with it which as rust eats it out and cankers it if he beget a child he is accursed there 's a curse against his person and his goods and all that belongs unto him there 's still a curse over his head The creditor in this World by the Laws of the Realm may choose whether he will have his debtors person seized on or his goods and chattels But not so here this writ is executed against his person and goods and all that belongs unto him So that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God If this be the condition of a wicked man that his very blessings be curses what a woful case is it There 's nothing till he be reconciled to Christ but hath a curse at the end of it Consider that one place in the Prophesie of Malachy where the very blessings are accursed not onely when God sends on him the itch or botch or scab or sword but in blessings cap. 2.2 he 's accursed If you will not hear and if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name saith the Lord I will even send a curse upon you But how See how this curse is threatned I will curse your very blessings yea I have cursed them already because you do not lay it to heart Mark is it not a great blessing that God yet affords the Word that we yet enjoy it but if we come to hear but formally to hear it onely and lay it not to heart God curseth this blessing yea I have cursed it already saith the Lord. When thou prayest in hypocrisie thy prayer is a curse to thee If thou receive the Sacrament unworthily the cup of blessing is a cup of poison a cup of cursing to thee Stay not therefore one hour longer quietly in this cursed condition but fly unto Christ for life and blessing run to this City of refuge for otherwise there is a curse at the end of every outward thing that thou enjoyest I have cursed these blessings already It is as sure as if already pass't on thee What a woeful thing then is it think you to be liable to the curse of God! 2. But what 's become of the soul now Why if thou didst but see the cursed soul that thou carriest in thy body it would amaze thee These outward curses are but flea-bitings to the blow that is given to the soul of an unregenerate man that deadness of spirit that is within didst thou but see the curse of God that rests upon the soul of this man even while he is above ground it would even astonish thee 1. Consider there are two kinds of blows that God gives unto the soul of an unregenerate man The one is a terrible blow The other which is the worst of the two is an insensible blow The sensible blow is when God lets the conscience out and makes it fly into the face of a man when the conscience shall come and terribly accuse a man for what he hath done This blow is not so usual as the insensible blow but this insensible is far more heavy But as it falls out that as in this World sometimes before the glory in Heaeen the Saints of God have here a glimpse of Heaven and certain communion with God and Christ certain love tokens a white stone a new name ingraven which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it And this is the testimony of a good conscience which is hidden joyes Privy intercourse is between Christ and them secret kisses And as Gods Children do as it were meet with a Heaven upon Earth sometimes and are as we read of Paul caught up into the third Heaven which to them is more then all the things in the World besides So the wicked have sometimes flashes of Hell in their consciences If you had but seen men in the case that I have seen them in you would say they had an Hell within them they would desire rather and they have expressed it to be torn in pieces by wild horses so they might be freed from the horrours in their consciences When the conscience recoyls and beats back upon it self as a musket or'e charged it turns a man over and over And this is a terrible thing This sometimes God gives men in this World And mark where the word is most powerfully preacht there is this froth most rais'd which is the cause many desire not to come where the word is taught because it galls their consciences and desire the Mass rather because they say the Mass bites not They desire a dead Minister that would not rub up their consciences they would not be tormented before the time They would so but it shall not be at their choice God will make them feel here the fire of Hell which they must endure for ever hereafter This is the sensible Blow when God le ts loose the conscience of a wicked man and he needs no other fire no other worm to torment nothing else to plague him he hath a weapon within him his own conscience which if God lets loose it will be Hell enough But now besides this blow which is not so frequent there is another more common and more insensible blow God saith he is a dead man and a flave to sin and Satan and he thinks himself the freest man in the World God curses and strikes and he feels it not This is an insensible blow and like unto a dead palsie Thou art dead and yet walkest about and art merry though every one that hath his eyes open seeth death in thy face O this deadness this senselesness of heart is the heaviest thing that can befal a sinner in this life It is the cause the Apostle speaks of in the Rom when God delivers up a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a reprobate mind And so in the Epistle to the Ephes. 