and Joys of Eternity it self are provided and accordingly shall be dispens'd to punish those that Reject him to reward those that Obey him These and whatever other such magnificent Expressions of Excellency the Holy Scriptures have attributed to our Lord as he is the Christ as they are all on the one side so many evident Testimonies of his Eternal Power and Godhead so on the other they ought to be esteemed as so many Marvellous Degrees and astonishing Amplifications of the Merciful Condescention of his Sufferings which is my next particular This very Christ suffer'd If any shall now inquire from what Period of Time we may justly date the Beginning of his Passion without all Question his Sufferings took their Rise from the very first Moment of his Assuming our Flesh Since for the Eternal Son of GOD only to become Man was infinitely to suffer That He who was in the Form of GOD and thought it no Robbery but his inviolable Right to be equal with GOD should be made of no Reputation and take on him the Form of a Servant and be made in the Likeness of Man He was made in the Likeness of Man Was not that an inexpressible Debasement of the Glories of his Divinity But as if that were not Obscurity and Degradation enough to that is added his stooping down to the low and abject Form of a Servant The great GOD of Heaven who is otherwise No Accepter or Respecter of Persons among Men nor does he prefer the highest before the lowest upon any inequality of our Conditions here below yet when he himself was to put on our Humanity he then became as it were an Accepter of Persons on the other side and chose to appear in the vilest and most despicable State among the Children of Men which is that of a Servant and the being made of no Reputation Thus with his very taking our Nature did his Sufferings begin and thence were continued through all the humble Circumstances of his Birth and Kindred and Conversation through a Life of Poverty Simplicity and Self-Denial and as the Evangelical Prophet describes him As a Man of Sorrows acquainted with Grief despised and rejected of Men Till he came at length to that which still deserves Emphatically to be call'd His Passion when he was also smitten of God and afflicted to his dreadful Conflict with GOD and himself in the Garden and his Sweating Drops of Blood there to the Buffetings the Revilings the Scourges the Spittings the contradiction of Sinners he endured The Cruel Insolency of his Enemies the fierce Rage of the Superstitious Jews the Tyrannous Scorn of the Romans the Theives Crucifi'd with him the Murderer preferr'd before him the Gall and Vineger given him to Drink the Nails in his Hands the Spear in his Side the very August Name of King objected to him in Contempt the Painful and Shameful Crown of Thorns put on his Head with Ignominious Mockery And at last that inutterable Torment darted into his very Soul immediately from GOD himself which compell'd him for a time almost to Despair and to sink under its Weight Surae we are it made him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me In that black and dismal Moment of his expiring on the Cross what insupportable Suffering must his have been which could even appear to stagger such a Faith and eclipse his Assurance of the Presence and Love of his heavenly Father How many Deaths and extream Agonies of Death must he then have felt When as the Prophet Isaiah says The Lord laid on him the Iniquity of us all And as St. Peter here expresses it He his own self bore our Sins in his own Body on the Tree And not only ours but the Sins of the whole World since St. Paul has also taught us in his own Person that every Sinner as such carries no less a Load about with him than a whole Body of Death Certainly the bare mention of our Lord 's thus suffering though so plainly related could not but convince any indifferent and unconcern'd Person passing by that never any Sorrow was like his Sorrow But there is still something more behind that methinks should never permit any of the Sons and Daughters of Men to pass it by as indifferent and unconcern'd And that is the third part of my Text He suffer'd all this for us For us he suffer'd For himself he could not die Death is the Wages of Sin and the sting of Death is Sin Death could have no Dominion over him on that account He did no Sin But if any of us shall say so of our selves The Truth is not in us Wherefore for us or which is all one for our Sins in our place he suffer'd All Sin must be acknowledg'd to be a breach of the Wise Holy and Upright Law of GOD And for every breach of such a Law a severe Punishment is due unless some fitting Expiation be made And that He only could have perform'd Could any other Creatures for us Alas all their value bears no proportion to such a Forfeiture However such as they are we had no right to use them to that purpose since GOD alone not we had the Propriety in them before Nor could we