only both Evangelists Matthew and Luke testifie it was a cry with a loud voice to evidence to the world that in the very article of his giving up of the ghost the strength of nature was not wholly spent for he cryed with a loud voice 3. The comfortable resignation of his soul unto the hands of his Father Luk. 23. 46. Father into thy hands I commend my spirit And although but even now the black storm was upon his soul that made him cry out with that loud and bitter cry yet the cloud is over and with comfort he delivers up his soul into the hands of that God whom he thought but even now had forsaken him It is more than probable that that bitter cry was uttered at the very Zenith of all his pains and when he had taken the vinegar and proclaimed that it is finished though they were all wrapt up in a very small time about the end of the ninth hour yet now there remained no more but for him to give up his spirit which he instantly thereupon did Joh. 19.30 He said It is finished he bowed the head and gave up the ghost Now the things wonderfully observable in the death of our Saviour are many 1. That it was a voluntary delivering up of his spirit this is that which he said Matth. 10.18 No man taketh it from me but I lay it down I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again this commandment have I received of my Father And truly this voluntary delivering up of his soul was well near as great an evidence of his Divinity as his resuming it again so that this very delivering up of his soul converted the Centurion Mar. 15.39 When he saw that he so cryed and gave up the ghost he said Truly this man was the Son of God Now that he thus voluntarily gave up his spirit is evident 1. By the strength of nature that was yet upon him in the very article of his death he cryed with a loud voice 2. That the Thieves who were crucified at the same time dyed not till there was a farther violence used by breaking their legs Joh. 19.32 but he expired to prevent the violence of the Souldiers and to fulfill the type and prophecy Not a bone of him shall be broken Joh. 19.36.3 That the suddenness of his death caused admiration in those that well knew the lingring course of such a death in the Centurion Mar. 15.39 in Pilate Mar. 15.44 which might probably be the cause that the insolent Souldier to secure the assurance of his death pierced his side with a spear Job 19.34 and thereby fulfilled that other Scripture which he never thought of Job 15.37 Now the wonderful occurrences that accompanied our Saviour's death were very many and considerable 1. A strange and particular Fulfilling of the Prophecies and Types that were concerning our Saviour's death and the very individual circumstances that attended it and all to consirm our Faith that this was indeed the Messias and that he was thus delivered over to death by the most certain and pre-determinate Counsel of God The Time of his Death so exactly predicted by Daniel ch 9.v.25 26. the parallel circumstances with the Paschal Lamb in the nature of him a Lamb without spot Exod. 12.5 in the time of his delivery over to death at the Feast of the Passover and the very evening wherein the Passover was to be eaten In the Manner of his Oblation not a bone to be broken Exod. 12.46 again the Manner of his Death by piercing his hands and his feet Psal 22.16 the very Words used by him Psal 22.1 Matth. 27. 46. the Words used of him Psal 22.8 Matth. 27.43 the crucifying of him between Malefactors Isa 53.12 the Whippings Isa 53.5 the Dividing of his Garments and casting Lotts upon his Vesture Psa 22.18 the Thirst of our Saviour upon the Cross and the giving him Vinegar and Gall Psal 69.21 2. A strange and miraculous Concussion of nature giving testimony to the wonderful and unheard of dissolution of our Saviour's body and soul Darkness from the sixth hour until the ninth hour And it is observable in the night wherein he was born by a miraculous light the night became as day Luk. 2.9 but at his death a miraculous darkness turned the day into night for three hours Matth. 27.45 at his birth a new Star was created to be the lamp and guide unto the place of his birth Matth. 2.9 but at his death the Sun in the firmament was masked with darkness and yielded not his light while the Lord of life was passing into the vail of death Again another prodigy that accompanied the death of Christ was an Earthquake that rent the rocks and opened the graves and strake amazement and conviction into the Centurion that was watching him Math. 27.52 53 54. When our Saviour was entring into the earth by death the earth trembled and so it did when he was coming out of it by his Resurrection Matth. 28.2 3. Again the Graves were opened and the dead bodies of the Saints arose As the touch of the bones of Elisha caused a kind of resurrection 2 Kings 13.21 so our Saviour's body new saln to the earth did give a kind of particular resurrection to the Saints bodies to testifie that by his death he had healed the deadliness of the Grave and that the satisfaction for Sin was accomplished when Death the wages of Sin was thus Conquered 4. Again the Vail of the Temple was Rent in twain from the top to the bottom Matth. 27.57 the Vail was that which divided the most holy place from the rest of the Tabernacle Exod. 26.33 and in that most Holy place were contained the mysterious Types the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy-Seat and within this Vail only the high Priest entred once a year when he made an atonement for the People and for the Tabernacle Levit. 16.33 Heb. 9.7 and now at our Saviour's death this vail was rent from the top to the bottom and it imported divers very great Mysteries 1. That now our great High Priest was entring into the most holy with his own blood having thereby made the atonement for us Heb. 9.12 By his own blood he entred once into the most holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us 2. That the Means whereby he entred into the most holy place was by the Rending of his Humanity his soul from his body typified by the rending of that vail and therefore his flesh that is his whole humane nature was the vail Heb. 10.20 Consecrated through the vail that is his flesh 3. That now by the death of Christ all those dark Mysteries vailed up formerly in the most holy the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy-Seat are now rendred open and their Mysteries unfolded Christ the Mediator of the Covenant and the Seat of Mercy and Acceptation unto all believers founded and seated upon him and thereby that Life and
necessary with ease and quietness yea and without any neglect of what is necessary to be done in order to the common necessities of our Lives and Callings it is not these that disable us and rob us of our time But the Thieves that rob us of our time and our one thing necessary are negligence excess of pleasures immoderate and excessive cares and solicitousness for Wealth and Honour and Grandeur excessive eating and drinking curiosity idleness these are the great consumptives that do not only exhaust that time that would be with infinite advantage spent in our attainment and perfecting and finishing the great work and business of our lives and then when Sickness come and Death come and God Almighty calls upon us to give up the Account of our Stewardship we are all in confusion our business is not half done it may be not begun and yet our Lamp is out our day is spent night hath overtaken us and what we do is with much trouble perplexity and vexation and possibly our Soul takes its flight before we can finish it and all this would have been prevented and remedied by a due consideration of our latter End and that would have put us upon making use of the present time and present opportunity to do our great work while it is called to day because the night cometh when no man can work 3. Most certainly the wise consideration of our latter End and the employing of our selves upon that Account upon that One thing necessary renders the life the most contenting and comfortable life in the World For as a man that is a man afore-hand in the World hath a much more quiet life in order to externals than he that is behind-hand so such a man that takes his opportunity to gain a stock of grace and favour with God that hath made his peace with his Maker through Christ Jesus hath done a great part of the chief business of his Life and is ready upon all occasions for all conditions whereunto the Divine Providence shall assign him whether of life or death or health or sickness or poverty or riches he is as it were aforehand in the business and concern of his everlasting and of his present state also If God lend him longer life in this World he carries on his great business to greater degrees of perfection with ease and without difficulty trouble or perturbation But if Almighty God cut him shorter and calls him to give an account of his Stewardship he is ready and his accounts are fair and his business is not now to be gone about Blessed is that Servant whom his Master when he comes shall find so doing 2. As thus this Consideration makes the Life better so it makes Death easie 1. By frequent consideration of death and dissolution he is taught not to fear it he is as it were acquainted with it aforehand by often preparation for it Thâ— fear of death is more terrible than death iâ— self and by frequent consideration thereof a man hath learned not to fear it Everâ—â—â— Children by being accustomed to what was at first terrible to them learn not to fear 2. By frequent consideration of our latter End death becomes to be no surprize unto us The great terror of death is when it surpriseth a man unawares but anticipation and preparation for it takes away any possibility of surprize upon him that is prepared to receive it Bilney the Martyr was used before his Martyrdom to put his Finger in the Candle that so the flames might be no novelty unto him not surprize him by reason of unacquaintedness with it and he that often considers his latter end seems to experiment death afore it comes whereby he is neither surprised nor affrighted with it when it comes 3. The greatest sting and terror of death are the past and unrepented Sins of the past life the reflection upon these is that which is the strength the elixir the venom of death it self He therefore that wisely considers his latter end takes care to make his peace with God in his life time and They true Faith and Repentance to get his Pardon sealed to enter into Covenant with his God and to keep it to husband his time in the fear of God to observe His Will and keep His Laws to have his Conscience clean and clear And being thus prepared the malignity of death is cured and the bitterness of it healed and the fear of it removed and when a man can entertain it with such an Appeal to Almighty God as once the good King Hezekiah made in that sickness which was of it self mortal Isa 38. 3. Remember now I beseech thee O Lord how I have walked before thee with a perfect heart c. it makes as well the thought as the approach of death no terrible business 4. But that which above all makes death easie to such a considering man is this That by the help of this Consideration and the due improvement of it as is before shewn death to such a man becomes nothing else but a Gate unto a better life not so much a dissolution of his present life as a change of it for a far more glorious happy and immortal life So that though the Body dyes the Man dyes not for the Soul which is indeed the Man makes but a transition from her life in the Body to a life in Heaven no moment intervenes between the putting off the one to the putting on the other And this is the great Priviledge that the Son of God hath given us that by His death hath sanctified it unto us and by His life hath conquered it not only in Himself but for us 1 Cor. 15.57 Thanks be unto God who hath given us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord and our Victory that is thus given us is this 1. That the sting of death is taken away and 2. That this very death it self is rendred to us a Gate and passage to life eternal and upon this account it can neither hurt nor may justly affright us It is reported of the Adder that when she is old she glides through some strait passage and leaves her old skin in the passage and thereby renews her vigour and her life It is true this passage through death is somewhat strait and uneasie to the Body which like the decayed skin of the Adder is left by the way and not without some pain and difficulty to it but the Soul passeth through without any harm and without any expence of time and in the next moment acquires her estate of Immortality and Happiness And this is the Victory over Death that all those have that by true Repentance and Faith are partakers of Christ and the benefits of His Death and Resurrection who hath brought Life and Immortality to light by the Gospel And now having gone through the benefits of this wise consideration of our latter ends I shall now add some Cautions that are necessary to be
