us When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Who would part with a Son for the sake of his dearest friends but God gave him to and delivered him for enemies O Love unspeakable 5. Lastly let us consider how freely this gift came from him It was not wrested out of his hand by our importunity for we as little desired as deserved it It was surprizing preventing eternal love that delivered him to us Not that we loved him but he first loved us 1 Ioh. 4.19 Thus as when you weigh a thing you cast in weight after weight till the scales break so doth God one consideration upon another to overcome our hearts and make us admiringly to cry what manner of Love is this And thus I have shewed you what Gods giving of Christ is And what matchless love is manifested in that incomparable gift Next we shall apply this in some practical Corolaries Corolary 1. Learn hence the exceeding preciousness of Souls and at what an high rate God values them that he will give his Son his only Son out of his bosom as a ransom for them Surely this speaks their preciousness God would not have parted with such a Son for small matters All the world could not redeem them Gold and Silver could not be their ransom 1 Pet. 1.18 So speaks the Apostle You were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the precious blood of Christ. Such an esteem God had of them that rather than they should perish Jesus Christ shall be made a man yea a curse for them O then learn to put a due value upon your own souls Don't sell that cheap which God hath paid so dear for Remember what a treasure you carry about you The glory that you see in this world is not equivolent in worth to it Matth. 16.26 What shall a man give in exchange for his Soul Corolary 2. If God have given his own Son for the world then it follows that those for whom God gave his own Son may warrantably expect any other Temporal mercies from him This is the Apostles Inference Rom. 8.32 He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up to death for us all how shall he not with him freely give us all things And so 1 Cor. 3.21 22. All is yours for ye are Christs i. e. They hold all other things in Christ who is the Capital and most comprehensive mercy To make out the grounds of this comfortable deduction let these four things be pondered and duly weighed in your thoughts 1. No other mercy you need or desire is or can be so dear to God as Jesus Christ is He never layed any other thing in his bosom as he did his Son As for the world and the comforts of it it is the dust of his feet he values it not As you see by his providential disposals of it having given it to the worst of men All the Turkish Empire said Luther as great and glorious as it is is but a crum which the Master of the family throws to the Dogs Think upon any other outward enjoyment that 's valuable in your eyes and there is not so much compare betwixt it and Christ in the esteem of God as is betwixt your dear Children and the Lumber of your houses in your esteem If then God have parted so freely from that which was infinitly dearer to him than these how shall he deny these when they may promote his glory and your good 2. As Jesus Christ was nearer the heart of God than all these so Christ is in himself much greater and more excellent than them all Ten thousand worlds and the glory of them all is but the dust of the ballance if weighed with Christ. These things are but poor creatures but he is over all God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 They are the common gifts but he is the gift of God Joh. 4.10 They are ordinary mercys but he is the mercy Luk. 1.72 As one Pearl or precious stone is greater in value than ten thousand common pebbles Now if God have so freely given the greater how can you suppose he should deny the lesser mercys Will a man give to another a large inheritance and stand with him for a trifle How can it be 3. There is no other mercy you stand in want of but you are entitled to it by the gift of Christ. It is as to right conveyed to you with Christ. So in the forecited 1 Cor. 3.21 22 23. The world is yours yea all is yours for ye are Christs So 2 Cor. 1.20 For all the promises of God in Christ in him they are yea and in him Amen With him he hath given you all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 6.17 Richly to enjoy The word signifies rem aliquam cum laetitia percipere To have the sweet relish and comfort of an enjoyment So have we in all our mercys upon the account of our title to them in Christ. 4. Lastly if God have given you this nearer greater and all comprehending mercy when you were enemies to him and alienated from him it is not imaginable he should now deny you any inferiour mercy when you are come into a state of reconciliation and amity with him So the Apostle reasons Rom. 5.8 9 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life And thus you have the second Inference with its grounds Corolary 3. If the greatest love hath been manifested in giving Christ to the world then it follows that the greatest evil and wickedness is manifested in despising slighting and rejecting Christ. 'T is sad to abuse the love of God manifested in the lowest gift of providence but to sleight the richest discoveries of it even in that peerless gift wherein God commends his love in the most taking and astonishing manner this is sin with a witness Blush O heavens and be astonished O earth yea be ye horribly afraid No guilt like this The most flagitious wretches among the barbarous Nations are innocent in comparison of these But are there any such in the world Dare any slight this gift of God indeed if mens words might be taken there are few or none that dare do so but if their lives and practices may be believed this this is the sin of the far greater part of the Christianized world Witness the lamentable stupidity and supiness witness the contempt of the Gospel witness the hatred and persecution of his Image Laws and People What is the language of all these but a vile esteem of Jesus Christ. And now let me a little expostulate with these ungrateful souls that trample underfoot the Son of God That value not this love that gave him forth What is that mercy which you so contemn and undervalue Is it so vile and cheap a thing as your entertainment speaks it to
to make it good when the time of the Promise is come as at death it is It cannot be Multitudes of Promises the whole Covenant of Promises give security to the soul against the fears of rejection or neglect by God And the souls dependance upon God and hanging upon a promise it s every rolling it self upon God from the incouragement the word gives it adds to the ingagement upon God When he sees a poor soul that he hath made redeemed sanctified sealed and by solemn Promise engaged himself to receive coming to him at death rolling it self upon his faithfulness that promised saying as David 2 Sam. 23.5 Though Lord there be many defects in me yet thou hast made a Covenant with me well order'd in all things and sure and this is all my salvation and all my hope Lord I am resolved to send out my soul in an act of Faith I will venture it upon the credit of thy Promise How can God refuse such a soul How can he put it off when it so puts it self upon him Sixthly But this is not all the gratious soul sustains many intimate and dear relations to that God into whose hands it commends it self at death It 's his Spouse and the consideration of such a day of Espousals may well encourage it to cast it self into the bosom of Christ its head and husband It is a member of his body flesh and bones Eph. 5.30 It is his child he its everlasting Father Isai. 9.6 It 's his friend Hence forth saith Christ I call you not servants but friends Joh. 15.15 What confidence may these and all other the dear relations Christ owns to the renewed soul beget in such an hour as this is What husband can throw off the dear wife of his bosom who in distresses casts her self into his arms What Father can shut the door upon a dear child that comes to him for refuge saying Father into thy hands I commit my self Seventhly and Lastly The unchangableness of Gods love to his people gives confidence they shall in no wise be cast out They know Christ is the same to them at last he was at first The same in the pangs of death as he was in the comforts of life Having loved his own which were in the world he loved them to the end Ioh. 13.1 He doth not love as the world loves only in prosperity But they are as dear to him when their beauty and strength is gone as when it was in the greatest flowrish If we live we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord so then whether we live or die we are the Lords Rom. 14.8 take in all these things and weigh them both apart and together and see whether they amount not to a full evidence of the truth of this point that dying believers are both warranted and incouraged to commend their souls into the hands of God Whether they have not every one of them cause to say as the Apostle did 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have believed and am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day The improvements of all this you have in the following practical Diductions Diduction 1. Are dying believers only warranted and encouraged thus to commend their souls into the hands of God What a sad straight then must all dying unbelievers be in about their souls Such souls will fall into the hands of God but that 's their misery not their priveledge They are not put by faith into the hands of mercy but fall by sin into the hands of justice Not God but the Devil is their Father Iob. 8.44 Whither should the child go but to its own Father They have not one of those forementioned encouragements to cast themselves into the hands of God except the naked relation they have to God as their Creator and that 's as good as none without the new creation If they have nothing but this to plead for their salvation the Devil hath as much to plead as they It 's the new creature that brings the first creation into repute again with God O dismal O deplorable case A pool soul is turning out of house and home and knows not where to go It departs and immediately falls into the hands of justice The Devil stands by waiting for such a soul whom God will throw to him as a Dog for a crust Little ah little do the friends of such a one think whilst they are honouring his dust by a splendid and honourable funeral what a case that poor soul is in that lately dwelt there and what fearful straights and extremities it is now exposed to They will cry indeed Lord Lord open to us Matth. 7.22 But to how little purpose are their vain cries Will God hear him when he cries Iob. 27.9 It 's a lamentable case Diduction 2. Will God gratiously accept and faithfully keep what the Saints commit to him at death how careful then should they be to keep what God commits to them to be kept for him while they live You have a great trust to commit to God when you die and God hath a great trust to commit to you whilst you live you expect that he should faithfully keep what then you shall commit to his keeping and he expects you should faithfully keep what he now commits to your keeping O keep what God commits to you as you expect he should keep your souls when you commit them unto him If you keep his truths he will keep your souls Because thou hast kept the word of my patience I also will keep thee c. Rev. 3.10 Be faithful to your God and you shall find him faithful to you None can pluck you out of his hand see that nothing wrest his truths out of your hands If we deny him he also will deny us 2 Tim. 2.12 Take heed lest those estates you have gotten as a blessing attending the Gospel prove a temptation to you to betray the Gospel Religion saith one brings forth Riches but the Daughter devours the Mother How can you expect acceptance with God who have betrayed his truth and dealt perfidiously with him Diduction 3. If believers may safely commit their souls into the hands of God How confidently may they commit all lesser interests and lower concernments into the same hand Shall we trust him with our souls and not with our lives liberties or comforts Can we commit the treasure to him and not a trifle Whatever you enjoy in this world is but a trifle to your souls Sure if you can trust him for eternal life for your souls you may much more trust him for the daily bread for your bodies I know it is objected that God hath made over temporal things to his people upon conditional promises and an absolute faith can never be grounded upon conditional promises But what means this objection Let your faith be but suitable to these conditional promises
and allayed if there be something ravishing and ingaging there is also something cloying and distasting the purer any delight is the more excellent Now there are no Christal streams flowing so purely from the Fountain no beams of light so unmixed from the Sun as the loves and delights of these holy and glorious persons were the holy holy holy Father embraced the thrice holy Son with a most holy delight and love 4. Consider the constancy of this delight it was from everlasting as in ver 23. and from Eternity it never suffered one moments interruption the ever-flowing Fountain of Gods delight and love never stopt its course never ebbed but as he speaks in the Text I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him once more consider the fulness of that delight the perfection of that pleasure I was delights so the word is in its original not only plural delights all delights but also in the abstract delight it self as afterwards from the abundance of his sorrows he was stiled a man of sorrows so here from the fulness of his delights as who should say even constituted and made up of pleasure and delight Once more let us consider it comparitively and this state will yet appear more glorious comparing it with either the choicest delights that one Creature takes in another or that God takes in the creature or that the creature takes in God measure these immense delights betwixt the Father and his Son by either of these lines and you shall find them all infinitely short For 1. Though the delights that creatures take in each other be sometimes a great delight such was Iacobs delight in Benjamin whose life is said to be bound up in the lads life a dear and high expression Gen. 44.30 such was that of Ionathan in David whose soul was knit with his soul and he loved him as his own soul 1 Sam. 13.1 and such is the delight of one friend in another there is a friend that is as a mans own soul Deut. 13.6 yet all this is but Creature-delight and can in no particular match the delights betwixt the Father and the Son for this is but a finite delight according to the measure and abilities of Creatures but that is infinite suitable to the infinite perfection of the Divine being this is always mixed that perfectly pure 2. Or if you compare it with the delight that God takes in the Creatures it is confessed that God takes great delight in some creatures the Lord takes pleasure in his Saints he rejoyces over them with singing and resteth in his love Zeph. 3.17 Isa. 62.5 but yet there is a great difference betwixt his delight in creatures and his delights in Christ for all his delight in the Saints is secondary and for Christs sake but his delights in Christ are primary and for his own sake we are accepted in the beloved Ephes. 1.6 he is beloved and accepted for himself 3. To conclude compare it once more with the delights that the best of creatures take in God and Christ and it must be confessed that is a choice delight and a transcendent love with which they love and delight in him Psal. 73.25 whom have I in Heaven but thee and on earth there is none that I desire besides thee what pangs of love what raptures of delight did the Spouse express to Christ oh thou whom my soul loveth but surely our delight in God is no perfect rule to measure his delight in Christ by for our love to God at the best is still imperfect that 's the burden and constant complaint of Saints but this is perfect ours is inconstant up and down ebbing and flowing but this is constant so then to conclude the condition and state of Iesus Christ before his Incarnation was a state of highest and matchless delight in the enjoyment of his Father The Uses follow Vse of Information What an astonishing act of love was this then for the Father to give the delight the darling of his soul out of his very bosom for poor sinners all tongues must needs pause and faulter that attempt the expression of this grace expressions being here swallowed up God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son Joh. 3.16 here is a sic without a sicut so loved them how did he love them nay here you must excuse the tongues of Angels which of us would deliver a Child the Child of our delights an only Child to death for the greatest inheritance in the World what tender Parent can endure a parting pull with such a Child when Hagar was taking her last leave as she thought of her Ishmael Gen. 21.16 the text saith she went and sate her down over against him a good way off for she said let me not see the death of the Child and she sate over against him and lift up her voice and wept though she were none of the best Mothers nor he the best of Children yet she could not give up a Child O 't was hard to part what an out-cry did David make even for an Absalom wishing he dyed for him what a hole as I may say hath the death of some Children made in the hearts of some Parents which will never be closed up in this world yet surely never did any Child lye so close to a Parents heart as Christ did to his Fathers and yet he willingly parts with him though his only one the Son of his delights and that to death a cursed death for sinners for the worst of sinners O miranda dei philanthropia matchless love a love past finding out let all men therefore in the business of their redemption give equal glory to the Father with the Son Ioh. 5.23 if the Father had not loved thee he had never parted with such a Son for thee From one wonder let your souls turn to another for they are now in the midst of wonders adore and be for ever astonished at the love of Jesus Christ to poor sinners that ever he should consent to leave such a bosom and the ineffable delights that were there for such poor worms as we are O heights depths length and bredth of unmeasurable love O see Rom. 5.6 7 8. read and wonder how is the love of Christ commended in ravishing circumstances to poor sinners you would be loath to leave a Creatures bosom a comfortable dwelling a fair estate for the best friend in the world your souls are loath to leave their bodies though they have no such great content there but which of you if ever you found by experience what it is to be in the bosom of God by Divine Communion would be perswaded to leave such a bosom for all the good that is in the world and yet Jesus Christ who was imbraced in that bosom after another manner than ever you were acquainted with freely left it and laid down the glory and riches he enjoyed there for your sakes and as the father
loved him even so believers hath he loved you Ioh. 17.22 what manner of love is this whoever loved as Christ loves whoever denyed himself for Christ as Christ denyed himself for us Hence we are informed that interest in Iesus Christ is the true way to all spiritual preferment in Heaven do you covet to be in the heart in the favour and delight of God get interest in Jesus Christ and you shall presently be there what old Israel said of the Children of his beloved Ioseph thy Children are my Children the same God saith of all the dear Children of Christ Gen. 48.5 9. you see among men all things are carryed by interest persons rise in this world as they are befriended preferment goes by favour 't is so in Heaven persons are preferred according to their interest in the beloved Eph. 1.6 Christ is the great favourite in Heaven his image upon your souls and his name in your prayers makes both accepted with God How worthy is Jesus Christ of all our love and delight you see how infinitely the Father delighteth in him how he ravishes the heart of God and shall he not ravish our hearts I present you a Christ this day able to ravish any soul that will but view and consider him O that you did but see this lovely Lord Jesus Christ then would you go home sick of love surely he is a drawing Saviour Ioh. 12 32. why do we lavish away our pretious affections upon vanity none but Christ is worthy of them when you spend your pretious affections upon other objects what is it but to dig for dross with golden Mâ—ttocks the Lord direct our hearts into the love of Christ. O that our hearts loves and delights might meet and concenter with the heart of God in this most blessed object O let him that left Gods bosom for you be embosomed by you though yours be nothing to Gods he that left Gods bosom for you deserves yours If Christ be the beloved darling of the Father's soul think what a grievous and unsufferable thing it is to the heart of God to see his dear Son despised slighted and rejected by sinners verily there is no such cut to the heart of God in the whole world unbelievers trample upon Gods darling tread under foot him that eternally lay in his bosom Heb. 10.29 smite the apple of his eye and how God will bear this that parable Matth 21.37 to the 40. will inform you surely he will miserably destroy such wretched sinners if you would â—tudy to do God the greatest despight there is none like this what a dismal word is that 1 Cor. 16.22 if any man love not our Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha i. e. let the great curse of God lye upon that man till the Lord come O sinners you shall one day know the price of this sin you shall feel what it is to despise a Jesus that is able to compel love from the hardest heart O that you would slight him no more O that this day your hearts might fall in love with him I tell you if you would set your love to sale none bids so fair for it as Christ. 2. Vse of Exhortation To Saints if Christ lay eternally in this bosom of love and yet was content to forsake and leave it for your sakes then 1. Be you ready to forsake and leave all the comforts you have on earth for Christ famous Galleacius left all for his enjoyment Moses left all the glory of Aegypt Peter and the other Apostles left all Luk. 18.28 but what have we to leave for Christ in comparison of what he left for us Surely Christ is the highest pattern of self-denyal in the world 2. Let this confirm your faith in prayer if he that hath such an interest in the heart of God intercede with the Father for you then never doubt of audience and acceptance with him surely you shall be accepted through the beloved Eph. 1.6 Christ was never denyed any thing that he asked Ioh. 11.42 the Father hears him always though you are not worthy Christ is and he ever lives to make intercession for you Heb. 7.25 3. Let this incourage thy heart O Saint in a dying hour and not only make thee patient in death but in a holy manner impatient till thou be gone for whither is thy soul now going but to that bosom of love whence Christ came Joh. 17.24 Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am and where is he but in that bosom of glory and love where he lay before the world was ver 5. O then let every believer incourage his soul comfort ye one another with these words I am leaving the bosom of a creature I am going to the bosom of God To sinners exhorting them to embrace the bosom-Son of God poor wretches whatever you are or have been whatever guilt or discouragement at present you lye under embrace Christ who is freely offered you and you shall be as dear to God as the holiest and most eminent believer in the world but if you still continue to despise and neglect such a Saviour sorer wrath is treasured up for you than for other sinners even something worse than dying without mercy Heb. 10.28 O that these discoveries and overtures of Christ may never come to such a fatal issue with any of your souls in whose eyes his glory hath been this day opened The THIRD SERMON ISAI LIII XII Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death and he was numbred with the transgressors and he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors IN this Chapter the Gospel seems to be epitomized the subject matter of it is the death of Christ and the glorious Issue thereof by reading of it the Eunuch of old and many Jews since have been converted to Christ. Christ is here considered absolutely and relatively absolutely and so his innocency is industriously vindicated ver 9. though he suffered grievous things yet not for his own sins for he had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth but relatively considered in the capacity of a surety for us So the Justice of God is as fully vindicated in his sufferings vers 6. the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all how he came to sustain this capacity and relation of a surety for us is in these verses plainly asserted to be by his compact and agreement with his Father before the worlds were made ver 10 11 12. In this verse we have 1. His Work 2. His Reward 3. The Respect or Relation of each to the other 1. His Work which was indeed a hard work to pour out his soul unto death aggravated by the companions with whom being numbred with transgressors the capacity in which bearing all the
natures The humane nature doing what is humane viz. Suffering Sweating Bleeding Dying and his Divine nature stamping all these with infinite value and so both sweetly concur unto one glorious work and design of mediation Papists generally deny that he performs any of his mediatory works as God but only as man but how boldly do they therein contradict these plain Scriptures See 2 Cor. 5.19 Heb. 9.14.15 And so much as to the second thing propounded viz. the fruits of this Union The last thing to be opened is the grounds and reasons of this assumption And we may say touching that 1. That the humane nature was not assumed to any intrinsecal perfection of the Godhead but to make that humane nature it self perfect The Divine did not assume the humane nature necessarily but voluntarily not out of indigence but bounty not because it was to be perfected by it but to perfect it by causing it to lie as a pipe to the infinite all-filling Fountain of grace and glory of which it is the great receptacle 2. And so consequently to qualify and prepare him for a full discharge of his mediatorship in the offices of our Prophet Priest and King Had he not this double nature in the Unity of his person he could not have been our Prophet for as God he knows the mind and will of God Ioh. 1.18 Ioh. 3.13 And as man he is fitted to impart it suitably to us Deut. 18.15 16 17 18. Compared with Acts 3.22 As Priest had he not been man he could have shed no blood and if not God it had been no adaequate value for us Heb. 2.17 Acts 20.28 As King had he not been man he had been an Heterogenous and so no fit head for us And if not God he could neither rule nor defend his Body the Church These then were the designs and ends of that assumption Vse 1. Let all Christians rightly inform their minds in this truth of so great concernment in Religion and hold it fast against all subtil adversaries that would wrest it from them The Learned Hooker observes that the dividing of Christs Person which is but one and the confounding of his Natures which are two hath been the occasion of these errors which have so greatly disturbed the peace of the Church The Arrians deny'd his Deity leveling him with other meer men The Apollinarians maimed his humanity The Sabellians affirmed that the Father and Holy Ghost were incarnated as well as the Son and were forced upon that absurdity by another error viz. denying three distinct persons in the Godhead and affirming they were but three names The Euticheans confounded both natures in Christ denying any distinction of them The Seleusians affirmed that he uncloathed himself of his humanity when he ascended and hath no humane Body in Heaven The Nestorians so rent the two natures of Christ assunder as to make two distinct persons of them But ye Beloved have not so learned Christ. Ye know he is 1. true and very God 2. True and very man that 3. these two natures make but one person being united inseparably 4. That they are not confounded or swallowed up one in another but remain still distinct in the person of Christ. Hold ye the form of sound words which cannot be condemned Great things hang upon all these truths Oh suffer not a stone to be loosed out of the Foundation Vse 2. Adore the love of the Father and Son who bid so high for your Souls and at this rate were contented you should be recovered First The love of the Father is herein admirably conspicuous who so vehemently willed our salvation that he is content to degrade the darling of his Soul to so vile and contemptible a state which was upon the matter an undoing to him in point of reputation as the Apostle intimates Phil. 2.7 If two persons be at variance and the superiour who also is the wronged person begin to stoop first and say you have deeply wronged me yea your blood is not able to repair the wrongs you have done me however such is my love to you and willingness to be at peace with you that I will part with what is most dear to me in all the world for peace sake yea though I stoop below my self and seem as it were to forget my own relation and endearments to my own Son I will not suffer such a breach betwixt me and you Ioh. 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son And how astonishing is the love of Christ that would make such a stoop as this to exalt us Oh 't is ravishing to think that he should pass by a more excellent and Noble Species of Creatures refusing the Angellical nature Heb. 2.16 To take Flesh. And not to solace and dispart himself in it neither not to experience sensitive pleasures in the body for as he needed them not being at the Fountain head of the highest joys so it was not at all in his design but the very contrary even to make himself a Subject capable of sorrows wounds and tears It was as the Apostle elegantly expresseth it in Heb. 2.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he might sensibly tast what relish Death hath and what bitterness is in those pangs and agonies Now O that you would get your hearts suitably imprest and affected with these high expressures of the love both of the Father and Son How is the courage of some Noble Romans celebrated in the story for the brave adventures they made for the Common-wealth But they could never stoop as Christ did being so infinitly below him in personal dignity Vse 3. And here the infinite wisdom hath also left a famous and everlasting mark of it self which invites yea even chains the eyes of Angels and men to it self Had there been a general Council of Angels to advise upon a way of recovering poor sinners they would all have been at an everlasting demur and loss about it It could not have entred their thoughts though they are Intelligencies and most sagatious Creatures that ever mercy pardon and grace should find such a way as this to issue forth from the heart of God to the hearts of sinners Oh how wisely is the method of our recovery laid So that Christ may well be call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 1.24 The power and wisdom of God For as much as in him the Divine wisdom is more glorified than in all the other works of God upon which he hath imprest it Hence it is that some of the School-men affirm though I confess my self unsatisfied with it that the incarnation of Christ was in it self so glorious a demonstration of Gods wisdom and power and thereupon so desirable in it self that though man had not sinned yet Christ would have been made man Vse 4. Hence also we infer the incomparable sweetness of the Christian Religion that shews poor
