Lev. 5.6 7 15. Joh. Hoornb Socin Confut. Vol. 2. l. 3. c. 1. p. 562. The words of the Learned Hoornbeeck cited in the margent shall suffice for clearing the text to Scholars and the true reading of the words of the text in our translation shall suffice the unlearned In a word or two if thou believest that this Chapter foretels the sufferings of thy Saviour if thou believest that this text speaketh of his death if thou believest that he is come so long ago and died so long since thou needest only read plain English He hath then in his Death made his soul an offering for sin and this was foretold by the Prophet not in this verse only but also in the 11th and 12th verses He shall bear their iniquity Ita in caput Hostiarum olim reatus offerentium quasi manibus imponebatur luendus caeremonialiter ibi in Christo vere Joh. Hoornb lib. 3. vol. 2. Socin Confut. c. 1. and he shall bear the sin of many So of old the guilt of those who brought the Sacrifices was as it were laid on the head of the Sacrifices by their hands that it might be punished Observe then how Sacrifices of old times did bear the iniquity and sin of those that brought the Sacrifices So did Christ dying bear our iniquity and our sin He did bear them truly they ceremonially as the learned Author noteth To these passages of Isaiah let us farther add those of David and Paul compared together and we shall there find David foretelling what Death Christ should die and Paul explaining what Death he did die Psal 40.6 7 8. with Heb. 10.5 6 7 8. When he i. e. Christ cometh into the world he saith Sacrifice and Offerings thou wouldest not c. putting the very words of the Psalmist and thereby assuring us that the place was to be understood of Christ who was hereafter to be born and die whenas David wrote this and who was now born and had died whenas Paul wrote this or rather interpreted these words of Dauâ—â— leading us from the Sacrifices under the Law to Christ our Sacrifice and from the Death of those ceremonial and inefficacious Sacrifices to this real and meritorious Sacrifice ver 10th and 12th Now the whole discourse of Christ's dying a Sacrifice for us had been mislaid on David's words if he had not prophesied that Christ should die a Sacrifice for us Either this kind of Dying must be in the Prophetick words of David which are the Apostle's premisses or it could not Logically be put into his Conclusion Sect. 3. Thirdly Christ to die for us a Sacrifice was promised to the Church and if it were promised it may well be concluded that it either shall be accomplished which is as little as an unbelieving Jew will gather from the promise but not so much as a believing Christian must gather who is verily perswaded that our Jesus the true Messiah is already come and hath died for us and died a Sacrifice fo us according to the promise which is made to Sion Zech. 9.11 As for thee by the blood of thy Covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the Pit wherein is no water In the words you have a relation of a double deliverance set forth in figurative expressions 1. First A relation of their deliverance out of the seventy years Captivity which God wrought for them for the Covenant sake he had made with them in Christ this was a temporal deliverance The 2. Second deliverance is spiritual and wrought by the Lord Jesus dying and sheding his blood for us Now it is plain This 1. Blood denoteth a death whoever it be that it is spoken of 2. Blood of a Covenant speaketh the Death of a Sacrifice in the blood whereof the Covenant was confirmed and ratified and it is therefore called the Blood of the Covenant this I will a little farther treat and clear It was a very ancient rite of making and confirming Covenants in the blood of Sacrifices offered up at the time when the Covenants and their terms or conditions were assented unto and approved Possibly the Feast we read of Gen. 26.30 made by Isaac was after a Sacrifice offered when he made a Covenant also with Abimelech and confirmed it by Oath However we are assured it was a rite among the Politer Nations of the Earth as in Homer who brings in his Graecians and Trojans making a covenant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iliad 3. Carm. 94. 