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
came Fourthly When did Christ ascend was it presently as soon as he rose from the dead No not so for after his Resurrection saith Luke he was seen of them forty daies speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God And truly the care and love of Christ to his people was very manifest in this his stay with them He had ineffable glory prepared for him in heaven and awaiting his coming but he will not go to possess it till he had settled all things for the good of his Church here For in this time he confirmed the truth of his Resurrection gave charge to the Apostles concerning the Discipline and order of his house or Kingdom which was but needful since he intended that their Acts should be rules to future Churches So long it was necessary he should stay And when he had set all things in order he would stay no longer lest he should seem to affect a terrene life And besides he had work of great concernment to do for us in the other world He desired to be no longer here than he had work to do for God and souls A good pattern for the Saints Fifthly How did Christ ascend into Heaven Here it 's worthy our Observation that Christ ascended as a publick person or fore-runner in our names and upon our accounts So it 's said expresly Heb. 6.20 Speaking of the most holy place within the vail whither saith he the fore-runner is for us entred His entring into heaven as our fore-runner implies both his publick capacity and precedency First His publick capacity as one that went upon our business to God So he himself speaks Ioh. 14.2 I go before to prepare a place for you To take possession of heaven in our names The fore-runner hath respect to others that were to come to heaven after him in their several generations for whom he hath taken up mansions which are kept for them against their coming Secondly It notes precedency He is our fore-runner but he himself had no fore-runner Never any entred into heaven before him but such as entred in the name and through the vertue of his merits He was the first that ever entred heaven directly immediately in his own name and upon his own account But all the Fathers who died before him entred in his name To the holiest of them all God would have said as Elisha to Iehoram 2 King 3.14 Were it not that I had respect to the person of my Son in whose name and right you come I would not look upon you You must back again heaven were no place for you No not for you Aâ—raham nor for you Moses Secondly He ascended Triumphantly into heaven To this good Expositors refer that which in the Type is spoken of David when he lodged the Ark in its own place with musical instruments and shoutings but to Christ in the Antitype when he was received up Triumphantly into glory Psal. 47.5 God is gone up with a shout the Lord with the sound of a Trumpet sing praises to God sing praises sing praises unto our King sing praises A Cloud is prepared as a Royal Chariot to carry up this King of Glory to his Princely pavillion A Cloud received him out of their sight And then a Royal guard of mighty Angels surround the Chariot if not for support yet for greater state and solemnity of their Lords ascension And oh what Jubilations of the blessed Angels were heard in heaven How was the whole City of God moved at his coming For look as when he brought his first begotten into the world he said let all the Angels of God worship him Heb. 1.6 So at his return thither again when he had finished Redemption work there were no less demonstrations given by those blessed Creatures of their delight and joy in it The very heavens ecchoed and resounded on that account Yea the Triumph is not ended at this day nor ever shall It 's said Dan. 7.13.14 I saw saith the Prophet in the night visions and behold one like the Son of man came with the Clouds of Heaven and came to the ancient of daies and they brought him near before him And there was given him dominion and glory and a Kingdom that all People Nations and Languages should serve him This Vision of Daniels was accomplisht in Christs ascension when they i. e. the Angels brought him to the ancient of daies i. e. to God the Father who to express his welcome to Christ gave him glory and a Kingdom And so it is and ought to be expounded The Father received him with open arms rejoycing exceedingly to see him again in heaven therefore God is said to receive him up into glory 1 Tim. 3.16 For that which with respect to Christ is called ascension is with respect to the Father called assumption He went up and the Father received him Yea received him so as none ever was received before him or shall be received after him Thirdly Christ Ascended munificiently shedding forth abundantly inestimable gifts upon his Church at his ascension As in the Roman Triumphs they did Spargere missilia bestow their largesses upon the people so did our Lord when he ascended wherefore he saith when he ascended up on high he led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men The place to which the Apostle refers is Psal. 68.17.18 where you have both the triumph and munificence with which Christ went up excellently set forth together The Chariots of God saith the Psalmist are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place Thou hast ascended on high thou hast led Captivity Captive thou hast received gifts for men Yea for the rebellious also that God might dwell among them Which words in their literal sense are a Celebraâ—ion of that famous victory and triumph of David ever the enemies of God recorded 2 Sam. 8. These conquered enemies bring him several sorts of presents all which he dedicated to the Lord. The spiritual sense is that just so our Lord Jesus Christ when he had overcome by his death on the Crâ—ss and now triumphed in his ascension he takes the parts and gifts of his enemies and gives them by their conversion to the Church for its use and service Thus he received gifts even for the rebellious i. e. sanctâ—fies the natural gifts and â—aculties of such as hated his people before dedicating them to the Lord in his peoples service Thus as one observes Tertullian Origen Austin and Ierome came into Canaan laden with Aegyptian Gold Meaning they came into the Church richly furnished wiâ—h natural learning and abilities Austin was a Manichee Cyprian a Magician learned Bradwardine a scornful proud naâ—urallist who once said when he read Pauls Epistles dedignabar esse parvulus He scorned such childish things but afterwards became a very useful man in the Church of God And even Paul himself was as fierce an enemy to
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
my heart O see with what a full consent the heart of Christ closeth with the Fathers Offers and Proposalls like some Eccho that answers your voice twice or thrice over So doth Christ here answer his Fathers call I come I delight to do thy will yea thy Law is in my heart And thus you see the Articles to which they both Subscribed or the Terms they agreed on I will briefly shew how these Articles and agreements were on both parts performed and that precisely and punctually to a tittle For 1. the Son having thus consented accordingly he applies himself to the discharge of his work He took a body in it fulfill'd all righteousness even to a tittle Math. 3.15 And at last his soul was made an offering for Sin So that he could say as it is Ioh. 17.4 Father I have glorified thee on earth I have finished the work thou gavest me to do He went through all the parts of his active and passive obedience chearfully and faithfully 2. The Father made good his engagements to Christ all along with no less faithfulness than Christ did his He promised to assist and hold his band and so he did Luke 22.43 And there appeared to him an Angell from heaven strengthening him That was one of the sorest brunts that ever Christ met with it was seasonable aid and succour He promised to accept him in his work and that he should be glorious in his eyes so he did For he not only declared it by a voice from heaven Luk. 3.22 Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased But it was fully declared in his resurrection and ascention which were a full discharge and Justification of him He promised him that he should see his seed and so he did for his very birth dew was as the dew of the morning and ever since his blood hath been fruitfull in the world He promised gloriously to reward and exalt him and so he hath Phil. 2.9 10 11. And that highly and supereminently giving him a name above every name in heaven and earth Thus were the Articles performed Lastly when was this compact made betwixt the Father and Son I answer It bears date form eternity Before this world was made then were his delights in us While as yet we had no existance but only in the infinite mind and purpose of God who had decreed this for us in Christ Jesus as the Apostle speaks 2 Tim. 1.9 What grace was that which was given us in Christ before the world began but this grace of redemption which from everlasting was thus contrived and designed for us in that way which hath been here opened Then was the council or consultation of peace betwixt them both As some sence that Scripture Zach. 6.13 Next let us apply it to our selves Vse The first Use that offers it self to us from hence is the abundant security that God hath given the Elect for their salvation and that not only in respect of the covenant of Grace made with them but also of this Covenant of redemption made with Christ for them which indeed the foundation of the covenant of Grace Gods single promise is security enough to our faith his covenant of grace adds ex abundanti further security but both these viewed as the effects and fruits of this covenant of redemption makes all fast and sure In the covenant of grace we question not the performance on Gods part but are often stumbled at the grand defects on our parts but when we look to the covenant of Redemption there 's nothing to stagger our faith both the foederates being infinitly able and faithfull to perform their parts so that there is no possibility of a failure there Happy were it if puzled and perplext Christians would turn their eyes from the defects that are in their own obedience to the fullness and compleatness of Christs obedience and see themselves compleat in him when most lame and defective in themselves Hence also be informed that God the Father and God the Son do mutually rely and trust to one another in the business of our redemption The Father relies upon the Son for the performance of his part as it is Isa. 42.1 Behold my servant whom I uphold Montanus turns it on whom I lean or depend As if the Father had said behold what a faithful Servant I have chosen in whom my soul is at rest I know he will go through with his work I can depend upon him And to speak plain the Father so far trusted Christ that upon the credit of his promise to come into the world and in the fulness of time to become a Sacrifice for the Elect he saved all the old Testament Saints whose faith also respected a Christ to come with reference whereunto it is said Heb. 11.39 40. That they received not the promise God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect i. e. without Jesus Christ manifested in the flesh in our times though believed on as to come in the flesh in their times And as the Father trusted Christ so doth Christ in like manner depend upon and trust his Father For having performed his part and left the world again he now trusteth his Father for the accomplishment of that promise made him Isa. 53.10 That he shall see his seed c. He depends upon his Father for all the Elect that are behind yet unregenerated as well as those already called that they shall be all preserved unto the heavenly Kingdom according to that Ioh. 17 11. And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world and I come unto thee holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me And can it be imagined that the Father will fail his trust who every way accquitted himself so punctually to the Father It cannot be Vse 3. Moreover hence we infer the validity and unquestionable success of Christs intercession in heaven for believers You read Heb. 7.25 That he ever lives to make intercession And Heb. 12.24 That his blood speaks for good things for them Now that his blood shall obtain what it pleads in heaven for is undoubted and that from the consideration of this covenant of redemption for here you see that the things he now asks of his Father are the very same which his Father promised him and Covenanted to give him before this world was so that besides the interest of the person the very equity of the matter speaks its success and requires performance whatever he asks for us is as due to him as the wages of the hyrling when the work is ended if the work be done and done faithfully as the father hath acknowledged it is then the reward is due and due immediatly and no doubt but he shall receive it from the hands of a righteous God Vse 4. Hence in like manner you may be informed of the consistency 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