thee it is thy Son that Son in whom thou didst proclaim thy self well pleased that Son whom thou hearest always it is he that begs of thee and begs of thee a dispensation from that which he most declines because he most loves thee the terrible unsupportable hiding thy face from me And this was not one single request but thrice repeated reiterated and that with more earnestness Mark 14.39 And again he went away and prayed and spake the same words Luke 22.44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly Certainly that impression upon his soul that caused him to deprecate that for which he was born to deprecate it so often so earnestly must needs be a sorrow and apprehension of a very terrible and exceeding extremity 4. Such was the weight of his sotrow and confusion of soul that it even exceeding the strength of his humane nature to bear it it was ready to dissolve the Union between his Body and Soul insomuch that to add farther strength unto him and capacity to undergo the measure of it an Angel from Heaven is sent not meerly to comfort but to strengthen him to add a farther degree of strength to his humane nature to bear the weight of that wrath which had in good earnest made his Soul sorrowful unto death had it not been strengthned by the ministration of an Angel Luk. 22.43 and this assistance of the Angel as it did not allay the sorrow of his Soul so neither did it intermit his importunity to be delivered from the thing he felt and feared but did only support and strengthen him to bear a greater burden of it And as the measure of his strength was increased so was the burden which he must undergo increased for aster this he prayed again more earnestly the third time Luk. 22.43 the supply of his strength was succeeded with an addition of sorrow and the increase of his sorrow was followed with the greater importunity He prayed more carnestly Heb. 5.7 With strong crying and tears Luk. 22. 44. And being in an agony be prayed more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground This was his third address to his Father Matth. 26.44 and here was the highest pitch of our Saviour's passion in the Garden His Soul was in an agony in the greatest concussion consusion and extremity of sorrow fear anguish and astonishment that was possible to be inslicted by the mighty hand of God on the soul of Christ that could be consistent with the purity of the nature of our Saviour and the inseparable union that it had with the Divine nature Insomuch that the confusion and distraction of his soul under it and the strugling and grapling of his soul with it did make such an impression upon his body that the like was never before or since The season of the year was cold for so it appears Joh. 18.18 the Servants and Officers had made a fire of coals for it was cold and the season of the time was cold it was as near as we may guess about midnight when the Sun was at his greatest distance and obstructed in his influence by the interposition of the Earth for it appears they came with Lanthorns and Torches when they apprehended him Joh. 18.3 and he was brought to the high Priest's Hall a little before Cock-crowing after some time had been spent in his Examination Math. 26.69 And yet for all this such is the agony and perturbation of our Saviour's soul that in this cold season it puts his body in a sweat a sweat of blood great drops of blood drops of blood falling down to the ground and certainly it was no light conflict within that caused such a strange and un-heard of symptom without Certainly the storm in the soul of Christ must needs be very terrible that his blood the seat of his vital spirits could no longer abide the sense of it but started out in a sweat of blood and such a sweat that was more than consistent with the ordinary constitution of humane nature And during this time even from the eating of the Passover until this third address to his Father was over the suffering of our Saviour lay principally if not only in his soul Almighty God was wounding of his spirit and making his soul an offering for sin And though the distinct and clear manner of this bruising of our Saviour's soul cannot be apprehended by us yet surely thus much we may conclude concerning it 1. He was made sin for us that knew no sin 2 Cor. 5.21 he stood under the imputation of all our sins and though he were personally innocent yet judicially and by way of interpretation he was the greatest offender that ever was for the Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all Isa 53.6.2 And consequently he was under the imputation of all the guilt of all those sins and stands in relation unto God the righteous Judge under the very same obligation to whatsoever punishment the very persons of the offenders were unto the uttermost of that consistency that it had with the unseparable union unto the Father and this obligation unto the punishment could not choose but work the same effects in our Saviour as it must do in the sinner desperation and sin excepted to wit a sad apprehension of the wrath of God against him The purity and justice of God which hath nothing that it hates but sin must pursue sin wherever it find it and as when it finds sin personally in a man the wrath of God will abide there so long as sin abides there so when it finds the same sin assumed by our Lord and bound as it were to him as the wood was to Isaac when he was laid upon the Altar the wrath of God could not chuse but be apprehended as incumbent upon him till that sin that by imputation lay upon him were discharged For as our Lord was pleased to be our Representative in bearing our sins and to stand in our stead so all these affections and motions of his soul did bear the same conformity as if acted by us As he put on the person of the sinner so he puts on the same sorrow the same shame the same fear the same trembling under the apprehension of the wrath of his Father that we must have done And so as an imputed sin drew with it the obligation unto punishment so it did by necessary consequence raise all those confusions and storms in the soul of Christ as it would have done in the person of the sinner sin only excepted 3. In this Garden as he stands under the sin and guilt of our nature so he stands under the curse of our nature to wit a necessity of death and of undergoing the wrath of God for that sin whose punishment he hath undertaken for us the former the dissolution of his body and soul by a most accursed death and the latter the suffering of his soul and
consideratioâ— would have made them wise and prudentâ— avoid those great Apostasies which shouâ— occasion so terrible a desertion and rejectiâ—â— by God But certainly the words contain an evâ—dent truth with relation to every particulâ— person and to that latter end that is coâ—mon to all man-kind namely their latâ—end by death and separation of the Soul aâ—â— Body the due consideration whereof is great part of Wisdom and a great meaâ— to attain and improve it and very maâ— of the sins and follies of man-kind as thâ— do in a great measure proceed from tâ—â— want of an attentive and serious consiâ—â—ration of it so would be in a great measâ—cured by it It is the most certain known experienâ— truth in the World that all men must dâ—â— that the time of that death is uncertaiâ— that yet most certainly it will comâ—â— and that within the compass of no loâ— time Though the time of our Life migâ—â— be protracted to its longest period yetâ— is ten thousand to one that it will not exceâ— fourscore years where one man attaiâ— to that age ten thousand dit before it aâ—â— this Lecture is read unto us by the many casualties and diseases that put a period to the Lives of many in our own experience and observation by the many warnings and monitions of Mortality that every man finds in himself either by the occurrences of diseases and weaknesses and especially by the declinations that are apparent in us if we attain to any considerable age and the weekly Bills of Mortality in the great City where weekly there are taken away ordinarily three hundred persons The Monuments and Graves in every Church and Church-yard do not only evince the truth of it whereof no man of understanding doubts but do uncessantly inculcate the remembrance of it And yet it is strange to see that this great truth whereof in the theory no mans doubts is little considered or thought upon by the most of man-kind But notwithstanding all these monitions and remembrances of Mortality the living lay 〈◊〉 not to heart and look upon it as a buâ—â—ness that little concerns them as if they were not concerned in this common condition of man-kind and as if the condition of Mortality only concerned them that actually die or are under the immediate Harbingers of it some desperate or acute diseases but concerned not them that are at present in health or not under the stroke of a mortal sickness The Reasons of this Inconsiderateness seem principally these 1. That men are not willing to entertain this unwelcom thought of their own latter End the thought whereof is so unwelcom and troublesom a Guest that it seems to blast and disparage all those present enjoyments of Sense that this Life affords Whereby it comes to pass that as Death it self is unwelcom when it draws near so the thoughts and apprehensions of it becomes as unwelcom as the thing it self 2. A vain foolish conceit that the consideration of the latter End is a kind of presage and invitation of it and upon this account I have known many superstitiously and foolishly to forbear the making of their Wills because it seemed to them ominous and a presage of Death whereas this consideration though it fits and prepares man for Death it doth no way hasten or presage it 3. A great difficulty that ordinarily attends our humane condition to think otherwise concerning our condition than what at present we feel and find We are now in health and we can hardly bring our selves to think that a time must and will come wherein we shall be sick We are now in life and therefore we can hardly cast our thoughts into such a mould to think we shall die and hence it is true as the common Proverb is That there is no man so old but he thinks he shall live a year longer It is true this is the way of man-kind to put far from us the evil day and the thought of it but this our way is our folly and one of the greatest occasions of those other follies that commonly attend our lives and therefore the great means to care this folly and to make us wise is wisely to consider our latter end This Wisdom appears in those excellent effects it produceth which are generally these two 1. It teacheth us to live well 2. It teacheth us to die easily For the former of these the consideration of our latter end doth in no sort make our lives the shorter but it is a great means to make our lives the better 1. It is a great monition and warning of us to avoid Sin and a great means to prevent it When I shall consider that certainly I must die and I know not how soon why should I commit those things that if they hasten not my latter end yet they will make it more uneasie and troublesom by the reflection upon what I have done amiss I may die to morrow why should I commit that evil that will then be gall and bitterness unto me would I do it if I were to die to morrow why should I then do it to day perchance it may be the last act of my Life and however let me not conclude so ill for for ought I know it may be my concluding Act in this Scene of my Life 2. It is a great motive and means to put us upon the best and most profitable improvement of our time There be certain Civil and Natural actions of our lives that God Almighty hath indulged and allowed to us and indeed commanded us with moderation to use As the competent supplies of our own Natures with moderation and sobriety the provision for our Families Relations and Dependances without covetousness or anxiety the diligent and faithful walking in our Callings and discharge thereof But there are also other businesses of greater importance which yet are attainable without injuring our selves in those common concerns of our Lives namely our knowledge of God and of His Will of the doctrine of our Redemption by Christ our Repentance of Sins past making and keeping our Peace with God acquainting our selves with Him living to His Glory walking as in His Presence Praying to Him learning to Depend upon Him Rejoycing in Him walking Thankful unto Him These and such like as these are the great Business and End of our Lives for which we enjoy them in this World and these fit and prepare us for that which is to come And the consideration that our Lives are short and uncertain and that Death will sooner or later come puts us upon this resolution and practice to do this our great work while it is called to day that we loiter not away our day and neglect our task and work while we have time and opportunity lest the night overtake us when we cannot work to gain Oyl in our Lamps before the door be shut And if men would wisely consider their latter Ends they might do this great business this one thing
