thee impute thy sin to Christ justice will impute it unto thy own self View these these things and weigh them impartially possibly they may prevail to the convincing of the heart of its sinful state and of the certainty of a future imputation of sin unless it be prevented by repentance And lest thou shouldst flatter thy self that there is little or no danger in appearing before God under imputed sin I advise thee to consider Sect. 3. The greatness of thy danger as it will appear in thy Sacrifice See if thou mayest not descry 1. Death as certainly following thy Sacrifice as imputation of sin did follow the substitution of a Sacrifice He must die who took thy sin upon him he cannot escape who is thy Sacrifice If Christ taking thy sin on him could not have the Cup pass from him thinkest thou there can be any thing but death awaiting thee under thy sin is not here danger is not here great danger I know not what may be accounted danger if death be not I know not what is greatest danger if death under imputed sin be not 2. Was not the Death of Christ thy Sacrifice full of sorrows and grief he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Isa 53.3 and if his life were spent in sorrows I am sure his death was full of them Look on him his in agony in the garden explain me the meaning of those unparalleld drops of blood tell me the story of his enemies cruelly buffetting spitting crowning him with thorns and forcing those into his tender temples his blessed head These were preparatory griefs was ever grief like this this thy sin deserved this thou must if Christ had not suffered thou must have been the scorn and triumph of Devils who forever would torment and wrack thee What then judgest thou of death thus aggravated what thinkest thou of the grief and pain of his soul when hands and feet were nailed to the Cross when he hanged there under the sharp pains of a lingriug death what grief was that breath'd out it self in that My God My God why hast thou forsaken me I speak not of the acuteness of his pains which the School-men speak of Let me obtain thy sober thoughts of the sorrows of our Dying Saviour and Sacrifice and then say whether there is danger and how great the danger of thy sin is then say canst thou think of thy danger without fear and astonishment what will become of sinners under the burthen of sorrows which their sins deserve and God will heap upon them 3. View the person who thus suffered view him I say in all his Interresse in the Father's love in all the Priviledges of his nature person and office in all the perfection and excellency of his obedience and see whether any one or all these could exempt him from or defend him against that flame thy sins had kindled and which his blood alone must quench or it will burn for ever and when thou hast thought of this then tell me thy danger 4. Was not his power and strength the power and the strength of a God united to the Humane Nature to support it and yet for all this his Fears Dangers Sorrows were enough to try all his power and albeit he conquered yet not without a bitter conflict How then couldest thou have escaped or born these dangers Thus make an unconvinced heart look on sin in it's Sacrifice make a self flattering secure fearless heart look on the certainty and greatness of it's own danger in the sorrows and grief which fell upon Christ our Sacrifice when thou hast proceeded thus far in this Matter bring thy self to determine these two things 1. whether thou canst bear all the misery which sin deserved and all the sorrows this Sacrifice did sustain Canst thou bear the displeasure of the Almighty if thou think'st thou canst I pity and mourn for thee if thou thinkest thou canst not then 2. say canst thou find out a way for thine escape if the infinit wise God hath not found out any expedient beside this dost thou think thou canst find it out well then if it be intollerable and thou canst not bear it if unavoidable and thou canst not fly from it what remaineth but being shut up under sin as the Scripture speaketh thou shouldst also be shut up in Prison reserved for the day of Execution without any hope in thy self for thou readest thy guilt in the Imputation of sin to thy sacrifice thou readest thy death and danger in the death of thy sacrifice thou readest despair in the unsupportableness of the misery and in the unavoidableness of it's approaches thou art undone and miserable in thy self which cannot but end in consternation of mind and amazement and likely may break out into such enquiries who can dwell with devouring Fire with everlasting Burnings who shall deliver us from wrath to come how shall I escape such great misery what shall I do to be saved Is there not yet Balm in Gilead is there not a Physician there may not this wound be healed dost thou begin thus to fear and enquire I send thee to this Sacrifice for hope and help Sect. 4. 4. Although the death of thy Sacrifice did preach thy danger and thy helpless state in thy self yet doth it also preach help for thee in another it proclaimeth hope of escape for here is a Sacrifice for sin and where a Sacrifice is admitted the offence may possibly be remitted and the offender may be reconciled They that sought out and prescribed their own sacrifices for their Gods maintained their false hopes by this mean And the carnal Jew mistaking the nature of his sacrifices kept up his presumptuous hopes by the same means concluding his peace was made because the sacrifice is offered But he among the Jews who understood the Institution Nature End and Use of the Propitiatory Sacrifices did obtain at first and did maintain unto the last a sound peace between his God and his soul Where there is an appointed sacrifice there is an open and plain declaration of our apprehensions that 1. Our sins are expiable 2. That sacrifice is the way of expiation And 3. That this sacrifice is believed by us fit to expiate our offence These are the common if not universal suppositions of all sacrificing offenders Now beside these common inducements of our hopes let me acquaint my Reader with two things 1. That God hath admitted this sacrifice whose Death we commemorate in the Sacrament Albeit he checked the formal Jew and rejected the Idolatrous Heathen and their sacrifices witha Who hath required this at your hands yet he never will discourage any one who tenders to him by a hand of faith this Propitiatory Sacrifice He will admit this if thou canst present it to him by faith Lift up therefore the feeble hands the drooping head the fainting heart there is hope nay assurance that sins may be expiated For 2. This Sacrifice is of God's own
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
see then it is self-deceiving flattery to hope for the love and favour of God whilst I love my sin and continue in it if I will have his love and escape his hatred I must leave off sin for he hateth all the workers of iniquity Psal 5.6 He hateth the evil way Prov. 8.3 I must either leave the evil way or perish in his hatred For none ever escaped perishing who by continuing to sin provoked his displeasure and wrath against them Resolve therefore as becomes a man O my soul fly and hasten thy flight from wrath to come prevent the misery of being hated and accursed of thy God cast off thy sin cease to do evil and then God will cease to be angry There cannot be any thing in sin to compensate thee to reward thee for the loss of the favour of God Sin can never heal the wounds which the hatred of God will make in thy soul Poor creature thou wert better have all the men on Earth and all the finite invisible powers of light and darkness to hate thee thou mightest bear this than have one God to hate thee thou canst never bear this In fine therefore saith the believing serious and considerate soul I will not hazard I will not run the venture and danger of divine displeasure of the hatred of an Almighty God for I see in the Curse which my Lord lay under what I must lie under for ever if I will by continuing longer in sin own my former sins pull the punishment of them upon my self and love that which my God so perfectly hateth I will every day labour to hate that with perfect hatred which my God hateth I will seek his love by a present separation and divorce from sin I will this day renew my purpose and attempts to leave my cursed sins for God hath renewed my thoughts of his hatred against sin by the renewed remembrance of Christ dying a Curse for my sin Fourthly In the renewed thoughts of this kind of death The Believer hath the renewed sight and evidence of a death hanging over the head of every sinner which of all deaths is the most dreadful which is fullest of horrours and soul-tormenting fears Death is the King of terrours though represented and cloathed in the lest dreadful manner it can be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotel No kind of death but is terrible enough but of all this is the most terrible and only to be feared it is this at the heels of the other that makes it dreadful It is a most undoubted truth that every one continuing to sin and so dying shall die under a Curse for his own sin though the sinner should live to an hundred nay to many hundred years yet if he live and die a servant to his sin he shall die accursed and this we may be sufficiently assured of by the accursed Death of our Lord for he died so for as much as the sins of God's Elect and chosen ones were laid to him he was loaded with them and all the guilt of them was charged on him and therefore was he punished therefore he died in such a manner He was made a Curse because the guilt of our sins was laid on him and punishment due to that guilt inflicted on him Nothing more certain He was wounded for our transgressions Isa 53.5 He bare the sin of many ver 12. He his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree 1 Pet. 2.24 And all this evidently set forth before our eyes so that the serious and considering soul soon comes to this conclusion that whoever doth bear the guilt of sin he must die a Curse for it and he needs no other proof of it but this Christ did bear guilt and this brought him to a cursed Death Now then he begins to argue the case with himself Can I continue in sin and not bear the guilt of sin Can I yield my self a servant to sin and yet not be accounted a servant of sin Can I do the works of iniquity and not be thought by judicious and wise men a worker of iniquity How much more will the just and righteous God occount me so When I do any fact for which the Law of man will call me to account can I do the fact and the Law not impute it to me It is most sottish folly to continue in the service of sin and to flatter my self that I shall not be accounted a servant of sin or to hope I shall not be loaded with the guilt of my sin And it is no less folly to think that we may lye under the guilt of sin and yet not sink under the importable burthen of a Curse No no either I must leave my sinning or I must die that Death which of all is the most terrible I must be a Curse under the wrath of God Now therefore resolve what thou and I shalt do God proposeth a Christ dying a Curse for thee to encourage thee to leave sin or to shew thee what thou must trust to if thou live in sin He preacheth to thee this Doctrine Life through Grace if thou wilt obey if thou wilt renounce thy evil way for then thy Saviour shall be thy Peace bear thy Guilt and endure thy Curse or else Death if thou wilt still refuse to convert and leave thy sin And let me tell thee it is Death with a Curse and consider thou whether thou canst endure it and let me ask thee these few questions 1. Dost thou not believe that there is somewhat more in Death when it is sharpened with this sharp and piercing sting Dost thou not think that the Curse doth add unto the dread and fear of Death When God proclaimeth any one blessed in death dost thou not perswade thy self that God taketh away much of the terrour of death if so then certainly when God addeth a Curse with death he addeth terrour to it and thou must confess it also if thou wilt consider it Now then say Canst thou contentedly think of dying for thy sin Canst thou think of doing more than dying for thy sins Vntil that time be come wherein thou canst say thou wouldest be willing to suffer more than death for sin thou should'st not be willing to serve sin any more in thy life I know when we come to die we shall judge sin unworthy of such a pledge of love or service as one pang or one fear or one sigh for its sake oh then we shall say He loved sin too much who for sin's sake added the lest pang to death Whatever thou dost therefore leave to sin lest tlou add the misery of a Curse to thy death 2. Let me ask thee Is there no manner of dying which is a terrour to thee more than ordinary If thou wert now to die and mightest chuse thy death wouldst thou chuse any that were full of pains or loathsomness or both these continuing long Are there not some kinds of death from which
