors with Christ in that day And as a Judicious Author pertinently observes not a Sentence shall pass without their Votes So as that they may by Faith not only look upon themselves as already in Heaven sitting with Christ as a common person in their right but they may look upon themselves as Judges already So that if any sin should arise to accuse or condemn yet it must be with their Votes And what greater security can they have than this that they must condemn themselves if they be condemned No no it is not the business of that day to condemn but to absolve and pronounce them pardoned and justified according to the sence of Act. 3.19 and Matth. 12.32 So that it must needs be a time of refreshing as the Scriptures call it to the people of God You that now believe shall not come into condemnation Ioh. 5.24 You that now Judge your selves shall not be condemned with the world 1 Cor. 11.31 32. Inference 2. If Christ be ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead how miserable a case will Christless Souls be in at that day They that are Christless now will be speechless helpless and hopeless then How will their hands hang down and their knees knock together O what pale faces quivering lips fainting hearts and roaring consciences will be among them in that day O dreadful day O astonishing sight To see the World in a dreadful conflagration the Elements melting the Stars falling the Earth trembling the Judgement set the Prisoners brought forth O who shall endure in this day but those that by union with Christ are secured against the danger and dread of it Let me demand of poor Christless Souls whom this day is like to overtake unawares First Do ye think it possible to avoid appearing after that terrible citation is given to the World by the Trump of God Alas how can you imagine it Is not the same power that revived your dust able to bring you before the bar There is a necessity that you must come forth 2 Cor. 5.10 We Must all appear It is not at the sinners choice to obey the Summons or not Secondly If you must appear are there no Accusers nor Witnesses that will appear against you and confront you in the Court What think you was Satan so often a Tempter to you here and will he not be an Accuser there Yes nothing surer for that was the main design of all his Temptations What think you of your own Consciences Are they not privy to your secret wickedness Don't they now whisper sometimes in your ears what you care not to hear of If they whisper now they will thunder then Rom. 2.15 16. Will not the Spirit accuse you for resisting his motions and stifling thousands of his convictions Will not your Companions in sin accuse you who drew or were drawn by you to sin Will not your Teachers be your accusers How many times have you made them complain Lord they are Iron and Brass they have made their faces harder than a
Christ and beauties of holiness A King from Heaven makes suit for your love If he espouse your soul now he will fetch it home to himself at death in his Chariot of salvation and great shall be your joy when the Marriage of the Lamb is come Look often upon Christ in this glass he is fairer than the Children of men View him believingly and you cannot but like and love him For as one well saith Love when it seeth cannot but cast out its spirit and strength upon amiable objects and things love worthy And what fairer thing than Christ Oh fair Sun and fair Moon and fair Stars and fair flowers and fair Roses and fair Lilies and fair Creatures but oh ten thousand thousand times fairer Lord Jesus alas I wronged him in making the comparison this way O black Sun and Moon but oh fair Lord Jesus O black Flowers and black Lilies and Roses but O fair fair ever fair Lord Jesus O all fair things black deformed and without beauty when ye are set beside the fairest Lord Jesus O black Heavens but O fair Christ O black Angels but O surpassingly fair Lord Jesus I hope you both are agreed with Christ according to the Articles of peace propounded to you in the Gospel and that you are every day driving on Salvation work betwixt him and you in your family and in your Closets And now my Dear Friends if these discoveries of Christ which I humbly offer to your hands may be any way useful to your souls to assist them either in obtaining or in clearing their interest in him my heart shall rejoice even mine For none under Heaven can be more willing though many are more able to help you thither than is Your most affectionate and obliged Kinsman and Servant John Flavell From my Study in Dartmouth March the 14. 1671. To the Christian Readers Especially those in the Town and Corporation of Dartmouth and Parts adjacent who have either befriended or attended these Lectures Honoured and Worthy Friends KNowledge is mans excellency above the beasts that perish Psal. 32.9 the knowledge of Christ is the Christians excellency above the Heathen 1 Cor. 1.23 24. Practical and saving knowledge of Christ is the Sincere Christians excellency above the self-couzening hypocrite Heb. 6.4 6. but methodical and well digested knowledge of Christ is the strong Christians excellency above the weak Heb. 5.12 13 14. A saving though an immethodical knowledge of Christ will bring us to Heaven Ioh. 17.2 but a regular and methodical as well as saving knowledge of him will bring Heaven into us Col. 2.2 3. For such is the excellency thereof even above all other knowledge of Christ that it renders the Vnderstanding judicious the Memory tenacious and the Heart highly and fixedly joyous How it serves to confirm and perfect the understanding is excellently discovered by a worthy Divine of our own in these words A young ungrounded Christian when he seeth all the fundamental truths and seeth good evidence and reasons of them perhaps may be yet ignorant of the right order and place of every truth It 's a rare thing to have young Professours to understand the necessary truths methodically and this is a very great defect For a great part of the usefulness and excellency of particular truths consisteth in the respect they have to one another This therefore will be a considerable part of your confirmation and growth in your understandings to see the body of the Christian doctrine as it were at one view as the several parts of it are united in one perfect frame and to know what aspect one point hath upon another and which is their due places There is a great difference betwixt the sight of the several parts of a Clock or Watch as they are disjoynted and scattered abroad and the seeing of them conjoyned and in use and motion To see here a pin and there a wheel and not know how to set them all together nor ever see them in their due places will give but little satisfaction it is the frame and design of holy doctrine that must be known and every part should be discerned as it hath its particular use to that design and as it is connected with the other parts By this means only can the true nature of Theology together with the harmony and perfection of truth be clearly understood And every single truth also will be much better perceived by him that seeth its place and order than by any other for one truth exceedingly illustrates and leads in another into the understanding Study therefore to grow in the more methodical knowledge of the same truths which you have received and though you are not yet ripe enough to discern the whole body of Theology in due method yet see so much as you have attained to know in the right order and placing of every part As in Anatomy it 's hard for the wisest Physician to discern the course of every branch of Veins and Arteries but yet they may easily discern the place and order of the principal parts and greater vessels and surely in the body of Religion there runs not a branch of greater or more necessary truth than these so it is in Divinity where no man hath a perfect view of the whole till he come to the state of perfection with God but every true Christian hath the knowledge of all the essentials and may know the orders and places of them all And as it serves to render the mind more judicious so it causes the Memory to be more tenacious and retentive of truths The chain of truth is easily held in the memory when one truth links in another but the loosing of a link endangers the scattering of the whole chain We use to say order is the mother of memory I am sure it 's a singular friend to it Hence it 's observed those that write of the art of memory lay so great a stress upon place and number The memory would not so soon be overcharged with a multitude of truths if that multitude were but orderly disposed It 's the incoherence and confusion of truths rather than their number that distracts Let but the understanding receive them regularly and the memory well retain them with much more facillity A bad memory is a common complaint among Christians All the benefit that many of you have in hearing is from the present influence of truths upon your hearts There is but little that sticks by you to make a second and third impression upon them I know it may be said of some of you that if your affections were not better than your memories you would need a very large charity to pass for Christians I confess it 's better to have a well-ordered heart than a methodical head but surely both are better than either And for you that have constantly attended these exercises and followed us through the whole series and deduction of these truths from text to text
and allayed if there be something ravishing and ingaging there is also something cloying and distasting the purer any delight is the more excellent Now there are no Christal streams flowing so purely from the Fountain no beams of light so unmixed from the Sun as the loves and delights of these holy and glorious persons were the holy holy holy Father embraced the thrice holy Son with a most holy delight and love 4. Consider the constancy of this delight it was from everlasting as in ver 23. and from Eternity it never suffered one moments interruption the ever-flowing Fountain of Gods delight and love never stopt its course never ebbed but as he speaks in the Text I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him once more consider the fulness of that delight the perfection of that pleasure I was delights so the word is in its original not only plural delights all delights but also in the abstract delight it self as afterwards from the abundance of his sorrows he was stiled a man of sorrows so here from the fulness of his delights as who should say even constituted and made up of pleasure and delight Once more let us consider it comparitively and this state will yet appear more glorious comparing it with either the choicest delights that one Creature takes in another or that God takes in the creature or that the creature takes in God measure these immense delights betwixt the Father and his Son by either of these lines and you shall find them all infinitely short For 1. Though the delights that creatures take in each other be sometimes a great delight such was Iacobs delight in Benjamin whose life is said to be bound up in the lads life a dear and high expression Gen. 44.30 such was that of Ionathan in David whose soul was knit with his soul and he loved him as his own soul 1 Sam. 13.1 and such is the delight of one friend in another there is a friend that is as a mans own soul Deut. 13.6 yet all this is but Creature-delight and can in no particular match the delights betwixt the Father and the Son for this is but a finite delight according to the measure and abilities of Creatures but that is infinite suitable to the infinite perfection of the Divine being this is always mixed that perfectly pure 2. Or if you compare it with the delight that God takes in the Creatures it is confessed that God takes great delight in some creatures the Lord takes pleasure in his Saints he rejoyces over them with singing and resteth in his love Zeph. 3.17 Isa. 62.5 but yet there is a great difference betwixt his delight in creatures and his delights in Christ for all his delight in the Saints is secondary and for Christs sake but his delights in Christ are primary and for his own sake we are accepted in the beloved Ephes. 1.6 he is beloved and accepted for himself 3. To conclude compare it once more with the delights that the best of creatures take in God and Christ and it must be confessed that is a choice delight and a transcendent love with which they love and delight in him Psal. 73.25 whom have I in Heaven but thee and on earth there is none that I desire besides thee what pangs of love what raptures of delight did the Spouse express to Christ oh thou whom my soul loveth but surely our delight in God is no perfect rule to measure his delight in Christ by for our love to God at the best is still imperfect that 's the burden and constant complaint of Saints but this is perfect ours is inconstant up and down ebbing and flowing but this is constant so then to conclude the condition and state of Iesus Christ before his Incarnation was a state of highest and matchless delight in the enjoyment of his Father The Uses follow Vse of Information What an astonishing act of love was this then for the Father to give the delight the darling of his soul out of his very bosom for poor sinners all tongues must needs pause and faulter that attempt the expression of this grace expressions being here swallowed up God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son Joh. 3.16 here is a sic without a sicut so loved them how did he love them nay here you must excuse the tongues of Angels which of us would deliver a Child the Child of our delights an only Child to death for the greatest inheritance in the World what tender Parent can endure a parting pull with such a Child when Hagar was taking her last leave as she thought of her Ishmael Gen. 21.16 the text saith she went and sate her down over against him a good way off for she said let me not see the death of the Child and she sate over against him and lift up her voice and wept though she were none of the best Mothers nor he the best of Children yet she could not give up a Child O 't was hard to part what an out-cry did David make even for an Absalom wishing he dyed for him what a hole as I may say hath the death of some Children made in the hearts of some Parents which will never be closed up in this world yet surely never did any Child lye so close to a Parents heart as Christ did to his Fathers and yet he willingly parts with him though his only one the Son of his delights and that to death a cursed death for sinners for the worst of sinners O miranda dei philanthropia matchless love a love past finding out let all men therefore in the business of their redemption give equal glory to the Father with the Son Ioh. 5.23 if the Father had not loved thee he had never parted with such a Son for thee From one wonder let your souls turn to another for they are now in the midst of wonders adore and be for ever astonished at the love of Jesus Christ to poor sinners that ever he should consent to leave such a bosom and the ineffable delights that were there for such poor worms as we are O heights depths length and bredth of unmeasurable love O see Rom. 5.6 7 8. read and wonder how is the love of Christ commended in ravishing circumstances to poor sinners you would be loath to leave a Creatures bosom a comfortable dwelling a fair estate for the best friend in the world your souls are loath to leave their bodies though they have no such great content there but which of you if ever you found by experience what it is to be in the bosom of God by Divine Communion would be perswaded to leave such a bosom for all the good that is in the world and yet Jesus Christ who was imbraced in that bosom after another manner than ever you were acquainted with freely left it and laid down the glory and riches he enjoyed there for your sakes and as the father
loved him even so believers hath he loved you Ioh. 17.22 what manner of love is this whoever loved as Christ loves whoever denyed himself for Christ as Christ denyed himself for us Hence we are informed that interest in Iesus Christ is the true way to all spiritual preferment in Heaven do you covet to be in the heart in the favour and delight of God get interest in Jesus Christ and you shall presently be there what old Israel said of the Children of his beloved Ioseph thy Children are my Children the same God saith of all the dear Children of Christ Gen. 48.5 9. you see among men all things are carryed by interest persons rise in this world as they are befriended preferment goes by favour 't is so in Heaven persons are preferred according to their interest in the beloved Eph. 1.6 Christ is the great favourite in Heaven his image upon your souls and his name in your prayers makes both accepted with God How worthy is Jesus Christ of all our love and delight you see how infinitely the Father delighteth in him how he ravishes the heart of God and shall he not ravish our hearts I present you a Christ this day able to ravish any soul that will but view and consider him O that you did but see this lovely Lord Jesus Christ then would you go home sick of love surely he is a drawing Saviour Ioh. 12 32. why do we lavish away our pretious affections upon vanity none but Christ is worthy of them when you spend your pretious affections upon other objects what is it but to dig for dross with golden Mâ—ttocks the Lord direct our hearts into the love of Christ. O that our hearts loves and delights might meet and concenter with the heart of God in this most blessed object O let him that left Gods bosom for you be embosomed by you though yours be nothing to Gods he that left Gods bosom for you deserves yours If Christ be the beloved darling of the Father's soul think what a grievous and unsufferable thing it is to the heart of God to see his dear Son despised slighted and rejected by sinners verily there is no such cut to the heart of God in the whole world unbelievers trample upon Gods darling tread under foot him that eternally lay in his bosom Heb. 10.29 smite the apple of his eye and how God will bear this that parable Matth 21.37 to the 40. will inform you surely he will miserably destroy such wretched sinners if you would â—tudy to do God the greatest despight there is none like this what a dismal word is that 1 Cor. 16.22 if any man love not our Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha i. e. let the great curse of God lye upon that man till the Lord come O sinners you shall one day know the price of this sin you shall feel what it is to despise a Jesus that is able to compel love from the hardest heart O that you would slight him no more O that this day your hearts might fall in love with him I tell you if you would set your love to sale none bids so fair for it as Christ. 2. Vse of Exhortation To Saints if Christ lay eternally in this bosom of love and yet was content to forsake and leave it for your sakes then 1. Be you ready to forsake and leave all the comforts you have on earth for Christ famous Galleacius left all for his enjoyment Moses left all the glory of Aegypt Peter and the other Apostles left all Luk. 18.28 but what have we to leave for Christ in comparison of what he left for us Surely Christ is the highest pattern of self-denyal in the world 2. Let this confirm your faith in prayer if he that hath such an interest in the heart of God intercede with the Father for you then never doubt of audience and acceptance with him surely you shall be accepted through the beloved Eph. 1.6 Christ was never denyed any thing that he asked Ioh. 11.42 the Father hears him always though you are not worthy Christ is and he ever lives to make intercession for you Heb. 7.25 3. Let this incourage thy heart O Saint in a dying hour and not only make thee patient in death but in a holy manner impatient till thou be gone for whither is thy soul now going but to that bosom of love whence Christ came Joh. 17.24 Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am and where is he but in that bosom of glory and love where he lay before the world was ver 5. O then let every believer incourage his soul comfort ye one another with these words I am leaving the bosom of a creature I am going to the bosom of God To sinners exhorting them to embrace the bosom-Son of God poor wretches whatever you are or have been whatever guilt or discouragement at present you lye under embrace Christ who is freely offered you and you shall be as dear to God as the holiest and most eminent believer in the world but if you still continue to despise and neglect such a Saviour sorer wrath is treasured up for you than for other sinners even something worse than dying without mercy Heb. 10.28 O that these discoveries and overtures of Christ may never come to such a fatal issue with any of your souls in whose eyes his glory hath been this day opened The THIRD SERMON ISAI LIII XII Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death and he was numbred with the transgressors and he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors IN this Chapter the Gospel seems to be epitomized the subject matter of it is the death of Christ and the glorious Issue thereof by reading of it the Eunuch of old and many Jews since have been converted to Christ. Christ is here considered absolutely and relatively absolutely and so his innocency is industriously vindicated ver 9. though he suffered grievous things yet not for his own sins for he had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth but relatively considered in the capacity of a surety for us So the Justice of God is as fully vindicated in his sufferings vers 6. the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all how he came to sustain this capacity and relation of a surety for us is in these verses plainly asserted to be by his compact and agreement with his Father before the worlds were made ver 10 11 12. In this verse we have 1. His Work 2. His Reward 3. The Respect or Relation of each to the other 1. His Work which was indeed a hard work to pour out his soul unto death aggravated by the companions with whom being numbred with transgressors the capacity in which bearing all the
that sent Jesus Christ and upon Christ that sent them So that it is a rebellion that how ever it seems to begin low in some small piques against their persons or some little quarrels at their parts and Utterance Tones Methods or gestures yet it â—â—ns high even to the Fountain head of the most supream Authority You that set your selves against a Minister of Christ set your selves against God the Father and God the Son Luk. 10.16 He that heareth you heareth meâ— and he that despiseth you despised me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me God expects that yon behave your selves under the word spoken by us as if he himself spake it Yea he expects submission to his word in the mouths of his Ministers from the greatest on earth And therefore it was that God so severely punished Zedekiah because he humbled not himself before Jeremiah the Prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord 2 Câ—on 36.12 God was angry with a great King for not humbling himself before a poor Prophet Yet here you must distinguish both of Persons and of Acts. This reverence and submission is not due to them as men but as men in Office As Christs Embassadours and must involve that respect still in it Again we owe it not to them commanding or forbiding in their own names but in Christs Not in venting their own Spleen but the terrors of the Lord. And then to resist is an high rebellion and affront to the Soveraign Authority of Heaven And by the way this may instruct Ministers that the way to maintain that veneration and respect that is due to them in the consciences of their hearers is by keeping close to their Commission Inference 3. Hence also we infer How great an evil it is to intrude into the Office of the Ministry without a due call It 's more than Christ himself would do He glorified not himself The honours and advantages attending that Office have invited many to run before they were Sent. But surely this is an insufferable violation of Christs order Our Age hath abounded with as many Church-Levellers as state-Levellers I wish the Ministers of Christ might at last see and consider what they were once warned of by a faithful watch-man I believe saith he God hath permitted so many to intrude into the Ministers calling because Ministers have too much medled with and intruded into other mens callings Inference 4. Hence be convinced of the great efficacy that is in all Gospel-ordinances duly administred For Christ having received full Commission from his Father and by vertue thereof having instituted and appointed those ordinances in the Church all the power in heaven is engaged to make them good to back and second them to confirm and ratifie them Hence in the censures of the Church you have that great expression Matth. 18.18 Whatsoever ye bind or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven And so for the Word and Sacraments Matth. 28.18 19 20. All power in heaven and in earth is given to me God therefore c. They are not the appointments of men your Faith stands not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God That very power God the Father committed to Christ is the Fountain whence all Gospel institutions flow And he hath promised to be with his Offices not only the extraordinary Offices of that Age but with his Ministers in succeeding Ages to the end of the world O therefore when ye come to an odinance come not wiâ—h slight thoughts but with great reverence and great expectations remembring Christ is there to make all good Inference 5. Again here you have another call to admire the grace and love both of the Father and Son to your Souls It is not lawful to compare them but it 's duty to admire them Was it not wonderful grace in the Father to Seal a Commission for the death of his Son for the humbling of him as low as Hell and in that Method to save you when you might rather have expected he should have Sealed your Mittimus for Hell rather than a Commission for your Salvation He might rather have set his irreversible Seal to the sentence of your Damnation than to a Commission for his Sons humiliation for you And no less is the love of Christ to be wondred at that would accept such a Commission as this for us and receive this Seal understanding fully as he did what were the contents of that Commission that the Father delivered him thus Sealed And knowing that there could be no reversing of it afterwards Oh then love the Lord Jesus all ye his Saints for still you see more and more of his love breaking out upon you I commend to you a Sealed Saviour this day O that every one that reads these lines might in a pang of Love cry out with the enamored Spouse Cant. 8.6 Set me as a Seal upon thy heart as a Seal upon thy arm for Love is strong as Death Iealousie is cruel as the Grave the coals thereof are coals of fire which have a vehement flame Inference 6. Once more hath God Sealed Christ for you then draw forth the comfort of his Sealing for you and be restless till ye also be Sealed by him First Draw out the comfort of Christs Sealing for you Remember that hereby God stands ingaged even by his own Seal to allow and confirm what ever Christ hath done in the business of your Salvation And on this ground you may thus plead with God Lord thou hast Sealed Christ to this Office and therefore I depend upon it that thou allowest all that he hath done and all that he hath suffered for me and wilt make good all that he hath promised me If men will not deny their own Seals much less wilt thou Secondly Get your interest in Christ Sealed to you by the Spirit else you cannot have the comfort of Christs being Sealed for you Now the Spirit Seals two ways Objectively and Effectually the first is by working those graces in us which are the conditions of the promises The latter is by shining upon his own Work and helping the Soul to discern it Which follows the other both in order of nature and of time And these Sealings of the Spirit are to be distinguisht both ex parti Subjecti by their Subject or the quality of the Person Sealed which always is a Believer Eph. 1.13 For there can be no reflex till there have been a Direct Act of Faith Ex parte materiae By the matter of which that comfort is made Which if it be of the Spirit is ever consonant to the written Word Isa. 8.20 And partly ab effectis by its effects for it commonly produces in the Sealed Soul great care and caution to avoid Sin Eph. 4.30 Great Love to God Ioh. 14.22 Readiness to suffer any thing for Christ Rom. 5.3 4 5. Confidence in addresses to God 1 Ioh. 5.13 14. And great