4.19 declares such a man to be past feeling Who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness even with greediness Although every sin as I told you before is as it were the running a mans self on the point of Gods sword yet these men being past feeling run on on on to commit sin with greediness till they come to the very pit of destruction they run amain to their confusion When this insensibleness is come upon them it is not Gods goodness that can work upon them Who art thou that despisest the riches of Gods goodness not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee unto repentance Rom. 2.4 It is not Gods judgments that will move them they leave no impression as Rev. 9.20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils c. brass nor stone and wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk They repented not though they were spared but worshipped Gods which cannot see nor hear nor
it he that was to be crucified was stripped naked as naked as ever he came out of his mothers Womb However the Painters may lye in it And was not this a shame thus to be stripped before thousands Wherefore it was a custome among the Romans that the greatest King if he were baptized was to be stripped naked which they did as a memorial of the shame of our Saviour So shameful a thing it was that they thought him unworthy to suffer within the walls Christ that he might sanctifie the people suffered without the walls Hebr. 13.13 Let us go with him out of the Camp bearing his reproach He was a man unfit to suffer within the walls Pilatâ— thought he would meet with them when they were so violent to have him crucified and therefore he joyns Barabbas with him the vilest Thief in the Countrey and a Murtherer So that Peter cast this in their teeth That they preferred a Murtherer before him He was reckoned with the Transgressors as it was prophesied of him before Isa. 53.12 They crucifie him between two Thieves as if he had been the Captain of them Pilate thought by naming of Barabbas to have saved Christ but so enraged was their blind malice that they preferred the release of Barabbas before the exemption of Christ. Wherefore as St. Luke saith Pilate released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison whom they had desired but he delivered Jesus to their will Luk. 23.25 Thirdly Consider the Pain of the Cross whom God raised up having loosed the sorrows of death Act. 2.24 Not meaning there were sorrows that Christ endured after his death but it s meant of the sorrows that accompanied his death It was the most dolorous death that ever could be endured We scarce know what Crucifying is The Christian Emperors in honor of our Saviour banished that kind of suffering that none after him might suffer it But yet it is fit we should know what it was since it was so terrible a thing And here as the Apostle said to the Galathians Suppose you see Christ crucified before your face at present The manner of it was thus First there was a long beam on which the party was to be stretched and there was a cross-beam on which the hands were to be stretched they pull'd them up upon the Cross before they fastned them they pull'd him to his utmost length And this is that the Psalmist speaks of Psal. 22.17 You might tell all my bones His ribs were so stretched as that they even pierced the flesh Conceive him now thus stretched with his hands and feet nailed to the wood the stretching of Christ on the Cross was such a thing as the working of the rack Imagine him before your eyes thus represented Your sins crucicified him being thus stretched upon the Cross to his full length the hands and the feet were fastned and nailed to the wood It 's no small torment to have the hands bored especially if we behold the place it was through the lower part of the hand where the veins and sinnews all met together It 's a place that is full of sense consider withal the bigness of the nails Psal. 22.16 They have digged my hands to shew the bigness of the spikes for the original bears it They digg'd him Believe not the painters Our Saviour had four nails Not one through both feet as they describe it but two through his hands and two through his feet And that you may the better comprehend it you must know that toward the lower part of the cross there went along a ledge or threshold whereto his feet were nail'd otherwise the flesh would have rent by reason of the nails if he had hung by the hands alone Then comes the lifting up as the serpent was lift up so must Christ be lift As when a man is stretched to the full length and should be with a girk put up it 's like a strapado as it were the unjoynting of a man and this is that the Psalmist speaks of All my bones are out of joynt Consider withal the time how long it was St. Mark saith cap. 15.25 It was the third hour and they crucified him In St. John it is the sixth hour but the ancient and best Copies have the third hour and so hath Nonnus The ninth hour he gave up the Ghost so that it was six long hours by the clock that our Saviour did hang upon the Cross. And it was not with him as with other men in whom extremity of pains disannul sense and blunt pains because they have not a perfect apprehension but Christ was in his perfect sense all the while