Sacrifice he must be such as the Law required pure and spotless Fifthly His sanctifying himself for our sakes speaks the strength of his Love and largeness of his heart to poor sinners thus to set himself wholly and entirely apart for us So that what he did and suffered must all of it have a respect and relation to us He did not when consecrated for us live a moment do an act or speak a word but it had some tendency to promote the great design of our Salvation He was only and wholly and always doing your work when consecrated for your sakes His Incarnation respects you Esa. 9.6 For us a Child is born to us a Son is given And he would never have been the Son of man but to make you the Sons and Daughters of God God would not have come down in the likeness of sinful flesh in the habit of a man but to raise up sinful man into the likeness of God All the miracles he wrought were for you to confirm your Faith When he raised up Lazarus Joh. 11.42 Because of the people which stand by I said it that they might believe that thou hast sent me While he lived on earth he lived as one wholly set apart for us And when he dyed he dyed for us Gal. 3.13 He was made a curse for us When he hanged on that cursed tree he hang'd there in our room and did but fill our place When he was buried he was buried for us For the end of it was to perfume our Graves against we come to lie down in them And when he rose again it was as the Apostle saith for our Iustification Rom. 4.25 When he ascended into glory he protested it was about our business That he went to prepare places for us And if it had not been so he would have told us Ioh. 14.2 And now he is there it is for us that he there lives For he ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. 7.25 And when he shall return again to Judge the world he will come for us too He comes when ever it be to be glorified in his Saints and admired in them that believe 2 Thes. 1.10 He comes to gather his Saints home to himself that where he is there they all may be in Soul and Body with him for ever Thus you see how as his Consecration for us doth speak him set a part for our use so he did wholly bestow himself time life death and all upon us Living and Dying for no other end but to accomplish this great work of Salvation for us Sixthly His sanctifying himself for us plainly speaks the Vicegerency of his death that it was in our room or stead When the Priest Consecrated the Sacrifice it was set apart for the people So it 's said of the scape Goat And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live Goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the Children of Israel and all their transgressions in all their sins puting them upon the head of the Goat And shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the Wilderness Levit. 16.21 Thus Isa. 53.6.7 He stood in our room to bear our burden And as Aaron laid the iniquities of the people upon the Goat so were ours laid on Christ. It was said to him in that day on thee be their Pride their Unbelief their hardness of heart their vain thoughts their earthly mindedness c. Thou art Consecrated for them to be the Sacrifice in their room His death was in our stead as well as for our good And so much his sanctifying himself for us imports Seventhly His sanctifying himself imports the extraordinariness of his Person For it speaks him to be both Priest Sacrifice and Altar all in one A thing unheard of in the world before So that his name might well be called wonderful I sanctifie my self I sanctifie according to both natures My self that is my humane nature which was the Sacrifice upon the Altar of my Divine nature For 't is the Altar that sanctifies the gift As the three offices never met in one Person before so these three things never met in one Priest before The Priests indeed Consecrated the bodies of Beasts for Sacrifice but never offered up their own Souls and Bodies as a whole burnt offering as Christ did And thus you have the import of this phrase I sanctifie my self for their sake Secondly I shall shew you briefly the habitude and respect that all this hath to us For unto us the Scriptures every where refer it So in 1 Cor. 5.7 Christ our Passover is Sacrificed for us Eph. 5.2 He loved the Church and gave himself for it See Tit. 2.14 This will be made out by a three fold consideration of Christs Death And First Let it he considered that he was not offered up to God for his own Sins For he was most holy Isa 53.9 No iniquity was found in him Indeed the Priests under the Law offered for themselves as well as the people But Christ did not do so Heb. 7.27 He need not daily as those High-Priests to offer up Sacrifice first for his own Sins and then for the peoples And indeed had he been a sinner what value or efficacy could have been in his Sacrifice He could not have been the Sacrifice but would have needed one Now if Christ were most holy and yet put to death and cruel sufferings either his Death and sufferings must be an act of injustice and cruelty or it must respect others whose persons and cause he sustained in that suffering capacity He could never have suffered or dyed by the Fathers hand had he not been a sinner by imputation And in that respect as Luther speaks he was the greatest of sinners Or as the Prophet Isaiah speaketh all our sins were made to meet upon him Not that he was so intrinsecally but was made so sc. by imputation As is clear from 2 Cor. 5.21 He was made sin for us that had no sin So that hence it 's evident that Christs Death or Sacrifice is wholly a respective or relative thing Secondly It is not to be forgotten here that the Scriptures frequently call the death of Christ a price 1 Cor. 6.20 And a ransom Matth. 20.28 Or counterprice To whom then doth it relate but to them that were and are in bondage and captivity If it were to redeem any it must be captives but Christ himself was never in Captivity He was always in his Fathers bosom as you have heard but we were in cruel bondage and thraldom under the Tyranny of sin and Satan And it 's we only that have the benefit of this ransom Thirdly Either the death of Christ must relate to believers or else he must die in vain As for the Angels those that stood in their integrity needed no Sacrifice and those that fell are totally excluded from any benefit by it He is not a Mediator for them And among men
So that no man can be his own Priest to reconcile himself to God by what he can do or suffer And therefore one that is able by doing and suffering to reconcile him must undertake it or we perish Thus you see plainly and briefly the general nature and necessity of Christs Priesthood From both these several useful Corollarys or practical deductions offer themselves Corollary 1. This shews in the first place the incomparable excellency of the reformed Christian Religion above all other Religions known to or professed in the world What other Religions seek the Christian Religion only finds even a solid foundation for true peace and settlement of conscience While the Iews seek it in vain in the Law the Mahumetan in his external and ridiculous observances the Papist in his own merits the Believer only finds it in the blood of this great sacrifice this and nothing less than this can pacifie a disâ—â—â—â—sed conscience labouring under the weight of its own guilt Conscience demands no less to satisfie it than God demands to satisfie him The grand inquest of conscience is Is God satisfied If he be satisfied I am satisfied Woful is the state of that man that feels the worm of conscience nibling on the most tender part of the soul and hath no relief against it That feels the intollerable scalding wrath of God burning within and hath nothing to cool it Hear me you that slight troubles of conscience that call them fancies and melancholly whimsies if you ever had had but one sick night for sin if you had ever felt that shame fear horror and despair which are the dismal effects of an accusing and condemning conscience you would account it an unspeakable mercy to hear of a way for the discharge of a poor sinner from that guilt You would kiss the feet of that messenger that could bring you tydings of peace You would call him blessed that should direct you to an effectual remedy Now whoever thou art that pinest away in thine iniquities that droopest from day to day under the present wounds and dismal presages of conscience know that thy soul and peace can never meet till thou art perswaded to come to this blood of sprinkling The blood of this sacrifice speaks better things than the blood of Abel The blood of this sacrifice is the blood of God Act. 20.28 invaluably pretious blood 1 Pet. 1.18 one drop of it infinitely excels the blood of all other creatures Heb. 10.4 5 6. Such is the blood that must do thee good Lord I must have such blood saith conscience as is capable of giving thee full satisfaction or it can give me no peace The blood of all the Cattle upon a thousand Hills cannot do this What is the blood of beasts to God The blood of all the men in the world can do nothing in this case What is our polluted blood worth No no it 's the blood of God that must satisfie both thee and me Yea Christs blood is not only the blood of God but it 's blood shed in thy stead and in thy place and room Gal. 3.13 He was made a curse for us And so it becomes sin pardoning blood Heb. 9.22 Eph. 1.7 Col. 1.14 Rom. 3.26 And consequently conscience pacifying and soul quieting blood Col. 1.20 Eph. 2.13 14. Rom. 3.26 O bless God that ever the news of this blood came to thine ears With hands and eyes lifted up to Heaven admire that grace that cast thy lot in a place where this joyful sound rings in the ears of poor sinners What had thy case been if thy mother had brought thee forth in the desarts of Arabia or in the wastes of America or what if thou hadst been nursed up by a Popish father who could have told thee no other remedy when in distress for sin but to go such a pilgrimage to whip and lash thy self to satisfie an angry God! Surely the pure light of the Gospel shining upon this generation is a mercy never to be duly valued never to be enough prized Corollary 2. Hence also be informed of the necessity of faith in order to a state and sense of peace with God For to what purpose is the blood of Christ our sacrifice shed unless it be actually and personally applyed and appropriated by faith You know when the sacrifices under the Law were brought to be slain he that brought it was to put his hand upon the head of his sacrifice and so it was accepted from him to make an attonement Lev. 1.4 Not only to signifie that now it was no more his but Gods the propriety being transferred by a kind of manumission nor yet that he voluntarily gave it to the Lord as his own free act but principally it noted the putting off his sins and the penalty due to him for them upon the head of the sacrifice and so it implyed in it an execration as if he had said upon thy head be the evil So the Learned observe the Ancient Aegyptians were wont expresly to imprecate when they sacrificed If any evil be coming upon us or upon Aegypt let it turn and rest upon this head laying their hand at these words on the sacrifices head And upon that ground saith the Historian none of them would eat of the head of any living creature You must also lay the hand of faith upon Christ your sacrifice not to imprecate but apply and appropriate him to your own souls he having been made a curse for you To this the whole Gospel tends even to perswade sinners to apply Christ and his blood to their own souls To this he invited us Matth. 11.28 Come unto me ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest For this end our sacrifice was lifted up upon the Altar Joh. 3.14 15. As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness so must the son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life The Effects of the Law not only upon the conscience filling it with torments but upon the whole person bringing death upon it are here shadowed out by the stingings of fiery Serpents and Christ by the brazen Serpent which Moses exalted for the Israelites that were stunâ— to look unto And as by looking to it they were healed so by believing or looking to Christ in faith our souls are healed Those that looked not to the Brazen Serpent died infallibly so must all that look not to Jesus our sacrifice by faith It 's true the death of Christ is the meritorious cause of remission but faith is the instrumental applying cause and as Christs blood is necessary in its place so is our faith in its place also For to the actual remission of sin and peace of conscience there must be a co-operation of all the causes of remission and peace As there is the grace and love of God for an efficient and impulsive cause and the death of Christ our