fits and capacitates him to stand in the midst betwixt God and us This I say is the proper sence of the word Though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mediator be rendred variously Sometimes an Umpire or Arbitrator Sometimes a Messenger that goes betwixt two Persons Sometimes an Interpreter imparting the mind of one to another Sometimes a Reconciler or Peace-maker And in all these sences Christ is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the middle Person in his mediation of reconciliation o◠intercession that is either in his mediating by suffering to make peace as he did on Earth or to continue and maintain peace as he doth in Heaven by meritorious intercession Both these ways he is the only Mediator and he manageth this his mediation First As an Vmpire or Arbitrator One that layeth his hands upon both Parties as Iob speaks Iob. 9.33 so doth Christ he layeth his hands speaking after the manner of men upon God and saith Father wilt thou be at peace with them and readmit them into thy favour If thou wilt thou shalt be fully satisfied for all that they have done against thee And then he layeth his hand upon man and saith poor sinner be not discouraged thou shalt be justified and saved Secondly As a Messenger or Ambassadour so he came to impart the mind of God to us and so he presents our desires to God And in this sence only Socinus would allow Christ to be Mediator But therein he endeavours to undermine the Foundation and to exclude him from being a Mediator by suretyship Which is the Third way of this mediation So the Apostles speaks Heb. 7. he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the surety or pledge Which as the learned David Pareus well expresseth it is one that engageth to satisfie another or gives caution or security by a Pledge in the hand for it And indeed both these ways Christ is our Mediator by suretyship viz. in a way of satisfaction coming under our obligation to answer the Law this he did on the Cross and in a way of caution A surety for the peace or good behaviour but to be more explicite and clear I shall In the next place enquire what it implys and carries in it for Christ to be a Mediator betwixt God and us And there are mainly these five things in it First At the first sight it carries in it a most dreadful breach and jar betwixt God and Men else no need of a Mediator of Reconciliation There was indeed a sweet League of amity once between them but it was quickly dissolved by sin the wrath of the Lord was kindled against man pursuing him to destruction Psal. 5.5 thou hatest all the works of iniquity And man was fill'd with unnatural enmity against his God Rom. 1.30 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haters of God This put an end to all friendly commerce and intercourse between him and God Reader say not in thy heart that it 's much one sin and that seemingly so small should make such a breach as this And cause the God of mercy and goodness so to abhor the works of his hands and that assoon as he had made man for it was an hainous and aggravated evil It was upright perfect man created in the Image of of God that thus sinned He sinned when his mind was most bright clear and apprehensive His Conscience pure and active His Will free and able to withstand any temptation His Conscience pure and undefiled Yea he was a Publique as as well as perfect man and well knew that the happiness or misery of his numberless offspring was involved in him The condition he was placed in was exceeding happy No necessity or want could arm and edge a temptation He lived amidst all natural and spiritual pleasures and delights the Lord most delightfully conversing with him Yea he sinned while as yet his Creation-mercy was fresh upon him and in this sin was most horrible ingratitude yea a casting off the yoke of obedience almost assoon as God had put it on God now saw the work of his hands spoiled a race of Rebels now to be propagated who in their successive Generations would be fighting against God He saw it and his just indignation sparkled against man and resolves to pursue him to the bottom of Hell Secondly it implys a necessity of satisfaction and reparation to the Iustice of God For the very design and end of this mediation was to make Peace by giving full satisfaction to the party that was wronged The Photinians and some others have dreamed of a reconciliation with God founded not upon satisfaction but upon the absolute mercy goodness and free-will of God But conceiving that absolute goodness and mercy of God reconciling sinners to himself there is a deep silence throughout the Scriptures And whatever is spoken of it upon that account is as it works to us through Christ Eph 1.3 4 5. Acts 4.12 Ioh. 6.40 and we cannot imagine either how God could exercise mercy to the prejudice of his Justice which must be if we must be reconcil'd without full satisfaction or how such a full satisfaction should be made by any other than Christ. Mercy indeed moved in the Heart of God to poor man but from his heart it found no way to vent it self for us but through the Heart Blood of Jesus Christ. And in him the Justice of God was fully satisfied and the misery of the Creature fully cured And so as Augustine speaks God neither lost the severity of his Justice in the goodness of mercy nor the goodness of his mercy in the exactness of his severity But if it had been possible God could have found out a way to reconcile us without satisfaction yet it 's past doubt now that he hath picht and fixt on this way And for any now to imagine to reconcile themselves to God by any thing but Faith in the Blood of this Mediator is not only most vain in it self and destructive to the Soul but most insolently derogatory to the wisdom and grace of God And to such I would say as Tertullian to Marcion whom he calls the Murtherer of Truth spare the only hope of the whole world O thou who destroyest the most necessary glory of our Faith All that we hope for is but a Phantasm without this Peace of Conscience can be rationally settled on no other Foundation but this For God having made a Law to govern man and this Law violated by man either the penalty must be levyed on the delinquent or satisfaction made by his surety As good no Law as no penalty for disobedience and as good no penalty as no execution He therefore that will be a Mediator of Reconciliation betwixt God and Man must bring God a price in his hand and that adequate to the offence and wrong done him else he will not treat about Peace and so did our Mediator Thirdly Christs being a Mediator of reconciliation and intercession implys the infinite value
of his Blood and sufferings as that which in it self was sufficient to stop the course of Gods Iustice and render him not only placable but abundantly satisfied and well pleased even with those that before were Enemies And so much is said of it Coll. 1.21 And ye that were sometime alienated and Enemies in your minds by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his Flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight Surely that which can cause the holy God justly incensed against Sinners to lay aside all his wrath and take an Enemy into his bosom and establish such an amity as can never more be broken but to rest in his love and to joy over him with singing as it is Zeph. 3.17 this must be a most excellent efficatious thing Fourthly Christ being a Mediator of reconciliation implys the ardent love and large pity that filled his Heart towards poor Sinners For he doth not not only mediate by way of intreaty going betwixt both and perswading and beging Peace but he mediates as you have heard in the capacity of a surety by putting himself under an obligation to satisfie our debts O how compassionately did his Heart work towards us that when he saw the arm of Justice lifted up to destroy us would interpose himself and receive the stroke though he knew it would smite him dead Our Mediator like Ionah his Type seeing the stormy Sea of Gods wrath working tempestuously and ready to swallow us up cast in himself to appease the storm I remember how much that noble Act of Marcus Curtius is celebrated in the Roman Story who being informed by the Oracle that the great breach made by the Earthquake could not be closed except something of worth were cast into it heated with love to the Commonwealth he went and cast in himself This was looked upon as a bold and brave adventure but what was this to Christ Fifthly Christ being a Mediator betwixt God and Men implys as the fitness of his Person so his authoritative call to undertake it And indeed the Father who was the wronged Person call'd him to be the Umpire and Arbitrator trusting his honour in his hands Now Christ was invested with this office and power virtually soon after the breach was made by Adams fall for we have the early promise of it Gen. 3.15 ever since till his incarnation he was a virtual and effectual Mediator and on that account he is call'd the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world Rev. 13.8 And actually from the time of his incarnation But having discussed this more largely in a former discourse I shall dismiss it here and apply my self to the third thing proposed which is Thirdly How it appears that Jesus Christ is the true and only Mediator betwixt God and Men I reply it 's manifest he is so First because he and no other is revealed to us by God And if God reveal him and no other we must receive him and no other as such Take but two Scriptures at present that in 1 Cor. 8.5 the Heathen have many Gods and many Lords i. e. many great Gods supream powers and ultimate objects of of their worship and lest these great Gods should be defiled by their immediate and unhallowed approaches to them they therefore invented Heroes Demigods intermediate Powers that were to be as Agents or Lord Mediators betwixt the Gods and them to convey their Prayers to the Gods and the blessings of the Gods back again to them But unto us saith he there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we by him i. e. one supream Essence the first Spring and Fountain of blessings and one Lord i. e. one Mediator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by whom are all things and we by him By whom are all things which come from the Father to us and by whom are all our addresses to the Father so Acts 4.12 Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved No other name i. e. no other authority or rather no other person authorized under Heaven i. e. in the whole World for Heaven is not here opposed to Earth as though there were other Intercessors in Heaven besides Christ no no in Heaven and Earth God hath given him and none but him to be our Mediator One Sun is sufficient for the whole World And one Mediator for all men in the world So that the Scriptures affirm this is he and exclude all others Secondly because he and no other is fit for and capable of this Who but he that hath the divine and humane nature united in his single Person can be a fit Days-man to lay his hand upon both who but he that was God could support under such sufferings as were by divine Justice exacted for satisfaction take a person of the greatest Spirit and put him but an hour in the case Christ was in when he sweat Blood in the Garden or utter'd that heart rending cry upon the Cross and he had melted under it as a moth Thirdly because he is alone sufficient to reconcile the world to God by his Blood without accessions from any other The vertue of his Blood reacht back as far as Adam and reaches forward to the end of the world and will be as fresh vigorous and efficatious then as the first moment it was shed The Sun makes day before it actually rise and continues day to us sometimes after it is set So doth Christ who is the same yesterday to day and for ever so that he is the true and only Mediator betwixt God and Men. No other is revealed in Scripture No other sufficient for it No other needed beside him The last thing to be explained is in what a capacity he executed his mediatory work About which we affirm according to Scripture that he performs that work as God-man in both natures Papists in denying Christ to act as Mediator according to his divine nature do at once spoil the whole mediation of Christ of all its efficacy dignity and value which rises from that nature which they deny to co-operate and exert its vertue in his active and passive obedience They say the Apostle in my Text distinguishes the Mediator from God in saying there is one God and one Mediator Ours aptly reply that the same Apostle distinguishes Christ from Man Gal. 1.1 not by Man but by Iesus Christ. Doth it thence follow that Christ is not true man or that according to his divine nature only he call'd Paul But what need I stay my Reader here Had not Christ as Mediator power to lay down his life and power to take it up again Ioh. 10.15 18. had he not as Mediator all power in Heaven and Earth to institute Ordinances and appoint Officers Matth. 28.18 to baptize men with the Holy Ghost and Fire Matth. 3.11 to
keep those his Father gave him in this world Ioh. 17.12 to raise up the Saints again in the last day Ioh. 1.54 are all these with many more I might name the effects of the meer humane nature Or were they not performed by him as God-man and besides how could he as Mediator be the object of our Faith and religious adoration if we are not to respect him as God-man But I long now to be at the Application of this And the first inference from it is this Inference 1. That it is a dangerous thing to reject Iesus Christ the only Mediator betwixt God and Men. Alas there is no other interpose and skreen thee from the devouring Fire the everlasting burnings Oh! it 's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God And into his hands you must needs fall without an interest in the only Mediator Which of us can dwell with devouring Fire who can endure the everlasting burnings Esa. 33.14 you know how they singed and scorched the green Tree but what would they do to the dry Tree Luke 23.31 indeed if there were another plank to save after the Shipwrack any other way to be reconciled to God beside Jesus the Mediator somewhat might be said to excuse this folly but you are shut up to the Faith of Christ as to your last remedy Gal. 3.23 You are like starving Beggars that are come at the last door O take heed of despising or neglecting Christ if so there 's none to interceed with God for you the breach betwixt him and you can never be composed I remember here the words of Eli to his prophane Sons who caused men to abhor the offerings of the Lord 1 Sam. 2.25 If one man sin against another the Iudge shall Iudge him but if a man sin against the Lord who shall intreat for him the meaning is in common trespasses betwixt men the civil Magistrate takes cognisance of it and decides the controversie by his authority so that there is an end of that strife but if man sin against the Lord who shal intreat or arbitrate in that case Elies Sons had despised the Lords Sacrifices which were the sacred Types of Christ and the stated way that Men their had to act Faith on the Mediator in Now saith he if a man thus sin against the Lord by despising Christ shadowed out in that way who shall intreat for him what hope what remedy remains I remember it was the saying of Luther and he spake it with deep resentment nolo deum absolutum I will have nothing to do with an absolute God i. e. with God without a Mediator Thus the Divels have to do with God but will ye in whose nature Christ is come put your selves into their state and case God forbid Inference 2. Hence also be informed how great an evil it is to joyn any other Mediators either of reconciliation or meritorious intercession with Iesus Christ. O this is an horrid sin and that which both pours the greatest contempt upon Christ and brings the surest and forest destruction upon the Sinner I am ashamed my Pen should English what mine Eyes have seen in the writings of Papists ascribing as much yea more to the mediation of Mary than to Christ with no less than blasphemous impudence thus commenting upon Scripture What is that which the Lord saith I have trode the Wine-press alone and of the People there was no Man with me true Lord there was no man with thee but there was a Woman with thee who received all these wounds in her Heart which thou receivedst in thy Body I will not blot my Paper with more of this but refer the learned Reader to the Margent where he may if he have a mind to see more be informed not only what blasphemy hath dropt from single Pens but even from Concels to the reproach of Jesus Christ and his Blood How do they stamp their own sordid works with the peculiar dignity and value of Christs Blood and therein seek to enter at the Gate which God hath shut to all the World because Jesus Christ the Prince entred in thereby Ezek. 44.2 3. He entred into Heaven in a direct mediate way even in his own name and for his own sake this Gate saith the Lord shall be shut to all others And I wish men would consider it and fear lest while they seek entrance into Heaven at the wrong Door they do not for ever shut against themselves the true and only Door of happiness Inference 3. If Jesus Christ be the only Mediator of reconciliation betwixt God and Men then reconciled Souls should thankfully ascribe all the Peace favour and comforts they have from God to their Lord Iesus Christ when ever you have had free admission and sweet entertainment with God in the more publick ordinances or private duties of his worship when ye have had his smiles his Seals and with hearts warmed with comfort are returning from those duties say O my Soul thou maist thank thy good Lord Jesus Christ for all this Had not he interpos'd as a Mediator of reconciliation I could never have had access to or friendly communion with God to all eternity Immediately upon Adams sin the Door of Communion with God was lockt yea chain'd up and no more coming nigh the Lord. Not a Soul could have any access to him either in a way of communion in this World or of enjoyment in that to come It was Jesus the Mediator that open'd that Door again and in him it is that we have boldness and access with confidence Eph. 3.12 we can now come to God by a new and a living way consecrated for us through the Vayl that is to say his flesh Heb. 10.20 the Vayl had a double use as Christs flesh answerably hath It hid the glory of the Sanctum Sanctorum and also gave entrance into it Christs incarnation rebates the edge of the divine glory and brightness that we may be able to bear it and converse with it and it gives admission into it also O thank your dear Lord Jesus for your present and your future Heaven These are mercies which daily emerge out of the Ocean of Christs blood and come swiming in it to our Doors Blessed be God for Jesus Christ. Inference 4. If Jesus Christ be the true and only Mediator both of reconciliation and meritorious intercession betwixt God and Men how safe and secure then is the condition and state of Beleivers Surely as his mediation by sufferings hath fully reconciled so his mediation by intercession will everlastingly mantain that state of Peace betwixt them and God and prevent all future breaches Being justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ Rom. 5.1 it 's a firm and lasting peace and the Mediator that made it lies as a lidger in Heaven to maintain it for ever and prevent new jarrs Heb. 9.24 there to appear in the presence of God for
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
satisfaction of Christ to render it needless when they say many wâ—re saved without it even as many as were saved before the death of Christ. For they say the effect cannot be before the cause which is true of physical but not of moral causes and such was Christs satisfaction As for Example a captive is freed out of prison from the time that his surety undertakes for him and promises his Ransom here the Captive is actually delivered though the ransom that delivered him be not yet actually paid So it was in this case Christ had engaged to the Father to satisfie for them and upon that security they were delivered And the vertue of this Oblation not only reaches those believers that lived and died before Christs day but it extends it self forward to the end of the world Hence Heb. 13.8 Christ is said to be the same yesterday to day and for ever that is he is not so a Saviour to us that now live as that he was not their Saviour also that believed in him before us from the beginning Nor yet so a Saviour both to them and us as that he shall not be the same to all that shall believe on him to the worlds end To the same sence are those words Heb. 11.40 rightly Paraphrased God having povided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect q. d. God hath appointed the accomplishment of the promise of sending the Messiah to be in the last times That they viz. that lived before Christ should not be perfected that is justified and saved by anything done in their time but by looking to our time and Christs satisfaction made therein whereby they and we are perfected together No tract of time can wear out the vertue of this eternal Sacrifice It is as fresh vigorous and potent now as the first hour it was offered And though he actually offers it no more yet he virtually continues it by his intercession now in Heaven For there he is still a Priest And therefore about sixty years after his Assention when he gave the Revelation to Iohn he appears to him in his Priestly garments Rev. 1.13 Cloathed in a garment down to the feet and girt about the paps with a golden girdle in illusion to the Priestly Ephod and curious girdle And as the vertue of this Oblation reaches backward and forward to all ages and to all believers so to all the sins of all Believers which are fully purged and expiated by it This no other Oblation could do The legal Sacrifices were no real expiations but rather remembrances of sins Heb. 9.9 12. Heb. 10.3 And all the vertue they had consisted in their Typical relation to this Sacrifice Gal. 3.23 Heb. 9.13 And separate from it were altogether weak unprofitable and insignificant things Heb. 7.18 but this blood cleanseth from all sins 1 Ioh. 1.7 all sin originating or originated or actual flowing from them both It expiates all fully without exception and finally without revocation So that by his being made sin for us we are made not only righteous but the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 Thirdly and Lastly to name no more being so pretious in it self and so efficacious to expiate sin it must needs be a most grateful Oblation to the Lord highly pleasing and delightful in his eyes And so indeed it is said Eph. 5.2 He gave himself for us an offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Not that God took any delight or content in the bitter sufferings of Christ simply and in themselves considered but with relation to the end for which he was offered even our redemption and salvation Hence arose the delight and pleasure God had in it this made him take pleasure in bruising him Isa. 53.10 God smelt a savour of rest in this Sacrifice The meaning is that as men are offended with a stench and their stomachs rise at it and are on the contrary delighted with sweet odors and fragrancies so the blessed God speaking after the manner of men is offended and filled with loathing and abhorrence by our sins but infinitely pleased and delighted in the offering of Christ for them which came up as an odor of a sweet smelling savour to him whereof the costly perfumes under the Law were Types and shadows This was the Oblation Thirdly This Oblation he brings before God and to him he offers it up So speaks the Apostle Heb. 9.14 through the eternal spirit he offered himself without spot to God As Christ sustained the capacity of a surety so God of a Creditor who exacted satisfaction from him That is he required from him as our surety the penalty due to us for our sin And so Christ had to do immediately with God yea with a God infinitely wronged and incensed by sin against us To this incensed Majesty Christ our Priest approacheth as to a devouring fire with his Sacrifice Fourthly The persons for whom and in whose stead he offered himself to God was the whole number of Gods Elect which were given him of the Father neither more nor less So speak the Scriptures He laid down his life for the sheep Joh. 10.15 For the Church Act. 20.28 For the Children of God Joh. 11.50 51 52. It is confessed there is sufficiency of vertue in this Sacrifice to redeem the whole world and on that account some Divines affirm he is called the Saviour of the world Joh. 40.42 alibi We acknowledge also that he purchased the services of others beside the Elect to be useful to them as they many ways are In which sense others take those Scriptures that speak so universally of the extent of his death We also acknowledge that the Elect being scattered in all parts and among all ranks of men in the world and unknown to those that are to tender Jesus Christ to men by the Preaching of the Gospel The stile of the Gospel as it was necessary is by such indefinite expressions suited to the general tenders they are to make of him But that the efficacy and saving vertue of this alsufficient Sacrifice is coextended with Gods Election so that they all and no others can or shall reap the special benefits of it is too clear in the Scriptures to be denyed Eph. 5.23 Ioh. 17.2 9 19 20. Ioh. 10.26 27 28. 1 Tim. 4.10 Fifthly The design and end of this Oblation was to attone pacify and reconcile God by giving him a full and adequate compensation or satisfaction for the sins of these his Elect. So speaks the Apostle Col. 1.20 And having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in Heaven So 2 Cor. 5.19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself Reconciliation is the making up of that breach caused by sin between us and God and restoring us again to his favour and
friendship For this end Christ offered up himself to God I say not for this end only but more especially hence it 's called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a propitiation and so the Seaventy render that place Num. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the propitiating Ram. But here I would not be mistaken as though the reconciliation were made only between us and God the Father by the blood of the Cross for we are reconciled by it to the whole Trinity Every sin being against the divine Majesty it must needs follow that the three persons having the same divine Essence must be all offended by the commission and so all reconciled by the expiation and remission of the same But reconciliation is said to be with the Father because though the works of the Trinity ad extra be undivided and what one doth all do and what is done to one is done to all yet by this form and manner of expression as a learned man well observes the Scriptures point out the proper offices of each person The Father receives us into favour the Son mediates and gives the ransom which procures it the Spirit applies and seals this to the persons and hearts of believers However being reconciled to the Father we are also reconciled to the Son and Spirit as they are one God in three persons And if it be objected that then Christ offered up a Sacrifice or laid down a price to reconcile us to himself I shall more fairly and directly meet with and satisfie that objection when I come to speak of Christs satisfaction which is one of the principal fruits of this his excellent Oblation For present this may inform you about the nature and pretious worth of Christs Oblation The uses whereof follow in these five practical Inferences Inference 1. Hence it follows that actual Believers are fully freed from the gilt of their sins and shall never more come under condemnation The Obligation of sin is perfectly abolished by the vertue of this Sacrifice When Christ became our Sacrifice he both bare and bare away our sins First It was laid upon him then expiated by him So much is imported in that word Heb. 9.28 Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many To bear the word is a full and emphatical word signifying not only to bear but to bear away So Joh. 1.29 behold the Lamb of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that taketh away the sins of the world Not only declaratively or by way of manifestation to the Conscience but really making a purgation of sin as it is in Heb. 1.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 word for word a purgation being made and not only declared Now how great a mercy is this that by him all that believe should be justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Act. 13.39 What shall we call this grace Surely we should do somewhat more than admire it and faint under the sense of such a mercy Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Psal. 32.1 or Oh the blessedness or felicities of him that is pardoned who can express the mercies comforts happiness of such a state as this Reader let me beg thee if thou be one of this pardoned number to look over thy cancelled bonds and see what vast sums are remitted to thee Remember what thou wast in thy natural estate possibly thou wast in that black bill 1 Cor. 6.3 what and yet pardoned fully and finally pardoned and that freely as to any hand that thou hadst in the procurement of it what canst thou do less than fall down at the feet of free grace and kiss those feet that moved so freely towards so vile a sinner It is not long since that thy iniquities were upon thee and thou pinest away in them Their guilt could by no creature power be separated from thy soul. Now they are removed from thee as far as the East from the West Psal. 103.11 So that when the East and West which are the two opposite points of Heaven meet then thy soul and its guilt may meet again together O the unspeakable efficacy of Christs Sacrifice which extends to all sins 1 Joh. 1.7 the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sins sins past and present without exception And some Divines of good note affirm all sins to come also for saith Mr. Paul Baines original sin in which all future sins are as fruits in the root is pardoned and if these were not pardoned they would void and irritate former pardons And lastly it would derogate from the most plenary satisfaction of Christ. But the most say and I think truly that all the past sins of Believers are pardoned without revocation All their present sins without exception but not their sins to come by way of anticipation and yet for them there is a pardon of course which is applied on their repentance and application of Christs blood so that none of them shall make void former pardons O let these things slide sweetly to thy melting heart Inference 2. From this Oblation Christ made of himself to God for our sins we infer the inflexible severity of divine Iustice which could be no other way diverted from us and appeased but by the blood of Christ. If Christ had not presented himself to God for us Justice would not have spared us And if he do appear before God as our surety it will not spare him Rom. 8.32 He spared not his Son but delivered him up to death for us all If forbearance might have been expected from any surely it might from God who is very pitiful and full of tender mercy Jam. 5.11 yet God in this case spared not If one might have expected sparing mercy and abatement from any surely Christ might most of all expect it from his own Father yet you hear God spared not his own Son Sparing-mercy is the lowest degree of mercy yet it was denied to Christ. He abated him not a minute of the time appointed for his suffering nor one degree of wrath he was to bear Nay though in the Garden Christ fell upon the ground and sweet clodders of blood and in that unparallel'd Agony scrued up his spirit to the highest intention in that pitiful cry Father if it be possible let this cup pass and though he brake out upon the Cross in that heart rending complaint my God my God why hast thou forsaken me Yet no abatement Justice will not bend in the least but having to do with him on this account resolves to fetch its pennyworths out of his blood If this be so what is the case of thy soul Reader if thou be a man or woman that hast no interest in this Sacrifice For if these things be done in Christ a green tree what will be done to thee the dry tree Luk. 23.31 That is if God so deal with me that am not only innocent but like a green and fruitful