105. and confirming it by Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but these are alien and forein we have surer testimony Exod. 24.7 where a Covenant is mentioned and this Covenant wrote in a Book and read to the people who therein heard the terms God proposed and to these the people answer All that the Lord hath said we will do and be obedient they give their assent to the Covenant on which Moses forthwith sprinkleth the people with the blood of the Sacrifices which were offered on the Altar mentioned ver 4. and were brought by young men of Israel ver 5. This blood is called eminently the blood of the Covenant ver 8. applied by St. Peter 1 Ep. 1 cap. 2 ver to Christ So then the Covenant confirmed in blood leadeth us to a Sacrifice dying and sheding its blood in which sprinkled according to the Rite or Custom the Covenant is confirmed So that to me there remaineth no farther scruple in this point If any would have it cleared that this blood is to be understood of the blood of Christ I shall refer them to the context viz. ver 9. and 10. and unto Isa 61.1 where the like delivering of the like prisoners is mentioned and unto the Heb. 13.20 where this blood of the Covenant is called the blood of the everlasting Covenant And let them who desire farther satisfaction consult Commentators on the place Sect. 4. Christ's Death was the Death of a Sacricrifice for so it is historically declared and asserted in the history of his Life and Death and in the writings of his Apostles penn'd on this subject since his Death and Resurrection They that have wrote the story and they who have improved it assert the same I do Heb. 9.26 Now once in the end of the world hath he i. e. Christ ver 24. appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself And again ver 28. Christ was offered to bear the sins of many places so full and clear that nothing needs be subjoyned for explication Christ expresly named and he is offered a Sacrifice and this an Expiatory Sacrifice and he that offered it up was the same with the Sacrifice He offered up himself a Sacrifice c. So again Heb. 7.27 this speaking of the Sacrifices offered up often underthe Law viz. offering for the peoples sins he did once when he offered up himself What the daily weekly monthly and yearly reiterated Sacrifices of the Levitical Priests could not effect though they were continually offered
Sacrament until he take us to the Glory of the Father or come again to us in the Glory of the Father Every Sacrament is a taking out a Certificat that Christ died and was buried but that he is risen from the Dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isa 53. Every time the Bread is broken in a Sacrament we tell the world that our Lord was cut off out of the Land of the Living The pouring out of the Wine speaketh his powring out his blood unto death and for proof hereof we produce his Testament and last Will the last Will of our great Commander who made it In Procinctu when he was girt and in his Armour just ready to enter the conflict wherein he laid down his life for us The excellent Moralist and Historian Plutarch tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. it was the custome with the Roman Souldiers to make their Wills when they stood in Battel-aray Facientibus Testamenta in procinctu veluti ad Certam mortem eundum foret Velleius Paterculus lib. 2. I am sure when they went on a hard and dangerous design the more considerate amongst them made their last VVill as the Roman Historian reports of their Souldiers assaulting Trebonia in Spain Our great and Glorious Captain knowing that his hour was come and that he must dye for us disposed thus his estate by VVill or Testament which proveth the truth of his Death as fully as any VVill duly proved by course of Law proveth that the Testator is dead Now certainly good evidence to the truth of Christ's death must needs be very suitable to our publick declaration and Profession of his death and so must suit with this first End of the Sacrament which is to shew forth his Death until he come The valid and irreversible Testament proveth the Death of the Testator Now such a Testament we have exhibited in the Sacrament and who employs his thoughts on this meditation employs them so as they agree with the End of the Sacrament 2. Secondly Christ intended the renewal of our lively affections toward him Dying for us as another end of the Sacrament of his body and blood He did therefore appoint this Ordinance to continue after his Death that it might keep the affectionate remembrance of his love alive in our hearts He would not have his Death forgotten neither would he have it kept in memory without the vigour and strength of our love His friends were dead in sin and misery at that time he remembred these dead friends with life of affections and now his living friends must not remember him with dead affection A lifeless affection is next neighbour to no affection and to remember with such affection is very little more than quite to forget Now none of us should so forget our Dying Lord we could not see him dying as they did Luk. 23. v. 27. who followed him to Mount Calvary and saw him with their bodily eyes yet in every Sacrament of his Supper he is evidently set forth dying among us and so every one of us must remember him every place in the Church may put us in mind of our Lord but the Table and the Cross do more particularly and lively set our remembrance on work Sic oculos Sic ille manus c. Let me ask the question did you ever lose a dear friend who made you a Legatee in his Will or appointed you Executor of it