the Empyrean Heaven the City of God wihther Christ ascended Where the great assembly are met Paradise and Canaan were but the Types of it More excelling and trascending the Royal Palaces of earthly Princes than they do a â—idgeon hold The company also with whom he is enjoyed adds to the glory A blissful society indeed Store of good neighbours in that City There we shall have familiar converse with Angels whose appearances now are insupportable by poor mortals There will be sweet and full closings also betwixt the Saints Luther and Zuinglius are there agreed here they could not fully close with one another And no wonder for they could not fully close with themselves But there is perfect harmony and unity All meeting and closing in God as lines in the Center This is a blessed glimpse of your inheritance Thirdly All this is purchased for Believers hence it 's call'd the Inheritance of the Saints in Light Col. 1.12 All is yours for ye are Christs that is the tenure 1 Cor. 3.23 So Rom. 8.30 Whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified Only those that are Sons are Heirs Rom. 8.17 The unrighteous shall not inherit 1 Cor. 6.9 It 's the Fathers good pleasure to give the Kingdom to the little flock Luk. 12.32 Inference 1. Hath Christ not only redeemed you from wrath but purchased such an eternal inheritance also by the overplus of his merit for you Oh how well content should Believers then be with their lot of providence in this life be it what it will Content did I say I speak too low overcome ravisht filled with praises and thanksgivings how low how poor how afflicted soever for present they are O let not such a thing as grumbling repining freting at providence be found or once named among the expectants of this Inheritance Suppose you had taken a beggar from your door and adopted him to be your Son and made him Heir of a large inheritance and after this he should contest and quarrel with you for a trifle could you bear it how to work the Spirit of a Saint into contentment with a Low condition here I have laid down several rules in another discourse to which for present I refer the Reader Inference 2. With what weaned affections should the people of God walk up and down this world content to live and willing to die For things present are theirs if they live and things to come are theirs if they die Paul expresses himself in a frame of holy indifferencie Phil. 1.23 Which to choose I know not Many of them that are now in fruition of their inheritance above had vitam in patientia mortem in desiderio life in patience and death in desire while they tabernacled with us Oh cried one what would I give to have a bed made to my wearied soul in Christs bosom I cannot tell you what sweet pain and delightful torments are in his love I often challenge time for holding us assunder I profess to you I have no rest till I be over head and ears in Loves Ocean If Christs Love that fountain of delights were laid open to me as I would wish O how drunken would this my soul be I half call his absence cruel and the mask and vail on his face a cruel covering that hideth such a fair fair face from a â—ick soul. I dare not challenge himself but his absence is a mountain of Iron upon my heavy heart O when shall we meet How long is it to the dawning of the marriage day O sweet Lord Jesus take wide steps O my Lord come over mountains at one stride O my beloved flee like a Roe or young Hart upon the mountains of seperation O if he would fold the Heavens together like an old cloak and shovel time and days out of the way and make ready in hast the Lambs wife for her husband Since he looked upon me my heart is not mine own Who can be blamed for desiring to see that fair inheritance which is purchased for him But truly should God hold up the soul by the power of faith from day to day to such sights as these who would be content to live a day more on earth How should we be ready to pull down the Prison walls and not having patience to wait till God open the door As the Heathen said Victurosque dii celant ut vivere durant And truly the wisdom of God is in this specially remarkable in giving the new creature such an admirable crasis and even temper as that Scripture 2 Thes. 3.5 expresses The Lord direct your hearts into the Love of God and patient waiting for of Christ. Love inflames with desire patience allays that fervor So that fervent desires as one happily expresses it are allaied with meek submission Mighty love with strong patience And had not God twisted together these two principles in the Christians constitution he had framed a creature to be a torment to it self to live upon a very rack Inference 3. Hence we infer the impossibility of their Salvation that know not Christ nor have interest in his blood Neither Heathens nor meerly nominal Christians can inherit I know some are very indulgent to the Heathen and many formal Christians are but too much so to themselves but union by faith with Jesus Christ is the only way revealed in Scripture by which we hope to come to the heavenly inheritance I know it seems hard that such brave men as some of the Heathens were should be damned but the Scripture knows no other way to glory but Christ put on and applied by faith And it is the common suffrage of modern sound Divines that no man by the sole conduct of nature without the knowledge of Christ can be saved There is but one way to glory for all the world Ioh. 14.6 No man cometh to the Father but by me Gal. 3.14 The blessing of Abraham comes upon the Gentiles through faith Scripture asserts the impossibility of being or doing any thing that is truly evangelically good out of Christ. Joh. 15.5 Without me ye can do nothing and Heb. 11.6 Without faith it is impossible to please God Scripture every where connects and chains Salvation with vocation Rom. 8.30 and vocation with Gospel Rom. 10.14 To those that plead for the Salvation of Heathens and profane Christians we may apply that tart rebuke of Bernard that while some labour to make Plato a Christian he feared they therein did prove themselves to be Heathens Inference 4. How greatly are we all concerned to clear up our Title to the heavenly inheritance It 's horrible to see how industrious many are for an inheritance on earth and how careless for Heaven By which we may plainly see how vilely the noble soul is depressed by sin and sunk down into flesh minding only the concernments of the flesh Hear me ye that labour for
rule of contraries for the most part Where it fixes its marks of hatred we may usually find that which invites our respect and Love It should trouble us the less to be under the slights and disrespects of a blind world I could be even proud upon it said Luther that I see I have an ill name from the world And Ierome blessed God that counted him worthy to be hated of the world Labour to stand right in the Judgement of God and trouble not thy self for the rash and headlong censures of men Let wicked men said one cut the throat of my credit and do as they like best with it when the wind of their calumnies hath blown away my good name from me in the way to Heaven I know Christ will take my name out of the mire and wash it and restore it to me again Inference 7. From the whole of Christs Humiliation in his life learn you to pass through all the troubles of your life with a contented composed spirit as Christ your forerunner did He was persecuted and bare it meekly Poor and never murmured Tempted and never yielded to the Temptation Reviled and Reviled not again When ye therefore pass through any of these trials look to Jesus and consider him See how he that passed through those things before you managed himself in like circumstances yea not only beat the way by his pattern and example for you but hath in every one of those conditions left a blessing behind him for them that follow in his steps Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ. The TWENTIETH SERMON JOH XVII XI And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world and I come to thee holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one as we are WE now come to the Last and Lowest step of Christs Humiliation which was in his submitting to Death even the Death of the Cross. Out of this death of Christ the life of our souls springs up and in this blood of the Cross all our mercies swim to us The blood of Christ runs deep to some eyes The Judicious Believer sees multitudes multitudes of inestimable blessings in it By this Crimson Fountain I resolve to sit down and concerning the death of Christ I shall take distinctly into consideration the preparations made for it the nature and quality of it The Deportment and carriage of dying-Jesus The Funeral-solemnities with which he was buried And lastly the blessed designs and glorious ends of his death The preparatives for his death were six Three on his own part and three more by his enemies The preparations made by himself for it were the solemn recommendation of his friends to his Father The institution of a commemorative sign to perpetuate and refresh the memory of his death in the hearts of his people till he come again And his pouring out his soul to God by prayer in the garden which was the posture he chose to be found in when they should apprehend him This Scripture contains the first preparative of Christ for death whereby he sets his house in order prays for his people and blesses them before he dies The love of Christ was ever tender and strong to his people but the greatest manifestations of it were at parting And this he manifested two waies especially viz. in leaving singular supports and grounds of comfort with them in his last heavenly Sermon in Chap. 14.15 16. and in pouring out his soul most affectionately to the Father for them in this Heavenly Prayer Chap. 17. In this Prayer he gives them a Specimen or Sample of that his glorious intercession-work which he was just then going to perform in Heaven for them Here his heart overflowed for he was now leaving them and going to the Father the last words of a dying man are remarkable how much more of a dying Saviour I shall not lanch out into that blessed Ocean of pretious matter contained in this Chapter but take immediately into consideration the words that I have read wherein I find a weighty petition strongly followed and set home with many mighty Arguments First We have here Christs petition or request in behalf of his people Not only those on the place but all others that then did or afterwards should believe on him And the sum of what he here requests for them is that his Father would keep them through his name Where you have both the mercy and the means of attaining it The mercy is to be kept Keeping implies danger And there is a double danger obviated in this request danger in respect of sin and danger in respect of ruine and destruction To both these the people of God lie open in this world The means of their preservation from both is the name i. e. the power of God This name of the Lord is that strange Tower to which the Righteous flie and are safe Prov. 18.10 Alas it is not your own strength or wisdom that keeps you but ye are kept by the mighty power of God This protecting power of God doth not however exclude our care and diligence but implies it therefore he adds ye are kept by the mighty power of God through faith to Salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 God keeps his people and yet they are to keep themselves in the Love of God Iude 21 to keep their hearts with all diligence Prov. 4.23 This is the sum of the petition Secondly The Arguments with which he urgeth and presses on this request are drawn partly from his own condition I am no more in the world i. e. I am going to die within very few hours I shall be separated from them in regard of my corporal presence Partly from their condition but these are in the world i. e. I must leave them in the midst of danger and partly from the joint interest that his Father and himself had in them Keep those that thou hast given me With several other most prevalent pleas which in their proper places shall be anon produced and displaied to illustrate and confirm this pretious truth which this Scripture affords us DOCT. That the Fatherly care and tender love of our Lord Iesus Christ was eminently discovered in that pleading prayer he poured out for his people at his parting with them It pertained to the Priest and Father of the family to bless the rest especially when they were to be separated from them by death This was a rite in Israel When good Iacob was grown old and the time was come that he should be gathered to his Fathers then he blessed Joseph Ephraim and Manasseth saying God before whom my Fathers Abraham and Isaack did walk the God which fed me all my life long unto this day the Angel which redeemed me from all evil bless the Lads Gen. 48.15 16. this was a prophetical and patriarchical blessing Not that Iacob could bless as God blesses he could speak the words
Father As if Christ did not present our pleas and arguments as well as simple desires to God As if the choisest part of our prayers must be kept back because Christ presents our prayers to God No no Christs pleading is one thing ours another His and ours are not opposed but subordinated His pleading doth not destroy but makes ours successful God calls us to plead with him Isai. 1.18 come now let us reason together God as one observes reasoneth with us by his word and providences outwardly and by the motions of his Spirit inwardly but we reason with him by framing through the help of his Spirit certain holy arguments grounded upon allowed principles drawn from his nature name word or works And it is condemned as a very sinful defect in Professors that they did not plead the Churches cause with God Jer. 30.13 There is none to plead thy cause that thou maist be bound up What was Iacobs wrestling with the Angel but his holy pleading and importunity with God And how well it pleased God let the event speak As a Prince he prevailed and had power with God On which instance a Worthy thus glosseth Let God frown smite or wound Iacob is at a point a blessing he came for and a blessing he will have I will not let thee go saith he unless thou bless me His limbs his life might go but there is no going for Christ without a pawn without a blessing This is the man now what is his speed the Lord admires him and honours him to all generations What is thy name saith he q. d. I never met with such a man titles of honour are not worthy of thee Thou shalt be called not Iacob a shepherd with men but Iacob a Prince with God Nazianzen said of his sister Gorgonia that she was modestly impudent with God There was no putting her off with a denial The Lord on this account hath honoured his Saints with the title of his Recorders men fit to plead with him as that word mazkir signifies Isai. 62.6 Ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence give him no rest it notes the office of him that recorded all the memorable matters of the King and used to suggest seasonable Items and Memorandums of things to be done By these holy pleadings the King is held in his Galleries as it is Cant. 7.5 I know we are not heard either for our much speaking or our excellent speaking 't is Christs pleading in Heaven that makes our pleading on earth available but yet surely when the spirit of the Lord shall suggest proper arguments in prayer and help the humble suppliant to press them home believingly and affectionately when he helps us to weep and plead to groan and plead God is greatly delighted in such prayers Thou saidst I will surely do the good Said Iacob Gen. 32.12 It 's thine own free promise I did not go on mine own head but thou bidst me go and encouragest me with this promise O this is taking with God When by the spirit of Adoption we can come to God crying Abba Father Father hear forgive pity and help me am I not thy Child thy Son or Daughter to whom may a Child be bold to go with whom may a Child have hope to speed if not with his Father Father hear me The Fathers of our flesh are full of bowels and pity their children and know how to give good things to them when they ask them when they ask bread or cloaths will they deny them And is not the Father of Spirits more full of bowels more full of pity Father hear me This is that kind of prayer which is melody in the ears of God Corollary 3. What an excellent pattern is here for all that have the charge and government of others committed to them whether Magistrates Ministers or Parents to teach them how to acquit themselves towards their relations when they come to die Look upon dying Jesus see how his care and love to his people flamed out when the time of his departure was at hand Surely as we are bound to remember our Relations every day and to lay up a stock of prayers for them in the time of our health so it becomes us to imitate Christ in our earnestness with God for them when we die Though we die our prayers die not with us They out-live us and those we leave behind us in the world may reap the benefit of them when we are turned to dust For my own part I must profess before the world that I have a high value for this mercy And do from the bottom of my heart bless the Lord who gave me a Religious and tender Father who often poured out his soul to God for me He was one that was inwardly acquainted with God and being full of bowels to his children often carried them before the Lord prayed and pleaded with God for them wept and made supplication for them This stock of prayers and blessings left by him before the Lord I cannot but esteem above the fairest inheritance on earth O it is no small mercy to have thousands of fervent prayers lying before the Lord filed up in Heaven for us And oh that we would all be faithful to this duty Surely our love especially to the souls of our Relations should not grow cold when our breath doth O that we would remember this duty in our lives and if God give opportunity and ability fully discharge it when we die considering as Christ did we shall be no more but they are in this world In the midst of a defiled tempting troublesom world It 's the last office of Love that ever we shall do for them After a little while we shall be no longer sensible how it is with them for as the Church speaks Isai. 63.16 Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel acknowledgeth us not what Temptations and troubles may befal them we do not know O imitate Christ your pattern Corollary 4. To Conclude Hence ye may see what an high esteem and pretious value Christ hath of Believers this was the treasure which he could not be quiet he could not die till he had secured it in a safe hand I come unto thee holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me Surely Believers are dear to Jesus Christ. And good reason for he hath paid dear for them Let his dying language this last farewel speak for him how he prized them The Lords portion is his people Jacob is the Lott of his inheritance Deut. 32.9 They are a peculiar treasure to him above all the people of the earth Exod. 19.5 What is much upon our hearts when we die is dear to us indeed O how pretious how dear should Jesus Christ be to us were we first and last upon his heart did he mind us did he pray for us did he so wrestle with God about us when the sorrows
Historie to great indignation against Pilate the Jews and the rude and bloody Souldiers and could not contain himself but cried out as the Bishop was reading O that I had been there with my French-men I would have cut all their throats who so barbarously used my Saviour To allude to this When the Believer considers and remembers that sin put Christ to all that shame and ignominy that he was wounded for our transgressions he is filled with hatred of sin and cries out O sin I will revenge the blood of Christ upon thee thou shalt never live a quiet hour in my heart And Secondly It produces an humble adoration of the goodness and mercy of God to exact satisfaction for our sins by such bloody stripes from our surety Lord what if this wrath had seised on me as it did on Christ what had been my condition then If these things were done in the green tree what had been the cafe of the dry tree Sometimes representations and not common ones are made of the Love of Christ who assumed a body and soul on purpose to bear the wrath of God for our sins And when that surpassing Love breaks out in its glory upon the soul how is the soul transported and ravished with it crying out what manner of Love is this Here 's a Love large enough to go round the heavens and the Heaven of heavens Who ever loved after this rate to lay down his life for enemies O Love unutterable and unconceivable How glorious is my Love in his red garments Sometimes the fruits of his death are there gloriously displaied Even his satisfaction for sin and the purchase his blood made of the eternal inheritance And this begets thankfulness and confidence in the soul. Christ is dead and his death hath satisfied for my sin Christ is dead therefore my soul shall never die Who shall separate me from the Love of God These are the fruits and this is the nature of that remembrance of Christ here spoken of Secondly What aptitude or conducency is there in this Ordinance to bring Christ so to remembrance Much every way For it is a sign by him appointed to that end and hath as Divines well observe a threefold use and consideration viz. as it is memorative as it is significative and as it is instructive First As it is memorative and so it hath the nature and use of a pledge or token of Love left by a dying to a dear surviving friend And so the Sacrament as was said before is like a Ring pluckt off from Christs Finger or a Bracelet from his Arm or rather his Picture from his Breast delivered to us with such words as these as oft as you look on this rememember me Let this help to keep me alive in your remembrance when I am gone and out of your sight It conduces to it also Secondly As it is a significative sign most aptly signifying both his bitter sufferings for us and our strict and intimate union with him Both which have an excellent usefulness to move the heart and its deepest affections at the remembrance of it The breaking of the Bread and shedding forth the Wine signifies the former our eating drinking and incorporating them is a lively signification of the other Thirdly Moreover this Ordinance hath an excellent use and advantage for this affectionate remembrance of Christ as it is an instructive sign And it many waies instructs us and enlightens our mind particularly in these truths which are very affecting things First That Christ is the Bread on which our souls live proper meat and drink for Believers the most excellent New-Testament food It 's said Psal. 78.25 man did eat Angels food He means the manna that fell from Heaven Which was so excellent that if Angels who are the noblest creatures did live-upon material food they would choose this above all to feed on And yet this was but a Type and weak shadow of Christ on whom Believers feed Christ makes a royal feast of his own flesh and blood Isai. 25.6 all our delicates are in him Secondly It instructs us that the New-Testament is now in its full force and no sustantial alteration can be made in it since the the Testator is dead and by his death hath ratified it So that all the excellent promises and blessings of it are now fully confirmed to the believing soul. Heb. 9.16 17. All these and many more choice truths are we instructed in by this sign And all these waies it remembers us of Christ and helps powerfully to raise warm and affect our hearts with that remembrance of him Thirdly The last enquiry is how Christ hath hereby left such a special mark of his care for and love to his people And that will evidently appear if you consider these five particulars First This is a special mark of the care and Love of Christ in as much as hereby he hath made abundant provision for the confirmation and establishment of his peoples faith to the end of the world For this being an evident proof that the New-Testament is in its full force Matth. 26.28 this is the Cup of the New-Testament in my blood it tends as much to our satisfaction as the legal execution of a deed by which we hold and enjoy our estate So that when he saith take eat it is as much as if God should stand before you at the Table with Christ and all the promises in his hand and say I deliver this to thee as my deed What think you doth this promote and confirm the faith of a Believer if it do not what doth Secondly This is a special mark of Christs care and Love in as much as by this he hath made like abundant provision for the enlargement of his peoples joy and comfort Believers are at this Ordinance as Mary was at the Sepulcher with fear and great joy Matth. 28.8 Come Reader speak thy heart if thou be one that heartily lovest Jesus Christ and hast gone many daies possibly years mourning and lamenting because of the inevidence and cloudiness of thine interest in him that hast sought him sorrowing in this Ordinance and in that in one duty and another if at last Christ should take off that mask that cruel covering as one calls it from his face and be known of thee in breaking bread Suppose he should by his Spirit whisper thus in thine ear as thou sittest at his Table dost thou indeed so prize esteem and value me will nothing but Christ and his Love content and satisfie thee then as sweet lovely and desireable as I am know that I am thine Take thine own Christ into the arms of thy faith this day Would not this breed in thy soul a joy transcendent to all the joys and pleasures in this world what thinkest thou of it Thirdly Here is a signal mark of Christs care and Love in as much as this is one of the highest and best helps for the mortification of the
Christ so earnest in prayer that he prayed himself into a very agony Let the people of God blush to think how unlike their Spirits are to Christ as to their prayer frames O what lively sensible quick deep and tender apprehensions and sense of those things about which he prayed had Christ Though he saw his very blood starting out from his hands and his cloaths died in it yet being in an agony he prayed the more earnestly I do not say Christ is imitable in this No but his fervour in prayer is a pattern for us and serves severely to rebuke the laziness dulness torpor formality and stupidity that is in our prayers How often do we bring the Sacrifice of the dead before the Lord How often do our lips move and our hearts stand still Oh how unlike Christ are we his prayers were pleading prayers full of mighty arguments and ferverous affectations O that his people were in this more like him Inference 5. Was Christ in such an agony before any hand of man was upon him meerly from the apprehensions of the wrath of God with which he now contested then surely it 's a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God for our God is a consuming fire Ah what is divine wrath that Christ so staggered when the cup came to him Could not he bear and dost thou think to bear it Did Christ sweat clots of blood at it and dost thou make light of it Poor wretch if it staggered him it will confound thee If it made him groan it will make the howl and that eternally Come sinner come dost thou make light of the threatnings of the wrath of God against sin Dost thou think there 's no such great matter in it as these zealous Preachers make of it Come look here upon my text which shews thee the face of the Son of God standing as full of purple drops under the sense and apprehension of it as the drops of dew that hung upon the grass Hark how he cries Father if it be possible let this cup pass O any thing of punishment rather than this Here what he tells the Disciples My soul saith he is sorrowful even to death amazed very heavy Fools make a mock of sin and the threatnings that lie against it Inference 6. Did Christ meet death with such a heavy heart let the hearts of Christians be the lighter for this when they come to die The bitterness of death was all squeez'd into Christs cup. He was made to drink up the very dregs of it that so our death might be the sweeter to us Alas there 's nothing now left in death that 's frightful or troublesom beside the pain of disolution that natural evil of it I remember it 's storied of one of the Martyrs that being observed to be exceeding jocund and merry when he came to the stake one asked him what was the reason his heart was so light when death and that in such a terrible form too was before him O said he my heart is so light at my death because Christs heart was so heavy at his death Inference 7. To conclude what cause have all the Saints to love their dear Lord Jesus with an abounding love Christian open the eyes of thy faith and fix them upon Christ in the posture he lay in the garden drencht in his own blood and see whether he be not lovely in these his dyed garments He that suffered for us more than any creature could or did may well challenge more love than all the creatures in the world O what hath he suffered and suffered upon thy account it was thy pride earthliness sensuality unbelief hardness of heart that laid on more weight in that day that he sweat blood The TWENTY THIRD SERMON MAT. XXVI XL VII XL VIII XLIX And while he yet spake lo Judas one of the twelve came and with him a great multitude with swords and staves from the chief Priests and Elders of the people Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign saying whomsoever I shall kiss the same is he hold him fast And forthwith he came to Iesus and said hail Master and kissed him THE former Sermons give you an account how Christ improved every moment of his time with busie diligence to make himself ready for his death He hath commended his charge to the Father Instituted the blessed memorial of his death Poured out his soul to God in the Garden with respect to the grievous sufferings he should undergo And now he is ready and waits for the coming of the enemies being first in the field And think you that they were idle on their parts No no their malice made them restless They had agreed with Iudas to betray him Under his conduct a band of Souldiers are sent to apprehend him The hour so long expected is come For while he yet spake saith the text loe Judas one of the twelve came and with him a great multitude with swords and staves These words contain the first preparative act on their part for the death of Christ even to betray him and that by one of his own Disciples Now they execute what they had plotted vers 14 15. and in this paragraph you have an account First Of the Traytor who he was Secondly Of the Treason what he did Thirdly Of the Manner of its execution how it was contrived and affected Lastly Of the Time when they put this Hellish plot in execution First We have here a description of the Traytor and it is remarkable how carefully the several Evangelists have described him both by his name sirname and office Iudas Iudas Iscariot Iudas Iscariot one of the twelve that he might not be mistaken for Iude or Iudas the Apostle God is tender of the names and reputations of his upright hearted Servants His office one of the twelve is added to aggravate the fact and to shew how that prophesie was accomplished in him Psal. 41.9 Yea mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted which did eat of my bread hath lift up his heel against me Lo this was the Traytor and this was his name and office Secondly You have a description of the Treason or an account what this man did He led an armed multitude to the place where Christ was Gave them a signal to discover him and encouraged them to lay hands on him and hold him fast This was that Hellish design which the Devil put into his heart working upon that principle or lust of covetousness which was predominant there What will not a carnal heart attempt if the Devil suit a temptation to the predominant lust and God withhold restraining grace Thirdly You have here the way and manner in which this Hellish plot was executed It was managed both with force and with fraud He comes with a multitude armed with swords and staves in case he should meet with any resistance And he comes to him with a kiss which was