All that the Jews could do could not take away his life from him till he would himself and therefore it is said in Mark 15.37 That immediately before he gave up the Ghost he cryed with a loud voice whereas others are wont at that time to be so weak that they can scarce be heard to groan but never was Christ stronger nor never cryed louder than when he gave up the Ghost Mark 15.39 this of it self made the Centurion assoon as he heard it conclude certainly this man was the Son of God How doth he gather this from his crying thus For a man to be in his full strength and cry out so strongly and immediately to give up the Ghost this is a great Miracle Truly this man was the Son of God This adds unto the greatness of his torment that he had his full and perfect sense that he was six full hours thus on the Rack and the extremity of pain took not away his sense He was as strong at the last as at the first These things seriously weighed Oh! how do they aggravate the depth of his Humiliation Seriously weigh them they are miserable and lamentable matters yet in these lie our comfort Through these words is there a passage open for us into the Kingdom of Heaven When he had overcome the terrors of death he opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers these were now but the out-side of his sufferings which did belong to man for his sins He suffered not only bodily sufferings but sufferings in soul and and that he did in a most unknown and incomprehensible manner But now may some say Object Did Christ suffer the pains and torments of Hell Sol. No he suffered those things that such an innocent Lamb might suffer but he could not suffer the pains of Hell The reason is because one thing which makes Hell to be Hell is the gnawing worm of an accusing conscience Now Christ had no such worm He had so clear a conscience as that he could not be stung with any such evil Another great torment in Hell is Desperation arising from the apprehension of the perpetuity of their torments which makes them curse and blaspheme God and carry an inexpressible hatred against him but Christ could not do so he could not hate God God forbid that
of suffering comes there is a remarkable speech Zach. 13.7 The Father seemeth to say concerning the Son that it was against his heart to smite him The expression was a lively one it went to his heart to smite one that was his equal that did him no wrong Awake O sword against my Shepherd and against the man that is my fellow You know of whom it is spoken by Matthew Mat. 26.31 I will smite the Shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered The Lord is ready to break him Isa. 53. The Sword was as it were unwilling to smite The man that is my fellow A blow lighting on God's fellow equal with God of what value is it Consider the difference betwixt a man and a man The State of a Prince makes great odds between that is done to him and that is done to another man When David would adventure himself into the batttl Thou shalt say they go no more with us lest thou quench the light of Israel 2 Sam. 21.17 and more â—ully 2 Sam. 18.3 Thou art worth ten thousand of us They would not hazard the person of the King in the battel Why because thou art worth ten thousand of us The dignity of a Prince is so great that ten thousand will not countervail the loss of him If this be the esteem and worth of David what is the worth of David's Prince If thus with a King what with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords This is a great ground of the sufficiency of Christ's suffering Heb. 9.13 If the blood of Bulls and Goats sanctifie to the purifying of the flesh how much more vers 14. shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your Consciences from dead works to serve the living God It is not the offering of the body only but he did it through his eternal Spirit When the Martyrs and Saints offered themselves a sacrifice they offered it through the flames of their love and therefore embraced the stake and love is described as strong as death but Christ did not offer his Sacrifice with the flames of his love though love was in him the greatest that ever was but with the everlasting flames of his Godhead and Deity with that fire from heaven which is a consuming fire He did the deed that will purge our Consciences from dead works Act. 20.28 Take heed unto your selves and to the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseerâ— to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood God hath purchased the Church with his own blood whose blood God's blood The blood of God must be shed He who thought it no robbery to be equal with God must shed his own blood As Zippora saith to Moses a bloody husband hast thou been to me Exod. 4.25 So may Christ say to his Church a bloody Spouse hast thou been to me that my blood must be shed for thee 1 Cor. 2.8 Had they known they would not have crucified he Lord of Glory that is they would not have crucified God He that was crucified was the glorious Lord God Act. 3.15 You denyed the holy one and killed the Prince of life Here 's the matter unless the Prince of life had been killed thou couldst not have life This the Apostle sets down as the ground of all before he comes to the particularities of his humiliation and sets down who it was