the High-Priests appearing in the Holy of Holies which was the figure of Heaven presenting to the Lord the names of the twelve Tribes of Israel which were on his breast and shoulders Exod. 28.9 12 28 29. to which the Church is supposed to allude in that request Cant. 8.6 set me as a seal upon thine heart as a seal upon thine arm Now the very sight of Christ our High-Priest in Heaven prevails exceedingly with God and â—urns away his displeasure from us As when God looks upon the Rainbow which is the sign of the Covenant he remembers the earth in mercy So when he looks on Christ his heart must needs be towards us upon his account and therefore in Rev. 4.3 Christ is compared to a Rainbow encompassing the Throne Secondly Christ performs his intercession-work in Heaven not by a naked appearing in the presence of God only but also by presenting his blood and all his sufferings to God as a moving plea on our account Whether he make any proper oral intercession there as he did on earth is not so clear some incline to it and think it 's countenanced by Zech. 1.12 13. where Christ our intercessor presents a proper vocal request to the Father in the behalf of his people Saying O Lord of Hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on Ierusalem and on the Cities of Iudah against whom thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years and the Lord answered him with good and comfortable words And so Act. 2.23 As soon as he came to Heaven he is said and that as the first fruits of his Intercession to obtain the promise of the Holy-Ghost But sure I am an Interceding voice is by an usual prosopopeia attributed to his blood which in Heb. 12.24 is said to speak better things than the blood of Abel Now Abels blood and so Christs do cry unto God as the hire of the Labourers unjustly detained or the whole creation which is in bondage through our sins are said to cry and groan in the ears of the Lord. Iam. 5.4 Rom. 8.22 not vocally but efficatiously A rare illustration of this Efficatious Intercession of Christ in Heaven we have in that famous story of Amintas who appeared as an Advocate for his brother Aechylus who was strongly accused and very likely to be condemned to die Now Amintas having performed great services and merited highly of the Common-Wealth in whose service one of his hands was cut off in the Field he comes into the Court on his brothers behalf and said nothing but only lifted up his arm and shewed them cubitum sine manu an arm without an hand which so moved them without a word speaking that they freed his brother immediately And thus if you look into Revel 5.6 you shall see in what posture Christ is represented visionally there as standing between God and us And I beheld and loe in the midst of the Throne and four beasts and in the midst of the Elders stood a Lamb as it had been slain i. â— bearing in his glorified body the marks of his death and sacrifice Those wounds he received for our sins on earth are as it were still fresh bleeding in Heaven A moving and prevailing argument it is with the Father to give out the mercies he pleads for Thirdly and Lastly He presents the prayers of his Saints to God with his merits and desires that they may for his sake be granted He causes a cloud of incense to ascend before God with them Revel 8.3 All these were excellently Typed out by the going in of the High-Priest before the Lord with the names of the Children of Israel on his breast with the blood of the Sacrifice and his hands full of incense as the Apostle explains them in Heb. 7. and Heb. 9. Thirdly And that this Intercession of Christ is most potent successful and prevalant with God will be evinced both from the qualifications of this our Advocate from his great interest in the Father from the nature of the pleas he useth with God and from the relation and interest believers have both in the Father to whom and the Son by whom this intercession is made First our Intercessor in the Heavens is every way able and fit for the work he is ingaged in there What ever is desirable in an Advocate is in him eminently It is necessary that he who undertakes to plead the cause of another especially if it be weighty and intricate should be wise faithful tender-hearted and one that concerns himself in the success of his business Our Advocate Christ wants no wisdom to manage his work He is the wisdom of God yea only wise Jude 25. There 's much folly in the best of our duties we know not how to press an argument home with God but Christ hath the art of it Our business is in a wise hand He is no less faithful than wise therefore he is called a faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God Heb. 2.17 He assures us we may safely trust our concerns with him Joh. 14.2 In my Fathers house are many mansions if it were not so I would have told you Q. D. do you think I will deceive you Men may cheat you but I will not your own hearts may and daily do deceive you but so will not I. And for tender heartedness and sensible resentments of our conditions there is none like him Heb. 4.15 For we have not an High-Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin We have not one that cannot sympathize so it is in the Greek and on purpose that he might be the better able to sympathize with us he came as near to our conditions as the holiness of his nature could permit He suffered himself to be in all points tempted like as we are sin only excepted And then for his concernment and interest in the success of his suit he not only reckons but hath really made it his own interest Yea more his own than it is ours For now by reason of the mystical union all our wants and troubles are his Eph. 1.23 Yea his own glory and compleatness as mediator is deeply interessed in it And therefore we need not doubt but he will use all care and diligence in that work If you say so he may and yet not speed for all that for it depends on the fathers grant True but then Secondly Consider the great interest he hath in the Father with whom he so intercedes Christ is his dear Son Col. 1.13 the beloved of his soul Eph. 1.6 betwixt him and the Father with whom he intercedes there is an unity not only of nature but will and so he always hears him Ioh. 11.42 Yea and he said to this his dear Son when he came first to Heaven Ask of me and I will give thee Psal. 2.8 moreover Thirdly He must needs speed in his suit if you
that any creature was ever yet set upon and inlarged to take in view the most spatious prospect both of sin and misery and difficulties of being saved that ever yet any poor humble soul did cast within it self yea joyn to these all the hindrances and objections that the heart of man can invent against it self and salvation lift up thine eyes and look to the utmost thou canst see and Christ by his intercession is able to save thee beyond the Horizon and utmost compass of thy thoughts even to the utmost Secondly Hence draw abundant encouragement against all heartstraightnings and deadness of spirit in prayer Thou complainest thy heart is dead wandring and contracted in duty O but remember Christs blood speaks when thou canst not it can plead for thee and that powerfully when thou art not able to speak a word for thy self to this sense that Scripture speaks Can. 3.6 Who is this that cometh out of the Wilderness in pillars of smoke perfumed with myrh and frankincense all the powders of the Merchant The duties of Christians go up many times as pillars or clouds of smoke from them more smoke than fire Prayers smoked and sullied with their offensive corruptions but remember Christ perfumes them with myrh c. he by his intercession gives them a sweet perfume Thirdly Christs intercession is a singular relief to all that come unto God by him against all sinful damps and slavish fears from the justice of God Nothing more promotes the fear of reverence Nothing more suppresseth unbelieving despondencies and destroys the spirit of bondage So you find it Heb. 10.19 20 21. Having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Iesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh And having an High-Priest over the house of God let us draw near with a true heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in full assurance of faith Or let us come unto God as a Ship comes with full sayl into the Harbour O what a direct and full gale of encouragement doth this intercession of Christ give to the poor soul that lay a ground or was wind-bound before Fourthly The intercession of Christ gives admirable satisfaction and encouragement to all that come to God against the fears of deserting him again by Apostacy This my friends this is your principal security against these matters of fear With this he relieves Peter Luk. 22.31.32 Simon saith Christ Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy fath fail not q. d. Satan will fan thee not to get out thy chaff but boult out thy flower His temptations are levell'd against thy faith but fear not my prayer shall break his designs and secure thy faith from all his attempt upon it Upon this powerful intercession of Christ the Apostle builds his triumph against all that threatens to bring him or any of the Saints again into a state of condemnation And see how he drives on that triumph from the resurrection and session of Christ at the Fathers right hand and especially from the work of intercession which he lives there to perform Rom. 8.34 35. Who is he that condemneth it 's Christ that died yea rather that 's risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ Fifthly It gives sweet relief against the defects and wants that yet are in our sanctification We want a great deal of faith love heavenly mindedness mortification knowledge We are short and wanting in all There are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the remains or things wanting as the Apostle calls them 1 Thes. 3.10 Well if grace be but yet in it's weak beginnings and infancy in thy soul this may incourage that by reason of Christs intercession it shall live grow and expatiate it self in thy heart He is not only the author but the finisher of it Heb. 12.2 He is ever begging new and fresh mercies for you in Heaven and will never be quiet till all your wants be supplied He saves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the uttermost i. e. as I told you before to the last perfective compleating act of salvation So that this is a fountain of relief against all your fears Vse 3. Doth Christ live for ever to make intercession then let those who reap on earth the fruits of that his work in Heaven draw instruction thence about the following duties to which it leads them as by the hand First Do not forget Christ in an exalted state You see though he be in all the glory above at Gods right hand an enthron'd King he doth not forget you He like Ioseph remembers his brethren in all his glory But alas how oft doth advancement make us forget him as the Lord complains in Hosea 13.5 6. I did know thee in the Wilderness in the Land of great drought but when they came into Canaan According to their pastures so were they filled they were filled and their heart was exalted therefore have they forgotten me As if he had said O my people you and I were better acquainted in the Wilderness When you were in a low condition left to my immediate care living by daily faith Oh then you gave me many a sweet visit but now you are filled I hear no more of you Good had it been for some Saints if they had never known prosperity Secondly Let the intercession of Christ in Heaven for you encourage you to constancy in the good ways of God To this duty it sweetly encourages also Heb. 4.14 Seeing then that we have a great High-Priest that is passed into the Heavens Iesus the Son of God let us hold fast our profession Here is incouragement to perseverance on a double account One is that Jesus our head is already in Heaven and if the head be above water the body cannot drown The other is from the business he is there imployed about which is his Priesthood he is passed into the Heavens as our great High-Priest to intercede and therefore we cannot miscarry Thirdly Let it incourage you to constancy in prayer O do not neglect that excellent duty seing Christ is there to present all your petitions to God Yea to perfume as well as present them So the Apostle Heb. 4.16 infers from Christs intercession Let us therefore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need Fourthly Hence be encouraged to plead for Christ on earth who continually pleads for you in Heaven If any accuse you he is there to plead for you And if any dishonour him on earth see that you plead his interest and defend his honour Thus you have heard what his intercession is and what benefits we receive by it Blessed be God for Iesus Christ. The FOURTEENTH
the world as if Heaven were in it What will ye do when at death you shall look back over your shoulder and see what you have spent your time and strength for shrinking and vanishing away from you When you shall look forward and see vast eternity opening its mouth to swallow you up O then what would you give for a well grounded assurance of an eternal inheritance O therefore if you have any concernment for your poor souls If it be not indifferent to you what becomes of them whether they be saved or whether they be damned give all diligence to make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure Phil. 2.12 Remember it is Salvation you work for and that 's no trifle Remember it 's your own Salvation and not anothers It is for thy own poor soul that thou art striving and what hast thou more Remember now God offers you his helping hand now the Spirit waits upon you in the means but of the continuance thereof you have no assurance for it is of his own good pleasure and not at yours To your work souls to your work Ah strive as men that know what an Inheritance in Heaven is worth And that as for you that have sollid evidence that it is yours Oh that with hands and eyes lifted up to Heaven you would adore that free grace that hath entitled a child of wrath to a heavenly inheritance Walk as becomes heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Be often looking Heaven-ward when wants pinch here Oh look to that fair estate you have reserved in Heaven for you and say I am hastning home and when I come thither all my wants shall be supplied Consider what it cost Christ to purchase it for thee and with a deep sense of what he hath laid out for thee let thy soul say Blessed be God for Iesus Christ. The SIXTEENTH SERMON II COR. X.V. Casting down imaginations and every thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. WE now come to the Regal Office by which our glorious Mediator executes and dischargeth the undertaken design of our Redemption Had he not as our Prophet opened the way of Life and Salvation to the children of men they could never have known it and should they have clearly known it except as their Priest he had offered up himself to impetrate and obtain Redemption for them they could not have been Redeemed virtually by his blood and if they had been so Redeemed yet had he not lived in the capacity of a King to apply this purchase of his blood to them they could have had no actual personal benefit by his death For what he revealed as a Prophet he purchased as a Priest and what he so revealed and purchased as Prophet and Priest he applies as King First Subduing the souls of his elect to his spiritual government then ruling them as his subjects and ordering all things in the Kingdom of providence for their good So that Christ hath a twofold Kingdom the one spiritual and internal by which he subdues and rules the hearts of his people The other providential and external whereby he guides rules and orders all things in the world in a blessed subordination to their eternal Salvation I am to speak from this text of his Spiritual and internal Kingdom These words are considerable two ways either relatively or absolutely Considered relatively they are a vindication of the Apostle from the unjust censures of the Corinthians who very unworthily interpreted his gentleness condescention and winning affability to be no better than a fawning upon them for self ends and the authority he excercised no better than pride and imperiousness But hereby he lets them know that as Christ needs not so he never used such carnal Artifices The weapons of our warfare saith he are not carnal but mighty through God c. Absolutely considered they hold forth the efficacy of the Gospel in the plainness and simplicity of it for the subduing of rebellious sinners to Christ and in them we have these three things to consider First The oppositions made by sinners against the assaults of the Gospel viz. imaginations or reasonings as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be fitly rendred He means the subtilties slights excuses subterfuges and arguings of fleshly minded men in which they fortifie and entrench themselves against the convictions of the word Yea and there are not only such carnal reasonings but many proud high conceits with which poor creatures swel and scorn to submit to the abasing humble self-denying way of the Gospel These are the fortifications erected against Christ by the carnal mind Secondly We have here the conquest which the Gospel obtains over sinners thus fortified against it It casts down and overthrows and takes in those strong holds Thus Christ spoils Satan of his armour in which he trusted by shewing the sinner that all this can be no defence to his soul against the wrath of God But that 's not all in the next place Thirdly You have here the improvement of the victory Christ doth not only lead away these enemies spoiled but brings them into obedience to himself i. e. makes them after conversion Subjects of his own Kingdom obedient useful and serviceable to himself and so is more than a Conqueror They do not only lay down their arms and fight no more against Christ with them but repair to his Camp and fight for Christ with those reasons of theirs that were before imployed against him as it 's said of Ierome Origen and Tertullian that they came into Canaan laden with Aegyptian gold That is they come into the Church full of excellent learning and abilities with which they eminently served Jesus Christ. O blessed victory where the Conqueror and conquered both Triumph together And thus enemies and rebels are subdued and made subjects of the spiritual Kingdom of Christ. Hence the Doctrinal note is DOCT. That Iesus Christ exercises a Kingly power over the souls of all whom the Gospel subdues to his obedience No sooner were the Collossians delivered out of the power of darkness but they were immediately translated into the Kingdom of Christ the dear Son 1 Col. 13. This Kingdom of Christ which is our present subject is the internal spiritual Kingdom which is said to be within the Saints Luk. 17.20 21. The Kingdom of God is within you Christ sits as an enthroned King in the Hearts Consciences and affections of his willing people Psal. 110.3 And his Kingdom consists in Rightâ—ousness Peace and Ioy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 And is properly Monarchical as appears in the Margent In the prosecution of this point I will speak Doctrinally to these three heads First How Christ obtains this throne
sweetly suitably First Powerfully whether he restrains from sin or impels to duty he doth it with a soul determining efficacy For his Kingdom is not in word but in power 1 Cor. 4.20 And those whom his Spirit leads go bound in the spirit to the fulfilling and discharge of their duties Acts 20.22 And yet Secondly He rules not by compulsion but most sweetly His Law is a Law of Love written upon their hearts The Church is the Lambs wife Rev. 19.7 A bruised reed he shall not break and smoaking flax he shall not quench Isa. 42.2 3. I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ saith â—he Apostle 2 Cor. 10.1 for he delighteth in free not in forced obedience He rules children not slaves And so his Kingly power is mixed with Fatherly love His yoak is not made of Iron but Gold Thirdly He rules them suitably to their natures in a rational way Hos. 11.4 I drew them with the cords of a man with bands of Love i. e. in a way proper to convince their reason and work upon their ingenuity And thus his internal Kingdom is administred by his Spirit who is his prorex or vicegerent in our hearts Thirdly And Lastly we will open the priviledges pertaining to all the Subjects of this Spiritual Kingdom And they are such as follow First Those souls ever whom Christ raigns are certainly and fully set free from the curse of the Law If the Son make you free then are you free indeed Joh. 8.36 I say not they are free from the Law as a rule of life such a freedom were no priviledge to them at all but free from the rigorous exactions and terrible maledictions of it to hear our liberty proclaimed from this bondage is the joyful sound indeed The blessedst voice that ever our ears heard And this all that are in Christ shall hear if we be led by the Spirit we are not under the Law Gal. 5.18 Blessed are the people that hear this joyful sound Psal. 89.15 Secondly Another priviledge of Christs Subjects is freedom from the dominion of sin Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not raign over them for they are not under the Law but under grace One Heaven cannot bear two Suns Nor one soul two Kings When Christ takes the throne sin quits it It 's true the being of sin is there still It 's defiling and troubling power remains still but its dominion is abolished O joyful tydings O welcome day Thirdly Another priviledge of Christs Subjects is protection in all troubles and dangers to which their souls or bodies are exposed This man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our Land and when he shall tread in our Palaces Mica 5.5 Kings owe protection to their Subjects None so able so faithful in that work as Christ. All thou gavest me I have kept and none is Lost. Joh. 17.12 Fourthly Another priviledge of Christs Subjects is a merciful and tender bearing of their burdens and infirmities They have a meek and patient King Tell the daughter of Syon thy King cometh meek and lowly Matth. 21.5 Matth. 11.29 Take my yoak and learn of me for I am meek and lowly The meek Moses could not bear the provocations of the people Numb 11.12 but Christ bears them all He carries the Lambs in his arms and gently leads them that be with young Esa. 42.11 He is one that can have compassion upon the ignorant and them that are out of the way Fifthly Again Sweet peace and tranquility of soul is the priviledge of the Subjects of this Kingdom For this Kingdom consisteth in Peace and Ioy in the Holy-Ghost Rom. 14.17 And till souls come under his Scepter they shall never find peace Come unto me ye that are weary I will give you rest Yet do not mistake I say not they have all actual peace at all times No they often break that peace by sin but they have the root of peace the ground-work and cause of peace If they have not peace yet they have that which is convertible into peace at any time They also are in a state of peace Rom. 5.11 being justified by faith we have peace with God This is feast every day A mercy which they only can duly value that are in the depths of trouble for sin Sixthly Lastly Everlasting Salvation is the priviledge of all over whom Christ raigns Prince and Saviour are joyned together Acts 5.31 He that can say thou shalt guide me with thy counsels may add what follows and afterwards bring me to glory Psal. 73.24 Indeed the Kingdom of grace doth but breed up children for the Kingdom of glory And to speak as the thing is it 's the Kingdom of Heaven here begun The difference betwixt them is not specifical but only gradual and therefore this as well as that bears the name of the Kingdom of Heaven The King is the same and the Subjects the same The Subjects of this are shortly to be translated to that Kingdom Thus I have named and indeed but named some few of those inestimable priviledges of Christs Subjects We next apply it Inference 1. How great is their sin and misery who continue in bondage to sin and Satan and refuse the Government of Christ Who had rather sit under the shadow of that bramble than under the sweet and powerful government of Christ. Satan writes his Laws in the blood of his Subjects grinds them with cruel oppression Wears them out with bondage to divers Lusts and rewards their service with everlasting misery And yet how few are weary of it and willing to come over to Christ Behold said one of Christs Heralds Christ is in the field sent of God to recover his right and your liberty His Royal Standard is pitcht in the Gospel and proclamation made that if any poor sinners weary of the Devils Government and laden with the miserable chains of his Spiritual bondage so as these Irons of his sins enter into his very soul to afflict it with the sense of them shall thus come and repair to Christ he shall have protection from Gods Justice the Devils wrath and sins dominion in a word he shall have rest and that glorious Isai. 11.10 And yet how few stir a foot towards Christ but are willing to have their ears boared and be perpetual slaves to that cruel Tyrant O when will sinners be weary of their bondage and sigh after deliverance If any such poor soul shall read these lines let him know and I do proclaim it in the name of my Royal Master and give him the word of a King for it he shall not be rejected by Christ. Ioh. 6.37 Come poor sinners come the Lord Jesus is a merciful King and never did nor will hang up that poor penitent that puts the rope about his own neck and submits to mercy Inference 2. How much doth it concern us to enquire and know whose government we are under and who is King over our Souls Whether Christ
is called Gods servant they fulfil his will whilst they are prosecuting their own lusts The earth shall help the woman Rev. 12.16 But good men delight to serve providence they and the Angels are fellow-servants in one house and to one master Rev. 19.10 Yea there is not a creature in Heaven or Earth or Hell but Jesus Christ can Providentially use it and serve his ends and promote his designs by it But whatever the Instrument be Christ uses of this we may be certain that his Providential working is Holy Judicious Soveraign Profound Irresistible Harmonious and to the Saints peculiar First It 's holy Though he permits limits orders and overrules many unholy persons and actions yet he still works like himself most holily and purely throughout The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works Psal. 145.17 It 's easier to separate light from a Sun-beam than holiness from the works of God The best of men cannot escape sin in their most holy actions They cannot touch but are defiled But no sin cleaves to God whatever he hath to do about it Secondly Christs providential working is not only most pure and holy but also most wise and Judicious Ezek. 1.20 The wheels are full of eyes they are not moved by a blind impetus but in deep counsel and wisdom And indeed the wisdom of providence manifests it self principally in the choice of such states for the people of God as shall most effectually promote their eternal happiness And herein it goes quite beyond our understandings and comprehensions It makes that medicinal and salutiferous which we judge as destructive to our comfort and good as poyson I remember it is a note of Suarez speaking of the felicity of the other world then saith he the blessed shall see in God all things and circumstances pertaining to them excellently accommodated and attempered Then they shall see that the crossing of their desires was the saving of their souls And that they had if they had not perished The most wise Providence looks beyond us It eyes the end and suits all things thereto and not to our fond desires Thirdly The Providence of Christ is most supream and soveraign Whatsoever he pleaseth that he doth in Heaven and Earth and in all places Psal. 135.6 He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings Rev. 19.16 The greatest Monarchs on Earth are but as little bits of clay As the worms of the earth to him They all depend on him Prov. 8.15 16. By me Kings raign and Princes decree Iustice by me Princes rule Nobles even all the Iudges of the Earth Fourthly Providence is profound and inscrutable The Judgements of Christ are as the great deeps and his footsteps are not known Psal. 36 6. There are hard texts in the works as well as in the words of Christ The wisest heads have been at a loss in interpreting some providences Ier. 12.1 2. Iob. 21.7 The Angels had the hands of a man under their wings Ezek. 1.8 i. e. They wrought secretly and mysteriously Fifthly Providence is irresistible in its designs and motions for all providences are but the fulfillings and accomplishments of Gods immutable decrees Eph. 1.11 He works all things according to the counsel of his own will Hence Zech. 6.1 The Instruments by which God executed his wrath are called Chariots coming from betwixt two mountains of brass i. e. the firm and immutable decrees of God When the Iews put Christ to death they did but do that the hand and counsel of God had before determined to be done Acts 4.28 So that none can oppose or resist Providence I will work and who shall lett Isa. 43.13 Sixthly The Providences of Christ are Harmonious There are secret chains and invisible connexions betwixt the works of Christ. We know not how to reconcile promises and providences together nor yet providences one with another but certainly they all work together Rom. 8.28 as adjuvant causes or con-causes standing under and working by the influence of the first cause He doth not do and undo Destroy by one providence what he built by another But look as all seasons of the year the nipping frosts as well as halcion days of summer do all conspire and conduce to the harvest so it is in providence Seventhly Lastly The providences of Christ work in a special and peculiar way for the good of the Saints His providential is subordinated to his Spiritual Kingdom He is the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe 1 Tim. 4.10 These only have the blessing of providence Things are so laid and ordered as that their eternal good shall be promoted and secured by all that Christ doth Inference 1. If so See then in the first place to whom you are beholding for your lives liberties comforts and all that you enjoy in this world Is it not Christ that takes order for you He is indeed in Heaven out of your sight but though you see him not he sees you and takes care for all your concerns When one told Silentiarius of a plot laid to take away his life he answered Si Deus mei curam non habet quid vivo if God take not care of me how do I live how have I escaped hitherto In all thy waies acknowledge him Prov. 3.6 It 's he that hath espied out that state thou art in as most proper for thee It 's Christ that doth all for you that is done He looks down from Heaven upon all that fear him he sees when you are in danger by Temptation and casts in a providence you know not how to hinder it He sees when you are sad and orders reviving providences to refresh you He sees when corruptions prevail and orders humbling providences to purge them Whatever mercies you have received all along the way you have gone hitherto are the orderings of Christ for you And you shall carefully observe how the promises and providences have kept equal pace with one another and both gone step by step with you until now Inference 2. Hath God left the government of the whole world in the hands of Christ and trusted him over all then do ye also leave all your particular concerns in the hands of Christ too and know that the infinite wisdom and love which rules the world manages every thing that relates to you It is in a good hand and infinitely better than if it were in your own I remember when Melanchthon was under some despondencies of spirit about the estate of Gods people in Germany Luther chides him thus for it desinat Philippus esse rector mundi let Philip cease to rule the world It 's none of our work to steer the course of providence or direct its motions but to submit quietly to him that doth There is an Itch in men yea in the best of men to be disputing with God Let me talk with thee of thy Iudgements saith Jeremy Jer. 32.1 2. Yea