how did your affections stir move yea melt your heart when you read over the Will when you came to demand your Legacy did you receive it with dry eyes Let us bestow our affections in reading over Christ's Will as we would bestow them in reading over the Will of a tender careful Friend and then I am sure we shall frame our hearts to this second end of the Lord's supper and demean our selves as Christ expects we should at his table We shall remember him with love for his loving remembrance of us we shall remember him with desires of his return and coming in glory to make good all that he hath bequeathed to us to put us in possession of all that which the Sacrament representeth and sealeth to us we shall say make hast come quickly oh Lord. 3. Thirdly A solemn publick and constant return of Thanks and Praise to the Lord is a third end of this Sacrament Christus voluit sacram suam coenam esse mortis passionis suae nostraeque per eam à peccato morte diabolo liberationis perpetuum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nostrae ea propter gratitudinis observantiae publicum Testimonium Ludoy Cappel Thes Salm. de Liturg. Ling. Ignot part 1. th 5. Christ would have his holy Supper be a perpetual remembrance as of his Death and Passion and as of our deliverance from sin death and the Devil so of our gratitude and observance would he have it be a publick Testimony as that Learned Professor hath expressed his sense and apprehension of this matter We can scarce meet with any one person amongst the lowest and meanest Professours of Christian Religion so little instructed in the nature and end of this Ordinance as not full well to know and openly profess it is an Ordinance appointed for continuing a thankful Remembrance of our Dying Lord. We cannot read any Writer Popish or other but in their writings of the Sacrament every page is full of it the most usual name of it is Eucharist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Syriack Version hath borrowed this Greek word to express it self in Act. 2.42 20.7 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which soundeth out Gratitude and Thankfulness so some render and translate Bread in Acts 2.42 10.7 broken in the Sacrament and call it the Breaking of the Eucharist but I will spare my time pains and paper and appeal to thy pretences and professions who goest to the Lord's Table I know thou canst not acquit thy self to thy Brethren with whom thou communicatest nor to thy own Profession unless thou declarest thy desire to remember thankfully the Death of thy Lord. Now the Love of Christ remembring thee by Will in his Testamentary disposition hath in it very many strong and prevailing perswasives to thankfulness and will certainly awaken the sober considerate soul unto gratitude and so will excellently well suit with the season and the duty of feasting with our Lord. Of which more shall be said in our following discourse if the Lord give leave Mean while the greatness of our legacy the freeness of love in the legator the unworthiness of the legatees the certainty of our future receiving it the present enjoying more if so be we would set our selves with more diligence and search to enquire into the deed of gift our Lord hath made to us These I say will certainly perswade us to constant acknowledging our debt of thankfulness to our dying Lord. Our life should be
were it all to be done over again Now this doth add new evidence of the certainty of the Promise and ought to add new degrees of strength to our Faith How sure must those Promises be which are the Promises of one unchangable and who repenteth nothing which he hath spoken Away then with unbelief and doubts banish them all from thy soul If thou wouldst but love thy Lord in truth of heart if thou grievest for thy deadness and non-proficiency if thou strivest to walk more worthy of thy relation unto Christ and of his love to thee be not too much dejected Thy Lord foresaw this and hath provided a pardon for and help against it and notwithstanding all the baseness thou confessest and bewailest in thy self Christ would make the same VVill if he were to make it anew and give thee as much as he hath done Raise up thy Faith therefore and at the Sacrament be think thy self Here are the Promises reduced to the form of a last VVill that they might be sure and they are so disposed by my Lord who foresaw all that can discourage me and who would not change any thing were all to be new done Surely he intends as he speaketh is in very good earnest he will perform that at last which he would not change or alter in the least Oh then I must perswade my self it is all truth which is in these Promises and I should believe them more stedfastly if I did understand them more clearly None can have such equal ground of believing his friend none shall equal me in believing Christ my friend and Lord. 6. Lastly let it be considered for ensuring