who was thus humbled He whom the Heaven of Heavens could not contain he must descend into the lowermost parts of the earth that 's a descent indeed His Humiliation appears in this that he who was thus high became a man and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross. In this humiliation consider I say these two Points 1. The person who was humbled 2. The degrees of his humiliation Some things have regard to the whole course of his life others to the conclusion or period of his life All his life from his incarnation to his passion was a continual thred of humiliation from his Cradle to his Cross from his Womb to his Tomb So here is set down the humbled life of our blessed Saviour For I would not have you think his humiliation consisted only in coming to the Cross when they so mercilesly handled him it cost him more then so as sinners have the curse of God on them in their life as well as in their death So Christ must have a miserable life as well as an accursed death Though the heat came at the end o the Tragedy yet his whole life was a continual suffering Consider the degrees of it 1. He made himself of no Reputation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he emptied himself It was the second person in the Trinity that thus humbled and emptied himself not in his divine nature but his assumed of all his transcendent endowments Consider the particulars of it he took on him the form of a servant Was not this a great humiliation That the second person in the Trinity should stoop so low as to take on him the nature of one who is not worth the looking on That he should take dust and ashes upon him Psalm 113.5 6. Gods greatness is thus expressed Who is like unto the Lord our God who dwelleth on high who humbleth himself to behold the things in heaven and in the earth What Humiliation is that Compare these two humiliations tonether It is an humiliation to cast but his eye upon the Heavens to look upon the most glorious of all his works to look upon the Angels but what is man that thou so regardest him That thou shouldst not only look upon him but take him up and make him an inmate under thine own roof This is a greater abasement but here 's a further degree Christ during the time of his pilgrimage was content to deprive himself of his Glory that he now enjoyes By reason of his Hypostatical Union with the God-head he deserves all honour and glory When he brought his first begotten into the world he saith And let all the Angels worship him Heb. 1.6 Every knee bows to him that is thus highly exalted We see Christ crowned with glory and honour all Dominion and Power being made subject unto him yet he for thirty three years and an half was content to be exiled from his Fathers court John 17.5 Glorifie thou me with the glory I had with thee before the world was Which is expounded in the Proverbs where the Wisdom of God was shewn before the world was framed Prov. 8.30 Then I was by him as one brought up with him and I was dayly his delight rejoycing always before him this was the work before the foundation of the World which God was doing the Father was glorifying the Son and the Son was glorifying the Father The Father took infinite delight in the Son and the
glory which I had with thee before the World was So that the Admiring beholding and magnifying of Gods glory as much as may be labouring to be like him is our glory and thus much of the glory of God in beginning of this work in us by fear The second thing was to prove that this course was for our good and this appears two ways 1. In our Justification 2. In our Sanctification For the first we are such strangers unto God that we will never come unto him till we see there is no other remedy being at the pits brink ready to starve hopeless of all other helps being frozen in the dregs of sin delighting in our ways as we see in the parable of the prodigal son who would never think of any return to his Father till all other helps fayled him money friends acquaintance and all sorts of food nay if he might but have fed upon husks with the Swine he would not have thought of returning any more unto his Father but this being denied him the text says he then came to himself which shews us that whilest men run on in sinfull courses they are mad men of themselves even as we see those in Bedlam are beaten and kept under and comforts denied them till they come to themselves And then what says he I will arise and go to my father confessing that he had sinned and I will say Father I have sinned c. 15. Luke So is it with us until the Lord humble us and bring us low in our own eyes shewing us our misery and sinful poverty and that in us there is no good thing that we be stript of all help in and without our selves and must perish for ever unless we beg his mercy we will not come unto him As we see it was with the Woman that Christ healed of her bloody issue Luke 8.43 How long it was before she came to Christ she had been sick twelve years she had spent all her substance upon physicians and no body could help her and this Extremity brings her to Christ. So that this is the means to bring us unto Christ to drive us on our knees hopeless as low as may be to shew us where help only is to be found and make us run unto it Thus therefore when men have no mind to come