holiness in his Life Matth. 11.28 Learn of me I am meek and lowly And such his Ministers desire to approve themselves Phil. 4.9 What ye have heard and seen in me that do He Preacht to their eyes as well as ears His Life was a Comment on his Doctrine They might see holiness acted in his Life as well as sounded by his lips He Preacht the Doctrine and lived the Application Sixthly Lastly Iesus Christ was a Minister that minded and maintained sweet secret communion with God for all his constant publick labours If he had been Preaching and healing all the day yet he would redeem time from his very sleep to spend in secret Prayer Matth. 14.23 When he had sent the multitude away he went up into a Mountain apart to pray and was there alone O blessed pattern Let the keepers of the Vineyards remember they have a Vineyard of their own to keep A Soul of their own that must be lookt after as well as other mens Those that in these things imitate Christ are surely sent to us from him and are worthy of double honour They are a choice blessing to the people The TENTH SERMON LUKE XXIV XLV Then opened he their understandings c. KNowledge of Spiritual things is well distinguished into intelectual and practical The first hath its seat in the mind the latter in the heart This later Divines call a knowledge peculiar to Saints and in the Apostles Dialect it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philip. 3.8 The eminency or excellency of the knowledge of Christ. And indeed there is but little excellency in all those pretty notions which furnish the Lips with discourse unless by a sweet and powerful influence they draw the conscience and will to the obedience of Christ. Light in the mind is necessarily antecedent to the sweet and heavenly motions and mountings of the affections For the farther any man stands from the light of truth the farther he must needs be from the heat of comfort Heavenly quicknings are begotten in the heart while the Sun of righteousness spreads the beams of truth into the understanding and the Soul sits under those its wings Yet all the light of the Gospel spreading and diffusing it self into the mind can never savingly open and change the heart without an other Act of Christ upon it and what that is the Text informs you Then opened be their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures In which words we have both an Act of Christ upon the Disciples understandings and the immediate end and scope of that Act. First Christs Act upon their understandings He opened their understandings By understanding is not here meant the mind only in opposition to the heart will and affections but these were opened by and with the mind The mind is to the heart as the door to the house What comes into the heart comes in at the understanding which is introductive to it and although truths sometimes goes no farther then the Entry never penetrates the hearts yet here this effect is undoubtedly included Expositers make this expression paralel to that in Acts 16.14 The Lord opened the heart of Lydia And it is well observed that it is one thing to open the Scriptures that is to expound them and give the meaning of them as Paul is said to do in Acts 18.3 And another thing to open the mind or heart as it is here There are as a learned man truly observes two doors of the Soul bard against Christ. The understanding by ignorance and the heart by hardness both these are opened by Christ. The former is opened by the Preaching of the Gospel the other by the internal operation of the Spirit The former belongs to the first part of Christs Prophetical office opened in the former the later to that special internal part of his Prophetical office to be opened in this Sermon And that it was not a naked Act upon their minds only but that their hearts and minds did work in fellowship being both touched by this Act of Christ is evident enough by the effects mentioned vers 52.53 They returned to Ierusalem with great Ioy and were continually in the Temple praising and blessing God It is confessed that before this time Christ had opened their hearts by conversion and this opening is not to be understood simply but secundum quid in reference to those particular truths in which till now they were not sufficiently informed and so their hearts could not be duly affected with them They were very dark in their apprehensions of the death and resurrection of Christ and consequently their hearts were sad and dejected about that which had befallen him vers 17. but when he opened the Scriptures and their understandings and heart together then things appeared with another face and they return blessing and praising God Secondly here is farther to be considered the design and end of this Act upon their understandings That they might understand the Scriptures Where let it be marked Reader that the teachings of Christ and his Spirit were never designed to take men off from the reading studying and searching of the Scriptures as some vain Notionists have pretended opposing those things which are subordinated But to make their studies and duties the more fruitful beneficial and effectual to their Souls Or that they might this way receive the end and blessing of all their duties God never intended to abolish his word by giving his Spirit And they are true Fanaticks as Calvin upon this place calls them that think or pretend so By this means he would at once impart more light and make that they had before more operative and useful to them especially in such a time of need as this was Hence we observe DOCT. That the opening of the mind and heart effectually to receive the truths of God is the peculiar prerogative and office of Iesus Christ. One of the great miseries under which lapsed nature labours is spiritual blindness Jesus Christ brings that eye-salve which only can cure it Rev. 3.18 I counsel thee to buy of me eye-salve that thou maist see Those to whom the Spirit hath applied it can say as it is 1 Ioh. 5.20 We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true even in his Son Iesus Christ this is the true God and eternal life To the Spiritual illumination of a Soul it suffices not that the object be revealed nor yet that man the subject of that knowledge have a due use of his own reason but it is further necessarie that the Grace and special assistance of the Holy Spirit be superadded to open and molifie the heart and so give it a due tast and relish of the sweetness of Spiritual truth By opening the Gospel he reveals truth to us and by opening the heart in us Now though this cannot be without that yet it 's much more excellent to have truth
sacrifice the meritorious cause so of necessity there must be faith the instrumental cause And these concauses do all sweetly meet in their influences and activities in our remission and tranquility of conscience and are all suo genere in their kind and place absolutely necessary to the procuring and applying of it What the near that the blood of Christ is shed if I have no interest in it no saving influences from it O be convinvinced this is the end the business of life Faith is the Phoenix grace as Christ is the Phoenix mercy He is the gift Joh. 4.10 And this is the work of God Ioh. 6.29 the death of Christ the offers and tenders of Christ never saved one soul in themselves without believing application But wo is me how do I see sinners either not at all toucht with the sense of sin and so being whole need not the Physitian or if any be sâ—â—â—g and wounded with guilt how do they lick themselves whole with their own duties and reformations as Physitians say of wounds let them but be kept clean and nature will find balsom of its own to heal them If it be so in spiritual wounds what need Christ to have left the Fathers bosom and come down to dye in the quality and nature of a Sacrifice for us O if men can but have health pleasure riches honours and any way make a shift to still a brawling conscience that it may not check or interrupt them in these enjoyments Christ may go where he will for them And I am assured till God shew you the face of sin in the glass of the Law Make the Scorpions and fiery Serpents that lurk in the Law and in your own consciences to come hissing about you and smiting you with their deadly stings till you have had some sick nights and sorrowful days for sin you will never go up and down seeking an interest in the blood of this sacrifice with tears But Reader if ever this be thy condition then wilt thou know the worth of a Christ. Then thou wilt have a value for the blood of sprinkling As I remember it 's storied of our Crook-back Richard when he was put to a rout in a field battel and flying on foot from his pursuing enemies he cried out O now said he a Kingdom for a Horse So wilt thou cry a Kingdom for a Christ. Ten thousand Worlds now if I had thâ—m for the blood of sprinkling Corollary 3. Is Christ your High-Priest and is his Priestood so indispensably necessary to your salvation then freely acknowledge your utter impotency to reconcile your selves to God by any thing you can do or suffer And let Christ have the whole glory of your recovery ascribed to him It 's highly reasonable that he that laid down the whole price should have the whole praise If any man think or say he could have made an attonement for himself he doth therein cast no light reproach upon that profound wisdom which laid the design of our redemption in the death of Christ. But of this I have spoken elsewhere And therefore Corollary 4. In the last place I rather choose to perswade you to see your necessity of this Priest and his most excellent sacrifice and accordingly to make use of it The best of you have polluted natures poisoned in the womb with sin those natures have need of this sacrifice They must have the benefit of this blood to pardon and cleanse them or be eternally damned Hear me ye that never spent a tear for the sin of nature if the blood of Christ be not springled upon your natures it had been better for you that you had been the generation of beasts the off-spring of Dragons or Toads They have a contemptible but not a vitiated sinful nature as you have Your Actual sins have need of this Priest and his sacrifice to procure remission for them If he take them not away by the blood of his cross they can never be taken away They will lie down with you in the dust They will rise with you and follow you to the Judgement seat crying we are thy works and we will follow thee All thy repentance and tears shouldst thou weep as many tears as there be drops in the Ocean can never take away sin Thy duties even the best of them need this sacrifice It is in the verture thereof that they are accepted of God And were it not God had respect to Christs offering he would not regard or look towards thee or any of thy duties Thou couldst no more come near God than thou couldst approach a devouring fire or dwell with everlasting burnings Well then say I need such a Priest every way Love him in all his offices See the goodness of God in providing such a sacrifice for thee Meat drink and air not more necessary to maintain thy natural life than the death of Christ is to give and maintain thy spiritual life O then let thy soul grow big whilst meditating of the usefulness and excellency of Christ which is thus displaied and unfolded in every branch of the Gospel And with a deep sence upon thy heart let thy lips say blessed be God for Iesus Christ. The TWELFTH SERMON HEB. X.XIV. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified AFter this more general view and consideration of the Priesthood of Christ method requires that we come to a nearer and more particular consideration of the parts thereof which are his Oblation and Intercession answerable to the double office of the High-Priest offering the blood of the Sacrifices without the holy place which Typed out Christs oblation and then once a year bringing the blood before the Lord into the most holy place presenting it before the Lord and with it sprinkling the mercy-seat wherein the intercession of Christ the other part or Act of his Priesthood was in a lively manner Typified to us My present business is to open and apply the Oblation of Christ. The efficacy and excellency whereof is excellently illustrated by a comparison with all other oblations in the precedent context and with a singular Encomium commended to us in these words from the singularity of it It is but one offering one not only specifically but one numerically considered But once offered and never more to be repeated For Christ dieth no more Rom. 6.9 He also commends it from the efficacy of it By it he hath perfected i. e. not only purchased a possibility of salvation but all that we need to our full perfection It brings in a most intire compleat and perfect righteousness All that remains to make us perfectly happy is but the full application of the benefits procured by this Oblation for us Moreover it 's here commended from the extensiveness of it Not being restrained to a few but applicable to all the Saints in all the ages and places of the world For this indefinite them that are sanctified is
of blessing but he knew the effect the real blessing it self depended upon God And though he blessed authoritatively yet not potestatively i. e. he could as the mouth of God pronounce blessings but could not confer them Thus he blessed his Children as his Father Isaack has also blessed him before he died Gen. 28.3 and all these blessings were delivered prayerwise Now when Jesus Christ comes to die he will bless his Children also And therein will discover how much dear and tender love he had for them having loved his own which were in the world he loved them to the end Joh. 13.1 the last Act of Christ in this world was an act of blessing Luk. 24.50 51. To prepare this point for use I will here open First The mercies which Christ requested of the Father for them Secondly The Arguments used by him to obtain these mercies Thirdly Why he thus pleaded for them when he was to die Fourthly and Lastly How all this gives full evidence of Christs tender care and love to his people First We will enquire what those mercies and special favours were which Christ beg'd for his people when he was to die And we find among others these five special mercies desired for them in this context First The mercy of preservation both from sin and danger so in the text Keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me which is explained vers 15. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil We in ours and the Saints that are gone in their respective generations have reaped the fruit of this prayer How else comes it to pass that our souls are persecuted amidst such a world of Temptations and these assisted and advantaged by our own corruptions How is it else that our persons are not ruined and destroyed amidst such multitudes of potent and malitious enemies that are set on fire of Hell Surely the preservation of the burning bush of the three children amidst the flames of Daniel in the den of Lyons are not greater wonders than these our eyes do daily behold As the fire would have certainly consumed and the Lyons without doubt have rended and devoured had not God by the interposition of his own hand stopt and hindered the effect so would the sin that is in us and the malice that is in others quickly ruine our souls and bodies were it not that the same hand gardâ— and keeps us every moment To that hand into which this prayer of Christ delivered your souls and bodies do you owe all your mercies and Salvations both Temporal and Spiritual Secondly Another mercy he prays for is the blessing of union among themselves This he joins immediately with the first mercy of preservation and prays for it in the same breath vers 11. that they may be one as we are And well might he joyn them together in one breath for this union is not only a choise mercy in it self but a special means of that preservation he had prayed for before Their union one with another is a special means to preserve them all Thirdly A third desirable mercy that Christ earnestly prayed for was that his joy might be fulfilled in them vers 13. He would provide for their joy even when the hour of his greatest sorrow was at hand Yea he would not only obtain joy for them but a full joy that my joy may be fulfilled in them It is as if he had said O my Father I am to leave these dear ones in a world of troubles and perplexities I know their hearts will be subject to frequent despondencies O let me obtain the cordials of divine joy for them before I go I would not only have them live but live joyfully Provide for their fainting hours reviving cordials Fourthly And as a continued spring to maintain all the forementioned mercies He prays they all may be sanctified through the word of truth vers 17. i. e. more abundantly sanctified than yet they were by a deeper radication of gratious habits and principles in their hearts This is a singular mercy in it self to have holiness spreading it self over and through their sâ—uls as the light of the morning Nothing is for it self more desirable And it 's also a singular help to their perseverance union and spiritual joy which he had prayed for before and are all advanced by their increasing Sanctification Fifthly Lastly As the complement and perfection of all desireable mercies he prays that they may be with him where he is to behold his glory vers 24. This is their best and ultimate priviledge they are capable of The end of his coming down from Heaven and returning thither again All runs into this to bring many Sons and daughters unto glory You see Christ asks no trifles no small things for his people No mercies but the best that both worlds afford will suffice him on their behalf Secondly Let us see how he follows his requests and with what arguments he pleads with the Father for these things And among others I shall single out six choice ones which are urged in this Text or the immediate context First Argument is drawn from the joint interest that both himself and Father have in the persons for whom he prays All mine are thine and thine are mine vers 10. As if he should say Father behold and consider the persons I pray for they are not aliens but children yea they are thy children as well as mine The very same on whom thou hast set thy eternal love and in that love hast given them unto me So that they are both thine and mine Great is our interest in them and interest draws care and tenderness Every one cares for his own provides for and secures his own Propriety even amongst creatures is fundamental to our labour care and watchfulness They would not so much prize life health estates or children if they were not their own Lord these are thine own by many ties and titles O therefore keep comfort sanctifie and save them for they are thine What a mighty plea is this Surely Christians your Intercessor is skilful in his work your Advocate wants no eloquence or ability to plead for you The Second Argument and that a powerful one treads as I may say upon the very heel of the former in the next words And I am glorified in them q. d. My glory and honour is infinitely dear to thee I know thy heart is set intently upon the exalting and glorifying of thy Son now what glory have I in the world but what comes from my people Others neither can nor will glorifie me Nay I am daily blasphemed and dishonoured by them These are they from whom my active glory and praise in the world must rise 'T is true both thou and I have glory from other creatures objectively the works that we have made and imprest our power wisdom and goodness upon do so glorifies us And honour
that is believe they shall be made good to you so far as God sees them good for you Do you but labour to come up to those conditions required in you and thereby God will have more glory and you more comfort If your prayers for these things proceed from pure ends the glory of God not the satisfaction and gratification of your lusts If your desires after them be moderate as to the measure content with that proportion the infinite wisdom sees fittest for you If you take Gods way to obtain them and dare not strain Conscience or commit a sin though you should perish for want If you can patiently wait Gods time for enlargements from your straits and not make any sinful haste You shall be surely supplied And he that remembers your souls will not forget your bodies But we live by sense and not by faith Present things strike our affections more powerfully than the invisible things that are to come The Lord humble his people for this Diduction 4. Is this the priveledge of believers that they can commit their souls to God in a dying hour then how pretious how useful a grace is faith to the pleople of God both living and dying All the graces have done excellently but faith excels them all Faith is the Phoenix grace the Queen of graces Deservedly is it stiled pretious faith 2 Pet. 1.1 The benefits and priviledges of it in this life are unspeakable and as there is no comfortable living so no comfortable dying without it First While we live and converse here in the world all our comfort and safety is from it for all our union with Christ the fountain of mercies and blessings is by faith Eph. 3.17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith No faith no Christ. All our communion with Christ is by it He that cometh to God must believe Heb. 11.6 The souls life is wrapt up in this communion with God and that communion in faith All communications from Christ depend upon faith for look as all communion is founded in union so from our union and communion are all our communications All communications of quicknings comforts joy strength and whatsoever serves to the well-being of the life of grace are all through that faith which first knit us to Christ and still maintains our communion with Christ believing we rejoyce 1 Pet. 1.8 The inner man is renewed whilst we look to the things that are not seen 2 Cor. 4.18 Secondly And as our life and all the supports and comforts of it here are dependent on faith so you see