sinners such a fair Foundation to rest their trembling Consciences upon While poor distressed Souls look to themselves they are perpetually puzled That 's the cry of distressed natural conscience Mica 6.6 Where with shall I come before the Lord the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how shall I prevent or anticipate the Lord and so Montanus renders it in quo preoccupabo Dominum conscience sees God arming himself with wrath to avenge himself for sin crys out O how shall I prevent him If he would accept the fruit of my body those dear pledges of nature for the sin of my Soul he should have them But now we see God coming down in flesh and so intimately uniting our flesh to himself that it hath no proper subsistance of its own but is united with the Divine person hence it 's easie to imagine what worth and value must be in that blood and how eternal love springing forth triumphantly from it flourishes into Pardon Grace and Peace Here is a way in which the sinner may see Justice and Mercy kissing each other and the latter exercised freely without prejudice to the former All others Consciences through the world lie either in a deep sleep in the Devils arms or else are rouling Sea sick upon the waves of their own fears and dismal presages O happy are they that have dropt Anchor on this ground and not only know they have peace but why they have it Vse 5. Oh how great concernment is it that Christ should have Vnion with our particular persons as well as with our common nature For by this Union with our nature alone never any man was or can be Saved Yea let me add that this Union with your natures is utterly in vain to you and will do you no good except he have union with your persons by faith also It is indeed infinite mercy that God is come so near you as to dwell in your flesh and that he hath fitted such an excellent Method to save poor sinners in And hath he done all this Is he indeed come home even to your own doors to seek Peace Doth he vail his unsupportable glory under flesh that he might treat thee more familiarly And yet do you refuse him and shut your hearts against him Then hear one word and let thine ears tingle at the sound of it thy sin is hereby aggravated beyond the sin of Devils who never sin'd against a Mediator in their own nature who never despised or refused because indeed they were never offered terms of Mercy as you are And I doubt not but the Devils themselves who now tempt you to reject will to all Eternity upbraid your folly for rejecting this great Salvation which in this excellent way is brought down even to your own doors Vse 6. If Jesus Christ have assumed our nature Then he is sensibly toucht with the infirmities that attend it and so hath pity and compassion for us under all our burdens And indeed this was one end of his assuming it that he might be able to have compassion on us as you read Heb. 2.17.18 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them hat are tempted O what a comfort is this to us that he who is our High-Priest in Heaven hath our nature on him to enable him to take compassion on us Vse 7. Seventhly Hence we see To what an height God intends to build up the happiness of man in that he hath layed the Foundation thereof so deep in the incarnating of his own Son They that intend to build high use to lay the Foundation low The happiness and glory of our Bodies as well as Souls is founded in Christs taking our flesh upon him For therein as in a Model or Pattern God intended to shew what in time he resolves to make of our Bodies For he will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transform our vile Bodies and make them one day conformable to the glorious Body of Jesus Christ Phil. 3.21 This flesh was therefore assumed by Christ that in it might be shewn as in a Pattern how God intends to honour and exalt it And indeed a greater honour cannot be done to the nature of man than what is already done it by this grace of union Nor are our persons capable of an higher glory than what consists in their conformity to this glorious head Indeed the flesh of Christ will ever have a distinct glory from ours in Heaven by reason of this Union For being the the Body which the word assumed it is two ways advanced singularly above the Flesh and Blood of all other men viz. Subjectively and Objectively Subjectively it is the Flesh and Blood of God Acts 20.28 And so hath a distinct and incommunicable glory of its own And Objectively it is the Flesh and Blood which all the Angels and Saints adore But though in these things it be supereminently exalted yet it is both the Medium and Pattern of all that glory which God designs to raise us to Vse 8. Lastly How wonderful a comfort is it that he who dwells in our Flesh is God! What Joy may not a poor believer make out of this What comfort one made out of it I will give you in his own words I see it a work of God saith he that experiences are all lost when Summons of improbation to prove our Charters of Christ to be counterfeit are raised against poor Souls in their heavy Tryals But let me be a sinner and worse than the chief of Sinners yea a guilty Devil I am sure my well beloved is God And my Christ is God And when I say my Christ is God I have said all things I can say no more I would I could build as much on this My Christ is God as it would bear I might lay all the world upon it God and Man in one Person Oh thrice happy conjunction As Man he is full of experimental sence of our Infirmities Wants and Burdens and as God he can support and and supply them all The aspect of Faith upon this wonderful Person how relieving how reviving how abundantly satisfying is it God will never divorce the believing Soul and its comfort after he hath marryed our nature to his own Son by the Hypostatical and our persons also by the blessed Mystical Union The SIXTH SERMON JOH VI. XXVII For him hath God the Father Sealed YOU have heard Christs compact or agreement with the Father in the Covenant of Redemption As also what the Father did in pursuance of the ends thereof in giving his Son out of his bosom c. Also what the Son hath done towards it in assuming Flesh. But though the glorious work be thus far advanced yet all he
of blessing but he knew the effect the real blessing it self depended upon God And though he blessed authoritatively yet not potestatively i. e. he could as the mouth of God pronounce blessings but could not confer them Thus he blessed his Children as his Father Isaack has also blessed him before he died Gen. 28.3 and all these blessings were delivered prayerwise Now when Jesus Christ comes to die he will bless his Children also And therein will discover how much dear and tender love he had for them having loved his own which were in the world he loved them to the end Joh. 13.1 the last Act of Christ in this world was an act of blessing Luk. 24.50 51. To prepare this point for use I will here open First The mercies which Christ requested of the Father for them Secondly The Arguments used by him to obtain these mercies Thirdly Why he thus pleaded for them when he was to die Fourthly and Lastly How all this gives full evidence of Christs tender care and love to his people First We will enquire what those mercies and special favours were which Christ beg'd for his people when he was to die And we find among others these five special mercies desired for them in this context First The mercy of preservation both from sin and danger so in the text Keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me which is explained vers 15. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil We in ours and the Saints that are gone in their respective generations have reaped the fruit of this prayer How else comes it to pass that our souls are persecuted amidst such a world of Temptations and these assisted and advantaged by our own corruptions How is it else that our persons are not ruined and destroyed amidst such multitudes of potent and malitious enemies that are set on fire of Hell Surely the preservation of the burning bush of the three children amidst the flames of Daniel in the den of Lyons are not greater wonders than these our eyes do daily behold As the fire would have certainly consumed and the Lyons without doubt have rended and devoured had not God by the interposition of his own hand stopt and hindered the effect so would the sin that is in us and the malice that is in others quickly ruine our souls and bodies were it not that the same hand gardâ— and keeps us every moment To that hand into which this prayer of Christ delivered your souls and bodies do you owe all your mercies and Salvations both Temporal and Spiritual Secondly Another mercy he prays for is the blessing of union among themselves This he joins immediately with the first mercy of preservation and prays for it in the same breath vers 11. that they may be one as we are And well might he joyn them together in one breath for this union is not only a choise mercy in it self but a special means of that preservation he had prayed for before Their union one with another is a special means to preserve them all Thirdly A third desirable mercy that Christ earnestly prayed for was that his joy might be fulfilled in them vers 13. He would provide for their joy even when the hour of his greatest sorrow was at hand Yea he would not only obtain joy for them but a full joy that my joy may be fulfilled in them It is as if he had said O my Father I am to leave these dear ones in a world of troubles and perplexities I know their hearts will be subject to frequent despondencies O let me obtain the cordials of divine joy for them before I go I would not only have them live but live joyfully Provide for their fainting hours reviving cordials Fourthly And as a continued spring to maintain all the forementioned mercies He prays they all may be sanctified through the word of truth vers 17. i. e. more abundantly sanctified than yet they were by a deeper radication of gratious habits and principles in their hearts This is a singular mercy in it self to have holiness spreading it self over and through their sâ—uls as the light of the morning Nothing is for it self more desirable And it 's also a singular help to their perseverance union and spiritual joy which he had prayed for before and are all advanced by their increasing Sanctification Fifthly Lastly As the complement and perfection of all desireable mercies he prays that they may be with him where he is to behold his glory vers 24. This is their best and ultimate priviledge they are capable of The end of his coming down from Heaven and returning thither again All runs into this to bring many Sons and daughters unto glory You see Christ asks no trifles no small things for his people No mercies but the best that both worlds afford will suffice him on their behalf Secondly Let us see how he follows his requests and with what arguments he pleads with the Father for these things And among others I shall single out six choice ones which are urged in this Text or the immediate context First Argument is drawn from the joint interest that both himself and Father have in the persons for whom he prays All mine are thine and thine are mine vers 10. As if he should say Father behold and consider the persons I pray for they are not aliens but children yea they are thy children as well as mine The very same on whom thou hast set thy eternal love and in that love hast given them unto me So that they are both thine and mine Great is our interest in them and interest draws care and tenderness Every one cares for his own provides for and secures his own Propriety even amongst creatures is fundamental to our labour care and watchfulness They would not so much prize life health estates or children if they were not their own Lord these are thine own by many ties and titles O therefore keep comfort sanctifie and save them for they are thine What a mighty plea is this Surely Christians your Intercessor is skilful in his work your Advocate wants no eloquence or ability to plead for you The Second Argument and that a powerful one treads as I may say upon the very heel of the former in the next words And I am glorified in them q. d. My glory and honour is infinitely dear to thee I know thy heart is set intently upon the exalting and glorifying of thy Son now what glory have I in the world but what comes from my people Others neither can nor will glorifie me Nay I am daily blasphemed and dishonoured by them These are they from whom my active glory and praise in the world must rise 'T is true both thou and I have glory from other creatures objectively the works that we have made and imprest our power wisdom and goodness upon do so glorifies us And honour