those holy ones that rose at that time and appeared to many in the holy City Thus was the funeral of our Lord performed by men Thus was iâ— adorned by Miracles from heaven Vse And now we have seen Jesus interred He that wears at his girdle the Keys of Hell and Death himself locked up in the Grave What shall I say of him whom they now laid in the Grave Shall I undertake to tell you what he was What he did suffered and deserved Alas The tongues of Angels must pause and stammer in such a work I may truly say as Nazianzen said of Basil no tongue but his own can sufficiently commend and praise him He is a Sun of righteousness a fountain of life a bundle of Love Of him it might be said in that day Here lies the lovely Jesus in whom is treasured up whatsoever an angry God can require for his satisfaction or an empty creature for his perfection Before him was none like him and after shall none arise comparable to him If every leaf and spire of grass saith one nay all the Stars Sands and Atomes were so many Souls and Seraphims whose love should double in them every moment to all eternity yet would it fall infinitly short of what his worth and excellency exacts Suppose a creature compos'd of all the choice endowments that ever dwelt in the best of men since the Creation of the World in whom you find a meek Moses a strong Sampson a faithful Ionathan a beautiful Absolom a rich and wise Solomon nay and add to this the understanding strength agility splendor and holiness of all the Angels it would all amount but to a dark shadow of this incomparable Jesus Who ever weighed Christ in a pair of ballances saith another who hath seen the foldings and plyes the heights and depths of that glory which is in him O for such a heaven as but to stand afar off and see and love and long for him while times thred be cut and this great work of Creation dissolved O if I could yoke in among the thick of Angels and Seraphims and now glorified Saints and could raise a new Love song of Christ before all the world I am pained with wondering at new opened treasures in Christ. If every finger member bone and joynt were a torch burning in the hottest fire in hell I would they could all send out love praises high songs of praise for ever more to that plant of renown to that Royal and high Prince Jesus my Lord. But alas his love swelleth in me and finds no vent I marr his praises nay I know no comparison of what Christ is and what he is worth All the Angels and all the glorified praise him not so much as in halves Who can advance him or utter all his praise O if I could praise him I would rest content to die of Love for him O would to God I could send in my praises to my incomparable well beloved or cast my Love songs of that matchless Lord Jesus over the walls that they might light in his lap before men and Angels But whâ—n I have spoken of him till my head rive I have said just nothing I may begin again A God-head a God-head is a worlds wonder Set ten thousand thousand new made worlds of Angels and Elect men and double them in number ten thousand thousand thousand times let their hearts and tongues be ten thousand times more agile and large than the hearts and tongues of the Seraphims that stand with six wings before him when they have said all for the glorifying and praising of the Lord Jesus they have spoken little or nothing O if I could wear this tongue to the stump in extolling his highness But it is my daily sorrow that I am confounded with his incomparable Love Thus have his enamoured friends faintly expressed his excellencies and if they have therein done any thing they have shewn the impossibility of his due praises Come and see believing souls look upon dead Jesus in his winding-sheet by Faith and say Lo this is he of whom the Church said my beloved is White and Ruddy his ruddiness is now gone and a death pale hath prevailed over all his body but still as lovely as ever yea altogether lovely If David lamenting the death of Saul and Ionathan said Daughters of Ierusalem weep over Saul who cloathed you in Scarlet with other delights who put on ornaments of Gold upon your apparel Much rather may I say children of Sion weep over Jesus who cloathed you with righteousness and garments of Salvation This is he who quitted the throne of glory left the bosom of unspeakable delights came in a body of flesh produced in perfect holiness brake through many and great impediments thy great unworthiness the wrath of God and man by the strength of love to bring salvation home to thy soul. Can he that believingly considers this do less than faint at the sense of that love that brought him to the dust of death and cry out with that Father my Love was Crucified But I will insist no longer upon generals but draw down the particulars of Christs Funeral to your use in the following Corollaries Corollary 1. Was Christ buried in this manner then a decent and mournful Funeral where it can be had is laudable among Christians I know the souls of the Saints have no concernment for their bodies nor are they solicitous how the body is treated here yet there is a respect due to them as they are the Temples wherein God hath been serv'd and honoured by those holy souls that once dwelt in them As also upon the account to their relation to Christ even when they lie by the walls And the glory that will be one day put upon them when they shall be changed and made like unto Christs glorious body Upon such special accounts as these their bodies deserve an honourable treatment as well as upon the account of humanity which owes this honour to the bodies of all men To have no funeral is accounted a Judgement Eccles. 7.4 Or to be tumbled into a pit without any to lament us is lamentable We read of many solemn and mournful funerals in Scripture wherein the people of God have affectionatly paid their respects and honours to the dust of the Saints as men that were deeply sensible of their worth and how great a loss the world sustains by their remove Christs funeral had as much of decency and solemnity in it as the time would permit though he was a stranger to all pomp both in life and death Corollary 2. Did Ioseph and Nicodemus so boldly appear at a time of so much danger to beg the body and give it a funeral let it be for ever a caution to strong Christians not to despise or glory over the weak You see here a couple of poor low spirited and timorous persons that were afraid to be seen in Christs company when the
the dear Son of God came from the blessed bosom of the Father assumed flesh brake by the strength of his own Love through all discouragements and impediments laid down his own life a ransom for their Souls for whom he Lived Died Rose Ascended and lives for ever in Heaven to intercede to live holy to Christ as Christ lived and died wholly for them O Brethren never was the Heathen world acquainted with such arguments to deter them from sin never acquainted with such motives to urge them to holiness as I shall this day acquaint you with My request is to give up both your hearts and lives to glorifie the Father Son and Spirit whose you are by the holiness and heavenliness of them Other things are expected from you than from other men See that you turn not all this grace that hath founded in your ears into wantonness Think not because Christ hath done so much for you you may sit still much less indulge your selves in sin because Christ hath offered up such an excellent sacrifice for the expiation of it No no though Christ came to be a Curse he did not come to be a a Cloak for your sins If one died for all then were all dead that they that live should not henceforth live to themselves but to him that died for them 2 Cor. 5.15 O keep your lives pure and clean Don't make fresh work for the blood of Christ every day If you live in the Spirit see that you walk in the Spirit Gal. 5.25 That is saith Cornelius à Lapide very solidly Let us shape and order our lives and actions according to the dictates instinct and impulses of the Spirit and of that grace of the Spirit put within us and planted in our hearts which tendeth to practical holiness Oh let the grace which is in your hearts issue out into all your Religious Civil and natural actions Let the Faith that is in your hearts appear in your prayers The Obedience of your hearts in hearing The Meekness of your hearts in suffering The Mercifulness of your hearts in distributing The Truth and Righteousness of your hearts in trading The Sobriety and Temperance of your hearts in eating and drinking These be the fruits of Christs sufferings indeed and they are sweet fruits Let grace refine enoble and elevate all your actions that you may say truly our conversation is in Heaven Let grace have the ordering of your tongues and of your hands the moulding of your whole conversation Let not Humility appear in some actions and Pride in others Holy seriousness in some companies and vain frothiness in others Suffer not the fountain of corruption to mingle with or pollute the streams of grace Write as exactly as you can after your Copy Christ. O let there not be as one well expresses it here a line and there a blanck Here a word and there a blot One word of God and two of the World Now a Spiritual rapture and then a fleshly Frollick This day a fair stride to Heaven and to morrow a slide back again towards Hell But be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long Let there be a due proportion betwixt all the parts of your conversation Approve your selves the servants of Christ in all things By pureness by knowledge by long suffering by the Holy Ghost by Love unfeigned by the Word of Truth by the power of God by the armour of Righteousness on the right hand and on the left 2 Cor. 6.6 See then how accuratly you walk Cut off occasion from them that desire occasion and in well doing commit your selves to God and commend Religion to the World That this is your great concernment and duty I shall evidence to your conscience by these following considerations That of all persons in the world the Redeemed of the Lord are most obliged to be holy Most assisted for a life of holiness And that God intends to make great Vse of their lives both for the conviction and conversion of others Consid. First God hath most obliged them to live pure and strict lives I know the command obliges all men to it even those that cast away the cords of the commands and break Christs bonds asunder are yet bound by them and cannot plead a dispensation to live as they do Yea and it is not unusual for them to feel the obligations of the command upon their consciences even when their impetuous Lusts hurry them on to the violation of them but there are special ties upon your souls that oblige you to holiness of life more than others Many special and peculiar engagements you are under First from God Secondly from your selves Thirdly from your Brethren Fourthly from your enemies First God hath peculiarly obliged you to purity and strictness of Life Yea every person in the blessed Trinity hath cast his Cord over your Souls to bind up your hearts and lives to the most strict and precise obedience of his commands The Father hath obliged you and that not only by the common tie of Creation which is yet of great efficacy in it self for is it reasonable that God should create and form so excellent a piece and that it should be employed against him That he should plant the Tree and another eat the Fruit of it But besides this common engagement he hath obliged you to holiness of life First By his wise and merciful designs and counsels for your recovery and salvation by Jesus Christ. It was he that laid the corner stone of your salvation with his own hands The first motion sprang out of his breast If God had not designed the Redeemer for you the world had never seen him he had never left that sweet bosom for you It was the Act of the Father to give you to the Son to be Redeemed and then to give the Son to be a Redeemer to you Both of them stupenduous and astonishing Acts of grace And in both God acted as a most free Agent When he gave you to Christ before the beginning of time there was nothing out of himself that could in the least move him to it When the Father Son and Spirit sate as I may say at the Counsel Table contriving and laying the design for the salvation of a few out of many of Adams degenerate off-spring there was none came before them to speak one word for thee but such was the divine pleasure to insert thy name in that Catalogue of the saved Oh how much owest thou to the Lord for this And what an engagement doth it leave upon thy soul to obey please and glorifie him Secondly By his bountiful remunerations of your obedience which have been wonderful What service didst thou ever perform for him for which he hath not paid thee a thousand times more than it was worth Didst thou ever seek him diligently and not find him a bountiful rewarder none seek him in vain unless such only as seek him vainly Heb. 11.6
THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE OPENED OR A Display of Christ in his Essential and Mediatorial Glory Wherein the IMPETRATION of our Redemption by Jesus Christ is orderly unfolded as it was begun carryed on and finished by his Covenant-transaction mysterious Incarnation solemn Call and Dedication Blessed Offices deep Abasement and super-eminent Advancement In all which the great supernatural mysterie of the wisdom and Love of God in his most gracious plenary and wonderful Salvation of sinners by Iesus Christ is distinctly explicated and in its several parts as well as generally Applyed for the winning of Vnbelievers to him and the confirmation of all that do believe in him By Iohn Flavell Preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ at Dartmouth in Devon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3.8 Praesiat paâ—cula ex meliore scientia degustasse quam de ignobiliore multa Cael. Rodig LONDON Printed by Rob. White for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1673. To his much Honoured and Beloved Kinsman Mr. Iohn Flavell of London Merchant and his vertuous Consort The Author wisheth Grace Mercy and Peace My dear and honoured Friends IF my Pen were both able and at leisure to get glory in Paper it would be but a paper-glory when I had gotten it but if by displaying which is the design of these papers the transcendent excellency of Iesus Christ I may win glory to him from you to whom I humbly offer them or from any other into whose hands providence shall cast them that will be glory indeed and an occasion of glorifying God to all Eternity It is not the design of this Epistle to complement but to benefit you Not to blazon your excellencies but Christs Not to acquaint the world how much you have endeared me to your self but to increase and strengthen the endearments betwixt Christ and you upon your part I might indeed this being a proper place for it pay you my acknowledgements for your great kindnesses to me and mine of which I assure you I have and ever shall have deep resentments but you and I are Theatre enough to one another and can satisfie our selves with the inclosed comforts and delights of our mutual love and friendship but let me tell you the whole world is not a Theatre large enough to shew the glory of Christ upon or unfold the one half of the unsearchable riches that lye hid in him These things will be far better understood and spoken of in Heaven by the noon day Divinity in which the immediately illuminated Assembly do there preach his praises than by such a stammering tongue and scribling pen as mine which doth but mar them Alas I write his praises but by Moon-light I cannot praise him so much as by halves Indeed no tongue but his own as Nazianzen said of Basil is sufficient to undertake that task What shall I say of Christ The excelling glory of that object dazles all aphension swallows up all expression When we have borrowed metaphors from every Creature that hath any excellency or lovely property in it till we have stript the whole Creation bare of all its ornaments and cloathed Christ with all that glory when we have worn our tongues to the stumps in ascribing praises to him alas we have done nothing when all is done Yet wo is me how do I every day behold reasonable souls most unreasonably disaffected to my lovely Lord Iesus denying love to one who is able to compel love from the stoniest heart yea though they can never make so much of their love would they set it to sale as Christ bids for it It 's horrid and amazing to see how the minds of many are captivated and insnared by every silly trifle And how others can indifferently turn them with a kind of spontaneity to this object or to that as their fancy strikes among the whole universe of beings and scarce ever reluctate recoil or nauseate till they be perswaded to Christ and then 't is as easie to melt the obdurate rocks into sweet syrrup as their hearts into divine love How do the great men of the world ambitiously court the honours and pleasures of it the Merchants of the earth trade and strive for the dear bought treasures of it whilst the price of Christ alas ever too low falls every day lower and lower upon the Exchange of this world I speak it as a sad truth if there were no quicker a trade as dead as they say it is for the perishing treasures of the earth than there is for Christ this day in England the Exchange would quickly be shut up and all the Trading Companies dissolv'd Dear Sir Christ is the Peerless Pearl hid in the field Mat. 13.46 will you be that wise Merchant that resolves to win and compass that treasure whatever it shall cost you Ah Sir Christ is a commodity that can never be bought too dear My dear Kinsman my flesh and my blood my soul thirsteth for your salvation and the salvation of your family Shall you and I resolve with good Joshua that whatever others do we and our families will serve the Lord. That we will walk as the redeemed of his blood shewing forth his vertues and praises in the world that as God hath made us one in name and one in affection so we may be one in Christ. That it may be said of us as it was of Austin and Alippius long ago that they were sanguine christi conglutinati glued together by the blood of Christ. For my own part I have given in my name to him long since woe to me if I have not given in my heart also for should I deceive my self in so deep a point as that how would my profession as a Christian my calling as a Minister yea these very Sermons now in your hands rise in judgement to condemn me which God forbid And doubtless Sir your eyes have seen both the vanity of all Creatures and the necessity and infinite worth of Christ. You cannot forget what a vanity the world appeared to you when in the year 1668. you were summoned by the messengers of death as you and all that were about you then apprehended to shoot the gulf of vast eternity when a malignant Feaver and Pleuresie whereof your Physitian hath given an account to the world did shake the whole frame of the Tabernacle wherein your soul through mercy yet dwells and long may it dwell there for the service and praise of your great deliverer I hope you have not nor ever will forget how the vain world then appeared to your eye when you looked back as it were over your shoulder and saw how it shrunk away from you Nor will you ever forget the awful apprehensions of Eternity that then seized your spirit or the value you then had for Christ which things I hope still do and ever will remain with you And for you Dear Cousin as it becomes a daughter of Sarah let your soul be adorned with the excellencies of
overcome especially by a poor Creature as I am that am able to do nothing no not to raise one penny towards the discharge of that great debt I owe to God for here thou wilt find upon thy Union with Christ that there is merit enough in his blood and mercy enough in his bowels to justifie and save such an one as thou art Yea and I will add for thine incouragement that it is a righteous thing with God to justifie and save thee that canst not pay him one penny of all the vast sums thou owest him when by the same rule of justice he condemns the most strict self-righteous Pharisee that thinks thereby to quit scores with him It is righteous for a judge to cast him that hath paid 99 l. of the 100. which he owed because the payment was not full and to acquit him whose surety hath paid all though himself did not and freely confess that he cannot pay one farthing of the whole debt 2. If thou be a self-deceiving soul that easily takest up thy satisfaction about thine interest in Christ look to it as thou valuest thy soul Reader that a fond and groundless conceit of thine interest in Christ do not effectually and finally obstruct a true and saving interest in him This is the common and fatal errour in which multitudes of souls are insnared and ruined for look as a conceit of great wisdom hinders many from the attaining of it so a groundless conceit that Christ is already thine may prove the greatest obstacle betwixt Christ and thee but here thou wilt meet with many Rules that will not deceive thee tryals that will open thy true condition to thee Thou sometimes reflectest upon the state of thy soul and enquirest is Christ mine may I depend upon it that my condition is safe thy heart returns thee an answer of peace it speaks as thou wouldst have it but remember friend and mark this line Thy final sentence is not yet come from the mouth of thy judge and what if after all thy self flattering hopes and groundless confidences a sentence should come from him quite cross to that of thine own heart where art thou then what a confounded person wilt thou be Christless speechless and hopeless all at once O therefore build sure for Eternity take heed lest the loss of thine eternal happiness be at last imputed by thee to the deceitfulness and laziness of thine own heart lest thy heart say to thee in Hell as the heart of Apollodorus seemed in his sufferings to say to him I am the cause of all this misery to thee 3. If thou be one whose heart is eagerly set upon this vain world I beseech thee take heed lest it interpoe it self betwixt Christ and thy soul and so cut thee off from him for ever O beware lest the dust of the earth getting into thine eyes so blind thee that thou never see the beauty or necessity of Christ. The God of this world so blinds the eyes of them that believe not And what are the sparkling pleasures that dazle the eyes of some and the distracting cares that wholly divert the minds of others but as a Napkin drawn by Satan over the eyes of them that are to be turned off into Hell 1 Cor. 4.3 4. Some general aims and faint wishes after Christ thou mayest have but alas the world hath centered thy heart intangled thy affections and will daily find new diversions for thee from the great business of life So that if the Lord break not this snare thou wilt never be able to deliver thy soul. 4. If thou be a loose and careless professor of Christ I beseech thee let the things thou shalt read in this Treatise of Christ convince shame and reclaim thee from thy vain conversation Here thou wilt find how contrary thy conversation is to the grand designes of the death and resurrection of Christ. O methinks as thou art reading the deep humiliation and unspeakable sorrows Christ underwent for the expiating of sin thou shouldst thenceforth look upon sin as a tender Child would upon that knife that stab'd his Father to the heart Thou shouldst never whet and sharpen it again to wound the Son of God afresh To such loose and careless professors I particularly recommend the last general use of this discourse containing many great motives to reformation and strict Godliness in all that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus 5. If thou hast been a prophane and vain person but now art pardoned and dost experience the super-abounding riches of grace my request to thee is that thou love Jesus Christ with a more fervent love than ever yet thou hadst for him Here thou wilt find many great incentives many mighty arguments to such a love of Christ poor soul consider what thou hast been what the morning of thy life was What treasures of guilt thou laidst up in those dayes and then think can such a one as I receive mercy and that mercy not break my heart can I read my pardon and mine eyes not drop What mercy for such a wretch as I a pardon for such a Rebel O what an ingenuous thaw should this cause upon thy heart if it do not what a strange heart is thine Did the love of Christ break through so many impediments to come to thee Did it make its way through the Law through the wrath of God through the grave through thine own unbelief and great unworthiness to come to thee O what a love was the love of Christ to thy soul And is not thy love strong enough to break through the vanities and trifles of this world which intangle it to go to Christ how poor how low and weak is thy love to Christ then 6. Lastly Art thou one that hast through mercy at last attained assurance or good hope through grace of thy interest in Christ Rejoice then in thy present mercy and long ardently to be with thine own Christ in his glory There be many things dispersed through this Treatise of Christ to animate such joy and excite such longings It was truly observed by a worthy Author whose words I have mentioned more freely than his name in this discourse that it is in a manner as natural for us to leap when we see the New Ierusalem as it is to laugh when we are tickled Ioy is not under the souls command when Christ kisseth it And for your desires to be with Christ what considerations can you find in this world strong enough to reine them in O when you shall consider what he hath done suffered and purchased for you where he is now and how much he longs for your coming your very hearts should groan out those words Phil. 1.23 I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for of Christ. Having delivered my message to the Reader in general I have somewhat more particularly to