giving them rich Legacies At a Sacrament we may and should view Jesus Christ the Blessed One nailed to the Cross loaded with a Curse and dying an accursed Death that we might escape it Thus we owe our Peace to his Sacrifice our spiritual treasure to his will and testament our blessed hope and life to his accursed Death and by particular reflections on these we should awaken exercise and improve our graces The facilitating this work and the attaining this effect is the design of the following Discourse which doth first endeavour to promote grace by a particular improvement of Christ's Dying a Sacrifice for us let us then the other two having their due place begin with this great truth Our Lord Died a Sacrifice for us and under this notion ought we to commemorate his Death and in meditating thereon we may make an improvement of grace That I may proceed distinctly I resolve the whole subject into these following particulars 1. The general proof and confirmation of his DYing as a Sacrifice or Victim for us Cap. 1. 2. How this could be that a man should be a Sacrifice for us Cap. 2. 3. What particularly is contained in this being made a Sacrifice and so dying Cap. 3. 4. That these are fit foundation to lay for Sacramental graces and how our graces may be increased awakened confirmed and acted in due meditation on Christ our Sacrifice Cap. 4. seq CAP. I. Christ died a Sacrifice for us prefigured THE Holy Scriptures do abundantly testifie to us that Christ our Lord died our Sacrifice and Victim and so do the writings of all Christians who have treated of our Redemption and Salvation by Christ if you would have forein testimonies you require what is not needful and should we attempt to seek them we should lose our time and labour for no other Pen maketh mention of this but the Scriptures and the Pens which write after this Copy Now among other arguments the Scripture affordeth us these five for proof of Christ's Dying a Sacrifice 1. The Type 2. Prophecies 3. Promises 4. Historical declaration of it 5. Assuming it as a matter unquestionably true and certain of all which briefly in their order Sect. 1. This manner of Christ's Death viz. as a Sacrifice was prefigured and foreshewn in the Type thereof The very enemies of this Doctrine do not quite deny this though they doubt Socin lib. 2. c. 8. de Servatore or deny some particular places to refer hereto Let us however look to some few places of Scriptures where we may find Christ our Sacrifice in his Death typified out to us 1 Cor. 5.7 Christ our Passover is slain for us The allusion used by the Apostle proves that the old Paschal Lamb was a type of Christ and that Christ was the Antitype of the Paschal Lamb. Again Joh. 1.24 The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world whether in reference to the Lamb daily offered or whether to the Paschal Lamb it altereth not the case It is a Lamb and a Lamb that must be slain in Sacrifice yea in an Expiatory Sacrifice to take away the sin of the world We are assured Heb. 9.22 that without sheding of blood there is no remission and we are sure 't is not every sheding of blood but it is the sheding of the blood of a Sacrifice which procureth remission of sins and this blood-sheding was not by opening and breathing a vein but by dying to take away sin The Baptist then applying unto Christ that antient and lively type telleth us that Christ was prefigured in his state life and death by it And that Heb. 9.23 24. tells us of patterns of things in the Heavens v. 23. and of figures of the True v. 24. yea v. 8 9. the whole Tabernacle and the service of it were a figure for the time then present Among other services that of Sacrifices is specified as a figure serving for the present until Christ should come and enter into the Holy Place without blood of Bulls and Goats but by his own blood v. 11 12 14. In a word the whole of Mosaical positive instituted service was a figure and type This part of the Law had the shadow of good things to come Heb. 10. v. 1. In Sacrificiis id manifestissimum quae Sacrificium expiationem Messiae praesignificabant Joh. Hoornbeek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de convertend Judaeis lib. 7. c. 1. pag. 452. This very thing is most manifest in the Sacrifices which did presignifie the Sacrifice and Expiation of the Messiah as the Learned Hoornbeek hath rightly observed to our hands from all which I do not ill to conclude that he died a Sacrifice to take away sin who was praesignified by the Dying Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law Sect. 2. Secondly It was foretold and by the Prophetick impulses of the infallible Spirit of God revealed to the Church of old that the Messiah should die and particularly that he should die a Sacrifice to expiate sin in this cause we have among others the testimonies of the Prophet Isaiah Isa 53.7 cap. 53.7 He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter where possible may be more than a general symbolizing between the Innocency Humility and Sufferings of the Lamb slain and Christ typified thereby like enough there is a particular symbolizing between them both as they were Sacrifices the footsteps whereof I might trace out somewhat in 1. the word slaughter which Prov. 9.2 seemeth to be determined to the slaying of a Sacrifice And 2. in the word he is brought which Isa 18.7 expresseth the bringing of a present to the Lord. But much more in the word 3. Lamb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used Lev. 5.7 12.8 22.28 Deut. 18.3 which is the very word that expresseth the Paschal Lamb Exod. 12.3 5. which was a Lamb to be sacrificed Deut. 16.6 And 4. from the place which parallel to this Act. 8.32 He was led as a Lamb to the slaughter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what kind of slaying this was A pecudum mactatione 72. alio nomine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocarunt Amos 5. v. 25. Cloppenb Schol. Sacrif pag. 3. let Rev. 13.8 determine where it is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world Isa 53.10 If this be not full enough to our purpose yet the 10th verse affordeth a plain and express Prophecy of the Messiah's dying a Sacrifice Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin Indeed the Hebrews read it conditionally if or when but then adds a promise what shall be the fruit and effect of his Dying a Sacrifice Now we do see the promise fulfilled in the numerous seed of Christ therefore with reason we conclude the condition performed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Si posuerit hostiam pro peccato reatu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proprie est dâ—lictum per Metonymiam significat oblationem pro delicto
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
for his own sin but for our sin Nimirum hostia fuit pro peccator non suo sed nostro Joh. Hoornbeek Socin Conf. Vol. 2. l. 3. cap. 1. Or if these places seem to be more obscure than to be clearly discerned by you who read them yet when you read that he is our High Priest Heb. 8.1 a minister of the true Tabernacle which the Lord pitched ver 2. That he was ordained to offer sacrifice answerably to the type ver 3. and all this by God's appointment either find me out a more likely sacrifice or conclude with me that he did by divine ordination offer up himself a sacrifice for us In the Apostle's words Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hands c. Neither by the blood of Goats and Calves but by his own blood he entred in once into the holy place c. Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God c. Heb. 9.11 12 14. In these words I say my doubts find a full answer My God tells me it was done and if my reason do not comprehend why it should or how it could be done yet it subscribeth the certainty which is revealed and the congruity of it because he hath done it who doth all things with wisdom and holiness Sect. 4. I answer that whoso will compare Christ with others in this case compareth those who cannot be found just equals there is a very great disparity between our Lord Jesus and any other who shall be compared with him and therefore I doubt not to averr that there must be allowed as great disparity in the thing debated as there was disparity between the persons albeit none else might yet he might do this extraordinary thing There are four things wherein he excelled all others As First He was absolute Lord of his own life he had power to lay it down for his if he so pleased John 10.18 I have power to lay it life downe This is more than an ordinary person can say of his owne life which he is accountable for to many others as to Governours Relations and such as he may benefit for whom he should live Christ therefore might manifest by an unusual and Extraordinary disposall of his life how he was more then ordinary men can be Master of his life Secondly He had power in his own hand to raise himself from the dead which is more then the combined power of created Agents could do for any man that should yield himself a Sacrifice for others He had power to take up his life again John 10.18 now this doth alter the case much others may not because they cannot rescue themselves from Death He might for having laid down his life and died for his he might resume his life and live as he doth to the unspeakable good and safety of his Thirdly He had special commission from God to do this Joh. 10.18 Now undoubtedly where the authority of the Father concurreth with the authority of the Son there can be no reasonable question asked why Christ might become a sacrifice for us when we may not become sacrifices for others The case is infinitely different 4. Fourthly and lastly Christ was Sacrificer as well as Sacrifice and that no ordinary person could say for himself if any other be made a Sacrifice the Sacrificer must be some other man who is under a strict law of God not to lay his hand on the life of his Brother so that if a strong impulse moved me to be Sacrifice for other yet as strong Prohibition lay on him not to touch my life But in this extraordinary Person both do concur he is the Lamb of God slain and he the great high Priest to offer it unto God Next I am engaged to enquire what is comprized in every such Sacrifice dying for him that offereth it and so what particularly is comprized in Christ's dying a Sacrifice for us In answer to this I conceive that every such sacrifice doth comprize really or intentionally these six things of which briefly Sect. 1. 1. Substitution or being set in the stead and room of the person or persous for whom it was to be offered Lev. 1.4 who brought the sacrifice was required to put his hand upon the head thereof and it should be accepted for him And Levit. 4.15 They must put their hand on the head of the Bullock c. by which ceremony was denoted the substitution of the sacrifice in the stead of him who brought it As in the substitution of the Levites for the service of the Temple instead of the first-born of all Israel Numb 8.10 The children of Israel shall put their hands upon the Levites for they are wholly given unto me from among the children of Israel instead of such as open the womb even instead of the first-born of all the children of Israel have I taken them unto me ver 16. Here the substitutions of these persons is signified by laying on of the hands of Israel so also in sacrifices Sect. 2. A second thing contained in a Sacrifice was the imputing or transferring of guilt and crime the Sacrifice stood charged with sin and guilt The Hebrews had the same name for sin and sacrifice as it is well known to every sinatterer in their tongue or customs and the Apostle doth imitate them when he affirmeth that Christ was made sin for us Lev. 10.16 2 Cor. 5.21 Rom. 8.3 for sin Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. a sacrifice for sin Levit. 16.16 The sin-offering did bear iniquity viz. the iniquity of the Congregation and the Scape-Goat had the sins of Israel put upon it Hazazel â—hircus peccati atque omnes iniquitates Israelis super illum sunt juxta illud feret c. Rabbi Eliezer and the Goat did bear the iniquity and carry it away into a land of forgetfulness Levit. 16.21 22. Whatever sacrifice for sin either the superstition and will-worship of men without direction from God did substitute in their own stead and did offer for their own sins on it they thought they did transferre both their crime and its guilt and hence promised an impunity to themselves And whatever Sacrifice by God's own appointment was offered for expiation of sin had certain ceremonies prescribed whereby was signified this transfering of guilt this imputing of the crimes of the offerers Sect. 3. 3. The Substitution Imputation were followed by a confession of the offerer acknowledging his offence against his God whom he did tacitly at least justify as one who was injured by the offence and who might justifiably destroy the offender Every one confessed his guilt who brought an Expiatory Sacrifice There needs no other evidence of my crime than my own entreaty that my Sacrifice may expiate for me who prays for a pardon confesseth by his guilt he needeth a pardon If the Poet had not spoken of transgressors and