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
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
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
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
should act in that assumed Body had been invallid and vain without a due call and Commission from the Father so to do Which is the import of the words now before you This Scripture is a part of Christs excellent reply to a self-ended generation who followed him not for any Spiritual excellencies that they saw in him or Soul advantages they expected by him but for bread Insteed of making his service their meat and drink they only served him that they might eat and drink Self is a thing may creep into the best hearts and actions but it only predominates in the Hypocrite These people had sought Christ from place to place and having at last found him they salute him with an impertinent complement Rabbi when camest thou hither vers 25. Christs reply is partly disswasive and partly directive He disswades them from puting the secondary and subordinate in the place of the principal and ultimate end Not to prefer their Bodies to their Souls Their fleshly accommodations to the glory of God Labour not for the meat that perisheth Wherein he doth not take them off from their lawful labours and callings but he disswades them first from minding these things too intently and secondly he disswades them from that odious Sin of making Religion but a pretence for the belly And it is partly directive and that in the main end and business of Life But labour for that meat which endures to Eternal Life To get bread for your Souls to live Eternally by And that he might engage their diligence in seeking it to purpose he shews them not only where they may have it Which the Son of Man shall give you but also how they may be fully satisfied that he hath it for them in the clause I have pitched on For him hath God the Father Sealed In these words are three parts observable First The Person Sealing or investing Christ with Authority and Power Which is said to be God the Father Though all the Persons in the Godhead are equal in nature dignity and power yet in their operation there is an order observed among them The Father sends the Son The Son is sent by the Father The Holy Ghost is sent by both Secondly The Subject in which God the Father lodges this Authority Him that is the Son of Man Jesus Christ he is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first receptacle of it And he must here be understood exclusively God the Father hath so Sealed him as he never Sealed any other before him or that shall arise after him No name is given in heaven or earth but this name by which we are Saved Acts 4.12 The government is upon his shoulders Isa. 9. Thirdly Here is farther observable the way and manner of the Fathers delegating and committing this Authority to Christ. And that is by Sealing him Where we have both a Metonymie the Symbal of Authority being put for the Authority it self And a Metaphor Sealing which is a humane act for the ratifying and confirming an Instrument or grant being here applied to God Like as Princes by Sealed Credentials confirm the Authority of those that are sent by them As the Dutch Annatators well express the meaning of it Hence we Note DOCT. That Iesus Christ did not of himself undertake the work of our Redemption but was solemnly Sealed unto that work by God the Father When I say he did not of himself undertake this work I mean not that he was unwilling to go about it for his heart was as fully and ardently engaged in it as the Fathers was so he tells us Psal. 4.7 Loe I come to do thy will O God thy Law is in my heart But the meaning is he came not without a due call and full commission from his Father And so it is to be understood in opposition to intrusion not voluntary susception And this is the meaning of that Scripture Ioh. 8.42 I proceeded and came from God neither came I of my self but he sent me And this the Apostle plainly expresseth and fully clears Heb. 5.4 5. And no man taketh this honour to himself but he that is call'd of God as was Aaron so also Christ glorified not himself to be made an High-Priest but he that said unto him thou art my Son And on the account of these Sealed Credentials he received from his Father he is called the Apostle and High-Priest of our profession Heb. 3.1 i. e. One called and sent forth by the Fathers Authority Our present business then is to open Christs commission and view the great Seal of Heaven by which it was ratified And to preserve a clear Method in the explication of this great truth into which your Faith and comfort is resolved I shall First shew what was the work and office to which the Father Sealed him Secondly What his Sealing to this work doth imply Thirdly How and by what acts the Father Sealed him to it Fourthly Why it was necessary that he should be thus Sealed and authorized by his Father And then improve it in its proper Uses What was that office or work to which his Father Sealed him I answer more generally he was Sealed to the whole work of mediation for us thereby to recover and save all the elect whom the Father had given him So Ioh. 17.2 It was to give Eternal Life to as many as were given him It was to bring Iacob again to him Esa. 49.5 Or as the Apostle expresses it Pet. 3.18 That he might bring us to God More particularly in order to the sure and full effecting of this most glorious design he was Sealed to the offices of a Prophet Priest and King that so he might bring about and compass this work First God Sealed him a commission to Preach the glad tidings of Salvation to sinners This commission Christ opened and read in the audience of the people Luk. 4.18 19 20 21. And when he had opened the Book he found the place where it is written the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath annointed me to Preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted to Preach deliverance to the Captives and the recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised To Preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the Book c. And he began to say unto them this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears He also Sealed him to the Priesthood and that the most excellent Authorizing him to execute both the parts of it viz. Oblatory and intercessory He call'd him to offer up himself a Sacrifice for us I have power saith he to lay down my Life this commandment have I received of my Father Joh. 10.18 And upon that account his offering up of his Blood is by the Apostle stiled an act of obedience as it is Phil. 2.8 He became obedient unto death He also call'd him to intercede for us Heb. 7.21 24 25.
Thâ—se Priests were made without an Oath but this with an Oath by him that said unto him the Lord Sware and will not repent thou art a Priest for ever Because his Sacrifice is vertually continued in his living for ever to make intercession As it is vers 24. Yea he call'd him to his Regal office he was set upon the highest throne of Authority by his Fathers commission as it is Matth. 28.18 All power in heaven and earth is given to me To all this was Christ Sealed and Authorized by his Father What doth the Fathers Sealing of Christ to this work and office imply There are divers things implyed in it As First The validity and efficacy of all his mediatory acts For by vertue of this his Sealing what ever he did was fully ratified And in this very thing lies much of a believers comfort and security For as much as all acts done without commission and authority how great or able so ever the person that doth them is yet are in themselves null and void But what is done by commission and authority is Authentick and most allowable among men Had Christ come from heaven and entred upon his Mediatory work without a due call our Faith had been stumbled at the very threshold but this greatly satisfies Secondly It imports the great obligation lying upon Jesus Christ to be faithful in the work he was Sealed to For the Father in this commission devolves a great trust upon him and relies upon him for his most faithful discharge thereof And indeed upon this very accompt Christ reckons himself specially obliged to pursue the Fathers design and end Ioh. 9.4 I must work the works of him that sent me And Joh. 5.30 I seek not my own will but the will of the Father which sent me Sâ—ill his â—ye is upon that Work and Will of his Father And he reckons himself under a necâ—ssity of punctual and precise obedience to it And as a faithful servant will have his own will swallowed up in the Fathers will Thirdly It imports Christs compleat qualification or instumental fitnâ—ss to serve the Fathers design and end in our recovery Had not God known him to be every way fit and qualified for the Work he would never have Sealed him a commission for it Mâ—n may but God will not Seal an unfit or incapable person for his work And indeed what ever is desirable in a servant was eminently found in Christ. For faithfulness none like him Moses indeed was faithful to a Pin but still as a Servant but Christ as a Son Heb. 3.2 He is the faithful and true witnâ—ss Rev. 1.5 For Zeal none like him The Zeal of Gods house did eat him up Ioh. 2.16 17. He was so intent upon his Fathers work that he forgat to eat bread counting his work his meat and drink Ioh. 4.32 Yea and love to his Father carryed him on through all his work and made him delight in the hardest piece of his service For he served him as a Son Heb 3.5 6. All that ever he did was done in love For wisdom none like him The Father knew him to be most wise and said of him before he was imploy'd Behold my Servant shall deal prudently Isa 52.13 To conclude for self-denial never any like him he sought not his own glory but the glory of him that sent him Ioh. 8.50 Had he not been thus faithful Zealous full of love prudent and self-denying he had never been imployed in this great affair Fourthly It implys Christs sole authority in the Church to appoint and enjoyn what he pleaseth And this is his peculiar prerogative For the Commission God Sealed him in the Text is a single not a joynt Commission he hath Sealed him and none beside him Indeed there were some that pretended a call and commission from God but all that were before him were Thieves and Robbers that came not in at the door as he did Ioh. 10.8 And he himself foretels that after him some should arise and labour to deceive the world with a feigned Commission and a counterfeit Seal Matth. 