a debased state but was really and indeed humbled and that not only before men but God As man he was humbled really as God in respect of his manifestive glory And as it was real so also voluntary It is not said he was humbled but he humbled himself He was willing to stoop to this low and abject state for us And indeed the voluntariness of his humiliation made it most acceptable to God and singularly commends the love of Christ to us That he would choose to stoop to all this ignominy sufferings and abasement for us Secondly The degrees of his humiliation it was not only so low as to become a man a man under law but he humbled himself to become obedient to death even the death of the Cross. Here you see the depth of Christs humiliation both specified it was unto death and aggravated even the death of the Cross. Not only to become a man but a dead corpse and that too hanging on the tree Dying the death of a malefactor Thirdly The duration or continuance of this his humiliation It continued from the first moment of his incarnation to the very moment of his vivification and quickning in the grave So the terms of it are fixed here by the Apostle From the time he was found in fashion as a man that is from his incarnation unto his death on the Cross which also comprehends the time of his abode in the grave So long his humiliation lasted Hence the observation is DOCT. That the state of Christ from his Conception to his Resurrection was a state of deep abasement and humiliation We are now entring upon Christs humbled state which I shall cast under three general heads viz. his Humiliation in his incarnation in his life and in his death My present work is to open Christs Humiliation in his incarnation imported in these words he was found in fashion as a man By which you are not to conceive that he only assumed a body as an assisting form to appear transiently to us in it and so lay it down again It is not such an apparition of Christ in the shape of a man that is here intended but his true and real assumption of our nature which was a special part of his Humiliation as will appear by the following particulars First The Incarnation of Christ was a most wonderful humiliation of him in as much as thereby he is brought into the ranck and order of creatures who is over all God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 This is the astonishing mysterie 1 Tim. 3.16 that God should be manifest in the flesh That the eternal God should truly and properly be called the man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. 2.5 It was a wonder to Solomon that God would dwell in that stately and magnificent Temple at Ierusalem 2 Chron. 6.18 But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth behold the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee how much less this house which I have built But it 's a far greater wonder that God should dwell in a body of flesh and pitch his Tabernacle with us Ioh. 1.14 It would have seemed a rude blasphemy had not the Scriptures plainly revealed it to have thought or spoken of the eternal God as born in time The worlds Creator as a Creature The Ancient of daies as an Infant of daies The Heathen Chaldeans told the King of Babel that the dwelling of the Gods is not with flesh Dan. 2.11 But now God not only dwells with flesh but dwells in flesh Yea was made flesh and dwelt among us For the Sun to fall from its Sphear and be degraded into a wandring Attom For an Angel to be turned out of Heaven and be converted into a silly fly or worm had been no such great abasement for they were but Creatures before and so they should abide still though in an inferiour order or species of creatures The distance betwixt the highest and lowest species of creatures is but a finite distance The Angel and the worm dwell not so far assunder But for the infinite glorious Creator of all things to become a creature is a mystery exceeding all humane understanding The distance betwixt God and the highest order of creatures is an infinite distance He is said to humble himself to behold the things that are done in Heaven What a humiliation then is it to behold the things in the lower world But to be born into it and become a man Great indeed is the mysterie of Godliness Behold saith the Prophet Isai. 40.15 18. The nations are as the drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the ballance he taketh up the Isles as a very little thing All nations before him are as nothing and they are accounted to him less than nothing and vanity If indeed this great and incomprehensible Majesty will himself stoop to the state and condition of a creature we may easily believe that being once a creature he would expose himself to hunger thirst shame spetting death or any thing but sin For that once being man he should endure any of these things is not so wonderful as that he should become a man This was the low stoop a deep abasement indeed Secondly It was a marvelous humiliation to the Son of God not only to become a creature but an inferiour creature a man and not an Angel Had he took the Angelical nature though it had been a wonderful abasement to him yet he had staid if I may so speak nearer his own home and been somewhat liker to a God than now he appeared when he dwelt with us For Angels are the highest and most excellent of all created Beings For their nature they are pure spirits for their wisdom Intelligencies For their dignity they are called principalities and powers For their habitations they are stiled the Heavenly Host and for their imployment it is to behold the face of God in Heaven The highest pitch both of our holiness and happiness in the coming world is expressed by this we shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to the Angels Luk. 20.36 As man is nothing to God so he is much inferiour to the Angels So much below them that he is not able to bear the sight of an Angel though in an humane shape rendring himself as familiarly as may be to him Iudg. 13.22 When the Psalmist had contemplated the Heavens and viewed the Coelestial bodies the glorious Luminaries the Moon and Stars which God had made he cries out Psal. 8.5 what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him Take man at his best when he came a perfect and pure piece out of his Makers hand in the state of innocency yet he was inferiour to Angels They alwaies bare the image of God in a more eminent degree than man as being wholly spiritual substances and so more lively representing God than man could do whose noble soul is immerst
few particulars of Christs humiliation in his incarnation Next we shall infer somethings from it that are practical Inference 1. Hence we gather the fulness and compleatness of Christs satisfaction as the sweet first fruits of incarnation Did man offend and violate the Law of God Behold God himself is become a man to repair that breach and satisfie for the wrong done The highest honour that ever the law of God received was to have such a person as the man Christ Jesus is to stand before its Bar and make reparation to it This is more than if it had poured out all our blood and built up its honour upon the ruines of the whole creation It is not so much to see all the Stars in Heaven overcast as to see one Sun eclipsed The greater Christ was the greater was his humiliation and the greater his humiliation was the more full and compleat was his satisfaction and the more compleatness there is in Christs satisfaction the more perfect and steady is the Believers consolation If he had not stoopt so low our joy and comfort could not be exalted so high The depth of the foundation is the strength of the superstructure Inference 2. Did Christ for our sakes stoop from the Majesty glory and dignity he was possessed of in Heaven to the mean and contemptible state of a man what a pattern of self-denial is here presented to Christians What objection against or excuses to shift off this duty can remain after such an example as is here propounded Brethren let me tell you the Pagan world was never acquainted with such an Argument as this to press them to self-denial Did Christ stoop and cannot you stoop Did Christ stoop so much and cannot you stoop in the least Was he content to become any thing a worm a reproach a curse and cannot you digest any abasements Do the least slights and neglects rancle your hearts and poyson them with discontent malice and revenge O how unlike Christ are you Hear and blush in hearing what your Lord saith in Joh. 13.14 If I then your Lord and Master wash your feet ye also ought to wash one anothers feet This example obliges not as a learned man well observes to the same individual act but it obliges us to follow the reason of the example That is after Christs example we must be ready to perform the lowest and meanest Offices of love and service to one another And indeed to this it obliges most forcibly for it is as if a Master seeing a proud sturdy Servant that grudges at the work he is imployed about as if it were too mean and base should come and take it out of his hand and when he hath done it should say doth not your Lord and Master think it beneath him to do it and is it beneath you I remember it is an excellent saying that Bernard hath upon the nativity of Christ. Saith he what more detestable what more unworthy or what deserves severer punishment than for a poor man to magnifie himself after he hath seen the great and high God so humbled as to become a little Child it is intollerable impudence for a worm to swell with pride after it hath seen majesty emptying it self To see one so infinitely above us to stoop so far beneath us Oh how convincing and shaming should it be Ah how opposite should pride and stoutness be to the spirit of a Christian I am sure nothing is more so to the Spirit of Christ. Your Saviour was lowly meek self-denying and of a most condescending Spirit He looked not at his own things but yours Phil. 2.4 And doth it become you to be proud selfish and stout I remember Ierom in his Epistle to Pamachius a godly young noble-man adviseth him to be eyes to the blind feet to the lame yea saith he if need be I would not have you refuse to cut wood and draw water for the Saints and what saith he is this to buffeting and spetting to crowning with thorns scourging and dying Christ did undergo all this and that for the ungodly Inference 3. Did Christ stoop so low as to become a man to save us Then those that perish under the Gospel must needs perish without apology What would you have Christ do more to save you Loe he hath laid aside the robes of Majesty and glory put on your own garments of flesh come down from his Throne and brought Salvation home to your own doors Surely the lower Christ stooped to save us the lower shall we sink under wrath that neglect so great Salvation The Lord Jesus is brought low but the unbeliever will lay him yet lower even under his feet he will tread the Son of God under foot Heb. 10.28 for such as the Apostle there speaks is reserved something worse than dying without mercy What pleas and excuses others will make at the Judgement Seat I know not but once it 's evident you will be speechless And as one well observes the vilest sinners among the Gentiles nay the Devils themselves will have more to say for themselves than you I must be plain with you I beseech you consider how Iews Pagans and Devils will rise up in Judgement against you The Iew may say I had a legal yoak upon me which neither I nor my fathers were able to bear Christ invited me only into the garden of nuts where I might sooner break my teeth with the hard shells of Ceremonies than get the kernel of Gospel-promises In the best of our Sacrifices the smoak filled our Temple smoak only to provoke us to weep for a clearer manifestation We had but the old edition of the Covenant of grace in a character very darkly intelligible you have the last edition with a Commentary of our rejection and the worlds reception and the spirits effusion You had all that heart could wish I perish eternally may the poor Pagan say without all possibility of reconciliation and have only sinned against the Covenant of works having never heard of a Gospel Covenant nor of reconciliation by a Mediator O had I heard but one Sermon had Christ but once broke in upon my soul to convince me of my undone condition and to have shewn a righteousness to me but wo is me I never had so much as one offer of Christ. But so have I must you say that refuse the Gospel I have or might have heard thousands of Sermons I could scarce escape hearing one or other shewing me the danger of my sin and my necessity of Christ but notwithstanding all I heard I wilfully resolved I would have nothing to do with him I could not endure to hear strictness prest upon me It was all the hell I had upon earth that I could not sin in quiet Nay may the Devil himself say it 's true I was ever since my fall malitiously set against God but alas as soon as I had sinned God kickt me out of Heaven and told me
foresaw a great trial then at hand yea and all the after trials of his people as well as that He knew how much they would be sifted and put to it in that hour and power of darkness that was coming He knew their faith would be shaken and greatly staggered by the approaching difficulties when they should see their Shepherd smitten and themselves scattered The Son of man delivered into the hands of Sinners and the Lord of Life hang dead upon the tree yea sealed up in the grave He foresaw what straights his poor people would fall into betwixt a busie Devil and a bad heart therefore he prays and pleads with such importunity and ardency for them that they might not miscarry Secondly He was now entring upon his intercession-work in Heaven and he was desirous in this prayer to give us a Specimen or sample of that part of his work before he left us that by this we might understand what he would do for us when he should be out of our sight For this being his last on earth it shews us what affections and dispositions he carried hence with him and satisfies us that he who was so earnest with God on our behalf such a mighty pleader here will not forget us or neglect our concerns in the other world Yet Reader I would have the alwaies to remember that the intercession of Christ in Heaven is carried at a much higher rate than this It 's performed in a way more suitable to that state of honour to which he is now exalted Here he used prostrations of Body cries and tears in his prayers There it 's carried in a more majestick and with more state becoming an exalted Jesus But yet in this he hath left us a special assistance to discover much of the frame temper and working of his heart now in Heaven towards us Thirdly and Lastly He would leave this as a standing monument of his Father-like care and love to his people to the end of the world And for this it is conceived Christ delivered this prayer so publickly not withdrawing from the Disciples to be private with God as he did in the Garden but he delivers it in their presence these things I speak in the world this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the â—ircumstance of place in the world doth plainly speak it to be a publick prayer And not only was it publickly delivered but it was also by a singular providence recorded at large by Iohn though omitted by the other Evangelists that so it might stand to all generations for a testimony of Christs tender care and Love to his people Fourthly If you ask how this gives evidence of Christs tender care and Love to his people which is the last enquiry I answer in few words For the thing is plain and obvious It appears in these two particulars First His Love and care manifest in the choice of mercies for them He doth not pray for health honour long life riches c. but for their preservation from sin spiritual joy in God sanctification and eternal glory No mercies but the very best in Gods treasure will content him He was resolved to get all the best mercies for his people the rest he is content should be dispensed promiscuously by providence But these he will settle as an heritage upon his children O see the Love of Christ Look over all your spiritual inheritance in Christ compare it with the richest fairest sweetest inheritance on earth and see what poor things these are to yours O the care of a dear Father O the love of a Saviour Secondly Besides what an evidence of his tenderness to you and great care for you was this that he should so intently and so affectionately mind and plead your concerns with God at such a time as this was even when a world of sorrow was heming him in on every side A cup of wrath mixed and ready to be delivered into his hand At that very time when the clouds of wrath grew black a storm coming and such as he never felt before when one would have thought all his care thoughts and diligence should have been imployed on his own account to mind his own sufferings no he doth as it were forget his own sorrows to mind our peace and comfort O Love unspeakable Corollary 1. If this be so that Christ so eminently discovered his care and love for his people in this parting hour Then hence we conclude the perseverance of the Saints is unquestionable Do you hear how he pleads how he begs how he fills his mouth with arguments how he chooseth his words and sets them in order how he winds up his Spirit to the very highest pin of zeal and fervency and can you doubt of success can such a Father deny the importunity and strong reasonings and pleadings of such a Son O it can never be He cannot deny him Christ hath the art and skill of prevailing with God He hath as in this appears the tongue of the Learned If the heart or hand of God were hard to be opened yet this would open them but when the Father himself loveth us and is inclined to do us good who can doubt of Christs success that which is in motion is the more easily moved The cause Christ manageth in Heaven for us is Just and Righteous The manner in which he pleads is powerful and therefore the success of his suit is unquestionable The Apostle professeth 2 Cor. 1.3 we can do nothing against the truth He means it in regard of the bent of his heart he could not move against truth and Righteousness And if a holy man cannot much less will a holy God If Christ undertake to plead the cause of his people with the Father and use his oratory with him there is no doubt but he carries it Every word in this prayer is a chosen shaft drawn to the head by a strong and skilful hand you need not question but it goes home to the white and hits the mark aimed at Doth he pray Father keep through thine own name those thou hast given me Sure they shall be kept if all the power in Heaven can keep them O think on this when dangers surround your souls or bodies When fears and doubts are multiplied within When thou art ready to say in thy hast all men are liers I shall one day perish by the hand of sin or Satan Think on that incouragement Christ gave to Peter Luke 22.31 I have prayed for thee Corollary 2. Again hence we learn that Argumentative prayers are excellent prayers The strength of every thing is in its joints There lies much of the strength of prayer also How strongly jointed how nervous and argumentative was this prayer of Christ Some there are indeed that think we need not argue and plead in prayer with God but only present the matter of our prayers to him and let Christ alone whose office it is to plead with the
these are honourable scars and highly grace and commend it to his Spouse for whose dear sake he here received them They are marks of Love and Honour And he would be so drawn or rather he so drew himself that as oft as his people look'd upon that portraicture of him they may remember and be deeply affected with those things he here endured for their sakes These are the wounds my dear Husband Jesus received for me These are are the marks of that Love which passes the Love of creatures O see the Love of a Saviour This is that Heavenly Pelican that feeds his young with his own blood We have read of pitiful and tender women that have eaten the flesh of their own children Lamb. 4.10 But where is that woman recorded that gave her own flesh and blood to be meat and drink to her children Surely the Spouse may say of the Love of Christ what David in his Lamentations said of the Love of Ionathan thy Love to me was wonderful passing the Love of women But to prepare the point to be meat indeed and drink indeed to thy soul Reader I shall discuss briefly these three things and hasten to the application First What it is to remember the Lord Jesus in the Sacrament Secondly What aptitude there is in that Ordinance so to bring him to our remembrance Thirdly How the care and Love of Christ is discovered by leaving such a memorial of himself within us First What it is to remember the Lord Jesus in the Sacrament Remembrance properly is the return of the mind to an object about which it hath been formerly conversant And it may so return to a thing it hath conversed with before two waies speculatively and transciently or affectingly and permanently A speculative remembrance is only to call to mind the history of such a person and his sufferings That Christ was once put to death in the flesh An affectionate remembrance is when we so call Christ and his death to our minds as to feel the powerful impressions thereof upon our hearts Thus Matth. 26.75 Peter remembred the words of the Lord and went out and wept bitterly His very heart was melted with that remembrance his bowels were pained he could not hold but went out and wept abundantly Thus Ioseph when he saw his brother Benjamin whose sight refreshed the memory of former daies and endearments was greatly affected Gen. 43.29 30. And he lift up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin his mothers Son and said is this your younger brother of whom ye spake to me and he said God be gracious unto thee my Son And Joseph made haste for his bowels did yearn upon his brother and he sought where to weep and he entred into his Chamber and wept there Such a remembrance of Christ is that which is here intended This is indeed a gratious remembrance of Christ the former hath nothing of grace in it The time shall come when Iudas that betrayed him and the Iews that pierced him shall hystorically remember what was done Rev. 1.7 Behold he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him They I say Iudas shall remember this is he whom I perfidiously betrayed Pilate shall remember this is he whom I sentensed to be hanged on the tree though I was convinced of his innocency Then the Souldiers shall remember this is that Face we spet upon that head we crowned with thorns Lo this is he whose side we pierced whose hands and Feet we once nailed to the Cross. But this remembrance will be their torment not their benefit It is not therefore a bare hystorical speculative but a gratious affectionate impressive remembrance of Christ that is here intended and such a remembrance of Christ supposes and includes First The saving knowledge of him We cannot be said to remember what we never knew nor to remember savingly what we never knew savingly There have been many previous sweet and gratious transactions dealings and intimacies betwixt Christ and his people from the time of their first happy acquaintance with him much of that sweetness they have had in former considerations of him and hours of communion with him are lost and gone For nothing is more volatile hazardous and inconstant than our Spiritual comforts but now at the Table there our old acquintance is renewed and the remembrance of his goodness and Love refreshed and revived We will remember thy Love more than wine the upright Love thee Cant. 1.4 Secondly Such a remembrance of Christ includes faith in it Without discerning Christ at a Sacrament there is no remembrance of him and without faith no discerning Christ there But when the pretious eye of faith hath espied Christ under that vail it presently calls up the affections saying come see the Lord. These are the wounds he received for me This is he that Loved me and gave himself for me This is his flesh and that his blood sic Occulos sic ille Manus c. so his Arms were stretched out upon the Cross to embrace me So his blessed Head hung down to kiss me Awake my Love rouze up my Hope flame out my Desires come forth O all ye powers and affections of my soul come see the Lord. No sooner doth Christ by his Spirit call to the Believer but faith hears and discerning the voice turns about like Mary saying Rabboni my Lord my Master Thirdly This remembrance of Christ includes suitable impressions made upon the affections by such a sight and remembrance of him And therein lies the nature of that pretious thing which we call communion with God Various representations of Christs are made at the Table Sometimes the soul there calls to mind the infinite wisdom that so contriv'd and laid the glorious and mysterious design and project of redemption The effect of this is wonder and admiration O the manifold wisdom of God! Eph. 3.10 O the depths the heights the length the breadth of this wisdom I can as easily span the heavens as take the just demensions of it Sometimes a representation of the severity of God is made to the soul at that Ordinance O how inflexible and severe is the Justice of God What no abatements No sparing mercy not to his own Son this begets a double impression on the heart First Just and deep indignation against sin Ah cursed sin 'T was thou usedst my dear Lord so For thy sake he underwent all this If thy vileness had not been so great his sufferings had not been so many Cursed sin thou wast the knife that stab'd him Thou the sword that pierced him Ah what revenge it works I remember it 's storied of one of the Kings of France that hearing his Bishop as I remember it was Remigius read the Historie of Christs trial and execution and hearing how barbarously they had used Christ he was moved with so tragical and pathetical a
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
Tree O let the place where you assemble to so see this sight of your crucified Jesus be a Bokim a place of lamentation Inference 3. Moreover hence it 's evident that the believing and affectionate remembrance of Christ is of singular advantage at all times to the people of God For it 's the immediate end of one of the greatest Ordinances that ever Christ appointed to the Church To have frequent recognitions of Christ will appear to be singularly efficatious and useful to Believers if you consider First If at any time thy heart be dead and hard this is the likeliest means in the world to dissolve melt and quicken it Look hither hard heart hard indeed if this hammer will not break it Behold the blood of Jesus Secondly Art thou easily overcome by Temptions to sin This is the most powerful pull back in the world from sin Rom. 6.2 How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein We are crucified with Christ what have we to do with sin Such a thought as this when thy heart is yielding to Temptations How can I do this and crucifie the Son of God afresh Haâ—h he not suffered enough already on earth shall I yet make him groan as it were for me in Heaven look as David poured the water brought from the Well of Bethlehem on the ground though he was athirst for said he it is the blood of the men i. e. they eminently hazarded their lives to fetch it much more should a Christian pour out upon the ground yea despise and trample under foot the greatest profit or pleasure of sin saying nay I will have nothing to do with it I will on no terms touch it for it is the blood of Christ. It cost blood infinitely pretious blood to expiate it If there were a knife in your house that had been thrust to the heart of your Father you would not take pleasure to see that knife much less to use it Thirdly Are you afraid your sins are not pardoned but still stand upon account before the Lord what more relieving what more satisfying than to see the Cup of the New-Testament in the blood of Christ which is shed for many for the remission of sins Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect it 's Christ that died Fourthly Are you staggered at the sufferings and hard things you must endure for Christ in this world doth the flesh shrink back from these things and cry spare thy self What is there in the world more likely to steel and fortifie thy spirit with resolution and courage than such a sight as this Did Christ face the wrath of men and the wrath of God too Did he stand as a pillar of brass with unbroken patience and stedfast resolution under such troubles as never met in the like height upon any mear creature till death beat the last breath out of his nostrils And shall I shrink for a trifle Ah he did not serve me so I will arm my self with the like mind 1 Pet. 2.2 Fifthly Is thy faith staggered at the promises canst thou not rest upon a promise Here 's that will help thee against hope to believe in hope giving glory to God For this is Gods seal added to his Covenant which ratifies and binds fast all that God hath spoken Sixthly Dost thou idle away pretious time vainly and live unusefully to Christ in thy generation what more apt both to convince and cure thee than such a remembrance of Christ as this O when thou considerest thou art not thine own thy time thy tallents are not thine own but Christs When thou shalt see thou art bought with a price a great price indeed and so art strictly obliged to glorifie God with thy soul and body which are his 2 Cor. 5.14 This will powerfully awake a dull sluggish and lazy spirit In a word what grace is there this remembrance of Christ cannot quicken What sin cannot it mortifie What duty cannot it animate O it is of singular use in all cases to the people of God Inference 4. Lastly Hence we infer Though all other things do yet Christ neither doth nor can grow stale Here 's an Ordinance to preserve his remembrance fresh to the end of the world The blood of Christ doth never dry up The beauty of this Rose of Sharon is never lost or withred He is the same yesterday to day and for ever As his body in the grave saw no corruption so neither can his Love or any of his excellencies When the Saints shall have fed their eyes upon him in Heaven thousands and millions of years he shall be as fresh beautiful and orient as at the beginning Other beauties have their prime and their fading time but Christs abides eternally Our delight in creatures is often most at first acquaintance when we come nearer to them and see more of them the edge of our delight is rebated But the longer you know Christ and the nearer you come to him still the more do you see of his glory Every farther prospect of Christ entertains the mind with a fresh delight He is as it were a new Christ every day and yet the same Christ still Blessed be God for Iesus Christ. The TWENTY SECOND SERMON LUK. XXII XLI XLII XLIII XLIV And he was withdrawn from them about a stones cast and kneeled down and prayed saying Father if thou be willing remove this Cup from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done And there appeared an Angel unto him from Heaven strengthning him And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground THE hour is now almost come even that hour of sorrow which Christ had so often spoken of Yet a little a very little while and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners He hath affectionately recommended his Children to his Father He hath set his house in order and ordained a memorial of his death to be left with his people as you have heard There is but one thing more to do and then the Tragoedy begins He recommended us he must also recommend himself by prayer to the Father and when that is done he is ready let Iudas with the black guard come when they will This last Act of Christs preparation for his own death is contained in this Scripture wherein we have an account First Of his Prayer Secondly Of the Agony attending it Thirdly His relief in that Agony by an Angel that came and comforted him First The Prayer of Christ in a praying posture he will be found when the enemy comes He will be taken upon his knees He was pleading hard with God in prayer for strength to carry him through this heavy trial when they came to take him And this prayer was a very remarkable prayer both for the solitariness of it he withdrew about a stones cast vers 41. from his dearest intimates