been long preparing for it but the suddenness and greatness of the change is amazing to our thoughts For a soul to be now here in the body conversing with men living among sensible objects and within a few moments to be with the Lord. This hour on earth the next in the third heavens Now viewing this world and anon standing among an innumerable company of Angels and the Spirits of the Just made perfect O what a change is this What! but wink and see God! Commend thy soul to Christ and be transferred in the arms of Angels into the invisible world the world of Spirits To live as the Angels of God! To live without eating drinking sleeping To be lifted up from a bed of sickness to a Throne of Glory To leave a sinful troublesom world a sick and pained body and be in a moment perfectly cured and feel thy self perfectly well and free from all troubles and distempers You cannot think what this will be Who can tell what sights what apprehensions what thoughts what frames believing souls have before the bodies they left are removed from the eyes of their dear surviving friends Inference 2. Are believers immediatly with God after their dissolution Where then shall unbelievers be and in what state will they find themselves immediatly after death hath closed their eyes Ah what will the case of them be that go the other way To be pluckt out of house and body from among friends and comforts and thrust into endless miseries into the dark vault of Hell never to see the light of this world any more Never to see a comfortable sight Never to hear a joyful sound Never to know the meaning of rest peace or delight any more O what a change is here To exchange the smiles and honours of men for the frowns and fury of God To be cloathed with flames and drink the pure unmixed wrath of God who was but a few days since cloathed in silks and fill'd with the sweet of the creature how is the state of things altered with thee It was the lamentable cry of poor Adrian when he felt death approaching Oh my poor wandring soul alas whither art thou now going Where must thou lodge this night Thou shalt never jest more never be merry more Your term in your houses and bodies is out and there is another habitation provided for you but 't is a dismal one When a Saint dyes heaven above is as it were moved to receive and entertain him at his coming he is received into everlasting habitations Into the inheritance of the Saints in light When an unbeliever dies we may say of him alluding to Isa. 14.9 Hell from beneath is moved for him to meet him at his coming it stirreth up the dead for him No more sports nor plays no cups of wine nor beds of pleasure The more of these you enjoyed here the more intolerable will this change be to you If Saints are immediately with God others must be immediatly with Satan Inference 3. How little cause have they to fear death who shall be with God so soon after their death Some there are that tremble at the thoughts of death That cannot endure to hear its name mentioned That would rather stoop to any misery here yea to any sin than die because they are afraid of the exchange but you that are interessed in Christ need not do so You can lose nothing by the exchange The words Death Grave and Eternity should have another kind of sound in your ears And make contrary impressions upon your hearts If your earthly Tabernacles cast you out you shall not be found naked You have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And it is but a step out of this into that O what fair sweet and lovely thoughts should you have of that great and last change But what speak I of your fearlesness of death Your Duty lies much higher than that far Inference 4. If Believers are immediatly with God after their dissolution then it 's their Duty to long for their dissolution And cast many a longing look towards their Graves So did Paul I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better The advantages of this exchange are unspeakable You have Gold for Brass Wine for Water Substance for shadows solid Glory for very Vanity O if the dust of this earth were but once blown out of your eyes that you might see the divine glory how weary would you be to live How willing to die But then be sure your title to heaven be sound and good Leave not so great a concernment to the last For though it is confessed God may do that in an hour that never was done all your days yet it is not common Which brings us to our Third and Last observation DOCT. 3. That God may though he seldom doth prepare men for glory immediately before their dissolution by death There is one parable and no more that speaks of some that were called at the last hour Matth. 20.9 10. And there is this one instance in the text and no more that gives us an account of a person so called We acknowledge God may do it his grace is his own He may dispense it how and where he pleaseth We must always salve divine prerogative Who shall fix bonds or put limits to free grace but God himself whose it is If he do not ordinarily shew such mercies to dying sinners as indeed it doth not yet it is not because he cannot but because he will not Not because their hearts are so hardned by long custom in sin that his grace cannot break them but because he most justly withholds that grace from them When blessed Mr. Bilney the martyr heard a Minister preaching thus O thou old sinner that hast lain these fifty years rotting in thy sin dost thou think now to be saved That the blood of Christ shall save thee O said Mr. Bilney what preaching of Christ is this If I had heard no other preaching than this what had become of me No no old sinners or young sinners great or small sinners are not to be beaten off from Christ but encouraged to repentance and faith For who knows but the bowels of mercy may yearn at last upon one that hath all along rejected it This thief was as unlikely ever to have received mercy but a few hours before he died as any person in the world could be But surely this is no encouragement to neglect the present seasons of mercy because God may shew mercy hereafter To neglect the ordinary because God sometimes manifests his grace in ways extraordinary Many I know have hardened themselves in ways of sin by this example of mercy But what God did at this time for this man cannot be expected to be done ordinarily for us And the reasons thereof are Reason 1. First Because God hath vouchsafed us the ordinary and standing means of
savingly Inference 2. Have the believing meditations of Christ and his sufferings such heart melting influences the surely then proper order of raising the affections is to begin at the exercise of faith It grieves me to see how many poor Christians tug at their own dead hearts endeavouring to raise and affect them but cannot They complain and strive strive and complain pump and draw but no love to the Lord comes no brokenness of heart comes They go to this ordinance and that to one duty and another hoping that now the Lord will affect it and fill the sails but come back disappointed and ashamed like the troops of Tema Poor Christian hear me one word possibly it may do thy business and stand thee in more stead than all the methods thou hast yet used If thou wouldst indeed get an heart Evangelically melted for sin and broken with the kindly sense of the grace and love of Christ thy way is not to force thy affections nor to vex thy self and go about complaining of an hard heart but set thy self to believe reallize apply infer and compare by faith as you have been directed and see what this will do They shall look upon me whom they have pierced and mourn This is the true way and proper method to raise the heart and break it Inference 3. Is this the way to get a truly broken heart then let those that have attained brokenness of heart this way bless the Lord whilst they live for so choice a mercy And that upon a double account First For as much as an heart so affected and melted is not attainable by any natural or unrenewed person If they would give all they have in the world it cannot purchase one such tear or groan over Christ. Mark what characters of special grace it bears in the description that 's made of it in that forementioned place Zech. 12.10 Such a frame as this is not born with us or to be acquired by us for it 's there said to be poured out by the Lord upon us I will pour on them c. There 's no hypocrisie or dissimulation in these mournings for they are compared to the mourning of a man for his only Son And sure the hearts of parents are not untouched when they behold such sights Nature is not the principle of it but faith For it 's there said they shall look on me i. e. believe and mourn Self is not the end and center of these sorrows It is not so much for damning our selves as for piercing Christ they shall look on me whom they have pierced and shall mourn so that this is sorrow after God and not a flash of nature as was discoursed from the former point And therefore you have cause to bless the Lord whilst you live for such a special mercy as this is And Secondly As it 's the right so it is the choisest and most pretious gift that can be given you for it 's rancked among the prime mercies of the new Covenant Ezek. 36.26 This shall be the Covenant A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh What wouldst thou have given sometimes for such an heart as now thou hast though it be not yet as thou wouldst have it And however you value and esteem it God himself sets no common value on it for mark what he â—aith of it Psal. 51.17 the sacrifices of God are a broken heart a broken and a contrite spirit O God thou wilt not despise i. e. God is more delighted with such an heart than all the sacrifices in the world One groan one tear flowing from faith and the spirit of Adoption is more to him than the Cattle upon a thousand hills And to the same sense he speaks again Isai. 66.1 2. Thus saith the Lord the heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool where is the house that ye build to me and where is the place of my rest but to this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word q. d. all the magnificent Temples and gloririous structures in the world give me no pleasure in comparison of such a broken heart as this Oh then for ever bless the Lord that hath done that for you which none else could do And what he hath done but for few besides you The TWENTY SIXTH SERMON ACT. II. XXIII Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain HAving considered in order the preparative acts for the death of Christ both on his own part and on his enemies part we now come to consider the death of Christ it self which was the principal part of his humiliation and the chief pillar of our consolation Here we shall in order consider First The kind and nature of the death he died Secondly The manner in which he bare it viz. patiently solitary and instructively droping divers holy and instructive lessons upon all that were about him in his seven last words upon the Cross. Thirdly The funeral solemnities at his burial Fourthly and Lastly The weighty ends and great designs of his death In all which particulars as we proceed to discuss and open them you will have an account of the deep abasement and humiliation of the Son of God In this text we have an account of the kind and nature of that death which Christ died as also of the causes of it both principal and instrumental First The kind and nature of the death Christ died which is here described more generally as a violent death Ye have slain him and more particularly as a most ignominious cursed dishonorable death ye have crucified him Secondly The causes of it are here likewise expressed and that both principal and instrumental The principal cause permitting ordering and disposing all things about it was the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God There was not an action or circumstance but came under this most wise and holy counsel and determination of God The Instruments effecting it were their wicked hands This foreknowledge and counsel of God as it did no way necessitate or enforce them to it so neither doth it excuse their fact from the least aggravation of its sinfulness It did no more compel or force their wicked hands to do what they did than the Mariners hoising up his sails to take the wind to serve his design compels the wind And it cannot excuse their action from one circumstance of sin because Gods end and manner of acting was one thing their end and manner of acting another His most pure and holy theirs most malitious and daringly wicked Idem quod duo faciunt non est idem To this purpose a grave Divine will expresses it In respect of God