24.24 There shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect. But God never commissionated any besides him neither is there any other name under heaven Acts 4.12 Thus you see how the validity of his Acts his obligation to be faithful His compleat qualifications and sole Authority in the Church are imported in his Sealing Next Let us enquire how God the Father Sealed Jesus Christ to this work and we shall find that He was Sealed by four acts of the Father First By Solemn designation to this work He singled him out and set him apart to it and therefore the Prophet Isaiah cap. 42. vers 1. Calls him Gods Elect. And the Apostle Peter 1 Pet. 2.4 Chosen of God This word which we render Elect doth not only signifie one that in himself is eximious worthy and excellent but also one that is set apart and designed as Christ was for the work of mediation And so much is carryed in Ioh. 10.36 Where the Father is said to sanctifie him i e. to separate and devote him to this Service Secondly He was Sealed not only by Solemn designation but also by Supereminent and unparalell'd Sanctification He was annointed as well as appointed to it The Lord filled him with the spirit and that without measure to qualify him for this Service So Isa. 61.1 2 3. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath annointed me to Preach c. Yea the spirit of the Lord was not only upon him but he was full of the Spirit Luk. 4.1 And so full as never was any beside him For God annointed him with the oyl of gladness above his fellows Psal. 45.7 Believers are his fellows or copartners of this Spirit They have an annointing also but not as Christ had In him it dwelt in its fullness in them according to measure It was poured out on Christ our head abundantly and ran down to the hem of his garment God gave not the Spirit to him by measure Ioh. 3.34 God filled Christs humane nature to the utmost capacity with all fulness of the Spirit of knowledge wisdom love c. Beyond all Creatures for the plenary and more effectual administration of his mediatorship He was full extensively with all kinds of grace And full intensively with all degrees of grace It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col 1.19 As light in the Sun or water in a Fountain that he might not only fill all things as the Apostle speaks Eph. 1.22 But that he might be prompt expedite and every way fit to discharge his own work which was the next and mediate end of it So that the holy oyl that was poured out upon the heads of Kings and Priests whereby they were consecrated to their offices
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
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
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
consider the nature of his intercession which is Just and reasonable for the matter urgent and continual for the manner of it the matter of his request is most equal What he desires is not desired gratis or upon terms unbecoming the holiness and righteousness of God to grant He desires no more but what he hath deserved and given a valuable consideration to the Father for And so the Justice of God doth not only oppose but furthers and pleads for the granting and fulfilling his requests Here you must remember that the Father is under a covenant-tye and bond to do what he asks for Christ having fully performed the work on his part the mercies he intercedes for are as due as the hire of the labourer is when the work is faithfully done And as the matter is just so the manner of his intercession is urgent and continual How importunate a suiter he is may be easily gathered from that specimen or handsel given of it in Ioh. 17. and for the constancy of it my text tells us he ever lives to make Intercession 'T is his great business in Heaven and he follows it close And to close all Fourthly Consider who they are for whom he makes Intercession The friends of God The children of God Those that the Father himself loves and his heart is propense and ready enough to grant the best and greatest of mercies to which is the meaning of Ioh. 16.26 27. the Father himself loveth you And it must needs be so for the first corner stone of all these mercies was laid by the Father himself in his most free election He also delivered his Son for us and how shall he not with him freely give us all things Rom. 8.32 So then there can remain no doubt upon a considering heart but Christ is a prevalent and successful Intercessor in Heaven There only remains one thing more to be satisfied and that is Fourthly In what sense he is said to live for ever to make intercession Shall he then be always at his work Imployed in begging new favours for us to eternity How then shall the people of God be perfect in Heaven if there be need of Christs Intercession to eternity for them I answer by distinguishing the essence and substance of Christs offices from the way and manner of Administration In the first sense it is eternal for his mediatory Kingdom as to the essence of it is to abide for ever Christ shall never cease to be a Mediator The Church shall never want an Head For of his Kingdom there shall be no end Luk. 1.33 However Christ as Mediator being employed in a kind of subordinate way 1 Cor. 3.23 when he shall have accomplished that design for which he became a Mediator then shall he deliver up the Kingdom in the sence we spake before to the Father and so God shall be all in all 1 Cor. 15.24 Then shall the divinity of Christ which was so empty and obscured in his undertaking this temporary dispensatory Kingdom be more gloriously manifested by the full possession use and enjoyment of that natural divine eternal Kingdom which belongs to all three co-essential and co-equal persons reigning with the same Power Majesty and glory in the unity of the divine essence and common Acts in all and over all infinitely and immutably for ever And so Christ continues to be our Mediator and yet that affords no argument that our happiness shall be incompleat but rather argues the perfection of the Church which thenceforth shall be governed no more as now it is nor have any further use of Ordinances but shall be ruled more immediately gloriously triumphantly and ineffably in the world to come The substance of his mediatorship is not changed but the manner of the administration only Vse 1. Doth Christ live for ever in Heaven to present his blood to God in the way of intercession for believers How sad then is their case that have no interest in Christs blood but instead of its pleading for them cries to God against them as the despisers and abusers of it Every unbeliever despises it The Apostate treads it underfoot He that is an intercessor for some will be an accuser of others To be guilty of a mans blood is sad but to have the blood of Jesus accusing and crying to God against a soul is unspeakably terrible Surely when he shall make inquisition for blood when the day of his vengeance is come he will make it appear by the Judgements he will execute that this is a sin never to be expiated but vengeance shall pursue the sinner to the bottom of Hell Ah what do men and women do in rejecting the gratious offers of Christ What tread upon a Saviour and cast contempt by unbelief and hardness of heart upon their only remedy I remember I have read of an harlot that kill'd her child and said that it smiled upon her when she went to stab it Sinner doth not Christ smile upon thee yearn upon thee in the Gospel and wilt thou as it were stab him to the heart by thine infideliâ—y Wo and alas for that man against whom this blood cries in Heaveâ— Vse 2. Doth Christ live for ever to make intercession Hence let believers fâ—tch relief and draw encouragement against all the causes and grounds of their fears and troubles For surely this answers them all First Hence let them be encouraged against all their sinful infirmities and lamented weaknesses 'T is confessed these are sad things they grieve the spirit of God sadden your own hearts cloud your evidences but having such an High-Priest in Heaven can never be your ruine 1 Joh. 2.1 2. My little children these things write I unto you that you sin not And if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous My little children children especially little children when first beginning to take the foot are apt to stumble at every straw So are raw young and unexperienced Christians but what if they do Why though it must be far from them to take incouragement so to do from Christ and his intercession yet if by surprizal they so sin let them not be utterly discouraged for we have an Advocate He stops whatever plea may be brought in against us by the Devil or the Law and answers all by his satisfaction He gets out fresh pardons for new sins And this Advocate is with the Father he doth not say with his Father though that had been a singular support in it self nor yet with our Father which is a sweet encouragement singly considered but with the Father which takes in both to make the encouragement full Remember ye that are cast down under the sense of sin that Jesus your friend in the Court above is able to save to the uttermost Which is as one calls it a reaching word and extends it self so far that thou canst not look beyond it Let thy soul be set on the highest mount
in its worth and dignity Since then there is not a whole world no not half but the far less part of the world redeemed by the blood of Christ which was sufficient for so many how great must be the surplusage and redundancy of merit Here our Divines rightly distinguish betwixt the substance and accidents of Christs death and obedience Consider that Christs suffering as to the substance of it it was no more than what the Law required For neither the justice nor love of the Father would permit that Christ should suffer more than what was necessary for him to bear as our surety but as to the circumstances the person of the sufferer the cause and efficacy of his sufferings c. it was much more than sufficient A super legale meritum a merit above and beyond what the Law required For though the Law required the death of the sinner who is but a poor contemptible creature it did not require that one perfectly innocent should die It did not require that God should shed his blood It did not require blood of such value and worth as this was I say none of this the Law required though God was pleased for the advancement and manifestation of his Justice and Mercy in the highest to admit and order this by way of commutation admitting him to be our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or ransomer by dying for us And indeed it was a most gratious relaxation of the Law that admitted of such a commutation as this for hereby it comes to pass that Justice is fully satisfied and yet we live and are saved which before was a thing that could not be imagined Yea now we are not only redeemed from wrath by the adequate compensation made for our sins by Christs blood and sufferings substantially considered but to a most glorious inheritance purchased by his blood considered as the blood of an Innocent as the blood of God and therefore as most excellent and efficatious blood above what the Law demanded And this is the meaning of Athanasius when he saith that Christ recompensed or made amends for small things with great He means not that sin considered absolutely and in it self is small O no but compared with Christs blood and the infinite excellency and worth of it it is so And Chrysostom to the same purpose Christ paid much more saith he than we owed and so much more as the immense Ocean is more than a small drop So that it was rightly determined by holy Anselme no man saith he can pay to God what he owes him Christ only paid more than he owed him And by this you see how rich a treasure there lies by Christ to bestow in a purchase for us beyond and above what he paid to redeem us even as much as his soul and body was more worth than ours for whom it was sacrificed and that is so great a sum that all the Angels in Heaven and men on earth can never compute and sum up so as to shew us the total of it And this was that inexhaustible treasure that Christ expended to procure and purchase the fairest inheritance for Believers Having seen the treasure that purchased let us next enquire into the inheritance purchased by it Secondly This inheritance is so large that it cannot be surveyed by creatures nor can the boundaries and limits thereof be described for it comprehends all things 1 Cor. 3.22 All is yours ye are Christs and Christ is Gods Revel 21.7 He that overcomes