grace with full satisfaction to the Iustice of God the Apostle 2 Tim. 1.9 tells us we are saved according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Iesus before the world began that is according to the gratious terms of this Covenant of Redemption and yet you see notwithstanding how strictly God stands upon satisfaction from Christ so then Grace to us and satisfaction to Justice are not so inconsistent as the Socinian Adversaries would make them what was debt to Christ is grace to us when you hear men cry out here 's Grace indeed pay me all and I will forgive you remember how all mouths are stopt with that one Text Rom. 3.24 being Iustified freely by his grace and yet he adds through the Redemption that is in Christ. Vse 5. Again hence Judge of the antiquity of the love of God to believers what an antient friend he hath been to us who loved us provided for us and contrived all our happiness before we were yea before the world was we reap the fruits of this Covenant now the seed whereof was sown from Eternity yea it is not only ancient but also most free no excellencies of ours could engage the love of God for as yet we were not Vse 6. Judge hence how reasonable it is that believers should embrace the hardest terms of obedience unto Christ who complyed with such hard terms for their salvation they were hard and difficult terms indeed on which Christ received you from the Fathers hand it was as you have heard to pour out his soul unto death or not to enjoy a soul of you here you may suppose the Father to say when driving this bargain with Christ for you My Son here be a company of poor miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lye open to my Justice Justice demands Satisfaction for them or will satisfie it self in the eternal ruine of them what shall be done for these souls And thus Christ returns O my Father such is my love to and pitty for them that rather than they shall perish eternally I will be responsible for them as their Surety bring in all thy bills that I may see what they owe thee Lord bring them in all that there may be no after reckonings with them at my hand shalt thou require it I will rather choose to suffer thy wrath than they should suffer it Upon me my Father upon me be all their debt But my Son if thou undertake for them thou must reckon to pay the last mite expect no abatements if I spare them I will not spare thee Content Father let it be so charge it all upon me I am able to discharge it and though it prove a kind of undoing to me though it impoverish all my riches empty all my treasures for so indeed it did 2 Cor. 8.9 though he were rich yet for our sakes became poor yet I am content to undertake it blush ungrateful believers O let shame cover your faces Judge in your selves now hath Christ deserved that you should stand with him for trifles that you should shrink at a few petty difficulties and complain this is hard and that is harsh O if you knew the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in this his wonderful condescention for you you could not do it Vse 7. Lastly How greatly are we all concerned to make it sure to our selves that we are of this number which the Father and the Son agreed for before the world was that we were comprehended in Christs bargain and compact with the Father Yea but you will say who can know that there were no witnesses to that bargain Yes We may know without ascending into Heaven or prying into unrevealed Secrets that our names were in that Covenant if 1. You are believers indeed for all such the Father then gave to Christ John 17.8 the men that thou gavest me for of them he spake immediately before they have believed that thou didst send me 2. If you savingly know God in Jesus Christ such were given him by the Father Joh. 17.6 I have manifested thy name unto the men thou gavest me by this they are discriminated from the rest vers 25. the world hath not known thee but thâ—se have known c. 3. If you are men and women of another world Joh. 17.16 they are not of the world as I am not of the world may it be said of you as of dying men that you are not men and women for this world that you are Crucified and dead to it Gal. 6.14 that you are strangers in it Heb. 11.13 14. 4. If you keep Christs word Joh. 17.6 thine they were and thou gavest them me and they have kept thy word by keeping his word understand the receiving of the word in its sanctifying effects and influences into your hearts and your perseverance in the profession and practice of it to the end Joh. 17.17 sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is truth Joh. 15.7 if ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will blessed and happy is that soul upon which these blessed characters appear which our Lord Jesus hath laid so close together within the compass of a few Verses in this 17 of Iohn these are the persons the Father delivered unto Christ and he accepted from the Father in this blessed Covenant The FOURTH SERMON JOH III. XVI For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son c. YOU have heard of the gracious purpose and design of God to recover poor sinners to himself by Jesus Christ and how this design of love was laid and contrived in the Covenant of Redemption whereof we last spake Now according to the terms of that Covenant you shall hear from this Scripture how that design was by one degree advanced towards its accomplishment in Gods actual giving or parting with his own Son for us God so loved the world that he gave c. The whole precedent context is spent in discovering the nature and necessity of Regeneration and the necessity thereof is in this Text argued and inferred from the peculiar respect and eye God had upon believers in giving Christ for them they only reaping all the special and saving benefits and advantages of that gift God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish In the words are considerable The Original Spring or Fountain of our best mercies the love of God The love of God is either benevolent beneficient or complacential his benevolent love is nothing else but his desire and purpose of saving and doing us good so his purpose of grace to Iacob is called love Rom. 9.13 Iacob have I loved but this being before Iacob was could consist in nothing else but the gracious purpose of God towards him his beneficent love is his actual doing good to the persons beloved
or the bestowing the effects of his love upon us according to that purpose His complacential love is nothing else but that delight and satisfaction he finds in beholding the fruits and workings of that grace in us which he first intended for us and then actually collated or bestowed on us This love of benevolence is that which I have opened to you under the former head Gods compact with Christ about us or his design to save us on the Articles and terms therein specified The love of beneficence is that which this Scripture speaks off out of this fountain Christ flowed to us and both run into that of complacency for therefore he both purposed and actually bestowed Christ on us that he might everlastingly delight in beholding the glory and praise of all this reflected on himself by his redeemed ones This then is the fountain of our mercies The mercy flowing out of this fountain and that is Christ the mercy as he is Emphatically called Luk. 1.72 the marrow kernel and substance of all other mercies He gave his only begotten Son this was the birth of that love the like whereunto it never brought forth before therefore it 's exprest with a double emphasis in the Text the one is that particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so he so loved the world here is a sic without a sicut how did he love it why he so loved it but how much the tongues of Angels cannot declare And moreover to encrease and aggravate the mercy he is stiled his only begotten Son to have given a Son had been wonderful but to give an only begotten Son that 's love unexpressible unintelligible The objects of this love or the persons into whose lap and arms the eternal love delivered Christ and that is the world this must respect the elect of God in the world such as do or shall actually believe as it is exegetically exprest in the next breath that whosoever believes in him should not perish those whom he calls the world in that he stiles believers in this expression and the word world is put to signifie the elect because they are scattered through all parts and are among all ranks of men in the world these are the objects of this love it is not Angels but men that were so loved he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover a friend of man but never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the lover of friend of Angels or Creatures of another species The manner in which this never enough celebrated mercy flows to us from the Fountain of Divine love and that is most freely and spontaneously He gave not he sold or barely parted from but gave nor yet doth the Fathers giving imply Christ to be meerly passive for as the Father is here said to give him so the Apostle tells us Gal. 2.20 that he gave himself who loved me and gave himself for me the Father gave him out of good will to men and he as willingly bestowed himself on that Service Hence the Note is DOCT. That the gift of Christ is the highest and fullest manifestation of the love of God to sinners that ever was made from eternity to them How is this gift of God to sinners signalized in that place of the Apostle 1 Joh. 4.10 herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins why doth the Apostle so magnifie this gift in saying herein is love as if there were love in nothing else may we not say that to have a being a being among the rational creatures therein is love to have our life carryed so many years like a taper in the hand of Providence through so many dangers and not yet put out in obscurity therein is love to have food and rayment convenient for us beds to lye in relations to comfort us in all these is love yea but if you speak comparatively in all these there is no love to the love exprest in sending or giving Christ for us these be great mercies in themselves but set by this mercy they are all swallowed up as the light of Candles when brought into the Sun-shine no no herein is the love that God gave Christ for us And it is remarkable that when the Apostle would shew us in Rom. 5.8 what is the noblest fruit that most commends to men the root of Divine love that bears it he shews us this very fruit of it that I am now opening But God saith he commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us this is the very flower of that love The Method into which I will cast this precious point shall be this 1. To shew how Jesus Christ was given by the Father 2. How that gift is the fullest and richest manifestation of the love of God that was ever made to the world 3. And then draw forth the Uses of it How was Jesus Christ given by the Father and what is implyed therein You are not so to understand it as though God parted with his â—â—terest and propriety in his Son when he is said to give him he was as much his own as ever when men give they transfer propriety to another but when God had given him he was I say still as much his own as ever but this giving of Christ implyes 1. His designation and appointment unto death for us for so you read that it was done according to the determinate counsel of God Acts 2.23 look as the Lamâ—â—nder the Law was separted from the flock and set apart for a Sacrifice though it were still living yet it was intentionally and pâ—â—paratively given and consecrated to the Lord so Jesus Christ was by the counsel and purpose of God thus chosen and set apart for this Service and therefore in Esa. 42.1 God calls him his elect or chosen one 2. His giving Christ implys a parting with him or setting him as the French hath it at some distance from himself for a time there was a kind of parting betwixt the Father and the Son when he came to tabernacle in our flesh so he expresseth it Joh. 16.28 I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father this distance that his incarnation and humiliation set him at was properly as to his humanity which was really distant from the glory into which it is now taken up and in respect of manifestation of delight and love The Lord seemed to carry it as one at distance from him O this was it that so deeply pierced and wounded his Soul as is evident from that complaint Psal. 22.1 2. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Why art thou so far from the voice of my roaring O my God I cry in the day time and thou hearest not c. 3. Gods giving of Christ implies his delivering him into the
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
be Is it indeed worth no more than this in your eyes Surely you will not be long of that opinion Will you be of that mind think you when death and Judgement shall have throughly awakned you O no then a thousand worlds for a Christ. As its storied of our Crook-back'd Richard when he lost the field and was in great danger by his enemies that pressed upon him O now said he a Kingdom for an Horse Or think ye that any beside you in the world are of your mind You are deceived if you think so To them that believe he is precious through all the world 1 Pet. 2.7 And in the other world they are of a quite contrary mind Could you but hear what is said of him in heaven in what a dialect the Saved of the Lord do extoll their Saviour or could you but imagine the self revenges the self torments which the damned suffer for this their folly and what a value they would set upon one tender of Christ if it might but again be hoped for you would see that such as you are the only despisers of Christ. Beside methinks its astonishing that you should despise a mercy in which your own souls are so dearly so deeply so everlastingly concerned in as they are in this gift of God If it were but the soul of another nay less if but the body of another and yet less than that if but anothers beast whose life you could preserve you are obliged to do it but when it is thy self yea the best part of thy self thine own invaluable soul that thou ruinest and destroyest hereby Oh what a monster art thou to cast it away thus What! will you slight your own souls Care you not whether they be saved or whether they be damned Is it indeed an indifferent thing with you which way they fall at death Have you imagined a tollerable Hell Is it easie to perish Are you not only turned Gods enemies but your own too O see what monsters can sin turn men and women into O the stupifying besotting intoxicating power of Sin But perhaps you think that all these are but uncertain sounds with which we alarm you It may be thine own heart will Preach such Doctrine as this to thee Who can assure thee of the reallity of these things What shouldst thou trouble thy self about an invisible world or be so much concerned for what thine eyes never saw nor didst ever receive the report from any that have seen them Well though we cannot now shew you these things yet shortly they shall be shewn you and your own eyes shall behold them You are convinced and satisfied that many other things are real which you never saw But be assured that if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation Which at first began to be spoken to us by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness Heb. 2.2 3 4. But if they be certain yet they are not near It will be a long time before they come poor soul how dost thou cheat thy self It may be not by twenty parts so long a time as thine own phancy draws it forth for thee Thou art not certain of the next moment And suppose what thou imaginest what is Twenty or Forty years when it is past yea what is a thousand years to the vast eternity Go trifle away a few days more sleep out a few nights more and then lie down in the dust it will not be long ere the Trump of God shall awaken thee and thine eyes shall behold Jesus coming in the clouds of heaven and then you will know the price of this sin O therefore if there be any sence of eternity upon you any pity or love for your selves in you if you have any concernments more than the beasts that perish despise not your own offered mercies slight not the richest gift that ever was yet opened to the world and a sweeter cannot be opened to all Eternity The FIFTH SERMON JOH I.XIV. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us c. YOU have heard the Covenant of Redemption opened The work therein propounded by the Father and consented to by the Son is such as infinitly exceeds the power of any meer Ceature to perform He that undertakes to satisfie God by obedience for the sin of man must himself be God And he that performeth such a perfect obedience by doing and suffering all that the Law required in our rooms must be man These two natures must be united in one person else there could not be a concourse or co-operation of either nature in his mediatory works How these natures are united in the wonderful person of our Immanuel is the first part of the great mysterie of of godliness A Subject studied and adored by Angels And the mysterie thereof is wrap'd up in this Text. Wherein we have First the incarnation of the Son of God plainly asserted Secondly that assertion strongly confirmed In the assertion we have three parts The person assuming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word i. e. the second person or subsistent in the most glorious Godhead call'd the Word either because he is the scope and principal matter both of the prophetical and promisory word Or because he expounds and reveals the mind and will of God to men as vers 18. The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared or expounded him The Nature assumed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flâ—sh i. e. the intire humane Nature consisting of a true humane soul and body For so this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Rom. 3.20 And the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which answers to it by a usual Metonymie of a part for the whole is used Gen. 6.12 And the word flesh is rather used here than man on purpose to aggravate the admirable condescention and abasement of Christ there being more of vileness weakness and opposition to spirit in this word than in that as is pertinently noted by some Hence the whole nature is denominated by that part and called flesh The Assumption it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was made not fuit he was as Socinus would render in design to overthrow the existence of Christs glorify'd body now in heaven But factus est it was made i. e. he took or assumed the true humane nature called flesh for the reason before rendred into the unity of his divine person with all its integral parts and essential properties and so was made or became a true and real man by that assumption The Apostle speaking of the same act Heb. 2.16 Uses another word He took on him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fitly rendred he took on him or he assumed Which assuming though inchoative it was the work of the whole Trinity God
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
Humility and Self-abasement As in Abraham who lay on his face when God Sealed the Covenant to him Gen. 17.1 2 3. This O this brings home the sweet and good of all when this Seal is superaded to that The SEVENTH SERMON JOH XVII XIX And for their Sakes I sanctifie my Self JESUS CHRIST being fited with a Body and authorized by a Commission now actually devotes and sets himself apart to his Work In the former Sermon you heard what the Father did in this you shall hear what the Son hath done towards the Fathers advancement of that glorious design of our Salvation He sanctified himself for our Sakes Wherein observe 1. Christs sanctifying of himself 2. the end or design of his so doing First You have Christs sanctifying of himself The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not here to be understood for the cleansing purifying or making holy that which before was unclean and unholy either in a Moral sence as we are cleansed from Sin by sanctification or in a Ceremonial sence as persons and things were sanctified under the Law though here is a plain allusion to those legal Rites But Christs sanctifying himself imports First His Separation or setting apart to be an oblation or Sacrifice So Beza nempe ut sacerdâ—s victima As the Priest and Sacrifice I sanctifie my self imports Secondly His Consecration or Dedication of himself to this holy use and service So the Dutch Annotations I sanctifie my self i. e. I give up my self for an holy Sacrifice And so our English Annotations I Sanctifie i. e. I Consecrate and voluntarily offer my self an holy and unblemished Sacrifice to thee for their Redemption So that as under the Law when any day person or vessel was consecrated and dedicated to the Lord it was so intirely for his use and service that to use it afterward in any common service was to prophane it and polute it As you see Dan. 5.3 Secondly The end of his so sanctifying himself for their Sakes And that they might be Sanctified where you have the finis eujus the end for whom for their i. e. for the Elect sake For them whom thou gavest me And the finis cui the the end for which that they might be sanctified Where you also see that the death of Christ wholly respects us He offered not for himself as other Priests did but for us that we may be sanctified Christ is so in love with holyness that at the price of his blood he will buy it for us Hence the Observation is DOCT. That Iesus Christ did dedicate and wholy set himself apart to the Work of a Mediator for the Elect sake This point is a glass wherein the eye of your Faith may see Jesus Christ preparing himself to be offered up to God for us Fitting himself to die And to keep a clear Method I shall open these two things in the doctrinal part first what his sanctifying himself implys Secondly how it respects us First What is implyed in this phrase I sanctifie my self And there are seven things carried in it First This phrase I sanctifie my self implys the personal union of the two natures in Christ. For what is that which he here calls himself but the same that was consecrated to be a Sacrifice even his humane nature This was the sacrifice And this also was himself So the Apostle speaks Heb. 9.14 He through the eternal Spirit offered up himself to God without Spot So that our nature by that assumption is become himself Greater honour cannot be done it Or a greater ground of comfort proposed to us But having spoken of that union in the former Sermon I shall remit the Reader thither Secondly This sanctifying or consecrating himself to be a Sacrifice for us implys the greatness and dreadfulneâ—s of that breach which sin made betwixt God and us You see no less Sacrifice than Christ himself must be sanctified to make attonement Judge of the greatness of the wound by the breadth of the plaister Sacrifice and offering and burnt offering for sin thou wouldst not but a body hast thou prepared me Heb. 10.5 All our repentance could we shed as many tears for Sin as there have fallen drops of rain Since the Creation could not have been our attonement but God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself And had he not sanctified Christ to this end he would have sanctified himself upon us in Judgement and fury for ever Thirdly This his sanctifying himself implys his free and voluntary undertakement of the Work It is not I am sanctified as if he he had been meerly passive in it as the Lambs that typed him out were when pluckt from the fold but it 's an active verb that he uses here I sanctifie my self he would have none think that he dyed out of a necessity of compulsion but out of choice Therefore he is said to offer up himself to God Heb. 9.14 And in Ioh. 10.18 I lay down my life of my self no man takes it from me And although it 's often said his Father sent him and gave him yet his heart was as much set on that work as if there had been nothing but glory ease and comfort in it he was under no constraint but that of his own Love Therefore as when the Scripture would set forth the willingness of the Father to this work it saith God sent his Son and God gave his Son so when it would set forth Christs willingness to it it saith he offered up himself gave himself and here in the Text sanctified himself The sacrifice that strugled and came not without force to the Altar was reckon'd ominous and unlucky by the Heathen our sacrifice dedicated himself He dyed out of choice And was a free-will offering Fourthly His sanctifying himself implys his pure and perfect holyness That he had no Spot or blemish in him Those beasts that prefigured him were to be without blemish And none else were consecrated to that Service So and more than so it behoved Christ to be Heb. 7.26 Such an High-Priest became us as is holy harmless undefiled separate from Sinners And what it became him to be he was Therefore in allusion to the Lambs offered under the Law the Apostle calls him a Lamb without blemish or Spot 1 Pet. 1.19 Every other man hath a double Spot upon him the heart Spot and the life Spot The Spot of original and the Spots of actual Sins But Christ was without either He had not the Spot of original Sin for he was not by man He came in a peculiar way into the world and so escaped that Not yet of actual sins for as his nature so his life was Spotless and pure Isa. 53.9 He did no iniquity And though he was tempted to sin externally yet he was never defiled in heart or practice He came as near it as he could come for our sakes yet still without sin Heb. 4 15. If he sanctifie himself for a
tree full of all delectable fruits of holiness yet if the fire of his indignation thus seize upon me what will be your condition that are both barren and guilty void of all good fruit and full of all unrighteousness and so like dry seary wood are fitted as fewel to the fire Consider with thy self man how canst thou imagine thou canst support that infinite wrath that Christ grapled with in the room of Gods Elect He had the strength of a Deity to support him Esa. 42.1 behold my servant whom I uphold He had the fulness of the Spirit to prepare him Isa. 61.11 He had the ministry of an Angel who came post from Heaven to relieve him in his agony Luk. 22.43 He had the ear of his Father to hear him for he cryed and was heard in that he feared Heb. 5.7 He was assured of the victory before the combat he knew he should be Justified Isa. 50.8 And yet for all this was sore amazed and sorrowful even to death and his heart was melted like wax in the midst of his bowels If the case stood thus with Christ notwithstanding all these advantages he had to bear the wrath of God for a little time How dost thou think a poor worm as thou art to dwell with everlasting burnings or contend with devouring fire Luther saw ground enough for what he said when he cryed out I will have nothing to do with an absolute God i. e. with a God out of Christ. For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Wo and alas for evermore to that man that meets a just and righteous God without a Mediator Whoever thou art that readest these lines I beseech thee by the mercies of God by all the regard and love thou hast to thy own soul neglect not time but make quick and sure work of it Get an interest in this Sacrifice quickly what else will be thy state when vaste ternity opens to swallow thee up What wilt thou do man when thine eye-strings and heart-strings are breaking O what a fearful scriech will thy Conscience give when thou art presented before the dreadful God and no Christ to screen thee from his indignation Happy is that man who can say in a dying hour as one did who being desired a little before his dissolution to give his friends a little tast of his present hopes and the grounds of them cheerfully answered I will let you know how it is with me then stretching forth his hand said Here is the grave the wrath of God and devouring flames the just punishment of sin on the one side and here am I a poor sinful soul on the other side but this is my comfort the Covenant of grace which is established upon so many sure promises hath salved all There is an act of oblivion passed in Heaven I will forgive their iniquities and their sins will I remember no more This is the blessed priviledge of all within the Covenant among whom I am one O 't is sweet at all times especially at such a time to see the reconciled face of God through Jesus Christ and hear the voice of peace through the blood of the Cross. Inference 3. Hath Christ offered up himself a Sacrifice to God for us then let us improve in every condition this Sacrifice and labour to get hearts duly affected with such a sight as faith can give us of it Whatever the condition or complaint of any Christian is the beholding the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world may give him strong support and sweet relief Do you complain of the hardness of your hearts and want of love to Christ behold him as offered up to God for you and such a sight if any in the world will do it will melt your hard hearts Zech. 12.10 They shall look upon me whom they have pierced and shall mourn It is reported of Iohannes Milius that he was never observed to speak of Christ and his sufferings but his eyes would drop Art thou too little touched and unaffected with the evil of sin is it thy complaint Christian that thou canst not make sin bear so heard upon thy heart as thou would consider but what thou hast now read realize this Sacrifice by faith and try what efficacy there is in it to make sin for ever bitter as death to thy soul. Suppose thy own Father had been stab'd to the heart with such a knife and his blood were upon it wouldst thou delight to see or endure to use that knife any more Sin is the knife that stab'd Christ to the heart this shed his blood Surely you can never make light of that which lay so heavy upon the soul and body of Jesus Christ. Or is your heart prest down even to despondency under guilt of sin So that you cry how can such a sinner as I be pardoned My sin is greater than can be forgiven Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world Remember that no sin can stand before the Efficacy of his blood 1 Joh. 1.7 the blood of Iesus cleanseth from all sin This Sacrifice makes unto God full satisfaction Are you at any time staggering through unbelief Filled with unbelieving suspicions of the promises Look hither and you shall see them all ratified and established in the blood of the cross So that hills and mountains shall sooner start from their own bases and centers than one tittle of the promise fail Heb. 9.17 18 19. Do you at any time find your hearts fretting disquieted and impatient under every petty cross and trial See how quietly Christ your Sacrifice came to the Altar How meekly and patiently he stood under all the wrath of God and men together This will silence convince and shame you In a word Here you will see so much of the grace of God and love of Christ in providing and becoming a Sacrifice for you you will see God taking vengeance upon sin but sparing the sinner You will see Christ standing as the body of sin alone for he was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him That whatever corruption burdens this in the believing application will support Whatever grace be defective this will revive it Blessed be God for Iesus Christ. The THIRTEENTH SERMON HEB. VII XXV Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them HAving dispatcht the first part or Act of Christs Priesthood consisting in his Oblation we come to the other branch of it consisting in his Intercession which is nothing else but the vertual continuation of his offering once made on earth That being medium reconciliationis the means of reconciling this medium applicationis the way and means of his applying to us the benefits purchased by it This second part or branch of his Priesthood was Typified by