appointment he provided it when we were at a loss and could not find wherewith we should come before the Lord and bow our selves before the most High God when the fruit of our body could not expiate the sin of our soul when finite wisdom was non-plus'd then the Lord discover'd his Grace and Mercy and chose out a sacrifice for us he prepared this sacrifice We may as Abraham said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 varying the tense say God hath provided himself a Sacrifice This he shadowed out to us by prescribing all his Sacrifices This he telleth us when he saith He prepared a body for Christ when he saith He sent him and gave him to be a propitiation for us and sealed him c. and such like expressions He the Lamb of God because ordained of God was our Sacrifice These two things considered let the guilty convinced fearing and almost desponding soul debate the case against his own fears and distrusts Put such Questions to an issue 1. Shall I despair when I have a ground to hope Let him embrace his despondencies who cannot see a ground for hope my heart breaks not while my hope is whole and unbroken 2. Are not those hopes well bottom'd which are built on the assurance that sins my only dangers and fears are pardonable Cain perhaps would have hoped if he had apprehended his sin pardonable And I am bound to hope because God assureth me by this sacrifice that my sins are expiable and may be pardoned 3. Why is there an Expiatory Sacrifice admitted nay provided by God himself who is the supreme vindex culpae and who alone had jus poenae the power of executing punishment on the offenders Hath he appointed a Sacrifice to expiate my sin and can it be that my sin remaineth inexpiable unpardonable Is not that sacrifice sufficient which God himself sindeth out Away with unreasonable fears banish forever sinful distrust Here 's a Sacrifice to atone my offended Lord of his own providing and will he not accept it I will tender it I will mention it he will not refuse his own choice 4. Can any one be found who missed the benefit of a pardon that sought it in the blood of this Sacrifice Oh that I could believe and hope until I heard of one so disappointed then should I never be ashamed Hath he not put away sin by once offering of himself and hath he not by one sacrifice forever perfected those that believe that are sanctified 5. Am I not one who may betake my self to this sacrifice What should more hinder me than others Am I excepted out of the Act of Oblivion Why may not my sins be laid on this Sacrifice Do I not read that he liveth for ever to make intercession for those that come to God by him Oh glorious hope Intercession for all that come to God by him Then cheer up doubting heart here is a sacrifice for all that come to God by him for this Intercession is an act or exercise of Christ's Sacerdotal Office subsequent to and dependent upon his foregoing Sacrifice He sacrificeth for as many as he intercedeth if then the Intercession of Christ can impetrate and obtain favour it is because the Sacrifice of Christ hath expiated thy sin and crime Sect. 5. 5. Thus far Guilt Danger and Feares may by eyeing the Sacrifice convince the sinner how seasonable a good hope would be and this Sacrifice sheweth how good the believer's hope is Now would it well become the soul to humble it self and if thou find thy heart remain still proud and unhumbled ask it these Questions over thy Sacrifice 1. Canst thou be proud and yet be found worthy to die in thy Sacrifice can this be born wilt thou confess death is thy desert and yet bear up as if thou wert innocent and in no deserved danger 2. Canst thou be proud of any thing so long as thy life is the fruit of an Expiatory Sacrifice Thou livest by the death of another and wilt thou pride thy self as if thou neededst not any ones help 3. Canst thou confess guilt and yet profess a thought of worth in thy self How shameless is that pride which at the bar confesseth it's Guilt against the Law and advanceth it self against the Law-giver It is a most unseemly thing to behold a heart rising with pride and falling in a Sacrifice Let thy humility then sute thy state as it appeareth in thy Sacrifice and I dare say it will sute the state of thy soul in it's repentance and mourning for sin Sect. 6. 6. Fountains and Springs lye deep where the soul is laid thus low if it doth not freely and spontaneously weep bring it's Sacrifice into sight let that be viewed see it standing before an offended and displeased God who was provoked by thy sin look on it loaded with imputed guilt Alas my sin lyeth upon it observe thy Sacrifice falling before the Altar and say alas was not this for my sake should not I have fallen thus if he had not He bled and out of excess of love to me poured out his life for me he groaned sighed breath'd out his soul for my sake and could he do more alas have I brought my Sacrifice to this was ever man more unhappy to his friend to his Brother how hard are those stony Rocks how dry that flinty heart which gusheth not out with tears in Remembrance of these things My dearest Lord pity unrelenting soules and oh give a mourning heart that may be more equal in it's griefes and sorowes in it's teares and sympathies how many eyes weep at newes of an endangered troubled imprisoned and wrackt friend How many hearts are softned melted and broken with the sweats burning fits and Agonies of a dying man yea how many melting hearts and weeping eyes how many compassionate discourses on the death of some one deserving more than Law inflicts for his breach of the Law But how few over a suffering bleeding dying Saviour and Sacrifice whither are the compassions of men and women fled where may they be found where shall we seek or how shall we wooe and prevail with them Lo their friend and Lord charged with their guilt sweating under its weight groaning under its penalty sighing with sobs that drew blood out of his veins bleeding dying a Sacrifice loaded with our deserved punishment And few alas very few grieving hearts weeping eyes or mourners for their want of tears Lord give more that I may give some tears to wash thy bleeding wounds A second grace requisite to a Christian in the commemoration of the Lord's Death at the Lord's Supper 2d Grace Faith exercised and improved and improveable on consideration of Christ dying a Sacrifice is Faith a grace indisputably necessary to him that will come duly to that Ordinance and therefore I lay not out any time or pains on the proving thereof a grace well improveable by consideration of Christ dying our Sacrifice on which I intend to insist next
for future and doth for present sufficiently influence our Faith to quiet revive quicken and support the soul under fears languishings dulnesses and sufferings Go then aside and take a view of the particulars and meditate on them in the certainty which Christ suffering and dying our Sacrifice hath given to us concerning them and when thou hast so done observe well whether thou art not perswaded to believe in hope against hope and whether thou art not enabled to believe the Promises without staggering and to say thou faintest not because thy afflictions are light and yet do work out for thee a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while thou art able to look to and see both him that is and the things that are invisible such a Faith will be our victory by it we shall more than conquer Having discoursed somewhat on the Improvement of our Divine sorrow and our Faith in the Commemoration of Christ Dying our Sacrifice I have made way for the Improvement of our Peace and Quiet of soul likewise 3d. Grace improved viz. Peace of Soul for this is a sweet fruit of our sound Repentance and sincere faith and carry's a proportioned dimension with the increase of those Graces But I purpose to attempt a more particular discovery of the influence Christ's Death our Sacrifice hath upon the Tranquillity and Peace of the soul of a Communicant who discerneth this Death as it was a Sacrifice and under that notion improveth his Redeemer's love to him Now if I can shew my Reader that there is in this Sacrifice somwhat sufficient to remove all that disquieteth the soul I need take no further care to perswade an opinion that Peace will follow Let the storm cease and a calm will follow if the Earthquake end the old Foundations will stand firm and well setled Let that be removed which alarmed the soul and all will be in Peace Amongst other lesser which I pass over there are four grand disquietudes of the soul 1. Danger of divine displeasure and wrath in condemnation for our sin The drawn sword of Divine vengeance hanging over the head is enough to affright all peace out of the heart and to fill it with amazing horrour and overwhelming terrours How did Adam's fears seize him when his sin had laid him open to that threat Thou shalt die the death Gen. 2.17 then his guilty conscience did chase Ea conscientia est quae filgat terret accusat damnat Parentes nostros Certissimum testimonium Deum tandem ultorem futurum omnis mali Fagius in cap. 3. Gen. 8. affright accuse condem him forebode a severer Judge and Avenger whom he could not escape or shun whom he could not stand before whom he feareth and flieth The Apostle elegantly expresseth the disquietude of a self-condemning heart by the trouble of bondage Heb. 2.15 The fear of death kept them in bondage all their life the expectation of death was death to them or ere they died and they scarce lived because they continually tortured themselves with the preapprehensions of a hastening death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot which to secure nature is the greatest of terrours though ignorance of what is consequent to death did hide the most dreadful part of death from the eyes of nature Psal 55.4 Psal 116.3 yet in David's phrase terrours of death will make the heart sigh under pain and fill it with trouble and sorrow too unless the heart be assured of the the removal of guilt the freedom from condemnation Joh. 8.21 24. Rev. 2.11 that the man dieth not in his sins nor shall be hurt of the second death No man's heart was strong under the apprehensions of the wrath of an Almighty and Eternal God nor can the greatest cheats of the world I mean hypocrites who can counterfeit almost every thing put on the counterfeit of boldness Isa 33.15 when they see the everlasting burnings and the devouring fire they are then surprized with fearfulness 2. Loss of the wonted sweetness of Divine favour and the refreshing expresses which God by his spirit did formerly give to the soul When once the