our selves have made an Equitable Satisfaction Alas Were it not for this Redeemer we had wanted an Atonement not only for our Iniquities but for our best Righteousness Wherefore seeing neither we our selves nor any other for us could contribute any just Price towards our Redemption to whom could we have recourse Whither should we flee for Refuge but to that one GOD and one Mediator between GOD and Man the Man Christ Jesus Flee to him we did not neither Nor could we first rather he sought us out found overtook us fleeing from him In that deplorable Condition the Good Samaritan had Compassion on us weltring in our Blood in our Sins that required his Blood To bind up our Wounds and heal our Bruises and love us freely Freely it must have been or not at all Thus for us incompass'd with innumerable Frailties and Corruptions contaminated with so many Pollutions of Original and Actual Sins blacken'd with so many repeated Ingratitudes towards Heaven For us sinful Men. Men sinful Dust and Ashes Worms and no Men for so the Scripture accounts of every Sinner condemns him to have lost the very common Privilege of being a Man which at best is no great Matter to boast of as Man has made himself For Man does but walk in a vain Shadow whereas Sin makes him worse than a Shadow worse than the very Beasts that perish and of Beasts the most contemptible even a Worm of the Earth However for us in this dejected and depraved Condition Christ undertook Christ suffer'd Not only became our Intercessor our Pledge our Ransom our Surety but our Propitiatory Offering our Bloody Sacrifice to atone for us by undergoing himself the
make us averse from any of the rest So let us observe his Mortifications as not to neglect his Charity Nor let our Love of his Communicative Goodness exclude our Observance of his severer Institutions Rather let us carefully mingle them all in our practise as he did in his As he did let us harmoniously joyn the good Duties of Society with those of Retirement the private Devotions of Solitude with the Distributive Virtues of Conversation Thus in every Step of his irreprovable Life and Death we shall not fail to meet with something excellent and most proper for us to trace out and delineate in every Step of ours When we find him in the Stable or the Manger have we not his great Humility When in the Throngs and Assemblies of the City his Mild Charitable and Blameless Behaviour to set before our Eyes When among Publicans and Sinners his gentle Gravity and winning Authority in reproving Wickedness and Licentiousness When with the Scribes and Pharisees his avowed contempt of proud Singularity and censorious Hypocrisie When in the Temple his fervent Zeal When in his Journeys by Sea or Land his going about doing good When alone in the Wilderness his unaffected Sanctity and meek Severity Every where we have his Innocency his Temperance his Modesty his Affability his Justice his Mercy and Universal Beneficence But as this Day most requires since we have now seen him in his Agony in the Garden in the Judgment-Hall Accus'd and Condemn'd and thenceforth brought as a Lamb to the Slaughter and as a Sheep before her Shearers is dumb so opening not his Mouth so meekly either bearing the Cross himself or Crucify'd on it When he was Reviled Reviling not again When he Suffer'd Threatning not but committing himself to him that judgeth Righteously And since according to the Words immediately foregoing my Text This is acceptable to God for even hereunto were we call'd Now particularly let us learn to imitate his Patience Equanimity and Long-Suffering his forgiving Injuries and loving Enemies His Blessing them that Curs'd him His Praying for them who Despitefully used him and Persecuted him and lastly his entire Obedience to the Will of Heaven express'd in that most admirable Word of Submission amidst such ineffable Tortures Not as I will but as Thou wilt And if we shall thus follow his Gracious Steps to Mount Calvery we shall also shortly follow him to Mount Olivet If we shall thus be Partakers of his Death by dying to Sin we shall also be Partakers of his Resurrection by living to Righteousness here to Glory hereafter Which I beseech Almighty GOD to Grant us all Amen FINIS Philip. 2. 8. 1 Cor. 1. 18. Rom. 6. 5. St. John 19. 30. St. Matt. 16. 20. St. Luk. 9. 10. 1 St. Pet. 3. 18. Chap. 2. vers 22. Rev. 1. 8. Hebr. 1. Vers. 3. Psalm 85. 10. 1 Tim. 3. 16. 2 Tim. 1. 10. St. John 1. 41. Colos. 2. 17. Hebr. 10. 1. Gen. 49. 10. Vers. 10. Philip. 2. 6 7. Acts 10. 34. Gal. 2. 6. Isai. 53. 3. Vers. 4. Hebr. 12. 3. St. Matt. 27. 46. Isai. 53. 6. 1 St. Pet. 2. 24. Rom. 7. 24. Rom. 6. 23. 1 Cor. 15. 56. 1 Tim. 2. 5. St. Luk. 10. 33. Hos. 14. 4. Psal. 22. 6. Psal. 39. 2 Cor. 7. 11. Hab. 1. 13. Phil. 2. 12. Heb. 10. 29. 13. 20. Heb. 9. 28. Phil. 2. 13. St. Jude v. 3. Luk. 23. 49. St. John 146. Heb. 12. 2. Psal. 68. 18. Isaiah 53. 7. 1 St. Pet. 2. 23. Vers. 20 21. Vers. 24.