our death as to the safety and comfort of our souls then depends upon our faith He that hath no faith cannot commit his soul to God but rather shrinks from God Faith can do many sweet offices for your souls upon a death bed when the light of this world is gone and all joy ceases on earth It can give us sights of things invisible in the other world and those sights will breathe life into your souls amidst the very pangs of death Reader do but think what a comfortable foresight of God and the joys of salvation will be to thee when thine eye-strings are breaking Faith cannot only see that beyond the grave which will comfort but it can cling about its God and clasp Christ in a promise when it feels the ground of all sensible comforts trembling and sinking under thy feet My heart and my flesh faileth but God is the strength or rock of my heart and my portion for ever Reeds fail but the rock is firm footing Yea and when the soul can no longer tabernacle here it can carry the soul to God cast it upon him with Father into thy hands I commend my spirit O pretious faith Diduction 5. Do the souls of dying believers commend themselves into the hands of God Then let not the surviving relations of such sorrow as men that have not hope A Husband a Wife a Child is rent by death out of your arms well but consider into what arms into what bosom they are commended Is it not better for them to be in the bosom of God than in yours Could they be spared so long from Heaven as to come back again to you but one hour how would they be displeased to see your tears and hear your cries and sighs for them They would say to you as Christ said to the daughters of Ierusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and your children I am in a safe hand I am out of the reach of all storms and troubles O did you but know what their state is who are with God you would be more than satisfied about them Diduction 6. Lastly I will close all with a word of counsel Is this the priviledge of dying believers to commend their souls into the hands of God Then as ever you hope for comfort or peace in your last hour see that your souls be such as may be then fit to be commended into the hands of an holy and just God See that they be holy souls God will never accept them if they be not holy Without holiness no man shall see God Heb. 12.24 He that hath this hope viz. to see God purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 Joh. 3.3 Indeavours after holiness are inseparably connected with all rational expectations of blessedness Will you put an unclean filthy defiled thing into the pure hand of the most holy God O see they be holy and already accepted in the beloved or wo to them when they take their leaves of those tabernacles they now dwell in The gratious soul may confidently say then Lord Iesus into thy hands I commend my spirit O let all that can say so then now say Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ. The THIRTY SEVENTH SERMON JOH XIX XL XLI XLII Then took they the body of Iesus and wound it in linen cloaths with the spices as the manner of the Iews is to bury Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new Sepulchre wherein was never man yet laid There laid they Iesus therefore because of the Iews preparation day for the Sepulchre was nigh at hand YOU have heard the last words of dying Jesus commending his spirit into his Fathers hands and now the life of the world hangs dead upon a Tree The light of the world for a time muffled up in a dismal cloud The Son of Righteousness set in the region and shadow of Death The Lord is dead and he that wears the keys of the grave at his girdle is now himself to be lockt up in the grave All you that are the friends and Lovers of Jesus are this day invited to his â—â—neral Such a funeral as never was since Graves were first digged Come see the place where the Lord lay There are six remarkable particulars about this funeral in these three verses The preparations that were made for it and
When thou makest a feast call the poor the maimed the lame the blind and thou shalt be blessed for they cannot recompence thee for thou shalt be recompensed at the Resurrection of the Iust. It was the opinion of an eminent modern Divine that no man living fully understands and believes that Scripture Matth. 25.40 In as much as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me How few Saints would be exposed to daily wants and necessities if that Scripture were but fully understood and believed Inference 3. Is Christ risen from the dead and that as a publick person and representative of believers How are we all concerned then to secure to our selves an interest in Christ and consequently to this blessed Resurrection What consolation would be left in this world if the hope of the Resurrection were taken away 'T is this blesed hope that must support you under all the Troubles of life and in the Agonies of Death The securing of a blessed Resurrection to your selves is therefore the most deep concernment you have in this world And it may be secured to your selves if upon serious heart examination you can discover the following Evidences Evidence 1. First If you are regenerated Creatures brought forth in a new nature to God for we are begotten again to a lively hope by the Resurrection of Iesus Christ from the dead Christs Resurrection is the ground-work of our hope And the new birth is our title or evidence of our interest in it So that until our souls are partakers of the spiritual Resurrection from the death of sin we can have no assurance our bodies shall be partakers of that blessed Resurrection to life Blessed and holy saith the Spirit is he that hath part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power Rev. 20.6 Never let unregenerated souls expect a comfortable meeting with their bodies again Rise they shall by Gods terrible Citation at the sound of the last trump but not to the same end that the Saints arise nor by the same principle They to whom the spirit is now a principle of Sanctification to them he will be the principle of a joyful Resurrection See then that you get gratious souls now or never expect glorious bodies then Evid 2. If you be dead with Christ you shall live again by the life of Christ. If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection Rom. 6.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Planted together some refer it to believers themselves Jews and Gentiles are planted together in Christ. So Erasmus believers grow together like branches upon the same root which should powerfully inforce the great Gospel duty of unity among themselves But I would rather understand it with reference to Christ and believers with whom believers are in other Scriptures said to suffer together and be glorified together to die together and live together to be Crucified together and buried together all noting the communion they have with Christ both in his death and in his life Now if the power of Christs death i. e. the mortifying influence of it have been upon our hearts killing their Lusts deading their affections and flatting their appetites to the Creature then the power of his life or Resurrection shall come like the animating dew upon our dead withered bodies to revive and raise them up to live with him in glory Evid 3. If your hearts and affections be now with Christ in Heaven your bodies in due time shall be there also and conformed to his glorious body So you find it Phil. 3.20 21. For our conversation is in heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Iesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body The body is here called vile or the body of our vileness Not as God made it but as sin hath marred it Not absolutely and in it self but relatively and in comparison of what it will be in its second edition at the Resurrection Then those scattered bones and dispersed dust like pieces of old broken battered Silver will be new cast and wrought in the best and newest fashion even like to Christs glorious body Whereof we have this evidence that our conversation is already heavenly The temper frame and disposition of our souls is already so therefore the frame and temper of our bodies in due time shall be so Evid 4. If you strive now by any means to attain the Resurrection of the dead no doubt but you shall then attain what you now strive for This was Pauls great ambition that by any means he might attain the Resurrection of the dead Phil. 3.11 He means not simply a Resurrection from the dead for that all men shall attain whether they strive for it or no. But by a metonymy of the Subject for the Ajunct he intends that compleat holiness and perfection which shall attend the state of the Resurrection so it is expounded vers 12. So then if God have raised in your hearts a vehement desire and assiduous endeavour aftâ—r a perfect freedom from sin and full Conformity to God in the beauties of holiness that very love of holiness your present pantings and tendencies after perfection speaks you to be persons designed for it Evid 5. If you are such as do good in your Generation If you be fruitful and useful men and women in the world you shall have part in this blessed Resurrection Ioh. 5.29 All that are in the Graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life Now it is not every act materially good that entitles a man to this priviledge but the same requisites that the School-men assign to make a good prayer are also necessary to every good work The person matter manner and end must be good Nor is it any single good act but a series and course of holy actions that is here meant What a spur should this be to us all as indeed the Apostle makes it closing up the Doctrine of the Resurrection with this solemn exhortation 1 Cor. 15. Last with which I also close mine Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable Gift The FORTIETH SERMON JOH XX. XVII Iesus saith unto her touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father but go to my Brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God IN all the former Sermons we have been following Christ through his Humiliation from the time that he left the blessed bosom of his Father and now having finished the whole course of his obedience on