remission of sin to believers and lest we should lose the Emphatical word he doubles it to declare I say his righteousness Every one can see how his mercy is declared in remission but he would have us take notice that his justification of Believers is an act of Justice and that God as he is a just God cannot condemn the believer since Christ hath satisfied his debts This attribute seems to be the main bar against remission but now it 's become the very ground and reason why God remits Oh how comfortable a text is this Doth Satan or Conscience set forth thy sin in all its discouraging circumstances and aggravations God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation Must justice be manifested satisfied and glorified So it is in the death of Christ ten thousand times more than ever it could be in thy damnation Thus you have a brief account of the satisfaction made by Jesus Christ. Secondly We shall gather up all that hath been said to establish the truth of Christs satisfaction Proving the reality of it that it is not an improper catechristical fictitious satisfaction by divine acceptilation as some have very diminutively called it but real proper and full and as such accepted by God For his blood is the blood of a surety Heb. 7.22 who came under the same obligations of the Law with us Gal. 4.4 and though he had no sin of his own yet standing before God as our surety the iniquities of us all were laid upon him Isai. 53.6 and from him did the Lord with great severity exact satisfaction for our sins Rom. 8.32 punishing them upon his soul. Matth. 27.46 and upon his body Act. 2.23 and with this obedience of his Son is fully pleased and satisfied Eph. 5.2 And hath in token thereof raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand 1 Tim. 3.16 And for his righteousness sake acquitted and discharged believers who shall never more come into condemnation Rom. 8.1 34. All this is plain in Scripture and our faith in the satisfaction of Christ is not built on the wisdom of man but the everlasting sealed truth of God Yet such is the perverse nature of man and the pride of his heart that whilst he should be humbly adoring the grace of God in providing such a surety for us he is found accusing the justice and diminishing the mercy of God and raising all the objections which Satan and his own heart can invent to overturn that blessed foundation upon which God hath built up his own honour and his peoples salvation Thirdly In the next place therefore we shall reject those doctrines and remove the principal of those objections that are found militating against the satisfaction of Christ. And in the first place we reject with deep abhorrence that doctrine which ascribes to man any power in whole or in part to satisfie God for his own or other mens sins This no meer creature can do by active obedience were it so compleat that he could never sin in thought word or deed any more but live the most holy life that ever any lived For all this would be no more than his duty as a creature Luk. 17.10 and so can be no satisfaction for what he is by nature or hath done against God as a sinner Nor yet by sufferings For we have offended an infinite God and can never satisfie him by our finite sufferings We also with like detestation reject that doctrine which makes the satisfaction of Christ either impossible or fictitious and inconsistent with grace in the free pardon of sin Many are the cavils raised against Christs satisfaction the principal are such as these that follow The Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction is absurd for Christ say we is God if so then God satisfies himself then which what can be more absurd to imagine I Answer God cannot properly be said to satisfie himself for that would be the same thing as to pardon simply without any satisfaction But there is a twofold consideration of Christ. One in respect of his Essence and divine nature in which sence he is the object both of the offence and of the satisfaction made for it Another in respect of his person and oeconomy or office in which sense he properly satisfies God being in respect of his manhood another and inferior to God Ioh. 14.28 the blood of the man Christ Jesus is the matter of the satisfaction The divine nature dignifies it and makes it of infinite value A certain family hath committed treason against the King and are all under the condemnation of the Law for it the Kings Son moved with pity and love resolves to satisfie the Law and yet save the Family in order whereunto he marries a daughter of the family whereby her blood becomes Royal blood and worth the blood of the whole family whence she sprang this Princess is by her Husband executed in the room of the rest In this case the King satisfies not himself for the wrong but is satisfied by the death of another equivalent in worth to the blood of them all This similitude answers not to all the particulars as indeed nothing in nature doth or can but it only shews what it was that satisfied God and how it became so satisfactory If Christ satisfied by paying our Debt then he should have endured eternal torments For so we should and the damned shall We must distinguish betwixt what is essential and what is accidental in punishment The primary intent of the Law is reparation and satisfaction he that can make it at one intire payment as Christ could and did ought to be discharged He that cannot as no meer creature can ought to lye for ever as the damned do under sufferings If God will be satisfied for our sin before he pardon them how then is pardon an Act of Grace Pardon could not be an act of pure grace if God received satisfaction from us but if he pardon us upon the satisfaction received from Christ though it be of debt to him it is of grace to us For it was grace to admit a surety to satisfie more grace to provide him and most of all to apply his satisfaction to us by uniting us to Christ as he hath done But God loved us before Christ died for us for it was the love of God to the world that moved him to give his only begotten Son Could God love us and yet not be reconciled and satisfied Gods complacential love is indeed inconsistent with an unreconciled state He is reconciled to every one he so loves But his benevolent love consisting in his purpose of Good may be before actual reconciliation and satisfaction Temporal death as well as eternal is a part of the curse if Christ have fully satisfied by bearing the curse for us how is it that those for whom he bare it dye as well as others As Temporal death is a
poenal evil and part of the curse so God inflicts it not upon believers but they must dye for other ends viz. to be made perfectly happy in a more full and immediate enjoyment of God than they can have in the body and so death is theirs by way of priviledge 1 Cor. 3.22 They are not deaths by way of punishment The same may be said of all the afflictions with which God for gratious ends now exercises his reconciled ones Thus much may suffice to establish this great truth Inference 1. If the death of Christ was that which satisfied God for all the sins of the Elect then certainly there is an infinite evil in sin since it cannot be expiated but by an infinite satisfaction Fools make a mock of sin and there are but few souls in the world that are duly sensible and affected with its evil but certainly if God should damn thee to all eternity thy eternal sufferings could not satisfie for the evil that is in one vain thought It may be you may think this is harsh and severe that God should hold his creatures under everlasting sufferings for sin and never be satisfied with them any more But when you have well considered that the object against whom you sin is the infinite blessed God which derives an infinite evil to the sin committed against him and when you consider how God dealt with the Angels that fell for one sin and that but of the mind for having no bodily organs they could commit nothing externally against God you will alter your minds about it O the depth of the evil of sin If ever you will see how great and horrid an evil sin is measure it in your thoughts either by the infinite holiness and excellency of God who is wrong'd by it or by the infinite sufferings of Christ who dyed to satisfie for it and then you will have deeper apprehensions of the evil of sin Inference 2. If the death of Christ satisfied God and thereby redeemed the Elect from the curse then the redemption of souls is costly souls are dear things and of great value with God Ye know saith the Apostle that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold from your vain conversation received by tradition but with the pretious blood of the Son of God as of a Lamb without spot 1 Pet. 1.18 19. Only the blood of God is found an equivalant price for the redemption of souls Gold and silver may redeem from Turkish but not from Hellish bondage The whole creation sold to the utmost worth of it is not a value for the redemption of one soul. Souls are dear ware he that paid for them found them so Yet how cheaply do sinners sell their souls as if they were but low priz'd Commodities But you that sell your souls cheap will buy repentance dear Inference 3. If Christs death satisfied God for our sins how unparallel'd is the love of Christ to poor sinners It 's much to pay a pecuniary debt to free another but who will pay his own blood for another We have a famous instance of Zaleucus that famous Locrensian Lawgiver who decreed and Enacted that whoever was convicted of Adultery should have both his eyes put out It so fell out that his own Son was brought before him for that crime hereupon the people interposing made suit for his pardon At length the Father partly overcome by their importunities and not unwilling to shew what lawful favour he might to his Son he first put out one of his own eyes and then one of his Sons and so shewed himself both a merciful Father and a just Law-giver So tempering mercy with justice that both the Law was satisfied and his Son spared This is written by the Historian as an instance of singular love in this Father to pay one half of the penalty for his Son But Christ did not divide and share in the penalty with us but bare it all Zaleucus did it for his Son who was dear to him Christ did it for enemies that were fighting and rebelling against him Rom. 5.8 while we were yet sinners Christ died for us O would to God said an holy one I could cause Paper and Ink to speak the worth and excellency the high and loud praises of our brother-ransomer Oh the ransomer needs not my report but oh if he would take it and make use of it I should be happy if I had an Errand to this world but for some few years to spread proclamations and out-crys and love-letters of the highness the highness for evermore of the ransomer whose cloaths were wet and dyed in blood how be it that after that my soul and body should go back to their mother nothing Inference 4. If Christ by dying hath made full satisfaction then God is no loser in pardoning the greatest of sinners that believe in Iesus and consequently his Iustice can be no bar to their Iustification and Salvation He is just to forgive us our sins 1 Joh. 1.9 What an Argument is here for a poor Believer to plead with God! Lord if thou save me by Jesus Christ thy Justice will be fully satisfied at one round payment but if thou damn me and require satisfaction at my hands thou canst never receive it I shall make but a dribling payment though I lye in Hell to eternity and shall still be infinitely behind with thee Is it not more for thy glory to receive it from Christs hand than to require it at mine One drop of his blood is more worth than all my polluted blood O how satisfying a thing is this to the Conscience of a poor sinner that is objecting the multitude agravations and amazing circumstances of sin against the possibility of their being pardoned Can such a sinner as I be forgiven Yes if thou believest in Jesus thou maist for so God will lose nothing in pardoning the greatest transgressors Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption Psal. 130.7 i. e. a large stock of merit lying by him in the blood of Christ to pay him for all that you have done against him Inference 5. Lastly If Christ hath made such a full satisfaction as you have heard how much is it the concernment of every soul to abandon all thoughts of satisfying God for his own sins and betake himself to the blood of Christ the ransomer by faith that in that blood they may be pardoned It would grieve ones heart to see how many poor creatures are drudging and tugging at a task of repentance and revenge upon themselves and reformation and obedience to satisfie God for what they have done against him and alas it cannot be they do but lose their labour could they swelter their very hearts out weep till they can weep no more cry till their throats be parched alas they can never recompence God for one vain thought For such is
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
an high a very high and glorious state to be the head both of the world and of the Church the head of the world by way of dominion the head of the Church by way of union and special influence ruling the world for the good of his people in it He gave him to be the head over all things to the Church In this Scripture let these four things be seriously heeded First The dignity and authority committed to Christ. He hath put all things under his feet which implies full ample and absolute dominion in him and subjection in them over whom he raigns This power is delegated to him by the Father For besides the essential native ingenite power and dominion over all which he hath as God and is common to every person in the Godhead Psal. 22.28 there is a mediatory dispensed authority which is proper to him as Mediator which he receives as the reward or fruit of his suffering Phil. 2.8 Secondly The subject recipient of this authority which is Christ and Christ primarily and only He is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first receptacle of all authority and power Whatever authority any creature is cloathed with is but Ministerial and derivative whether it be Political or Ecclesiastical Christ is the only Lord Jude 4. the fountain of all power Thirdly The Object of this authority The whole creation All things are put under his feet He rules from Sea to Sea even to the utmost bounds of Gods creation Thou hast given him power over all flesh Joh. 17.2 all creatures rational and irrational animate and inanimate Angels Devils Men Winds Seas all obey him Lastly And Especially take notice of the finis cui end for which he governs and rules the universal Empire It is to the Church i. e. for the advantage comfort and Salvation of that chosen remnant he died for He purchased the Church and that he might have the highest security that his blood should not be lost God the Father hath put all things into his hand to order and dispose all as he pleaseth For the furtherance of that his design and end As he bought the persons of some so the services of all the rest and that they might effectually serve the end they are designed to Christ will order them all in a blessed subordination and subserviency thereunto Hence the Point is DOCT. That all the Affairs of the Kingdom of providence are ordered and determined by Iesus Christ for the special advantage and everlasting good of his redeemed people Joh. 17.2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him Hence it comes to pass that all things work together for good to them that love God to them that are the called according to purpose Rom. 8.28 That Jesus Christ hath a providential influence upon all the affairs of this world is evident both from Scripture assertions and rational observations made upon the actings of things here below The first Chap. of Ezek. contains an admirable Scheme or draught of providence There you see how all the wheels that is the motions and revolutions here on earth are guided by the spirit that is in them And vers 26. it 's all run up into the supream cause There you find one like the son of man which is Jesus Christ sitting upon the throne and giving forth orders from thence for the government of all And if it were not so how is it that there are such strong combinations and predispositions of persons and things to such ends and issues without any communications of counsels or holding of intelligence with one another as in Israels deliverance out of Aegypt and innumerable more instances have appeared Certainly if ten men from several places should all meet at one place and about one business without any fore-appointment among themselves it would argue their motions were secretly over-ruled by some invisible Agent How is it that such marvailous effects are produced in the world by causes that carry no proportion to them Amos 5.9 and 1 Cor. 1.27 And as often the most apt and likely means are rendred wholly ineffectual Psal. 33.16 In a word if Christ have no such providential influx how are his people in all ages preserved in the midst of so many millions of potent and malitious enemies amongst whom they live as sheep in the midst of wolves Luk. 10.3 How is it that the bush burns and yet is not consumed Exod. 3.2 But my business in this discourse is not to prove that there is a providence which none but Atheists deny I shall choose rather to shew by what Acts Jesus Christ administers this Kingdom And in what manner And what use may be made thereof As to the first he rules and orders the Kingdom of Providence by supporting permitting restraining limiting protecting punishing and rewarding those over whom he raigns providentially First He supports the world and all creatures in it by his power My Father works hitherto and I work Joh. 5.17 And in him that is in Christ all things consist Col. 1.17 It 's a considerable part of Christs glory to have a whole world of creatures oweing their beings and hourly conservations to him The parts of the world are not coupled and fastned together as the parts of an house whose beams are pinn'd and nail'd to each other but rather as several rings of Iron which hang together by the vertue of a loadstone This goodly fabrick was raised to the foundation when sin entred and had tumbled into everlasting confusion had not Christ stept in to shore up the reeling world For the sakes of his redeemed that inhabit it he doth and will prop it by his omnipotent power And when he hath gathered all his Elect out of it into the Kingdom above then will he set fire to the four quarters of it and it shall lye in white ashes Mean while he is given for a Covenant to the people to establish the earth Isai. 49.8 Secondly He permits and suffers the worst of creatures in his dominion to be and act as they do The deceived and the deceiver are his Job 12.16 Even those that fight against Christ and his people receive both power and permission from him Say not that it 's unbecoming the most holy to permit such evils which he could prevent if he pleased For as he permits no more than he will overrule to his praise so that very permission of his is holy and just Christs working is not confounded with the creatures Pure Sun-beams are not tainted by the noisom vapours of the dunghil on which they shine His holiness hath no fellowship with their iniquities nor are their transgressions at all excused by his permissions of them He is a rock his work is perfect but they have corrupted themselves Deut. 32.4 5. This holy permission is but the withholding of those restraints from their Lusts and denying those common assistances which
is called Gods servant they fulfil his will whilst they are prosecuting their own lusts The earth shall help the woman Rev. 12.16 But good men delight to serve providence they and the Angels are fellow-servants in one house and to one master Rev. 19.10 Yea there is not a creature in Heaven or Earth or Hell but Jesus Christ can Providentially use it and serve his ends and promote his designs by it But whatever the Instrument be Christ uses of this we may be certain that his Providential working is Holy Judicious Soveraign Profound Irresistible Harmonious and to the Saints peculiar First It 's holy Though he permits limits orders and overrules many unholy persons and actions yet he still works like himself most holily and purely throughout The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works Psal. 145.17 It 's easier to separate light from a Sun-beam than holiness from the works of God The best of men cannot escape sin in their most holy actions They cannot touch but are defiled But no sin cleaves to God whatever he hath to do about it Secondly Christs providential working is not only most pure and holy but also most wise and Judicious Ezek. 1.20 The wheels are full of eyes they are not moved by a blind impetus but in deep counsel and wisdom And indeed the wisdom of providence manifests it self principally in the choice of such states for the people of God as shall most effectually promote their eternal happiness And herein it goes quite beyond our understandings and comprehensions It makes that medicinal and salutiferous which we judge as destructive to our comfort and good as poyson I remember it is a note of Suarez speaking of the felicity of the other world then saith he the blessed shall see in God all things and circumstances pertaining to them excellently accommodated and attempered Then they shall see that the crossing of their desires was the saving of their souls And that they had if they had not perished The most wise Providence looks beyond us It eyes the end and suits all things thereto and not to our fond desires Thirdly The Providence of Christ is most supream and soveraign Whatsoever he pleaseth that he doth in Heaven and Earth and in all places Psal. 135.6 He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings Rev. 19.16 The greatest Monarchs on Earth are but as little bits of clay As the worms of the earth to him They all depend on him Prov. 8.15 16. By me Kings raign and Princes decree Iustice by me Princes rule Nobles even all the Iudges of the Earth Fourthly Providence is profound and inscrutable The Judgements of Christ are as the great deeps and his footsteps are not known Psal. 36 6. There are hard texts in the works as well as in the words of Christ The wisest heads have been at a loss in interpreting some providences Ier. 12.1 2. Iob. 21.7 The Angels had the hands of a man under their wings Ezek. 1.8 i. e. They wrought secretly and mysteriously Fifthly Providence is irresistible in its designs and motions for all providences are but the fulfillings and accomplishments of Gods immutable decrees Eph. 1.11 He works all things according to the counsel of his own will Hence Zech. 6.1 The Instruments by which God executed his wrath are called Chariots coming from betwixt two mountains of brass i. e. the firm and immutable decrees of God When the Iews put Christ to death they did but do that the hand and counsel of God had before determined to be done Acts 4.28 So that none can oppose or resist Providence I will work and who shall lett Isa. 43.13 Sixthly The Providences of Christ are Harmonious There are secret chains and invisible connexions betwixt the works of Christ. We know not how to reconcile promises and providences together nor yet providences one with another but certainly they all work together Rom. 8.28 as adjuvant causes or con-causes standing under and working by the influence of the first cause He doth not do and undo Destroy by one providence what he built by another But look as all seasons of the year the nipping frosts as well as halcion days of summer do all conspire and conduce to the harvest so it is in providence Seventhly Lastly The providences of Christ work in a special and peculiar way for the good of the Saints His providential is subordinated to his Spiritual Kingdom He is the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe 1 Tim. 4.10 These only have the blessing of providence Things are so laid and ordered as that their eternal good shall be promoted and secured by all that Christ doth Inference 1. If so See then in the first place to whom you are beholding for your lives liberties comforts and all that you enjoy in this world Is it not Christ that takes order for you He is indeed in Heaven out of your sight but though you see him not he sees you and takes care for all your concerns When one told Silentiarius of a plot laid to take away his life he answered Si Deus mei curam non habet quid vivo if God take not care of me how do I live how have I escaped hitherto In all thy waies acknowledge him Prov. 3.6 It 's he that hath espied out that state thou art in as most proper for thee It 's Christ that doth all for you that is done He looks down from Heaven upon all that fear him he sees when you are in danger by Temptation and casts in a providence you know not how to hinder it He sees when you are sad and orders reviving providences to refresh you He sees when corruptions prevail and orders humbling providences to purge them Whatever mercies you have received all along the way you have gone hitherto are the orderings of Christ for you And you shall carefully observe how the promises and providences have kept equal pace with one another and both gone step by step with you until now Inference 2. Hath God left the government of the whole world in the hands of Christ and trusted him over all then do ye also leave all your particular concerns in the hands of Christ too and know that the infinite wisdom and love which rules the world manages every thing that relates to you It is in a good hand and infinitely better than if it were in your own I remember when Melanchthon was under some despondencies of spirit about the estate of Gods people in Germany Luther chides him thus for it desinat Philippus esse rector mundi let Philip cease to rule the world It 's none of our work to steer the course of providence or direct its motions but to submit quietly to him that doth There is an Itch in men yea in the best of men to be disputing with God Let me talk with thee of thy Iudgements saith Jeremy Jer. 32.1 2. Yea
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
we have from our very enemies accidentally Their very wrath shall praise us but for active and voluntary praise whence comes this but from the people that were formed for that very purpose Should these then miscarry and perish where shall my manifestive and active glory be And from whom shall I expect it So that here his propriety and glory are pleaded with the Father to prevail for those mercies and they are both great and valuable things with God What dearer what nearer to the heart of God A Third Argument And yet to make all fast and sure he adds in the beginning of this vers 11. a third Argument in these words And now I am no more in the world Where we must consider the sense of it as a proposition and the force of it is an argument This proposition I am no more in the world is not to be taken simply and universally as if in no sense Christ should be any more in this world but only respectively as to his corporal presence this was in a little time to be removed from his people which had been a sweet spring of comfort to them in all their troubles But now it might have been said to the pensive disciples as the sons of the Prophets said to Elisha a little before Eliahs translation know ye not that your Master shall be taken from your heads to day This comfortable enjoyment must be taken from them this is the sense And here lies the Argument Father consider the sadness and trouble I shall leave my poor Children under Whilst I was with them it was a sweet relief to their souls whatever troubles they met with In all doubts fears and dangers they could repair to me In all their straights and wants I still supplied them They had my counsels to direct them my reproofs to reduce them my comfort to support them yea the very sight of me was an unspeakable joy and refreshment to their souls but now the hour is come and I must be gone All the comfort and benefit they had from my presence among them is now cut off And except thou do make up all this to them another way what will become of these children when their Father is gone What will be the case of the poor Sheep and tender Lambs when the Shepherd is smitten Therefore O my Father look thou after them See to them for they are thine as well as mine I am glorified in them and now leaving them and removing out of this world from them A Fourth Argument And yet to move and engage the Fathers care and love for them he subjoins another great consideration in the very next words drawn from the danger he leaves them in But these are in the world The world is a sinful infecting and unquiet place it lies in wickedness and a hard thing it will be for such poor weak imperfect creatures to escape the pollutions of it Or if they do yet the troubles persecutions and strong oppositions of it they cannot escape Seeing therefore I must leave thine own dear children as well as mine and those from whom my glory is to rise in the midst of a sinful troublesom dangerous world where they can neither move backward nor forward without danger of sin or ruine O since the case stands so look after them provide for them and take special care for them all Consider who they are and where I leave them They are thy children to be left in a strange Country Thy Souldiers in the Enemies quarters Thy Sheep in the midst of Wolves Thy pretious Treasure among Thieves A Fifth Argument And yet he hath not done for he resolves to tug for the mercies he had asked and will not come off with a denial and therefore adds another Argument in the next words And I come to thee As his leaving them was an Argument so his coming to the Father is a mighty Argument also There is much in these words I come to thee I thy beloved Son in whom thy soul delighteth I to whom thou never deniedst any any thing 'T is not a stranger but a Son not an adopted but the only begotten Son 'T is I that come I am now coming to thee apace my Father I come to thee swiming through a bloody Ocean I come treading every step of my way to thee in blood and unspeakable sufferings and all this for the sake of those dear ones I now pray for Yea the design and end of my coming to thee is for them I am coming to Heaven in the capacity of an Advocate to plead with thee for them And I come to thee my Father and their Father my God and their God Now then since I that am so dear come through such bitter pangs to thee so dear so tender hearted a Father and all this on their score and account Since I do but now as it were begin or give them a little tast of that intercession-work which I shall live for ever to perform for them in Heaven Father hear Father grant what I request O give a comfortable handsel of those good things which I am coming to thee for and which I know thou wilt not deny me The Sixth Argument And to close up all he tells the Father how careful he had been to observe and perform that trust which was committed to him Whilst I was with them in the world I kept them in thy name those that thou gavest me I have kept and none of them is lost but the son of perdition ver 12. And thus lies the Argument Thou committest to me a certain number of elect souls to be redeemed by me I undertook the trust and said if any of these be lost at my hand let them be required I will answer them every one to thee In pursuance of which trust I am now here on the earth in a body of flesh I have been faithful to a point I have redeemed them for he speaks of that as finished and done which was now ready to be done I have kept also and confirmed them hitherto and now Father I commit them to thy care Lo here they are not one is lost but the son of perdition who was never given With how great care have I been careful for them O let them not fail now Let not one of them perish Thus you see what a nervous argumentative pleading prayer Christ poured out to the Father for them at parting The next enquiry is why he thus prayed and pleaded with God for them when he was to die And certainly it was not because the Father was unwilling to grant the mercies he desired for them No they came not off with difficulty nor were they wrested by meer importunity out of the hand of an unwilling and backward person For he tells us in Joh. 16.27 the Father himself loveth you i. e. he is propense enough of his own accord to do you good But the reasons of this exceeding importunity are First He