say to you of this place You are a people that were born under and bred up with the Gospel It hath been your singular priviledge above many Towns and Parishes in England to enjoy more than 60 years together an able and fruitful Gospel Ministry among you The dews of Heaven lay upon you as it did upon Gideons Fleece when the ground was dry in other places about you You have been richly watered with Gospel showers You with Capernaum have been exalted to Heaven in the means of Grace And it must be owned to your praise that you testified more respect to the Gospel than many other places have done and treated Christs Ambassadors with more civility whilst they prophesied in Sackcloth than some other places did These things are praise worthy in you But all this and much more than this amounts not to that which Jesus Christ expects from you and which in his name I would now perswade you to and oh that I the least and unworthiest of all the Messengers of Christ to you might indeed prevail with all that are Christless among you 1. to answer the long continued calls of God to you by a through and sound Conversion that the long suffering of God may be your salvation and you may not receive all this grace of God in vain O that the damned might never be set a wondering to see a people of your advantages for Heaven sinking as much below many of themselves in misery as you now are above them in means and mercy Dear friends my hearts desire and prayer to God for you is that you may be saved Oh that I knew how to engage this whole Town to Jesus Christ and make fast the marriage knot betwixt him and you albeit after that I should presently go to the place of silence and see man no more with the Inhabitants of the World Ah sirs methinks I see the Lord Jesus laying the merciful hand of an holy violence upon you methinks he calls to you as the Angel to Lot saying arise lest ye be consumed and while he lingred the men laid hold upon his hand the Lord being merciful unto him And they brought him without the City and said escape for thy life stay not in all the plain escape to the Mountain lest thou be consumed Gen. 19.15 How often to allude to this hath Jesus Christ in like manner laid hold upon you in the Preaching of the Gospel and will you not fly for refuge to him Will you rather be consumed than endeavour an escape A beast will not be driven into the fire and will not you be kept out The merciful Lord Jesus by his admirable patience and bounty hath convinced you how loath he is to leave or loose you To this day his arms are stretched forth to gather you and will you not be gathered Alas for my poor neighbours Must so many of them perish at last what shall I do for the daughter of my people Lord by what Arguments shall they be perswaded to be happy what will win them effectually to thy Christ they have many of them escaped the pollutions of the World through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour They are a people that love thine Ordinances they take delight in approaching to God thou hast beautified many of them with lovely and obliging tempers and dispositions Thus far they are come there they stick and beyond this no power but thine can move them O thou to whose hand this work is and must be left put forth thy saving power and reveal thine arm for their salvation thou hast glorified thy name in many among them Lord glorifie it again 2. My next request is that you will all be perswaded whether converted or unconverted to set up all the duties of Religion in your families and govern your Children and Servants as men that must give an account to God for them in the great day O that there were not a prayerless Family in this Town How little will your Tables differ from a manger where beasts feed together if God be not owned and acknowledged there in your eating and drinking And how can you expect blessings should dwell in your Tabernacles if God be not called upon there Say not you want time for it or that your necessities will not allow it for had you been more careful of those duties it 's like you had not been exposed to such necessities besides you can find time to be idle you can waste a part of every day vainly Why could not that time be redeemed for God Moreover you will not deny but the success of all your affairs at home and abroad depends upon the blessing of God and if so think you it is not the right way even to temporal prosperity to engage his presence and blessing with you in whose hand your all is Say not your Children and servants are ignorant of God and therefore you cannot comfortably joyn with them in those duties For the neglect of these duties is the cause of their ignorance and it is not like they will be better till you use Gods means to make them so Besides prayer is a part of natural worship and the vilest among men are bound to pray else the neglect of it were none of their sin O let not a duty upon which so many and great blessings hang fall to the ground upon such silly not to say wicked pretences to shift it off Remember death will shortly break up all your families and disband them and who then think you will have most comfort in beholding their dead The day of account also hastens and then who will have the most comfortable appearing before the just and holy God Set up I beseech you the ancient and comfortable duties of reading the Scriptures singing of Psalms and Prayer in all your dwelling places and do all these conscientiously as men that have to do with God and try the Lord herewith if he will not return in a way of mercy to you and restore even your outward prosperity to you again How ever to be sure far greater encouragements than that lye before you to oblige you to your duties 3. More especially I have a few things to say to you that have attended on the Ministry or are under my oversight in a more particular manner and then I have done And First I cannot but with deep resentments observe to you the goodness of our God yea the riches of his goodness Who freely gave Jesus Christ out of his own bosom for us and hath not withheld his spirit Ordinances and Ministers to reveal and apply him to us Here 's love that wants an Epithete to match it Who engaged my heart upon this transcendent subject in the course of my Ministry among you A subject which Angels study and admire as well as we Who so signally protected and overshadowed our Assembly in those dayes of trouble wherein these truths were delivered to you You then sate down under
satisfaction of Christ to render it needless when they say many wâ—re saved without it even as many as were saved before the death of Christ. For they say the effect cannot be before the cause which is true of physical but not of moral causes and such was Christs satisfaction As for Example a captive is freed out of prison from the time that his surety undertakes for him and promises his Ransom here the Captive is actually delivered though the ransom that delivered him be not yet actually paid So it was in this case Christ had engaged to the Father to satisfie for them and upon that security they were delivered And the vertue of this Oblation not only reaches those believers that lived and died before Christs day but it extends it self forward to the end of the world Hence Heb. 13.8 Christ is said to be the same yesterday to day and for ever that is he is not so a Saviour to us that now live as that he was not their Saviour also that believed in him before us from the beginning Nor yet so a Saviour both to them and us as that he shall not be the same to all that shall believe on him to the worlds end To the same sence are those words Heb. 11.40 rightly Paraphrased God having povided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect q. d. God hath appointed the accomplishment of the promise of sending the Messiah to be in the last times That they viz. that lived before Christ should not be perfected that is justified and saved by anything done in their time but by looking to our time and Christs satisfaction made therein whereby they and we are perfected together No tract of time can wear out the vertue of this eternal Sacrifice It is as fresh vigorous and potent now as the first hour it was offered And though he actually offers it no more yet he virtually continues it by his intercession now in Heaven For there he is still a Priest And therefore about sixty years after his Assention when he gave the Revelation to Iohn he appears to him in his Priestly garments Rev. 1.13 Cloathed in a garment down to the feet and girt about the paps with a golden girdle in illusion to the Priestly Ephod and curious girdle And as the vertue of this Oblation reaches backward and forward to all ages and to all believers so to all the sins of all Believers which are fully purged and expiated by it This no other Oblation could do The legal Sacrifices were no real expiations but rather remembrances of sins Heb. 9.9 12. Heb. 10.3 And all the vertue they had consisted in their Typical relation to this Sacrifice Gal. 3.23 Heb. 9.13 And separate from it were altogether weak unprofitable and insignificant things Heb. 7.18 but this blood cleanseth from all sins 1 Ioh. 1.7 all sin originating or originated or actual flowing from them both It expiates all fully without exception and finally without revocation So that by his being made sin for us we are made not only righteous but the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 Thirdly and Lastly to name no more being so pretious in it self and so efficacious to expiate sin it must needs be a most grateful Oblation to the Lord highly pleasing and delightful in his eyes And so indeed it is said Eph. 5.2 He gave himself for us an offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Not that God took any delight or content in the bitter sufferings of Christ simply and in themselves considered but with relation to the end for which he was offered even our redemption and salvation Hence arose the delight and pleasure God had in it this made him take pleasure in bruising him Isa. 53.10 God smelt a savour of rest in this Sacrifice The meaning is that as men are offended with a stench and their stomachs rise at it and are on the contrary delighted with sweet odors and fragrancies so the blessed God speaking after the manner of men is offended and filled with loathing and abhorrence by our sins but infinitely pleased and delighted in the offering of Christ for them which came up as an odor of a sweet smelling savour to him whereof the costly perfumes under the Law were Types and shadows This was the Oblation Thirdly This Oblation he brings before God and to him he offers it up So speaks the Apostle Heb. 9.14 through the eternal spirit he offered himself without spot to God As Christ sustained the capacity of a surety so God of a Creditor who exacted satisfaction from him That is he required from him as our surety the penalty due to us for our sin And so Christ had to do immediately with God yea with a God infinitely wronged and incensed by sin against us To this incensed Majesty Christ our Priest approacheth as to a devouring fire with his Sacrifice Fourthly The persons for whom and in whose stead he offered himself to God was the whole number of Gods Elect which were given him of the Father neither more nor less So speak the Scriptures He laid down his life for the sheep Joh. 10.15 For the Church Act. 20.28 For the Children of God Joh. 11.50 51 52. It is confessed there is sufficiency of vertue in this Sacrifice to redeem the whole world and on that account some Divines affirm he is called the Saviour of the world Joh. 40.42 alibi We acknowledge also that he purchased the services of others beside the Elect to be useful to them as they many ways are In which sense others take those Scriptures that speak so universally of the extent of his death We also acknowledge that the Elect being scattered in all parts and among all ranks of men in the world and unknown to those that are to tender Jesus Christ to men by the Preaching of the Gospel The stile of the Gospel as it was necessary is by such indefinite expressions suited to the general tenders they are to make of him But that the efficacy and saving vertue of this alsufficient Sacrifice is coextended with Gods Election so that they all and no others can or shall reap the special benefits of it is too clear in the Scriptures to be denyed Eph. 5.23 Ioh. 17.2 9 19 20. Ioh. 10.26 27 28. 