of conversing with and enjoying God in Prayer is by acting faith on him through a Mediator so much of faith and Christ as is in a Duty so much comfort and true excellency there is in it and no more Oh then how indispensible is the knowledge of Christ to all that do adress themselves to God in any Duty Thirdly It 's fundamental to all comforts all the Comforts of believers are streams from this Fountain Jesus Christ is the very object-matter of a believers Joy Phil. 3.3 our rejoycing is in Christ Iesus take away the knowledge of Christ and a Christian is the most sad and melancholy creature in the world again let Christ but manifest himself and dart the beams of his light into their souls it will make them kiss the stakes sing in flames and shout in the pangs of death as men that divide the spoil Lastly this knowledge is fundamental to the eternal happiness of souls as we can perform no duty enjoy no comfort so neither can we be saved without it Joh. 17.3 this is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent and if it be eternal life to know Christ then it is eternal Damnation to be ignorant of Christ as Christ is the door that opens Heaven so knowledge is the key that opens Christ. The excellent gifts and renowned parts of the Moral Heathens though they purchased to them great esteem and honour among men yet left them in a state of perdition because of this grand defect they were ignorant of Christ 1 Cor. 1.21 thus you see how fundamental the knowledge of Christ is and essentially necessary to all the graces duties comforts and happiness of souls Thirdly The knowledge of Christ is profound and large all other Sciences are but Shallows this a boundless bottomless Ocean no creature hath a line long enough to fathom the depth of it there is height length depth and breadth ascribed to it Eph. 3.14 yea it passeth knowledge there is a manifold wisdom of God in Christ Eph. 3.10 It is of many sorts and forms of many folds and plights it is indeed simple pure and unmixed with any thing but it self yet it is manifold in degrees kinds and Administrations though something of Christ be unfolded in one age and something in an other yet eternity if self cannot fully unfold him I see something said Luther which blessed Austin saw not and those that come after me will see that which I see not it is in the studying of Christ as in the planting of a new discovered Country at first men sit down by the Sea side upon the skirts and borders of the Land and there they dwell but by degrees they search farther and farther into the heart of the Country ah the best of us are yet but upon the borders of this vast Continent Fourthly The study of Jesus Christ is the most noble Subject that ever a soul spent it self upon those that rack and toture their brains upon other studys like Children weary themselves at a low game the Eagle plays at the Sun it self the Angels study this Doctrine and stoop down to look into this deep abyss what are the Truths discovered in Christ but the very secrets that from eternity lay hid in the bosom of God Eph. 3.8 9. Gods heart is opened to men in Christ Ioh. 1.18 this makes the Gospel such a glorious dispensation because Christ is so gloriously revealed therein 2 Cor. 3.9 and the studying of Christ in the Gospel stamps such a Heavenly glory upon the contemplating soul v. 18. Fitâ—hly It is the most sweet and comfortable knowledge to be studying Jesus Christ what is it but to be digging among all the veins and springs of comfort and the deeper you dig the more do those springs flow upon you how are hearts ravished with the discoveries of Christ in the Gospel what extasies meltings transports do gratious souls meet there doubtless Philips extasie Ioh. 1.45 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have found Jesus was far beyond that of Archimedes a believer could fit from Morning to Night to hear Discourses of Christ his mouth is most sweet Cant. 5.16 Secondly Let us compare this knowledge with all other knowledge and thereby the excellency of it will farther appear First All other knowledge is natural but this wholly supernatural Matth. 11.27 no man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any the father save the Son and he to whom so ever the Son will reveal him the wisest Heathens could never make a discovery of Christ by their deepest searches into nature the most Eagle-eyed Philosophers were but Children in knowledge compared with the most illiterate Christians Secondly Oâ—her knowledge is unattainable by many all the helps and means in the world would never enable some Christians to attain the Learned Arts and Languages men of the best wits and most pregnant parts are most excellent in these but here is the mysterie and excellency of the knowledge of Christ that men of most blunt dull and contemptible parts attain through the teaching of the spirit to this knowledge in which the more acute and ingenious are utterly blind Matth. 11.25 I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes 1. Cor. 1.26 27. you see your calling brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called but God hath chosen the foolish things of the World to confound the wise c. Thirdly Other knowledge though you should attain the highest degree of it would never bring you to Heaven being defective and lame both in the integrity of parts the principal thing viz. Christ being wanting and in the purity of its nature for the knowing Heathens grew vain in their imaginations 1 Rom. 21. and in the efficacy and influence of it on the heart and life they held the truth in unrighteousness their lusts were stronger than their light 1 Rom. 18. but this knowledge hath potent influences changing souls into its own image 2 Cor. 3.18 and so proves a saving knowledge unto men 1 Tim. 2.4 and thus I have in a few particulars pointed out the transcendency of the knowledge of Christ. The use of all this I shall give you in a few Inferences on which I shall not enlarge the whole being only praeliminary to the Doctrine of Christ only for the present I shall hence infer The â—â—sufficiency of the Doctrine of Christ to make men wise unto salvation Paul deâ—ired to know nothing else and indeed nothing else is of absolute necessity to be known a little of this knowledge if saving and effâ—ctual upon thy heart will do thy soul more service than all the vain speculations and profound parts that others so much glory in poor Christian be not dejected because thou seest thy self out-stript and excelled by so many in other
parts of knowledge if thou know Jesus Christ thou knowest enough to comfort and save thy soul many learned Philosophers are now in Hell and many illiterate Christians in Heaven If there be such excellency in the knowledge of Christ let it humble all both Saints and sinners that we have no more of this clear and effectual knowledge in us notwithstanding the excellent advantages we have had for it Sinners concerning you I may sigh and say with the Apostle 1 Cor. 15.34 some have not the knowledge of Christ I speak this to your shame this oh this is the condemnation and even for you that are enlightned in this knowledge how little do you know of Jesus Christ in comparison of what you might have known of him what a shame is it that you should need to be taught the very first truths when for the time you might have been teachers of others Heb. 5.12 13 14. that your Ministers cannot speak unto you as spiritual but as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ 1 Cor. 3.1.2 Oh how much time is spent in other studies in vain discourses frivolous Pamphlets worldly imployments how little in the search and study of Jesus Christ How sad is their condition that have a knowledge of Christ and yet as to themselves it had been better they had never had it many there be that content themselves with an unpractical ineffectual and meerly notional knowledge of him of whom the Apostle saith it had been better for them not to have known 2 Pet. 2.21 it serves only to aggravate sin and misery for though it be not enough to save them yet it puts some weak restraints upon sin which their impetuous lusts breaking down exposes them thereby to a greater damnation Fourthly This may inform us by what rule to Judge both Ministers and Doctrines certainly that is the highest commendation of a Minister to be an able Minister of the New Testament not of the letter but of the spirit 2. Cor. 3.6 he is the best Artist that can most lively and powerfully display Jesus Christ before the people evidently setting him forth as Crucified among them and that is the best Sermon that is most full of Christ not of art and language I know that an holy Dialect well becometh the lips of Christs Ministers they should not be rude and careless in language or method but surely the excellency of a Sermon lyes not in that but in the plainest discoveries and livelyest applications of Jesus Christ. Let all that mind the honour of Religion or the peace and comfort of their own souls wholly sequester and apply themselves to the study of Jesus Christ and him Crucified wherefore spend we our selves upon other studies when all excellency sweetness and desirableness is concenter'd in this one Jesus Christ is fairer than the children of men the chiefest among ten thousands as the Apple-tree among the trees of the wood quae faciunt divisa beatum in hoc mixta fluunt these things which singly ravish and delight the souls of men are all found conjunctly in Christ. O what a blessed Christ is this whom to know is eternal life from the knowledge of Jesus Christ do bud forth all the fruits of comfort and that for all seasons and conditions Hence Revel 22.2 he is called the tree of life which bears twelve manner of fruits and yields its fruit every month and the very leaves of this tree are for healing in Christ souls have 1. All necessarys for food and physick 2. All varieties of fruits twelve manner of fruits a distinct sweetness in this in that and in the other attribute promise ordinance 3. In him are these fruits at all times he bears fruit every month there is precious fruit in Jesus Christ even in the black month Winter fruits as well as Summer fruits O then study Christ study to know him more extensively there be many excellent things in Christ that the most Eagle-eyed believer hath not yet seen ah 't is pitty that any thing of Christ should lye hid from his people study to know Christ more intensively to get the experimental taste and lively power of his knowledge upon your hearts and affections this is the knowledge that carries all the sweetness and comfort in it Christian I dare appeal to thy experience whether the experimental taste of Jesus Christ in Ordinances and duties have not a higher and sweeter relish than any created enjoyment thou ever tasted in this world O then separate devote and wholly give thy self thy time thy strength to this most sweet trascendent study Lastly Let me close the whole with a double caution one to our selves who by our callings and professions are the Ministers of Christ another to those that sit under the Doctrine of Christ daily First If this Doctrine be the most excellent necessary fundamental profound noble and comfortable Doctrine let us then take heed lest while we study to be exact in other things we be found ignorant in this ye know it 's ignominious by the common suffrage of the civilized world for any man to be unacquainted with his own calling or not to intend the proper business of it It 's our calling as the Bridegrooms friends to woo and win souls to Christ to set him forth to the people as Crucified among them Gal. 3.1 to present him in all his attractive excellencies that all hearts may be ravished with his beauty and charmed into his arms by love we must also be able to defend the truths of Christ against undermining Hereticks to instill his knowledge into the ignorant to answer the cases and scruples of poor doubting Christians How many intricate knots have we to untye what pains what skill is requisite for such as are imployed about our work and shall we spend our precious time in frivolous controversies Philosophical niceties dry and barren Scholastick notions shall we study every thing but Christ revolve all Volumes but the Sacred ones what is observed even of Bellarmine that he turn'd with loathing from School Divinity because it wanted the sweet juice of piety may be convictive to many among us who are often too much in love with worse imployment that what he is said to loath Oh let the knowledge of Christ dwell richly in us Secondly Let us see that our knowledge of Christ be not a powerless barren impracticable knowledge Oh that in its passage from our understandings to our lips it might powerfully melt sweeten and ravish our hearts Remember Brethren an holy calling never saved any man without an holy heart if our tongues only be sanctified out whole man must be damned we and our people must be judged by the same Gospel and stand at the same bar and be sentenced on the same terms and dealt with as severely as any other men we cannot think to be saved by our Clergy or to come off with a Legit ut elericus when there is