that feareth God discovereth it â—elf in this that it provides and lays up a good and safe store for the future and that â—n respect of these three kinds of futurities 〈◊〉 For the future part of his life 2. For the future evil days 3. For the future life that is to take place after this present short uncertain and transitory life 1. In respect of the future time of his life It is true our lives in this world are but short at best and together with that shortness they are very uncertain But yet the man fearing God makes a due and safe provision for that future portion of his life how short or how long soever it be I. By a constant walking in the fear of God he transmits unto the future part of his life a quiet serene and fair Conscience and avoids those evil fruits and consequences which a sinful life produceth even in the after time of a man's life The bruises and hurts we receive in youth are many times more painful in age than when we first received them Our lives are like the Husbandman's seed-time if we sow evil seeds in the time of our yourh it may be they may lye five ten or more years before they come up to a full crop and possibly then we taste the fruit of these evil ways in an unquiet mind or conscience or some other sowre effects of that evil seed All this inconvenience a man fearing God prevents and instead thereof reaps a pleasing and comfortable fruit of his walk in the fear of God namely a quiet Conscience and an even setled peaceable Soul 2. But besides this by this means he keeps his Interest in and Peace with Almighty God and makes sure of the best Friend in the world for the after time of his life to whom he is sure to have access at all times and upon all occasions with comfort and acceptance for it is an infallible truth That God Almighty never forsakes any that forsake not him first The Second futurity is the future Evil day which will most certainly overtake every man either the day of feeble and decrepit age or the day of sickness or the day of death and against all those the true fear of God makes a safe and excellent provision so that although he may not avoid them he may have a comfortable passage through them and in the midst of all these black clouds the witness of a good conscience fearing God and the evidence of the divine favour will shine into the Soul like a bright Sun with comfort when a man shall be able with Hezekiah Isa 38.3 to appeal to Almighty God Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and in uprightness of heart and â—ave done that which was good in thy sight this will be a cordial under the faintness of old age a relief under the pains of sickness and cure of the fear of death it self which to such a Soul will be only a gate and passage to a life that will be free from all pains and infirmities a life of glory and immortality 3. The third futurity is the Life and State after Death Most certain it is that such a state there will be and that it is but of two kinds a state of everlasting happiness or a state of everlasting miâ—â—ry and that all men in the World do most certainly belong to one of these two states or conditions and as it is most just and equal so it is most true that they that truly fear God and obey him through Jesus Christ shall be partakers of that everlasting state of blessedness and immortal happiness And on the other side they that reject the the fear of God contemn and disobey his will shall without true repentance be subject to a state of everlasting misery Now herein the truest and the greatest â—isdom of a man appears that he duly provides against the latter and to obtain the former all other wisdom of men either to get humane Learning Wealth Honour Power all wisdom of Statesmen and Politicians in comparison of this wisdom is but vain and trivial And this is the wisdom that the fear of God teacheth and bringeth with it into the Soul 1. It provides against the greatest of evils the everlasting state of misery and infelicity and eternal death 2. It provides for and attains an everlasting estate of blessedness and happiness of rest and peace of glory and immortality and eternal life a state of that happiness and glory that exceeds expression and apprehension for Eye hath not seen nor car heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man the things that God hath laid up for them that love him 1 Cor. 2. and they only truly love God that truly fear him Mal. 3.13 And they namely that fear God shall be mine saith the Lord in that day when I make up my jewels And now for the Conclusion of this whole matter let us now make a short Comparison between the persons that fear not God and those that truly fear him and then let any man judge who is the fool and who is the wise man A man hath but a very short uncertain time in this life which in comparison of eternity is less than a moment The great God of Heaven in his Word assures us that there is an estate of Immortality after this life and that that immortal estate is but of two kinds an estate of never-dying misery or an estate of endless glory and tells them If you fear me and obey those easie Commands that are contained in the Book of the Holy Scriptures which I have given you you shall infallibly attain everlasting life and happiness and even in this present life shall have the influence and presence of my favour to support to direct and bless you On the other side if ye refuse my fear and reject my commands and prefer the unlawful and vain delusions of this present life before the obedience of my will and persist impenitently in it your portion shall be everlasting misery And now everlasting life and everlasting death being set before the children of men there are a sort of men that rather choose to disobey the command of God reject his fear and all this that they may enjoy the pleasures of Sin for a season those pleasures that are fading and dying that leave behind them a sting that renders their very enjoyment bitter and that make even that very little life they enjoy but a life of discomfort and unhappiness in spight of all their pleasures or be they as sincere as their own hearts can promise them yet they are but for a season a season that in its longest period is but short but is uncertain also a little inconsiderable accident the breath of a vain ... an ill air a little ill digested portion of that excess wherein they delight may put a period to all those pleasures and to that life in a
moment I were bereft of all either by Fire or Depredation how were my mind fitted with humility and patience to submit to a poor strait wanting condition I have now a good Husband Wife Children many Friends that esteem me and are faithful to to me what if God should in a moment deprive me of all these what if my dearest Friends should become my bitterest Enemies how should I bear my self under these changes I have a great Name and Esteem in the World what if in a moment a black cloud of Infamy and Scorn and Reproach were drawn of it and that I should become a scorn and reproach with Job 30.8 among children of fools yea children of base men viler than the earth how were I fitted with humility and evenness of mind to comport with such a condition till it pleaseth God by his Providence and the manifestation of my Innocence if he think sit to scatter this black cloud of Calumny and Reproach or if not yet quietly under it to enjoy the testimony of a good conscience and my own integrity These and the like anticipations of troubled and afflicted conditions would habituate and fit our minds to bear them furnish us with suitable tempers for them render them casie to us when they come and keep our Souls in a due state of moderation and watchfulness before they come As the good Martyr Bilney before his martyrdom by often putting his Finger into the Candle made the Flames which he was after to endure more familiar and tollerable 3. The third Preparative against Affliction and calamitous seasons is to reason our selves off from over-much love and valuation of the World and the best things it affords Philosophy hath made some short essay in this business but the Doctrine of the Gospel hath given us far more noble and effectual topicks and arguments than any Philosophy ever did or can 1. By giving us a plain and clear estimate and valuation of this World and all that seems most valuable in it but this is not all but 2. by shewing us plainly and clearly a more valuable certain and durable estate after death and a way of attaining it with much more ease and contentation than we can attain the most splendid temporals of this World Certain it is that the weight and and stress of afflictions and crosses lyes not so much in the things themselves which we suffer in them or by them as in that overvaluation that we put upon those conveniences which afflictions or crosses deprive us of When news was brought to that noble Roman of the death of his Son it was a great pitch of patience that even that Moral consideration wrought in him Novi me genuisse mortalem though perchance it was not without a mixture of Stoical vain-glory We set too great a value upon our health our wealth our reputation and that makes 〈◊〉 unable to bear with that evenness and contentedness of mind the loss of them by sickness poverty reproach We set too great a rate upon our temporal life here because we set too great a rate upon this World to the enjoyment whereof this life here is accommodated and proportioned and that makes us fear death not only as the ruine of our nature but as that which puts a period to all our comforts Whereas had we but Faith enough to believe the Evangelical truths touching our future happiness it would make us not desire death because we might in the time of this life secure unto our selves that great and one thing necessary and it would make us not to fear death because we see a greater fruition to be enjoyed after it than all the glory of this present World can yield 4. The next Preparative against Afflictions is to keep Piety Innocence and a Good Conscience before it comes As Sin is the sting of death so it is the sting of affliction and that which indeed gives the greatest bitterness and strength unto affliction and the reason is this because it weakens and disables that part in man which must bear and support it This is that which the Wise man observes Proc. 18.14 The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmities but a wounded spirit who can bear which is no more than this It is the mind and spirit of man rightly principled that doth bear and carry a man through those difficulties and afflictions and infirmities under which he is but if that spirit or mind which should carry and bear those evils be hurt or wounded or faint or infirm what is there left in a man to bear that which indeed should be our support Innocence and a Good Conscience keeps the mind and spirit of a man in courage and considence and indeed it hath an influence and suffrage and attestation and support from the God of Heaven to whom a good conscience can with an humble confidence appeal as Hezekiah did under a great affliction Isa 38. and this access to Almighty God doth give new supplies succours and strength to the Soul to bear it up under very great and pressing afflictions But on the other side Sin doth disable the Soul to bear affliction till it be throughly repented of 1. Because it doth in a great measure emasculate and weaken the spirit of a man makes it poor cowardly and unable to bear it self up under the pressure of afflictions 2. It doth in a great measure obstruct the intercourse between God and the Soul and that influence that might and would otherwise be derived to the spirit or mind of a man by the God of the spirits of all flesh Therefore the best preparative against affliction is to have the Soul as clear as may be from the guilt of Sin 1. By an innocent and watchful life in the time of our prosperity before affliction attach us 2. Or at least By a speedy sincere and hearty Repentance for Sin committed and this repentance to be speedy before affliction come For although it is true that many times affliction is the messenger of God to awaken a sinner to repentance and that repentance is accepted by the merciful God yet that repentance is most kindly and easie and renders afflictions less difficult and troublesom which prevents affliction and performs one great end and use of afflictions before it comes He that hath a Soul cleansed by Faith and Repentance from the guilt of Sin before the severity of affliction comes upon him hath but one work to do namely to fit himself with patience to undergo the shock of affliction But he that defers his repentance till driven to it by affliction his work is more difficult because it is double namely to begin his repentance and to bear his affliction And because in many things we offend all and the best have their failings and sins of daily incursion a daily revising and examining of our own failings and renewing of our repentance for our daily faults is of singular use to render afflictions easie because repentance