1 Tim. 4.10 Fifthly The design and end of this Oblation was to attone pacify and reconcile God by giving him a full and adequate compensation or satisfaction for the sins of these his Elect. So speaks the Apostle Col. 1.20 And having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in Heaven So 2 Cor. 5.19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself Reconciliation is the making up of that breach caused by sin between us and God and restoring us again to his favour and
satisfie God for us he must present himself before God as our surety in our stead as well as for our good else his obedience had signified nothing to us to this end he was made under the Law Gal. 4.4 comes under the same obligation with us and that as a surety For so he is called Heb. 7.22 Indeed his obedience and sufferings could be exacted from him upon no other account It was not for any thing he had done that he became a curse It was prophesied of him Dan. 9.26 the Messiah shall be cut off but not for himself and beeing dead the Scriptures plainly assert it was for our sins and upon our account So 1 Cor. 15.3 Christ dyed for our sins according to the Scriptures And it 's well observed by our Divines who assert the vicegerency and substitution of Christ in his sufferings that all those Greek particles which we translate for when applied to the sufferings of Christ do note the meritorious deserving procuring cause of those sufferings So you find Heb. 10.12 He offered one Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for sins 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ once suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for sins Rom. 4.25 He was delivered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our offences Matth. 20.28 He gave his life a ransom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for many And there are that confidently affirm this last particle is never used in any other sense in the whole book of God As an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth i. e. one in lieu of another Just as those whom the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men that exchanged lives or gave life for life staking down their own to deliver anothers As Philumene did for Aristides And so the Poet Virgil speaks Si fratrem Pollux alterna morte redemit And indeed this very consideration is that which supports the doctrine of Imputation the imputation of our sins to Christ and the imputation of Christs righteousness unto us For how could our sins be laid on him but as he stood in our stead or his righteousness be imputed to us but as he was our surety performing it in our place So that to deny Christs sufferings in our stead is to loose the corner stone of our Justification and overthrow the very pillar which supports our faith comfort and salvation Indeed if this had not been he would have been the righteous Lord but not the Lord our righteousness as he is stiled Ier. 33.16 So that it is but a vain distinction to say it was for our good but not in our stead For had it not been in our stead we could not have had the good of it Thirdly The internal moving cause of Christs satisfaction for us was his obedience to God and love to us That it was an act of obedience is plain from Phil. 2.8 He became obedient unto death even the death of the cross Now obedience respects a command and such a command Christ received to dye for us as himself tells us Joh. 10.18 I lay down my life of my self I have power to lay it down and power to take it again this commandment have I received of my Father So that it was an act of obedience with respect to God and yet a most free and spontaneous act with respect to himself And that he was moved to it out of pity and love to us himself assures us Gal. 5.2 Christ loved us and gave himself for us an offering and a Sacrifice to God upon this Paul sweetly reflected Gal. 2.20 who loved me and gave himself for me As the external moving cause was our misery so the internal was his own love and pity for us Fourthly The matter of Christs satisfaction was his active and passive obedience to all that the Law of God required I know there are some that doubt whether Christs active obedience have any place here and so whether it be imputed as any part of our righteousness It is confâ—ssed the Scripture most frequently mentions his passive obedience as that which made the attonement and procures our redemption Matth. 26.28 Matth. 20.28 Rom. 3.24 25. alibi but his passive obedience is never mentioned exclusively as the sole cause or matter of satisfaction But in those places where it 's mentioned by it self it 's put for his whole obedience both active and passive by an usual Trope and in other Scriptures it is ascribed to both as Gal. 4.4 he is said to be made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law Now his being made under the Law to this end cannot be restrained to his subjâ—ction to the curse of the Law only but to the commands of it also So Rom. 5.19 As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous It were a manifest injury to this text also to restrain it to the passive obedience of Christ only To be short this twofold obedience of Christ stands opposed to a twofold obligation that fallen man is under the one to do what God requires the other to suffer what he hath threatned for disobedience We owe him active obedience as his creatures and passive obedience as his prisoners Suitably to this double Oblation Christ comes under the Commandment of the Law to fulfil it actively Matth. 3.15 and under the malediction of the Law to satisfie it passively And whereas it is objected by some if he fulfilled the whole Law for us by his active what need then of this passive obedience We reply great need because both these make up that one entire and compleat obedience by which God is satisfied and we justified It 's a good rule of Alsted obedientia Christi est una copulativa The whole obedience of Christ both active and passive make up one intire perfect obedience and therefore there is no reason why one particle either of the one or of the other should be excluded Fifthly the effect and fruit of this his satisfaction is our freedom ransom or deliverance from the wrath and curse due to us for our sins Such was the dignity value and compleatness of Christs satisfaction that in strict Justice it merited our redemption and full deliverence Not only a possibility that we might be redeemed and pardoned but a right whereby we ought to be so As the learned Dr. Twiss judiciously argues If he be made a curse for us we must then be redeemed from the curse according to justice so the Apostle argues Rom. 3.25 26. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God to declare I say at this time his righteousness that God might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Iesus Mark the design and end of God in exacting satisfaction from Christ it was to declare his righteousness in
the severity of the Law that when it is once offended it will never be made amends again by all that we can do It will not discharge the sinner for all the sorrow in the world Indeed if a man be in Christ sorrow for sin is something and renewed obedience is something God looks upon them favourably and accepts them gratiously in Christ but out of him they signifie no more than the intreaties and cries of a condemned malefactor to reverse the legal sentence of the Judge You may toyl all the day of your life and at night go to bed without a candle To that sense that Scripture sounds Isa. 50. ult Behold all ye that kindle a fire that compass your selves about with sparks walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks that you have kindled this shall ye have of mine hand ye shall lie down in sorrow By fire and the light of it some understand the sparkling pleasures of this life and the sensitive joys of the creatures but generally it 's taken for our own natural righteousness and all acts of duties in order to our own justification by them before God And so it stands opposed to that faith of recumbency spoken of in the verse before By their compassing themselves about with these sparks understand their dependence on these their duties and glorying in them But see the fatal issue ye shall lie down in sorrow That shall be your recompence from the hand of the Lord. That 's all the thanks and reward you must expect from him for slighting Christs and prefering your own righteousness before his Reader be convinced that one act of faith in the Lord Jesus pleases God more than all the obedience repentance and strivings to obey the Law through thy whole life can do And thus you have the first special fruit of Christs Priesthood in the full satisfaction of God for all the sins of Believers The FIFTEENTH SERMON GAL. IV. IV V. But when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the Adoption of Sons THis Scripture gives us an account of a double fruit of Christs death viz. the payment of our debt and the purchase of our inheritance First The payment of our debt expressed by our redemption or buying us out from the obligation and curse of the Law which hath been discoursed in the last exercise Secondly the purchase of an inheritance for those redeemed ones expressed here by their receiving the Adoption of Sons Which is to be our present subject Adoption is either civil or divine Of the first the Civil Law gives this difinition that it is A Lawful Act in imitation of nature invented for the comfort of them that have no children of their own Divine Adoption is that special benefit whereby God for Christs sake accepteth us as Sons and makes us heirs of eternal life with him Betwixt this Civil and Sacred Adoption there is a twofold agreement and disagreement They agree in this that both flow from the pleasure and good will of the Adoptant And in this that both confer aright to priviledges which we have not by nature but in this they differ One is an Act imitating nature the other transcends nature The one was found out for the comfort of them that had no children the other for the comfort of them that had no Father This Divine Adoption is in Scripture either taken properly for that act or sentence of God by which we are made Sons or for the