soul hath been favoured with an acquaintance and knowledg of a Heaven upon earth it cannot without disquietude live on earth without it's Heaven Darkness cannot but greatly afflict the soul which enlightned once did rejoice in the light of God's Countenance shining on it What is said of the great darkness which fell on Abraham in his sleep Gen. 15.12 may be verified of all the desertions which fall upon the children of Abraham they are attended with horrour and trouble When God hid his face from David he was troubled Psal 30.5 and his soul refused to be comforted Psal 77.2 his spirit was overwhelmed ver 3. so troubled he could not speak ver 4. All which proceeded from the spiritual desertion he then lay under God hath cast off and he feared it was for ever ver 7. that he would be favourable no more c. verse 8 and 9. So that when David had lost the sense of God's love he could find peace or joy in nothing about him An Idolater once expostulated with a great deal of trouble you have taken away my Gods and do you ask what aileth me But whilst we deride or pity his blindness we should resent the real troubles of the soul which hath lost the sense of the Love of his God and Father and indulge him in a more than usual trouble for the suspence or intermission of his desired rest and peace wherein he found though imperfect yet a growing happiness and in David's words expressed his felicity He heard the joyful sound and walked in the light of God's countenance Psal 89.15 but now feareth his misery will recall his former happiness only to prove him as much sunk in woes as he was exalted in joys above other men Miserrimum est fuisse felicem this disquieteth the soul that it hath been what now it is not blessed 3. Sense of sinful weakness and suspition of worse insincerity and want of uprightness in its duties and the exercises of its Devotion towards God are a trouble to the soul in its reflections on its services and examination of it self it seeth sin adhere to every one of its best workes and it seeth imperfection still dwelling in its perfectest graces so that when he findeth to will yet how to perform he findeth not as Rom. 7.18 On which observation of his defects he judgeth himself in a miserable perplexity and under apprehensions hereof crieth out wretched man that I am who shall deliver me c. ver 24. This worthlesness of persons and performances is the subject of the Church's complaints Isa 64.6 We are all as an unclean thing And our iniquities as the wind have taken us away iniquities saith David in his complaint prevail against me Psal 65.3 And elsewhere prayeth God would search him and try him and see whether there be any
is a matter of justice not to condemn a person for whom satisfaction hath been made and it is matter of mercy to acquit him through another's sufferings who stood condemned for his own offences or if we judge as fit we should that neither the justice or mercy of God will permit he should be condemned for whom Christ died a Sacrifice we can conclude no less from such a death than the absolution future acquittance of a Believer whose Sacrifice Christ died who hereby hath as Isa 43.4 born our griefs and carried our sorrows i. e. the punishment due to our sins for the which he hath suffered and made satisfaction Say the Generva Notes in loc yet what follows ver 5. is fuller Vt integrae essent res nostrae nobis bene esset c. placuit c. verbera plagas quas nos commeriti eramus filius susciperet c. Castigatione verberibus filii reconciliati sumus Patri efferbuit ira Patris Fozerius in loc He was wounded for our transgressions the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed The strokes and blows which we deserved the Son took upon him to the end that our affairs being restor'd it might be well with us c. by the chastisement and stripes of the Son we are reconciled to the Father and the anger of the Father hath asswayed and ceas'd towards us Whoso can look with the eye of faith on Christ thus dying Chrîstus Dominus pro peccatis nostris dolore affectus est ergo peccata nostra deleta ergo ira Dei remisit conseditque ergo reconciliatus enim nobis ergo pax integritas salus omne bonum in nos dimanavit Fozerius may in the words of the late mentioned Commentatour triumph Christ the Lord was grieved for our sins therefore our sins are blotted out the wrath of God is appeased and ceaseth God is reconciled to us therefore peace restitution salvation and every good thing hath flowed in to us But one thing possibly may be suspected viz. Albeit such an atonement and reconciliation be made now yet may not wrath at last break forth in fury to the utter condemnation of the soul which now hath its pardon To this I shall answer by subjoyning 4. That Christ Died a Sacrifice which he himself offered through the Eternal Spirit to the end that he might purge our conscience from dead works that we might serve the Living God as Heb. 9.14 By which one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified Heb. 10.14 Which great Truth the Apostle confirmeth by an Argument drawn from the very letter of that Covenant which is confirmed in this Sacrifice according to which Covenant God promiseth remission of sins so ver 17. Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin ver 18. The ground whereof is the perfect Reconciliation wrought for those to whom God doth grant remission of sin so that hence I may justifiably argue from the real expiation made at first to the perpetual continuation of it by the blood of this most perfect Sacrifice Let our Faith therefore be directed to fetch our absolution from guilt and condemnation let us ensure this to our selves through Christ dying our Sacrifice and take that comfort to our selves he hath by one offering for ever perfected them that are sanctified And he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him Heb. 7.25 Sect. 2. 2. The second Disquiet of the soul I mentioned was a fear lest it should lose the refreshing apprehensions and sweet enjoyments of the Divine Favour how much this would disturb the peace of the soul I am not here to discourse having said all I intended already on it But now it is my business to shew that Christ's Death as our Sacrifice is sufficient to prevent this fear or to secure unto the soul an enjoyment of the Divine Favour which I now attempt to shew 1. In that this Sacrifice duly apprehended by us doth very much abate of the ground of our fears of the withdrawing the Divine Favour from us Now the apprehension of the dread and terrour of spiritual desertions ariseth from our doubts that they are but precursory to a final and eternal displeasure that they are but the Primordia dolorum the beginnings of sorrows that the full measures will be at last for everlasting poured out upon the soul Oh this afflicts This Will God be gracious no more is the sword which wounds to the heart and whilst this fear abides on the soul it can take no rest Now see Christ our Sacrifice hath atoned vindictive displeasure reconciled us to God delivered us from wrath to come so that undoubtedly these present seasons of darkness are but seasons These sorrows may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Christ in the merit of his blood doth ever appear for me with God though God appear not to me now as of old yet I shall enjoy him 2. Christ Dying a Sacrifice for us hath now changed the nature of all our afflictions and turned them into wholsom corrections and into necessary exercises of our graces not onely our outward afflictions are so changed that there remaineth not any deadly poyson in them but our spiritual troubles among which this I speak of is to be accounted chief these are much more altered in their nature as indeed it was expedient they should for as they sink deeper into the soul and do more speedily seize the spirit and have an immediate influence on the soul so they would be of more dangerous consequence if they retained an unrebated poyson in them These would undo the soul whereas outward afflictions can approach to the soul but intermediately and being kept still about the outworks can only disquiet alarm cannot kill the soul nor its comforts Now we are beholden to the excellency of this Sacrifice for this By this sacrifice our afflictions are rendered only corrections whatever is vindictive and which the soul cannot beare is derived upon our Sacrifice being hereby secured from wrath For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life Rom. 5.10 The Apostle argueth from our reconciliation once effected unto our salvation in due time to be accomplisht And happy they who have Christ once dying a Sacrifice to make their peace but ever living a merciful and a faithful High Priest to maintain their peace with God Such he is to all for whom he is a Sacrifice 3. In midst of spiritual desertions Christ our Sacrifice preserveth inviolate the state of our peace though we have not the sense and sweetness of that peace The Covenant of peace between God and the soul standeth unaltered still and this in the vertue of this blood of Christ our
adoptionis illius vim senserunt in Spiritu Sanctificante PP Salmur de Sp. Adop Sect. 12. so they who are sealed with the spirit of Adoption have still found the power of that Adoption by the spirit of Sanctification Now I say Christ Dying a Testator and leaving us his last Will or Testament to meditate upon hath left us a good answer to our doubts and the due meditations of the soul on the last Will of Christ will much dispel our fears and quiet the soul For whereas there are two sorts of fears which afflict a gracious soul 1. A fear it shall miss of Glory And 2. A fear it doth want truth of grace Christ by his last Will hath secured the believing soul against both these fears against the first by giving a Kingdom and Glory to such by Will he appointed them unto a Kingdom to a Glorious Crown Against the second by bequeathing the spirit of Truth and Grace unto them to lead them in holiness unto the end and this Will of our best Friend who Died to confirm it is a very sure Title on the sacred reverence authority of last Wills and Testaments Legum servanda fides suprema voluntas Quod mandat fierique subet parere necesse est Aug. Imper. de vol. Virg. which must be sacred and inviolate when the man is dead Command of Laws must duly be fulfill'd And so must that our dying friend last will'd how much more when he who died once hath for ever conquered death and lives for ever to see his own Legacies both bestowed and enjoyed which peculiar to Christ our dying friend gives greatest encouragement against such doubts and might very well ease us of all such fears and so be an excellent defence and prop to weak grace whence will soon follow a considerable growth in grace Sect. 3. 3. That which confirms the truth certainty and immutability of the promises improveth Grace I need not give long Proofs of so known a Truth Praecipuum maximè proprium objectum Fidei situm est in promissionibus PP Salm. de Fide sect 7. the promisies are the objects of our faith the good things contained in the promises are the object of our hope the grace and mercy making the promises is the Load-stone of our love In one word we are made partakers of the Divine Nature we do purify our selves and perfect holiness through these promises Grace is as the vine the promises are the frame which beareth up and carrieth the vine which thriveth best when it resteth on the surest and stedfastest frame Grace is a spiritual building which needeth a sure Foundation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such is the promise which as the word of God is in it self sure and stedfast for it is impossible that God should lie Tit. 1.2 Heb. 6.18 Yet to this the Lord hath superadded the confirmation and certainty of a Testamentary disposition or last Will making all the promises in Christ and making them all sure and unchangeable by the death of Christ whereby they become to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1.20 that we might have such assurance as should render it next to a moral impossibility for us soberly and deliberately to doubt them Now all this is excellently effected by resolving and moulding the promises into a last Will or Testamentary disposition which is of such a nature that it becomes unalterable on the Death of the Testator Heb. 9.17 for a Testament is of force after men are dead and so the law maxim ensureth us In publicis Lex in privatis Testamentum firmissimum habetur that what the law is in publick concerns that a last Will in private concerns is for ensurance and firmness In brief therefore the last Will of Christ Dying confirms the Promises to us what confirms the promises confirms our faith and hope with other graces faith and hope confirmed do greatly tend to purifying and sanctifying our hearts and making our life fruitful in these things lieth the growth and improvement of grace so that due reflections and right manage of our thoughts on Christ dying a Testator do as is said improve the communicants Graces Sect. 4. 