enemies and unintermitted dangers and difficulties that our light afflictions which are here but for a moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Our afflictions and incoveniences in this world 1. are light in comparison of that exceeding far more exceeding weight of glory 2. As they are but light so being compared with that eternal weight of glory they are but for a moment The longest life we here live is not ordinarily above threescore and ten years and though the more troublesom and uneasie that life is the longer it seems yet compared with the infinite abyss of Eternity it is but a moment yea less than a moment if less can be yet such is the longest stay in this life if compared with Eternity And the gracious God hath presented this greatest and most important truth to us with the greatest evidence and assurance that the most desponding and suspitious Soul can desire 1. He hath given his own Word of Truth to assure us of it 2. He hath given his own Son to seal it unto us by the most powerful and convincing evidence imaginable by his mission from Heaven on purpose to tell us it by his Miracles by attestations from Heaven by the laying down his own Life in witness of it by his Resurrection and Ascention by the miraculous Mission of his Holy Spirit visibly and audibly Again 3. He hath confirmed it to us by the Doctrine and Miracles of his Apostles by their Death and Martyrdom as a Witness of the Truth they taught by the numerous Converts and Primitive Christians and godly Martyrs who all lived and dyed in this Faith and for it who made it their choice rather to suffer afflictions with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season declaring plainly that they sought a better City and Countrey that is a heavenly Heb. 11.15 25. and this Countrey and this City they had in their Eye even whiles they lived in this troublesom world And this prospect this hope and expectation rendred this lower world of no great value to them the pleasures thereof they esteemed but low and little and the troubles and uneasiness thereof they did undergo patiently cheerfully and contentedly for they looked beyond them and placed their hopes their treasure their comfort above them And even whiles they were in this life yet they did by their faith and hope anticipate their own happiness and enjoyed by faith even before they actually possessed it by fruition for Faith is the substance of things hoped for Heb. 11. and makes those things present by the firmness of a sound perswasion which are in themselves future and to come And this is that which will have the same effect with us if we live and believe as they did and be but firmly and soundly perswaded of the truth of the Gospel thus admirably confirmed unto us This is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith Heb. 10.38 The just shall live by faith 2 Cor. 5.7 We live by faith and not by sight and excellent is that passage to this purpose 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. For which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet our inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal And therefore if we do but seriously believe the truth of the Gospel the truth of the life to come the best external things of this world will seem but of small moment to take up the choicest of our desires or hopes and the worst things this world can inflict will appear too light to provoke us to impatience or discontent He that hath but Heaven and everlasting glory in prospect and a firm expectation will have a mind full of contentation in the midst of the lowest and darkest condition here on Earth Impatience and discontent never can stay long with us if we awake our minds and summon up our faith and hope in that life and happiness to come Sudden passions of impatience and discontent may like clouds arise and trouble us for a while but this faith and this hope rooted in the Heart if stirred up will like the Sun scatter and dispell them and cause the light of patience contentation and comfort to thine through them And as we have this hope of immortality and blessedness set before us so the means and way to attain it is easie and open to all no person is excluded from it that wilfully excludes not himself Isa 51.1 Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and he that hath no money come ye buy and eat without money and without price Rev. 22.17 Whosoever will let him take of the waters of life freely Matth. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest The way to everlasting happiness and consequently to contentation here is laid open to all It was the great reason why God made mankind to communicate everlasting happiness to them and when they wilfully threw away that happiness it was the end why he sent his Son into the world to restore mankind unto it And as the way is open to all so it is easie to all his yoak is easie and his burthen light The terms of attaining happiness if sincerely endeavoured are easie to be performed by virtue of that grace that God Almighry affords to all men that do not wilfully reject it namely to believe the truth of the Gospel so admirably confirmed and sincerely to endeavour to obey the precepts thereof which are both just and reasonable highly conducing to our contentation in this life and consummating our happiness in the life to come And for our encouragement in this obedience we are sure to have if we desire it the special grace of the Blessed Spirit to assist us and a merciful Father to accept of our sincerity and a gracious Saviour to pardon our failings and deficiencies So that the way to attain contentation in this life and happiness in the life to come as it is plain and certain so it is open and free none is excluded from it but it is free and open to all that are but willing to use this means to attain it And I shall wind up all this long Discourse touching Contentation with this plain and ordinary Instance I have before said that our home our Countrey is Heaven and Everlasting Happiness where there are no sorrows nor fears nor troubles that this World is the place of our travel and pilgrimage and at the best our Inn Now when I am in my journey I meet with several inconveniencies it may be the way is bad and foul the weather tempestuous or stormy
the enjoying of them a right use of the World and yet a contempt of it in comparison of my hope It makes death not terrible because a most sure passage to life Here I find a way to get all my sins pardoned whereas without this all the world cannot contrive a Satisfaction for one I find a way to obtain such a righteousness as is valuable with God and perfect before him even the righteousness of God in Christ And here I find the means and only means to avoid the wrath to come the terrour of the judgment of the great day Everlasting life unto all Eternity with the Blessed God and our Lord Jesus Christ and all the blessed Angels and the Spirits of just men made perfect Thus this knowledge is useful for this life and that which is to come and that in the highest degree which all other knowledge comes short of and attains not to any one of the least of these ends 5. In the Duration and Continuance of it Many subjects of knowledge there are wherein by time or at least by death the knowledge proves unuseful or at least the labour therein unprofitable and lost For instance I study to be very exact in Natural Philosophy the mixtures or conjunctions of qualities elements and a thousand such enquiries What use will this be when the World with the works thereof shall be burnt up Or if it should not what great benefit would this be to a separated Soul which doubtless shall either know much more therein without any pains and so the labour here lost or in shall be such a knowledge as will be unconsiderable or unuseful to it And so and much more for the studies of Policy Methods of War Mechanical Experiments Languages Laws Customs Histories all these within one minute after death will be as useless as the knowledge of a Taylor or Shoomaker they are all dated for the convenience and use of this life and with it they vanish But here is the priviledge and advantage that this knowledge hath as it serves for this life so it serves for that to come and the more it is improved here the more shall it be dilated hereafter the higher measure thereof I attain here the greater measure of glory hereafter As the more knowledge I have of the mystery of Christ here the greater is my sight and admiration of the wisdom and goodness and love of God the greater my joy and complacence and delight in that sight and sense and the more my Soul carried out in the love and praise and obedience unto him So in the life to come that knowledge shall improve and consequently the sense of the wisdom mercy and love of God and consequently the flame of the Soul of love and praise unto him and delight and joy in him shall increase unto all eternity 2. As thus the knowledge of Christ Jesus and him crucified excells all other knowledge and so in comparison thereof all other knowledge upon a right judgment is as nothing so the Soul being rightly convinced thereof sets a higher price upon that knowledge than upon all other knowledge besides it priseth it highly in it self and others reckons all other knowledge without it but a curious ignorance or an impertinent knowledge and contents it self abundantly in this knowledge though it want other 3. Because that which is of most concernment requires my greatest diligence to attain it I am contented and greedy to spend more time in attaining this than that and I will rob other studies and disquisitions of the time that otherwise might be conducible to attain the knowledge of them rather than those studies should consume that time that should be allotted to this My Time is part of that Talent which my Maker hath put into my hand and for which he will at the great day demand an account and if I have spent that talent in unprofitable employments or in less profitable than I should my arrear is so much the greater If I have consumed my time in studying my preferment honour or wealth in this world in studying how to please my self with vain and unnecessary recreations in unlawful or excessive pleasures in unlawful or immoderate curiosities which I might better have spent in the study of the mystery of Christ or the conformity unto that Will and Testament he left me or improving my interest in him I have committed two follies at once 1. Lost my talent of time and opportunity for which I am accountable as mispent 2. Lost that advantage which I had in my hand to improve my interest in God and favour from him and love to him and though I have done so much as may perchance preserve the main yet I have omitted so much as might have more increased my stock of Grace and Glory my talent might have gained ten and at most it hath gained but two And surely when death comes the most comfortable hours that can return to our memories will be those we spent in improving the true and experimental practical knowledge of Christ Jesus and him crucified 4. Consequently where this knowledge and the other knowledge of an inferiour rate justle and cross one another it is the best wisdom to side with this and to deny the other to become a fool that he may be wise 1 Cor. 3.18 2. Thus concerning the first Consideration I determined not to know any thing viz. nothing in comparison of this knowledge of Christ nothing rather than not that Save Christ Jesus And truly well might the Apostle make all other knowledge give place to this first for the Excellency of it whereof before secondly for the Amplitude and Compass of it for though it be so excellent that a small dram of it is sufficient to heal and save a Soul if it be a right knowledge as is before observed yet it is so large that when the best knowledge hath gone as far as it can yet there is still aliquid ultra One consideration of it even the Love of God hath a bredth and length and depth and height passing knowledge Eph. 3.18 19. and yet there be other depths and heights in it than this so that well might the Apostle conclude as he doth 1 Tim. 3.16 Without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God manifested in the flesh Therefore for the present we shall consider 1. The Wonderful Wisdom of God in contriving and ordering the Redemption of Mankind by Christ Jesus and it is manifest in these particulars among others 1. That though he made Man the eminentest of all his visible Creatures for a most eminent manifestation of his power and glory and to be partaker of everlasting blessedness and yet in his Eternal Counsel resolved to leave him in the hands of his own liberty and did most certainly foresee that he would fall yet he did substitute and provide even from the same Eternity a means whereby he might be restored to the honour and glory of his creature and