foresaw a great trial then at hand yea and all the after trials of his people as well as that He knew how much they would be sifted and put to it in that hour and power of darkness that was coming He knew their faith would be shaken and greatly staggered by the approaching difficulties when they should see their Shepherd smitten and themselves scattered The Son of man delivered into the hands of Sinners and the Lord of Life hang dead upon the tree yea sealed up in the grave He foresaw what straights his poor people would fall into betwixt a busie Devil and a bad heart therefore he prays and pleads with such importunity and ardency for them that they might not miscarry Secondly He was now entring upon his intercession-work in Heaven and he was desirous in this prayer to give us a Specimen or sample of that part of his work before he left us that by this we might understand what he would do for us when he should be out of our sight For this being his last on earth it shews us what affections and dispositions he carried hence with him and satisfies us that he who was so earnest with God on our behalf such a mighty pleader here will not forget us or neglect our concerns in the other world Yet Reader I would have the alwaies to remember that the intercession of Christ in Heaven is carried at a much higher rate than this It 's performed in a way more suitable to that state of honour to which he is now exalted Here he used prostrations of Body cries and tears in his prayers There it 's carried in a more majestick and with more state becoming an exalted Jesus But yet in this he hath left us a special assistance to discover much of the frame temper and working of his heart now in Heaven towards us Thirdly and Lastly He would leave this as a standing monument of his Father-like care and love to his people to the end of the world And for this it is conceived Christ delivered this prayer so publickly not withdrawing from the Disciples to be private with God as he did in the Garden but he delivers it in their presence these things I speak in the world this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the â—ircumstance of place in the world doth plainly speak it to be a publick prayer And not only was it publickly delivered but it was also by a singular providence recorded at large by Iohn though omitted by the other Evangelists that so it might stand to all generations for a testimony of Christs tender care and Love to his people Fourthly If you ask how this gives evidence of Christs tender care and Love to his people which is the last enquiry I answer in few words For the thing is plain and obvious It appears in these two particulars First His Love and care manifest in the choice of mercies for them He doth not pray for health honour long life riches c. but for their preservation from sin spiritual joy in God sanctification and eternal glory No mercies but the very best in Gods treasure will content him He was resolved to get all the best mercies for his people the rest he is content should be dispensed promiscuously by providence But these he will settle as an heritage upon his children O see the Love of Christ Look over all your spiritual inheritance in Christ compare it with the richest fairest sweetest inheritance on earth and see what poor things these are to yours O the care of a dear Father O the love of a Saviour Secondly Besides what an evidence of his tenderness to you and great care for you was this that he should so intently and so affectionately mind and plead your concerns with God at such a time as this was even when a world of sorrow was heming him in on every side A cup of wrath mixed and ready to be delivered into his hand At that very time when the clouds of wrath grew black a storm coming and such as he never felt before when one would have thought all his care thoughts and diligence should have been imployed on his own account to mind his own sufferings no he doth as it were forget his own sorrows to mind our peace and comfort O Love unspeakable Corollary 1. If this be so that Christ so eminently discovered his care and love for his people in this parting hour Then hence we conclude the perseverance of the Saints is unquestionable Do you hear how he pleads how he begs how he fills his mouth with arguments how he chooseth his words and sets them in order how he winds up his Spirit to the very highest pin of zeal and fervency and can you doubt of success can such a Father deny the importunity and strong reasonings and pleadings of such a Son O it can never be He cannot deny him Christ hath the art and skill of prevailing with God He hath as in this appears the tongue of the Learned If the heart or hand of God were hard to be opened yet this would open them but when the Father himself loveth us and is inclined to do us good who can doubt of Christs success that which is in motion is the more easily moved The cause Christ manageth in Heaven for us is Just and Righteous The manner in which he pleads is powerful and therefore the success of his suit is unquestionable The Apostle professeth 2 Cor. 1.3 we can do nothing against the truth He means it in regard of the bent of his heart he could not move against truth and Righteousness And if a holy man cannot much less will a holy God If Christ undertake to plead the cause of his people with the Father and use his oratory with him there is no doubt but he carries it Every word in this prayer is a chosen shaft drawn to the head by a strong and skilful hand you need not question but it goes home to the white and hits the mark aimed at Doth he pray Father keep through thine own name those thou hast given me Sure they shall be kept if all the power in Heaven can keep them O think on this when dangers surround your souls or bodies When fears and doubts are multiplied within When thou art ready to say in thy hast all men are liers I shall one day perish by the hand of sin or Satan Think on that incouragement Christ gave to Peter Luke 22.31 I have prayed for thee Corollary 2. Again hence we learn that Argumentative prayers are excellent prayers The strength of every thing is in its joints There lies much of the strength of prayer also How strongly jointed how nervous and argumentative was this prayer of Christ Some there are indeed that think we need not argue and plead in prayer with God but only present the matter of our prayers to him and let Christ alone whose office it is to plead with the
of death compassed him about how much are we engaged not only to love him and esteem him whilst we live but to be in pangs of love for him when we feel the pangs of death upon us To be eyeing him when our eye-strings break To have hot affections for Christ when our hands and feet grow cold The very last whisper of our departing soul should be this Blessed be God for Iesus Christ. The TWENTY FIRST SERMON I COR. XI XXIII XXIV XXV The Lord Iesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and said take eat this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me After the same manner also he took the Cup when he had supped saying this Cup is the New-Testament in my blood this do as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me CHrist had no sooner recommended his dear charge to the Father but the time of his death hasting on he institutes his last Supper to be the lasting memorial of his death in all the Churches until the second coming therein graciously providing for the comfort of his people when he should be removed out of their sight And this was the second preparative act of Christ in order to his death he will set his house in order and then die This his second Act manifests no less love than the former It 's like the plucking off the ring from his finger when ready to lay his neck upon the block and delivering it to his dearest friends to keep that as a memorial of him Take this c. in remembrance of me In the words read are four things noted by the Apostle about this Last and Lovely Act of Christ. viz. the Author time institution and end of this holy and solemn ordinance First The Author of it The Lord Iesus it 's an effect of his Lordly power and royal authority Matth. 28.18 And Iesus came and spake unto them saying all power is given unto me in Heaven and earth go ye therefore The government is upon his shoulder Isai. 9.6 He shall bear the glory Zech. 6.13 Who but he that came out of the bosom of the Father and is acquainted with all the counsels that are there knows what will be acceptable to God And who but he can give creatures by his blessing their Sacramental efficacy and vertue Bread and Wine are naturally fit to refresh and nourish our bodies but what fitness have they to nourish souls Surely none but what they receive from the blessing of Christ that institutes them Secondly The time when the Lord Jesus appointed this ordinance In the same night in which he was betrayed It could not be sooner because the passover must first be celebrated nor later for that night he was apprehended It is therefore emphatically expressed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that same night that night for ever to be remembred He gives that night a cordial draught to his Disciples before the conflict He settles that night an Ordinance in the Church for the confirmation and consolation of his people in all generations to the end of the world By instituting in that night he gives abundant evidence of his care for his people in spending so much of that little very little time he had left on their account Thirdly The Institution it self in which we have the memorative significative instructive signs and they are Bread and Wine And the glorious mysteries represented and shadowed forth by them viz. Jesus Christ crucified the proper New-Testament nourishment of Believers Bread and Wine are choice creatures and do excellently shadow forth the flesh and blood of crucified Jesus And that both in their natural usefulness and manner of preparation Their usefulness is very great Bread is a creature necessary to uphold and maintain our natural life Therefore it 's called the staff of bread Isai. 3.1 Because as as a feeble man depends and leans upon his staff so doth our feeble spirits upon bread Wine was made to chear the heart of man Iudg. 9.13 They are both useful and excellent creatures Their preparations to become so useful to us is also remarkable The Corn must be ground in the Mill the Grapes torn and squeesed to pieces in the Wine-prefs before we can either have Bread or Wine And when all this is done they must be received into the body or they nourish not So that these were very fit creatures to be set apart for this use and end If any object it 's true they are good creatures but not pretious enough to be the signs of such profound and glorious Mysteries It was worth the creating of a new creature to be the sign of the new Covenant Let him that thus objects ask himself whether nothing be pretious without pomp The pretiousness of these Elements is not so much from their own natures as their use and end and that makes them pretious indeed A Loadstone at Sea is much more excellent than a Diamond because more useful A peniworth of wax applyed to the Label of a Deed and sealed may in a minute have its value raised to thousands of pounds These creatures receive their value and estimation on alike account Nor should it at all remain a wonder to thee why Christ should represent himself by such mean and common things when thou hast well considered that the excellency of the picture is in its similitude and conformity to the original and that Christ was in a low sad and very abased state when this picture of him was drawn he was then a man of sorrows These then as lively signs shadow forth a crucified Jesus Represent him to us in his red garments This pretious Ordinance may much more than Paul say to us I alwaies bear about in my body the dying of the Lord Iesus That 's the thing it signifies Fourthly Lastly Take notice of the use design and end of this institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in remembrance or for a memorial of me O there 's much in this Christ knew how apt our base hearts would be to lose him amidst such a throng of sensible objects as we here converse with And how much that forgetfulness of him and of his sufferings would turn to our prejudice and loss And therefore doth he appoint a sign to be remembred by as oft as ye do this ye shew forth the Lords death till he come Hence we shall observe suitable to the design of this discourse DOCT. That the Sacramental memorial Christ left with his people is a special mark of his care and love for them What! to order his picture as it were to be drawn when he was dying to be left with his Spouse to rend his own flesh and set abroch his own blood to be meat and drink for our souls O what manner of love was this 'T is true his Picture in the Sacrament is full of scars and wounds but
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
Iudas his Tomb-stone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. let every one that beholds me learn to be godly indeed to be sincere in his profession and love Christ more unfeignedly than I did O Professors look to your foundation and build not upon the sand as this poor creature did That 's sound advice indeed which the Apostle gives 1 Cor. 10.12 Let him that thinks he he standeth take heed lest he fall O beware of a loose foundation If you begin your profession as Iudas did no wonder if it shall end as his did 1. Beware therefore you hold not the truth in unrighteousness Iudas did so he knew much but lived not up to what he knew for he was still of a worldly spirit in the height of his profession His knowledge never had any saving influence upon his heart He Preacht to others but he himself was a cast-away He had much light but still walked in darkness He had no knowledge to do himself good Secondly Beware you live not in a course of secret sin Iudas did so and that was his ruine He made a profession indeed and carried it smoothly but he was a thief Ioh. 12.6 He made no conscience of committing the sin so he could but cover and hide it from men This helped on his ruine and so it will thine Reader if thou be guilty herein A secret way of sinning under a covert of profession will either break out at last to the observation of men or else slide thee down insensibly to Hell and leave thee only this comfort that no body shall know thou art there Thirdly Beware of hypocritical pretences of Religion to accommodate self ends Iudas was a man that had notable skill this way He had a mind to fill his own purse by the sale of this costly ointment which Mary bestowed upon her Saviours feet And what a neat cover had he fitted for it to do his business clearly Why saith he this might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor Here was Charity to the poor or rather poor Charity for they were only a blind to his base self ends O Christian be plain hearted take heed of craft and cunning in matters of Religion This spoil'd Iudas Fourthly Beware of self confidence Iudas was a very confident man of himself Last of all Iudas said Master is it I Matth. 26.25 But he that was last in the suspicion was first in the transgression He that trusteth his own heart is a fool saith Solomon Prov. 28.26 such a fool was this great Professor It will be your wisdom to keep a jealous eye upon your own hearts and still suspect its fairest pretences Fifthly If you will not do as Iudas did nor come to such an end as he did take heed you live not unprofitably under the means of grace Iudas had the best means of grace that ever man enjoyed He heard Christ himself Preach he joyned often with him in prayer but he was never the better for it all it was but as the watering of a dead-stick which will never make it grow but rot it the sooner Never was there a rotten branch so richly watered as he was O 't is a sad sin and a sad sign too when men and women live under the Gospel from year to year and never the better I warn you to beware of these evils all ye that profess Religion Let these footsteps by which Iudas went down to his own place terrifie you from following him in them Corollary 2. Learn hence also that eminent knowledge and profession puts a special and eminent aggravation upon sin Judas Iscariot one of the twelve Poor wretch better had it been for him if he had never been numbred with them nor enlightned with so much knowledge as he was endued with for this rent his Conscience to pieces when he reflected on what he had done and presently run himself into the gulf of despair To sin against clear light is to â—in with an high hand It 's that which makes a sad waste of the Conscience That without doubt which now torments this poor soul in Hell is that he should go against his light against his profession to gratifie a base lust to his eternal ruine Had he known no better it had been more excusable Those that had a hand in the death of Christ through mistake and ignorance were capable to receive the pardon of their sin by that blood they so shed Act. 3.17 19. compared Take heed therefore of abusing knowledge and putting a force upon Conscience Corollary 3. Learn hence in the third place That unprincipled Professors will sooner or later become shameful Apostates â—udas was an unprincipled Professor and see what he came to Ambition invited Simon Magus to the profession of Christ he would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some great one And how quickly did the rottenness of his principles discover themselves in the ruine of his profession that which wants a root must needs wither as Christ speaks Matth. 13.20 21. that which is the predominant interest will prevail and sway with us in the day of our trial Hear me all you that profess Religion and have given your names to Christ if that profession be not built upon a sollid and real work of grace upon your hearts you shall never honour Religion nor save your souls by it O 't is your union with Christ that like a spring maintains your profession So much as you are united to Christ so much constancy steadiness and eavenness you will manifest in the duties of Religion and no more O Brethren when he that professes Christ for company shall be left alone as Paul was When he that made Religion a stirrup to help him into the sadle of preferment and honour shall see that he is so advanced to be drawn forth into Christs camp and endure the heat of the day and not to take his pleasure in a word when he shall see all things about him discouraging and threatning his dearest interest on earth exposed for Religion sake and he hath no faith to ballance his present losses with his future hopes I say when it comes to this you shall then see the rottenness of many hearts discovered And Iudas may have many fellows who will part with Christ for the world as he did O therefore look well to your foundation Corollary 4. Moreover in this example of Iudas you may read this truth That men and women are never in more eminent danger than when they meet with temptations exactly suited to their master-lusts to their own iniquity O pray pray that ye may be kept from a violent suitable temptation Satan knows that when a man is tried here he falls by the root The love of this world was all along Iudas his master-sin and some conjecture he was a married man and had a great charge but that is conjectural it was his predominant Lust. The Devil found out this and
suited it with a temptation which fully hit his humour and it carries him immediately This is the dangerous Crisis of the soul. Now you shall see what it is and what it will do Put mony before Iudas and presently you shall see what the man is Corollary 5. Hence in like manner we are instructed That no man knows where he shall stop when he first engages himself in a way of sin Wickedness as well as holiness is not born in its full strength but grows up to it by insensible degrees So did the wickedness of Iudas I believe he himself never thought he should have done what he did and if any should have told him in the first beginning of his profession thou shalt sell thee blood of Christ for mony Thou shalt deliver him most perfidiously into their hands that seek his life he would have answered as Hasael did to Elisha But what is thy servant a Dog that he should do this great thing 2 Kings 8.13 His wickedness first discovered it self in murmuring and discontent taking a pipue at some small matters against Christ as you may find by comparing Iohn 6. from the 60. to the 70. verse with Iohn 12. from the 3. to the 9. verse but see to what it grows at last That Lust or Temptation that at first is but a little cloud as big as a mans hand may quickly overspread the whole heaven It is in our engaging in sin as in the motion of a stone down the hill Vires acquirit eundo it strengthens it self by going and the longer it runs the more violent Beware of the smallest beginnings of temptations No wise man will neglect or slight the smallest spark of fire especially if he see it among many barrels of gunpouder You carry gunpouder about you O take heed of sparks Corollary 6. Did Iudas sell Christ for mony What a potent conqueror is the love of this world How many hath it cast down wounded What great Professors have been dragged at its Chariot wheels as its captives Hymeneus and Philetus Ananias and Saphira Demas and Iudas with thousands and ten thousands since their daies led away in triumph It drowns men in perdition 1 Tim. 6.9 in that pit of perdition this Son of perdition fell and never rose more O you that so court and prosecute it that so love and admire it make a stand here Pause a little upon this example Consider to what it brought this poor wretch whom I have presented to you dead eternally dead by the mortal wound that the love of this world gave him it destroyed both soul and body Pliny tells us that the Mermaids delight to be in green meadows into which they draw men by their inchanting voices but saith he there alwaies lie heaps of dead mens bones by them A lively emblem of a bewitching world Good had it been for many Professors of Religion if they had never known what the riches and honours and pleasures of this world meant Corollary 7. Did Iudas fansie so much happiness in a little mony that he would sell Christ to get it Learn then That which men promise themselves much pleasure and contentment in in the way of sin may prove the greatest curse and misery to them that ever befel them in the world Iudas thought it was a brave thing to get mony he fancied much happiness in it but how sick was his Conscience assoon as he had swallowed it O take it again saith he it griped him to the heart He knows not what to do to rid himself of that mony Give me children said Rachel or I die she hath children and they prove her death O mortifie your fancies to the world Put no necessity upon riches They that will be rich fall into temptations and many hurtful Lusts which drown men in perdition 1 Tim. 6.9 You may have your desires with a curse He that brings home a pack of fine cloaths infected with the plague hath no such great bargain of it how cheap soever he bought them Corollary 8. Was there one and but one of the twelve that proved a Iudas a Traytor to Christ Learn thence That it is a most unreasonable thing to be prejudiced at Religion and the sincere professors of it because some that profess it prove naught and vile Should the Eleven suffer for one Iudas Alas they abhor'd both the Traytor and his treason As well might the High-Priest and his Servants have condemned Peter Iohn and all the rest whose souls abhorred the wickedness If Iudas proved a vile wretch yet there was Eleven to one that remained upright if Iudas proved naught it was not his profession made him so but his hypocrisie He never learnt it from Christ. If Religion must be charged with all the miscariages of its Professors then there is no pure Religion in the world Name that Religion among the Professors whereof there is not one Iudas Take heed Reader of prejudices against godliness on this account The design of the Devil without doubt is to undo thee eternally by them Wo to the world because of offences Matth. 18.7 And what if God do permit these things to fall out that thou maist be hardened in iniquity confirmed in sin by such occasions and so thy destruction brought about this way Blessed is he that is not offended at Christ. Corollary 9. Did Iudas one of the twelve do so Learn thence That a drop of grace is better than a sea of gifts Gifts have some excellency in them but the way of grace is the more excellent way 1 Cor. 12.31 Gifts as one saith are dead graces but graces are living gifts There 's many a learned head in Hell These are not the things that accompany Salvation Gifts are the gold that beautifies the Temple but grace is as the Temple which sanctified the gold One tear one groan one breathing of an upright heart is more than the tongues of Angels Poor Christian thou art troubled that thou canst not speak and pray so neatly so handsomly as some others can but canst thou go into a corner and there pour out thy soul affectionately though not rhetorically to thy Father trouble not thy self It 's better for thee to feel one divine impression from God upon thine heart than to have ten thousand fine notions floating in thy head Iudas was a man of parts but what good did they do him Corollary 10. Did the Devil win the consent of Iudas to such a design as this Could he get no other hand but the hand of an Apostle to assist him Learn hence That the policy of Satan lies much in the choice of his instruments he works by No bird saith one like a living bird to tempt others into the net Pelagius Socinus c. were fit persons for that work the Devil put them upon Austin told an ingenious young Scholar the Devil coveted him for an ornament He knows he hath a foul cause to manage and
