Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A61181
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A sermon preached before the King and Queen at Whitehal, on Good-Friday, 1690 by the Lord Bishop of Rochester, Dean of Westminster.
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Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing S5061; ESTC R13441
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13,597
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46
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and Joys of Eternity it self are provided and accordingly shall be dispens'd to punish those that Reject him to reward those that Obey him These and whatever other such magnificent Expressions of Excellency the Holy Scriptures have attributed to our Lord as he is the Christ as they are all on the one side so many evident Testimonies of his Eternal Power and Godhead so on the other they ought to be esteemed as so many Marvellous Degrees and astonishing Amplifications of the Merciful Condescention of his Sufferings which is my next particular This very Christ suffer'd If any shall now inquire from what Period of Time we may justly date the Beginning of his Passion without all Question his Sufferings took their Rise from the very first Moment of his Assuming our Flesh Since for the Eternal Son of GOD only to become Man was infinitely to suffer That He who was in the Form of GOD and thought it no Robbery but his inviolable Right to be equal with GOD should be made of no Reputation and take on him the Form of a Servant and be made in the Likeness of Man He was made in the Likeness of Man Was not that an inexpressible Debasement of the Glories of his Divinity But as if that were not Obscurity and Degradation enough to that is added his stooping down to the low and abject Form of a Servant The great GOD of Heaven who is otherwise No Accepter or Respecter of Persons among Men nor does he prefer the highest before the lowest upon any inequality of our Conditions here below yet when he himself was to put on our Humanity he then became as it were an Accepter of Persons on the other side and chose to appear in the vilest and most despicable State among the Children of Men which is that of a Servant and the being made of no Reputation Thus with his very taking our Nature did his Sufferings begin and thence were continued through all the humble Circumstances of his Birth and Kindred and Conversation through a Life of Poverty Simplicity and Self-Denial and as the Evangelical Prophet describes him As a Man of Sorrows acquainted with Grief despised and rejected of Men Till he came at length to that which still deserves Emphatically to be call'd His Passion when he was also smitten of God and afflicted to his dreadful Conflict with GOD and himself in the Garden and his Sweating Drops of Blood there to the Buffetings the Revilings the Scourges the Spittings the contradiction of Sinners he endured The Cruel Insolency of his Enemies the fierce Rage of the Superstitious Jews the Tyrannous Scorn of the Romans the Theives Crucifi'd with him the Murderer preferr'd before him the Gall and Vineger given him to Drink the Nails in his Hands the Spear in his Side the very August Name of King objected to him in Contempt the Painful and Shameful Crown of Thorns put on his Head with Ignominious Mockery And at last that inutterable Torment darted into his very Soul immediately from GOD himself which compell'd him for a time almost to Despair and to sink under its Weight Surae we are it made him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me In that black and dismal Moment of his expiring on the Cross what insupportable Suffering must his have been which could even appear to stagger such a Faith and eclipse his Assurance of the Presence and Love of his heavenly Father How many Deaths and extream Agonies of Death must he then have felt When as the Prophet Isaiah says The Lord laid on him the Iniquity of us all And as St. Peter here expresses it He his own self bore our Sins in his own Body on the Tree And not only ours but the Sins of the whole World since St. Paul has also taught us in his own Person that every Sinner as such carries no less a Load about with him than a whole Body of Death Certainly the bare mention of our Lord 's thus suffering though so plainly related could not but convince any indifferent and unconcern'd Person passing by that never any Sorrow was like his Sorrow But there is still something more behind that methinks should never permit any of the Sons and Daughters of Men to pass it by as indifferent and unconcern'd And that is the third part of my Text He suffer'd all this for us For us he suffer'd For himself he could not die Death is the Wages of Sin and the sting of Death is Sin Death could have no Dominion over him on that account He did no Sin But if any of us shall say so of our selves The Truth is not in us Wherefore for us or which is all one for our Sins in our place he suffer'd All Sin must be acknowledg'd to be a breach of the Wise Holy and Upright Law of GOD And for every breach of such a Law a severe Punishment is due unless some fitting Expiation be made And that He only could have perform'd Could any other Creatures for us Alas all their value bears no proportion to such a Forfeiture However such as they are we had no right to use them to that purpose since GOD alone not we had the Propriety in them before Nor could we our selves have made an Equitable Satisfaction Alas Were it not for this Redeemer we had wanted an Atonement not only for our Iniquities but for our best Righteousness Wherefore seeing neither we our selves nor any other for us could contribute any just Price towards our Redemption to whom could we have recourse Whither should we flee for Refuge but to that one GOD and one Mediator between GOD and Man the Man Christ Jesus Flee to him we did not neither Nor could we first rather he sought us out found overtook us fleeing from him In that deplorable Condition the Good Samaritan had Compassion on us weltring in our Blood in our Sins that required his Blood To bind up our Wounds and heal our Bruises and love us freely Freely it must have been or not at all Thus for us incompass'd with innumerable Frailties and Corruptions contaminated with so many Pollutions of Original and Actual Sins blacken'd with so many repeated Ingratitudes towards Heaven For us sinful Men. Men sinful Dust and Ashes Worms and no Men for so the Scripture accounts of every Sinner condemns him to have lost the very common Privilege of being a Man which at best is no great Matter to boast of as Man has made himself For Man does but walk in a vain Shadow whereas Sin makes him worse than a Shadow worse than the very Beasts that perish and of Beasts the most contemptible even a Worm of the Earth However for us in this dejected and depraved Condition Christ undertook Christ suffer'd Not only became our Intercessor our Pledge our Ransom our Surety but our Propitiatory Offering our Bloody Sacrifice to atone for us by undergoing himself the