for our Salvation but in the mean time and in order to that for our Example And lastly The Excellency of the Example he has left us to follow is specified in such an eminent Instance that He did no Sin as would indeed make us utterly to despair of ever following it were it not for his Grace strengthning us his Mercy forgiving us and his Spirit supporting us All which he has faithfully promis'd and no Guile was ever found in his Mouth The first Particular in my Text wherein the Grace of our LORD's Passion is magnifi'd is that the Person now suffering was the Christ of God I need not here stay to enumerate distinctly the many High Prerogatives and Glorious Appellations which are heap'd on this great Person as he was the Christ throughout the Holy Scriptures whereof He was the Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the Ending first the Mystery then the Manifestation that to the Jewish Church under the Law this to the whole World under the Gospel It may suffice that all over this inspir'd Book He is amply declar'd to be what the Author to the Hebrews has Divinely contracted into few words The Son of God The only begotten of God The Heir of all Things The Lord of Glory The very Brightness of his Fathers Glory The express Image of his Person full of Grace and Truth by whom He made the Worlds upholding all Things by the Word of his Power All unconceivably splendid and triumphant Attributes and all these directly tending to and chiefly exercis'd in our Pardon and Peace For so it presently follows that when by himself he had purg'd our Sins then and not till then He sate down on the Right Hand of the Majesty on High This then was the Christ appointed before all Time coming in the fulness of Time sent from the Bosom of his Heavenly Father by his Death to raise us from the Death of Sin whereof our first and Temporal Death was the fatal Consequence and our second Eternal Death had been else the irreparable Punishment A Design this was of Pity and Compassion whose Heigth Depth Length and Breadth were so Incomprehensible that nothing less could be sufficient than an Infinite Wisdom to contrive it and Power to effect it and Love to accept of it By this one Adorable Counsel Heaven and Earth that were themselves so vastly distant and whose distance our Sins had widened so much more were to be join'd and for ever Reconciled Mercy and Truth were to meet together Righteousness and Peace to kiss each other There was to be an Atonement on the one part a Forgiveness on the other Satisfaction was to be made by the Free Sufferings of a Man Salvation to be bestow'd by the Free Grace of GOD. Wherefore both Natures the Human and the Divine were to be United in one Christ. And since GOD was pleas'd to dignifie our Mortal Condition so highly by this near Conjunction he made our Nature in his Christ as Glorious and Perfect as it was capable to be The Preparations for his Appearance the Signs that foretold him the Wonders that made way for him his Personal Perfections his Teaching his Actions his Sufferings did all exceed all Measures of Human Greatness or Benignity So Sacred was his Authority that all other True Divine Teachers from the beginning of the World to his Birth though they had gone before him in the Flesh yet received their Power and Commission from him by the Spirit Whatever Wonders they wrought whatever Truths they taught all was done and spoken with relation to him and in subservience to his Religion We know that not only he himself but even his Types Forerunners and Shadows had many of them the Privilege of working Miracles the Gift of altering the common Course of Nature and controuling the setled Laws of the Creation as they pleas'd The Prophets had it Moses had it above all others Yet they all had it only with dependance on him and by a Title deriv'd from him as they were his Figures Ministers and Substitutes to prepare and enable the World by Degrees to receive this Great Mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh This last and universal Declaration of Life and Immortality brought to Light in the Gospel by Him the Messias I know that Messias cometh who is called Christ and when he is come he will teach us all things said the Samaritan Woman in St. John the 4th and Vers. 25. And in the same Chapter said many of the Samaritans Now we have heard him our selves we know that this is indeed the Christ the Saviour of the World Vers. 42. And the same St. John who loved him most and therefore probably knew him best for the greatest Love of GOD is the best way to the greatest Knowledge of him The Messias says he is being interpreted the Christ The very Messias whom the Jewish Nation all the Wise Devout and Inspired part of it all the time it was a True Church so earnestly expected and desired as he was to be afterwards also the Desire of all Nations They long before beheld him though but darkly in the Visions and Intimations to their Fathers the Characters and Inspirations of their Prophets the Veils of their Ceremonies and Sacrifices the Ornaments of their Temple the Office of their High Priests which were all as the Law it self was only Shadows of good things to come whereof He was the Body they had all a borrowed Meaning and Mystical End they were all fixt on the Great Messias by Him they were Illustrated and in Him alone they were all Consummated By the United Expectation of the Jews all along according to the Prophet Daniel's Prediction and no doubt by a right Tradition antienter than that their Messias was to appear after the Captivity and before the Destruction of their Temple and Nation They themselves just then when Christ came did instantly and every Moment expect his coming All their Circumstances agreed in that time All their Descriptions concenter'd in his Person All their Prophecies than gave over the End of them all being in him once obtain'd And that People has since had no more visible Communion with GOD which had so much before The Scepter was not to depart from Judah nor a Law-Giver from between his Feet till Shiloh should come The Scepter just then did depart from Judah Their Temple was shortly after destroy'd and their Nation irrecoverably hitherto scatter'd Wherefore this our Christ must Infallibly have been the same with their Shiloh their Messias He Unto whom the gather ing of the People was to be He towards whom all the Antient Ages of GOD's Church before him did look forward and upon whom all the Ages of it since have look'd back The former Times to foretel him the later Times to reveal him both to Believe in and to be Saved by him alone for which end and with respect to him all the Miseries