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
themselves with his blood and satiate their revengeful hearts with such a spectacle of misery For lo as soon as these Wolves had griped their prey they were not satisfied with that cursed cruel and ignominious death of the Cross to which Pilate had adjudged him but they are resolved he shall die over and over they will contrive many deaths in one Now they say as a Tyrant did once moriatur ut sentiat se mori let him die so as he may feel himself to die i. e. let him die by inch-meal To this end they presently strip him naked scourge him cruelly array him in scarlet and mock him Crown him with a bush of platted thorns fasten that Crown upon his head by a blow with a cane which set them deep into his sacred Temples Sceptered him with a reed spet in his face strip off his mock-robes again put the Cross upon his back and compel him to bear it All this and much more they express their cruelty by as soon as they had him delivered over to their will So that this was a cruel sentence Thirdly As it was a cruel so it was a rash and hasty sentence The Jews are all in haste consulting all night and early up by the break of day in the morning to get him to his trial They spur on Pilate with all the arguments they can to give sentence His trial took up but one morning and a great part of that was spent in sending him from Caiphas to Pilate and from Pilate to Herod and then back again to Pilate so that it was a hasty and headlong sentence that Pilate gave He did not sift and examine the matter but handles it very slightly The trial of many a mean man hath taken up ten times more debates and time than was spent about Christ. They that look but slightly into the cause easily pronounce and give sentence But that which was then done in haste they have had time enough to repent for since Fourthly As it was a rash and hasty so it was an extorted forced sentence They squeeze it out of Pilate by meer clamor importunity and suggestions of danger In Courts of Judicature such arguments should signifie but little not importunity but proof should carry it but timorous Pilate bends like a Willow at this breath of the people He had neither such a sence of Justice nor spirit of Courage to withstand it Fifthly As it was an extorted so it was an Hypocritical sentence masking horrid murder under a pretence and formality of Law It must look like a legal procedure to paliate the business Loth he was to condemn him lest innocent blood should clamor in his Conscience but since he must do it he will transfer the guilt upon them and they take it His blood be on us and on our children for ever say they Pilate calls for water washes his hands before them and tells them I am free from the blood of this just person But stay free from his blood and yet condemn a known innocent person Free from his blood because he washt his hands in water No no he could never be free except his soul had been washed in that blood he shed O the hypocrisie of Pilate Such juggling as this will not serve his turn when he shall stand as a prisoner before him who now stood arraigned at his Bar. Sixthly and Lastly As it was an Hypocritical so it was an unrevoked sentence It admitted not of a reprieve no not for a day nor doth Christ appeal to any other Judicature or once desire the least delay of the execution But away he is hurried in haste to the execution Blush O ye heavens and tremble O earth at such a sentence as this Now is Christ dead in Law now he knows whither he must be carried and that presently His soul and body must feel that the very sight of which put him into an Agony but the night before Fourthly and Lastly In what manner did Christ receive this cruel and unrighteous sentence He received it like himself with admirable meekness and patience He doth as it were wrap himself up in his own innocency and obedience to his Fathers will and stands at the Bar with invincible patience and meek submission He doth not once desire the Judge to defer the sentence much less fall down and beg for his life as other prisoners use to do at such times No but as a sheep he goes to the slaughter not opening his mouth Some apply that expression to Christ Jam. 5.6 Ye have condemned and killed the just and he resisteth you not From the time that Pilate gave sentence till he was nailed to the Cross we do not read that ever he said any thing save only to the women that followed him out of the City to Golgotha and what he said there rather manifested his pity to them than any discontent at what was now come upon him Daughters of Jerusalem said he weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children Luk. 23.28 c. O the perfect patience and meekness of Christ The Inferences from hence are Inference 1. Do you see what was here done against Christ under pretence of Law What cause have we to pray for good Laws and righteous executioners of them O 't is a singular mercy to live under good Laws which protect the innocent from injury Laws are hedges about our lives liberties estates and all the comforts we enjoy in this world Times will be evil enough when iniquity is most discountenanced and punished by Law but how evil are those times like to prove when iniquity is established by Law As the Psalmist complains Psal. 94.20 It was the complaint of Pliny to Trajan that whereas crimes were wont to be the burden of the age now Laws were so and that he feared the Common-wealth which was establisht would be subverted by Laws 'T is not like that vertue will much flourish when Iudgement springs up as hemlock in the furrows of the field Hosea 10.4 How much therefore is it our concernment to pray that Iudgement may run down as a mighty stream Amos. 5.24 That our Officers may be peace and our Exactors righteousness Isai. 60.17 It was not therefore without great reason that the Apostle exhorted that supplications prayers intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men For Kings and all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty 1 Tim. 2.1 2. Great is the interest of the Church of God in them They are instruments of much good or evil Inference 2. Was Christ condemned in a Court of Judicature How evident then is it that there is a Iudgement to come after this life Surely things will not be alwaies carried as they are in this world When you see Iesus condemned and Barrabbas released conclude that a time will come when innocency shall be vindicated and wickedness shamed On
reallize and if it do so it must needs overcome the heart Ah Christian canst thou look upon Jesus as standing in thy room to bear the wrath of a Deity for thee Canst thou think on it and not melt That when thou like Isaac wast bound to the Altar to be offered up to Justice Christ like the Ram was caught in the Thicket and offered in thy room When thy sins had raised a fearful tempest that threatned every moment to entomb thee in a Sea of wrath Iesus Christ was thrown over to appease that storm Say Reader can thy heart dwell one hour upon such a Subject as this Canst thou with Faith present Christ to thy self as he was taken down from the Cross drencht in his own blood and say these were the wounds that he received for me This is he that loved me and gave himself for me Out of these wounds comes that balm that heals my soul. Out of these stripes my peace When we hang'd upon the Cross he bore my name upon his breast like the high Priest It was love pure love strong love to my poor soul to the soul of an enemy that drew him down from Heaven and all the glory he had there to endure these sorrows in soul and body for me Oh you cannot hold up your hearts long to the piercing thoughts of this but your bowels will be pained and like Ioseph you will seek a place to vent your hearts in Thirdly Faith cannot only reallize and apply Christ and his death but it can reason and conclude such things from his death as will fill the soul with affection to him and break the heart in pieces in his presence When it views Christ as Dead it Infers is Christ dead for me then was I dead in Law Sentenced and condemned to die eternally 2 Cor. 5.14 If one die for all then were all dead How woful was my case when the Law had past Sentence on me I could not be sure when I lay down but that it might be executed before I rose Nothing but a puff of breath betwixt my soul and Hell Again is Christ dead for me then I shall never die If he be condemned I am acquitted Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It 's God that justifieth it 's Christ that died Rom. 8.34 My soul is escaped as a Bird out of the snare of the Fowler I was condemned but am now cleared I was dead but am now alive O the unsearchable riches of grace O Love past finding out Again did God give Christ to such miseries and sufferings for me how shall he withhold any thing now from me He that spared not his own Son will doubtless with him freely give me all things Rom. 8.32 Now I may rest upon him for pardon peace acceptance and glory for my soul. Now I may relie upon him safely for provision protection and all supplies for my body Christ is the root of all these mercys He is more than all these he is nearer and dearer to God than any other gift Oh what a blessed happy comfortable state hath he now brought my soul into To conclude did Christ endure all these things for me then it 's past doubt he will never leave nor forsake me It cannot be that after he hath endured all this he will cast off the souls for whom he endured it Here the soul is Evangelically broken by the considerations of the mercys which emerge and flow to it out of the Sea of Christs blood Fourthly and Lastly Faith cannot only reallize apply and Infer but it can also compare the love of Christ in all this both with his dealings with others and with the souls dealing with Christ who so loved it To compare Christs dealings with others is most affected He hath not dealt with every one as with me Nay few there are that can speak of such mercies as I have from him How many are there that have no part nor portion in his blood That must bear that wrath in their own persons that he bare himself for me He hath kissed me over other mens shoulders He hath reached a pardon to me over other mens heads He espied me out and singled me forth to be the object of his love leaving thousands and millions still unreconciled Not that I was better than they for I was the greatest of sinners Far from righteousness As unlikely as any to be the object of such grace and love My companions in sin are left and I taken Now the soul is full The heart grows big too big to contain it self Yea Faith helps the soul to compare the love of Christ to it with the returns it haâ—h made to him for that love And what my soul hath thy carriage to Christ been since this grace that wants a name appeared to thee Hast thou returned love for love Love suitable to such love Hast thou prized valued and esteemed this Christ according to his own worth in himself or his kindness to thee Ah no I have grieved pierced wounded his heart a thousand times since that by my ingratitude I have suffered every trifle to justle him out of my heart I have neglected him a thousand times and made him say is this thy kindness to thy friend Is this the reward I shall have for all that I have done and suffered for thee Wretch that I am how have I requited the Lord this shames humbles and breakes the heart And when from such sights of faith and considerations as these the heart is thus affected it affords a good argument indeed that thou art gone beyond all the attainments of temporary believers Flesh and blood hath not revealed this Inference 1. Have the believing meditations of Christ and his sufferings such heart melting influences then sure there is but little faith among men Our dry eyes and hard hearts are evidences against us that we are strangers to the sighs of faith God be merciful to the hardness of your hearts How is Christ and his love flighted among men How shallow doth his blood run to some eyes Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes fountains of tears for this What monsters are carnal hearts We are as if God had made us without affections As if all ingenuity and tenderness were dried up Our ears are so accustomed to the sounds of Christ and his blood than now they are become as common things If a child die we can mourn over our dead but who mourns for Christ as for an only Son We may say of faith when men and women sit so unaffected under the Gospel as Martha said of Christ concerning her brother Lazarus if thou pretious faith hadst been here so many hearts had not been dead this day and in this duty Faith is that burning-glass which contracts the beams of the grace and love and wisdom and power of Jesus Christ together reflects these on the heart and makes it burn but without it we feel nothing
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
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
cause Eccles. 7.9 Anger resteth in the bosom of fools Seneca would allow no place for passion in a wise mans breast Wise men use to ponder consider and weigh things deliberately in their Judgements before they suffer their affections and passions to be stirred and engaged Hence comes the constancy and serenity of their Spirits As wise Solomon hath observed Prov. 17.27 A man of understanding is of an excellent or as the Hebrew is a cool Spirit Now wisdom filled the soul of Christ. He is wisdom in the abstract Pov. 8. In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom Col. 2.3 Hence it was that he was no otherwise moved with the revilings and abuses of his enemies than a wise Physitian is with the impertinencies of his distempered and crazy patient Thirdly And as his patience flowed from that his perfect wisdom and knowledge so also from his foreknowledge He had a perfect prospect of all those things from eternity which befell him afterwards They came not upon him by way of surprizal And therefore he wondered not at them when they came as if some strange thing had happened He foresaw all these things long before Mark 8.31 And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the Elders and chief Priests and Scribes and be killed Yea he had compacted and agreed with his Father to endure all this for our sakes before he assum'd our flesh Hence Isay 50.6 I gave my back to the siniters and my cheeks to them that pulled off the hair I hid not my face from shame and spitting Now look as Christ in Iob. 16.4 obviates all future offences his Disciples might take at sufferings for his sake by telling them before hand what they must expect These things saith he I told you that when the time shall come ye may remember that I told you of them So he foreknowing what himself must suffer and had agreed so to do he bare those sufferings with singular Patience Iesus therefore knowing all things that should come upon him went forth and said unto them whom seek ye Joh. 18.4 Fourthly As his patience sprang from his foreknowledge of his sufferings so from his Faith which he exercised under all that he suffered in this world His Faith looked through all those black and dismal clouds to the joy proposed Heb. 12.2 He knew that though Pilate condemned God would Justifie him Isa. 50.4 5 6 7 8. And he set one over against the other He ballanced the glory into which he was to enter with the sufferings through which he was to enter into it He acted Faith upon God for divine support and assistance under sufferings as well as for glory the fruit and reward of them Psal. 16.7 8 9 10 11. I have set or as the Apostle varies it I foresaw the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth There 's Faith acted by Christ for strength to carry him through And then it follows My flesh also shall rest in hope for thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption Thou wilt shew me the path of Life In thy presence is fullness of Ioy at thy right hand there are pleasures for ever more There 's his Faith acting upon the glory into which he was to enter after he had suffered these things This fill'd him with peace Fifthly As his Faith eyeing the glory into which he was passing made him endure all things so the Heavenliness of his Spirit also fill'd him with a Heavenly tranquility and calmness of Spirit under all his abuses and injuries It 's a certain truth that the more heavenly any mans spirit is the more sedate composed and peaceful As the higher Heavens saith Seneca are more ordinate and tranquil There are neither clouds nor winds storms nor tempests they are the inferior Heavens that lighten and thunder The nearer the earth the more tempestuous and unquiet Even so the sublime and heavenly mind is placed in a calm and quiet station Certainly that heart which is sweetned frequently with heavenly delightful communion with God is not very apt to be imbittered with wrath or soured with revenge against men The peace of God doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appease and end all strifes and differences as an Umpire So much that word Col. 3.15 Imports The heavenly spirit marvelously affects a sedate and quiet breast Now never was there such a heavenly soul on earth since man inhabited it as Christ was He had most sweet and wonderful communion with God He had meat to eat which others yea and those his greatest intimates knew not of The Son of Man was in heaven upon earth Ioh. 3.13 Even in respect of that blessed heavenly communion he had with God as well as in respect of his immense Deity And that his heart was in heaven when he so patiently endured and digested the pain and shame of the Cross is evident from Heb. 12.2 For the Ioy set before him he endured the Cross despised the shame See where his eye and heart was when he went as a Lamb to the slaughter Sixthly And lastly as his meekness and patience sprang from the heavenliness and sublimity of his spirit so from the compleat and absolute obedience of it to his Fathers will and pleasure He could most quietly submit to all the will of God and never regret at any part of the work assign'd him by his Father For you must know that Christs death in him was an act of obedience he all along eyeing his Fathers command and counsel in what he suffered Phil. 2.7 8. Ioh. 18.11 Psal. 40.6 7 8. Now look as the eyeing and considering of the hand of God in an affliction presently becalms and quiets a gracious soul as you see in David 2 Sam. 16.11 Let him alone it may be God hath bid him curse David so much more it quieted Jesus Christ who was privy to the design and end of his Father with whose will he all along complyed looking on Jews and Gentiles but as the Instruments ignorantly fulfilling Gods pleasure and serving that great design of his Father This was his patience and these the grounds of it Vse I might variously improve this point but the direct and main Use of it is to press us to a Christ-like patience in all our sufferings and troubles And seeing in nothing we are more generally defective and that defects of Christians herein are so prejudicial to Religion and uncomfortable to themselves I resolve to wave all other Uses and spend the remaining time wholly upon this branch Even a perswasive to Christians unto all patience in tribulations To imitate their Lamb-like Saviour Unto this Christians you are expresly call'd 1 Pet. 2.21.22 Because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps Who did no sin
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
under upon the Cross which occasioned this sad complaint of thirst And then make application of it in the several inferences of truth diducible from it Now the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross were twofold viz. his Corporeal and Spiritual sufferings We shall open them distinctly and then shew how both these meeting together upon him in their fulness and extremity must needs consume his very radical moisture and make him cry I thirst To begin with the first First His Corporeal and more external sufferings were exceeding great acute and extream sufferings For they were sharp universal continual and unrelieved by any inward comfort First They were sharp sufferings For his body was racked or digged in those parts where sence more eminently dwells In the hands and feet the veins and sinews meet and there pain and anguish meet with them Psal. 22.16 They digged my hands and my feet Now Christ by reason of his exact and excellent temper of body had doubtless more quick tender and delicate senses than other men His body was so formed that it might be a capacious vessel to take in more sufferings than any other body can Sense is in some more delicate and tender and in others dull and blunt according to the temperment and vivacity of the body and spirits But in none as it was in Christ whose body was miraculously formed on purpose to suffer unparalelled miseries and sorrows in A body hast thou fitted me Heb. 10.5 Neither sin nor sickness had any way enfeebled or dulled it Secondly As his pains were sharp so they were universal not affecting one but every part They seized every member From head to foot no member was free from torture For as his head was wounded with thorns his back with bloody lashes his side with a spear his hands and feet with nails So every other part was stretched and distended beyond its natural length by hanging upon that cruel engine of torment the Cross. And as every member so every particular sence was afflicted his sight with vile wretches cruel murderers that stood about him His hearing with horrid blasphemies belcht out against him His tast with vinegar and gall which they gave to aggravate his misery his smell with that filthy Golgotha where he was crucified and his feeling with exquisite pains in every part So that he was not only sharply but universally tormented Thirdly These universal pains were continual not by fits but without any intermission He had not a moments ease by the cessation of pains Wave came upon wave one grief driving on another till all Gods waves and billows had gone over him To be in extremity of pain and that without a moments intermission will quickly pull down the stoutest nature in the world Fourthly And lastly as his pains were sharp universal and continual so they were altogether unrelieved by his understanding part If a man have sweet comforts flowing into his soul from God they will sweetly demulce and allay the pains of the body This made the Martyrs shout amidst the flames Yea even inferiour comforts and delights of the mind will greatly relieve the oppressed body It 's said of Possidonius that in a great fit of the Stone he solâ—ced himself with discourses of moral vertue and when the pain twinged him he would say O pain thou dost nothing though thou art a little troublesom I will never confess thee to be evil And Epicurus in the fits of the Colick refreshed himself ob memoriam inventorem i. e. by his invention in Philosophy But now Christ had no relief this way in the least Not a drop of comfort came from heaven into his soul to relieve it and the body by it But on the contrary his soul was filled up with grief and had an heavier burden of its own to bear than that of the body So that instead of relieving it increased unspeakably the burden of his outward man For Secondly Let us consider these inward sufferings of his soul how great they were and how quickly spent his natural strength and turned his moisture into the drought of Summer And First His soul felt the wrath of an angry God which was terribly imprest upon it The wrath of a King is as the roaring of a Lion but what is that to the wrath of a Deity See what a description is given of it in Nahum 1.16 Who can stand before his indignation And who can abide in the fierceness of his anger His fury is poured out like fire and the rocks are thrown down by him Had not the strength that supported Christ been greater than that of Rocks this wrath had certainly overwhelmed and ground him to powder Secondly As it was the wrath of God that lay upon his soul so it was the pure wrath of God without any allay or mixture Not one drop of comfort came from heaven or earth All the ingredients in his cup were bitter ones There was wrath without mercy yea wrath without the least degree of sparing mercy for God spared not his own Son Rom. 8.32 Had Christ been abated or spared we had not If our mercies must be pure mercies and our glory in Heaven pure and unmixed glory then the wrath which he suffered must be pure unmixed wrath Yea Thirdly As the wrath the pure unmixed wrath of God lay upon his soul so all the wrath of God was poured out upon him even to the last drop So that there is not one drop reserved for the Elect to feel Christs cup was deep and large it contained all the fury and wrath of an infinite God in it And yet he drank it up He bare it all so that to believing souls who come to make peace with God through Christ he saith Isa. 27.4 Fury is not in me In all the chastisements God inflicts upon his people there is no vindictive wrath Christ bare it all in his own soul and body on the Tree Fourthly As it was all the wrath of God that lay upon Christ so it was wrath aggravated in divers respects beyond that which the damned themselves do suffer That 's strange you will say can there be any sufferings worse than those the damned suffer upon whom the wrath of an infinite God is immediatly transacted Who holds them up with the arm of his power while the arm of his justice lies on eternally Can any sorrows be greater than these Yes Christs sufferings were beyond theirs in divers particulars First None of the damned were ever so near and dear to God as Christ was They were estranged from the womb but Christ lay in his bosom When he smote Christ he smote the man that was his fellow Zech. 13.7 But in smiting them he smites his enemies When he had to do in a way of satisfaction with Christ he is said not to spare his own Son Rom. 8.32 Never was the fury of God poured out upon such a person before Secondly None of the damned had ever so
troubles as ever befell the nature of man and he did bear all other troubles with admirable patience but when it came to this when the flames of Gods wrath scorched his soul then he crys I thirst Davids heart was for courage as the heart of a Lion but when God exercised him with inward troubles for sin then he roars out under the anguish of it I am feeble and sore broken I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart My heart panteth my strength faileth me as for the light of mine eyes it is also gone from me Psal. 38.8 10. A wounded spirit who can bear Many have professed that all the torments in the world are but toys to it The racking fits of the Gout the grinding tortures of the Stone are nothing to the wrath of God set on upon the conscience What is the worm that never dies but the efficacy of a guilty conscience This worm feeds and nibbles upon the very inwards upon the tender and most sensible part of man and is the principal part of Hells horror In bodily pains a man may be relieved by proper medicines here nothing but the blood of sprinkling relieves outward pains the body may be supported by the resolution and courage of the mind here the mind it self is wounded O let none despise these troubles they are dreadful things Inference 3. How dreadful a place is Hell Where this cry is heard for ever I thirst There the wrath of the great and terrible God flames upon the damned for ever in which they thirst and none relieve them If Christ complain'd I thirst when he had conflicted but a few hours with the wrath of God what is their state then that are to grapple with it for ever When millions of years are past and gone ten thousand millions more are coming on There 's an everlasting thirst in Hell and it admits of no relief There are no full cups in Hell but an eternal unrelieved thirst Think on this ye that now add drunkenness to thirst who tumble in all sensual pleasures and drown nature in an excess of Luxury Remember what Dives said in Luk. 16.24 And he cryed and said Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame No cups of water no bowls of wine in Hell There that throat will be parched with thirst which is now drowned with excess The songs of the Drunkard turned into howlings If thirst in the extremity of it be now so unsufferable what is that thirst which is infinitly beyond this in measure and never shall be relieved Say not it's hard that God should deal thus with his poor creatures You will not think it so if you consider what he exposed his own dear Sou to when sin was but imputed to him And what that man deserves to feel that hath not only merited Hell but by refusing Christ the remedy the hottest place in Hell In this thirst of Christ we have the liveliest emblem of the state of the damned that ever was presâ—nted to men in this world Here you see a person labouring in extremity under the infinite wrath of the great and terrible God lying upon his soul and body at once and causing him to utter this doleful cry I thirst Only Christ endured this but a little while the damned must endure it for ever In that they differ As also in the innocency and ability of the persons suffering And in the end for which they suffer But surely such as this will the cry of those souls be that are cast away for ever O terrible thirst Inference 4. How much do nice and wanton Appetites deserve to be reproved The Son of God wanted a draught of cold water to relieve him and could not have it God hath given us variety of refreshing creatures to relieve us and we despise them We have better things than a cup of water to refresh and delight us when we are thirsty and yet are not pleased O that this complaint of Christ on the Cross I thirst were but believingly considered it would make you bless God for what you now despise And beget contentment in you for the meanest mercies and most common favours in this world Did the Lord of all things cry I thirst and had nothing in his extremity to comfort him and dost thou who hast a thousand times over forfeited all temporal as well as spiritual mercies contemn and slight the good creatures of God! What despise a cup of water who deservest nothing but a cup of wrath from the hand of the Lord O lay it to heart and hence learn contentment with any thing Inference 5. Did Iesus Christ upon the Cross cry I thirst then believers shall never thirst eternally Their thirst shall be certainly satisfied There is a three fold thirst gracious natural and penal The gracious thirst is the vehement desire of a spiritual heart after God Of this David speaks Psal. 42.1 2. As the heart panteth after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before God And this is indeed a vehement thirst it makes the soul break with the longings it hath after God Psal. 119. It 's a thirst proper to believers who have tasted that the Lord is gratious Natural thirst is as before was noted a desire of refreshment by humid nourishment and it 's common both to believers and unbelievers in this world Gods dear Saints have been driven to such extremities in this life that their tongues have even failed for thirst When the poor and needy seek water and there is none and their tongue faileth for thirst Isa. 41.17 And of the people of God in their Captivity it 's said Lam. 4.4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst The young children ask bread and no man breaketh it unto them They that feed delicatly are desolate in the streets they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills To this many that fear the Lord have been reduced A penal thirst is Gods just denying of all refreshment or relief to sinners in their extremities and that as a due punishment for their sin This believers shall never feel because when Christ thirsted upon the Cross he made full satisfaction to God in their room These sufferings of Christ as they were ordained for them so the benefits of them are truly imputed to them And for the natural thirst that shall be satisfied For in heaven we shall live without these necessities and dependencies upon the creature We shall be equal with the Angels in the way and manner of living and subsisting Luk. 20.36 And for the gratious thirsting of their souls for God it shall be fully satisfied So it s promised Matth. 5.6 Blessed are they which hunger and