shall inherit all things And yet I do not think or say that Dominium fundatur in gratia that Temporal Dominion in founded in grace No that 's at the cast and dispose of providence but Christ by his death hath restored a right to all things to his people But to be more particular I shall distribute the Saints inheritance purchased by Christ into three heads All Temporal good things all Spiritual good things and all Eternal good things are theirs First All Temporal good things 1 Tim. 6.7 He hath given us all things richly to enjoy Not that they have the possession but the comfort and benefit of all things Others have the sting gall wormwood bayts and snares of the creature Saints only have the blessing and comfort of it So that this little which a Righteous man hath is in this among other respects better than the treasures of many wicked Which is the true key to open that dark saying of the Apostle 2 Cor. 6.10 as having nothing and yet possessing all things They only possess others are possessed by the world The Saints do uti mundo frui Deo use the world and enjoy God in the use of it Others are deceived defiled and destroyed by the world but these are refresht and furthered by it Secondly All Spiritual good things are purchased by the blood of Christ for them As justification which comprizes remission of sins and acceptation of our persons by God Rom. 3.24 Being Iustified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ. Sanctification is also purchased for them Yea both initial and progressive sanctification For of God he is made unto us not only wisdom and righteousness but sanctification also 1 Cor. 1.30 These two viz. our Justification and Sanctification are two of the most rich and shining robes in the wardrobe of free-grace How glorious and lovely do they render the soul that wears them These are like the Bracelets and Jewels Isaack sent to Rebecca Adoption into the family of God is purchased for us by this blood For ye are all the children of God by faith in Iesus Christ Gal 3.26 Christ as he is the Son is haeres natus the heir by nature as he is Mediator he is haeres constitutus the heir by appointment appointed heir of all things as it is Heb. 1.2 By this Sonship of Christ we being united to him by faith become Sons and if Sons then heirs O what a manner of love is this that we should be called the Sons of God 1 Joh. 3.1 That a poor beggar should be made an heir yea an heir of God and a joynt heir with Christ. Yea that very faith which is the bond of union and consequently the ground of all our communion with Christ is the purchase of his blood also 2 Pet. 1.1 To them that have obtained like pretious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Iesus Christ. This most pretious grace is the dear purchase of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yea all that peace joy and spiritual comfort which are sweet fruits of faith are with it purchased for us by this blood So speaks the Apostle in Rom. 5.1 2 3. Being Iustified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ c. moreover the Spirit himself who is the Author Fountain and Spring of all these graces and comforts is procured for us by his death and resurrection Gal. 3.13 14. Christ
how apt are we to regret at providences as if it had no conducency at all to the glory of God or to our good Exod. 5.22 Yea to limit providence to our way and time thus the Israelites tempted God and limited the Holy One Psal. 78.20 41. How often also do we unbelievingly distrust providence as though it could never accomplish what we profess to expect and believe Ezek. 37.11 Our bones are dry our hope is lost we are cut off for our part So Gen. 18.13 14. Isai. 40.27 There are but few Abrahams among believers who against hope believed in hope giving glory to God Rom. 4.20 And it is but too common for good men to repine and fret at providence when their wills lusts or humours are crossed by it This was the great sin of Ionah Brethren these things ought not to be so Did you but seriously consider either the design of providence which is to bring about the gratious designs and purposes of God upon you which were laid before this world was Eph. 1.11 or that it is a lifting up of thy wisdom against his as if thou couldst better order thine affairs if thou hadst the conduct and management of them Or that you have to do herein with a great and dreadful God in whose hands you are as the clay in the Potters hand that may do what he will with you and all that is yours without giving you an account of any of his matters Iob 33.13 Or whether providence hath cast others as good by nature as your selves tumbled them down from the top of health wealth honours and pleasures to the bottom of Hell Or Lastly Did you but consider how often it hath formerly baffled and befool'd your selves Made you retract with shame your rash headlong censures of it and enforced you by the sight of its births and issues to confess your folly and ignorance as Asaph did Psal. 73.22 I say if such considerations as these could but have place with you in your troubles and temptations they would quickly mould your hearts into a better and more quiet frame O that I could but perswade you to resign all to Christ. He is a cunning workman as he he is called Prov. 8.30 and can effect what he pleaseth It 's a good rule de operibus Dei non est judicandum ante quintum actum Let God work out all that he intends have but patience till he hath put the last hand to his work and then find fault with it if you can You have heard of the patience of Iob and have seen the end of the Lord. Iam. 5.11 Inference 3. If Christ be Lord and King over the providential Kingdom and that for the good of his people let none that are Christs henceforth stand in a slavish fear of creatures It 's a good note that Grotius hath upon my text It 's a marvailous consolation saith he that Christ hath so great an Empire and that he governs it for the good of his people as an head consulting the good of the body Our Head and Husband is Lord General of all the Hosts of Heaven and Earth No creature can move hand or tongue without his leave or order The power they have is given them from above Ioh. 19.11 12. The serious consideration of this truth will make the feeblest spirit cease trembling and fall a singing Psal. 47.7 The Lord is King of all the earth sing ye praises with understanding that is as some well paraphase it every one that hath understanding of this comfortable truth Hath he not given you abundant security in many express promises that all shall issue well for you that fear him Rom. 8.28 All things shall work together for good to them that love God And Eccles. 8.12 Verily it shall be well with them that fear God even with them that fear before him And suppose he had not yet the very understanding of our relation to such a King should in it self be sufficient security For he is the universal supream absolute meek and merciful victorious and immortal King He sits in glory at the Fathers right hand and to make his seat the easier his enemies are a footstool for him His love to his people is unspeakably tender and fervent He that touches them touches the apple of his eye Zech. And it 's hardly imaginable that Jesus Christ will sit still and suffer his enemies to thrust out his eyes Till this be forgotten the wrath of man is not feared Isai. 51.12 13. He that fears a man that shall die forgets the Lord his Maker he loves you too well to sign any order to your prejudice and without his order none can touch you Inference 4. If the Government of the world be in the hands of Christ then our engaging and entitling of Christ to all our affairs and business is the true and ready way to their success and prosperity if all depend upon his pleasure then sure it 's your wisdom to take him along with you to every action and business It 's no lost time that 's spent in prayer wherein we ask his leave and beg his presence with us And take it for a clear truth that which is not prefaced with prayer will be followed with trouble How easily can Jesus Christ dash all your designs when they are at the very birth and article of execution and break off in a moment all the purposes of your hearts It 's a Proverb among the Papists that Mass and Meat hinder no nan The Turks will pray five times a day how urgent soever their business be Blush you that enterprise your affairs without God I reckon that business as good as done to which we have gotten Christs leave and engaged his presence to accompany us to it Inference 5. Lastly Eye Christ in all the events of providence see his hand in all that befals you whether it be evil or good The works of the Lord are great sought out of all them that have pleasure therein Psal. 111.2 How much good might we get by observation of the good or evil that befals us throughout our course First In all the evils of trouble and affliction that befal you eye Jesus Christ in it all And set your hearts to the study of these four things in affliction First Study his Soveraignty and Dominion For he creates and forms them They rise not out of the dust nor do they befal you casually But he raises them up and gives them their commission Jer. 18.11 Behold I create evil and devise a device against you He elects the instrument of your trouble He makes the rod as afflictive as he pleaseth He orders the continuance and end of your troubles And they will not cease to be afflictive to you till Christ say leave off it is enough The Centurion wisely considered this when He told him Luk. 7.8 I have souldiers under me and I say to one go and
he goeth to another come and he cometh meaning that as his souldiers were at his beck and command so diseases were at Christs beck to come and go as he ordered them Secondly Study the wisdom of Christ in the contrivance of your troubles And his wisdom shines out many waies in them It 's evident in choosing such kinds of troubles for you This and not that because this is more apt to work upon and purge out the corruption that most predominates in you In the decrees of your troubles Suffering them to work to such an height else not reach their end but no higher least they overwhelm you Thirdly Study the tenderness and compassions of Christ over his afflicted O think if the Devil had but the mixing of my cup how much more bitter would he make it There would not be one drop of mercy no not of sparing mercy in it which is the lowest of all sorts of mercy But here is much mercy mixed with my troubles There is mercy in this that it is no worse Am I afflicted it 's the Lords mercy I am not consumed Lam. 3.22 it might have been Hell as well as this There is mercy in his supports under it Others have and I might have been left to sink and perish under my burdens Mercy in deliverance out of it This might have been everlasting darkness that should never have had a morning O the tenderness of Christ over his afflicted Fourthly Study the love of Christ to thy soul in affliction Did he not love thee he would not sanctifie a rod to humble or reduce thee but let thee alone to rot and perish in thy sin Rev. 3.19 whom I love I rebuke and chasten This is the device of love to recover thee to thy God and prevent thy ruine O what an advantage would it be thus to study Christ in all your evils that befal you Secondly Eye and study Christ in all the good you receive from the hand of providence Turn both sides of your mercies and view them in all their lovely circumstances First Eye them in their suitableness How conveniently Providence hath ordered all things for thee Thou hast a narrow heart and a small estate suitable to it Hadst thou more of the world it would be like a large sail to a little boat which would quickly pull thee under water Thou hast that which is most suitable to thee of all conditions Secondly Eye the seasonableness of thy mercies how they are timed to an hour Providence brings forth all its fruits in due season Thirdly Eye the peculiar nature of thy mercies Others have common thou special ones Others have but a single thou a double sweetness in thy enjoyments one natural from the matter of it another spiritual from the way in which and end for which it comes Fourthly Observe the order in which providence sends