priviledges with which the Adopted are invested And so it 's taken Rom. 8.23 and in this Scripture now before us We lost our inheritance by the fall of Adam we receive it as the Text speaks by the death of Christ which restores it again to us by a new and better title The Doctrine hence is DOCT. That the death of Iesus Christ hath not only satisfied for our debts but over and above purchased a rich inheritance for the children of God For this end or cause he is the Mediator of the New-Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Heb. 9.15 We will here first see what Christ paid Secondly what he purchased Thirdly for whom First What Christ paid Our Divines comprize the vertue and fruits of the Priesthood of Christ in these two things viz. solutio debiti acquisitio haereditatis payment and purchase answerably the obedience of Christ hath a double relation ratio legalis justiciae the relation of a legal righteousness an adequate and exactly proportionated price And it hath also in it ratio super legalis meriti the relation of a merit over and beyond the Law To object as some do the satisfaction of Christ was more than sufficient according to our Doctrine and therefore could not be intended for the payment of our debt is a senseless cavil For surely if Christ paid more than was owing he must needs pay all that was owing to divine Justice And truly it is but a bad requital of the Love of Jesus Christ who beside the payment of what we owed would manifest his bounty by the redundancy of his merit which he paid to God to purchase a blessed inheritance for us This overplus of satisfaction which was the price of that inheritance I am now to open is not obscurely hinted but plainly expressed twice in Rom. 5.15 But not as the offence so also is the free gift for if through the offence of one many be dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Iesus Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath abounded or flowed abundantly unto many So vers 17. For if by one mans offence death raigned by one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much more they which receive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the overflowings or abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall raign in life by one Iesus Christ. In both which places Christ and Adam are compared as the two roots or common heads of mankind both agreeing in this property of communicating their conditions to those that are theirs yet there is a great deal of difference betwixt them for in Christ the power is all divine and therefore infinitely more active and effectual He communicates abundantly more to his than they lost in Adam So that this blood is not only sufficient to redeem all those that are actually redeemed by it but even the whole world also And were there so many worlds of men as there are men in the world it would be sufficient for them also and yet still there would be an overplus of value For all those worlds of men would rise but to a finite bulk but this blood is infinite
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
so with me I feel my heart really melted many times when I read the sufferings of Christ. I feel my heart raised and ravished with strange Joys and comforts when I hear the glory of Heaven opened in the Gospel Indeed if it were not so with me I might doubt the root of the matter is wanting But if to my knowledge affection be added A melting heart matched with a knowing head now I may be confident all is well I have often heard Ministers cautioning and warning their people not to rest satisfied with idle and unpractical notions in their understandings but to labour for impressions upon their hearts this I have attained and therefore what danger of me I have often heard it given as the mark of an Hypocrite that he hath light in his head but it sheds not down its influences upon the heart Whereas in those that are sincere it works on their hearts and affections So I find it with me therfore I am in a most safe estate O Soul of all the false signs of grace none more dangerous than those that most resemble true ones And never doth the Devil more surely and incurably destroy than when transformed into an Angel of light What if these meltings of thy heart be but a flower of nature What if thou art more beholding to a good temper of body than a gratious change of spirit for these things Well so it may be Therefore be not secure but fear and watch Possibly if thou wouldst but search thine own heart in this matter thou maist find that any other pathetical moving story will have the like effects upon thee Possibly too thou maist find that notwithstanding all thy raptures and joys at the hearing of Heaven and its glory yet after that pang is over thy heart is habitually earthly and thy conversation is not there For all thou canst mourn at the relations of Christs Sufferings thou art not so affected with sin that was the meritorious cause of the sufferings of Christ as to crucifie one corruption or deny the next temptation or part with any way of sin that is gainful or pleasurable to thee for his sake Why now Reader if it be so with thee what art thou the better fâ—r the fluency of thy affections Dost think in earnest that Christ hath the better thoughts of thee because thou canst shed tears for him when notwithstanding thou every day piercest and woundest him O be not deceived Nay for ought I know thou maist find upon a narrow search that thou puttest thy tears in the room of Christs blood and givest the confidence and dependance of thy soul to them and if so they shall never do thee any good Oh therefore search thy heart Reader be not too confident take not up too easily upon such poor weak grounds as these a soul undoing confidence Always remember the Wheat and Tares râ—semble each other in their first springing up That an Egg is not liker to an Egg than Hypocrisie in some shapes and forms into which it can cast it self is like a genuine work of grace O remember that among the Ten Virgins that is the reformed professors of Religion that have cast off and separated themselves from the worship and defilements of Anti-christ five of them were foolish There be first that shall be last and last that shall be first Matth. 19.30 Great is the deceitfulness of our hearts Ier. 17.9 And many are the subtilties and devices of Satan 2 Cor. 11.3 Many also are the astonishing examples of self deceiving souls recorded in the Word Remember what you lately read of Iudas Great also will be the exactness of the Last Judgement And how confident soever you be that you shall speed well in that day yet still remember that Trial is not yet past Your final Sentence is not yet come from the mouth of your Judge This I speak not to affright and trouble but to excite and warn you The loss of a soul is no small loss and upon such grounds as these they are every day cast away This may suffice to be spoken to the first observation built upon this supposition that it was but a pang of meer natural affection in them But if it were the effect of a better principle the fruit of their Faith as some Judge then I told you the observation from it would be this DOCT. 2. That the believing meditation of what Christ Suffered for us is of great force and efficacy to melt and break the heart It is the Promise Zach. 12.10 They shall look upon me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as one mourneth for his only Son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first born Ponder seriously here the Spring and Motive They shall look upon me It 's the eye of Faith that melts and breaks the heart The effect of such a sight of Christ they shall look and mourn Be in bitterness and sorrow True Repentance is a drop out of the eye of Faith And the measure or degree of that sorrow caused by a believing view of Christ. To express which two of the fullest instances of grief we read of are borrowed That of a tender Father mourning over a dear and only Son That of the people of Israel mourning over Iosiah that peerless Prince in the valley of Megiddo Now to shew you how the believing meditation of Christ and his suffering comes kindly and savingly to break and melt down the gracious heart I shall propound these four considerations of the heart breaking efficacy of Faith eyeing a Crucified Jesus First The very reallizing of Christ and his sufferings by Faith is a most affecting and melting thing Faith is a true Glass that represents all those his sufferings and agonies to the Life It presents them not as a fiction or idle tale but as a true and faithful Narative This saith Faith is a true and faithful saying that Christ was not only cloathed in our flesh He that is over all God blessed for ever the only Lord the Prince of the Kings of the Earth become a man but it is also most certain that in this body of his flesh he grappled with the infinite wrath of God Which fill'd his soul with horror and amazement That the Lord of Life did hang dead upon the Tree That he went as a Lamb to the slaughter And was as a Sheep dumb before the Shearer That he endured all this and more than any finite understanding can comprehend in my room and stead For my sake he there groaned and bled For my Pride Earthliness Lust Unbelief hardness of Heart he endured all this I say to reallize the sufferings of Christ thus is of great power to affect the coldest dullest heart You cannot imagine the difference there is in presenting things as realities with convincing and satisfying evidences and our looking on them as a fiction or uncertainty Secondly But Faith can apply as well as
Canaan Many a man lost his life and much blood shed the very land flowing with milk and honey was first made to flow with blood e're Israel could inherit the promise Seven nations were destroyed e're the Land of Canaan was divided to the Israelites Act. 13.19 Sin makes mercy so deadly hard to bring forth To Christen every pretious child every Benâ—amin Benoni every son of Gods right hand a son of sorrow and death to her that brings him forth Adams sweets had no bitter till he transgressed Gods will One mercy did not die to bring forth another till he died But oh how should this raise the value of â—ur mercies What the price of blood the price of pretious blood the blood of the Cross O what an esteem should this raise Things as the same ingenious Author adds are prized rather as they come than as they are Far fetcht and dear bought makes all the price and gives all the worth with us weak creatures Upon this ground the Scripture when it speaks of our great fortune tells the great price it cost as eying our weakness who look more at what things cost than at what they are And as knowing if any thing will take with us this will To him that loved us and washed us from our sin in his own blood Rev. 1.5 Man is a Legal creature and looks much at what is given for a thing What did this cost Why it cost Christs own blood Colour is more than the cloth with us and scarlet colour is a general taking colour and therefore is Christs garments dipt in blood and he admired in this habit Who is this that comes from Edom with garments dyed red from Bozra Beware then you abuse not not any of the mercies that Christ brought forth with so many bitter pangs and throws And let all this endear Christ more than ever to you and make you in a deep sense of his grace and love to say Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ. The TWENTY SEVENTH SERMON LUK. XXIII XXXVIII And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latine and Hebrew This is the King of the Iews BEfore I pass on to the manner of Christs death I shall consider the Title affixed to the Cross in which very much of the wisdom of providence was discovered It was the manner of the Romans that the equity of their proceedings might the more clearly appear to the people when they crucified any man to publish the cause of his death in a Table written in Capital Letters and placed over the head of the crucified And that there might be at least a shew and face of Justice in Christs death he also shall have his title or superscription The worst and most unrighteous actions labour to cover and shroud themselves under pretensions of equity Sin is so shameful a thing that it cares not to own its name Christ shall have a Table written for him also This writing one Evangelist calls the Accusation Matth. 