4. That improves grace which doth soften the heart and as it were ripen it unto a mellow temper as the showers which soak into the earth in the spring time which soften the earth do both prepare the way that tender roots of trees and plants may spread abroad and root deeper and also do afford nourishing moisture and sap whence the verdure blossom and the fruit it self so it is here a hard and rocky heart is as unkind a soil for grace as stony ground is for Corn neither can take root to any good purpose Trees of righteousness are planted by the rivers of waters which is a tender soil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the water courses divide themselves and run out into many branches gently and kindly softening the ground And though some vines of the Lord are planted in high Mountaines naturally hard and barren in proud and hard hearts yet these hearts are like plowed ground laid a fallowing and mellowing and so prepared for the seed time every high Mountain is laid low before Christ In one word the pleasant Lillies do grow in the Valleys low and softned grounds so grace thrives best in the humble and tender soul Now there are in the last Will of Christ many both common and ordinary as also Singular and extraordinary motives and inducements to tenderest affections towards Christ Whatsoever cause any true friend any kind Brother any dutiful Child can see in the care love and bounty of his Dying Friend Brother or Father expressed and contained in the porvision made by such one for him that all that and more may the meditating and considerate soul see in the last Will of Christ to melt him into affections for Christ in whose Death he may see love living and growing strong when life fainted and grew weak And as his veines and heart grew empty of blood both grew full of love to you and me So he loved his own to the end What in particular these common and speciall motives are I shall not now specify but reserve them to another more fit place thus you have the sum of this fourth argument before you in the next place Sect. 5. 5. That improves our graces which endeareth the Lord Jesus to us what increaseth our love to Christ doth increase our holiness and addeth to our graces love will long for a more close union love will study the most intire complyance it will ambitiously strive to advance and honour it will without ceasing endeavour to please That soul is most endeared to holiness and most studious of holiness which is most endeared to Christ and most in love with him such a soul keeps his Commandments Now the view and consideration of Christ s last Will and Testament will surely endear
Christ unto the soul there the soul seeth the real Testimonys of his Saviour's love Last Wills or Testaments are those in which we profess all our affection Quibus affectum omnem fatemur Brisson de Form After this men can do no more at this time therefore they will do what they can for their beloved Friends This love is an immortal love attempting to fill the cistern to leave it full when the spring head dryes up it is a love surviving Death when the lover cannot a peice of Friendship rescued from the hand and power which kills thy Friend When Jacob could live no longer to love his Joseph his love could not die but fleeteth from his feeble dying heart and reposeth it self in the sacred and unviolate treasury of Jacobs last Will where it doth and shall still survive both the Lover and the Beloved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 48.22 1 King 1. in this you discover Joseph had a double share in Jacobs love When David was to make his last will you may see which of all his Sons had most of David's heart so true is it that last Wills are open windows of the heart through which we may see the living affection of our Dying Friend This is undeniably true of the last Will of Christ who looks into it shall see the dearest love the tenderest affection the faithfullest friendship the seasonablest care and the fullest provision and who seeth this can do no less than wish he had a more dear affection to return for that which is so incomparably grater than all other Sect. 6. 6. That improves Grace which shakes off security and awakeneth out of sloth security is the lethargy of the soul and it must be cured or the soul Dyeth sloth is that scorbutick disease of the soul which weakens all its graces and takes off the edge of them and this must be removed by a vigorous exercise of that strength and life which yet remaineth in Grace or Grace will decay wither and dye rid the soul of these two and Grace will suddenly recover it self and grow Now it is unquestionable that the last Will of Christ carrieth in it sufficient considerations to awaken the soul out of pernicious security and to quicken it unto vigorous diligence For all the legacies of Christ are conditional requiring either precedent conditions or enjoining subsequent conditions of love and obedience and this love with obedience will be found such as will take up all thy time and strength set to it so soon as thou wilt here will be work enough for thy Christian care Thou wilt find life short love long work weighty strength weak The Philosopher rowsed himself with this Vita brevis ars longa life is short Art is long Christian look over Christ's expectation expressed in his Will and Testament and write this presently as thy monitory Vita brevis Fides longa The time of Life is short the work of Faith is long and rowse up thy self both from security and sloth make haste to do thy Lord's will that thou mayest have large share in the last Will of thy Lord. When a very rich gist is given by Will upon conditions and reservations and all revoked from every claimer who performeth not those conditions and disposed to others who will do and have done and performed the conditions how great care and diligence doth this awaken how speedy is the considering Legatee what haste doth he make to perform lest non-performance of his duty should disappoint his hope and cut off his claim Christian thou hast the Inheritance given by Will and that Will prescribes thee thy duty and if ever thou intendest to put in claim for it look thou put thy hand speedily to the doing of what is there enjoyned thee For I tell thee thy Lord who made the Will who prescribed the terms who enjoyned thy performance and before whom thou must make thy claim is not now dead but liveth is not far off but near to thee seeth and observeth all thy sloth and laziness and will reject thy suit and dash thy pretences and confound thy hopes unless sight of his Will quicken thee to do his will CAP. IV. Graces enumerated Improvable by the last Will of Christ I Have performed 〈…〉 at potui â—amen if not as I would yet as Bernard said as I could the three first parts of my Promise I shall now endeavour the performance of the fourth viz. in a particular enumeration of those graces which I apprehend may be much improved by the consideration of Christ's last Will or Testament renewedly remembred at the Communion of the Lord's body And Sect. 1. 1. First Faith is one Grace which is improvable by due managing our thoughts of Christ's ordaining his last Will ere he died and dying to ratifie and make his last Will firm and irrevocable This gives us greatest assurance of the truth of the Promises and so addeth to the evidence of things that are not seen Man verily believeth and boldly pleadeth his title and right to the Legacy which his dying friend bequeathed to him Sect. 2. Secondly Hope and Expectation of enjoying the good things promised is another grace improvable by the application of Christ's Death dying a Testator and ordaining his last Will. The certainty of future enjoying and the goodness of the thing to be enjoyed is the life of hope the root and strength of it Now the goodness of that we expect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the certainty of our future enjoyment are jointly contained and declared in the last Will of our Lord to which in more particular manner we hope to speak Sect. 3. 3. Longing desires of surer interess in the Covenant or Testament of Christ and desire of nearer union unto Christ is improvable upon the reflections of our serious thoughts on the Death of Christ dying and making his VVill. Every one who needeth would wish himself of the kindred and affinity of that rich bountiful and kind friend who enricheth all his kindred by his large Legacies at his Death and he will desire to be so related unto Christ who duly considers what may be obtained by Christ Sect. 4. 4. Love to the Lord and a high prizing of his person and concernments is an other Grace of the believer improveable by this meditation of Christs Death as the Death of a Testator Every one honoureth the remembrance and speaketh well of him who doth liberally and wisely provide for his indigent and needy relations strangers do value such an one and much more doth his ingenuous and considerate Friend Sect. 5. 5. Zeal to his glory and honour a spiritual fervency of heart in all that such a Friend is any whit concerned in is another qualification of a believer and this also is improved by the due manage of our knowledge of Christs last Will and Testament Were there but little cordial Friendship in the heart of a believer toward
hast First All the common inducements of a firm perswasion which are as much in this as in any No man's last Testament can have more grounds for the ensuring us it is firm and stable than his last VVill of Christ He was in strictest propriety a Person who might optimo jure in best right make his VVill. He had wealth and riches spiritual Riches fulness of Grace and merit Testes suntin primis discipuli ejus Apostoli sancti man tyres quoque testes sunt -Testes etiam bom ministri omnes Testes etiam Angeli omnesque Pii Ben. Aretius in Prolegem ad Matth. he had large demeasnes was heir of all things he could sua legare bequeath his own he did also make his VVill by his death he confirmed all the promises and made them the Legacy of every Believer He did condere Testamentum ordain his Testament To which he added sufficient VVitnesses to him give all the Prophets and Apostles witness that whosoever believeth in him hath good title and right to eternal Life he bequeathed it by VVill and adhibuit testes * call'd in Witnesses And farther he publish'd his Will sent out his Apostles who declared Christs death and the Believers life Every Minister of Christ is one by whom Christ still publisheth this Will of his Now if thou who readest this hadst such a Ground of Plea for an inheritance wouldst thou not say thou hadst a good Title wouldst thou fear to claim thy Legacy wouldst thou not sue the Executor rather than lose thine inheritance when thou shouldest read what thy dying Friend commanded to be written what witnesses are to it how plain and full he made every thing be written publisht would not thy perswasion grow as thou readest So then it is in this case every promise is reduced into the form of a will and the more thou readest and considerest the more wilt thou discern the stability and the certainty of the promises The words which thou believest on which thou may'st claim and make good thy claim to any promise it is the Legacy thy dying Lord hath bequeathed thee Say then before thou goest to the Lords Table I am now preparing to renew the memorial of Christs death and what thoughts am I to entertain ought they not to be thoughts of the precious promises which are