you your mercies See how one is linked strangely to another and is a door to let in many Sometimes one mercy is introductive to a thousand Fifthly and Laslty Observe the constancy of them they are new every morning Lam. 3.23 How assiduously doth God visit thy soul and body Think with thy self if there were but a suspension of the care of Christ for one hour that hour would be thy ruine Thousands of evils stand round about thee watching when Christ will but remove his eye from thee that they may rush in and devour thee Could we thus study the providence of Christ in all the good and evil that befalls us in the world then in every state we should be content Phil. 4.11 Then we should never be stopt but furthered in our way by all that falls out Then would our experiences swell to great volumes which we might carry to Heaven with us And then should we answer all Christs ends in every state he brings us into Do this and say Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ. The EIGHTEENTH SERMON PHIL. II. VIII And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the Cross. YOU have heard how Christ was invested with the Offices of Prophet Priest and King for the carrying on the blessed design of our Redemption the excution of these Offices necessarily required that he should be both deeply abased and highly exalted He cannot as our Priest offer up himself a Sacrifice to God for us except he be humbled and humbled to death He cannot as a King powerfully apply the vertue of that his Sacrifice except he be exalted yea highly exalted Had he not stooped to the low estate of a man he had not as a Priest had a Sacrifice of his own to offer as a Prophet he had not been fit to teach us the will of God so as that we should be able to bear it as a King he had not been a suitable head to the Church And had he not been highly exalted that Sacrifice had not been carried within the vail before the Lord. Those discoveries of God could not have been universal effectual and abiding The Government of Christ could not have secured protected and defended the Subjects of his Kingdom The infinite wisdom prospecting all this ordered that Christ should first be deeply humbled then highly exalted both which states of Christ are presented to us by the Apostle in this context He that intends to build high lays the foundation deep and low Christ must have a distinct glory in Heaven transcending that of Angels and men For the Saints will know him from all others by his glory as the Sun is known from the lesser Stars And as he must be exalted infinitely above them so he must first in order thereunto be humbled and abased as much below them His form was mar'd more than any mans and his visage more than the Sons of men The ground colours are a deep sable which afterward are laid on with all the splendor and glory of Heaven Method requires that we first speak to this state of Humiliation And to that purpose I have read this Scripture to you which pesents you the Sun under an almost total eclipse He that was beautiful and glorious Isai. 4.2 Yea glorious as the only begotten of the Father Ioh. 1.14 yea the glory Iames 2.1 Yea the splendor and brightness of the Fathers glory Heb. 1.3 was so vail'd clouded and debased that he looked not like himself a God no nor scarce as a man for with reference to this humbled state it 's said Psal. 22.6 I am a worm and no man q. d. rather write me worm than man I am become an abject among men as that word Isai. 53.3 signifies This humiliation of Christ we have here expressed in the nature degrees and duration or continuance of it First The nature of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he humbled himself The word imports both are all and voluntary abasement Real he did not personate a humbled man nor act the part of one in
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
he would never have mercy upon me and though I lived in the time of all manner of gratious dispensations I saw Sacrifices offered and Christ in the flesh and the Gospel preached yet how could all this choose but enrage me the more to have God as it were say look here Satan I have provided a remedy for sin but none for thine This set me upon revenge against God as far as I could reach him but alas alas had God entred into any Covenant with me at all had God put me on any terms though never so hard for the obtaining of mercy had Christ been but once offered to me what do you think would I have done c. O poor sinners your Damnation is Just if you refuse grace brought home by Christ himself to your very doors The Lord grant this may not be thy case who readest these lines Inference 4. Moreover here it follows that none doth or can love like Christ. His love to man is matchiess The freeness strength antiquity and immutability of it puts a luster on it beyond all examples Surely it was a strong love indeed that made him lay aside his glory to be found in fashion as a man to become any thing though never so much below himself for our Salvation We read of Ionathans love to David which passed the love of women Of Iacobs love to Rachel who for her sake endured the heat of summer and cold of winter Of Davids love to Absalom Of the Primitive Christians love to one another who could die one for another But neither had they that to deny that Christ had nor had he those inducements from the objects of his love that they had His love like himself is wonderful Inference 5. Did the Lord Jesus so deeply abase and humble himself for us what an engagement hath he thereby put on us to exalt and honour him who for our sakes was so abased It was a good saying of Bernard by how much the viler he was made for me by so much the dearer shall he be to me And O that all to whom Christ is dear would study to exalt and honour him these four ways First By frequent and delightful speaking of him and for him When Paul had once mentioned his name he knows not how to part with it but repeats it no less than ten times in the compass of ten verses in 1 Cor. 1. It was Lamberts motto none but Christ none but Christ. It 's said of Iohannes Molius that after his conversion he was seldom or never observed to mention the name Iesus but his eyes would drop so dear was Christ to him Mr. Fox never denied any begger that asked an alms in Christs name or for Jesus sake Iulius Palmer when all concluded he was dead being turned as black as a coal in the fire at last moved his scorched lips and was heard to say sweet Iesus and fell a asleep Plutarch tells us that when Titus Flaminius had freed the poor Graecians from the bondage with which they had been long ground by their oppressions and the Herald was to proclaim in their audience the Articles of peace he had concluded for them they so pressed upon him not being half of them able to hear that he was in great danger to have lost his life in the press at last reading them a second time when they came to understand distinctly how their case stood they so shouted for Joy crying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Saviour a Saviour that they made the very heavens ring again with their acclamations and the very Birds fell down astonisht And all that night the poor Graecians with instruments of musick and songs of praise danced and sang about his Tent extolling him as a God that had delivered them But surely you have more reason to be exalting the Author of your Salvation who at a dearer rate hath freed you from a more dreadful bondage O ye that have escaped the eternal wrath of God by the humiliation of the Son of God extol your great Redeemer and for ever celebrate his praises Secondly By acting your faith on him for whatsoever lies in the promises yet unaccomplished In this you see the great and most difficult promise fulfilled Gen. 3.15 The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head Which contained this mercy of Christs incarnation for us in it I say you see this fulfilled and seeing that which was most improbable and difficult is come to pass even Christ come in the flesh methinks our unbelief should be strangled for ever and all other promises the more easily believed It seemed much more improbable and impossible to reason that God should become a man and stoop to the condition of a creature than being a man to perform all that good which his incarnation and death procured Unbelief usually argues from one of these two grounds can God do this or will God do that It 's questioning either his power or his will but after this let it cease for ever to cavil against either His power to save should never be questioned by any that know what sufferings and infinite burdens he supported in our nature And surely his willingness to save should never be put to a question by any that consider how low he was content to stoop for our sakes Thirdly By drawing nigh to God with delight through the vail of Christs flesh Heb. 10.19.20 God hath made this flesh of Christ a vail betwixt the brightness of his glory and us It serves to rebate the insupportable glory and also to give admission to it as the vail did in the Temple Through this body of flesh which Christ assumed are all out-lets of grace from God to us and through it also must be all our returns to God again It 's made the great medium of our communion with God Fourthly By applying your selves to him under all temptations wants and troubles of what kind soever as to one that is tenderly sensible of your case and most willing and ready to relieve you Oh remember this was one of the inducements that perswaded and invited him to take your nature that he might be furnished abundantly with tender compassion for you from the sense he should have of your infirmities in his own body Heb. 2.17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethen that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people You know by this argument the Lord pressed the Israelites to be kind to strangers for saith he you know the heart of a stranger Exod. 23.9 Christ by being in our natures knows experimentally what our wants fears temptations and distresses are and so is able to have compassion O let your hearts work upon this admirable condescention of Christ till they be filled with it and your lips say Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ. 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
and their Manacles bracelets I remember it 's storied of Ludovicus Marsacus a Knight of France that when he with divers other Christians of an inferiour rank and degree in the world being condemned to die for Religion and the Jaylor had bound them with chains but did not bind him being a more honourable person than the rest He was offended greatly by that omission and said why do not you honour me with a Chain for Christ also and create me a Knight of that illustrious order To you saith the Apostle it 's given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe but also to suffer for his sake Phil. 1.29 There is a twofold honour attending the cross of Christ. One in the very sufferings themselves another as the reward and fruit of them To be called out to suffer for Christ is a great honour Yea an honour peculiar to the saints The damned suffer from Christ the wicked suffer for their sins The Angels glorifie Christ by their active but not by their passive obedience This is reserved as a special honour for saints And as there is a great deal of honour in being called forth to suffer on Christs account so Christ will confer special honour upon his suffering saints in the day of their reward Matth. 