of his death might have a farther accession of scorn and reproach he is placed between two Thieves that were crucified with him with an Inscription of derision upon his Cross in all the most universal Languages of the World Hebrew Greek and Latin and the people and Priests standing by with gestures and words of derision Matth. 27.39 43. and even to a letter assuming those very gestures and words which were so many hundreds of years predicted in the Passion-Psalm 22.78 He trusted in God let him deliver him if he will have him and one of those very Thieves that was even dying as a malefactor yet was filled with such a devilish spirit that he upbraids and derides him And now our Saviour is under the torments and shame of this cursed execution but though these his sufferings of his body and outward man were very grievous in so much that it could not but extremely afflict him yet it is strange to see how little he was transported under them in all his contumelies reproaches and accusations scarce a word answered He answered them nothing in all his abusings strokes ridiculous garments crown of thorns tearing of his body with scourging yet not a word but As a sheep before the shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth Isa 53.7 in all his rackings upon the Cross and nailing of his limbs to it and all the anguish that for the space of six hours from the third hour wherein he was crucified Mar. 15.25 until the ninth hour wherein he gave up the ghost Matth. 27.46 not a word of complaint but he refused those very supplies which were usually given to suppress the violence of the pain vinegar and gall Matth. 27.34 But when we come to the Afflictions of his Soul they were of a higher dimension in the Garden when no other storm was upon him but what was within him He falls down upon his face and prayes and again and a third time and is amazed and sorrowful to death and sweats drops of blood and doubtless whiles he was under the reproaches and buffetings and whippings and thorns he was not without a terrible and confused sadness and heaviness within which though they did not mitigate the torments of his body yet they did infinitely exceed them The spirit and the soul is most exquisitely sensible and it is that which feels the pains inflicted upon the body Certainly therefore the wound of the spirit it self the fountain of sense must needs be exceedingly grievous And hence it was that though all the injuries and torments of our Saviour could scarce wring a complaint from him yet the weight of that wrath that lay upon his soul now made an offering for sin did wring from him those bitter and terrible cryes that one would wonder should proceed from him that was One with the Father Matth. 27.46 My God my God why hast thou forsaken me From the sixth hour to the ninth darkness was over all the land Matth. 27.45 such a darkness as bred an astonishment even in strangers and other Counties The darkness of the World though a suitable dress for such a time wherein the Son of God must dye and the Sun of Righteousness be eclipsed yet it was nothing in comparison of that dismal shadow that covered our Saviour's soul all this time About the ninth hour our Saviour cryed that bitter cry My God my God why hast thou forsaken me manifesting the depth of his sorrow and the perfect sense he had of it why hast thou forsaken me more could not have been suffered or been said every word carries in it an accent of horror Thou that art the great God from whom and in whom every thing hath its being and comfort surely if in thy presence is fulness of joy in thy withdrawings must be fulness of horror and confusion and yet it is thou that hast forsaken me Forsaken Hadst thou never been with me as I had not known the blessedness of thy fruition so I could not have measured the extremity of my loss the excess of the happiness that I had in thy presence adds to the excess of my misery in the suffering of thy absence Forsaken me not withdrawn thy self to a distance but forsaken me and forsaken me at such a time as this when I stand more in need of thy presence than ever when I am forsaken of my countrey-men of my kindred of my Disciples then to be forsaken of thee when I am under the shame and pains of a cruel and a cursed death under the scorns and derisions of those that hate me under the weight and pressure of all the sins of the world under the struglings with terrors in my soul sent from thy mighty hand under the visible approach of death the king of terrors under a vail of darkness without and the seeming triumph of the power of darkness within then to be forsaken and forsaken of thee whom I had only left to be my support Forsaken Me It is not a stranger that thou forsakest it is thy Son thy only Son in whom thou didst heretofore proclaim thy self well pleased that Son whom though thou now forsakest yet forgets not his duty unto thee nor dependance upon thee but still layes hold on thee and though thou shakest me off yet I must still call upon thee with the humble confidence of My God My God still why hast thou forsaken me To be forsaken and to be forsaken of God of my God of him that is not only my God but my Father and that at such a time and yet not to know why Oh blessed Saviour the Prophets that spake by thy own Spirit did tell thee why and that very Psalm out of which thou takest this bitter cry doth tell thee why and thou thy self within some few days or hours before didst tell us why and dost thou now ask why Didst thou not choose even that which thou now groanest under and wert willing to put thy soul in our souls stead and bear the sin of those which are now thy burden Certainly we may with all humility and reverence conceive that at the time of this bitter cry our Saviour's soul was for the present over-shadowed with so much astonishment and sorrow that it did for the present over-power and cover the actual and distinct sense of the reason of it at least in that measure and degree in which he suffered This cry of our Saviour was about the ninth hour a little before his death and having fulfilled one Prophecy in this terrible cry contained in the very words of Psal 22. he fulfills another he saith I thirst Joh. 19.28 and presently they give him vinegar to drink And between this and his death there intervene these passages 1. His proclaiming to the world that the work of our Redemption was finished Joh. 19.30 When he received the vinegar he said It is finished 2. A second cry with a loud voice Matth. 27.50 the words are not expressed of his second cry
Immortality which was wrapt up in the mysteries of the Old covenant and yet those mysteries vailed and inclosed up within the vail is now brought to light through the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 and the vail rent in twain that as well the meaning of those mysteries and types under the Law is discovered 4. That now the use of the Ceremonial Law is at an end the greatest and most sacred mystery of the Tabernacle and indeed of the whole ceremonial Law was this that was within the vail the most holy place wherein were the most holy and revered mysteries the Ark and the Mercy-Seat But now the vail is rent the use abolished the covenant of the people is given the Body of Christ typified by the Temple separated and so the use of the other Temple Tabernacle and the holy Places Vessels Instruments thereof ceased 5. That now the Kingdom of Heaven the most Holy Place is open unto all believers Christ our High Priest is entred in with his own blood and hath not closed the vail after him but rent it in sunder and made and left a passage for all believers to follow him with our prayers and access to the glorious God and hereafter in our persons Heb. 10.19 20. Having therefore bloldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he bath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh let us draw near with a true heart And now we have gone thus far with our Lord unto his death we shall follow him to his Grave Joseph of Arimathea having an honorable mention by all four Evangelists Matth. 27.57 a rich man and Jesus disciple Mar. 15.43 an honorable Counsellor who waited for the Kingdom of God Luk. 23.50 a Counsellor a good man and a just who had not consented to the counsel or deed of the Jews and waited for the Kingdom of God Joh. 19.38 a disciple of Christ but secretly for fear of the Jews this man manifested his faith and love to his Master when he was in his lowest condition goes to Pilate boldly and begs his Saviour's body he wraps it in a clean linnen cloth laid it in a Tomb provided for himself and hewed out of the rock and rolled a great stone upon the door of the Sepulchre And as by his death with the malefactors so by his burial in this rich man's Sepulchre he fulfilled both parts of the Prophecy Isa 53.9 He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death The high Priests continued their malice and their jealousie even against the dead body of our Saviour and to secure themselves against the suspition of his Resurrection the third day take order for making the Sepulchre sure till the third day was past Matth. 27.60 they seal the stone and set a watch And it is very Observable how the almighty Counsel of God made use of the very malice and jealousie of these people for the confirming of his own truth Christ's Resurrection and our Faith Their malicious and curious industry to prevent the possibility of a fictitious Resurrection abundantly and uncontrollably convincing the reality of our Saviour's death and true Resurrection He is laid in the grave the evening of the day wherein he suffered a Stone rolled upon the mouth of the grave such as required a considerable strength to remove it insomuch that the women that came the first day of the week to embalm the body were in a great difficulty how it should be removed Mar. 16.3 for it was a Great stone Matth. 27.60 and this stone Sealed and as if all this were too little and the bonds of death and the grave were too weak they add a Watch of Souldiers to secure the body Matth 27.66 And here we leave for a while our Saviour's body interred with Spices Joh. 19.39 in a new Sepulchre wherein never before any lay Joh. 19.41 hewen out of a rock in the garden Joh. 19.42 that as in the garden death at first laid hold of the first Adam so in the garden the second Adam undergoes the state of death and gains the victory over the grave his agony in a garden and his interrment in a garden his body rests in the grave and his soul translated into Paradise for so he witnessed of himself This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise Luk. 23. 43. For at the instant of his dissolution our Satisfaction was made and the work of our Redemption so far as it depended upon his suffering finished So that had it not been for a witness of the reality and truth of his death and of the power and reality of his Resurrection and the fulfilling of the decree of God manifested in the Scriptures he might have reassumed life in the next instant after his death For the debt to the Justice of God was fully satisfied and his continuance in the grave until the third day was not by the power of death which he vanquished in the instant of his dissolution but a voluntary subjecting of himself unto that state for the strengthening of our faith and the fulfilling of the Scriptures And now we come to the Consideration of the Resurrection of our Lord by which he was declared to be the Son of God with power and by which the fulness and compleatness of our Redemption by him is abundantly manifested He chose that Time to dye when the Passover was slain that time wherein Adam was created the sixth day of the week at even He chose that time for his body to rest in the grave and for his soul to rest in Paradise wherein his Father rested from all the great work of the Creation the seventh day of the week and he chose that day to rise again which his Father chose to begin the Creation the first day of the week that the same day might bear the inscription of the Creation and of the Resurrection of the World and that as in that day the Lord God brought light out of darkness so this light the light that enlightneth every man that comes into the world should arise from the land of darkness the grave This is the day that the Lord hath made let us be glad and rejoyce therein The Time of the Day wherein our Lord arose was very early in the morning of the first day of the week as it began to dawn Matth 21.1 while it was yet dark or scarcely full light Joh 17.1 And the Manner of it was full of wonder and astonishment An Angel from heaven comes down to draw the curtain of our Saviour's grave and with an Earthquake rolls away the stone that covered it the Keepers who had watchfully observed the command of their Commanders were stricken with astonishment and became as dead Matth. 28.2 3 4. Our Lord who had power to lay down his life and power to take it up again Joh. 10.17 reassumes his body which though it had tasted death yet had not seen