comprised in the Lord Jesus in whom they are all yea and amen made to us in him before he died made most sure to us by him when he died And who dares go about to reverse what he hath so consirmed who shall presume to annul and make void his will I see others believe their interest in the last will of their Friends I know I am the Friend of Christ and in his Will what then should make me doubt Nay I will endeavour to have as inviolatam fidem inviolate and unshaken Faith as I have inviolate and Sacred ground of Faith in the last Will of my Lord. Secondly The Believer hath yet more to increase his faith and to confirm him in the perswasion that there shall be a performance of all that is promised For it is all made sure by the last Testament of him who could not exceed his own treasures he hath not given larger Legacies than his estate will bear though his Gifts are great yet his Estate will make them good He is heir of both Worlds with all that is in both he is heir of the world to come and he is proprietary of all grace which fits for Glory and he is also Proprietary of all Glory fitted unto Grace that is prepared and apportioned unto Grace He is Lord of this present world although we do not yet see all things put under him yet he is the man of whom David spake Psal 8. witness the Apostle Heb. 2. He shall inherit all Nations he is a King whose dominion is over all In one word the greatest wants the largest desires the highest expectations of his kindred could not be too much for his Treasures Though none ever gave as he hath given yet none ever did or ever shall be put to abate or to forgo any part of his Gift This oh believing soul is peculiar to thy Lord his Riches will pay all his Legacies Say then to thine unbelief what is it thou stickest at where lieth the difficulty are the promises so rich they exceed the Estates and Treasures of this world do they amount to more than all the world can make up why still they are not greater than the Riches of both worlds and remember thy self he hath both this and that world which is to come at his disposal and his Bequests are to be disbursed and paid out of both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Arab. reads Quicquid est in ea will both be enough cannot the fulness of the Earth fill thy emptiness why the Earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof the World is his and they that dwell therein Banish thine unbelief which ordinarily stumbles most at the wants and streights of Christians in this life and look to the last Will of Christ which is unto Godliness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He bequeaths all the promises of the life that now is and of that which is to come Oh now where is thy faith what forbids thee to be perswaded of the truth of the promise of Christ 1 Tim. 4.8 he hath not laid it on an uncertainty much less on an untruth he hath not given so much if his Goods will amount to it He hath not as that beggarly Cardinal given much but his Legatees must find it out No but he had enough to give what he hath given and every one shall in due time have all that Christ hath given there are Assets to pay these debts believe than that thou may'st receive See how much greater cause thou hast to believe than any man can have to expect from the Testamentary disposition of a mortal friend who may possibly out give his Estate but Christ thy Friend did not could not out-give his 3. Next consider as he had wealth both spiritual eternal and temporal sufficient to discharge his leagacies so he had wisdom which could not and love in sincerity which would not err in the ordaining of his Will that so any Legatee should lose through the ambiguity or defect of his last Will. He needed none to direct him how to make a will which should hold good and be valid to all the intents and purposes of his love towards his poor Friends He is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that one Law-giver whose wisdom directeth to the making Laws good profitable and seasonable for his Church He is that Lawgiver whose soveraign authority gives validity and warranteth his word for a law to his Church He is the King of his Church and his Church knows not a law beside the word of his mouth And the words of his mouth are right there is nothing forward or
most lofty and ambitious Not so in these hopes of the Believer whose greatest hopes are commended to him by their certainty A Believer is more certain of a Crown and a Kingdom than he is of his Friends Estate or Honours on Earth Vid. supra this stability the ground of a Christians Faith c. 5. sect 1. c. Now this certainty lyeth upon the stability and firmness of the Testament of Christ the Testator who died to give validity and confirmation to the Testament and who liveth to give out the Legacies which he hath bequeathed Thus the Testament is become of force by the death of the Testator and the gifts become sure by the life of the Testator who ever liveth to bring us into the possession and to continue us in the Possession of those great and good things which we hope for by vertue of his bequest and gift In few words look over the Bona legata good things bequeathed Pooro bona legata sunt illa vita aeterna remissio peccatorum dona Spiritûs Sancti c. Ben. Aret. Prolegom in Matth. Life Eternal Remission of sins gifts of the Holy Ghost c. Examine the Will of Christ which is yet to be read in the Scriptures of the New Testament especially search the several Promises see what they contain and then say of them All these are the legacies my blessed Lord hath given me by his last Will All these Promises are now Yea and Amen Were they only the Will of a man yet no man should add to them or disannul them they are sacred and must not be violated how much more inviolable should the Testament of Christ be kept The Testament of the true and faithful Witness is faithfulness it self Until Faithfulness degenerate into Perfidiousness until Truth turn into a Lye or until Darkness be Light not sooner nor more unexpectedly shall the Believers interesse in the last Will of Christ deceive and fail his expectations Oh glorious Hope whose bright beam may well turn the illustrious hopes of the worldling into a darksome and undesired anxiety or despair Oh blessed soul which can despise the promising confidences of worldly hopes and cast them off as unquestionable uncertainties such they are and instead of these can pitch upon persue after and long for those sure Promises the rich Legacies the lively Hopes and heavenly Treasures which Christ maketh the firm valid and unchangeable Interess and Estate of every Believer Before thou come to a Sacrament oh my soul look better to thy hopes survey their Greatness weigh their Goodness and duly consider their certainty and discern whether any hopes are comparable with them in either Greatness Goodness or Certainty or in any thing that is a part of the best and truest hope and when thou hast viewed the precellence and matchless worth of thy hopes I dare warrant thine increase and growth in this grace shall bear a proportion to thy consideration and weighing of those forementioned excellencies Remember I confine not thy thoughts to these particulars I mention them as those which did first and easiest offer themselves to mine own thoughts if thou who readest with better judgment pitchest upon more quickening and improving meditations and arguments bless God who gave and pray for me and others who would desire as lively and awakening arguments and help us in our need In the mean time this certainty of these great and good things doth according to the measure of their clearness and strength in my serious meditations raise in me and improve a longing desire of an assured interess in him who hath given these things by Will of which Desire and the Improvement thereof I purpose to treat in the next Section CAP. V. Sect. 3. Christ Dying a Testator Improves Desires of Union to Christ and Communion with him THERE is certainly as little doubt that Desire after Union to Christ and longing for intimate Communion with Christ is needful and requisite in every Communicant as that the soul is not fit for either Union or Communion which desireth them not and I suppose thou art no Christian if thou art so ignorant as to presume on fitness or to flatter thy self into expectation of any spiritual Improvement by the use of the Sacrament without these Desires and Longings of Soul after Christ Fames optimum omdimentum these Desires are the soul's hungrings after Christ and they add sweetness to this Bread of Life A man that hath lost his stomach who can tast no sweetness in the choicest food is as fit to be a guest at a Royal feast as a soul without desires of Union to and Communion with Christ is fit to feast with the Lord at his table in the holy Sacrament He that is the desire of all nations Hag. 2.9 will be sought after and found out by those of every nation which desire him Thou who dost not desire him dost reject him and despise him and hidest thy face from him as the Prophet Isaiah 53.2.3 hath ranked thee And can rejecters of Christ be fit for communion with Christ can despisers of Christ Hope for a welcome entertainment with Christ will he disclose the secrets of his love to such as hide their face from him either thou must desire him or thou shalt never discern him or delight in him at a Sacrament Christ is that carcass to which the soul as the Eagle gathers but desires are the wings which carry the soul to Christ He desires to draw us to himself these desires appear in this that Christ doth lay open his excellency for us and our need of him and so attempts to raise our desires nay gives some strength that we may desire If we either supinely neglect or prophanely reject him we shall be sure to miss and go without him Luk. 14.24 Not one of the invited guests which put him off with an excuse did taste of the prepared feast They desire no such feast and Christ at last lets them know he expects better guests Who ever will be a guest at the table of the Lord must unfeignedly desire an interess in the Lord so as the Lord declares himself willing and ready to admit his guests to a communicating and partaking of benefits by him Now among many other habitudes and relations he admits us as a Dying Testator admitteth Legatees to partake of the benefits bequeathed by will And in this there lye many prevalent inducements or motives to quicken our desires after the interess of a Legatee in the Will of Christ the Testator As Sect. 1. 1. The goodness of those gifts which Christ giveth by Will these Legacies are not stained with the tincture of vice which would deflower the innocency of the mind and render the person culpable nor have they any tincture of unpleasantness that might distate the soul There is neither poison in them to kill nor any gall in them to embitter they neither distate nor destroy They are incomparable spiritual eternal