10.32 He that confesses me before men him will I confess also before my Father which is in Heaven O Sirs one of these days the Lord will break out of Heaven with a shout accompanied with Myriads of Angels and ten thousands of his Saints those glistering Courtiers of Heaven The heavens and earth shall flame and melt before him And it shall be very tempestious round about him the graves shall open the sea and earth yield up their dead You shall see him ascending the awful throne of Judgement and all flesh gathered before his face even multitudes multitudes that no man can number And then to be brought forâ—h by Christ before that great assembly of Angels and Saints and there to have an honourable mention and remembrance made of your labours and sufferings your pains patience and self-denial of all your sufferings and losses for Christ and to hear from his mouth well done good and faithful servant O what honour is this Yet this shall be done to the man that now chooses sufferings for Christ rather than sin that esteems his reproaches greater riches than the treasures of Aegypt I tell you it 's an honour the Angels have not I make no doubt but they would be glad had they bodies of flesh as we have to lay their necks on the block for Christ. But this is the Saints peculiar priviledge The Apostles went away from the council rejoyoing that they were honoured to be dishonoured for Christ or as we translate counted worthy to suffer shame for him Act. 5.41 Surely if there be any stigmata laudis marks of honour they are such as we receive for Christs sake If there be any shame that hath glory in it it is the reproach of Christ and the shame you suffer for his name Inference 5. Did Pilate so stiffly assert and defend the honour of Christ what doubt can then be made of the success of Christs interest and the prosperity of his cause when the very enemies thereof are made to serve it Rather than Christ shall want honour Pilate the man that condemned him shall do him honour And as it fared with his person just so with his interest also How often have the people of God received choice mercies from the hands of their enemies Rev. 12.16 the earth helped the woman i. e. wicked men did the Church service So that this may singularly relieve us against all our despondencies and fears of the miscarriage of the interest of Christ. That people can never be ruined who thrive by their losses conquer by being conquered multiply by being diminished Whose worst enemies are made to do that for them which friends cannot or dare not do See you a Heathen Pilate proclaiming the honour and innocency of Christ God will not want instruments to honour Christ by If others cannot his very enemies shall Inference 6. Did Pilate vindicate Christ in drawing up such a Title to be affixed to his cross then hence it follows that God will sooner or later clear up the innocency and integrity of his people who commit their cause to him Christs name was clouded with many reproaches Wounded through and through by the blasphemous tongues of his malitious enemies He committed himself to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2.23 and see how soon God vindicates him That 's sweet and seasonable counsel for us when our names are clouded with unjust censures Psal. 37.5 6. Commit thy way unto the Lord trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy Iudgement as the noon day Ioseph was accused of incontinency David of treason Daniel of disobedience Elijah of troubling Israel Ieremy of revolting Amos of preaching against the King The Apostles of sedition rebellion and alteration of Laws Christ himself of gluttony sorcery blasphemy sedition But how did all these honourable names wade out of their reproaches as the Sun out of a cloud God clear'd up their honour for them even in this world Slanders saith one are but as soap which though it soils and daubs for the present yet it helps to make the garment more clean and shining When hair is shaven it comes the thicker and with a new increase So when the Razor of censure hath saith one made your heads bare and brought on the baldness of reproach be not discouraged God hath a time to bring forth your righteousness as the light by an apparent conviction to dazel and discourage your adversaries The world was well changed when Constantine kissed the hollow of Paphnutius eye which was ere while put out for Christ. Scorn and reproach is but a little cloud that is soon blown over But suppose you should not be vindicated in this world but die under a cloud upon your names Be sure God will clear it up and that to purpose in that great day Then shall the righteous even in this respect shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father Then every detracting mouth shall be stopped And no more cruel arrows of reproach shot at the white of your reputation Be patient therefore my Brethren unto the coming of the Lord. The Lord comes with ten thousands of his Saints to execute Iudgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodlily committed And of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Jude 15. Then they shall retract their censures and alter their opinions of the Saints If Christ will be our Compurgator we need not fear who are our Accusers If your names for his sake be cast out as evil and spurned in the dirt Christ
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
us through faith and so we are actually reconciled And by the virtual continuation of the sacrifice of Christ in heaven by his potent and eternal intercession and so our state of reconciliation is confirmed and all future breaches prevented But all depends as you see upon the death of Christ. For had not Christ died his death could never be applied to us nor pleaded in heaven for us How the death of Christ meritoriously procures our reconciliation is evident from that forecited Scripture Rom. 5.10 When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son i. e. Christs death did meritoriously or virtually reconcile us to God who as to our state were enemies long after that reconciliation was made That the application of Chriâ—t to us by faith makes that virtual reconciliation to become actual is plain enough from Eph. 2.16.17 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross having slain the enmity thereby And came and Preached peace to you that were afar off and to them that were nigh Now therefore as it is added vers 19. Ye are no more strangers and foraigners but fellow Citizens with the Saints c. And that this state of friendship is still continued by Christs intercession within the vail so that there can be no breaches made upon the state of our peace notwithstanding all the daily provocations we give God by our sins is the comfortable truth which the Apostle plainly asserts after he had given a necessary caution to prevent the abuse of it in 1 Ioh. 2.1 2. My little children these things write I unto you that ye sin not and if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation c. Thus Christ reconciles us to God by his death Secondly And if you enquire why this reconciliation was made by the death of Christ rather than any other way Satisfaction is at hand in these two answers First That we can imagine no other way by which it could be compassed And Secondly If God could have Reconciled us as much by another way yet he could not have Obliged us so much by doing it in another way as he hath by doing it this way Surely none but he that was God manifest in our flesh could offer a sacrifice of sufficient value to make God amends for the wrong done him by one sin much less for all the sins of the Elect. And how God should especially after a peremptory threatening of death for sin re-admit us into favour without full satisfaction cannot be imagined He is indeed inclin'd to acts of mercy but none must suppose him to exercise one attribute in prejudice to another That his Iustice must be Eclipsed whilst his mercy shines But allow the infinite wisdom could have found out another means of reconciling us as much can you imagine that in any other way he could oblige us as much as he hath done by reconciling us to himself by the death of his own Son It cannot be thought possible This therefore was the most effectual just honourable and obliging way to make up the peace betwixt him and us Thirdly This reconciliation purchased by the blood of Christ is offered unto men by the Gospel upon certain Articles and conditions upon the performance whereof it actually becomes theirs and without which notwithstanding all that Christ hath done and suffered the breach still continues betwixt them and God And let no man think this a derogation from the freeness and riches of Grace for these things serve singularly to illustrate and commend the grace of God to sinners As he consulted his own glory in the terms on which he offers us our peace with him so 't is his grace which brings up souls to those terms of reconciliation And surely he hath not suspended the mercy of our reconciliation upon unreasonable or impossible conditions He hath not said if you will do as much for me as you have done against me I will be at peace with you But the two grand Articles of peace with God are Repentance and faith In the first we lay down arms against God and it 's meet it should be so before he re-admit us into a state of peace and favour in the other we accept Christ and pardon through him with a thankful heart yielding up our selves to his government Which is equally reasonable These are the terms on which we are actually reconciled to God Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon So Rom. 5.1 Being justified by faith we have peace with God And surely it would not become the holy God to own as his friend and favorite a man that goes on perversely and impenitently in the way of sin not so much as acknowledging or once bewailing the wrong he hath done him purposeing to do so no more or to receive into amity one that slights and rejects the Lord Jesus whose pretious blood was shed to procure and purchase peace and pardon for sinners But if there be any poor soul that saith in his heart it repents me for sinning against God and is sincerely willing to come to Christ upon Gospel terms he shall have peace And that peace Fourthly Is no common peace The reconciliation which the Lord Jesus died to procure for broken hearted believers it is First A firm well bottom'd reconciliation putting the reconciled soul beyond all possibility of coming under Gods wrath any more Isai. 54.10 Mountains may depart and hills be removed but the Covenant of this peace cannot be removed Christ is a surety by way of caution to prevent new breaches 2 Iohn 1.2 Secondly This reconciliation with God is the fountain out of which all our other comforts flow to us this is plainly carried in those words of Eliphaz to Iob. Chap. 22.21 Acquaint now thy self with him and be at peace thereby good shall come unto thee As trade flowrishes and riches come in when peace is made betwixt States and Kingdoms so all spiritual and temporal mercies flow into our bosoms when once we are reconciled to God What the comfort of such a peace will be in a day of straights and dangers and what it will be valued at in a dying day who but he that feels it can declare And yet such a one cannot fully declare it for it passes all understanding Phil. 4.7 We shall now make some improvement of this and pass on to the third end of the death of Christ. Inference 1. If Christ died to reconcile God and man How horrid an evil then is sin And how terrible was that breach made betwixt God and the creature by it which could no other way be made up but by the death of the Son of God! I remember I have read that when a great chasm or breach was made
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
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
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
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
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