corruption and ariseth and thereby proclaimed the completing of our Redemption and therefore not possible he should be longer holden of it Acts 2.24 his victory over death and the grave for us 1 Cor. 15. When our Lord raised up Lazarus he came forth of the grave bound hand and foot with grave-cloaths Joh. 11.44 though he was for the present rescued from death by the power of Christ yet he must still be a subject to it he is revived but yet riseth with the bonds of death about him he must dye again But when our Lord riseth he shakes off his grave-cloaths the linnen that wrapped his body in one place and the linnen that bound his head in another Joh. 20.6 7. Our Lord being risen dieth no more death hath no more power over him Rom. 6.9 And thus we have considered the History of Christ's Passion and Resurrection the first and second general Consideration Who it was that suffered and What it was he suffered The Third Consideration follows 3. From whom he suffered all these things the consideration of which doth highly advance the Sufferings of Christ 1. He suffered this from the hands of his Own Father it was he that bruised him put him to grief made his soul an Offering for Sin Isa 53.10 it was he that reached him out this bitter cup to drink Joh. 18.11 The cup which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it was he that bound that burden so close upon him that made him sweat great drops of blood in the garden and though thrice importuned for a dispensation from it yet would not grant it it was he that when the greatest extremity of pain and sorrow lay upon him to add thereunto withdrew the sense of his presence from him which wrung from him that bitter cry My God my God why hast thou forsaken me The injuries of an Enemy are easily born but the forsakings of a Father are intollerable 2. The immediate Instruments and Contrivers of his suffrerings were such as had a nearness of relation to him people of the same Nation and his kinsmen according to the flesh the seed to Abraham people of his own Religion that worshipped the same God acknowledged the same Seripture the visible Church of God and chief representatives of that Church most eminent in place reputation and pretence of holiness the chief Priests and Elders and Scribes people that he had never injured in his life but obliged them with his many miraculous cures his precious and heavenly instructions his tenderest and dearest love and compassion That very Jerusalem which he wept over and would have gathered as a hen gathereth her Chicken under her wings is now that brood that seeks the destruction of him that came to save them and in that vile competition offered to them between their Redeemer and a murderer chose rather to save a malefactor and to deliver their innocent and merciful Saviour And these were they that beyond the examples even of common humanity pursued their Kinsman their Benefactor their Redeemer with such exact bitterness and malice and scorn and cruelty that as it seemed barbarous to the heathen Judge so it hath out-gone the practice of the heathenish Tyrants Psal 55.12 It was not an enemy that reproached me then could I have born it but it was thou mine acquaintance 4. Let us consider How he suffered all these things and this doth infinitely advance the Excellence and Value of his Suffering 3. He Suffered Innocently Isa 53.9 he had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him 2 Cor. 5.21 he made him to be sin for us who knew no sin the companions of his suffering justifie him Luk. 23.41 We indeed justly but this man hath done nothing amiss his Persecutors justifie him and yet their malice rested not but sought out false witness against him Math. 26.60 and when they themselves were convinced of their own injustice in prosecution of an innocent yet what they could not avouch upon the account of justice they do upon the point of expedience Joh. 18.14 Caiaphas gives them counsel that it was expedient that one should dye for the people Judas that betrayed him justified him Matth. 24.4 I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood his Judge acquits him and in a signal testimony of his judgment Matth. 27.24 He took water and washed his hands before the multitude saving I am innocent of the blood of this just person and yet though in testimony of the satisfaction of his judgment he washeth his hands in water before them yet he condemns the person that he acquits and stains those hands in the blood of our Lord whom yet he pronounceth innocent And this Innocence of our Saviour was not only a Negative Innocence an absence of guilt but a Positive Innocence he suffered that had not only done no ill but that had done nothing but good he healed their sick cured their lame their blind their deaf their lepers cast out their devils and which was more than all this shewed them the way to Eternal Life to the saving of the Souls of many and the convincing of the Consciences of all that heard him Joh. 7.46 Never man spake like this man And well might he ask as once he did upon another occasion For which of all my good works do ye stone me do ye crucifie me Blessed Lord they crucifie thee for all thy good works if thou hadst been guilty possibly thou mightest have been spared in the stead of Barabbas nay if thou hadst been only innocent it is possible thy persecutors might not have been altogether so violent against thee but thou sufferedst for the very good thou diddest it was not only an act of injustice that spared not thy innocence but an improvement of envy that did malign thy very goodness Math. 27.18 For he knew that for envy they had delivered him 2. He suffered all Patiently Isa 53.7 He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearer is dumb so he openeth not his mouth Betrayed by his Disciples hurried away by the black guard that apprehended him reproached and vilified by the high Priests and Elders forsaken and denied by his followers stricken spit upon and basely injured by the abjects in the high Priests Hall derided by Herod insulted upon by Pilate Knowest thou not that I have power to condemn thee whipt cloathed in scorn with purple and crowned with a crown of thorns and in that disguise saluted in scorn with Hail King of the Jews forced to bear his burdensom Cross which must afterwards bear him and then as one of the basest of men and vilest of malefactors nailed to the Cross with most exquisite torment and then by one of his companions in death by the general rabble that were about him by the superstitious Scribes and Elders reproached
for this could neither consist with the purity of his Nature nor innocence nor dignity of his Person nor the hypostatical union of both Natures in him But he suffered as much as was consistent with these considerations and as considering the dignity of his person was equivalent to the sin and demerits of all Mankind 2. That his righteousness imputed to us doth not exempt us from acquiring a righteousness inherent in us this were to disappoint the end of his suffering which was to redeem us from our vain conversation and make us a peculiar people zealous of good works 3. That this purchase of Salvation by Christ for Believers is not to render them idle or secure or presumptuous where there is such a disposition of Soul it is an evident Indication that it is not yet truly united unto Christ by true Faith and Love his Grace is sufficient to preserve us and alwayes ready to do it if we do not wilfully neglect or reject it THE VICTORY OF FAITH Over the WORLD I. JOH V. 4 For whosoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even your faith THese things are herein considerable 1. The Act which is here declared Victory or Overcoming 2. The Person that exerciseth this act or concerning whom this act is affirmed described by this description a person that is born of God 3. The Thing upon which this act of victory is exercised viz. the world 4. The Instrument or Means by which this act is exercised viz. Faith 5. The Method or Order or Formal Reason whereby faith overcometh this world Some few Observations I shall deliver touching all these in the order proposed I. Victory or Overcoming is a subjugation or bringing under an opposing party to the power and will of another and this victory is of two kinds complete and perfect or incomplete and imperfect 1. The notion of a complete victory is when either the opposing party is totally destroyed or at least when despoiled of any possibility of future resistance Thus the Son of God the Captain of our Salvation overcame the World Joh. 16.33 Be of good cheer I have overcome the world and thus when we are delivered from this body of death we shall overcome the world this complete victory will be the portion of the Church and Christian triumphant Again 2. There is a victory but incomplete such as the victory of the children of Israel was over the Canaanites which though they were subdued as to any possibility of a total reacquiring of a superiority or equality of power yet they were not subdued from a possibility of annoying disquieting and rebelling they remained still thorns to vex and disturb though not to subdue their conquerors there was still an over-ballance of power in the victors though not wholly to extirpate them And this is the condition of the Christian militant in this world he keeps the world in subjection and every day gets ground upon it but he cannot expect to obtain a perfect complete and universal conquest of it till he can truly say with our Blessed Lord Joh. 14.30 The prince of this world hath nothing in me Which cannot be till our change comes for till then we carry about with us lusts and passions and corruptions which though with all vigilancy and severity kept under and daily impaired in their power and malignity will hold a correspondence with the world and the prince thereof and be ready to deceive and betray us though never to regain their empire and sovereignty and the reason is significantly given by the same Apostle 1 Joh. 3.9 For his feed abideth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Indeed he may and shall have sin as long as he hath flesh about him 1 Joh. 1.8 If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us But although we have sin still abiding in us and like the the byass in a Bowl warping us to the world yet that vital seminal principle of the grace of God in Christ always keeps its ground its life and tendency toward heaven and wears out wasts and gradually subdues the contrary tendency of sin and corruption II. The Person exercising this act of victory and conquest he that is Born of God All men by nature may be said in some sense to be born of God the Apostle tells the Athenians Act. 17.28 We are all his off-spring But in this place this heavenly birth is a second a supervenient birth from God and hence it is called Regeneration the New birth birth of the water and the Spirit birth of the Spirit the formation of Christ in the soul and the creature so new born stiled the New creature the New man a partaker of the divine nature born not of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh but born of the will of God And all these and the like expressions are figurative and seem to carry in them a double analogy first to the first creation of mankind and secondly to the ordinary generation of mankind since their first creation 1. As to the former analogy we know by the Holy Word that the first man was the root of all mankind stamped with the signature of the image of Almighty God principally consisting in Knowledge Righteousness and Holiness and stood or fell as the common representative of all mankind This image of God was in a great measure lost and defaced by the fall of man and more every day spoiled by the actual sins and acquired corruptions of his descendants Christ the second Adam had instamped upon him a new inscription of the glorious God came to be a common head root and parent of as many as are united unto him by faith love and imitation and to instamp anew upon them that lost and decayed image of God who thereby put on the New man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Ephes 4.24 and so becoming a New creature 2 Cor. 5.17 Galat. 5.6 renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him Coloss 1.10 they receive a new stamp and impression from this great exemplar Christ Jesus the true image of the invisible God 2. The second analogy is to the ordinary generation of mankind wherein as a little but powerful vital principle which we call the Soul forms and moulds the foetus according to the specifical nature of man in all his lineaments and proportions and never gives over its operation till it hath completed that bodily mass into its full complement of parts and afterwards gradually augments and perfects it in his organs and faculties So by a vital principle derived from God through Christ into the soul the same is moulded fashioned formed increased and perfected according to this new principle of life which is usually called Grace Whereby it comes to pass that as the soul is the vital and conforming principle of the body so