it self upon its God and Father Father into thy hands God is the center of all gratious Spirits While they tabernacle here they have no rest but in the bosom of their God When they go hence their expectation and earnest desires are to be with him It had been working after God by gratious desires before it had cast many a longing look heaven-ward before but when the gratious soul comes near its God as it doth in a Dying hour then it even throws it self into his arms As a River that after many turnings and windings at last is arrived to the Ocean it pours it self with a central force into the bosom of the Ocean and there finishes its weary course Nothing but God can please it in this world and nothing but God can give it content when it goes hence It is not the amoenity of the place whither the gratious soul is going but the bosom of the blessed God who dwells there that it so vehemently pants after Not the Fathers house but the Fathers arms and bosom Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Whom have I in heaven but thee And oâ— earth there is none that I desire in comparison of thee Psal. 73.24 25. Thirdly It also implies the great value believers have for their souls That 's the pretious treasure And their main solicitude and chief care is to see it secured in a saâ—e hand Father into thy hands I commit my Spirit they are words speaking the believers care for his soul. That it may be safe what ever becomes of the vile body A believer when he comes nigh to death spends but few thoughts about his body where it shall be laid or how it shall be disposed of he trusts that in the hands of friends but as his great care all along was for his soul so he expresses it in these his very last breathings in which he commends it into the hands of God It is not Lord Jesus receive my body take care of my dust but receive my spirit Lord secure the Jewel when the Casket is broken Fourthly These words implie the deep sense that dying believers have of the great change that is coming upon them by death when all visible and sensible things are shrinking away from them and failing They feel the world and the best comforts in it failing Every creature and creature comfort failing For at death we are said to fail Luk. 16.9 Hereupon the soul clasps the closer about its God clings more close than ever to him Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Not that a meer necessity puts the soul upon God Or that it cleaves to God because it hath then nothing else to take hold on No no it chose God for its portion when it was in the midst of all its outword enjoyments and had as good security as other men have for the long enjoyment of them but my meaning is that although gratious souls have chosen God for their portion and do truly prefer him to the best of their comforts yet in this compounded state it lives not wholly upon its God but partly by faith and partly by sense Partly upon things seen and partly upon things not seen The creatures had some interest in their hearts alas too much but now all these are vanishing and it sees they are so I shall see man no more with the inhabitants of the world said sick Hezeckiah hereupon it turns it self from them all and casts it self upon God for all its subsistance Expecting now to live upon its God intirely as the blessed Angels do And so in faith they throw themselves into his arms Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Fifthly It implies the attonement of God and his full reconciliation to believer by the blood of the great sacrifice Else they durst never commit their souls into his hands For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 12.29 i. e. of an absolute God a God unattoned by the offering up of Christ. The soul dare no more cast it self into the hands of God without such an attoning sacrifice than it dares approach to a devouring fire And indeed the reconciliation of God by Jesus Christ as it is the ground of all our acceptance with God for we are made accepted in the beloved So it 's plainly carried in the order or manner of the reconciled souls committing it self to him for it first casts it self into the hands of Christ then into the hands of God by him So Stephen when dying Lord Iesus receive my Spirit And by that hand it would be put into the Fathershand Sixthly And lastly It implies both the efficacy and excellency of Faith in supporting and relieving the soul at a time when nothing else is able to do it Faith is its conduct when it is at the greatest loss and distress that ever it met with It secures the soul when it is turned out of the body When heart and flesh fail this leads it to the rock that fails not It sticks by that soul till it see it safe through all the territories of Satan and safe Landed upon the shore of Glory and then is swallowed up in vision Many a favour it hath shewn the soul while it dwelt in its body The great service it did for the soul was in the time of its espousals to Christ. This is the marriage knot The blessed bond of union betwixt the soul and Christ. Many a relieving sight secret and sweet support it hath received from its faith since that but surely its first and last works are its most glorious works By faith it first ventured it self upon Christ. Threw it self upon him in the deepest sense of its own vileness and utter unworthiness when sense reason and multitudes of temptations stood by contradicting and discouraging the soul. By faith it now casts it self into his arms when it 's lanching out into vast eternity They are both noble acts of Faith but the first no doubt is the greatest and most difficult For when once the soul is interessed in Christ it 's no such difficulty to commit it self into his hands as when it had no interest at all in him It 's easier for a child to cast himself into the arms of its own Father in distress than for one that hath been both a stranger and enemy to Christ to cast it self upon him that he may be a Father and a friend to it And this brings us upon the second enquiry I promised to satisfie sc. What warrant or incouragement have gratious souls to commit themselves at death into the hands of God I answer much every way all things encourage and warrant its so doing For First This God upon whom the believer rolls himself at death is its Creator The Father of its being He created and inspired it and so it hath relation of a creature to a Creator yea of a creature now in distress to a faithful Creator
1 Pet. 4.19 Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing as to a faithful Creator It 's very true this single relation in it self gives little ground of encouragement unless the creature had conserved that integrity in which it was originally created And they that have no more to plead with God for acceptance but their relation to him as creatures to a Creator will doubtless find that word made good to their little comfort Isa. 27.11 It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour But now grace brings that relation into repute Holiness ingratiates us again and revives the remembrance of this relation So that believers only can plead this Secondly As the gratious soul is his creature so it is his redeemed creature One that he hath bought and that with a great price Even with the pretious blood of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 This greatly encourages the departing soul to commit it self into the hands of God so you find Psal. 31.5 Into thy hands I commend my Spirit thou hast redeemed it O Lord God of truth Surely this is mighty encouragement to put it self upon God in a dying hour Lord I am not only thy creature but thy redeemed creature One that thou hast bought with a great price O I have cost thee dear For my sake Christ came from thy bosom and is it imaginable that after thou hast in such a costly way even by the expence of the pretious blood of Christ redeemed me thou shouldst at last exclude me Shall the ends both of Creation and Redemption of this soul be lost together Will God form such an excellent creature as my soul is in which are so many wonders of the wisdom and power of its Creator Will he be content when sin had marr'd the frame and defaced the glory of it to recover it to himself again by the death of his own dear Son and after all this cast it away as if there were nothing in all this Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit I know thou wilt have a respect to the work of thy hands Especially to a redeemed creature upon which thou hast been out so great sums of Love which thou hast bought at so dear a rate Thirdly Nay that 's not all the gratious soul may confidently and securely commit it self into the hands of God when it parts with its body at death not only because it is his creature his redeemed creature but because it is his renewed creature also And this lays a firm ground â—or the believers confidence of acceptecâ—a not that it is the proper cause or reason of its acceptance but as it is the souls best evidence that it is accepted with God and shall not be refused by him when it comes to him at death For in such a soul there is a double workmanship of God both glorious pieces though the last exceeds in glory A natural workmanship in the excellent frame of that noble creature the soul. And a gratious workmanship upon that again A new creation upon the old Glory upon Glory We are his workmanship created in Christ Iesus Eph. 2.10 The Holy Ghost came down from heaven on purpose to create this new workmanship To frame this new creature And indeed it is the Top and glory of all Gods works of wonder in this world And must needs give the believer encouragement to commit it self to God whether at such a time it shall reflect either upon the end of the work or upon the end of the workman both which meet in the salvation of the soul so wrought upon the end of the work in our glory By this we are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1.12 It is also the design and end of him that wrought it 2 Cor. 55. Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God Had he not designed thy soul for glory the spirit should never have come upon such a sanctifying design as this Surely it shall not sail of a reception into glory when it 's cast out this Tabernacle Such a work was not wrought in vain neither can it ever perish When once sanctification comes upon a soul it so roots it self in the soul that where the soul goes it goes Gifts indeed they die All natural excellency and beauty that goes away at death Iob 4. ult But grace ascends with the soul. It is a sanctified when a separate soul. And can God shut the door of Glory upon such a soul that by grace is made meet for the inheritance O it cannot be Fourthly As the gracious soul is a renewed soul so it is also a Sealed Soul God hath sealed it in this world for that glory into which it is now to enter at death All gracious souls are sealed objectively i. e. they have those works of grace wrought on their souls which do as but now is said ascertain and evidence their Title to glory And many are sealed formally That is the spirit helps them clearly to discern their interest in Christ and all the promises This both secures heaven to the soul in it self and becomes also an earnest or pledge of the glory in the unspeakable joys and comforts that it breeds in the soul. So you find 2 Cor. 1.22 Who hath sealed us and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts Gods sealing us gives high security His objective seal makes it sure in it self his formal seal makes it so to us But if over and above all this he will please as a fruit of that his sealing to give us those heavenly unexpressible joys and comforts which are the fruit of his formal sealing work to be an earnest a foretast and hansel of that glory how can the soul that hath found all this doubt in the least of a rejection by its God when at death it comes to him surely if God have sealed he will not refuse you If he have given you his earnest he will not shut you out Gods earnest is not given in Jest. Fifthly Moreover every gratious soul may confidently cast it self into the arms of its God when it goes hence with Father into thy hands I commit my Spirit For as much as every gratious soul is a soul in Covenant with God and God stands obliged by his Covenant and Promise to such not to cast them out when they come unto him As soon as ever thy soul became his by regeneration that Promise became its own Heb. 13.5 I will never leave you nor forsake you And will he leave the soul now at a pinch when it never had more need of a God to stand by it than it hath then every gratious soul is entitled to that Promise Ioh. 14.3 I will come again and receive you to my self And will he fail
in the earth by an earthquake and the Oracle was consulted how it might be closed this answer was returned that breach can never be closed except something of great worth be thrown into it Such a breach was that which sin made it could never be reconciled but by the death of Jesus Christ the most excellent thing in all the Creation Inference 2. How sad is the state of all such as are not comprized in the Articles of peace with God! The impenitent unbeliever is excepted God is not reconciled to him and if God be his enemy how little avails it who is his friend For if God be a mans enemy he hath an Almighty enemy in him whose very frown is destruction Deut. 32.40 41 42. I lift up my hand to Heaven and say I live for ever If I whet my glittering sword and my hand take hold on judgement I will render vengeance to my enemies and I will reward them that hate me I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh and that with the blood of the slain and the Captives from the beginning of revenge upon the enemy Yea he is an unavoidable enemy Fly to the utmost parts of the earth there shall his hand reach thee as it is Psal. 139.10 The wings of the morning cannot carry thee out of his reach If God be your enemy you have an immortal enemy who lives for ever to avenge himself upon his adversaries And what wilt thou do when thou art in Sauls case 1 Sam. 28.15 16. Alas whither wilt thou turn To whom wilt thou complain But what wilt thou do when thou shalt stand at the Bar and see that God who is thine enemy upon the throne Sad is their case indeed who are not comprehended in the Articles of peace with God Inference 3. If Christ died to reconcile us to God give diligence to clear up to your own souls your interest in this reconciliation If Christ thought it worth his blood to purchase it it 's worth your care and pains to clear it And what can better evidence it than your conscientious tenderness of sin lest you make new breaches Ah if reconciled you will say as Ezra 9.14 And now our God seeing thou hast given us such a deliverance as this should we again break thy Commandments If reconciled to God his friends will be your friends and his enemies your enemies If God be your friend you will be diligent to please him Iohn 15.10 14. He that makes not peace with God is an enemy to his own soul. And he that is at peace but takes no pains to clear it is an enemy to his own comfort But I must pass from this to the third End of Christs death End 3. You have seen two of those beautiful births of Christs travail and lo a third cometh namely the sanctification of his people Typical blood was shed as you heard to purifie them that were unclean and so was the blood of Christ shed to purge away the sins of his people so speaks the Apostle expresly Ephes. 5.25 26. Christ gave himself for the Church that he might sanctifie and cleanse it And so he tells us himself Joh. 17.19 And for their sakes I sanctifie my self i. e. consecrate or devote my self to death that they also might be sanctified through the truth Upon the account of this benefit received by the blood of Christ is that Doxology which in a lower strain is now sounded in the Churches but will be matter of the Lambs song in Heaven Rev. 1.5 6. To him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood be glory and honour for ever Now there is a twofold evil in sin the guilt of it and the polution of it Justification properly cures the former Sanctification the latter but both Justification and Sanctification flow unto sinners out of the death of Christ. And though it 's proper to say the spirit sanctifies yet it is certain it was the blood of Christ that procured for us the spirit of sanctification Had not Christ died the spirit had never come down from Heaven upon any such design The pouring forth of Christs blood for us obtained the pouring forth of the spirit of holiness upon us Therefore the spirit is said to come in his name and to take of his and shew it unto us Hence it 's said 1 Joh. 5.6 he came both by blood and by water by blood washing away the guilt by water purifying from the filth of sin Now this fruit of Christs death even our sanctification is a most incomparable mercy For do but consider a few particular excellencies of holiness First Holiness is the Image and glory of God His image Coll. 3.10 and his glory Exod. 15.11 who is like unto thee O Lord glorious in holiness Now when the guilt and filth of sin is washt off and the beauty of God put upon the soul in sanctification O what a beautiful Creature is the soul now So lovely in the eyes of Christ even in its imperfect holiness that he saith Cant. 6.5 Turn away thine eyes from me for they have overcome me So we render it but the Hebrew word signifies they have made me proud or puffed me up It 's a beam of divine glory upon the Creature enamouring the very heart of Christ. Secondly As it 's the souls highest beauty so it 's the souls best evidence for heaven Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Matth. 5.8 And without holiness no man shall see God Heb. 12.14 No gifts no duties no natural endowments will evidence a righâ— in heaven but the least measure of true holiness will secure heaven to the soul. Thirdly As holiness is the souls best evidence for heaven so it 's a continual spring of comfort to it in the way thither The purest and sweetest pleasures in this world are thâ— results of holiness Till we come to live holily we never live comfortably Heaven is Epitomized in holiness Fourthly And to say no more It is the peculiar mark by which God hath visibly distinguished his own from other men Psal. 4.3 The Lord hath set apart him that is Godly for himself Q. D. this is the Man and that the Woman to whom I intend to be good for ever This is a man for me O holiness how surpassinâ—ly glorious art thou Inference 1. Did Christ die to sanctifie his people how deep then is the polution of sin that nothing but the blood of Christ can cleanse it All the tears of a penitent sinner should he shed as many as there have fallen drops of rain since the Creation to this day cannot wash away one sin The everlasting burnings in Hell cannot purifie the flaming conscience from the least sin O guess at the wound by the largeness and length of this Tent that follows the mortal weapon sin Inference 2. Did Christ die to sanctifie his people Behold then the love
Earth and risen again from the Dead we must in this Discourse follow him back again into Heaven and lodge him in that bosom of ineffable delight and love which for our sakes he so freely left For it was not his end in rising from the Dead to live such a low animal life as this is but to live a most glorious life as an enthroned King in Heaven upon which state he was now ready to enter as he tells Mary in the Text and bids her to tell it to the Disciples go tell my Brethren that I ascend to my Father c. In the former verses you find Mary waiting at Christs Sepulchre in a very pensive frame exceedingly troubled because she knew not what was become of Christ. Vers. 15. in the next verse Christ calls her by her name Mary she knowing the voice turned her selâ— and answered Rabboni And as a soul transported with joy rushes into his arms as desirous to clasp and embrace him but Iâ—sus said touch me not c. In which words we have Christs inhibition touch me not strange that Christ who rendred himself so kind and tender to all and not only admittted but commanded Thomas to put his finger into his wounds should sorbid Mary to touch him but this was not for want of love to Mary for he gives another reason for it presently I am not yet ascended i. e. say some the time for embracing will be when we are in Heaven Then and there shall be the place and time we shall embrace one another for ever more So Augustin Or thou detest too much upon my present state as if I had now attained the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 culminating point of my Exaltation When as yet I am not ascended so Camero and Calvin expound it Or lastly Christ would signifie hereby that it was not his pleasure in so great a juncture of things as this to spend time now in expressing this way her affections to him but rather to shew it by hasting about his service Which is The second thing observable viz. his injunction upon Mary to carry the tidings of his Resurrection to the Disciples in which injunction we have First The persons to whom this message was sent my Brethren so he calls the Disciples A sweet compellation and full of love much like that of Ioseph to his Brethren Gen. 45.4 Save only that there is much more tenderness in this than that for he twits them in the same breath with what they had done against him I am Ioseph your Brother whom ye sold but in this it is go tell my Brethren without the least mention of their Cowardize or unkindness And Secondly The message it self Tell my Brethren I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I ascend It 's put in the present Tense as if he had been then ascending though he did not ascend in some weeks after this but he so expresses it to shew what was the next part of his work which he was to act in Heaven for them and how much his heart was set upon it and longed to be about it I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God Not our Father or God in Common but mine and yours in a different manner Yours by right of dominion mine in reference to my humane nature not only by right of Creation though so too but also by special Covenant and Confaederation By Praedestination of my manhood to the grace of personal union by designation of me to the glorious office of Mediator My Father as I am God by eternal generation As man by collation of the grace of union And your Father by spiritual Adoption and regeneration Thus he is my God and your God my Father and your Father This is the substance of that comfortable message sent by Mary to the pensive Disciples Hence the Observation is DOCT. That our Lord Iesus Christ did not only rise from the Dead but also ascended into Heaven there to dispatch all that remained to be done for the compleating the Salvation of his people So much the Apostle plainly witnesseth Eph. 4.10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all Heavens i. e. all the aspectable Heavens A full and faithful account whereof the several Evangelists have given us Mark 16.19 Luk. 24.51 This is sometimes called his going away as Ioh. 16.7 Sometimes his being exalted Acts 2.33 Sometimes his being made higher than the Heavens Heb. 7.26 And sometimes his entring within the vail Heb. 6.19 20. All which are but so many Synonymous phrases expressing his ascension in a pleasant variety Now for the opening this act of Christ we will bind up the whole in the satisfaction of these six Questions First who ascended Secondly whence did he ascend Thirdly whither Fourthly when Fifthly how And lastly why did he ascend And these will take in what is needful for you to be acquainted with in this point First Who ascended This the Apostle answers Eph. 4.10 The same that descended viz. Christ. And himself tells us in the Text I ascend And though the ascension were of Christs whole person yet it was but a figurative and improper expression with respect to his divine nature but it agrees most properly to the humanity of Christ which really changed places and conditions by it And hence it is that it 's said Ioh. 16.28 I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father He goes away and we see him no more As God he is spiritually with us still even to the end of the world But as man the heavens must contain him till the restitution of all things Acts 3.21 Secondly Whence Christ ascended I answer more generally he is said to ascend from this world to leave the world That is the terminus à quo Joh. 16.28 But more particularly it was from mount Olivet near unto Ierusalem The very place where he began his last sorrowful Tragedy There where his heart began to be sadded there is it now made glad O what a difference was there betwixt the frame Christ was in in that Mount before his Passion and this he is now in at his ascension But Thirdly Whither did he ascend It 's manifest it was into the third Heavens The Throne of God and place of the blessed Where all the Saints shall be with him for ever It 's said to be far above all heavens That is the heavens which we see for they are but the pavement of that stately Palace of the great King He is gone saith the Apostle within the vail i. e. into the most holy Place And into his Fathers house Ioh. 14.2 And he is also said to go to the place where he was before Joh. 6.62 Back again to that sweet and glorious bosom of delight and Love from whence at his incarnation he