27.37 Another calls it the Title Joh. 19.19 Another the Inscription or Superscription so the Text. And another the Superscription of his Accusation Mark 15.26 In short it was a fair legible writing intended to express the fact or crime for which the person died This was their usual manner though sometime we find it was published by the voice of the common Cryer As in the case of Attalus the martyr who was led about the Amphitheater one proclaiming before him This is Attalus the Christian. But it was customary and usual to express the crime in a written Table as the Text expresses it Wherein these three things offer themselves to your consideration First The Character or Description of Christ contained in that writing And he is described by his Kingly dignity This is the King of the Iews That very office which but a little before they had reproached and derided bowing the knee to him in mockery saying Hail King of the Iews the providence of God so orders it that therein he shall be vindicated and honoured This is the King of the Iews Or as the other Evangelists compleat it This is Iesus of Nazareth the King of the Iews Secondly The person that drew his Character or Title It was Pilate he that but now condemned him he that was his Iudge shall be his Herald to proclaim his glory For the Title is honourable Surely this was not from himself for he was Christs enemy but rather than Christ should want a tongue to clear him the tongue of an enemy shall do it Thirdly The time when this honour was done him it was when he was at the lowest ebb of his glory when shame and reproach were heaped on him by all hands When all the Disciples had forsaken him and were fled Not one left to proclaim his innocency or speak a word in his vindication Then doth the providence of God as strangely as powerfully overrule the heart and pen of Pilate to draw this Title for him and affix it to his Cross. Surely we must look higher than Pilate in this thing and see how providence serves it self by the hands of Christs adversaries Pilate writes in honour of Christ and stiftly defends it too Hence our observation is DOCT. 1. That the dignity of Christ was openly proclaimed and defended by an enemy and that in the time of his greatest reproaches and Sufferings To open this mystery of providence to you that you may not stand idly gazing upon Christs Title as many then did we must first consider the nature and quality of this Title Secondly what hand the providence of God had in this matter Thirdly and then draw forth the proper Uses and improvements of it First To open the nature and quality of Christs Title or Inscription let it be throughly considered and we shall find First That it was an extraordinary Title varying from all examples of that kind and directly crossing the main design and end of their own custom For as I hinted before the end of it was to clear the equity of their proceedings and shew the people how justly they suffered those punishments inflicted on them for such crimes But Lo here is a Title expressing no crime at all and so vindicating Christs innocency This some of them perceived and moved Pilate to change it not this is but this is he that said I am the King of the Jews In that as they conceived lay his Crime O how strange and wonderful a thing was this But what shall we say It was a day of wonders and extraordinary things As there was never such a person Crucified before so there never was such a Title affixed to the Cross before Secondly As it was an extraordinary so it was a publick Title both written and published with the greatest advantages of spreading it self far and near among all people that could be For it was written in three Languages and those most known
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
grace which he had not and therefore we cannot expect such extraordinary and unusual conversions as he had This poor creature never heard in all likelihood one Sermon preached by Christ or any of the Apostles He lived the life of a Highway man and concerned not himself about Religion but we have Christ preached freely and constantly in our Assemblies We have line upon line and precept upon precept And when God affords the ordinary preaching of the Gospel he doth not use to work wonders When Israel was in the Wilderness then God baked their bread in Heaven and clave the Rocks to give them drink but when they came to Canaan where they had the ordinary means of subsistance the manna ceased Reason 2. Secondly Such a conversion as this may not be ordinarily expected by any man because such a time as that will never come again It 's possible if Christ were to die again and thou to be crucified with him thou mightest receive thy conversion in such a miraculous and extraordinary way but Christ dies no more Such a day as that will never come again Mr. Fenner in his excellent discourse upon this point tells us that as this was an extraordinary time Christ being now to be installed in his Kingdom and Crowned with glory and honour so extraordinary things were now done as when Kings are Crowned the Streets are richly hanged the Conduits run with wine great Malefactors are then pardoned for then they shew their munificence and bounty it is the day of the gladness of their hearts But let a man come at another time to the Conduits he shall find no wine but ordinary water there Let a man be in the Goal at another time and he may be hanged yea and hath no reason but to expect and prepare for it What Christ did now for this man was at an extraordinary time Reason 3. Thirdly Such a conversion as this may not ordinarily be expected for as such a time will never come again so there will never be the like reason for such a conversion any more Christ converted him upon the Cross to give an instance of his divine power at that time when it was almost wholy clouded Look as in that day the divinity of Christ brake forth in several miracles as the preternatural eclipse of the Sun The great earthquake the rending of the Rocks and vail of the Temple So in the conversion of this man in such an extraordinary way and all to give evidence of the divinity of Christ and prove him to be the Son of God whom they crucified But that is now sufficiently confirmed and there will be no more occasion for miracles to evidence it Reason 4. Fourthly None hath reason to expect the like conversion that enjoys the ordinary means because though in this convert we have a pattern of what free grace can do yet as Divines pertinently observe it 's a pattern without a promise God hath not added any promise to it that ever he will do so for any other And where we have not a promise to encourage our hope our hope can signifie but little to us Inference 1. Let those that have found mercy in the evening of their life admire the extraordinary grace that therein hath appeared to them O that ever God accept the Bran when Satan hath had the Flour of thy days The forementioned reverend Author tells us of one Marcus Cajus Victorius a very aged man in the primitive times who was converted from Heathenism to Christianity in his old age This man came to Simplicianus a Minister and told him he heartily owned and embraced the Christian faith But neither he nor the Church would trust him for a long time And the reason was the unusualness and strangeness of a conversion at such an age But after he had given them good evidence of the reallity thereof there were acclamations and singing of Psalms the people every where crying Marcus Caâ—us Victorius is become a Christian. This was written for a wonder Oh if God have wrought such wondrous salvations for any of you what cause have you to do more for him than others What to pluck you out of Hell when one foot was in To appear to you at last when so hardned by long custom in sin that one might say can the Ethiopian change his hue or the Leopard his spots O what riches of mercy have appeared to you Inference 2. Let this convince and startle such as even to their gray hairs remain in an unconverted state who are where they were when they first came into the world yea rather farther off by much Bethink your selves ye that are full of days and full of sin whose time is almost done and your great work not yet begun Who have but a few sands more in the upper part of the glass to run down and then your conversion will be impossible Your sun is setting your night is coming the shadows of the evening are stretched out upon you you have one foot in the grave and the other in Hell O think if all sense and tenderness be not withered up as well as natural verdure think with your selves how sad a case you are in God may do wonders but they are not seen every day then they would cease to be wondred at O strive strive while you have a little time and a few helps and means more Strive to get that work accomplished now that was never done yet Defer it no longer you have done so too much already It may be to use Seneca's expression you have been these sixty seventy or eighty years beginning to live about to change your practice but hitherto you still continue the same Do not you see how Satan hath gulled and cheated you with vain purposes till he hath brought you to the very brinks of the grave and Hell O 't is time now to make a stand and pause a little where you are and to what he hath brought you The Lord at last give you an eye to see and an heart to consider Inference 3. Lastly Let this be a call and caution to all young ones to begin with God betime and take heed of delays till the last as so many thousands have done before them to their eternal ruine Now is your time if you desire to be in Christ if you have any sense of the weight and worth of eternal things upon your hearts I know your age is voluptuous and delights not in the serious thoughts of death and eternity You are more inclined to mind your pleasures and leave these grave and serious matters to old age But let me perswade you against that by these considerations First Oh set to the business of Religion now because this is the moulding age Now your hearts are tender and your affections flowing Now is the time when you are most likely to be wrought upon Secondly Now because this is the freest part of your time It is in the morning