of dearest love Joh. 13.23 now there was leaning on Iesus bosom one of his Disciples whom Iesus loved but Christ did not lean upon the Fathers bosom as that Disciple did on his but lay in it and therefore in Isa. 42.1 the Father calls him mine elect in whom my soul delighteth which is variously rendred the Septuagint quem suscepit whom my soul takes or wraps up others complacuit one that highly pleases and delights my very soul and 2 Cor. 8.9 he is said in this estate wherein I am now describing him to be rich and Phil. 2.7 to be equal with God and to be in the form of God i. e. to have all the glory and ensigns of the Majesty of God and the riches which he speaks of was no less then all that God the Father hath Joh. 16.15 all that the Father hath is mine and what he now hath in this his exalted state is the same he had before his humiliation Ioh. 17.5 now to glimpse out as we are able the unspeakable felicity of that state of Christ whilst he lay in that blessed bosom I shall consider it three ways negatively positively and comparatively Let us consider that state negatively by removing from it all those degrees of abasement and sorrow which his incarnation brought him under as First he was not then abased to the condition of a Creature which was a low stoop indeed and that which upon the matter undid him in point of reputation for by this saith the Apostle he made himself of no reputation Phil. 2.7 it emptied him of his glory for God to be made man is such an abasement as none can express but then not only to appear in true flesh but also in the likeness of sinful flesh as Rom. 8.3 O what is this Secondly Christ was not under the Law in this Estate I confess 't was no disparagement to Adam in the state of innocency to Angels in their state of glory to be under Law to God but it was an unconceivable abasement to the absolute independent being to come under Law yea not only under the obedience but also under the malediction and curse of the Law Gal. 4.4 but when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the Law Thirdly In this State he was not lyable to any of those sorrowful consequents and attendants of that frail and feeble state of humanity which he afterwards assumed with the nature as 1. He was unacquainted with griefs there was no sorrowing nor sighing in that bosom where he lay though afterwards he became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Isa. 53.3 a man of sorrows as if he had been constituted and made up of pure and unmixed sorrows every day conversing with griefs as with his intimate companions and acquaintance 2. He was never pinched with poverty and wants while he continued in that bosom as he was afterwards when he said the Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head Ah blessed Jesus thou needest not to have wanted a place to have lain thine head hadst thou not left that bosom for my sake 3. He never under-went reproach and shame in that bosom there was nothing but glory and honour reflected upon him by his Father though afterwards he was despised and rejected of men Isa. 53.3 his Father never looked upon him without smiles and love delight and joy though afterwards he became a reproach of men and despised of the people Psal. 22.6 4. His holy heart was never offended with an impure suggestion or temptation of the Devil all the while he lay in that bosom of peace and love he never knew what it was to be assaulted with temptations to be besieged and battered upon by unclean spirits as he did afterwards Matth. 4.1 then was Iesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil It was for our sakes that he submitted to those exercises of Spirit to be in all points tempted like as we are that he might be unto us a merciful and faithful high-Priest Heb. 4.15 5. He was never sensible of pains and tortures in soul or body there were no such things in that blessed bosom where he lay though afterwards he groaned and sweat under them Isa. 53.5 the Lord embraced him from eternity but never wounded him till he stood in our place and room 6. There were no hidings or withdrawments of his father from him there was not a cloud from eternity upon the face of God till Iesus Christ had left that bosom it was a new thing to Christ to see frowns in the face of his Father a new thing for him to cry my God my God why hast thou forsaken me Matth. 27.46 7. There were never any impressions of his Fathers wrath upon him as there were afterwards God never delivered such a bitter cup of wrath into his hands before as that was Matth. 26.39 Lastly There was no death to which he was subject in that bosom all these things were new things to Christ he was above them all till for our sakes he voluntarily subjected himself unto them thus you see what that state was not Let us consider it positively what it was and guess by some particular considerations for indeed we can but guess 〈◊〉 the glory of it as 1. We cannot but conceive it to be a state of matchless happiness if we consider the persons enjoying and delighting each in other he was with God Ioh. 1.1 God you know is the Fountain Ocean and Center of all delights and joys Psal. 16.11 in thy presence is fulness of joy To be wrapt up in the soul and bosom of all delights as Christ was must needs be a state transcending apprehension to have the Fountain of love and delight letting out it self so immediatly and fully and everlastingly upon this only begotten darling of his soul so as it never did communicate it self to any judge what a state of transcendent felicity this must be great persons have great delights 2. Or if we consider the intimacy dearness yea oneness of those great persons one with another the nearer the union the sweeter the communion now Jesus Christ was not only near and dear to God but one with him I and my Father are one Joh. 10.30 one in nature will love and delight there is indeed a Moral union of souls among men by love but this was a natural oneness no Child is so one with his Father no Husband so one with the Wife of his bosom no Friend so one with his Friend no Soul so one with its body as Jesus Christ and his Father were one O what matchless delights must necessarily flow from such a blessed Union 3. Consider again the purity of that delight with which the blessed Father and Son embraced each other the best Creature-delights one in another are mixed debased
and allayed if there be something ravishing and ingaging there is also something cloying and distasting the purer any delight is the more excellent Now there are no Christal streams flowing so purely from the Fountain no beams of light so unmixed from the Sun as the loves and delights of these holy and glorious persons were the holy holy holy Father embraced the thrice holy Son with a most holy delight and love 4. Consider the constancy of this delight it was from everlasting as in ver 23. and from Eternity it never suffered one moments interruption the ever-flowing Fountain of Gods delight and love never stopt its course never ebbed but as he speaks in the Text I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him once more consider the fulness of that delight the perfection of that pleasure I was delights so the word is in its original not only plural delights all delights but also in the abstract delight it self as afterwards from the abundance of his sorrows he was stiled a man of sorrows so here from the fulness of his delights as who should say even constituted and made up of pleasure and delight Once more let us consider it comparitively and this state will yet appear more glorious comparing it with either the choicest delights that one Creature takes in another or that God takes in the creature or that the creature takes in God measure these immense delights betwixt the Father and his Son by either of these lines and you shall find them all infinitely short For 1. Though the delights that creatures take in each other be sometimes a great delight such was Iacobs delight in Benjamin whose life is said to be bound up in the lads life a dear and high expression Gen. 44.30 such was that of Ionathan in David whose soul was knit with his soul and he loved him as his own soul 1 Sam. 13.1 and such is the delight of one friend in another there is a friend that is as a mans own soul Deut. 13.6 yet all this is but Creature-delight and can in no particular match the delights betwixt the Father and the Son for this is but a finite delight according to the measure and abilities of Creatures but that is infinite suitable to the infinite perfection of the Divine being this is always mixed that perfectly pure 2. Or if you compare it with the delight that God takes in the Creatures it is confessed that God takes great delight in some creatures the Lord takes pleasure in his Saints he rejoyces over them with singing and resteth in his love Zeph. 3.17 Isa. 62.5 but yet there is a great difference betwixt his delight in creatures and his delights in Christ for all his delight in the Saints is secondary and for Christs sake but his delights in Christ are primary and for his own sake we are accepted in the beloved Ephes. 