the promises they are the legacies of one who is sole and supreme judge of all pleas and causes which can arise concerning our Right and Title to them Symbol Nicen. John 5.25 We believe that he shall come to be our Judge is an article of our faith and the Father hath committed all judgement to the Son having appointed a day wherein he will judge the world by the man whom he hath ordained Acts 17.31 who was adjudged by man unto death died and was buried but rose again and shall come to judge Quick and Dead whose sentence shall stand for ever good so he hath a Prerogative Royall peculiar to himself for others last wills are by other men decided if any thing of controversy arise concerning them No man is judge in the case and plea of right between those he hath made joint Legatees but one is the Testator and dieth another is the Judge and interpreter of the Testament whence it doth not seldom fall out that the Legatees are defeated of their right and lose the gift of their Friend and the mind of the Testator is not fulfilled because it is either not understood by the judge or because it must not be understood although indeed it is well enough known this therefore leaves some uncertainty in a man's claim and the event upon trial is sometime a disappointment But here is no such uncertainty in the event for he is Judge who is Testator and he is to declare his own mind of whom we expect the gift and who certainly doth well understand his own mind Besides in expecting and claiming the Legatee shall assuredly have all the favour shewed him that hee needeth It is a rule in law that wills should be interpreted in the more favourable sense That love which was so great to give the Legacy will be great enough to adjudge it to the Legatee Moreover it is not possible that a case should arise between the Legatees of Christ wherein the one should gain and the other lose for such are the gifts of Christ that they are intire and whole to each one none hath the less for any ones having much so the controversy shall never be but between the soul and its unbeleif fears and doubts between the soul and Satan accusing and impleading it And in this case Christ being Judge of his own Will you may soon say what favourable gracious and merciful judgement he will give and how surely he will adjudge their title good whose faith love and desires sue for it to him Awaken thy self then and look on what sure ground thou standest who hast Promises so full of certainty and unchangeable truth Let thy soul admit no more unbelief than the Promises confirmed by Christ framing them into his last VVill and Testament do admit uncertainty Let not unbelief enter until thou seest uncertainty attend thine expectation from the Will of Christ Reason with thy soul propose the case to thy serious thoughts At a Sacrament I do remember the Death of my Lord Dying and making his VVill wherein is given to me all that which the Sacrament representeth to me remission of sin peace in believing strength to walk with God and after my drinking this wine with his people at his Table Luke 22. The drinking it new with him in his Father's Kingdom This Ordinance is as all other Ordinances of Christ are exceeding full of grace for every one that heartily willeth it and this fulness of grace is bequeathed by VVill this VVill valid and to be judged if any case arise by him who made it Come then Will Christ think you enervate his own Will Can it be imagined that he will not see it performed who lives to be his own Executor who would make no other if he were now to die and make his VVill again Fear not oh believing soul thy claim will be adjudged good doubt not thy Plea of right he is Judge who gave thee the right stagger not through unbeleef He did designedly give thee all assurance possible not to prevent any unfaithfulness in himself but to prevent all infidelity in thee Not to confirm his own word by any new arguments or new bonds which might be sure to hold if others did break for his word and promise is faithfullness and truth but to confirm thy faith and that if unbeleef broke through some yet it might not break through others if it did prevail with the soul against any one it might not prevail against every one of the encouragements and perswasives to believe Weigh well the certainty of those promises which are confirmed by the last will of such I say of such a Testator who changeth not who cannot be overruled by any superiour Judge and then say how great your perswasion of the truth of them should be It should be great faith that hath such great assurance and strong perswasion which hath such perswasives Oh that our faith were porportioned to the ground of faith laid down before us in this very matter there can be no colour of doubt where these grounds and perwasives of our belief are rationally considered Bring therefore to the Sacrament an extract of the promises set them in order before your eyes see them all summarily contained in that one clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luc. 22.20 This is