freely with respect to her own delight and contentment in thaâ— work So it 's said of Christ and that by his own mouth Joh. 10.17 18. Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again this commandment have I received of my Father He liked the work for the ends sake When he had a prospect of it from eternity then were his delights with the Sons of men Then he rejoyced in the habitable parts of the earth Prov. 8.30 31. And when he came into the world about it with what a full and free consent did his heart eccho to the voice of his Father calling him to it Just as you shall sometimes hear an eccho answering your voice two or three times over Psal. 40. Lo I come I delight to do thy will thy Law is within my heart He finished the work freely Thirdly As he finished it freely so he finished it diligently He wrought hard from the morning of his life to the end of it he was never idle whereever he was but went about doing good Act. 10.38 Sometimes he was so intent upon his work that he forgat to eat bread Joh. 4.30 31. As the life of some men is but a diversion from one trifle to another from one pleasure to another so the whole life of Christ was spent and eaten up betwixt one work or another Never was a life so filled up with labour The very moments of his time were all imployed for God to finish this work Fourthly and Lastly he finished it compleatly and fully All that was to be done by way of impetration and meritorious redemption is fully done No hand can come after his Angels can add nothing to it That is perfected to which nothing is wanting and to which nothing can be added Such is the work Christ finished Whatever the Law demanded is perfectly paid Whatever a sinner needs is perfectly obtained and purchased Nothing can be added to what Christ hath done He put the last hand to it when he said it is finished Thus you see what the work was and how Christ finished it Thirdly In the Last place let us consider what assurance or evidence we have that Christ hath so finished redemption-work And if you pursue that enquiry you will find these among other plain evidences of it First When Christ died redemption-work must needs be finished in as much as the obedience and blood of Christ was of infinite value and efficacy sufficiently able to accomplish all the ends for which it was shed And that not by divine acceptation but upon the account of its proper value This effect viz. the finishing redemption-work meritoriously by Christ doth not exceed the power of the cause to which we assign it viz. the death of Christ. And if there be a sole sufficient cause in act what hinders but the effect should follow There was certainly enough in Christs blood to satisfie the uâ—most demand of Justice when that therefore is actually shed justice is fully paid and consequently the souls for whom and in whose names it 's paid fully redeemed from the curse by the merit thereof Secondly It 's apparent that Christ finished the work by the discharge or acquittance God the Father gave him when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand If Christ the sinners Surety be as such discharged by God the Creditor then the debt is fully paid Now Christ was justified and cleared at his resurrection from all charges and demands of Justice Therefore it 's saâ—d 1 Tim. 3.16 that he was Iustified in the spirit i. e. openly discharged by that very act of the Godhead his raising him from the dead For when the grave was opened and Christ rose it was to him as the opening of the Prison doors and setting a Surety at liberty who was clapt up for another mans debt To the same sense Christ speaks of his ascention Joh. 16.10 The spirit saith he shall convince the world of righteousness i. e. of a compleat and perfect righteousness in me imputable to sinners for their perfect Justification and whereby shall he convince and satisfie them that it is so why by this because I go to the Father and ye see me no more There 's a great deal of force and weight in those words because you see me no more For it amounts to this much by this you shall be satisfied I have fully and compleatly performed all Righteousness and that by my active and passive obedience I have so fully satisfied God for you as that you shall never be charged or condemned because when I go to Heaven I shall abide there in glory with my Father and not be sent back again as I should if any thing had been omitted by me And this the Apostle gives you also in so many plain words Heb. 10.12 13 14. After he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sate down on the right hand of God And what doth he infer from that but the very truth before us vers 14. that by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Thirdly It 's evident Christ hath finished the work by the blessed effects of it upon all that believe in him For by vertue of the compleatness of Christs work finished by his death their Consciences are now rationally pacified and their souls at death actually received into glory Neither of which could be if Christ had not in this world finished the work If Christ had done his work imperfectly he could not have given rest and tranquillity to the labouring and burdened souls that come to him as now he doth Matth. 11.28 Conscience would still be hesitating trembling and unsatisfied And had he not finished his work we could not have entrance through the vail of his flesh into Heaven as all that believe in him have Heb. 10.19 20. If he had but almost done that work we had been but almost saved that is certainly damned And thus you see briefly the evidences that the work is finished Inference 1. Hath Christ perfected and compleatly finished all his work for us how sweet a relief is this to us that believe in him against all the defects and imperfections of all the works of God that are wrought by us There 's nothing finished that we do All our duties are imperfect duties they come off lamely and defectively from our hands It 's Christs charge against the Church of Sardis Rev. 3.2 I have not found thy works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect or filled up before God Oh there is much emptiness and vanity in the best of our duties but here 's the grand relief and that which answers to all the grounds of our doubts and fears upon that account Jesus Christ hath finished all his work though
1 Pet. 4.19 Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing as to a faithful Creator It 's very true this single relation in it self gives little ground of encouragement unless the creature had conserved that integrity in which it was originally created And they that have no more to plead with God for acceptance but their relation to him as creatures to a Creator will doubtless find that word made good to their little comfort Isa. 27.11 It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour But now grace brings that relation into repute Holiness ingratiates us again and revives the remembrance of this relation So that believers only can plead this Secondly As the gratious soul is his creature so it is his redeemed creature One that he hath bought and that with a great price Even with the pretious blood of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 This greatly encourages the departing soul to commit it self into the hands of God so you find Psal. 31.5 Into thy hands I commend my Spirit thou hast redeemed it O Lord God of truth Surely this is mighty encouragement to put it self upon God in a dying hour Lord I am not only thy creature but thy redeemed creature One that thou hast bought with a great price O I have cost thee dear For my sake Christ came from thy bosom and is it imaginable that after thou hast in such a costly way even by the expence of the pretious blood of Christ redeemed me thou shouldst at last exclude me Shall the ends both of Creation and Redemption of this soul be lost together Will God form such an excellent creature as my soul is in which are so many wonders of the wisdom and power of its Creator Will he be content when sin had marr'd the frame and defaced the glory of it to recover it to himself again by the death of his own dear Son and after all this cast it away as if there were nothing in all this Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit I know thou wilt have a respect to the work of thy hands Especially to a redeemed creature upon which thou hast been out so great sums of Love which thou hast bought at so dear a rate Thirdly Nay that 's not all the gratious soul may confidently and securely commit it self into the hands of God when it parts with its body at death not only because it is his creature his redeemed creature but because it is his renewed creature also And this lays a firm ground â—or the believers confidence of acceptecâ—a not that it is the proper cause or reason of its acceptance but as it is the souls best evidence that it is accepted with God and shall not be refused by him when it comes to him at death For in such a soul there is a double workmanship of God both glorious pieces though the last exceeds in glory A natural workmanship in the excellent frame of that noble creature the soul. And a gratious workmanship upon that again A new creation upon the old Glory upon Glory We are his workmanship created in Christ Iesus Eph. 2.10 The Holy Ghost came down from heaven on purpose to create this new workmanship To frame this new creature And indeed it is the Top and glory of all Gods works of wonder in this world And must needs give the believer encouragement to commit it self to God whether at such a time it shall reflect either upon the end of the work or upon the end of the workman both which meet in the salvation of the soul so wrought upon the end of the work in our glory By this we are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1.12 It is also the design and end of him that wrought it 2 Cor. 55. Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God Had he not designed thy soul for glory the spirit should never have come upon such a sanctifying design as this Surely it shall not sail of a reception into glory when it 's cast out this Tabernacle Such a work was not wrought in vain neither can it ever perish When once sanctification comes upon a soul it so roots it self in the soul that where the soul goes it goes Gifts indeed they die All natural excellency and beauty that goes away at death Iob 4. ult But grace ascends with the soul. It is a sanctified when a separate soul. And can God shut the door of Glory upon such a soul that by grace is made meet for the inheritance O it cannot be Fourthly As the gracious soul is a renewed soul so it is also a Sealed Soul God hath sealed it in this world for that glory into which it is now to enter at death All gracious souls are sealed objectively i. e. they have those works of grace wrought on their souls which do as but now is said ascertain and evidence their Title to glory And many are sealed formally That is the spirit helps them clearly to discern their interest in Christ and all the promises This both secures heaven to the soul in it self and becomes also an earnest or pledge of the glory in the unspeakable joys and comforts that it breeds in the soul. So you find 2 Cor. 1.22 Who hath sealed us and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts Gods sealing us gives high security His objective seal makes it sure in it self his formal seal makes it so to us But if over and above all this he will please as a fruit of that his sealing to give us those heavenly unexpressible joys and comforts which are the fruit of his formal sealing work to be an earnest a foretast and hansel of that glory how can the soul that hath found all this doubt in the least of a rejection by its God when at death it comes to him surely if God have sealed he will not refuse you If he have given you his earnest he will not shut you out Gods earnest is not given in Jest. Fifthly Moreover every gratious soul may confidently cast it self into the arms of its God when it goes hence with Father into thy hands I commit my Spirit For as much as every gratious soul is a soul in Covenant with God and God stands obliged by his Covenant and Promise to such not to cast them out when they come unto him As soon as ever thy soul became his by regeneration that Promise became its own Heb. 13.5 I will never leave you nor forsake you And will he leave the soul now at a pinch when it never had more need of a God to stand by it than it hath then every gratious soul is entitled to that Promise Ioh. 14.3 I will come again and receive you to my self And will he fail
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