motions and tendencies of our Sensual Appetite This sensual appetite is in it self good placed in us by the God of Nature for excellent ends viz. for the preservation of the individual nature as eating and drinking and those invitations of sense subservient thereunto or for the preservation of the species as the desires of sexes But they then become a sinful part of this inferior world 1. when they become inordinate 2. or excessive 3. or unseasonable or generally 4. when they are not subordinate in their actings to the government of reason enlightened by moral or religious light A Christian hath no such enemies without him as unruly and undisciplined lusts and passions within him and it is a vain thing to think of overcoming the world without us until this world within us be brought into subjection for without the corruptions and lusts within the world and the evil men of the world and the evil one of the world could not hurt us Non vulnus adactis Debetur gladiis percussum est pectore ferrum The wedge of gold was an innocent thing but Achan's covetous heart within gave it strength to do harm We come into the world as into a great shop full of all variety of wares accommodate to our senses lusts and affections and were it not for these those wares would lye long enough upon the hands of the prince of this world before they could get within us or corrupt us 2. The world without us is of three kinds 1. The Natural world which is the work of Almighty God most certainly in it self good and is not evil but accidentally by man's abuse of himself or it It doth contain a general supply of objects answerable to the desires of our vegetable and sensible nature and the exigences and conveniences of it is a great shop full of all sorts of wares answerable .... there is wealth and places and delights for the senses and it becomes an enemy to us by reason only of the disorder and irregularity of those lusts and passions that are within us and by reason of the over-value that we are apt to put upon them they are indeed temptations but they are only passive as the wedge of gold did passively tempt Achan but it was his own lust and covetousness that did him the harm the rock doth not strike the ship but the ship strikes the rock and breaks it self This world as it is not evil in it self so most certainly it is full of goodness and benevolence to us it supplies our wants is accommodate to the exigences and conveniences of our nature furnisheth us with various objects and instances of the divine goodness liberality bounty of his power and majesty and glory of his wisdom providence and government which are so many instructions to teach us to know and admire and magnifie him to walk thankfully dutifully and obediently unto him to teach us resignation contentedness submission and dependence upon him A good heart will be made better by it and if there be evil in it it is such as our own corrupt natures occasions or brings upon it or upon our selves by it and it is a great part of our Christian warfare and discipline to teach us to use it as it ought to be used and to subdue those lusts and corruptions that abuse it and our selves by it Again secondly there is another world without us the malignant and evil world the world of evil Angels and of evil Men Mundus in maligno positus and the great mischiefs of this world are of two kinds viz. 1. Incentives and temptations from it that are apt to bring the rest of mankind into the evil of sin and offence againft God such as are evil examples evil commands evil counsels evil perswasions and sollicitations 2. The troubles and injuries and vexations and persecutions and oppressions and calumnies and reproaches and disgraces that are inflicted by them And the evil that ariseth from these are of two kinds viz. such as they immediately cause which is great uneasiness and griefs and sorrow and again such as consequentially arise from these namely the evil of sin as impatience discontent unquietness of mind murmurings against the Divine Providence doubtings of letting go our confidence in God disturst unbelief and putting forth our hands to iniquity to deliver our selves from these inconveniences either by unlawful or forbidden means by sinful compliances with the sinful world by falling in with them to deliver our selves from their oppressions persecutions or wrongs by raising commotions engaging in parties and infinite more unhappy consequences And thirdly there is a third kind of world which is in a great measure without us namely the accidental or more truly the providential world in relation to man and his condition in this world and is commonly of two kinds viz. prosperous or adverse External or worldly Prosperity consists in an accommodate condition of man in this world as health of body comfort of friends and relations affluence or at least competency of wealth power honour applause good report and the like The dangers that steal upon mankind in this condition are pride haughtiness of mind arrogance vain-glory insolence oppression security contempt of others love of the world fear of death and desires of diversion from the thoughts of it luxury intemperance ambition covetousness neglect and forgetfulness and a low esteem of God the life to come and our duty 2. Adversity as sicknesses and diseases poverty loss of friends and estate publick or private disturbances or calamities and the like And though oftentimes these are occasioned by the evil or malignant world yet many times they seem to come accidentally and are apt to breed impatience discontent unquietness of mind distrust of Providence murmuring envy at the external felicity of others and that common discomposure which we ordinarily find in our selves and others upon like occasions IV. The fourth considerable is what is this Faith which thus overcometh the world which is nothing else but a deep real full sound perswasion of and assent unto those great truths revealed in the Scriptures of God upon the account that they are truly the word and will of the Eternal God who is truth it self and can neither deceive nor be deceived and herein these two matters are considerable 1. What are those divine truths which being really and soundly believed doth enable the victory over the world or the special objects of that victorious faith 2. What is that act of faith or belief of these excellent objects which thus overcometh the world 1. For the former of these although the whole body of divine truths is the adequate object of faith yet there seem to be certain special heads or parts of divine truths that have the greatest influence into this victory over the world I shall mention some of them namely 1. That there is one most Powerfyl Wise Gracious Bountiful Just and All-seeing God the Author of all being that is present in
hast set up And therefore our Blessed Lord redoubles the injunction of our fear toward him that can destroy both body and soul in hell but forbids any fear of such persecutors who can only destroy the body and then can do no more And certainly that man that hath full assurance of favour and esteem with the great God of heaven and earth of an incorruptible weight and crown of glory the next moment after death must needs have a low esteem of the reproaches and scorns and persecutions of men for righteoufness sake and so much the rather because that very favour with God and that very crown of happiness that he expects is enhanced by those very scorns and those very afflictions For Our light afflictions which are here for a moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 3. Concerning the third kind of world namely the Providential world consisting in external dispensations of adversity or prosperity And first concerning the dark part of this world namely Adversity as casualties losses of wealth or friends sicknesses the common effects whereof are impatience distrust murmuring and unquietness Faith conquers this part of the world and prevents those evil consequences which either temptations from without or corruptions from within are apt to raise 1. Faith presents the soul with this assurance that all external occurrences come from the wise dispensation or permission of the most glorious God they come not by chance 2. That the glorious God may even upon the account of his own Sovereignty and pro imperio inflict what he pleaseth upon any of his creatures in this life 3. That yet whatsoever he doth in this kind is not only an effect of his power and sovereignty but of his wisdom yea and of his goodness and bounty No affliction can befall any man but it may be useful for his instruction or prevention 4. That the best of men deserve far worse at the hands of God than the worst afflictions that ever did or ever can befall any man in this life 5. That there have been examples of greater affliction that have befallen better men in this life witness Job and that excellent pattern of all patience and goodness even as a man our Lord Christ Jesus 6. That these afflictions are sent for the good even of good men and it is their fault and weakness if they have not that effect 7. That in the midst of the severest afflictions the favour of God to the soul discovering it self like the Sun shining through a cloud gives light and comfort to the Soul 8. That Almighty God is ready to support them that believe in him and to bear them up under all their afflictions that they shall not sink under them 9. That whatsoever or how great soever the afflictions of this life are if the name be blasted with reproaches the estate wasted and consumed by fire from heaven if friends are lost if hopes and expectations disappointed if the body be macerated with pains and diseases yet Faith presents to the believer something that can bear up the Soul under these and many more pressures namely that after a few years or days are spent an eternal state of unchangeable and perfect happiness shall succed that death the worst of temporal evils will cure all those maladies and deliver up the soul into a state of endless comfort and blessedness and therefore he bears all this with patience and quietness and contentedness and cheerfulness and disappoints the world in that expectation wherein its strength in relation to this condition lyes namely it conquers all impatience murmuring unquietness of mind 2. As to the second part of this Providential world namely Prosperity which in truth is the more dangerous condition of the two without the intervention of the divine grace the foils that the world puts upon men by this condition are commonly pride insolence carnal security contempt or neglect of duty and religion luxury and the like The method whereby Faith overcometh this part of the world and those evil consequences that arise upon it are these 1. Faith gives a man a true and equal estimate of this condition and keeps a man from overvaluing it or himself for it lets him know it is very uncertain very casual very dangerous and cannot out-last this life death will come and sweep down all these cobwebs 2. Faith assures him that Almighty God observes his whole deportment in it that he hath given him a law of humility sobriety temperance fidelity and a caution not to trust in uncertain riches that he must give an account of his stewardship also to the great Master of the Family of Heaven and Earth that he will duly examine all his Items whether done according to his Lord's commission and command and it lets him know that the more he hath the greater ought his care to be because his account will be the greater 3. Faith lets him know that the abundance of wealth honour power friends applause successes as they last no longer than this short transitory life and therefore cannot make up his happiness no nor give a man an ease or rescue from a fit of the Stone or Colick so there is an everlasting state of happiness or misery that must attend every man after death And on the one hand all the glory and splendor and happiness that this inferior world can afford is nothing in comparison of that glory that shall be revealed to and enjoyed by them that believe and obey 1. Nothing in respect of its duration if a man should live a thousand years yet that must have an end and the very pre-apprehension of an end is enough to dash and blast and wither any happiness even while it is enjoyed but that happiness that succeeds after death is an everlasting happiness 2. Nothing in respect of its degree there is no sincere complete perfect happiness in this world it is mingled with evils with fears with vicissitudes of sorrow and trouble but the happiness of the next life is perfect sincere and unmixed with any thing that may allay it And upon these accounts faith which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen and therefore by a kind of anticipation gives a presence to the Soul of those future joys renders the best happiness this world below can yield but languid and poor like the light of a Candle in the presence of the Sun On the other side the misery that after death attends the mispent present life over-ballanceth all the good that this life can yield both in its degree and duration and therefore with the pre-apprehension of it it sowres and allays all the good that is in the greatest happiness of this life 4. Faith doth assute every believing Soul that as sure as he now liveth and enjoyeth that worldly felicity it hath so surely if he in belief and obedience to the will of God revealed in and through Christ