A SERMON PREACHED before the King and Queen At WHITEHAL On Good-Friday 1690. By the Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER Dean of WESTMINSTER Published by Their Majesties Command In the SAVOY Printed by Edward Jones M. DC XC 1 St. Peter Chap. 2. Part of 21st and 22d Verses Christ also suffer'd for us leaving us an Example that ye should follow his Steps Who did no Sin THE Subject of our Devout Meditations on this Blessed Day is our dear Redeemer's Passion and the last most bitter part of it his humbling himself so as to become Obedient to Death even the Death of the Cross and the Preaching of this Cross though as St. Paul tells us To them that Perish it is Foolishness yet he also assures us to as many as are Saved it is the Power of God Now that none of Us should be found in the number of those who Perish by foolishly despising the Doctrine of a Crucified Saviour but rather that we may all be wise to Salvation by meekly adoring this Power of God and the wondrous Depths of Divine Love in it and by rightly applying the unspeakable Fruits of it to our selves our Church has taken all imaginable care to represent it to us in the most serious and efficacious manner and to fix it firmly on our Minds and Consciences by frequent and affectionate Repetitions of all its Parts and Aggravations So that if we shall reflect on the whole Annual Circle of our Publick Devotions 't were easie to observe that our Saviour's Sufferings are therein oftner reiterated and more in proportion insisted on than perhaps any other Article of our pure and undefiled Religion Our Church in this as in all things else exactly following the Blessed Pattern of the first and purest Ages as they did the Gospel of Christ which seems to dispense and measure out to us the benefits of all Spiritual Truths even of his Glorious Resurrection it self only according as we shall lay hold on the Merits of and be conformable to his Death For so among many other Scriptures to the like purpose we read That if we have been planted together in the likeness of his Death if so and upon no other terms then we shall be also planted in the likeness of his Resurrection Wherefore in order to this and to introduce as at this time the Passion of Christ with the greater Solemnity well did the Church Ordain That the certain Period of our Regular Abstinence and Repentance every Year should immediately go before this particular Season wisely judging the severest Mortifications of our selves to be the best Preparations for our meeting worthily our Lord dying and rising again for us and that some more than ordinary Method of Zealous Piety and Stricter Retirement from the World was necessary to fit us duly for a Time and Commemoration so Sacred Nay farther yet When the very Day of his dying did nearer approach to shew what ought to be the chief Matter of our Private Contemplations as well as Publick Worship during the whole Week preceding which has been therefore remarkably honour'd with the Venerable Name of The Holy Week has not our Excellent Liturgy Day by Day without Intermission with a Succession of Divine Offices the like not enjoin'd us in any other Week of the Year continually repeated and inculcated on our Memories this one charming Truth That our Lord our Love was Crucified So that scarce any thing else has all this while sounded in our Ears in these Holy Places but some one or other step of our Saviour's sad and dolorous passage to the Field of Blood till now at length we are brought thither and to the very Day when He cried out It is finish'd and gave up the Ghost We having been so lately conducted through this wholesome course of Severities and Contritions all teaching us to Die to Sin as our Lord Died now for our Sins I cannot but believe that what had been else the proper Business of the Preacher on this Day is already in great part here done to my Hands that You are all come hither tenderly affected with a deep Sense and melting Remorse for what Christ suffer'd as at this time in our stead And if by GOD's Grace Your Hearts are thus already touch'd from above then all that is left for me to do will be only to assist You not so much in raising as in directing to the best Uses Your Devout Affections already rais'd To consult together with You in the Fear of GOD how all this Grief and Sorrow which so deservedly possesses Your Souls may become a true Christian Grief and Godly Sorrow How by Degrees we may advance it into Spiritual Gratitude Hope Love Zeal and Full Assurance of Faith and at last into Joys unspeakable and full of Glory Which as sure as God is true will come to pass in the event if we shall make his precious Death and Passion not only the steady Object of our Belief and Admiration in those parts of it wherein we cannot imitate Him but also of our unwearied Imitation and constant Practise in those Things wherein he left behind him an Example for us to follow his Steps So you see it is that my Text instructs us in the only saving way of Contemplating our dear Lord's Sufferings that we should consider them not only in themselves and their Cruel and Lamentable Circumstances but in their Gracious Ends Influences and Powers As Christ was the Person Suffering as he suffer'd so much and as he suffer'd for us For us as an unvaluable Randsom to atone GOD's Justice that we may relie on it For us as an unblameable Original of Meekness Holiness Charity and Resignation to the Will of GOD that we may Copy after it In these few Words therefore we behold our LORD's Passion display'd to our View in its brightest Glory its condescending Humility its most obliging Endearments and its principal Uses First Its Glory in that it was Christ who suffer'd Jesus the Christ the Christ of God who is Lord of all things the Lord and Giver of Life That the same Person who was Anointed a King to Govern the whole World and Ordain'd a Prophet to Teach 〈◊〉 should be also Consecrated a Priest to â—acrifice for it Himself being the Oblation That is the Second and was the Lowâ—ness of His Humility which is here styled His Suffering Expressing in one word His patient enduring all that Misery and Torment which not only the Malice oâ— wicked Men or the Rage of Hell disappointed by Him but the Wrath of GOD provoked could inflict on Him not in the least on His own Account but only for our sakes Which next follows and is the most endearing part of all that He suffer'd for us the Creator for the Creatures the Just for the Unjust the Judge for the Criminals Yet for us loaded with all this Weight of our Guilt and with all these just Causes of His Prejudice he suffered for our Justification