gave us Commandment to Preach and testifie it to the people We had it in charge from his own mouth and dare not hide it Hence the point of Doctrine is plainly this DOCT. That our Lord Iesus Christ is ordained by God the Father to be the Iudge of quick and Dead This truth stands upon the firm basis of Scripture authority You have it from his own hand Ioh. 5.22 The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all Iudgement to the Son viz. in the sense before given And so the Apostle Act. 17.31 He hath appointed a day in the which he will Iudge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance c. And again Rom. 2.16 In the day when God shall Iudge the secrets of men by Iesus Christ. Three things will be opened here First the certainty of a Judgement to come Secondly the quality and nature of it Thirdly that it 's a special part of Christs Exaltation to be appointed Judge in this day First The certainty of a Judgement This is a truth of firmer establishment than Heaven and Earth It 's no devised fable no cunning artifice to keep the world in awe but a thing as confessedly true as it is awfully solemn For First As the Scriptures fore-mentioned with these 2 Cor. 5.10 Eccles. 12.14 Matth. 12.36 and many other the true and faithful sayings of God do very plainly reveal it so the Iustice and righteousness of God require it should be so For the Judge of all the earth will do right Gen. 18.25 Now righteousness it self requires that a difference be made betwixt the righteous and the wicked Say ye to the righteous it shall be well with him wo to the wicked it shall be ill with him Isa. 3.10 But no such distinction is generally and fully made betwixt one another in this world Yea rather the wicked prosper and the righteous perish There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness Eccles. 7.15 Yea not only in but for his righteousness as it may be fairly rendred Here the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than himself Hab. 1.14 As the fishes of the Sea where the great and strong swallow up the small and weak And even in Courts of Judicature where the innocent might expect relief there they often meet with the worst oppressions How fairly and justly therefore doth the wise man infer a Judgement to come from this consideration Eccles. 3.16 17. I saw under the Sun the place of Iudgement that wickedness was there and the place of righteousness that iniquity was there I said in my heart God shall Iudge the righteous and the wicked for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work q. d. the Judgement to come is the only relief and support left to poor innocents to quiet and Comfort themselves withal To the same purpose also is that Iam. 5.6 7. Ye have condemned and killed the Iust and he doth not resist you be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord. It is confest that sometimes God vindicates his providence against the Atheism of the world by particular strokes upon the wicked but this is but rare And as the Father well observes if no sin were punished here no providence would be believed again if every sin were openly punished here no Judgement hereafter could be expected Besides Secondly Man is a reasonable being and every reasonable being is an accountable being He is a capable subject of moral government His actions have relation to a Law He is swayd by rewards and punishments He acts by counsel and therefore of his actions he must expect to give an account as it is Rom. 14.12 So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God Especially if we add that all the gifts of body mind estate time c. are so many Talents concredited and betrusted to him by God and every one hath one Talent at least therefore a time to render an account for all these Talents will come Matth. 25.14 15. We are but Stewards and Stewards must give an account in order whereto there must be a great audit day Thirdly And what need we seek evidence of this truth further than our own conscience Lo it is a truth engraven legibly upon every mans own breast Every one hath a kind of little Tribunal or privy Sessions in his own conscience which both accuses and excuses for good and evil which it could never do were there not a future Judgement of which it is now conscious to it self In this Court Records are now kept of all that we do even of our secret actions and thoughts which never yet took air but if no Judgement what need of Records Nor let any imagine that that this may be but the fruit of education and discourse We have heard of such things and so are scared by them For if so how comes it to obtain so universally Who could be the Author of such a common deception Reader bethink thy self a little if thou hadst a mind as one saith to impose a lie upon all the world what course wouldst thou take How wouldst thou lay the design or why dost thou in this case imagine what thou knowest not how to imagine 'T is evident that the very consciences of the Heathens have these offices of accusing and excusing Rom. 2.15 And it 's hard to imagine as an ingenious Author speaks that a general Cheat should bow down the backs of all mankind and induce so many doubts and fears and troubles amongst them and give an interruption to the whole course of their corrupt living and that there should be no account of it And therefore it 's undoubted that such a day will come But I shall rather chuse in the Second place to open the nature and manner of this Judgement than to spend more time in proving a truth that cannot be denyed without violence offered to a mans own light If then the question be what manner of Judgement will this be I answer First It will be a great and awful day It 's called the Iudgement of the great day Jud. 6. Three things will make it so the manner of Christs coming The work he comes about And the issues or events of that work The manner of Christs coming will be awfully solemn For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the Trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air c. 1 Thes. 4.16.17 Here Christ breaks out of Heaven with the shouts of Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it signifies such a shout saith one as is to be heard among Seamen when after a long and dangerous voyage they first
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
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
47. Dying Parents presented with a pattern p. 262 263. Dignity of Christ proclaimed and defended by one of his greatest enemies p. 358. The Doctrine of Christ the most excellent doctrine p. 3 4 5. It s knowledge sufficient to our salvation p. 7. Doctrines what the proper test of them p. 107. Duties even the best need Christs Sacrifice to procure their acceptance p. 1â—8 Duties of Children to their Parents in six particulars opened p. 420 421. E. EMpty they that are full of grace may be empty of the Creature p. 244 245. Ends of Christs death are principally four what they are opened at large from p. 523. ad 540. Enemies of Christ objects of pity p. 406. They that continue so perish inexcusably p. 410. Enemy how dreadful an enemy God is p. 533 534. Enemies of Saints not to be feared p. 583 584. Engage when men first engage in a way of sin they know not where they shall stop p. 306. How dangerous to Engage against persons or wayes till satisfied they are wicked p. 406. Entertainment of Christ in Heaven most magnificent and glorious p. 566. Errors about the Messiah which blinded the Iews in his day p. 403 404. Six Errors about the Hypostaticat Vnion p. 58 59. Esteem of Christ for believers great p. 35. Evening to find mercy in the Evening of our life how great a mercy p. 444. Evidences five Evidences of our Resurrection to eternal life p. 558 559. Evidences that Christ hath compleated and finished Redemption work p. 482 483. Exaltation of Christ how he is to be considered therein p. 540. What were the grounds of it p. 540. What the Comforts resulting from it p. 541. F. FAith the necessity of it to pardon and peace p. 135 136. It s power to thaw and melt the heart p. 335. Heart melting acts of faith p. 336. How it appears that Faith is a rarity in the World p. 338. Faith the proper instrument to raise affections p. 339. Father how astonishing his love was in giving Christ for us p. 42 43. How strongly he willed our Salvation ibid. Fear of Creatures how expelled p. 218. Forgetfulness of Christ foreseen by him p. 275. What an evil to forget Christ. p. 275. Forgiveness with God for the worst of sinners demonstrated p. 348 349. To Forgive Enemies and beg forgiveness for them is Christ like p. 411 412. What fraternal Forgiveness is not p. 411 412. What it is p. 412 413. The excellencies of it p. 413. Forgiveness is with God for such as persecute Christ and his wayes ignorantly p. 407. What divine Forgiveness is p. 407. four Arguments to prove the possibility of Forgiveness to the penitent sinner p. 408 409. The certainty of pardon for humbled sinners p. 409. Forerunner in what sense Christ is so p. 565. Forsake God may for a time forsake his dearest Children p. 449. A two-fold admonition for such a time p. 460 461. Foundation what cause all possessors have to examine it p. 332 333. Friend Christ betrayed by a pretended Friend p. 297. Future state of happiness or misery after this life evinced by five Arguments p. 433 434 435. G. GEthsemane what it signifies and where that Garden is Scituate p. 282. Gift Christ the best gift that ever God gave p. 39 40. Given how Christ was given by the Father p. 40 41. How the Giving of Christ was the highest manifestation of the Fathers love p. 42 43. God What hand he hath about sin p. 342. Gospel falsly charged as the cause of discord p. 404. Government of Christ how sad and dangerous to refuse it p. 202. Our great concernment to understand whose Government we are under p. 203. Grace one drop of it better than a Sea of gifts p. 308. Grave a believer carries six incomparable priviledges with him to the grave and what they are p. 518. Great and learned men greatest enemies to Christ. p. 316. H. HAnd of God what it is p. 492.577 Happiness of Saints objective subjective and formal what and how they differ p. 185 186. Heart of Christ heavy at his death should make ours the lighter when we dye p. 293. Hardness of Heart how dangerous a symptome p. 338. Brokenness of heart how great a mercy p. 339. Heaven will be surprizingly glorious to believers p. 439 440. Hell the terrour of it p. 472. Holiness of God the rule and pattern of our Holiness in four particulars p. 80 81. Holiness is the Image and glory of God p. 535. Holiness the souls chief beauty ibid. Holiness the best evidence for Heaven p. 80. Holiness a spring of comfort in the way to Heaven p. 535. Awful Majesty in holiness p. 627. Holiness the discriminating mark p. 607. Holiness urged upon the redeemed by many great Arguments p. 602. ad finem Honour how Saints are engaged to honour Christ p. 233. Four special wayes of honouring Christ. p. 233 234. Hour The ninth hour what it was and how the day was divided by the Iews p. 447. Humiliation of Christ when it began and ended p. 454. I. A Dreadful Jar betwixt God and us evinced by Christs Mediation p. 86. Jealous what cause professours have to be so p. 377. Ignorance of Christ matter of humiliation p. 8. Natural Ignorance of men implyed in Christs Prophetical office p. 100. Ignorance the cause of enmity to Christ p. 402. Two sorts of ignorance ibid. Ignorant incouraged to wait on Christ on three grounds p. 121 122. Reasons why the Iews were Ignorant who Christ was though heard his Miracles p. 40. Illustrations of the Mystical Vnion p. 57. Imitation of Christ pressed p. 76 77. Implacable spirits opposite to Christ. p. 410. Importunity in prayer warrantable p. 261 262. Impossibility of salvation to them that know not Christ. p. 189 190. Impotency of man to reconcile himself p. 177. Infidelity how unreasonable p. 63 64. Infirmities of our nature tenderly sensed by Christ. p. 62. Ingratitude of the World to Christ how vile p. 242. Inheritance purchased by Christ what and how great p. 183 184. How needful to clear our title to this inheritance p. 191 192. Innocency of Saints will be vindicated p. 366. Institution of Ordinances Christs prerogative p. 266. Instruments used by Christ in governing the World p. 213. Intercession of Christ most valid p. 157. What Christs Intercession is p. 154 155. By what acts he performs it p. 156. Whether it be vocal or only efficacious p. 156. The potency of his intercession proved by divers considerations p. 158. Interposition of our selves betwixt Christ and his dishonour how reasonable what Jerome and Bernard said in the case p. 94 95. Interest in Christ our great concernment p. 558 559. Judas who and what he was p. 298. What the true motives that instigated him to that sin were p. 301. Judas his fearful end p. 302. Judgement committed to Christ p. 589. Evidences of a Judgement to come 590 591. What a great day it will be and why p. 592. The properties of it
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
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
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