the Church as breathed on earth till Christ gave him into its bosom by conversion and then no meer man ever did the Lord and his people greater service than he Men of all sorts Greater and smaller lights have been given to the Church Officers of all sorts were given it by Christ. Extraordinary and temporary as Prophets Apostles Evangelists ordinary and standing as Pastors and Teachers which remain to this day Eph. 4.8 9. And those stars are fixed in the Church heaven by a most firm establishment 1 Cor. 12.28 Thousands now in heaven and thousands on earth also are blessing Christ at this day for these his ascension gifts Fourthly Our Lord Jesus Christ ascended most comfortably for whilst he was blessing his people he was parted from them Luk. 24.50 51. Therein making good to them what is said of him Ioh. 13.1 Having loved his own he loved them to the end There was a great deal of love manifested by Christ in this very last act of his in this world The last sight they had of him in this world was a most sweet and encouraging one They heard nothing from his lips but love they saw nothing in his face but love till he mounted his triumphant Chariot and was taken out of their sight Surely these blessings at parting were sweet and rich ones For the matter of them they were the mercies which his blood had so lately purchased for them And for their extent they were not only intended for them who had the happiness to be upon the place with him from whence he ascended but they reach us as well as them and will reach the last Saint that shall be upon the earth till he come again For they were but representatives of the future Churches Matth. 28.20 And in blessing them he blessed us also And by this we may be satisfied that Christ carried an heart full of love to his people away with him to heaven since his love so abounded in the last act that ever he did in this world And left such a demonstration of his tenderness with them at parting Fifthly He ascended as well as rose again by his own power He was not meerly passive in that his ascension but it was his own act He went to heaven Therefore it 's said Act. 1.10 He went up viz. by his own dâ—vine power And this plainly evinceth hâ—m to be God for no meer Creature ever mounted it self from earth far above all heavens as Christ did Sixthly And lastly why did Christ ascend I answer his ascension was necessary upon many and great accounts For First If Christ had not ascended he could not have Interceded as now he doth in heaven for us And do but take away Christs intercession and you starve the hope of the Saints For what have we to succour our selves with under the daily surprises of sin but this that if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father mark that with the Father A friend upon the place One that abides there on purpose to transact all our affairs and as a surety for the peace betwixt God and us Secondly If Christ had not ascendâ—d you could not have entred into heaven when you die For he went to prepare a place for you Joh. 14.2 He was as I said before the first that entred into heaven directly and in his owâ— name and had he not done so we could not have entred when we die in his name The fore-runner made way for all that are coming on in their several generations after him Nor could your bodies have ascended after their Resurrection but in the vertue of Christs ascension For he ascended as was said before in the capacity of our head and representative To his Father and our Father For us and himself too Thirdly If Christ had not ascended he could not have been inaugurated and installed in the glory he now enjoys in heaven This world is not the place where perfect felicity and glory dwells And then how had the promise of the Father been made good to him Or our glory which consists in being with and conformed to him where had it been Ought not Christ to suffer and to enter into his glory Luk. 24.25 Fourthly If Christ had not ascended how could we have been satisfied that his payment on the Cross made full satisâ—action to God and that now God hath no more Bills to bring in against us How is it that the spirit convinceth the world of righteousness Ioh. 16.9 10. But from Christs going to the Father and returning hither no more which gives evidence of Gods full content and satisfaction both with his person and work Fifthly How should we have enjoyed the great blessings of the Spirit and Ordinances if Christ had not ascended And surely we could not have been without either If Christ had not gone away the Comforter had not come Joh. 16.7 He begins where Christ finished For he takes of his and shews it to us Joh. 16.14 And therefore it 's said â—oh 7.39 The Holy Ghost was not given because Iesus was not yet glorified He was then given as a sanctifying spirit but not given in that measure as afterward he was to furnish and qualifie men with gifts for service And indeed by Christs ascension both his sanctifying and his ministring gifts were shed forth more commonly and more abundantly upon men These fell from him when he ascended as Eliâ—ahs mantle did from him so that whatsoever good of conversion edification support or comfort you receive from spiritual Ordinances he hath shed forth that which you now see and feel It 's the fruit of Christs ascension Sixthly And lastly if Christ had not ascended how had all the Types and Prophesies that figured and fore-told it been fulfilled And the Scriptures cannot be broken Joh. 10.35 So that upon all these accounts it was expedient that he should go away It was for his glory and for our advantage Though we lost the comfort of his bodily presence by it yet if we loved him we would rejoyce because he went to the Father Joh 14.28 We ought to have rejoyced in his advancement though it had been to our loss but when it is so much for our benefit as well as his Glory it 's matter of joy on both sides that he is ascended to his Father and our Father to his God and to our God From the several blessings flowing to us out of Christs ascension it was that he charged his people not to be troubled at his leaving of them Ioh. 14. And hence learn Inference 1. Did Christ ascend into Heaven Is our Iesus our treasure indeed there Where then should the hearts of believers be but in Heaven where their Lord their Life is Surely Saints it is not good that your Love and your Lord should be in two several Countries said one that is now with him Up up after your Lover that he and you may be together Christians you ascended with him virtually when he
and it caused his face to shine as it had been the face of an Angel Act. 7.56 this his high advancement was foretold and promised before the work of redemption was taken in hand Psal. 110.1 The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou at my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstool And this promise was punctually performed to Christ after his resurrection and ascension in his supream exaltation far above all created beings in Heaven and earth Ephes. 1.20 21 22. We shall here open two things in the doctrinal part viz. what is meant by Gods right hand and what is implied in Christs sitting there with his enemies for a footstool First What are we to understand here by Gods right hand It 's obvious enough that the expression is not proper but figurative and borrowed God hath no hand right or left but it 's a condescending expression wherein God stoops to the Creatures understanding and by it he would have us to understand honour power and nearness First The right hand is the hand of honour the upper hand where we place those whom we highly esteem and honour So Solomon placed his Mother in a seat at his right hand 1 King 2.19 So in token of honour God sets Christ at his right hand which on that account in the Text is called the right hand of Majesty God hath therein exprest more favour delight and honour to Jesus Christ than ever he did to any creature To which of the Angels said he at any time sit thou on my right hand Heb. 1.13 Secondly The right hand is the hand of power we call it the weapon hand and the working hand And the setting of Christ there imports his exaltation to the highest authority and most supream dominion Not that God the Father hath put himself out of his Authority and advanced Christ above himself no for in that he saith he hath put all things under him it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him 1 Cor. 15.27 But to sit as an enthroned King at Gods right hand imports power Yea the most soveraign and supream power and so Christ himself calls the right hand at which he sits Matth. 26.64 hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power Thirdly And as it signifies honour and power so nearness in place as we use to say at ones elbow and so it is applied to Christ in Psal. 110.5 The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through Kings in the day of his wrath that is the Lord who is very near thee present with thee he shall subdue thine enemies This is that then we are to understand by Gods right hand Honour power and nearness Secondly In the next place let us see what is implied in Christ sitting at Gods right hand with his enemies for his footstool And if we attently consider we shall find that it implies and imports divers great and weighty things in it As First It implies the Complement and Perfection of Christs work that he came into the world about After his work was ended then he sat down and rested from those labours Heb. 10.11.12 Every Priest standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins but this man when he had once offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God Here he assigns a double difference betwixt Christ and the Levitical Priests they stand which is the posture of Servants he sits which is the posture of a Lord. They stand daily because their sacrifices cannot take away sin he did his work fully by one offering and after that sits or rests for ever in Heaven And this as accurate and judicious Dr. Reynolds observes was excellently figured to us in the Ark. which was a lively Type of Jesus Christ and particularly in this it had rings by which it was carried up and down till at last it rested in Solomons Temple with glorious and Triumphal sollemnity Psal. 132 8 9. 2 Chron. 5.13 So Christ while he was here on earth being anointed with the Holy Ghost and wisdom went about doing good Act. 10.38 and having ceased from his works did at last enter into his rest Heb. 5.10 which is the heavenly Temple Rev. 11.19 Secondly His sitting down at Gods right hand notes the high content and satisfaction of God the Faâ—her in him and in his work The Lord said to my Lord sit thou at my right hand the words are brought in as the words of the Father welcoming Christ to Heaven and as it were congratulating the happy accomplishment of his most difficult work And it is as if he had said O my Son what shall be done for thee this day thou hast finished a great work and in all the parts of it acquitted thy self as an able and faithful servant to me what honours shall I now bestow upon thee the highest glory in Heaven is not too high for thee come sit at my right hand O how well is he pleased with Christ and what he hath done He delighted greatly to behold him here at his work on earth and by a voice from the excellent glory he told him so when he called out of Heaven to him saying Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased 2 Pet. 1.17 and himself tells us Joh. 10.17 therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life c. for it was a work that the heart of God had been upon from eternity He took infinite delight in it Thirdly Christs sitting down at Gods right hand in Heaven notes the advancement of Christs humane nature to the highest honour even to be the object of adoration to Angels and men For it is properly his humane nature that is the subject of all this honour and advancement and being advanced to the right hand of majesty it 's become an object of worship and adoration Not simply as it is flesh and blood but as it is personally united to the second person and enthroned in the supream glory of Heaven O here 's the mysterie that flesh and blood should ever be advanced to the highest throne of Majesty and being there installed in that glory we may now direct our worship to him as God-man and to this end was his humanity so advanced that it might be adored and worshipped by all The Father hath commited all Iudgement to the Son that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father And the Father will accept of no honour divided from his honour Therefore it 's added in the next clause he that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him Joh. 5.22 23. Hence the Apostles in the salutations of their Epistles beg for grace mercy and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ and in their valedictions they desire the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Churches
Fourthly It imports the soveraignty and supremacy of Christ over all The investiture of Christ with authority over the Empire of both worlds For this belongs to him that sits down upon this throne When the Father said to him sit at my right hand he did therein deliver to him the dispensation and oeconomy of the Kingdom Put the awful scepter of government into his hand and so the Apostle interprets and understands it 1 Cor. 15.25 He must raign till he have put all his enemies under his feet And to thâ—s purpose the same Apostle accommodates if not expounds the words of the Psalmist thou madest him a little lower than the Angels i. e. in respect of his humbled state on earth thou Crownnedst him with glory and honour and didst set him over the work of thy hands thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet Heb. 2.7 8. He is over the spiritual Kingdom the Church absolute Lord there Matth. 28.18 19 20. He also is Lord over the providential Kingdom the whole world Psal. 110.2 and this providential Kingdom being subordinate to his spiritual Kingdom he orders and rules this for the advantage and benefit of that Ephes. 1.22 Fifthly To sit at Gods right hand with his enemies for a footstool implies Christ to be a Conqueror over all his enemies To have ones enemies under his feet notes perfect conquest and compleat victory As when Iosuah set his foot upon the necks of the Kings So Tamberline made proud Bajazet his footstool They trampled his name and his Saints under their feet and Christ will tread them under his feet 'T is true indeed this victory is yet incompleat and inconsummate for now we see not yet all things put under him saith the Apostle but we see Iesus Crowned with glory and honour and that 's enough Enough to shew the power of his enemies is now broken and though they make some opposition still yet it is to no purpose at all for he is so infinitely above them that they must fall before him It is not with Christ as it was with Abiâ—ah against whom Ieroboam prevailed because he was young and tenderhearted and could not withstand them His incapacity and weakness gave the watchful enemy an advantage over him I say 't is not so with Christ he is at Gods right hand And all the power of God stands ready bent to strike through his enemies as it is Psal. 110.5 Sixthly Christs sitting in Heaven notes to us the great and wonderful change that is made upon the state and condition of Christ since his ascention into Heaven Ah 't is far otherwise with him now than it was in the days of his humiliation here on earth quantum mutatus ab illo Oh what a wonderful change hath Heaven made upon him It were good as a Worthy of ours speaks to compare in our thoughts the Abasement of Christ and his Exaltation together as it were in Columes one over against the other he was born in a Stable but now he raigns in his Royal Palace Then he had a Manger for his Cradle but now he sits on a Chair of State Then Oxen and Asses were his companions now thousands of Saints and ten thousand of Angels minister round about his throne Then in contempt they called him the Carpenters Son now he obtains by inheritance a more excellent name than Angels Then he was led away into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil now it is proclaimed before him let all the Angels of God worship him Then he had not a place to lay his head on now he is exalted to be heir of all things In his state of Humiliation he endured the contradiction of sinners in his state of Exaltation he is adored and admired of Saints and Angels Then he had no form nor comliness and when we saw him there was no beauty why we should desire him now the beauty of his countenance shall send forth such glorious beams that shall dazel the eyes of all the Coelestial inhabitants round about him c. O what a change is here Here he sweat but there he sits Here he groaned but there he triumphs Here he lay upon the ground there he sits in the throne of glory When he came to Heaven his Father did as it were thus bespeak him My dear Son what an hard travail hast thou had of it What a world of wo hast thou past through in the strength of thy love to me and mine Elect Thou hasâ— been hungry thirsty and weary scourged crucified and reproached ah what bad usage has thou had in the ungrateful world Not a days rest and comfort since thou wentest out from me but now thy suffering days are accomplisht now thy rest is come rest for evermore Henceforth sit at my right hand Henceforth thou shalt groan weep or bleed no more Sit thou at my right hand Seventhly Christs sitting at Gods right hand implies the advancement of believers to the highest honour For this session of Christs respects them and there he sits as our representative in which regard we are made to sit with him in heavenly places as the Apostle speaks Ephes. 2.6 How secure may we be saith Tertullian who do now already possess the Kingdom meaning in our head Christ. This saith another is all my hope and all my confidence namely that we have a portion in that flesh and blood of Christ which is so exalted and therefore where he reigns we shall reign where our flesh is glorified we shall be glorified Surely it 's matter of exceeding joy to believe that Christ our head our flesh and blood is in all this glory at his Fathers right hand Thus we have opened the sence and importance of Christs siâ—ting at his Fathers right hand Hence we Infer Inference 1. Is this so great an honour to Christ to sit enthroned at Gods right hand What honour then is reserved in Heaven for those that are faithful to Christ now on the earth Christ prayed and his prayer was heard Joh. 17.24 That we may be with him to behold the glory that God hath given him and what heart can conceive the felicity of such a sight it made Stephens face shine as the face of an Angel when he had but a glimpse of Christ at his Fathers right hand Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty Isai. 33.17 which respected Hezekiah in the Type Christ in the truth But this is not all though this be much to be spectators of Christ in his Throne of glory we shall not only see him in his Throne but also sit with him inthroned in glory To behold him is much but to sit with him is more I remember it was the saying of a heavenly Christian now with Christ I would far rather look but through the hole of Christs door to see but the one half of his fairest and most comly face for he looks like Heaven suppose I should never win in to
see his excellency and glory to the full than to enjoy the flower the bloom and chiefest excellency of the glory and riches of ten worlds And you know how the Queen of the South fainted at the sight of Solomon in his glory But this sight you shall have of Christ will change you into his likeness We shall be like him saith the Apostle for we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.2 He will place us as it were in his own throne with him So runs the promise Rev. 3.21 To him that overcometh I will grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne and so 2 Tim. 2.12 If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him The Father set Christ on his right hand and Christ will set the Saints on his right hand So you know the sheep are placed by the Angels at the great day Matth. 25. and so the Church under the figure of the daughter of Aegypt whom Solomon married is placed on the Kings right hand in God of Ophyr Psal. 45. This honour have all the Saints O amazing Love What we set on thrones while as good as we by nature howl in flames O what manner of love is this These expressions indeed do not intend that the Saints shall be set in higher glory than Christ or that they shall have a parity of glory with Christ for in all things he must have the preheminence but they note the great honour that Christ will put upon the Saints as also that his glory shall be their glory in Heaven As the glory of the Husband redounds to the Wife and again their glory will be his glory 2 Thes. 1.10 And so it will be a social glory O it 's admirable to think whither free grace hath already mounted up poor dust and ashes To think how nearly we are related now to this Royal princely Jesus but how much higher are the designs of grace that are not yet come to their parturient fulness they look beyond all this that we now know Now are we the Sons of God but it doth not yet appear what we shall be 1 Joh. 3.2 Ah what reason have you to honour Christ on earth who is preparing such honours for you in Heaven Inference 2. Is Iesus Christ thus enthroned in Heaven then how impossible is it that ever his interest should miscarry or sink on earth The Church hath many subtil and potent enemies True but as Haman could not prevail against the Iews whilst Hester their friend spake for them to the King no more can they whilst our Iesus sits at his and our Fathers right hand Will he suffer his enemies that are under his feet to rise up and pull out his eyes think you Surely they that touch his people touch the very Apple of his eye Zech. 2.8 He must reign till all his enemies are under his foot 1 Cor. 15.25 The enemy under his feet shall not destroy the children in his arms He sits in Heaven on purpose to manage all to the advantage of his Church Eph. 1.22 Are our enemies powerful lo our King sits on the right hand of power Are they subtil and deep in their contrivance he that sits on the Throne over-looks all they do Heaven over-looks Hell He that sits in the Heavens beholds and derides their attempts Psal 2.4 He may permit his enemies to straighten them in one place but it shall be for their enlargement in another For 't is with the Church as it is with the Sea what it loses in one place it gets in another and so really loses nothing He may suffer them also to distress us in outwards but that shall be recompenced with inward and better mercies and so we shall lose nothing by that A foot-stool you know is uâ—eful to him that treads on it and serves to lift him up the higher so shall Christs enemies be to him and his albeit they think not so What singular benefits the oppositions of his enemies occasion to his people I have else-where discovered to which I refer my Reader and pass to the Inference 3. Is Christ set down on the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven O with what awful reverence should we approach him in the duties of his Worship Away with light and low thoughts of Christ. Away with formal irreverent and careless frames in Praying Hearing Receiving yea in conferring and speaking of Christ. Away with all deadness and drowsiness in duties For he is a great King with whom you have to do A King to whom the Kings of the earth are but as little bits of clay Lo the Angels cover their faces in his presence He is an Adorable Majesty When Iohn had a vision of this inthroned King about sixty year after his ascension such was the over-powering glory of Christ as the Sun when it shineth in its strength that when he saw him he fell at his feet as dead and died it's like he had if Christ had not not laid his hand on him and said fear not I am the first and the last I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Rev. 1.17 18. When he appeared to Saul in the way to Damascus it was in glory above the glory of the Sun which over powered him also and laid him as one dead upon the ground O that you did but know what a glorious Lord you Worship and Serve Who makes the very place of his Feet glorious where ever he comes Surely He is greatly to be feared in the assembly of his Saints and to be had in reverence of all that are round about him There is indeed a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 boldness or free liberty of speech allowed to the Saints Eph. 3.12 But no rudeness or irreverence We may indeed come as the Children of a King come to the Father who is both their awful soveraign and tender Father which double relation causes a due mixture of love and reverence in their hearts when they come before him You may be Free but not Rude in his presence Though he be your Father Brother Friend yet the distance betwixt him and you is infinite Inference 4. If Christ be so gloriously advanced in the highest Throne then none need to reckon themselves dishonoured by suffering the vilest things for his sake The very chains and sufferings of Christ have a glory in them Hence Moses esteemed the very reproaches of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt Heb. 11.26 He saw such an excellency in the very worst things of Christ his reproaches and sufferings as made him leap out of his Honours and Riches into them He did not as one saith only endure the reproaches of Christ but counted them Treasures To be reckoned among his honours and things of value So Thuanus reports of Ludovicus Marsacus a noble Knight of France when he was led
with other Martyrs that were bound with Cords to Execution and he for his dignity was not bound he cryed give me my Chain too let me be a Knight of the same order Disgrace it self is honourable when 't is endured for the Lord of glory And surely there is as one phraseth it a little Paradise a young Heaven in sufferings for Christ. If there were nothing else in it but that they are endured on his account it would richly reward all we can endure for him but if we consider how exceeding kind Christ is to them that count it their glory to be abased for him that though he be alwaies kind to his people yet if we may so speak he overcometh himself in kindness when they suffer for him it should make men in Love with his reproaches Inference 5. If Christ sate not down to rest in Heaven till he had finished his work on earth then 't is in vain for us to think of rest till we have finished our work as Christ also did his How willing are we to find rest here To dream of that which Christ never found in this world nor any ever found before us O think not of resting till you have done working and done sinning Your life and your labours must end together Write saith the Spirit blessed are the dead that die in the Lord for they rest from their labours Rev. 14.13 Here you must have the Sweat and there the Sweet 'T is too much to have two Heavens Here you must be content to dwell in the Tents of Keder hereafter you shall be within the curtains of Solomon Heaven is the place of which it may be truly said That there the weary be at rest O think not of sitting down on this side Heaven There are four things will keep the Saints from sitting down on earth to rest viz. Grace Corruptions Devils and wicked men First Grace will not suffer you to rest here Its tendencies are beyond this world It will be looking and longing for the blessed hope A gratious person takes himself for a Pilgrim seeking a better Country and is alwaies suspicious of danger in every place and state It 's still beating up the sluggish heart with such language as that Mica 2.10 Arise depart this is not thy rest for it is polluted It s farther tendencies and continual Jealousies will keep you from sitting long still in this world Secondly Your Corruptions will keep you from rest here They will continually exercise your Spirits and keep you upon your watch Saints have their hands filled with work by their own hearts every day Sometimes to prevent sin and sometimes to lament it And allwaies to watch and fear to mortifie and kill it Sin will not long suffer you to be quiet Rom. 7.21 22 23 24. And if a bad heart will not break your rest here then Thirdly There is a busie Devil will do it He will find you work enough with his Temptations and suggestions and except you can sleep quietly in his arms as the wicked do there 's no rest to be expected Your adversary the Devil goeth about as a roaring Lyon seeking whom he may devour whom resist 1 Pet. 5.8 Fourthly Nor will his Servants and instruments let you be quiet on this side Heaven Their very name speaks their turbulent disposition My Soul saith the holy man is among Lyons and I lye even among them that are set on fire even the Sons of men whose teeth are Spears and Arrows Psal. 57.4 Well then be content to enter into your rest as Christ did into his He sweat then sate and so must you The FORTY SECOND SERMON ACT. X. XLII And he commanded us to Preach unto the people and to testifie that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead CHrist enthroned in the highest glory in Heaven is there to abide for the effectual and successful government both of the World and of the Church untill the number given him by the Father before the World was and purchased by the blood of the Cross be gathered in and then cometh the Judgement of the great day which will perfectly separate the pretious from the vile put the redeemed in full possession of the purchase of his blood in Heaven and then shall he deliver up the Kingdom to his Father that God may be all in all This last act of Christ namely his Judging the world is a special part of his Exaltation and honour bestowed upon him because he is the Son of man Joh. 5.27 In that day shall his glory as King and absolute Lord shine forth as the Sun when it shineth in its strength O what an honour will it be to the man Christ Jesus who stood arraigned and condemned at Pilates bar to sit upon the great white Throne surrounded with thousands and ten thousands of Angels Men and Devils waiting upon him to receive their final Sentence from his mouth In this will the glory of Christs Soveraignty and power be eminently and illustriously displayed before Angels and men And this is that great truth which He commanded to be Preached and testified to the people namely that it is he which is ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead Wherein we have four things to be distinctly considered viz. The Subject Object Fountain and Truth of this supream judiciary authority First The Subject of it Christ. It is he that iâ— ordained to be Iudge Judgement is the act of the whole undivided Trinity The Father and Spirit Judge as well as Christ in respect of authority and consent but it 's the act of Christ in respect of visible management and execution and so it 's his per proprietatem by propriety the Father having conferred it upon him as the Son of man but not his per appropriationem so as to exclude either the Father or Spirit from their authority for they Judge by him Secondly The Object of Christs Judiciary authority The quick and dead i. e. all that at his coming do live or ever had lived This is the Object personal All the men and women that ever sprang from Adam all the Apostate Spirits that fell from Heaven and are reserved in chains to the Judgement of this great day And in this personal object is included the real object viz. all the actions both secret and open that ever they did 2 Cor. 5.5 Rom. 2.16 Thirdly The Fountain of this delegated authority which is God the Father for he hath ordained Christ to be the Judge He is appointed sc. as the Son of man to this honourable office and work The word notes a firm establishment of Christ in that office by his Father He is now by right of redemption Lord and King He enacts Laws for government then he comes to Judge of mens obedience and disobedience to his Laws Fourthly And lastly here is the infallible Truth or unquestionable certainty of all this He