1.6 he is beloved and accepted for himself 3. To conclude compare it once more with the delights that the best of creatures take in God and Christ and it must be confessed that is a choice delight and a transcendent love with which they love and delight in him Psal. 73.25 whom have I in Heaven but thee and on earth there is none that I desire besides thee what pangs of love what raptures of delight did the Spouse express to Christ oh thou whom my soul loveth but surely our delight in God is no perfect rule to measure his delight in Christ by for our love to God at the best is still imperfect that 's the burden and constant complaint of Saints but this is perfect ours is inconstant up and down ebbing and flowing but this is constant so then to conclude the condition and state of Iesus Christ before his Incarnation was a state of highest and matchless delight in the enjoyment of his Father The Uses follow Vse of Information What an astonishing act of love was this then for the Father to give the delight the darling of his soul out of his very bosom for poor sinners all tongues must needs pause and faulter that attempt the expression of this grace expressions being here swallowed up God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son Joh. 3.16 here is a sic without a sicut so loved them how did he love them nay here you must excuse the tongues of Angels which of us would deliver a Child the Child of our delights an only Child to death for the greatest inheritance in the World what tender Parent can endure a parting pull with such a Child when Hagar was taking her last leave as she thought of her Ishmael Gen. 21.16 the text saith she went and sate her down over against him a good way off for she said let me not see the death of the Child and she sate over against him and lift up her voice and wept though she were none of the best Mothers nor he the best of Children yet she could not give up a Child O 't was hard to part what an out-cry did David make even for an Absalom wishing he dyed for him what a hole as I may say hath the death of some Children made in the hearts of some Parents which will never be closed up in this world yet surely never did any Child lye so close to a Parents heart as Christ did to his Fathers and yet he willingly parts with him though his only one the Son of his delights and that to death a cursed death for sinners for the worst of sinners O miranda dei philanthropia matchless love a love past finding out let all men therefore in the business of their redemption give equal glory to the Father with the Son Ioh. 5.23 if the Father had not loved thee he had never parted with such a Son for thee From one wonder let your souls turn to another for they are now in the midst of wonders adore and be for ever astonished at the love of Jesus Christ to poor sinners that ever he should consent to leave such a bosom and the ineffable delights that were there for such poor worms as we are O heights depths length and bredth of unmeasurable love O see Rom. 5.6 7 8. read and wonder how is the love of Christ commended in ravishing circumstances to poor sinners you would be loath to leave a Creatures bosom a comfortable dwelling a fair estate for the best friend in the world your souls are loath to leave their bodies though they have no such great content there but which of you if ever you found by experience what it is to be in the bosom of God by Divine Communion would be perswaded to leave such a bosom for all the good that is in the world and yet Jesus Christ who was imbraced in that bosom after another manner than ever you were acquainted with freely left it and laid down the glory and riches he enjoyed there for your sakes and as the father
be Is it indeed worth no more than this in your eyes Surely you will not be long of that opinion Will you be of that mind think you when death and Judgement shall have throughly awakned you O no then a thousand worlds for a Christ. As its storied of our Crook-back'd Richard when he lost the field and was in great danger by his enemies that pressed upon him O now said he a Kingdom for an Horse Or think ye that any beside you in the world are of your mind You are deceived if you think so To them that believe he is precious through all the world 1 Pet. 2.7 And in the other world they are of a quite contrary mind Could you but hear what is said of him in heaven in what a dialect the Saved of the Lord do extoll their Saviour or could you but imagine the self revenges the self torments which the damned suffer for this their folly and what a value they would set upon one tender of Christ if it might but again be hoped for you would see that such as you are the only despisers of Christ. Beside methinks its astonishing that you should despise a mercy in which your own souls are so dearly so deeply so everlastingly concerned in as they are in this gift of God If it were but the soul of another nay less if but the body of another and yet less than that if but anothers beast whose life you could preserve you are obliged to do it but when it is thy self yea the best part of thy self thine own invaluable soul that thou ruinest and destroyest hereby Oh what a monster art thou to cast it away thus What! will you slight your own souls Care you not whether they be saved or whether they be damned Is it indeed an indifferent thing with you which way they fall at death Have you imagined a tollerable Hell Is it easie to perish Are you not only turned Gods enemies but your own too O see what monsters can sin turn men and women into O the stupifying besotting intoxicating power of Sin But perhaps you think that all these are but uncertain sounds with which we alarm you It may be thine own heart will Preach such Doctrine as this to thee Who can assure thee of the reallity of these things What shouldst thou trouble thy self about an invisible world or be so much concerned for what thine eyes never saw nor didst ever receive the report from any that have seen them Well though we cannot now shew you these things yet shortly they shall be shewn you and your own eyes shall behold them You are convinced and satisfied that many other things are real which you never saw But be assured that if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation Which at first began to be spoken to us by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness Heb. 2.2 3 4. But if they be certain yet they are not near It will be a long time before they come poor soul how dost thou cheat thy self It may be not by twenty parts so long a time as thine own phancy draws it forth for thee Thou art not certain of the next moment And suppose what thou imaginest what is Twenty or Forty years when it is past yea what is a thousand years to the vast eternity Go trifle away a few days more sleep out a few nights more and then lie down in the dust it will not be long ere the Trump of God shall awaken thee and thine eyes shall behold Jesus coming in the clouds of heaven and then you will know the price of this sin O therefore if there be any sence of eternity upon you any pity or love for your selves in you if you have any concernments more than the beasts that perish despise not your own offered mercies slight not the richest gift that ever was yet opened to the world and a sweeter cannot be opened to all Eternity The FIFTH SERMON JOH I.XIV. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us c. YOU have heard the Covenant of Redemption opened The work therein propounded by the Father and consented to by the Son is such as infinitly exceeds the power of any meer Ceature to perform He that undertakes to satisfie God by obedience for the sin of man must himself be God And he that performeth such a perfect obedience by doing and suffering all that the Law required in our rooms must be man These two natures must be united in one person else there could not be a concourse or co-operation of either nature in his mediatory works How these natures are united in the wonderful person of our Immanuel is the first part of the great mysterie of of godliness A Subject studied and adored by Angels And the mysterie thereof is wrap'd up in this Text. Wherein we have First the incarnation of the Son of God plainly asserted Secondly that assertion strongly confirmed In the assertion we have three parts The person assuming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word i. e. the second person or subsistent in the most glorious Godhead call'd the Word either because he is the scope and principal matter both of the prophetical and promisory word Or because he expounds and reveals the mind and will of God to men as vers 18. The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared or expounded him The Nature assumed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flâ—sh i. e. the intire humane Nature consisting of a true humane soul and body For so this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Rom. 3.20 And the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which answers to it by a usual Metonymie of a part for the whole is used Gen. 6.12 And the word flesh is rather used here than man on purpose to aggravate the admirable condescention and abasement of Christ there being more of vileness weakness and opposition to spirit in this word than in that as is pertinently noted by some Hence the whole nature is denominated by that part and called flesh The Assumption it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was made not fuit he was as Socinus would render in design to overthrow the existence of Christs glorify'd body now in heaven But factus est it was made i. e. he took or assumed the true humane nature called flesh for the reason before rendred into the unity of his divine person with all its integral parts and essential properties and so was made or became a true and real man by that assumption The Apostle speaking of the same act Heb. 2.16 Uses another word He took on him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fitly rendred he took on him or he assumed Which assuming though inchoative it was the work of the whole Trinity God