hast is not inherent in thy self one of the meanest of those whom it may be thou oppressest is inherently as powerful as thee and could it may be over-match thee in Strength Wit or Policy but the Power thou hast is next under the dispensation of the Divine Providence from those men that either by their Promises Faith or Voluntary Assistance have invested thee with this Power This power is nothing inherent in thee but it depends upon the Fidelity or Assistance of others which if they either by Perfidiousness to thee or Resistance against thee or withdrawing their Assistance to thee shall call again home to themselves thou art like Samson having lost his locks Judg. 16. 17. thy strength will go from thee and thou wilt become weak and be like another man And how have the Histories of all Ages and our own experience shewn us by very frequent examples men unexpectedly and upon many moments and occurrencies seemingly most small and inconsiderable been tumbled in a moment from the most eminent and high degree of Power into a most despised and despicable condition Power hath very oftentimes like Jonas his Gourd been externally fair and flourishing when at the same time there lyes a Worm at the root of it unseen but in a moment gnaws asunder the roots and heart of it and it withers and for the most part the more extensive and immensive Humane Power grows the sooner it falls to pieces not only by the Divine Providence checking and rejecting but by a kind of natural result from its own exorbitance and excess for the greater it is the more difficult it is to manage it grows top-heavy and the Basis grows too narrow and weak for its own burden Besides it is the common mark of Envy and Discontent which watcheth sedulously all occasions to unhorse it and oftentimes prevails When power proves too grievous and over burdensom it loseth the end for which it was conferred and makes people desperate and impatient Entia nolunt malè gubernari If it be managed with Prudence and Moderation it is the greatest Benefit to Humane society But it is the burden of him that hath it if it be managed tyrannically and exorbitantly if fills the Master full of fears the People full of rage and seldom proves long-lived And what reason hast thou to be proud of what is most certainly thy burden or thy damage or both Again thou hast Strength or Beauty or Agility of Body Indeed this thou hast more reason to call thy own than any of the former but yet thou hast no cause to pride thy self in it thou canst not hold it long at best for age will decay that Strength and wither that Beauty and death will certainly put a period to it but yet probably this Strength or Beauty is not so long-lived as thy self no nor as thy youth a disease it may be is this very moment growing upon thee that will suddenly pull down thy Strength and rase this Beauty and turn them both into rottenness and loathsomness Nay let any observe it that will that strength and beauty that raiseth pride in the heart is of all other shortest-lived even upon the very account of that very pride For the oftentation and vain-glory of Strength puts it forth into desperate and dangerous undertakings to the ruine of the owner and pride of Beauty renders the owner thereof fond of the praise of it and so expose it to the view of others whereby it becomes a temptation to lust and intemperance both to the owner of it and others and in a little while becomes at once its own ruine and shame But it may be thou hast Wit and Judgment a quick and ready Understanding and hast improved them by great Study and Observation in great and profound Learning This I confess is much more thy own than any of the former Endowments but most certainly if thou art proud of any of these thou art not yet arrived to the highest improvement of Understanding namely Wisdom Folly and Madness may be consistent with a witty nay a learned man but not with a truly Wise man and this thy pride of these endowments or acquests still pronounceth and proclaimeth thee a fool for all thy wit and all thy learning For consider with thy self thy Wit and Learning are but pitiful narrow things in respect of the amplitude of the things that are to be known Maxima pars corum qua scimus est minima pars corum qua nescimus Take the most Learned Observant Philosopher that ever was in the world he never yet was fully acquainted with the nature of those things that are obvious to ordinary observation and near to him never was the person yet in the world that could give an accurate account of the nature of a Fly or a Worm in its full comprehension no nor of a spire of grass much less of himself and of his nobler Faculties much less yet of those glorious bodies that every day and night object themselves to our view What a deal of Uncertainty in Evidence and Contradiction do we find in the determination of the choicest wits and men of greatest learning even in things that are obvious and objected in their own sight to all their senses So that the greatest Knowledge that men attain to in the things of Nature is little else but a specious piece of Ignorance dressed up with fine words formal methods precarious suppositions and competent confidence 2. Consider how brittle and unstable thing thy Wit thy Parts thy Learning is Though Old Age may retain some broken monuments of thy wit and learning thou once hadst yet the floridness and vigour of it must then decay and gradually wither till very Old Age make thee a Child again if thou live to it But besides that a Feaver or a Palsie or an Apoplexy may greatly impair if not wholly deface and obliterate thy Learning deprive thee of thy Memory of thy Wit and Understanding Never be proud of such a priviledge or endowment which is under the mercy of a disease nay of a distemper in thy blood an adust humor a Hypocondriacal vapour a casual fume of a Mineral or a fall whether thou shalt hold it or lose it 3. But yet farther mark it while thou wilt and thou wilt then sooner perceive it in another than in thy self Wit and Learning in any man never in any case receives more foils more disadvantage more blemish more impair more than by Pride He that is proud of his own knowledge is commonly at his non ultra and rarely acquires more scorns instruction and stops the farther advance of his faculties knowledge or learning and undervalues and therefore neglects what he might learn from others Again Pride casts an Unseemliness Undecency and many times even a Ridiculousness upon the greatest Parts and Learning it is like the dead Fly in the Apothecary's Confection that makes the whole unsavoury How common and rife is this unhappy censure that
our Saviour Luk. 22.61 and the Lord turned and looked upon Peter certainly that look of our Saviour as it carried a secret message of a gentle reprehension so also of much sorrow and grief in our Lord as if he should have said Ah Peter canst thou see thy Saviour thus used and wilt thou not own me Or if thou wilt not yet must thou needs deny me deny me thrice deny me with oathes and with execrations The unkindness of a Disciple and such a Disciple that hast been privy to my Glory in my Transfiguration and to my Agony in the Garden cuts me deeper than the scorns and derision of these abjects But that 's not all this apostacy of thine these denials these oathes these execrations will lye heavy upon me anon and add to that unsupportable burden that I am under the Thorns and the Whips and the Nails that I must anon suffer will be the more envenomed by these Sins of thine and thou castest more gall into that bitter Cup that I am drinking than all the malice of mine enemies could do In sum though thou goest out and weepest bitterly yet these Sins of thine would stick unto thy Soul unto eternity if I should not bear them for thee they cost thee some tears but they must cost me my blood The next morning the high Priests and Elders hold a second consultation as soon as it was day Luk. 22.66 their malice was so sollicitous that they prevent the morning Sun and after they had again examined him and in that Council charged him with Blasphemy the Council and the whole multitude lead him bound to Pilate and there they accuse him and to make their accusation the more gracious charge him with Sedition against the Romans and though he had no other advocate but silence and innocence for he answered them nothing yet the Judge acquits him Luk. 23.23 I find no fault in him and yet to shift his hands of the employment and to gratifie an adversary he sends him to Herod and his accusers follow him thither also Luk. 23.10 the chief Priests and Scribes vehemently accuse him Herod when he had satisfied his curiosity in the sight of Jesus to add to the scorn of our Saviour exposeth him to the derision of his rude Souldiers and cloathes him in a gorgeous Robe and remands him to Pilate Thus in triumph and scorn he is sent from place to place first to Annas then to Caiphas then convented before the Council of the Priests then sent into the high Priest's Hall then re-convened before the Council then sent bound to Pilate and from thence to Herod and from him back again to Pilate and in all those translations from place to place exposed unto and entertained with new scorns and derisions and contempts At his return to Pilate he again the second time declares his Innocence that neither he nor Herod found any thing worthy of death Luk. 23.15 and yet to gratifie the Jews he offers to have him scourged whom he pronounceth innocent yet to avoid the gross injustice of a sentence of death offers to release him to observe their custom but this could not not satisfie To preserve their custom and yet to fulfil their malice they choose the reprieve of Barabbas a murderer and importune the crucifying of the innocent Jesus and now the third time Pilate pronounceth him innocent Luk. 23.22 and yet delivers him over to be crucified The Executioners did it to the uttermost and and to add pain and scorn to his scourging put upon him a Crown of thorns and in this disguise of blood and contempt he brings him forth shews him to his prosecutors Joh. 19.5 Behold the man as if he should have said You Jews that that have accused this man must know I find no fault in him yet to satisfie your importunity I have delivered him over to the severest and vilest punishment next unto death Scourging and Scorn here he is see what a spectacle it is let this satisfie your Envy But all this will not serve there is nothing below the vilest of deaths can satisfie all cry out Crucifie him and when yet the Judge professeth he finds nothing worthy of death they impose a Law of their own We have a law and by our law he ought to dye because he made himself the Son of God But when this rather made the Judge the more cautious they engage him upon his fidelity to Casar his Master He that maketh himself a King speaketh against Casar But all this was not enough but at length the importunity of the Priests and people prevailed and Pilate who had been before warned by the monition of his Wife and had these several times pronounced him innocent yet against the conviction of his own Conscience to satisfie and content the Jews adds this farther cruelty and unjustice to what he had before done gave sentence that it should be as they required Luk. 23.24 delivered him over to that cursed and servile death of Crucifixion and yet his persecutors malice and envy not satisfied but after his judgment pursue the execution of it with as great malice scorn and cruelty as they had before used in obtaining it His Crown of thorns upon his head a purple Robe upon his body the Blood of his scourging and thorns all covering his visage a Reed in his right hand and the base and insolent multitude with spittings and strokes and reproaches abusing him till his Cross be ready and then the purple Robe is taken off and he conducted to the place of his Execution and to add torment to his shame our Blessed Lord wearied with an agony and long watching the night before and from the time of his apprehending hurried from place to place and his blood and spirits spent with the scourging and thorns and blows and which is more than all this a soul within laden with a weight of sorrow and the burden of the wrath of God which did drink up and consume his spirits yet in this condition he is fain to bear his burdensom Cross towards the place of his Execution Joh. 19.17 till he was able to carry it no longer but even fainted under it and then Simon of Cyrene is compelled to bear it to the place When he comes to the place of Execution he is stript stark naked and his clothes afterwards divided by lot among the Souldiers Matth. 27.35 and his naked body stretched upon the Cross to the uttermost extension of it Psal 22.17 I may tell all my bones they look and stare upon me and at the uttermost extension which the cruel Executioners could make of our Saviour's body his hands and his feet nailed to that Cross with great Nails through those tender parts full of nerves and arteries and most exquisitely sensible of pain And in this condition the Cross with our Saviour's body is raised up in the view of all and that even in this his execution that the shame and ignominy of the manner