discry Land crying with loud and united voices A shore A shore As the Poet describes the Italians when they saw their native Country lifted up their voices and making the Heavens ring again with Italy Italy or as Armies shout when the signal of Battle is given Above all which as some expound it shall the voice of the Archangel be distinctly heard And after this shout the trump of God shall sound By this Tremendous blast sinners will be affrighted out of their Graves but to the Saints it will carry no more terrour than the roaring of Cannons when Armies of friends approach a besieged City for the relief of them that be within The dead being raised they shall be gathered before the great Throne on which Christ shall sit in his glory and there divided exactly to the right and left hand of Christ by the Angels Here will be the greatest Assembly that ever met Where Adam may see his numerous off-spring even as the sand upon the Sea-shore which no man can number And never was there such a perfect division made how many divisions soever have been in the world none was ever like it The Saints in this great Oecumenical assize as the same Author stiles it shall meet the Lord in the air and there the Judge shall sit upon the Throne and all the Saints shall be placed upon bright clouds as on Seats or Scaffolds round about him the wicked remaining below upon the earth there to receive their final doom and sentence These preparatives will make it awful And much more will the work it self that Christ comes about make it so For it is to Iudge the secrets of men Rom. 2.16 To sever the Tares from the Wheat To make every mans whites and blacks appear And according as they are found in that Tryal to be sentenced to their everlasting and immutable state O what a solemn thing is this And no less will the execution of the Sentence on both parts make it a great and solemn day The heart of man cannot conceive what impressions the voice of Christ from the Throne will make both upon believers and unbelievers Imagine Christ upon his glorious Throne surrounded with Myriads and Legions of Angels his Royal guard a poor unbeliever trembling at the Bar. An exact scrutiny made into his heart and life The dreadful Sentence given And then a cry And then his delivering them over to the Executioners of Eternal vengeance never never to see a glimpse of hope or mercy any more Imagine Christ like the General of an Army mentioning with honour in the head of all the hosts of Heaven and Earth all the services that the Saints have done for him in this world Then sententially justifying them by open proclamation Then mounting with him to the third Heavens and entring the gates of that City of God in that noble train of Saints and Angels intermixed And so for ever to be with the Lord. O what a great day must this be Secondly As it will be an awful and solemn Judgement so it will be a Critical and Exact Judgement Every man will be weighed to his ounces and drams The name of the Judge is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the searcher of hearts The Judge hath eyes as flames of fire which pierce to the dividing of the heart and reins It 's said Matth. 12.36 That men shall then give an account of every idle word that they shall speak It is a day that will perfectly fan the world No Hypocrite can escape Justice holds the ballances in an even hand Christ will go to work so exactly that some Divines of good note think the day of Judgement will last as long as this day of the Gospels administration hath or shall last Thirdly It will be a Vniversal Iudgement 2 Cor. 5.10 We must all appear before the Iudgement Seat of Christ. And Rom. 14.12 Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God Those that were under the Law and those that having no Law were a Law to themselves Rom. 2.12 Those that had many Talents and he that had but one Talent must appear at this Bar those that were carried from the Cradle to the Grave with him that stooped for Age. The rich and poor the Father and the Child the Master and the Servant the believer and unbeliever must stand forth in that day I saw the Dead both small and great stand before God and the Books were opened Rev. 20.12 Fourthly It will be a Judgement full of convictive clearness All things will be so sifted to the bran as we say that the Sentence of Christ both on Saints and sinners shall be applauded Righteous art thou O Lord because thou hast Iudged thus His Judgements will be as the light that goeth forth So that those poor sinners whom he will condemn shall be first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self condemned Their own consciences shall be forced to confess that there is not one drop of injustice in all that Sea of wrath into which they are to be cast Fifthly And lastly It will be a supream and final Iudgement from which lies no Appeal For it is the Sentence of the Highest and only Lord. For as the ultimate resolution of Faith is into the Word and truth of God so the ultimate resolution of Iustice is into the Judgement of God This Judgement is supream and imperial For Christ is the only potentate 1 Tim. 6.5 And therefore the Sentence once past its execution is infallible And so you find it in that judicial process Matth. 25. ult Just after the Sentence is pronounced by Christ it is immediatly added those shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into Life Eternal This is the Judgement of the great day Thirdly In the last place I must inform you that God in ordaining Christ to be the Judge hath very highly exalted him This will be very much for his honour For in this Christs Royal dignity will be illustrated beyond what ever it was since he took our nature till that day Now he will appear in his glory For First This act of Judging pertaining properly to the Kingly Office Christ will be glorified as much in his Kingly Office as he hath been in either of the other We find but some few glimpses of his Kingly Office breaking forth in this world as his riding with Hosannahs into Ierusalem His whipping the buyers and sellers out of the Temple His Title upon the Cross c. But these were but faint beams now that Office will shine in its glory as the Sun in the midst of the Heavens For what were the Hosannahs of little Children in the streets of Ierusalem to the shouts and acclamations of thousands of Angels and ten thousands of Saints What was his whipping the prophane out of the Temple to his turning the wicked into Hell and sending his Angels to gather out of his Kingdom every thing that offendeth What was a Title
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
also You see how the Rivers in their course will not be checkt but bear down all obstacles in their way Saevior ab obice ibit A stop doth but make them rage the more and run the swifter afterwards There is a Central force in these natural motions which cannot be stopt And the like may you observe in the motions of a renewed soul Ioh. 4.14 It shall be in him as a Well of water springing up And is it not hard for you to keep it down or turn its course How hard did Ieremy and David find that work If you do not live holy lives you must cross your own new nature violate the Law that 's written in your own hearts and engraven upon your own bowels To this purpose a late Writer speaks Till you were converted saith he the flesh was predominant and therefore it was impossible for you to live any other than a fleshly life for every thing will act according to its predominant principle Should you not therefore live a spiritual life Should not the Law of God witten in your hearts be legible in your lives O should not your lives be according to the tendency of your hearts thus he Doubtless this is no swall advantage to practical holiness But Secondly Besides this principle within you have no small assistance for the purity of life by these excellent patterns before you The path of holiness is no untrodden path to you Christ and his Servants have beaten it before you The life of Christ is your Copy and it is a fair Copy indeed without a blot Oh what an advantage is this to draw all the lines of your actions according to his example This glorious grand example is often prest upon you for imitation Heb. 12.2 Looking to Iesus he hath left you an example that ye should tread in his steps 1 Pet. 2.21 His life is a living rule to his people and besides Christs example for you may say who can live as Christ did His example is quite above us you have a cloud of witnesses A cloud for its directive Use and these men of like passions temptations and constitutions with you who have gone before you in exemplary holiness The Holy Ghost intending therein your special help and advantage hath set many industrious pens awork to write the lines of the Saints and preserve for your use their holy sayings and heavenly actions He bids you take them for an example Jam. 5.10 Oh what excellent men are past on before you What renowned Worthies have led the way Men whose conversations were in Heaven whilst they Tabernacled on earth Whilst this lower world had their bodies the world above had their hearts their affections their actions their designs were all for Heaven Men that improved troubles and comforts losses and gains smiles and frowns and all for Heaven Men that did extract Heaven out of Spirituals out of Temporals out of all things their hearts were full of heavenly meditations their mouths of heavenly communications and their practices of heavenly inclinations O what singular help is this Where they followed Christ and kept the way they are propounded for your imitation and where any of them turned aside you have a mark set upon that action for your caution and prevention Doth any strange or unusual tryal befall you in which you are ready to say with the Church Lam. 1.12 Was there ever any sorrow like unto my sorrow Here you may see the same affliction accomplisht in your brethren 1 Pet. 5.9 Here 's store of good company to encourage you Doth the world and Devil endeavor to turn you from your duty by loading it with shameful scoffs or sufferings In this case you may look to Iesus who dispised the shame and to your Brethren who counted it their honour to be dishonoured for the name of Christ as the Original of the Text Act. 5.41 may be translated Is it a dishonour to thee to be rankt with Abraham Moses David and such as were the glory of the Ages they lived in Art thou at any time under a faint fit of discouragement and ready to despond under any burden oh how maist thou be animated by such examples when such a qualm comes over thy heart Some sparks of their holy courage cannot choose but steal into thy breast whilst thou considerest them In them God hath set before thee the possibility of overcoming all difficulties thou seest men of the same mould who had the same tryals discouragements and fears that thou now hast and yet overcame all How is thy unbelief checkt when thou saist Oh I shall never reach the end I shall one day utterly perish Why dost thou say so Why may not such a poor creature as thou art be carried through as well as they Had not they the same temptations and corruptions with you Were not they all troubled with a naughty heart an ensnaring world a busie Devil as well as you Alas when they put on the divine they did not put off the humane nature but complained and feared as you do and yet were carried through all Oh what an advantage have you this way They that first trusted in Christ had not such an help as you You stand upon their shoulders You have the benefit of their experiences You that are fallen into the last times have certainly the best helps to holiness And yet will not you live strictly and purely Will you put on the name and profession of Christians and yet be lofty in your spirits earthly in your designs neglective of duty frothy in your communions Pray from which of all the Saints did you learn to be proud Did you learn that from Christ or any of his From which of his Saints did you learn to be earthly and covetous passionate oâ— censorious over-reaching and crafty If you have read of any such evils committed by them have you not also read of their shame and sorrow their repentance and reformations If you have found any such blots in their lives it was left there designedly to prevent the like in yours Oh what an help to holiness is this Thirdly And this is not all You have not only a principle within you and a pattern before you but you have also an Omnipotent assistant to help and encourage you throughout your way Are you feeble and infirm and is every temptation even the weakest strong enough to turn you out of the way of your Duty Lo God hath sent his Spirit to help your infirmities Rom. 8.26 no matter then how weak you are how many and mighty your difficulties and temptations are as long as you have such an assistant to help you Great is your advantage for a holy life this way also For 1. First When a temptation to sin presses sore upon you he pleads with your consciences within whilst Satan is tempting without How often hath he brought such Scriptures to your remembrance in the very nick of opportunity as have saved
212 361 362. Purchase Christs blood purchased a rich inheritance for the Saints p. 180 181. Q. SIX Questions opening the difference betwixt suffering for Christ in this world and for sin in that to come p. 526. R. REconciliation with God its nature medium continuation properties and terms opened p. 530 531. Why effected by Christs death ibid. Redemption of souls costly p. 175. Rejecting knowledge how dangerous p. 11. Rejecting Christ most fatal p. 91 92. Relation of Christs sufferings to us p. 168. Religion Christian Religion incomparably sweet and satisfying to the Conscience p. 134 135. What cause men have to bless God for it ibid. Remembrance of Christ what it is opened at large p. 269 270. Two sorts of it ibid. What it includes p. 270 271. The usefulness of remembring Christ. p. 277 278. Rest no expectation of resting till we have done working and sinning p. 586. Four things break a Saints rest on earth p. 587. Resurrection of Christ the certainty of it p. 546. The absurdities following the denyal of it p. 546. The manner of his Resurrection opened in many particulars p. 547 548 c. Christs Resurrection was the Resurrection of the Saints head and representative p. 549. Resurrection of Saints the effect of Christs Resurrection three wayes p. 550 551. The agreement of our Resurrection with Christs opened in five particulars p. 551 552 553. Retracting what we have professed or done for Christ condemned by Pilates example p. 363. Revelations of Gods will by Iesus Christ various p. 101. Gradual p. 102. Plain p. 103. Powerful p. 103. Affectionate p. 104. Pure p. 104. Perfect p. 104. Righteousness how dangerous to joyn any thing of our own with Christs Righteousness in point of Iustification p. 177. S. SAcrament a special pledge of Christs care and love p. 273. Sacrament seasons heart melting seasons p. 276. Sacramental Bread and Wine whence their excellency p. 267. Saints their security for salvation from whence it is p. 262 263. Sanctification of Christ respects us p. 74 75. Our Sanctification the best evidence of our interest in a sanctified Iesus p. 80 81. Satisfaction to God necessary to our reconciliation p. 131. God stood upon full satisfaction p. 131. No meer man can satisfie God p. 132. Christs death made full satisfaction for sin p. 167. What divine satisfaction is p. 168. Five things imported in the satisfaction of Christ p. 168 169 170. Errors about the satisfaction of Christ refuted p. 171 172. Divers objections 173 c. of the Socinians answered about it p. 172 173 174. All thoughts of satisfying God by our selves to be abandoned p. 177. Sealing of Christ what it imports p. 69 70. How God the father sealed him p. 70 71. Why Christ must be sealed before he would act as Mediator p. 62 63. How many wayes the Spirit seals us p. 67. His sealing us an evidence of Christs being sealed for us p. 67. Security of believers argued from Christs Mediation p. 93. Self-denyal of Christ for us p. 20. Self-denyal for Christ how reasonable p. 22. Sentence given against Christ what it was Opened in six particulars p. 319 320. In what manner Christ received his Sentence p. 321. Services accidentally done for Christ unacceptable p. 362. Signes in the Sacrament of the Supper are of three sorts p. 272. Sin an infinite evil in it and how that appears p. 174. The horrid nature of sin opened p. 470. The deep pollution of sin p. 174. Sitting at Gods right hand what it imports opened in seven particulars p. 578 579 580. The Saints sitting with Christ what an advancement to them p. 582. Christ to be eyed in prayer as sitting at Gods right hand p. 584. Christ did not sit till he had finished his work Nor must we p. 586. Society we may have with such here whom we shall have no Society with in Heaven p. 309. Sorrow what it is p. 329. Sorrow distinguished into habitual actual natural supernatural p. 330. Souls how precious they are p. 440. Their sympathy with their bodies and their body with them p. 470. Spirit weighty considerations to keep Saints from grieving the Spirit p. 572. Stoop how low a stoop Christ made to recover us p. 224 225 226. Substance of Christs Mediatory Kingdom and the manner of administration distinguished p. 159 160. Substitution of Christ in our room as our Sacrifice necessary p. 159 160. The excellency and eternal efficacy of this Sacrifice opened p. 140 141 142 143 c. Success of Christs interest in the world unquestionable p. 366. Surety Christ is so and what his being so imports p. 85 86. Sufferings of Christ how great p. 466. They may affect natural hearts for three Reasons p. 330 331. Sufferings for Christ how glorious p. 526 527 58â— Sympathy of Christ with all that were burdened with sin or sorrow p. 241 242. T. TEars what they are p. 329. A double fountain of tears opened p. 330. Temptations of Christ fierce various and tedious p. 240 241. The great relief in temptation p. 246. Suitable temptations greatly hazard our ruine p. 305 306. Thief on the Cross his wonderful conversion p. 442 443. his example incourages none to delay conversion p. 443. Thirst proper and figurative p. 464. Thirst a great affliction p. 464. Christs thirst attributed to a double cause p. 466. Thirst in Hell what it is p. 472. Saints shall never thirst in Heaven p. 473 474. Throne how the Saints are confessors with Christ upon his throne p. 628. Time the preciousness of it and whence it results p. 435 436. Title affixed to the Cross of Christ what it was opened in six properties of it p. 358. The providence of God in the draught of Christs title remarkable in five things p. 360 361. Tryal of Christ for his life how managed p. 313. The inhumanity thereof p. 313 314. No man knows his own spiritual strength till it be put to the tryal p. 380. 381. Trust The Father and Son mutually trust each other p. 33. All our concerns to be trusted in the hands of Christ. p. 219 220. Trust in man how vain and foolish p. 309. V. THE Vicegerency of Christs sufferings p. 168. Understanding what it is and how opened p. 112 113. The proper office of Christ p. 114. Four things implyed in opening the understanding p. 114 115 116. Opening the understanding effected instrumentally by the word and spirit p. 117. The Union personal is extraordinary p. 54 55. How conserved when Christ was in the grave p. 57. How needful it is that Christ have union with our persons as well as natures p. 61. Unprincipled professors will become Apostates p. 305. Unbelievers where death will land them p. 440. Upbraid how those that perish under the Gospel will be upbraided by Iews Pagans and Devils p. 231 232. Uses that God will make of the Saints example in the day of judgement p. 628. Four uses he makes of it in this world p. 624 625 626. W. WEak
may find this case learnedly and solidly handled by Dr. Twisse Vindiciae graâ—iae Digress 8. Nulia alia ratione palam fâ—â—ripotest odium adversus peratum diciâ—um quam poenae commeritae inflictione Brad. de Justific p. 61. Hinc igitâ—r apparet quam neâ—essariâ—m fuit ut Christus mediator â—sset Deus homo nisi enim hâ—moâ—non fuisset iâ—oneum sacrificiâ—â— nisi Deus fuisset sacrificium illud non fuisseâ— sâ—ffâ—iâ—ntis virtutis Ames med p. 92. Synopsis purioris Theologiâ—e p. 318. Sacerdotium Christi est functio qua coram Deo appa et ut legem ab ipso acceptam nostro noniâ—e observeâ— scipsum victiman reconciliationis pâ—o nostris peccatis ipsi ofserat fua que apud Deam intercessione opâ—n ipsius perennem ac doâ—ationem spiritus sancti nobuÌ„ impetâ—et atque efficiter ap liâ—â— Certò aâ— statim morieris Dâ—ct Râ—ynoldâ— on Psâ—l 1.10 p. 409. Ob. Sol. Cor. 1. Cor. 2. Ponetâ— manum significaâ—s se scelera sua poenamque iis debitum conjicere in caput victimae Ut Graecis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 genus est imprecationis Drusius Menochius Heroâ— 2.39 It is a rule that where there is a total and sufficient cause in act there the effect must needs follow But if they be partial causes then the causes which suceâ—d in order do not produce their compleat effect until the last cause be in act Cor. 3. Cor. 4. Serm. 12. Opens the excellency of our High-Priests Oblation being the first act or part of his Priestly Office Oblatâ—o Christi unica est non tantum specie sed etiam numero quia nulla potest esse Oblatio Christi nisi intercedente morte ipsius eoque falsa est Sacrificii incruentem incruentem distinctâ—o Trelcatus Instit. p. 79. Doct. Sic Oblationes iâ— vase mundo offerebantur Esa 66.20 Ravan Bilson and Fevardentius affirm that Christ only offered up his body not his soul upon this weak ground that if he had offered both he had not offered one but two Sacrifices Against whom the Learned Parker in his excellent book de dâ—s 〈◊〉 urgeth my text and thus frees it from that corrupt gloss Pulchrè quasi boloca stum non unum fuit Sacrificium quia ex plur bus partibus constabit Sacrificium Christi unicum dicitur non in oppositione corporis ad animam sed in oppositione corporis animae semel Oblati ad multa illa Sacrificia quae non semel sed multotiâ—s in Lege Mosis offerebantur Parker de descensu Lib. 111. p. 146. Id â—olù◠rationem poenae babere potest quod infligitur à judice legi convenienter Non convenit autâ—m legi quae mortem denunciat â—t ob ejus violationem id infligatâ—r tantum ex quo guttula sanguinâ—s manet Joh. Camero p. 364. Virtus gratia Christi qâ—ate tuâ— mundi redemptor est omnium aetatum communis fâ—iâ— Calv. in Loc. Causa physica precedit effâ—câ—uÌ„ sâ—um tempoâ—pore non iteâ— caâ—sa mo alis Cameâ—onis opera p. 361. Nâ—nâ— servatâ—r no â—est ita ut olin non fuâ—rit atque ut non â—it servator in aeternum Camer myrothâ—â— p 337. Dâ—â—on â—n Loc. Odoratus Deo tribultur quo itidem Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 complacencia gratia denotatur Sicut odore bono homo recreaâ—â—r coque delectatur pertinet hâ—c appellatio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 odor quietis seu suavitatis quae crebrò Sacrificiisâ— Deo oblatis tribâ—itur Exod. 29. â— 25. Levit. 1.9 S. Glats Philolog Sacra Doccâ—t â—heâ—logâ— Christum pâ—o omnibus sufficienter pro Electis duntaxat Efficaciter mortâ—um esse Camero ubi supra p. 535. Mr. Strong Zanch de tribius Elohim Infer 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attollere vel sursum ferre Sic Syriac 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 julavit sursum tulit Beza Grec Annot. in 1 Pet. 2.24 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infer 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ita Theophilâ—ctus pul herimè 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nolo Dâ—um absolutum Mr. William Lâ—ford Infer 3. Serm. 13. Opens the Intercession of Christ our High-Priest being the second Act or Part of Christs Priestly Office Redemptio quam operatus est fundamentum sit intercessionis ac propterea redemptioâ—em intercessionem tanquan duas individuas Christi Sacrificii partes Scriptura commemorare solet Ravenella ad verbum intercedere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—ifferunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subjecta matâ—riâ non differunt Nam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proâ—riè perpetuitatem temporis significat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non â—anc solam verùm etiam omnimodam â—â—â—fectionem Cameâ—â—â— Doct. See Dâ—odati and our English Annot. in Loc. Pet. Lombard Lib. 4. dist 45. Quid vâ—ò sibi veâ—it hic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro nobis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 videndum est Reâ—â—icit ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 portificis veteris qui i gressus intra velum dâ—cebatur apparere in consfectu Dei pro populo quatenus se cum sanguine hâ—rei piacularis presentabat Deo precibus suis supplex orabat uâ— propter sanguinem non illum hircinâ—m sed il o representatum Christi Mediatoris fundendum propitius esset peccatis suis populi Doct. Pereus in loc Voluntate ac desiderio s o ardenti quâ—nadmodum in terris antea secerat ita iâ— Coelis apud patrem morâ—is sâ—a vim atque â—fficatiam novis ad salutem appliâ—aâ—i postulâ—t Synops purior Theol. p. 346. Aelian Hist. lib 5 cap. 19. Deâ—daâ—i iâ— Loc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though he cannot weep or grieve now as he did on earth yet he can â—ove now as much as ever he loved and therefore he looks down from Heaven upon every particular mâ—mber He seeth that this man wantâ— this grace and that man wants that and the othâ—r is in danger of this corruption or that tempâ—atiâ—n Aâ—d iâ— daily caryiâ—g on the cure You see nâ—t your Physitian he stands out of your sight but he seeth you and it is he that doth all fâ—r you that is done â—â—xters Treatise of Coâ—version Vse 1. Vse 2. Goodwins Triumph p. 263. If Jesus be the Media or of the New covenant Believers may go with boldness and look the justice of God in the face for your debt is satisfied So long as a man is in debt he steals by the prison door in the dark but if his surety have paid the debt he dares come as you say and whet his knife at the Counter-door Christ your â—urety hath paid the debt you may go with boldness and look justice in the face the Devil and all the Serjeants of Hell in the face Mr. W. B. in his Treatise of Christ and the Covenant p. 98. Vse 3. He doth not forget us though he be exalted to his glory for he is not like the poor silly creature that cannot bear exaltation without being puffed up and forgeting both themselves their
men are as it were asleep now in their bodies at Death they awake and find themselves in the world of realities Let this teach you both how to carry your selves towards dying persons when you visit them and to make every day some provision for that hour your selves Be serious be plain be faithful with others that are stepping into Eternity be so with your own souls every day O remember what a long word what an amazing thing Eternity is Especially considering DOCT. 2. That all believers are at their death immediately received into a State of glory and eternal happiness This day shalt thou be with me This the Atheist denies he thinks he shall die and therefore resolves to live as the Beasts that perish Beryllus and some others after him taught that there was indeed a â—uture state of happiness and misery for souls but that they pass not into it immediatly upon death and separation from the body but shall sleep till the Resurrection and then awake and enter into it But is not that soul asleep or worse that dreams of a sleeping soul till the Resurrection Are souls so wounded and prejudiced by their separation from the body that they cannot subsist or act separate from it Or have they found any such conceit in the Scriptures Not at all The Scriptures take notice of no such interval but plainly enough denies it 2 Cor. 5.8 We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Mark it no sooner parted from the body but present with the Lord. So Phil. 1.23 I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better If his soul was to sleep till the Resurrection how was it far better to be dissolved than to live Sure Pauls state in the body had-been far better than his state after death if this were so for here he enjoyed much sweet communion with God by Faith but then he should enjoy nothing To confirm this dream they urge Ioh 14.3 If I go my way I will come again and receive you to my self As if the time of Christs receiving his people to himself should not come until his second coming at the end of the world But though he will then collect all believers into one body and present them solemnly to his Father yet that hinders not but he may as indeed he doth receive every particular believing soul to himself at death by the Ministry of Angels And if not how is it that when Christ comes to judgement he is attended with ten thousands of his Saints that shall follow him when he comes from heaven Iude 14. you see then the Scriptures put no interval betwixt the dissolution of a Saint and his glorification It speaks of the Saints that are dead as already with the Lord. And the wicked that are dead as already in Hell calling them Spirits in Prison 1 Pet. 3.19 20. assuring us that Iudas went presently to his own place Acts 1.25 and to that sence is the Parable of Dives and Lazarus Luk. 16.22 But let us weigh these four things more particularly for our full satisfaction in this point Arg. 1. First Why should the happiness of believers be deferred since they are immediatly capable of enjoying it assoon as separated from the body Alas the soul is so far from being assisted by the body as it is now for the enjoyment of God that it 's rather clog'd and hindred by it so speaks the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.6 8. Whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord i. e. our bodies prejudice our souls obstruct and hinder the fulness and freedom of their communion When we part from the body we go home to the Lord. Then the soul is escaped as a Bird out of the Cage or Snare Here I am prevented by an excellent Pen which hath judiciously opened this point To whose excellent observations I only add this that if the intanglements snares and prejudices of the soul are so great and many in its embodied estate that it cannot so freely dilate it self and take in the comforts of God by communion with him then surely the laying aside of that clog or the freeing of the soul from that burden can be no bar to its greater happiness which it enjoys in its separated state Arg. 2. Secondly Why should the happiness and glory of the soul be deferred unless God had some farther preparative work to do upon it before it be fit to be admitted into glory But surely there is no such work wrought upon it after its separation by death All that is done of that kind is done here When the compositum is dissolved all means duties and ordinances are ceased The working day is then ended and night come when no man can work Ioh. 9.3 To that purpose are those words of Solomon Eccles. 9.10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with all thy might for there is no wisdom nor knowledge nor devise in the Grave whither thou goest So that our glorification is not deferred in order to our fuller preparation for glory If we are not fit when we die we can never be fit All is done upon us that ever was intended to be done For they are called Heb. 12.23 The Spirits of the Just made perfect Arg. 3. Thirdly Again why should our Salvation slumber when the damnation of the wicked doth not slumber God defers not their misery and surely he will not defer our glory If he be quick with his enemies he will not be slow and dilatory with his friends It cannot be imagined but he is as much inclined to acts of favour to his Children as to acts of Justice to his enemies these are presently damned Iud. 7. Acts 1.25 1 Pet. 3.19 20. and what reason why believers all believers as well as this in the Text should not be that very day in which they die with Christ in Glory Arg. 4. Fourthly And lastly how do such delays consist with Christs ardent desires to have his people with him where he is And with the vehement longings of their souls to be with Christ You may see those reflected flames of Love and desire of mutual enjoyment betwixt the Bridegroom and his Spouse in Revel 22.17 20. Delays make their hearts sick The expectation and Faith in which the Saints die is to be satisfied then and surely God will not deceive them I deny not but their glory will be more compleat when the body their absent friend is reunited and made to share with them in their happiness Yet that hinders not but mean while the soul may enjoy its glory whilst the body takes its rest and sleeps in the Dust. Inference 1. Are believers immediatly with God after their dissolution then how surprizingly glorious will Heaven be to believers Not that they are in it before they think of it or are fitted for it no they have spent many thoughts upon it before and