And this it doth three ways First Ignorance disposes men to enmity and opposition to Christ by removing those hinderances that would otherwise keep them from it As checks and rebukes of conscience by which they are restrain'd from evil but conscience binding and reproving in the Authority and vertue of the Law of God where that Law is not known there can be no reproofs and therefore we truly say that ignorance is virtually every sin Secondly Ignorance enslaves and subjects the soul to the Lusts of Satan he is the Ruler of the darkness of this world Eph. 6.12 There is no work so base and vile but an ignorant man will undertake it Thirdly Nay which is more if a man be ignorant of Christ his truths or people he will not only oppose and persecute but he will also do it conscientiously i. e. he will look upon it as his duty so to do Ioh. 16.3 Before the Lord open'd Pauls eyes he verily thought that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Christ. Thus you have a brief account what and whence their ignorance was and how it disposed and prepar'd them for this dreadful work Hence we learn Inference 1. How falsly is the Gospel charged as the cause of discord and trouble in the world 'T is not light but darkness that makes men fierce and cruel As light increases so doth peace Isa. 11.6 9. The Wolf also shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard lie down with the Kid and the Calf and the young Lyon and the fatling together and a little Child shall lead them they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea What a sad condition would the world be in without Gospel light All places would be dens of rapine and mountains of prey Certainly we owe much of our Civil Liberty and outward tranquillity to Gospel light If a sword and variance at any time follow the Gospel it 's but an accidental not a direct and proper effect of it Inference 2. How dreadful is it to oppose Christ and his truths knowingly and with opened eyes Christ pleads their ignorance as an Argument to procure their pardon Paul himself was once fill'd with rage and madness against Christ and his truths It was well for him he did it ignoranâ—ly Had he gone against his light and knowledge there had been little hope of him 1 Tim. 1.13 I was a Blasphemer a Persecutor and injurious but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and in unbelief I do not say it 's simply impossible for one that knowingly and malitiously opposes and persecutes Christ and his people to be forgiven but it is not usual Heb. 6.4 5. There are few instances of it Inference 3. What an aweful Majesty sits upon the brow of holiness that few dare to oppose it that see it There are few or none so daringly wicked to fight against it with open eyes 1. Pet. 3.13 Who will harm you whilst ye are followers of that which is good q. d. who dare be so hardy to set upon known godliness or afflict and wrong the known friends of it The true reason why many Christians speed so bad is not because they are godly but because they do not manifest the power of godliness more than they do Their lives are so like the lives of others that they are often mistaken for others Cyprian brings in the wicked of his time thus scoffing at Professors Behold they that boast themselves to be redeemed from the tyranny of Satan and to be dead to the world how are they overcome by the Lusts of it as well as other men Look as the poverty and meanness of Christs outward condition was a ground of their mistake of him then so the poverty and meanness of our love to God heavenly mindedness and mortification to this world is a disguise to professors and a cause why they are no more owned and honoured in the Consciences of men at this day For holiness manifested in its power is so awefully glorious that the Consciences of the vilest cannot but honour it and do obeysance to it Mark 6.20 Herod feared John for he was a just man Inference 4. The enemies of Christ are objects of pity Alas they are blind and know not what they do It 's pity that any other affection than pity should stir in our hearts towards them Were their eyes but open they would never do as they do We should look upon them as the Physitian doth upon his sick distempered Patient Did they but see with the same light you do they would be as far from hating Christ or his waies as you are Simul ac desinunt ignorare desinunt odisse as soon as they cease to be ignorant they cease to hate saith Tertullian Inference 5. How needful is it before we engage our selves against any person or way to be well satisfied and resolved that it is a wicked person or practice that we oppose You see the world generally runs upon a mistake in this matter O beware of doing you know not what For though you do you know not what Satan knows what he is doing for you He blinds your eyes and then sets you to work knowing that if you should but see what you are doing you would rather die than do it You may now do you know not what but you may afterward have time enough to reflect on and lament what you have done You may now do you know not what and hereafter you may not know what to do O beware therefore what you do DOCT. 2. That there is forgiveness with God for such as oppose Christ out of ignorance If all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men then this as well as others Matth. 12.31 We are not with Theophilact to understand that place of the certainty of pardon much less with Origen of the desert of it nor yet with Iansenius of the facility of it but rather of the possibility of forgiveness It shall be so to some it may be so to you even those whose wicked hands had crucified Christ receive remission by that blood they shed Act. 2.23 38. compared I have two things here to do First To open the nature of forgiveness and shew you what it is Secondly To evince the possibility of it for such as mistakingly oppose Christ. For the First Forgiveness is Gods gracious discharge of a believing penitent sinner from the guilt of all his sin for Christs sake It 's Gods discharge There is indeed a fraternal forgiveness by which one man forgives another so far as he is interessed in the wrong Luk. 6.37 there is also a ministerial forgiveness whereby the minister of Christ as his mouth and in his name declares the pardon or ministerially applies the promises of pardon to penitent offenders Ioh. 20.23 but none can
absolutely and properly forgive sin but God only Mark 2.7 the primary and principal wrong is done to him Psalm 51.4 Against thee thee only i. e. thee mainly or especially I have sinned Hence sins are metonymically called debts debts to God Matth. 6.12 not that we owe them to God or ought to sin against him but as a pecuniary debt obliges him that owes it to the penalty if he satisfie not for it so do our sins And who can discharge the Debtor but the Creditor It 's a gratious act or discharge 1 even I am he that blotteth out thy transgression for mine own name sake Isai. 43.25 And yet sin is not so forgiven as that God expects no satisfaction at all but as expecting none from us because God hath provided a surety for us from whom he is satisfied Eph. 1.7 In whom we have Redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace It 's a gratious discharge from the guilt of sin Guilt is that which pardon properly deals with Guilt is an obligation to punishment Pardon is the dissolving of that obligation Guilt is a chain with which sinners are bound and fettered by the Law pardon is that aqua-fortis that eats it asunder and makes the prisoner a free-man The pardoned soul is a discharged soul. Rom. 8.33 Who shall lay anything to the charge of Gods Elect It 's God that justifieth who shall condemn It 's Christ that died It 's Gods discharge of a believing penitent sinner Infidelity and impenitency are not only sins in themselves but such sins as bind fast all other sins upon the soul. By him all that believe are justified from all things Act. 10.43 So Act. 3.19 Repent therefore that your sins may be blotted out This is the method in which God dispenseth pardon to sinners Lastly It is for Christs sake we are discharged he is the meritorious cause of our remission As God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Eph. 4.32 It 's his blood alone that meritoriously procures our discharge This is a brief and true account of the nature of forgiveness Secondly Now to evince the possibility of forgiveness for such as ignorantly oppose Christ. Let these things be weighed First Why should any poor soul that is now humbled for its enmity to Christ in the daies of ignorance question the possibility of forgiveness when this effect doth not exceed the power of the cause nay when there is more efficacy in the blood of Christ the meritorious cause than is in the effect of it There 's power enough in that blood not only to pardon thy sins but the sins of the whole world were it actually applied 1 Iohn 2.2 There is not only a sufficiency but also a redundancy of merit in that pretious blood Surely then thy enmity to Christ especially before thou knewest him may not look like an unpardonable iniquity in thine eyes Secondly And as this sin exceeds not the power of the meritorious cause of forgiveness so neither is it any where excluded from pardon by any word of God Nay such is the extensiveness of the promise to believing penitents that this case is manifestly included and forgiveness tendered to thee in the promises Isai. 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Many such extensive promises there are in the Scriptures And there is not one parenthesis in all those blessed pages in which this case is excepted Thirdly And it is yet more satisfactory that God hath already actually forgiven such sinners and that which he hath done he may again do Yea therefore he hath done it to some and those eminent for their enmity to Christ that others may be incouraged to hope for the same mercy when they also shall be in the same manner humbled for it Take one famous instance of many it 's that of Paul in 1 Tim. 1.13 16. Who was before a blasphemer a persecutor and injurious but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Iesus Christ might shew forth all long suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to everlasting life It 's no small incouragement to a sick man to hear of some that have been recovered out of the same disease and that prevailing in an higher degree than in himself Fourthly Moreover It is encouraging to consider that when God hath cut off others in the way of their sin he hath hitherto spared thee What speaks this but a purpose of mercy to thy soul Thou shouldst account the long suffering of God thy Salvation 2 Pet. 3.15 Had he smitten thee in the way of thy sin and enmity to Christ what hope had remained But in that he hath not only spared thee but also given thee a heart ingenuously ashamed and humbled for thy evils doth not this speak mercy for thee Surely it looks like a gratious design of love to thy soul. Inference 1. And is there forgivenss with God for such as have been enemies to Christ his truths and people Then certainly there is pardon and mercy for the friends of God who involuntarily fall into sin by the surprisals of temptation and are broken for it as ingenious children for offending a good Father Can any doubt if God have pardon for enemies he hath none for children If he have forgiveness for such as shed the blood of Christ with wicked hands he hath not much more mercy and forgiveness for such as love Christ and are more afflicted for their sin against him than all the other troubles they have in the world Doubt it not but he that receives enemies into his bosom will much more receive and embrace children though offending ones How pensive do the dear children of God sometimes sit after their lapses into sin Will God ever pardon this Will he be reconciled again May I hope his face shall be to me as in former times Pensive soul if thou didst but know the largeness tenderness freeness of that grace which yearns over enemies and hath given forth thousands and ten thousands of pardons to the worst of sinners thou wouldst not sink at that rate Inference 2. Is there pardon with God for enemies how inexcusable then are all they that persist and perish in their enmity to Christ Sure their destruction is of themselves Mercy is offered to them if they will receive it Proclamation is made in the Gospel That if there be any among the enemies of Christ who repent of what they have been and done against him and are now unfeignedly willing to be reconciled upon the word of a King he shall find mercy But God shall wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalp of such a one as goâ—th on still in his trespasses Psal. 68.21 If
part And his bearing it was no small part of the reparation or satisfaction he made for our sins More particularly to open the nature of this desertion of Christ by his Father there being much of intricacy and difficulty in it I shall proceed in the explication of it Negatively and Positively First Negatively when Christ cries out of Gods forsaking him he doth not mean that he had dissolved the personal union of the two natures Not as if the marriage knot which united our nature to the person of Christ was loosed or a divorce made betwixt them No for when he was forsaken of God he was still true and real Godman in one person Secondly When Christ bewails the Fathers forsaking him he doth not mean that he pulled away the prop of divine support from him by which he had till then endured the tortures and sufferings that oppressed him No though the Father deserted yet he still supported him And so much is intimated in these words of Christ Eli Eli which signifies my strong one my strong one God was with him by way of support when withdrawn as to manifestations of love and favour In respect of Gods supporting presence which was with Christ at this time it 's said Isai. 42.1 Behold my Servant whom I uphold and Joh. 16.32 I am not alone but the Father is with me So that this cannot be the meaning of it Thirdly Much less is it his meaning that God had left him as to inherent grace and sanctification Recalling that spirit of holiness which had anointed him above his fellows No no when he was forsaken he remained as holy as ever He had indeed less comfort but not less holiness than before Such a desertion had irritated and made void the very end of his death And his sacrifice could never have yielded such a fragrant odor to God as it did Eph. 5.2 Fourthly The love of God was not so withdrawn from Christ as that the Father had now no love for him nor delight in him That 's impossible he can no more cease to love Christ than to love himself His love was not turned into wrath Though his wrath only was now manifested to him as our surety and his love hid from him as his beloved Son Fifthly Nor was Christ forsaken by his Father finally upon what account soever it was that he was forsaken No it was but for a few hours that the dark cloud dwelt over his soul. It soon past away And the bright and glorious face of God shone forth again as bright as ever Psal. 22.1.24 compared Sixthly And lastly It was not a mutual desertion or a desertion on both parts the Father forsook him but he forsook not his Father When God withdrew he followed him crying my God my God Yet to speak positively of it though it did not dissolve the personal union nor cutting off divine supports nor remove his inherent grace nor turn his Fathers love into hatred nor continue for ever nor yet was it on both parts Christs forsaking God as well as God forsaking Christ yet I say it was First A very sad desertion the like unto which in all respects never was experienced by any nor can be to the end of the world All his other troubles were but small things to this they bare upon his body these upon his soul. They came from the hands of vile men this from the hand of a dear Father He suffered both in body and soul but the sufferings of his soul were the very soul of his sufferings Under all his other sufferings he opened not his mouth but this toucht the quick that he could not but cry out my God my God why hast thou forsaken me Secondly As it was a sad so it was a poenal desertion inflicted on him for satisfaction for those sins of ours which deserved that God should forsake us for ever as the damned are forsaken by him So that this cry as one observes was like the perpetual shriek of them that are cast away for ever This was that Hell and the torments of it which Christ our surety suffered for us For look as there lies a twofold misery upon the damned in Hell viz. pain of sence and pain of loss So upon Christ answerably there was not only an impression of wrath but also a Substraction or withdrawment of all sensible favour and love Hence it 's said by himself Ioh. 12.27 And now my soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is troubled The word signifies troubled as they that are in Hell are troubled Though God did not leave his soul in Hell as others are he having enough to pay the debt which they have not yet in the torments thereof at this time he was Yea in sufferings at this time in his soul equivalent to all that which our souls should have suffered there to all Eternity Thirdly It was a desertion that was real and not fictitious He doth not personate a deserted soul and speak as if God had withdrawn the comfortable sence and influence of his love from him but the thing was so indeed The God-head restrained and kept back for this time all its joys comforts and sence of love from the man-hood yielding it nothing but support This bitter doleful out-cry of Christ gives evidence enough of the reality of it He did not feign but feel the burdensomness of it Fourthly This desertion fell out in the time of Christs greatest need of comfort that ever he had in all the time of his life on earth His Father forsook him at that time when all earthly comforts had forsaken him and all outward evils had broken in together upon him When men yea the best of men stood afar off and none but barbarous enemies were about him When pains and shame and all miseries even weighed him down then even then to compleat and fill up his sufferings God stands afar off too Fifthly And lastly It was such a desertion as left him only to the supports of his Faith He had nothing else now but his Fathers covenant and promise to hang upon And indeed as a Juditious Author perninently observes the Faith of Christ did several ways act and manifest it self in these very words of complaint in the Text. For though all comfortable sights of God and sence of love were obstructed yet you see his soul cleaves fiducially to God for all that My God c. Though sense and feeling spake as well as Faith Yet Faith speaks first my God before sence speaks a word of his forsaking His Faith prevented the complaint of sence and though sence comes in afterward with a word of complaint yet here are two words of Faith to one of Sence It is my God my God and but one word of forsaking As his Faith spake first so it spake twice when sence and feeling spake but once Yea and as Faith spake first and twice as much as sence so it spake more confidently than Sence did He lays a
O then exercise this when you have lost that Admonition 2. Secondly Take the right method to recover the sweet light which you have sinned away from your souls Do not go about from one to another complaining nor yet sit down desponding under your burden But First Search diligently after the cause of Gods withdrawment Urge him hard by prayer to tell thee wherefore he contends with thee Iob. 10.2 Say Lord what have I done that so offends thy spirit what evil is it which thou so rebukest I beseech thee shew me the cause of thine anger Have I grieved thy spirit in this thing or in that Was it my neglect of duty or my formality in duties Was I not thankful for the sense of thy love when it was shed abroad in my heart O Lord why is it thus with me Secondly Humble your souls before the Lord for every evil you shall be convinced of Tell him it pierces your hearts that you have so displeased him And that it shall be a caution to you whilst you live never to return again to folly Invite him again to your souls and mourn after the Lord till you have found him If you seek him he will be found of you 2 Chron. 15.2 It may be you shall have a thousand Comforters come about your sad souls in such a time to comfor them This will be to you instead of God and that will repair your loss of Christ. Despise them all and say I am resolved to sit as a Widow till Christ return he or none shall have my love Thirdly Wait on in the use of means till Christ return O be not discouraged Though he tarry wait you for him for Blessed are all they that wait for him The THIRTY FOURTH SERMON JOH XIX XXVIII After this Iesus knowing that all things were now accomplished that the Scriptures might be fulfilled saith I Thirst. IT is as truly as commonly said death is dry Christ found it so when he died When his spirits laboured in the agonies of death then he said I thirst This is the fifth word of Christ upon the Cross spoken a little before he bowed the head and yielded up the Ghost It is only recorded by this Evangelist and there are four things remarkable in this complaint of Christ viz. the person complaining The complaint he made The time when And the reason why he so complained First The person complaining Iesus said I thirst This is a clear evidence that it was no common suffering Great and resolute spirits will not complain for small matters The spirit of a common man will endure much before it utters any complaint Let us therefore see Secondly The affliction or suffering he complains of and that is Thirst. There are two sorts of thirst One natural and proper another spiritual and figurative Christ felt both at this time His soul thirsted in vehement desires and longings to accomplish and finish that great and difficult work he was now about And his body thirsted by reason of those unparalleled agonies it laboured under for the accomplishing hereof But it was the proper natural thirst he here intends when he said I thirst Now this natural thirst of which he complains is the raging of the appetite for humid nourishment arising from the scorching up of the parts of the body for want of moisture And amongst all the pains and afflictions of the body there can scarcely be named a greater and more intolerable one than extream thirst The most mighty and valiant have stooped under it Mighty Sampson after all his conquests and victories complains thus Judg. 15.18 And he was sore athirst and called on the Lord and said thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant and now shall I die for thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised Great Darius drank filthy water defiled wâ—th the bodies of the slain to relieve his thirst and protested never any drink was more pleasant to him Hence Isai. 41.17 Thirst is put to express the most afflicted state When the poor and needy seek water and there is none and their tongue faileth for thirst I the Lord will hear them i. e. when my people are in extream necessities under any extraordinary pressures and distresses I will be with them to supply and relieve them Thirst causes a most painful compression of the heart when the body like a sponge sucks and draws for moisture and there is none And this may be occasioned either by long abstinence from drink or by the labouring and expence of the spirits under grievous agonies and extream tortures which like a fire within soon scâ—rch up the very radical moisture Now though we find not that Christ tasted a drop of liquor since he sate with the Disciples at the Table after that no more refreshments for him in this world yet that was not the cause of this raging thirst but it is to be ascribed to the extream sufferings which he so long had conflicted with both in his soul and body These preyed upon him and drank up his very spirits Hence came this sad complaint I thirst Thirdly Let us consider the time when he thus complained When all things were now accomplished saith the Text i. e. when all things were even ready to be accomplished in his death A little a very little while before his expiration When the travailing throws of death began to be strong upon him And so it was both a sign of death at hand and of his love to us which was stronger than death that would not complain sooner because he would admit of no relief nor take the lest refreshment till he had done his work Fourthly and Lastly Take notice of the design and end of his complaint That the Scriptures might be fulfilled he saith I thirst i. e. that it might appear for the satisfaction of our faith that whatsoever had been predicted by the Prophets was exactly accâ—mplished even to a circumstance in him Now it was foretold of him Psal. 69.21 They gave me gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink and herein it was verified Hence the Note is DOCT. That such were the Agonies and extream sufferings of our Lord Iesus Christ upon the Cross as drank up his very spirits and made him cry I thirst If I said one should live a thousand years and every day die a thousand times the same death for Christ that he once died for me yet all this would be nothing to the sorrows Christ endured in his death At this time the Bridegroom Christ might have borrowed the word of his Spouse the Church Lam. 1.12 Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by See and behold if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger Here we are to enquire into and consider the extremities and agonies Christ laboured
that was mainly in two particulars viz. the begging and perfuming of the body His body could not be buried till by begging his friends had obtain'd it is as a favour from his Judge The dead body was by Law in the power of Pilate who adjudged it to death as the bodies of those that are hanged are in the power of the Judge to dispose of them as he pleases And when they had gotten it from Pilate they winde it in fine linen cloaths with Spices But what need of Spices to perfume that blessed body His own Love was perfume enough to keep it sweet in the remembrance of his people to all generations However by this they will manifest as they are able the dear affection they have for him The bearers that carried his body to its Grave Ioseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus two secret Disciples They were both men of estate and honour None could imagine that these would have appeared at a time of so much danger with such boldness for Christ. That ever they would have gone openly and boldly to manifest their love to Christ when dead who were afraid to come to him except by night when he was living But now a spirit of Zeal and courage is come upon them when those that made greater and more open confessions of him are gone Thirdly The attendants who followed the Hearse were the women that followed him out of Galilee Among whom the two Marys and the Mother of Zebedes children whom Mark calls Salome are only named Fourthly The Grave or Sepulcher where they laid him It was in Iosephs new Tomb which he had prepared in the garden near unto Golgotha where our Lord died Two things are remarkable about this Tomb. It was anothers Tomb and it was a new Tomb. It was anothers For as he had not an house of his own wherein to lay his head whilst he lived so he had not a Tomb of his own to lay his body in when dead As he lived in other mens houses so he lay in another mans Tomb. And it was a new Tomb wherein never man was yet laid Doubtless there was much of providence in this for had any other been laid there before him it might have proved an occasion both to shake the Credit and slur the glory of his Resurrection by pretending it was some former body and not the Lords that rose out of it In this also divine providence had a respect to that Prophesie Esa. 53.9 Which was to be fulfill'd at this funeral He made his Grave with the rich because he had done no violence c. Fifthly The disposition of the body in that Tomb. 'T is true there is no mention made of the groans and tears with which they laid him in his Sepulcher yet we may well presume they were not wanting in plentiful expressions of their sorrow that way For as they wept and smote their breasts when he dyed Luk. 23.48 So do doubt they laid him with melting hearts and flowing eyes in his Tomb when dead Sixthly And lastly the last remarkable particular in the Text is the solemnity with which his funeral rites were performed and they were all suitable to his humbled state It was indeed a funeral as decently order'd as the straights of time and state of things would then permit but there was nothing of pomp or outward state at all observed Few marks of honour set by men upon it Only the heavens adorned it with diverse miraculous works which in their proper place will be spoken to Thus was he laid in his Grave where he continued for three incompleat daies and nights in the territories of Death in the Land of darkness and forgetfulness Partly to correspond with Ionah his Type and partly to ascertain the world of the reality of his Death Whence our observation is DOCT. That the dead Body of our Lord Iesus Christ was decently interr'd by a small number of his own Disciples and continued in the state of the dead for a time This Observation containing matter of fact and that so plainly and faithfully delivered to us by the Pens of the several Evangelists we need do no more to prepare it for our use than to satisfie these two inquiries why had Christ any funeral at all since his Resurrection was so soon to follow his Death And what manner of funeral Christ had First Why had Christ any funeral at all since he was to rise again from the dead within that space of time that other men commonly have to lie by the wall before their interment and had it continued longer unburied it could see no corruption having never been tainted by sin Why though there was no need of it at all upon that account that a funeral is needful for other bodies yet there were these four weighty ends and Reasons of it Reason 1. First It was necessary Christ should be buried to ascertain his death else it might have been looked upon as a Cheat. For as they wâ—re ready enough to impose so gross a Cheat upon the world at his Resurrection That the Dâ—sciples came by night and stole him away much more would they have denied at once the reality both of his death and Resurrection had he not been so perfumed and interred but this cut off all pretentions For in this kind of embalming his mouth ears nostrils were all filled with their Spices and odours Bound up in Linen and laid long enough in the Tomb to give full assurance to the world of the certainty of of his death So that there could be no latent principle of life in him Now since our eternal life is wrapt up in Christs death it can never be too firmly established To this therefore we may well suppose providence had special respect in his burial and the manner of it Reason 2. Secondly He must be buried to fulfill the Types and Prophesies that went before His abode in the Grave was prefigured by Ionahs abode three daies and nights in the belly of the Whale Matth. 12.40 So must the Son of man be three daies and threee nights in the heart of the earth Yea the Prophet had described the very manner of his funeral and long before he was born foretold in what kind of Tomb his body should be laid Isa. 53.9 He made his Grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death Pointing by that expression at this Tomb of Ioseph who was a rich man and the Scriptures cannot be broken Reason 3. Thirdly He must be buried to compleat his humiliation this being the lowest step he could possibly descend in his abased state They have brought me to the dust of Death Lower he could not be laid and so low he must lay his blessed head else he had not been humbled to the lowest Reason 4. Fourthly But the great end and reason of his interment was the conquering of Death in its own dominion and territories which victory over the Grave furnisheth the Saints with that