rose at that time also Yet it was by the vertue of Christs Resurrection that their Graves were opened and their bodies quickned In which respect he saith Ioh. 11.25 when he raised dead Lazarus I am the Resurrection and the life i. e. the principle of life and quickning by which the dead Saints are raised Fourthly And therefore it may be truly affirmed that though some dead Saints were raised to life before the Resurrection of Christ yet that Christ is the first-born from the dead as he is call'd Col. 1.18 For though Lazarus and others were raised yet not by themselves but by Christ. It was by his vertue and power not their own And though they were raised to life yet they died again Death recovered them again but Christ dieth no more Death hath no dominion over him He was the first that opened the womb of the Earth the first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preheminence Fifthly But lastly Christ rose as a publick or common person As the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15.20 I desire this may be well understood â—or upon this account it is that our Resurrection is secured to us by the Resurrection of Christ and not a Resurrection only but a blessed and happy one for the first fruits both assured and sanctified the whole crop or harvest Now that Christ did rise as a publick person representing and comprehending all the Elect who are called the children of the Resurrection is plain from Eph. 2.6 Where we are said to be risen with or in him So that as we are said to die in Adam who also was a common person as the branches die in the death of the root so we are said to be raised from death in Christ who is the head root and representative of all his Elect seed And why is he called the first-born and first begotten from the dead but with respect to the whole number of the Elect that are to be born from the dead in their time and order also and as sure as the whole harvest follows the first fruits so shall the general Resurrection of the Saints to life eternal follow this birth of the first-born from the dead It shall surely follow it I say and that not only as a consequent follows an antecedent but as an effect follows its proper cause Now there is a three fold causality or influence that Christs Resurrection hath upon the Saints Resurrection of which it is both the meritorious efficient and exemplary cause First The Resurrection of Christ is the meritorious cause of the Saints Resurrection as it compleated his satisfaction and finished his payment and so our Justification is properly assigned to it as before was noted from Rom. 4.25 This his Resurrection was the receiving of the acquittance the cancelling of the bond And had not this been done we had still been in our sins as he speaks 1 Cor. 15.17 And so our guilt had been still a bar to our happy Resurrection But now the price being paid in his Death which payment was finished when he revived and the discharge then received for us now there is nothing lies in bar against our Resurrection to eternal life Secondly As it is the meritorious cause of our Resurrection so so it is the efficient cause of it also For when the time shall come that the Saints shall rise out of the dust they shall be raised by Christ as their head in whom the effective principle of their life is Your life is hid with Christ in God as it is Col. 3.3 As when a man awakes out of sleep the animal spirits seated in the brain being set at liberty by the digestion of those vapours that bound them up do play freely through every part and member of the body so Christ the believers mystical head being quickned the spirit of life which is in him shall be diffused through all his members to quicken them also in the morning of the Resurrection Hence the warm animating dew of Christs Resurrection is said to be to our bodies as the dew of the morning is to the withered languishing plants which revive by it Isa. 26.19 Thy dew is as the dew of Herbs and then it follows the earth shall cast forth her dead So that by the same Faith we put Christs Resurrection into the Premises we may put the believers Resurrection into the Conclusion And therefore the Apostle makes them convertibles reasoning forward from Christs to ours and back again from ours to his 1 Cor. 15.12 13. Which is also the sence of that Scripture Rom. 8.10 11. And if Christ be in you the body indeed is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness i. e. though you are really united to Christ by the Spirit yet your bodies must die as well as other mens but your souls shall be presently upon your dissolution swallowed up in life And then it follows vers 11. But if the spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you i. e. though your bodies must die yet they shall live again in the Resurrection and that by vertue of the spirit of Christ which dwelleth in you and is the bond of your mystical union with him your head You shall not be raised as others are by a meer word of power but by the spirit of life dwelling in Christ your head which is a choice prerogative indeed Thirdly Christs Resurrection is not only the meritorious and efficient cause but it is also the exemplary cause or pattern of our Resurrection He being the first and best is therefore the pattern and measure of all the rest So you read Phil. 3.21 Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body Now the Conformity of our Resurrection to Christs stands in the following particulars Christs body was raised substantially the same so will ours His body was raised first so will ours be raised before the rest of the dead His body was wonderfully improved by the Resurrection so will ours His body was raised to be glorified and so will ours First Christs body was raised substantially the same that it was before and so will ours Not another but the same body Upon this very reason the Apostle usâ—s that idential expression 1 Cor. 15.53 This corruptible must put on incorruption and thâ— mortal immortality Pointing as it were to his own body when he spake it the same body I say and that not only Specifically the same for indeed no other Species of flesh is so priviledged but the same numerically that very body not a new or another body in its steed So that it shall be both the what it was and the who it was And indeed to deny this is to deny the Resurrection it self For should God prepare
sacrifice the meritorious cause so of necessity there must be faith the instrumental cause And these concauses do all sweetly meet in their influences and activities in our remission and tranquility of conscience and are all suo genere in their kind and place absolutely necessary to the procuring and applying of it What the near that the blood of Christ is shed if I have no interest in it no saving influences from it O be convinvinced this is the end the business of life Faith is the Phoenix grace as Christ is the Phoenix mercy He is the gift Joh. 4.10 And this is the work of God Ioh. 6.29 the death of Christ the offers and tenders of Christ never saved one soul in themselves without believing application But wo is me how do I see sinners either not at all toucht with the sense of sin and so being whole need not the Physitian or if any be sâ—â—â—g and wounded with guilt how do they lick themselves whole with their own duties and reformations as Physitians say of wounds let them but be kept clean and nature will find balsom of its own to heal them If it be so in spiritual wounds what need Christ to have left the Fathers bosom and come down to dye in the quality and nature of a Sacrifice for us O if men can but have health pleasure riches honours and any way make a shift to still a brawling conscience that it may not check or interrupt them in these enjoyments Christ may go where he will for them And I am assured till God shew you the face of sin in the glass of the Law Make the Scorpions and fiery Serpents that lurk in the Law and in your own consciences to come hissing about you and smiting you with their deadly stings till you have had some sick nights and sorrowful days for sin you will never go up and down seeking an interest in the blood of this sacrifice with tears But Reader if ever this be thy condition then wilt thou know the worth of a Christ. Then thou wilt have a value for the blood of sprinkling As I remember it 's storied of our Crook-back Richard when he was put to a rout in a field battel and flying on foot from his pursuing enemies he cried out O now said he a Kingdom for a Horse So wilt thou cry a Kingdom for a Christ. Ten thousand Worlds now if I had thâ—m for the blood of sprinkling Corollary 3. Is Christ your High-Priest and is his Priestood so indispensably necessary to your salvation then freely acknowledge your utter impotency to reconcile your selves to God by any thing you can do or suffer And let Christ have the whole glory of your recovery ascribed to him It 's highly reasonable that he that laid down the whole price should have the whole praise If any man think or say he could have made an attonement for himself he doth therein cast no light reproach upon that profound wisdom which laid the design of our redemption in the death of Christ. But of this I have spoken elsewhere And therefore Corollary 4. In the last place I rather choose to perswade you to see your necessity of this Priest and his most excellent sacrifice and accordingly to make use of it The best of you have polluted natures poisoned in the womb with sin those natures have need of this sacrifice They must have the benefit of this blood to pardon and cleanse them or be eternally damned Hear me ye that never spent a tear for the sin of nature if the blood of Christ be not springled upon your natures it had been better for you that you had been the generation of beasts the off-spring of Dragons or Toads They have a contemptible but not a vitiated sinful nature as you have Your Actual sins have need of this Priest and his sacrifice to procure remission for them If he take them not away by the blood of his cross they can never be taken away They will lie down with you in the dust They will rise with you and follow you to the Judgement seat crying we are thy works and we will follow thee All thy repentance and tears shouldst thou weep as many tears as there be drops in the Ocean can never take away sin Thy duties even the best of them need this sacrifice It is in the verture thereof that they are accepted of God And were it not God had respect to Christs offering he would not regard or look towards thee or any of thy duties Thou couldst no more come near God than thou couldst approach a devouring fire or dwell with everlasting burnings Well then say I need such a Priest every way Love him in all his offices See the goodness of God in providing such a sacrifice for thee Meat drink and air not more necessary to maintain thy natural life than the death of Christ is to give and maintain thy spiritual life O then let thy soul grow big whilst meditating of the usefulness and excellency of Christ which is thus displaied and unfolded in every branch of the Gospel And with a deep sence upon thy heart let thy lips say blessed be God for Iesus Christ. The TWELFTH SERMON HEB. X.XIV. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified AFter this more general view and consideration of the Priesthood of Christ method requires that we come to a nearer and more particular consideration of the parts thereof which are his Oblation and Intercession answerable to the double office of the High-Priest offering the blood of the Sacrifices without the holy place which Typed out Christs oblation and then once a year bringing the blood before the Lord into the most holy place presenting it before the Lord and with it sprinkling the mercy-seat wherein the intercession of Christ the other part or Act of his Priesthood was in a lively manner Typified to us My present business is to open and apply the Oblation of Christ. The efficacy and excellency whereof is excellently illustrated by a comparison with all other oblations in the precedent context and with a singular Encomium commended to us in these words from the singularity of it It is but one offering one not only specifically but one numerically considered But once offered and never more to be repeated For Christ dieth no more Rom. 6.9 He also commends it from the efficacy of it By it he hath perfected i. e. not only purchased a possibility of salvation but all that we need to our full perfection It brings in a most intire compleat and perfect righteousness All that remains to make us perfectly happy is but the full application of the benefits procured by this Oblation for us Moreover it 's here commended from the extensiveness of it Not being restrained to a few but applicable to all the Saints in all the ages and places of the world For this indefinite them that are sanctified is