to Christ he sends as it were fiery Serpents to sting them that they might look up unto the brazen Serpent or rather unto Christ Jesus of which it was a type for help so unto others being strangers unto him he sends variety of great and sore afflictions to make them come to him that he may be acquainted with them as Absolom set Joabs Corn on fire because he would not come at him being twice sent for So God deals with us before our Conversion many times as with iron Whips lashes us home turning loose the avenger of blood after us and then for our Life we run and make hast to the City of Refuge Thus God shoots off as it were his great Ordinance against us to make us run unto him Thus John the Baptist came preaching of Repentance in attire speech and dyet all being strong and harsh cloathed with a Camels hair and with a girdle of skin about his loyns his meat Locusts and wild Honey the place was in the wilderness his speech harsh and uncomfortable thundring with his voice calling them a generation of vipers and telling them that now also was the ax laid to the root of the tree that every tree that brought not forth good fruit was hewn down and cast into the fire As also we know in this manner the Lord came Elijah 1 Kings 19.11 First a great strong wind rent the mountains and break in pieces the Rocks before the Lord but the Lord was not in the wind and after that went an Earthquake but the Lord was not in the Earthquake and after the Earthquake a fire but the Lord was not in the fire these were as a peal of great Ordinance shot off to prepare the way shewing the King was a coming and after the fire a still small voice and there the Lord was So the Lord rends tears and shakes our Consciences and rocky hearts many times to prepare the way for him and then he comes to us in the still and soft voice of Consolation Secondly for our Sanctification it is good for us that the Comforters first work be to work fear in us for we are naturally so frozen in our dregs that no fire in a manner will warm and thaw us We wallow in our blood and stick fast in the mire of sin that we cannot stir so that this fear is but to pull us from our Corruptions and make us more holy As we see if a man have a Gangrene beginning in his hand or foot which may spread farther and be his death if it continue so he is easily perswaded to cut it off lest it should go farther So doth God deal by us with this fear of bondage that we might be cloathed anew with his Image in Holiness and Righteousness Now to effect this the sharpest things are best such as are the Law the threatnings of Condemnation the opening of Hell the racking of the Conscience and a sense of wrath present and to come So hard-hearted are we by Nature being as children of the bondwoman unto whom violence must be used Even as we see a man riding a wild and young Horse to tame him he will run him against a wall that this may make him affraid ride him in deep and tough Lands or if this will not do take him up into the top of some high Rock when bringing him to the brink thereof he threatens to throw him headlong make him shake and quake whereby at last he is tamed So deals the Lord by us he gives us a sight of sin and the punishment due thereunto a sense of wrath sets the Conscience on fire fills the heart with fears horrours and disquietness opens Hell to the Soul brings a man as it were to the gates thereof and threatens to throw him in and all this to make a man more holy and to hate sin the more So that you see there must be a strong mortifying and subduing of us by a strong hand to bring us unto Christ for our Sanctification nothing but a fiery furnace can melt away that dross and tin which cleaves unto such corrupt metal as we are See this method excellently set forth in the Prophet Ezek. 22.19.20 Because ye are all become dross behold I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem as they gather Brass and Iron and Lead and Tin into the midst of the Furnace to blow the fire upon it to melt it so will I gather you in mine Anger and in my fury and I will leave you there and melt you Before I proceed farther give me leave to answer an Objection of a troubled soul which may arise hence O may a soul
say what comfort then may I have of the first work of the Spirit in me For as yet I have found none of these things I have not been thus humbled nor terrifyed nor had such experience as you speak of in that state under the spirit of bondage I answer though this be a work of the spirit yet it is not the principal justifying and saving work of the spirit yea the children of the Devil may come to have a greater measure of this then Gods own dear Children whom for the most part he will not affright nor afflict in that terrible manner as he doth some of them but the consequence of this is more to be accounted of then the measure to see whither that measure I have what ever it be leads me For if the measure were never so absolutely necessary to salvation then all Gods Children should have enough of it But I make a difference still between humiliation and humility which is a grace of it self and leads me along with comfort and Life Thus therefore I think of humiliation if I have so much of it as will bring me to see my danger and cause me to run to the medicine and City of refuge