the Father in the Son by the spirit forming on creating that nature as if three Sisters should make a garment betwixt them which only one of them wears yet terminative it was the act of the Son only 'T was he only that was made flesh And when 't is said he was made flesh misconceive not as if there was a mutation of the Godhead into flesh for this was performed not by changing what he was but by assuming what he was not As Aug. well expresseth it As when the Scripture in a like expression saith he was made sin 2 Cor. 5.21 And made a curse Gall. 3.13 The meaning is not that he was turned into sin or into a curse no more may we think here the Godhead was turned into flesh and lost its own being and nature because it 's said he was made flesh This is the sum of the Assertion This assertion that the word was made flesh is strongly confirmed He dwelt among us and we saw his glory This was no Phantasm but a most real and indubitable thing For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he pitcht his tent or Tabernacled with us And we are eye-witnesses of it Parralel to that Ioh. 1.1 2 3. That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of Life c. Declare we unto you Hence Note DOCT. That Iesus Christ did really assume the true and perfect nature of man into a personal union with his divine nature and still remains true God and true man in one person for ever The Proposition contains one of the deepest mysteries in godliness 1 Tim. 3.16 A mysterie by which apprehension is dazled invention astonished and all expression swallowed up If ever the tongues of Angels were desirable to explicate any word of God they are so here Great is the interest of words in this Doctrine We walk upon the brink of danger The least tread awry may ingulph us in the bogs of error Arrius would have been content if the Council of Nice would but have gratified him in a Letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Nestorians also desired but a Letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These seemed but small and modest requests but if granted had proved no small prejudices to Jesus Christ and his truths I desire therefore the Reader would with greatest attention of mind apply himself to these truths 'T is a Doctrine hard to understand and dangerous to mistake I am really of his mind that said its better not touch the bottom than not keep within the circle melius est nescire centrum quà m non tenere circulum He did assume a true humane body that is plainly asserted Phil. 2.7 8 c. Heb. 2.14 16. In one place its call'd taking on him the seed of Abraham and in the Text Flesh. He did also assume a true humane soul that 's undeniable by its operations passions and expiration at last Matth. 26.38 and 27.50 And that both these natures make but one person is as evident from Rom. 1.3 4. Iesus Christ was made of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the Resurrection from the Dead So Rom. 9.5 Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed for ever Amen But that you may have a sound and clear understanding of this mysterie I will 1. open the nature 2. the effects and 3. the reasons or ends of this wonderful union The nature of this union There be three illustrious and dazling unions in Scripture That of three persons in one God essentially That of two distinct natures and persons by one Spirit mystically And this of two distinct natures in one person Hypostatically This is my task to open at this time And for the more distinct and perspicuous management thereof I shall speak to it both Negatively and positively Think not when Christ assumed our nature that it was united consubstantially so as the three persons in the Godhead are united among themselves They all have but one and the same nature and will but in Christ are two distinct natures and wills though but one person Nor yet that they are united Physically as soul and body are united in one person For death actually dissolves that but this is indissoluble So that when his soul was expir'd and his body interred both soul and body were still united to the second person as much as ever Nor yet is it such a mystical union as is between Christ and Bâ—lievers Indeed that is a glorious union but though believers are said to be in Christ and Christ in them yet they are not one person with him They are not Christed into Christ or Goded into God as blasphemous Familists speaks But this Assumption of which I speak is that whereby the second person in the Godhead did take the humane nature into a personal union with himself by vertue whereof the manhood subsists in the second person yet without confusion both making but one person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Immanuel God with us So that though we truly ascribe a twofold nature to Christ yet not a double person For the humane nature of Christ never subsisted seperately and distinctly by any personal subsistance of its own as it doth in all other men but from the first moment of conception subsisted in union with the second person To explicate this mysterie more particularly let it be considered First The humane nature was united to the second person miraculously and extraordinarily being supernaturally fram'd in the womb of the Virgin by the over-shadowing power of the highest Luk. 1.34 35. By reason whereof it may truly and properly be said to be the fruit of the womb not of the loyns of man but not by man And this was necessary to exempt the assumed nature from the stain and pollution of Adams Sin which it wholly escaped in as much as he received it not as all others do in the way of ordinary generation wherein Original sin is propagated but this being extraordinarily produced was a most pure and holy thing Luk. 1.35 And indeed this perfect shining holiness in which it was produced was absolutely necessary both in order to its union with the Divine person and the design of that union which was both to satisfie for and to sanctifie us The two natures could not be conjoyned in the person of Christ had there been the least taint of sin upon the humane nature For God can have no fellowship with sin much less be united to it Or supposing such a conjunction with our sinful nature yet he being a sinner himself could never satisfie for the sins of others Nor could an unholy thing ever make us holy Such an high-Priest therefore became us as
is holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners Heb. 7.26 And such an one must he needs be whom the holy Ghost produces in such a peculiar way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That holy thing Secondly As it was produced miraculously so it was assumed integrally That is to say Christ took a compleat and perfect humane soul and body with all and every faculty and member pertaining to it And this was necessary as both Austin and Fulgentius have well observed that hereby he might heal the whole nature of that Leprosie of sin which had seiz'd and infected every member and faculty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He assumed all to sanctifie all as Damascen expresseth it He design'd a perfect recovery by sanctifying us wholly in Soul Body and Spirit And therefore assumed the whole in order to it Thirdly He assumed our nature as with all its integral parts so with all its Sinless infirmities And therefore it s said of him Heb. 2.17 That it behoved him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to all things that is all things natural not formally sinful as it 's limited by the same Apostle Heb. 4.15 to be made like unto his brethren But here our Divines do carefully distinguish infirmities into personal and natural Personal infirmities are such as befall particular persons from particular causes Such as Dumbness Blindness Lameness Leprosies Monstrosities and other deformities These it was no way necessary that Christ should not did he at all assume but the natural ones such as Hunger Thirst Weariness Sweating Bleeding Mortality c. Which though they are not in themselves formally and intrinsecally sinful yet are they the effects and consequents of sin They are so many marks that sin hath left of its self upon our natures And on that account Christ is said to be sent in the likeness of sinful Flesh Rom. 8.3 Wherein the gracious condescension of Christ for us is marvelously signallized That he would not assume our innocent nature as it was in Adam before the fall while it stood in all its primitive glory and perfection but after sin had quite defaced ruined and spoil'd it Fourthly The humane nature is so united with the Divine as that each nature still retains its own essential properties distinct And this distinction is not nor can be lost by that union So that the two understandings wills powers c. viz. The Divine and humane are not confounded but a line of distinction runs betwixt them still in this wonderful Person It was the Heresie of the Eutichians condemned by the Council of Chalcedon to affirm that there was no distinction betwixt the two natures in Christ. Against whom that Council determined that they were united 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any immutation or confusion Fifthly The union of the two natures in Christ is an inseparable Vnion So that from the first moment thereof there never was nor to Eternity shall be any Separation of them If you ask how the union remained betwixt them when Christs humane Soul and Body were separated from each other upon the Cross Is not death the dissolution of union betwixt Soul and Body True The natural union betwixt his Soul and Body was dissolved by death for a time but this Hypostatical union remained even then as intire and firm as ever For though his Soul and Body were divided from each other yet neither of them from the Divine Nature Divines assist our conception of this mysterie by an apt illustration A man that holds in his hand a Sword sheathed when he pleaseth draws forth the Sword but still holds that in one hand and the sheath in the other and then sheaths it again still holding it in his hand so when Christ dyed his Soul and Body retained their union with the Divine Nature though not during that space one with another And thus you are to form and regulate your conceptions of this great mysterie Some adumbrations and imperfect similitudes of it may be found in Nature Among which some commend that union which the Soul and Body have with each other They are of different natures yet both make one individual man Others fault this because both these united make but one compleat humane nature whereas in Christs person are two perfect natures and commend to us a more perfect emblem viz. that of the Cyens and the tree or stock which have two natures yet make but one tree But then we must remember that the Cyens wants a root of its own which is an integral part but Christ assumed our nature integrally This defect is by others supplyed in the Miscletoe and the Oak which have different natures and the Miscletoe subsists in union with the Oak still retaining the difference of nature and though making but one tree yet bears different fruits And so much to the first thing namely the nature of this Union For the effects or immediate results of this marvelous Union let these three be well considered First The two natures being thus united in the person of the mediator by vertue thereof the properties of each nature are attributed and do truly agree to the whole person so that it 's proper to say the Lord of glory was crucified 1. Cor. 2.8 And the blood of God redeemed the Church Acts 20.28 That Christ was both in heaven and in earth at the same time Ioh. 3.13 Yet we do not believe that one nature doth transfuse or impart its properties to the other or that it is proper to say the Divine nature Suffered Bled or Dyed or the humane is omniscient omnipotent omnipresent but that the properties of both natures are so ascribed to the person that it is proper to affirm any of them of him in the concrete though not abstractly the right understanding of this would greatly assist in reaching the true sence of the forenamed and many other dark passages in the Scriptures Secondly Another fruit of this Hypostatical union is the singular advancement of the humane nature in Christ far beyond and above what it is capable of in any other person it being hereby replenished and fill'd with an unparelell'd measure of Divine graces and excellencies in which respect he is said to be annointed above or before his fellows Psal. 45.8 And so becomes the object of adoration and Divine worship Acts 7.59 This the Socinians oppugn with this Argument He that is worshiped with a Divine worship as he is mediator is not so worshiped as God but Christ is worshiped as mediator But we say that to be worshiped as mediator and as God are not opposite but the one is necessarily included in the other and therein is farther included the ratio formalis sub quâ of that Divine religious worship Thirdly Hence in the last place follows as another excellent fruit of this Union the concourse and co-operation of each nature to his mediatory works For in them he acts according to both