Abraham might come on us Gentiles Again the Apostle Rom. 8.3 tells us God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh In which words you read expresly that God sent his Son and that he sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh not by inherent vice but like it through imputed guilt and obnoxiousness to the Curse both which lay on all flesh that had sinned and both which was laid on him who thus appear'd in the likeness of sinful flesh in which capacity he appear'd not only to the world which judged him whom they knew not nor only to his enemies who did maliciously slander him they hated but he presented himself to God in our stead bearing our Sin and Curse for removal of both which he was made a Sacrifice an Expiatory Sacrifice which the Text expresseth concisely by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and our Interpreters in the Margin have rightly explained A Sacrifice for sin this being the proper import of the phrase as is evident to all who are able and willing to compare the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Greek Translation of it by the Lxxii In the places cited as Levit. 4.3 14.28 32. Numb 6.11 16. cap. 7.16 22 28 34 40.46 c. Neh. 10.33 Ezek. 40.40 42.13 Psal 40.6 In all which and many more which might be cited The Greek Interpreters use the same phrase the Apostle doth when he assures us God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh that by him made a Sin-offering or a sacrifice for sin he might condemn sin but save the sinner In one word he that was sent to be a sacrifice for sin must die and bear the imputed guilt of the sins of the persons for whom he is a sacrifice and consequently die under a Curse To these add we that of the Prophet Isa 53.5 where the Prophet doth thrice over in very emphatical words foretell what the Jews would judge of Christ under his sufferings they would esteem him a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stricken b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smitten and c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 afflicted of God as if he had been a notorious sinner stigmatized by the just hand of God inflicting Curses on him Thus the blinded malice of the Jews lead them into blasphemous mistakes of the person and the surferings he underwent d The Gattaker on Isa 53.4 They thought him thus handled by God in a way of vengeance 〈◊〉 his sins The Jew understood the import 〈◊〉 â—heir own language but they understood 〈◊〉 â—he true cause of the dolorous curses and sufferings the Messiah died under Whatever wrath curse or vengeance is implied in the phrase he did bear it to remove it all from us we sinned and should have died accursed but he was made a Curse to free us Again vers 5. the Prophet tells us he was wounded for our transgressions so we read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tho. Gattaker Annot. in loâ— but some observe the word denoteth a polluted person or one that is prophaned Now by the Law every polluted thing or person was judged accursed When the Rulers of the Sanctuary are prophane and God punisheth for it Jacob is made a Curse Isa 43.28 And of the polluted defiled or prophaned the Law determineth he shall die the death Exod. 31.14 He shall be cut off Lev. 19.8 22.9 Numb 18.32 So that by the Law a polluted person is in danger of that death which the Law calls a Curse and when such are used as polluted they are cut off and die under a Curse denounced by the Law And thus was Christ wounded for our transgressions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we had really polluted our selves and were prophaned by our sins which we had committed But He the Holy One of God was first burthened with our imputed sins lookt on as one standing in the stead of polluted ones and used as they deserved that they might be blessed which they deserved not Thus also vers 6. He laid on him the iniquity of us all Guilt imputed and punishment inflicted from both which the consequent is The person so used dieth an accursed death which is 〈◊〉 we are to prove Since then God laid 〈◊〉 iniquity of us all on his Son who was 〈◊〉 tent to bear it we may very confiâ—â—◠〈◊〉 conclude that our iniquity will be the cause of his death and that this death will have a Curse intermixed with it that it may be sufficient to redeem us from the Curse due to our iniquities There is one place more which I might urge viz. Phil. 3.7 He took upon him the form of a servant and in that capacity did humble himself unto death even the death of the Cross saith the Apostle which passage possibly is not enforced to speak other than its own proper sense if it be thus explained He took upon him the form of a servant i. e. put himself into the state and condition of an accursed person and so died for them he loved and represented The Scripture doth sometimes use this manner of speech to express a Curse on a man or on his posterity so a Gen. 9.25 26. Cham's Curse is expressed so is the Curse of b Gen. 25.26 Esau expressed The elder shall serve the younger applied by the Apostle to prove Jacob and his seed blessed and to evidence Esau and his seed left out of the blessing and consequently abandoned under a Curse Israel's misery in Aegypt emblem of a cursed state was servitude in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of bondage Thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of a servant in which Christ appear'd bespeaks his appearance under a Curse for us And in this conjecture on this place I am confirm'd by the authority of Erasmus on this place Jam quod accepit formam servi non proprin referri videtur ad buinanam naturam assumptam sed ad speciem similitudinem hominis nocentis enjus personam pro nobis gessit dum slagellatur damnatur crucifigitur Now saith he that he took the form of a servant seems not to be referred properly to the taking of the Humane Nature but to the taking of the species and likeness of a guilty person whose part he bore for us when he was scourged condemned crucified Thus far that learned Pen. But let this conjecture be of what weight it will be there are places enough already urged to make good the Truth Christ in our stead appear'd under a Curse and so died an accursed death that by this means we might live in hope of a blessed life and as the Text hath it that the blessings of Abraham might come on us Gentiles and that we might receive the Spirit viz. both of Sanctification to enliven us to our duty and of Adoption to ensure us of an hoped reward and so be delivered from servitude and misery of sin in
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
continuing of me in my free noble and honourable condition If I depart from Christ through unbelief I shall go from honour to dishonour from excellency to baseness from the noble state of a Son to the ignoblestate of a servant of a slave And I know the considerate soul will not easily return to the baseness and ignominy of such a state No! no! Faith in my dying Lord did set me free from such baseness and advanced me to the dignity I now enjoy and my persevering confirmed faith will and must preserve and confirm me in that dignity This prerogative my Dying Lord purchased for me whenever I would believe this prerogative he gave me so soon as ever I did believe and there is none can take it from me so long as I do believe oh let me believe for ever that I may have it for ever I would never lose this honour I will never leave my Lord. Whilst thou art able to make the best of this Death of thy Lord commemorated in the Sacrament and presented to thy faith which is done on purpose that thou mayest make the best of it thou canst resolve or conclude nothing less than that thou wilt adhere now faster than ever In this manner may the Humiliation the Desires the Purposes of the Soul be wrought drawn forth and confirmed upon the consideration of Christ dying a Curse for us The sight of our cursed state will lay us low and convince us the sight of a deliverance by Christ will make us desire that deliverance may be ours and then knowledge of its being ours upon first believing and that it shall be ours so long as we believe will perswade us to look that our faith continue lest unbelief should reduce us into the misery of a Curse whence we almost escaped And let it be next observed 4. That Love to God and unto Christ 4th Sacramental grace Love to God and Christ is another Sacramental grace which I am sure will be well improved by a due consideration of Christ dying a Curse for us I do verily suppose it needless to attempt the proving of this every one knows that Love to Christ is a necessary and suitable grace for a Communicant God requires that every one of his servants should love him and serve him with all the heart in every duty much more in this which is a more solemn and more than ordinary one If thou wilt come to the Table of the Lord thou must come with love to the Lord of the Table thou must not come with enmity in thy heart nor with a sword in thy hand They are friends who are invited to eat and drink with Christ at his Table and it is a monstrous incongruity to sit down as though you would friendly feast Cant. 5.1 and yet watch a season to muther the guests or him that invites you God will not have an Absolon ' s feast in which one of the guests was murthered nor will he have a feast like the unhappy Phocus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose guests slew him It is the express will of our Lord that we come to his Table in love and charity with our Brethren and in love and with sincere affections to our Lord. We must here feast without the sowre leven of malice against our Brethren and without the swelling leven of hypocrisie toward God Now let me a little point out what inducements are in this Death of Christ to draw forth our love to our Lord and so let it be considered 1. Did my Lord die an accursed Death for me do I now celebrate the memorial hereof Would he have done this if he had not loved me as his own life It was a love that is ever to be blessed by me which made my Lord take on him a Curse for me Greater love than this could not be shewn to me and less than love to him for it cannot not be tendred by me Is Love the loadstone of Love and doth not thy heart stir toward Christ when he draws it with this attractive When he calls Look upon my Living Love in my cursed Death and give me what you judge a reasonable acknowledgment for my Love and when the considerate soul looks on this it is ready with David to say What shall I render to the Lord for all his goodness What shall I render to God the Father who laid my Guilt Punishment and Curse on my Blessed Redeemer What shall I render to the Lord Jesus Christ unto God the Son who took this heavy load upon him What shall I render to God the Holy Ghost who supported the humane nature of my Blessed Redeemer that he should not fail nor be discouraged in this great work under this weighty burthen Oh Blessed Love of the Glorious Trinity worthy of an infinite Love though a finite creature is not able to give it Lord my Love shall be endless though it cannot be boundless though it is narrow it shall not be short I will make up its defect of intenseness with an addition of endless date let thy Love to me which caused thee to die once for me an accursed Death be a spring and source of Love in my soul to thee of such a Love as shall never die Lord thou deservest more than I can give but I would not be unwilling to give as much as thou deservest It was matchless Love that the Prince of Life would die for condemned subjects But 't is methinks more that the Lord of glory over all God Blessed for evermore should take upon him Death with a Curse 2. Do I celebrate the Death of my Lord dying a Curse for me why then oh my soul thou dost this day in this duty call to mind Christ's taking on him all faults and bearing all thy blame being content that thy faults should be accounted to him and that if there be as certainly there wlil be anger for it he will bear it Oh what endeared Love do servants in a family bear to that Son who is willing to excuse the servants fauls and to bear their blame to make up their peace and to continue them in or restore them to their offices again Reader whoever thou art that readest these lines it is thy case Thou oâ—est unto Christ the Eternal Son of God all thy innocence all thy safety all thy peace all thy continuance in the family of God unto Christ I say thou owest it for thou hadst sinned and provoked God thy Master and Lord he had cursed thee and would have damned thee he had declared thine office in his house void and would have turned thee out and then thou must have said with the unjust Steward what shall I do when God thus deals with me how shall I live Dig I cannot beg I am ashamed I shall be accursed on Earth and accursed iâ— Hell for ever oh thus had it been with me if my Lord Jesus had not stept in and took my faults upon him Blessed