for help to hate sin for time to come and to set my self constantly in the ways and practice of holiness it is enough And so I say in the case of Repentance if a man have a sight of sin past and a heart firmly set against all sin for the time to come the greater and firmer this were the lesser measure of sorrow might suffice for sins fore-past As we see a wise Father would never beat his Child for faults that are past but for the prevention of that which is to come for we see in time of Correction the Child cryes out O I will never do so any more So God deals with us because our resolutions and promises are faint and fail and that without much mourning humiliation and Stripes we attain not this hatred of sins past and strength against them for time to come therefore it is that our humiliation and sorrow must be proportionable to that work which is to be done otherwise any measure of it were sufficient which fits us for the time to come But I will add there are indeed divers measures of it according unto which the conscience is wounded or eased when there is a tough melancholy humour that the powers of the soul are distracted good Duties omitted and the heart so much the more hardned When upon this the Lord le ts loose the band of the conscience oppressing the same with exceeding fears and terrours this the Lord uses as a wedge to cleave in sunder a hard piece of wood God then doth shew us because we would not plough our selves we shall be ploughed If we would judge our selves saith the Apostle we should not be judged and therefore the Church confesses and complains Psalm 129.2 That the ploughers ploughed upon her back and made deep furrows Why How came this she did not plough up her own fallow ground wherefore the Lord sent her other strangers and harsh ploughers that ploughed her soundly indeed Wherefore doth God thus deal with his Children because he is the great and most wise Husband-man who will not sow amongst thorns Therefore when he is about to sow the seed of Eternal Life in the soul which must take deep root and grow for ever he will have the ground throughly ploughed The way then to avoid these things that are so harsh and displeasing to flesh and blood is to take the Rod betimes and beat our selves for when we are slow and secure and omit this God doth do the work himself But yet God makes a difference of good education in those who have kept themselves from the common pollutions and gross sins of the times it pleaseth God saith comes into them they know not how nor the time Grace drops in by little and little now a little and then a little by degrees sin is more and more hated and the heart inflamed with a desire of good things in a conscionable Life But in a measure I say such must have had have or shall have fears and terrours so much as may keep them from sin and quicken them to go on constantly in the ways of holiness or when they fly out of the way they shall smart for it and be whipped home again yet for the main they find themselves as it were in Heaven they know not how But if a man have stuck deep and long in sin he must look for a greater measure of humiliation and fear and a more certain time of his calling there must be hawling and pulling such a man out of the fire with violence and he must not look to obtain peace and comfort with ease God will thunder and lighten in such a man's conscience in Mount Sinai before he speak peace unto him in Mount Zion A second time there is also of a great measure of humiliation which is though a man may be free from great gross sins and worldly pollutions when the Lord intends to shew the feeling of his mercy and the sense thereof to any in an extraordinary measure or to fit them for some high services then they shall be much humbled before as we see St. Paul was Act. 8.9 God did thunder upon him and beat him down in the High way to the ground being stricken with blindness for three days after Thus much shall suffice to have been spoken of the 15th verse touching the Spirit of Bondage and the spirit of Adoption The Apostle tells them they may thank God the spirit of fear thus came that hereafter they might partake of the Spirit of Adoption to fear no more he stirs them up as it were to be thankful because now they had obtained a better state Why what estate A very high one vers 16. The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God ROM 8.16 The same Spirit beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God HAving spoken concerning the Spirit of Bondage and the Spirit of Adoption in the former verse the Apostle in these words that I have now read doth as it were stir up those unto thankfulness to whom he writes because they had now attained to a better state The Spirit it self bearing witness with their spirits that they are the children of God The thing then is to know our selves to be the children of God there must be sound evidences here then are two set down whose Testimony we cannot deny I will touch them as briefly as I can and so will make an end First the witness of our spirit Secondly the witness of God's Spirit with our spirits These are two Evidences not single but compounded wherein you see there may be some work of our spirit But some may say our spirit is deceitful how then can our own spirit work in this manner to