he will farther proceed These being but the beginnings of sorrows are a part of the Curse issuing from the Law and inflicted by one who hath power to fence his Law by them Thus Christ exposed himself to the sad consequences of our imputed guilt and being pleased to interrpose himself between us and the praevious penalties of our sin was made a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs whilst he did bear our griefs and carry our sorrows Isa 53.3 4. The oppression and injustice he did meet with from the world was a fruit of that Curse he was made for us These things did he suffer in life whose love to us brought him to bear the Curse 3. Thirdly Christ made a Curse for us compriseth the exquisite pains and open shame of his Death for our sin It is death which is most legibly the execution of the Curse of the Law on sinners and as then they find themselves accursed indeed when their own guilt hath in death overtaken them so he that made himself a Curse for them found in his death on the Cross the weight of that Curse which he did bear for sinners Therefore do I suppose it was by Divine Providence ordered that the kind of death Christ did undergo should be in the sentence of the Law an accursed death that we might more clearly discern the import of it and see as our deliverance by it so our danger without this death of Christ He was cut off from the land of the living Isa 53.8 And when this was effected it appeared that for the transgression of his people this stroke was upon him as that verse hath it Though the impenitent sinner be alwaies under the smaller measures of a Curse yet when he dieth Solomon observeth he dieth accursed The sufferings our Lord Jesus Christ underwent in his life were likewise the scattering drops But the black and violent showre of our deserved Curse was poured down on him at his Death Fourthly and lastly Christ made a Curse and in death bearing it was to suffer under the strokes of vindictive Justice pleading the cause and vindicating the honour of the Law and Law-giver which by the transgressions of sinners had been contemned and violated This as hath been observed already is one ingredient in the Curse and herein do chastlsements greatly differ from punishments strictly taken for in chastisements there is no vindictive justice avenging the quarrel in order to satisfie Divine Justice to attone the wrath of God it is all in order to the humbling melting purifying us that we may seek and obtain mercy But now when vindictive punishments strictly taken are executed it is in order to the cutting off and destruction of the obdurate sinners they as enemies lying under the wrath of God and his curse which is most evident in the execution of the last unchangeable sentence of Condemnation past upon the impenitent unbelieving and self-destroying world at the day of God's dreadful Judgment Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Matth. 25.41 You do not I hope doubt whether it be the veâ—geance of an angry God which the damned in Hell suffer and there is as little ground of doubt whether they suffer this vengeance in Hell to satisfie the Divine Justice neither is it to be doubted but all they suffer is comprised in that Curse pronounced Depart from me cursed Now then answerable to what hath been said as the condemned under their own deserved Curse suffer in order to satisfie Divine vindictive Justice for their own offences so Christ made a Curse and bearing the Curse for us did bear it in order to make satisfaction for us that we might obtain deliverance and that avenging wrath might not fall on our heads since that we are no more under the Curse deserved by us but under the Blessing procured for us by Christ He trod the wine-press of his Father's wrath alone his stripes were so smart and grievous that by them we might be healed Isa 53.5 God did not spare him when he gave him up for us Rom. 8. Let this then suffice for these particulars In summe To be made or bear the Curse is to stand charged with guilt to be threatned with punishment to be cut off by the execution of that punishment to the end Justice may be satisfied on the person who is made a Curse So that you may now see what it was that Christ was made for us and what he underwent for our sakes He took upon him our sins in the guilt of them exposed himself to the dreadful threats of a severe but most righteous Law and whereas sin inevitably must be punished he submitted himself to that also and in love to us saved us from ours by his own punishment wherein he satisfied Divine Justice and averted that Curse which inevitably would have fallen on us from the wrath of God provoked against us by our sins by this 't is clear Into this capacity he put himself the Law found him and under this capacity process went out