be that Love which hath so loved me Let him carry away all my affection who thus hath carried all my transgressions He shall have my love whilst I live by whose love it is that I live Oh let my love at the Sacrament revive where there is the revived memory of my Lord his love to me None but those foolish and mad creatures who are in love with their faults and with their misery will withhold their love from Christ who delivered us from both 3. Did Christ die such a death in thy stead let this then awaken thee to consider how thou wouldst resent another mans suffering for thee and speak what interess thy friend should purchase in thy affections by his undergoing afflictions for thee Wouldst thou love thy rich friend that took thy debts on him wouldst thou do less than dearly love thy skilful friend that cured thee of thy disease thy powerful friend at Court who rescued thee from a prison thy watchful friend who kept strict and careful watch lest thou shouldst be surprised and ruin'd whilst thou wert sleeping secure in greatest danger and in greatest ignorance and security But what wouldst thou say if thy friend should deliver thee from thine by making it his own disease or should go into a prison that thou mightest go out of it or expose himself to ruine that thou mightest be indemnified Just so did Christ for thee he did bear thy disease and took thy sickness upon him he became a prisoner first to unjust hands seizing on him and then to the grave which could not hold him yet a while he was a prisoner there for thy sake in thy stead and what acknowledgment wilt thou make of all this How wilt thou certifie the Christian world that thou dost well resent what Christ hath done if thou wilt not love him for doing it Thou lovest those that speak well of thee that bless thee that wish well to thee and endeavour to do thee good and what law reason or equity wilt thou pretend why thou dost not love Christ who speaks best of thee to his Father and who wished best to thee and hath done most for thee and all this by his dying a Curse for thee Let thy own heart ponder this and draw to a conclusion what ought to be done in this case say Had any man whom I know done this for me which Christ hath done I could not but love him and why do I not love Christ if I did see my friend loaded with curses and reproaches and bearing them patiently for me that I might not be reproached that I might not be cursed it would endear such a friend to me why now in the Sacrament the visible memorial of Christ's dying a Curse for me I do see such a friend so loaded for my sake that I might not be loaded with my deserved Curse I may not I will not be less to him than I would be to another I will love him more than any else for he hath done more for me than all could and I see it in the Sacrament the blessed memorial of his cursed Death Fourthly and lastly Is the Sacrament of the bloody Death of Christ a memorial of his dying an accursed death for me oh then I see the evidence of a love to me which surpasseth the love of best friends which indeed exceeds the thoughts and belief of most considerate men For who will believe beside a Christian who is taught by the revealed word of the God of truth that Christ would become a Curse for us Some men will hardly believe that the Apostle spake his very thoughts when he wished that he himself were accursed from Christ for his brethren his kinsmen after the flesh Some judge it so inconsistent with reason that they think the Apostle could not soberly sedately and rationally desire it but that he did use the liberty and freedom of an Orator to commend his greatest affection to his kindred by a greater expression But behold Reader Paul's wish for his kindred is Christ's own act for his what Paul wisht but could not do for his brethren Christ hath undertook and undergone for his brethren What some do think was too great for a rational and sober desire in the one hath been found not too great for the choice and performance of the other Now let Christ have but a serious view of this he hath done for thee and answer thy self this or such like questions Is that too little to engage my love which was too great for any to undertake but Christ Do I see Christ doing that which few men will believe a man could wish he mght do and do I still withhold my heart my affection from Christ Do I know that his love was stronger than death he was content to be accursed for the sake good life and salvation of Believers I see him for a while separated from God that he might bring me to God and now he shall have that love which is too great for any one since he hath done what is so great for me In the fifth place 5. Joy in believing a Sacramental grace The Believer's Joy is or at least might be considerably improved in the commemoration of Christ dying as a Curse for us It is not to be questioned whether joy and rejoycing through faith in the Lord be seasonable in our feasting with the Lord. Joy is the souls rest with delight in the Lord and such a disposition of mind doth the Lord require and accept at this seast Now let us observe how that his dying a Curse for us may increase our joy and this may appear 1. From the Nature of Joy which is the triumph of the mind in its freedom and deliverance from its fears or in its attaining and possessing of its hopes It is a rational security of our best hopes and a due removal of our worst fears singing a rest and happiness to the soul Joy is the rapture of our soul hearing and observing desired events sweetly keeping tune with our desires and hopes It is the Tripudium Animae the soul's dance to the Musick which the God of Heaven makes for it If there be any exstasies of joy it can be from no other harmony than which is heard not from Pythagoras his melodious spheres but from the Cross of our Blessed Lord seting Heaven and Earth in a blessed concent by his accursed Death The Philosopher will tell us Dilatatio cordis ob bonum praesens that Joy is the dilatation of the soul the enlarging of the heart to entertain a present desired good Good wished for is the Sun the heart is the Heliotrope the flower of the Sun Joy is the opening and turning of this flower towards the Sun This or somewhat like this is Joy Now in what can the soul triumph if not in its freedom from a dreadful Curse What may possibly be imagined will secure the rational hopes and wishes of a Christian better than Christ's
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
or a burning fever or a loathsom leprosy or a sad and solitary blindness But more than this more than all I can speak did Christ deliver us from when he did die a Curse for us Oh unparallel'd love of Christ and oh the unparallel'd ingratitude of Christians Sirs though you and I must leave the greatest the best part of this work of praise to another world yet let us not leave it all let us do somewhat whilst we live and are among men on earth Heaven is full of those praises which did we hear would ravish us Let Earth be witness that we do not quite forget our Lord. Whereas you could have born all the envy anger and malice of creatures and it may be have contemned the weakness of it you could never have stood under nor have made head against the anger and indignation of the Lord nor have fortified your selves with resolutions to lessen the fury by lessening your apprehensions of it The dear children of God in their bitter complaints cry out if an enemy if any but God himself had done it I could have born it And the hopeless unbelievers cry out the same in effect let any thing come let all come upon us rather than the wrath of the Almighty let rocks grind us to powder or mountains bury us for ever under their weight Oh the heaviest of all these are lighter than one stroak of an angry avenging God! All these may be more easily endured than one Curse of the Law See then and consider what thou owest oh my soul to Christ made a Curse for thee remember and be thankful let thy heart oh thou who feastest with thy Lord weigh first the burthensomness of that Curse which justice casteth upon every sin and then weigh the exceeding great love of Christ who did take this Burthen and bear it for thee and I do nothing doubt but as often as thou layest these in the ballance thou wilt still find thy praise thy thankfulness too light thou wilt be still with the Apostle adding Glory and Power to him who loved thee Rev. 1.5 6. and washed thee in his blood And with the great Apostle of the Gentiles Thanks be to God who hath given us the Victory Could you and I entertain these things within our breasts and renew our thoughts and meditatations we should more clearly discern that if there be sweetness in our mercies or respite from our fears or absolution and discharge from our guilt or deliverance from accursed sorrows miseries and death we owe it all unto this kind of Death of our Lord beside all the positive blessings of grace and glory of which I may not now speak if the blessing of Abraham on the Gentiles be worth our thanks then our thanks is due to Christ dying thus for he was made a Curse for us that we might be redeemed from under the Curse of the Law and that we might be restored to a blessed state In one word whosoever seeth his own blessedness procured by Christ dying a Curse for him cannot but see so much thanks as blessedness is worth due to Christ and so the reviving of the memory of Christ's Death considered as a Curse will be the reviving of our thankfulness and reviving of thankfulness will be an increasing and improving of thankfulness So much to the seventh Sacramental Grace The eighth and last I shall now mention followeth viz. A disposition and purpose of mind to walk in new Obedience towards God in all manner of conversation 8th Sacramental grace New Obedience such a mind must every welcome guest bring to the Lord's Table No man may come thither who intends to go thence to his old course of sinning We must not as Naturalists report of some venemous creatures which lay down their poison when they go to drink and having drunk suck it up again we must not so lay aside our old sins while we go to the Lord's Supper as to renew our old acquaintance with them nor tender our service to them so soon as we depart from the Table of the Lord Men will not endure such sycophants and parasites who come to their table for a meals meat and to fill their bellies but then sort themselves for months together with the veryest enemies they have in the world No more will God endure him for a guest at his Table who comes for a meal out of a customary formality and then sorts himself with those sins which God hateth and commandeth should be slain This above many others aggravated Judas's treason that he came and ate with his Lord when he had resolved to betray him this is to kiss him with All hail Master when the kiss is the very token by which his enemies should know and apprehend him The Lord Jesus who knoweth what is in man and needeth not that any should testify of man will never let a man who lives and dieth of this temper escape deserved punishment He knows they flattered him with their lips but their hearts are far from him Thou that comest to make a Covenant with thy God at a Sacrament must come with a firm purpose to keep thy Covenant for God will not be mocked Better never come at all than come with a mind hating to be reformed God will ere long ask such hateful hypocrites what they had to do to declare this Statute of his or that they should take his Covenant into their mouths Psal 50.16 c. It is confessed of all sides and would to God it were as well practised on all sides that every Sacrament should engage us to better lives to holier conversations that we should sin the seldomer because we have been so often at the Lord's Table Now I say that the remembrance of the Death of Christ dying for us a Curse hath in it good and strong reasons to move us to renew our obedience and if these reasons be well considered I do not doubt but they may prevail with some to renew their purposes and endeavours of living less to sin because Christ died a Curse for us sinners For 1. First In this manner of his dying beside the powerful influence of his Death considered in the general of which I speak not now I say In his dying thus as a Curse for us we have a clear discovery of the vileness of sin how much it abaseth and depresseth us We look upon cursed things as the vilest and basest of things A curse and a reproach go together Jer. 42.18 This was the thing which brought our Lord into so low estate that he was despised of men this made him of no reputation because of our sin imputed to him and the Curse due to us for our sin laid upon him he became like a servant and so died Now then let a sober judgment be made of this and see how forcibly it disswadeth from continuing in sin Do I renew the remembrance of my Lord dying as a Curse Could sin which he