Lord they shall bring out the bones of the Kings of Iudah and the bones of his Princes c. And shall spread them before the Sun and Moon c. This is rather conceiv'd to be an act of Covetousness than Cruelty They shall ransack their Graves for the treasure that is hid there among their bones It 's possible the case so stands with many of you that you have no great matter to bestow upon your funerals nor are they like to be splendid no stately monuments no hidden treasures but if Christ be yours you carry that with you to your Graves which is better than all the Gold and Silver in the world What would you be the better if your Coffin were made of beaten Gold or your Grave-stone set thick with glittering Diamonds But if you die in the Lord i. e. interested in and united to the Lord you shall carry six grounds of Comfort with you to your Graves the least of which is not to be purchased with the wealth of both Indies First The first ground of comfort which a believer carries with him to the Grave is that the Covenant of God holds firmly with his very dust all the daies of its appointed time in the Grave So much Christ tells us Matth. 22.31 32. I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and of Iacob God is not the God of the Dead but the God of the Living q. d. Abraham Isaac and Iacob are naturally dead but in as much as God long after their deaths proclaimed himself their God still therefore they are all alive foederally alive to God They live that is their Covenant relation lives still Whether we live or whether we die saith the Apostle we are the Lords Rom. 14.7 8 9. Now what an encouragement is here I am as much the Lords in the state of the dead as I was in the state of the living Death puts an end to all other relations and bonds but the bond of the Covenant rots not in the Grave That dust is still the Lords Secondly As Gods Covenant with our very bodies is indissolvable so Gods love to our very dust is inseparable I am the God of Abraham God looks down from heaven into the Graves of his Saints with delight and looks on that pile of dust with complacency which those that once loved it cannot behold without loathing The Apostle is express Rom. 8.33 That death separates not the believer from the love of Gâ—d As at first it was not our natural comliness or beauty that drew or engaged his love to us so neither will he cease to love us when that beauty is gone and we become objects of loathing to all flesh When a Husband cannot endure to see a Wife or a Wife her Husband but saith of them that were once dear and pleasant as Abraham of his beloved Rachel bury my dead out of my sight Yet then the Lord delights in it as much as ever The Gold-Smith doth not value the dust of his Gold as Gold values the dust of his Saints for all these pretious particles are united to Christ. Thirdly As Gods love will be with you in the Grave so Gods providence shall take order about your Graves When it shall be dig'd for you And be sure he will not dig your Graves till you are fit to be put into them He will bring you thither in the best time Iob 5.26 Thou shalt come to thy Grave as a Shock of Corn in its season You shall be ripe and ready before God house you there It 's said of David that after he had served his generation by the will of God he fell asleep Acts 13.36 O what a holy and wise will is that will of God that so orders our death And how equal is it that our will should be concluded by it Fourthly If you be in Christ as Gods Covenant holds with you in the Grave his love is inseparable from your dust his providence shall give order when it shall be digged for you so in the next place his pardons have loosed all the bonds of guilt from you before you lie down in the Grave So that you shall not die in your sins Ah friends what a comfort is this That you are the Lords Free-men in the Grave Sin is a bad bed-fellow and a worse Grave-fellow It 's a grievous threatning Ioh. 8.24 You shall die in your sins Better be cast alive into a pit among Dragons and Serpents than dead into your Graves among your Sins O what a terrible word is that Iob 20.11 His bones are full of the sins of his youth which shall lie down with him in the dust But from the company of sin in the Grave all the Saints are delivered Gods full free and final pardons have shut guilt out of your Graves Fifthly When ever you come to your Graves you shall find the enmity of the Grave slain by Christ. It is no enemy nay you will find it friendly a priviledged place to you It will be as sweet to you that are in Christ as a soâ—t bed in a still quiet Chamber is to one that 's weary and sleepy Therefore it 's sâ—id 1 Cor. 3.21 22. Death is yours Yours as a priviledge Your friend There you shall find sweet rest in Jesus Be hurried pained troubled no more Sixthly To conclude if in Christ know this for your Comfort that your own Lord Jesus Christ keeps the Keys of all the Chambers of Death and as he unlocks the door of Death when he lets you in so he will open it again for you when you awake to let you out and from the time he opens to let you in till the time he opens to let you out he himself wakes and watches by you while you sleep there I saith he have the Keys of Death O it 's comfortable to hear the Keys gingle in his hand Rev. 1.18 O then as you expect peace or rest in the Chambers of Death get Union with Christ. A Grave with Christ is a comfortable place The THIRTY EIGHTH SERMON ISAIAH LIII II He shall see the Travel of his Soul and be satisfied WE are now arrived at the last particular which we designed to speak to in Christs state of humiliation namely the Designs and blessed Ends for which he was so deeply abased It 's inconsistent with the prudence of a common Agent to be at vast expences of time pains and cost and not to propound to himself a design worthy of all those expences And it is much less imaginable that Christ would so stupendiously abase himself by stooping from the bosom of his Father to the state of the dead where our last Discourse lefâ— him if there had not been some excellent and glorious thing in his eye the attainment whereof might give him a content and satisfaction equivalâ—nt to all the sorrowâ— and abasures he endured or it And so much is plainly carried in this Scripture He shall see the Travel of his
pleasures and enjoyments of the wicked which feed them for the day of slaughter How little stomach can a man have to those dainties that understands the end and meaning of them Give not sleep therefore to thine eyes Reader till thou have got good evidence that thou art of that number whom Iesus hath delivered from wrath to come Till thou canst say he is a Jesus to thee This may be made out to thy satisfaction three waies First If Iesus have delivered thee from sin the cause of wrath thou maist conclude he hath delivered thee from wrath the effect and fruit of sin Upon this account the sweet name of Iesus was imposed upon him Matth. 1.21 Thou shalt call his name Iesus for he shall save his people from their sins Whilst a man lies under the dominion and guilt of sin he lies exposed to wrath to come and when he is delivered from the guilt and power of sin he is certainly delivered from the danger of this coming wrath Where sin is not imputed wrath is not threatened Secondly If thy soul do set an inestimable value on Iesus Christ and be endeared to him upon the account of that inexpressible grace manifested in this deliverance it 's a good sign thy soul hath a share in it Mark what an Epithite the Saints give Christ upon this account Col. 1.12 13. Giving thanks to the Father who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his Dear Son Christ is therefore Dear and dear beyond all compare to his saved ones I remember it 's storied of the poor enthralled Grecians that when Titus Flamminius had restored their ancient liberties and proclamation was to be made in the Market place by an Herald They so prest to hear it that the Herald was in great danger of being stifled and prest to death among the people but when the Proclamation was ended there were heard such shouts and joyful acclamations that the very birds of the air fell down astonished with the noise while they continued to cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Saviour a Saviour and all the following night they continued dancing and singing about his Pavilion If such a deliverance so indeared them to Titus How should the great deliverance from wrath to come endear all the Redeemed to love their dear Iesus This is the native effect of mercy on the soul that hath felt it Thirdly To conclude a disposition and readiness of mind to do or endure any thing for Christs sake upon the account of this deliverance from the wrath to come is a good evidence you are so delivered Col. 1.10 11. That we may walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing being fruitful in every good work There 's readiness to do for Christ. Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long suffering with Ioyfulness There 's a chearful readiness to endure any thing for Christ. And how both these flow from the sence of this great deliverance from wrath the 12. vers will inform you which was but now cited Oh then be serious and assiduous in the resolution of this grand case Till this be resolved nothing can be pleasant to thy Soul End 2. As the Typical blood was shed and sprinkled to deliver from danger so it was shed to make attonement Levit. 4.20 He shall expiate We translate attone the sin The word imports both And the true meaning is that by the blood of the Bullock all whose efficacy stood in its relation to the blood of Christ signified and shadowed by it the people for whom it was shed should be reconciled to God by the expiation and remission of their sins And what was shadowed in this Typical blood was really designed and accomplisht by Jesus Christ in the shedding of his blood Reconciliation of the Elect to God is therefore another of those beautiful births which Christ travailed for So you find it expresly Rom. 5.10 If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son This if is not a word of doubting but argumentation The Apostle supposes it as a known truth or principle yielded by all Christians that the death of Christ was to reconcile the Elect to God And again he affirms it with like clearness Col. 1.20 And having made peace by the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things And that this was a main and principal end designed both by the Father and Son in the humiliation of Christ is plain from 2 Cor. 5.18 19. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself God filled the humanity with grace and authority The Spirit of God was in him to qualifie him The authority of God was in him by Commission to make all he did valid The grace and love of God to mankind was in him and one of the principal effects in which it was manifested was this design upon which he came viz. to reconcile the world to God Upon which ground Christ is called the propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 2.2 Now Reconciliation or attonement is nothing else but the making up of the ancient friendship betwixt God and men which sin had dissolved and so to reduce these enemies into a state of concord and sweet agreement And the means by which this blessed design was effectually compassed was by the death of Christ which made compleat satisfactâ—on to God for the wrong we had done him There was a breach made by sin betwixt God and Angels but that breach is never to be repaired or made up Since as Christ took not on him their nature so he never intended to be a mediator of reconciliation betwixt God and them That will be an Eternal breach But that which Christ designed as the end of his deaâ—h was to reconcile God and man Not the whole species but a certain number whose names were given to Christ. Here I must briefly open First how Christs death Reconciles Secondly why this Reconciliation is brought about by his death rather than any other way Thirdly what are the Articles according to which it 's made And Fourthly what manner of Reconciliation this is First How Christ Reconciles God and men by his death And it must needs be by the satisfaction his Death made to the Justice of God for our sins And so reparation being made the enmity ceases Hence it 's said Isa. 53.5 The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes are we healed That is as our English Annotators well sense it He was chastized to procure our peace by removal of our sins that set God and us assunder the guilt thereof being discharged with the price of his blood Now this Reconciliation is made and continued betwixt God and us three waies namely by the oblation of Christ which was the price that procured it and so we were virtually or meritoriously reconciled By the application of Christ and his benefits to
illumination Ier. 31.34 Gratious softness and tenderness of heart Ezek. 11.19 The awful dread and fear of God Ier. 32.40 The Copy or transcript of his Laws on your hearts in gratious correspondent principles Ier. 31.33 These things speak you the Children of the Covenant the persons on whom all these great things are settled Inference 2. To conclude it is the indispensible duty of all on whom Christ hath settled such mercies to admire his Love and walk answerably to it First Admire the Love of Christ. O how intense and ardent was the Love of Jesus who designed for you such an inheritance with such a settlement of it upon you These are the mercies with which his Love had travailed big from eternity and now he sees the travail of his soul and you also have seen somewhat of it this day Before this Love let all the Saints fall down astonished-humbly professing that they owe themselves and all they are or shall be worth to eternity to this Love Secondly And be sure you walk becoming persons for whom Christ hath done such great things Comfort your selves under present abasures with your spiritual priviledges Iam. 2.5 And let all your rejoycing be in Christ and what you have in him whilst others are blessing themselves in vanity Thus we have finished the state of Christs humiliation and thence proceed to the second state of his Exaltation HAving finished what I designed to speak to about the work of Redemption so far as it was carried on by Christ in his humbled state we shall now view that blessed work as it is further advanced and perfected in his State of Exaltation The whole of that work was not to be finished on earth in a state of suffering and abasure therefore the Apostle makes his Exaltation in order to the finishing of the remainder of his work so necessary a part of his Priesthood that without it he could not have been a Priest Heb. 8.4 If he were on earth he should not be a Priest i. e. if he should have continued alwaies here and had not been raised again from the dead and taken up into glory he could not have been a compleat and perfect Priest For look as it was not enough for the sacrifice to be slain without and his blood left there but after it was shed without it must be carried within the vail into the most holy place before the Lord Heb. 9.7 So it was not sufficient that Christ shed his own blood on earth except he carry it before the Lord into heaven and there perform his intercession work for us Moreover God the Father stood engaged in a solemn Covenant to reward him for his deep humiliation with a most glorious and illustrious advancement Isa. 49.5 6 7. And how God as it became him made this good to Christ the Apostle very clearly expresses it Phil. 2.9 Yea Justice required it should be so For how could our surety be detained in the prison of the Grave when the debt for which he was imprisoned was by him fully discharged so that the Law of God must acknowledge it self to be fully satisfied in all its claims and demands His Resurrection from the dead was therefore but his discharge or acquittance upon full payment Which could not in Justice be denyed him And indeed God the Father lost nothing by it for there never was a more glorious manifestation made of the name of God to the World than was made in that work Therefore it 's said Phil. 2.11 Speaking of one of the designs of Christs Exaltation it was saith the Apostle That every Tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father O how is the Love of God to poor sinners illustriously yea astonishingly displayed in Christs Exaltation When to shew the Complacency and delight which he took in our recovery he hath openly declared to the world that his exalting Christ to all that glory such as no meer creature ever was or can be exalted to was bestowed upon him as a reward for that work that most grateful work of our Redemption Phil. 2.9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him there is an Emphatical Pleonasmus in that word our English is too flat to deliver out the elegancy of the Original it is Super-Exaltation The Seriack renders it he hath multiplyed his Sublimity The Arabick he hath heightened him with an height Iustin he hath famously exalted him Higher he cannot raise him a greater Argument of his high satisfaction and content in the recovery of poor sinners cannot be given For this therefore God the Father shall have glory and honour ascribed to him in Heaven to all Eternity Now this singular Exaltation of Jesus Christ as it properly respects his humane nature which alone is capable of advancement for in respect of his divine nature he never ceased to be the most high So it was done to him as a common person and as the head of all believers their representative in this as well as in his other works God therein shewing what in due time he intends to do with the persons of his Elect after they in Conformity to Christ have suffered a while What ever God the Father intendeth to do in us or for us he hath first done it to the person of our representative Iesus Christ. And this if you observe the Scriptures carry in very clear and plain expressions through all the degrees and steps of Christs Exaltation viz. his Resurrection Ascension Session at the right hand of God And returning to Iudge the World Of which I purpose to speak distinctly in the following Sermons He rose from the Dead as a common person Col. 3.1 If ye then be risen with Christ saith the Apostle so that the Saints have Communion and fellowship with him in his Resurrection He Ascended into Heaven as a common person for so it 's said in Eph. 2.6 He hath raised us up or exalted us together with Christ. He sits at Gods right hand as a common person for so it follows in the next clause and hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Iesus We sit there in our representative And when he shall come again to Judge the World the Saints shall come with him So it is Prophesied Zech. 14.6 The Lord my God shall come and all the Saints with thee And as they shall come with Christ from Heaven so they shall sit on Thrones with him judging by way of suffrage They shall be assessors with the Judge 1 Cor. 6.2 This deserves a special remark that all this honour is given to Christ as our head and representative for thence results abundance of comfort to the people oâ— God Carry it therefore along with you in your thoughts throughout the whole of Christs advancement Think when you shall hear that Christ is risen from the dead and is in all that glory and authority in Heaven How sure the salvation of his Redeemed is For if
when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his Life Surely it cannot be supposed but he is able to save to the uttermost all them that come to God by him Seeing he ever lives to make intercession Heb. 7.25 Think how safe the people of God in this world are whose head is in Heaven It was a comfortable expression of one of the Fathers incouraging himself and others with this truth in a dark day Come said he why do we tremble thus do we not see our head above water If he live believers cannot die Ioh. 14.19 Because I live ye shall live also And let no mans heart suggest a suspicious thought to him that this wonderful advancement of Christ may cause him to forget his poor people groaning here below under sin and misery For the temper and disposition of his faithful and tender heart is not changed with his condition He bears the same respect to us as when he dwelt among us For indeed he there lives and acts upon our account Heb. 7.25 1 Ioh. 2.1 2. And how seasonable and comfortable will the meditations of Christs Exaltation be to the believer when sickness hath wasted thy Body wither'd its beauty and God is bringâ—ng theâ— to the dust of Death Ah think then that that vile Body shall be conformed to the glorious Body of Christ Pâ—al 3.21 As God hath glorified and highly exalted 〈◊〉 Son whose form was mar'd more than any mans so will he exalt thee also I do not say to a parity or equality in glory with Christ for in heaven he will be discerned and distinguished by his peculiar glory from all the Angels and Saints as the Sun is known by its excelling glory from the lesser Star But we shall be conform'd to this glorious head according to the proportion of members O whither will Love mount the believer in that day Having spoken this much of Christs exalted state to cast some general light upon it and engage your attentions to it I shall now according to the degrees of this his wonderful exaltation briefly open it under the forementioned heads viz. His Resurrection Ascension Session at the Fathers right hand and his return to Judge the World The THIRTY NINHTH SERMON MATTH XXVIII VI He is not here for he is risen as he said come see the place where the Lord lay WE have finished the Doctrine of Christs humiliation wherein the Sun of righteousness appeared to you as a setting Sun gone out of sight but as the Sun when it 's gone down to us begins a new day in another part of the world so Christ having finisht his course and work in this world rises again and that in order to the acting another glorious part of his work in the world above In his death he was upon the matter totally Eclipsed but in his Resurrection he begins to recover his light and glory again God never intended that the darling of his soul should be lost in an obscure Sepulchre An Angel descends from heaven to roll away the stone and with it the reproach of his death And to be the heavenly Herald to proclaim his Resurrection to the two Mary's whose love to Christ had at this time drawn them to visit the Sepulchre where they lately left him At this time the Lord being newly risen the keepers were trembling and become as dead men So great was the terrible Majesty and awful solemnity attending Christs Resurrection but to encourage these good souls the Angel prevents them with these good tidings He is not here for he is risen as he said come see the place where the Lord lay q. d. Be not troubled though you have not the end you came for one sight more of your dear though dead Iesus yet you have not lost your labour for to your eternal comfort I tell you he is risen as he said And to put it out of doubt come hither and satisfie your selves see the place where the Lord lay In which word we have both a Declaration and Confirmation of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead First A Declaration of it by the Angel both Negatively and Affirmatively Negatively he is not here Here indeed you laid him here you left him and here you thought to find him as you left him but you are happily mistaken he is not here However this giving them no satisfaction for he might continue dead still though removed to another place as indeed they suspected he was Ioh. 20.13 Therefore his resurrection is declared Positively and Affirmatively he is risen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word imports the active power or self quickening principle by which Christ raised himself from the state of the dead Which Luke takes notice of also Acts 1.3 Where he saith he shewed or presented himself alive after his Passion It was the divine nature or God-head of Christ which reviv'd and rais'd the man-hood Secondly Here is also a plain confirmation of Christs Resurrection and that first from Christs own Prediction he is risen as he said He â—oretold that which I declare to be now fulfill'd Let it not therefore seem incredible to you Secondly by their own sight come see the place where the Lord lay The Grave hath lost its guest it 's now empty death hath lost its prey It receiv'd but could not retain him Come see the place where the Lord lay Thus the Resurrection of Christ is declar'd and confirm'd Hence our Observation is DOCT. That our Lord Iesus Christ by the Almighty power of his own God-head revived and rose from the Dead to the terror and consternation of his enemies and the unspeakable consolation of Believers That our Lord Jesus Christ though laid was not lost in the Grave but the third day revived and rose again is a truth confirmed to us by many infallible proofs as Luke witnesseth Act. 1.3 We have Testimonies of it both from heaven and earth and both infallible From Heaven we have the Testimony of Angels and to the Testimony of an Angel all credit is due for Angels are holy Creatures and cannot deceive us The Angel tells the two Mary's in the Text he is risen We have Testimonies of it from men holy men who were eye witnesses of this truth to whom he shew'd himself alive by the space of forty days after his Resurrection by no less than nine solemn Apparitions to them Sometime five hundred Brethren saw him at once 1 Cor. 15.6 These were holy persons who durst not deceive and who confirmed their Testimony with their blood So that no point of Religion is of more confessed truth and infallible certainty than this before us And blessed be God it is so For if it were not then were the Gospel in vain 1 Cor. 15.14 Seeing it hangs the whole weight of our Faith hope and salvation upon Christ as risen from the dead If this were
When thou makest a feast call the poor the maimed the lame the blind and thou shalt be blessed for they cannot recompence thee for thou shalt be recompensed at the Resurrection of the Iust. It was the opinion of an eminent modern Divine that no man living fully understands and believes that Scripture Matth. 25.40 In as much as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me How few Saints would be exposed to daily wants and necessities if that Scripture were but fully understood and believed Inference 3. Is Christ risen from the dead and that as a publick person and representative of believers How are we all concerned then to secure to our selves an interest in Christ and consequently to this blessed Resurrection What consolation would be left in this world if the hope of the Resurrection were taken away 'T is this blesed hope that must support you under all the Troubles of life and in the Agonies of Death The securing of a blessed Resurrection to your selves is therefore the most deep concernment you have in this world And it may be secured to your selves if upon serious heart examination you can discover the following Evidences Evidence 1. First If you are regenerated Creatures brought forth in a new nature to God for we are begotten again to a lively hope by the Resurrection of Iesus Christ from the dead Christs Resurrection is the ground-work of our hope And the new birth is our title or evidence of our interest in it So that until our souls are partakers of the spiritual Resurrection from the death of sin we can have no assurance our bodies shall be partakers of that blessed Resurrection to life Blessed and holy saith the Spirit is he that hath part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power Rev. 20.6 Never let unregenerated souls expect a comfortable meeting with their bodies again Rise they shall by Gods terrible Citation at the sound of the last trump but not to the same end that the Saints arise nor by the same principle They to whom the spirit is now a principle of Sanctification to them he will be the principle of a joyful Resurrection See then that you get gratious souls now or never expect glorious bodies then Evid 2. If you be dead with Christ you shall live again by the life of Christ. If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection Rom. 6.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Planted together some refer it to believers themselves Jews and Gentiles are planted together in Christ. So Erasmus believers grow together like branches upon the same root which should powerfully inforce the great Gospel duty of unity among themselves But I would rather understand it with reference to Christ and believers with whom believers are in other Scriptures said to suffer together and be glorified together to die together and live together to be Crucified together and buried together all noting the communion they have with Christ both in his death and in his life Now if the power of Christs death i. e. the mortifying influence of it have been upon our hearts killing their Lusts deading their affections and flatting their appetites to the Creature then the power of his life or Resurrection shall come like the animating dew upon our dead withered bodies to revive and raise them up to live with him in glory Evid 3. If your hearts and affections be now with Christ in Heaven your bodies in due time shall be there also and conformed to his glorious body So you find it Phil. 3.20 21. For our conversation is in heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Iesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body The body is here called vile or the body of our vileness Not as God made it but as sin hath marred it Not absolutely and in it self but relatively and in comparison of what it will be in its second edition at the Resurrection Then those scattered bones and dispersed dust like pieces of old broken battered Silver will be new cast and wrought in the best and newest fashion even like to Christs glorious body Whereof we have this evidence that our conversation is already heavenly The temper frame and disposition of our souls is already so therefore the frame and temper of our bodies in due time shall be so Evid 4. If you strive now by any means to attain the Resurrection of the dead no doubt but you shall then attain what you now strive for This was Pauls great ambition that by any means he might attain the Resurrection of the dead Phil. 3.11 He means not simply a Resurrection from the dead for that all men shall attain whether they strive for it or no. But by a metonymy of the Subject for the Ajunct he intends that compleat holiness and perfection which shall attend the state of the Resurrection so it is expounded vers 12. So then if God have raised in your hearts a vehement desire and assiduous endeavour aftâ—r a perfect freedom from sin and full Conformity to God in the beauties of holiness that very love of holiness your present pantings and tendencies after perfection speaks you to be persons designed for it Evid 5. If you are such as do good in your Generation If you be fruitful and useful men and women in the world you shall have part in this blessed Resurrection Ioh. 5.29 All that are in the Graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life Now it is not every act materially good that entitles a man to this priviledge but the same requisites that the School-men assign to make a good prayer are also necessary to every good work The person matter manner and end must be good Nor is it any single good act but a series and course of holy actions that is here meant What a spur should this be to us all as indeed the Apostle makes it closing up the Doctrine of the Resurrection with this solemn exhortation 1 Cor. 15. Last with which I also close mine Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable Gift The FORTIETH SERMON JOH XX. XVII Iesus saith unto her touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father but go to my Brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God IN all the former Sermons we have been following Christ through his Humiliation from the time that he left the blessed bosom of his Father and now having finished the whole course of his obedience on
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
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