against him and he died for us to redeem us from the Curse and to invest us with the Blessing I pass now to the second thing proposed viz. To the confirmation and proof of this 2d General proposed That Christ did die thus for us a curse was both threatned and executed upon him 2 Cor. 5. ult He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us There is an elegancy in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He made him sin The Apostle doth not say he made him a sinner but he made him sin that it might the more evidently appear how he did bear what was threatned against sin the Curse coming on us as an effect or consequent of sin He who was made sin for us exposeth himself to that sad effect and taketh on him the Curse due to us and being found so charged must die to remove the Curse from us This Text of the Apostle in effect then saith That Christ had our sins imputed to him bore the Curse of them and that for our good viz. That we might be made the righteousness of God in him That we might be accounted and treated as righteous ones which in effect is the same with what we have already said That Christ was made a Curse and so died for us that we might with righteous ones live and possess the blessing It is not to be doubted that Christ made sin for us was thereby made a Curse for us and therefore died bearing that effect of our sin vindicating the honour of the Law which we had transgressed and satisfying the Law-giver whom we had provoked In a word Christ made sin for us underwent the Curse our sin deserved and the Law threatned that in our stead he might satisfie Justice and that mercy might give the blessing which we needed and the Gospel promiseth or in the Apostle's own words that the blessing of
chuse a Curse to himself The Jews had a Proverb that we must leap to Mount Gerizzim When God tells the soul it must either dwell on Mount Eball inherit a Curse or be willing to be led by Christ unto Mount Gerizzim it begins to say Let me go not a slow a loitering pace but the swiftest the speediest it is ready to leap to the Blessing Let me be any thing but a Curse let me by any means escape the Curse and if by a willingness if by an hearty desire to have Christ I may escape it oh let this very hour be the happy hour of my soul's escape Lord if it be so I accept thy Son my blessed Saviour offered in the Sacrament to bear my Curse There is a strong propensity in man's nature carrying him wtth great desire and with unwearied endeavours to shun the hard speeches of all and to hear a good report if it might be from all to be blessed by every one to be cursed by no one And there is a cheerful forward willingness to hearken to that advice and counsel which discovers how we may likely gain the good word of good men and escape the hard words of all men Now God proposes in Christ thus dying A sure way of obtaining his blessing which is infinitely better than the blessing of any man and in the Sacrament of his Son's body proposeth a sure means for our escaping from his Curse which is infinitely more to be feared than the curses of all men God can load thee with one Curse more than all the men in the world can do with all theirs 3. In Christ's Death considered as a Curse there is yet farther somewhat to engage the Desires of the soul unto Christ and to draw forth it 's willingness unto an embracing of Christ And that is the infallibility and certainty of our deliverance from this Curse upon our receiving Christ thou mayest be sure to escape for thou mayest be sure Christ will not lose his life if he die he will accomplish his own ends and thy hopes and the hopes of every believing soul by his death He hath indeed laid down his life but he hath not lost it He will not leave thee under uncertain and failing likelihoods if he makes himself liable to thy punishment he will be sure that thy soul shall escape it And if he bear thy Curse he will be ensured thou shalt not bear it Now having such a good as this deliverance and such an evil as the Curse in thy eye and such a sure and infallible means of escaping the one and obtaining the other Canst thou oh considerate oh discerning soul do less than desire this Christ this share and interess in his death If thou hadst no more than faint probabilities that it might be so well with thee thou wouldst in other cases strongly desire to try oh why not in this why not here other probabilities can awake perswade prevail and carry thee through tedious Journies and costly experiments and thou justifiest thy hopes and thy desires with the likelihood of success And what is the reason whence is it that so great certainty can do so little with thee in this oh the deplorable stupidity of man the sensless backwardness of his heart oh think I say think on it Jesus Christ was made and died a Curse for thee and it is certain thou mayest escape by him awaken thy desires and look after him But lastly 4. If thou yet wilt not desire Christ notwithstanding all that hath been said already yet at least consider with thy self and bethink thy self What dost thou here if thou desire not Christ Why art thou among them that apprehend they needed who do in the Sacrament commemorate and seek to find Christ dying and bearing the Curse for them If thou need him not why dost thou pretend to seek him if thou seek him why dost thou not really desire to find and meet him Consider this and argue it with thy soul say I must either contradict my self the ordinance and the people of God or I must be willing to receive Christ the Lord into my soul as well as to receive the symbols of Christ my Lord into my mouth and hands I hear and know that others do approach this Table this memorial of the Dying Jesus with desires to meet him and to exchange with him to bring their wretchedness and carry with them his blessedness I know if I know the Ordinance that it was appointed for the hungry thirsty desiring soul which would have fresh remembrances and vigorous longings for Christ for them who would feel their own cursedness and seek blessedness in Christ and my very presence my very approach to the Ordinance with others will either argue and prove me a Hypocrite or must awaken my desires after Christ if thou art not willing to find thou art an Hypocrite for seeming to seek And I will tell thee take it as thou wilt Thou that art not willing to find a blessing in Christ whom thou shouldst desire to meet in the Sacrament shalt find a curse which thou wouldst not Remember Judas and tremble Who doth cordially and truly seek the Lord shall find what he seeketh but he that is careless wants a willingness and desire shall find what he thinks not of and woe to him that finds and meets with Judas his guest at the Lord's Table And now give me thy thoughts Reader whether this should awaken in quicken thy willingness and thy desires after Christ And yet farther in the next place Closer application faster hold 3d. Sacramental grace Faith and strengthened resolutions to adhere to Christ do very well become this Ordinance of the Lord's Supper none have doubted or denied this but those who have denied all its efficacy and made the Sacrament a weak and impotent Ceremony Every one acknowledgeth this as the undoubted and proper fruit of this Ordinance who expect any fruit from it This spiritual feast was made to unite the soul and Christ in a more firm and close bond of friendship to incorporate them and to make them more one It was instituted that the memory of our great advantage by it Vt ejus ope tanti beneficii memoria magis ac magis in animis nojtris infigatur Thes Salm. Multa sunt quae nos co ducunt ut existimemus Christum habuisse potissimum eum scopum ante oculos ut fidem nostram augeret ac confirmaret cum ritum istum Ecclesiae tradidit celebrandum Thes de usu coen Dom. th 11. might be more deeply rooted in our hearts The Learned Professors at Saumur tell us Many things lead us to this perswasion that Christ chiefly eyed the increase and confirmation of our Faith as the end when he appointed this Ordidinance to his Church to be celebrated A true and lively Faith fits for receiving this Supper of the Lord and an increasing confirmed Faith shews that this Ordinance is fitly received We must not
bearing his sin its curse and punishment that Justice may not lay any sentence of condemnation upon it but absolve and acquit justifie and save it Where can the soul better rest and congratulate its happiness in its rest than in a pacified propitious God Tell me who ere thou art reading or hearing these lines canst thou desire more than happiness Is any thing greater and better in thy wishes Certainly either thou knowest not what thou answerest or else dost answer it is thy greatest dailyest hourly desire and that the man or woman who would assure thee of this would fill thy heart with raptures of joy Now behold these desires answered in the Lord Jesus dying to remove that Curse which kept thee from thy happiness If Joy be the enlarging of the heart to entertain a desired good lo here a good worth the entertaining Christ bearing thy Curse lo here a good so great that no heart but an enlarged heart can rightly entertain it Oh be perswaded to receive it and tell me then what affection it raiseth in thy soul Certainly he never feared because he never knew the danger of Hell who doth not greatly rejoyce in his deliverance and escape from it Open but thy heart to receive and thy Joy will as surely break out as the streams do when the springs and fountains are opened Secondly Christ dying a Curse for thee will heighten thy Joy For whatever thou canst approve a ground of Joy in other mens rejoycing without this thou mayest much more approve in thine own rejoycing in this without any other There is very much Joy in the world which is unseemly and there is some which is justifiable seemly and seasonable but whatever makes it so seemly that and much more is in the Death of Christ dying an accursed Death for us to justifie and warrant the Christian 's Joy I dare stand to plead the Christian's Joy to excel on this account as much as the Joy for recovery of a Crown and Kingdom doth excel the Joy of a wise man for the finding of a Pin. Could a Christian enlarge his Joy to the exceeding greatness of his cause of Joy it would incomparably excel all other mens Joy as much as the recovery from a mortal wound excels the healing of a scratcht finger Indeed all other Joy without this is the unseemly Joy of fools or madmen but this without all other is Joy of wise considerate and knowing men and might we enter the comparison it would appear what trifles men of the world how great soever and how wise soever in the account of the world do rejoice in It is reported of Francis the first recovering the French shore upon his delivery out of his Captivity Je suis le Roy. That he leapt and rejoyced with this I am a King And who that values liberty or safety or power or a Kingdom censureth him for it or doubts whether it were seemly But oh believing soul thou seest at a Sacrament a worse prison a more doleful Captivity crueller enemies and more deadly dangers left behind thee and thou set at liberty in a more blessed safety and entitled to a Crown and Kingdom as much better as Heaven is better than France was and this by Christ's Death as it was an accursed Death to free thee from the Curse The men of the world rejoice in their full harvests The victorious Conqueror rejoiceth in the dividing of the spoils The ambitious Courtier rejoiceth in his Court-preferment But what Joy will the Barns and Stores of the wealthy man be when he dies the accursed Death and with Dives is tormented in endless fires Will the Joy of the preferred Courtier continue to him under the disgrace which he shall fall into when God shall arrest imprison condemn and execute him as an accursed wretch What will become of the Joys of Victories and Triumphs when the Crowns shall wither before the hot displeasure of God and when the crowned Conqueror shall be delivered up an accursed wretched prisoner and captive in eternal chains In few words there are many daggers lifted up and striking at the Joy of every man who rejoiceth in any thing but the Cross of Christ and first or last some one or other of these daggers will reach the heart and let out the life of such Joys But the Believer's Joy in the Death of Christ dying a Curse for him is a Joy which is immortal and cannot be destroyed It is a Joy will most gloriously crown the Believer when other mens Joys do most shamefully forsake deceive and torture them If then any may rejoice the Believer may much more and this he may do at every remembrance of his Redeemer's dying a Curse for him And such renewed remembrance of our cause of Joy will undoubtedly renew our Joy he may rejoice still more than yet he hath rejoiced who seeth he hath more to rejoice in than all the jovial merry world ever shall have Thirdly Renewed Meditations of Christ's dying such a Death for us will renew our Joy appeareth from this That our Joy will be most full satisfactory and transporting to us when we come to the distinctest fullest and liveliest knowledge and apprehension of this Death of Christ They who most fully apprehend and who most particularly apply the Benefits of this Death to themselves who live upon it and know what life it is how excellent how happy c. These are fullest of purest Joy and truly as we abate in our ability and skill to meditate on this Death of Christ or as we abate in the exercise and actual meditation and thought of Christ's dying for us as a Curse the more our Joy will abate also The Saints in glory do now rejoice and will forever rejoice for they do ever behold the scars which this Curse hath left in Christ they ever remember that Christ dying a Curse hath given them that blessed Life in which they ever shall rejoice Now what it hath wrought on them and what it will work one day upon us proveth to us what it might work in us at the present It hath now all in it which it ever will have but we have not all in us which we shall have when this dying of our Lord shall fill us with a never-dying or abating love to him who did it and with Joy in the thing done for us The reason why the Believer rejoiceth more in the sight of Christ dying a Curse for him as his distinct knowledge of it groweth is not that his knowledge addeth any thing to it but because his knowledge of it now maketh more of that Death which appeared not so much then to his own eye so his Joy groweth with his knowledge But now it is not so with other Joys they lessen as our knowledge of them increaseth and those which at distance we flattering our selves hoped would be pure and deep sweet and lasting as a Crystal stream prove to us when we come nearer and