sinners such a fair Foundation to rest their trembling Consciences upon While poor distressed Souls look to themselves they are perpetually puzled That 's the cry of distressed natural conscience Mica 6.6 Where with shall I come before the Lord the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how shall I prevent or anticipate the Lord and so Montanus renders it in quo preoccupabo Dominum conscience sees God arming himself with wrath to avenge himself for sin crys out O how shall I prevent him If he would accept the fruit of my body those dear pledges of nature for the sin of my Soul he should have them But now we see God coming down in flesh and so intimately uniting our flesh to himself that it hath no proper subsistance of its own but is united with the Divine person hence it 's easie to imagine what worth and value must be in that blood and how eternal love springing forth triumphantly from it flourishes into Pardon Grace and Peace Here is a way in which the sinner may see Justice and Mercy kissing each other and the latter exercised freely without prejudice to the former All others Consciences through the world lie either in a deep sleep in the Devils arms or else are rouling Sea sick upon the waves of their own fears and dismal presages O happy are they that have dropt Anchor on this ground and not only know they have peace but why they have it Vse 5. Oh how great concernment is it that Christ should have Vnion with our particular persons as well as with our common nature For by this Union with our nature alone never any man was or can be Saved Yea let me add that this Union with your natures is utterly in vain to you and will do you no good except he have union with your persons by faith also It is indeed infinite mercy that God is come so near you as to dwell in your flesh and that he hath fitted such an excellent Method to save poor sinners in And hath he done all this Is he indeed come home even to your own doors to seek Peace Doth he vail his unsupportable glory under flesh that he might treat thee more familiarly And yet do you refuse him and shut your hearts against him Then hear one word and let thine ears tingle at the sound of it thy sin is hereby aggravated beyond the sin of Devils who never sin'd against a Mediator in their own nature who never despised or refused because indeed they were never offered terms of Mercy as you are And I doubt not but the Devils themselves who now tempt you to reject will to all Eternity upbraid your folly for rejecting this great Salvation which in this excellent way is brought down even to your own doors Vse 6. If Jesus Christ have assumed our nature Then he is sensibly toucht with the infirmities that attend it and so hath pity and compassion for us under all our burdens And indeed this was one end of his assuming it that he might be able to have compassion on us as you read Heb. 2.17.18 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them hat are tempted O what a comfort is this to us that he who is our High-Priest in Heaven hath our nature on him to enable him to take compassion on us Vse 7. Seventhly Hence we see To what an height God intends to build up the happiness of man in that he hath layed the Foundation thereof so deep in the incarnating of his own Son They that intend to build high use to lay the Foundation low The happiness and glory of our Bodies as well as Souls is founded in Christs taking our flesh upon him For therein as in a Model or Pattern God intended to shew what in time he resolves to make of our Bodies For he will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transform our vile Bodies and make them one day conformable to the glorious Body of Jesus Christ Phil. 3.21 This flesh was therefore assumed by Christ that in it might be shewn as in a Pattern how God intends to honour and exalt it And indeed a greater honour cannot be done to the nature of man than what is already done it by this grace of union Nor are our persons capable of an higher glory than what consists in their conformity to this glorious head Indeed the flesh of Christ will ever have a distinct glory from ours in Heaven by reason of this Union For being the the Body which the word assumed it is two ways advanced singularly above the Flesh and Blood of all other men viz. Subjectively and Objectively Subjectively it is the Flesh and Blood of God Acts 20.28 And so hath a distinct and incommunicable glory of its own And Objectively it is the Flesh and Blood which all the Angels and Saints adore But though in these things it be supereminently exalted yet it is both the Medium and Pattern of all that glory which God designs to raise us to Vse 8. Lastly How wonderful a comfort is it that he who dwells in our Flesh is God! What Joy may not a poor believer make out of this What comfort one made out of it I will give you in his own words I see it a work of God saith he that experiences are all lost when Summons of improbation to prove our Charters of Christ to be counterfeit are raised against poor Souls in their heavy Tryals But let me be a sinner and worse than the chief of Sinners yea a guilty Devil I am sure my well beloved is God And my Christ is God And when I say my Christ is God I have said all things I can say no more I would I could build as much on this My Christ is God as it would bear I might lay all the world upon it God and Man in one Person Oh thrice happy conjunction As Man he is full of experimental sence of our Infirmities Wants and Burdens and as God he can support and and supply them all The aspect of Faith upon this wonderful Person how relieving how reviving how abundantly satisfying is it God will never divorce the believing Soul and its comfort after he hath marryed our nature to his own Son by the Hypostatical and our persons also by the blessed Mystical Union The SIXTH SERMON JOH VI. XXVII For him hath God the Father Sealed YOU have heard Christs compact or agreement with the Father in the Covenant of Redemption As also what the Father did in pursuance of the ends thereof in giving his Son out of his bosom c. Also what the Son hath done towards it in assuming Flesh. But though the glorious work be thus far advanced yet all he
should act in that assumed Body had been invallid and vain without a due call and Commission from the Father so to do Which is the import of the words now before you This Scripture is a part of Christs excellent reply to a self-ended generation who followed him not for any Spiritual excellencies that they saw in him or Soul advantages they expected by him but for bread Insteed of making his service their meat and drink they only served him that they might eat and drink Self is a thing may creep into the best hearts and actions but it only predominates in the Hypocrite These people had sought Christ from place to place and having at last found him they salute him with an impertinent complement Rabbi when camest thou hither vers 25. Christs reply is partly disswasive and partly directive He disswades them from puting the secondary and subordinate in the place of the principal and ultimate end Not to prefer their Bodies to their Souls Their fleshly accommodations to the glory of God Labour not for the meat that perisheth Wherein he doth not take them off from their lawful labours and callings but he disswades them first from minding these things too intently and secondly he disswades them from that odious Sin of making Religion but a pretence for the belly And it is partly directive and that in the main end and business of Life But labour for that meat which endures to Eternal Life To get bread for your Souls to live Eternally by And that he might engage their diligence in seeking it to purpose he shews them not only where they may have it Which the Son of Man shall give you but also how they may be fully satisfied that he hath it for them in the clause I have pitched on For him hath God the Father Sealed In these words are three parts observable First The Person Sealing or investing Christ with Authority and Power Which is said to be God the Father Though all the Persons in the Godhead are equal in nature dignity and power yet in their operation there is an order observed among them The Father sends the Son The Son is sent by the Father The Holy Ghost is sent by both Secondly The Subject in which God the Father lodges this Authority Him that is the Son of Man Jesus Christ he is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first receptacle of it And he must here be understood exclusively God the Father hath so Sealed him as he never Sealed any other before him or that shall arise after him No name is given in heaven or earth but this name by which we are Saved Acts 4.12 The government is upon his shoulders Isa. 9. Thirdly Here is farther observable the way and manner of the Fathers delegating and committing this Authority to Christ. And that is by Sealing him Where we have both a Metonymie the Symbal of Authority being put for the Authority it self And a Metaphor Sealing which is a humane act for the ratifying and confirming an Instrument or grant being here applied to God Like as Princes by Sealed Credentials confirm the Authority of those that are sent by them As the Dutch Annatators well express the meaning of it Hence we Note DOCT. That Iesus Christ did not of himself undertake the work of our Redemption but was solemnly Sealed unto that work by God the Father When I say he did not of himself undertake this work I mean not that he was unwilling to go about it for his heart was as fully and ardently engaged in it as the Fathers was so he tells us Psal. 4.7 Loe I come to do thy will O God thy Law is in my heart But the meaning is he came not without a due call and full commission from his Father And so it is to be understood in opposition to intrusion not voluntary susception And this is the meaning of that Scripture Ioh. 8.42 I proceeded and came from God neither came I of my self but he sent me And this the Apostle plainly expresseth and fully clears Heb. 5.4 5. And no man taketh this honour to himself but he that is call'd of God as was Aaron so also Christ glorified not himself to be made an High-Priest but he that said unto him thou art my Son And on the account of these Sealed Credentials he received from his Father he is called the Apostle and High-Priest of our profession Heb. 3.1 i. e. One called and sent forth by the Fathers Authority Our present business then is to open Christs commission and view the great Seal of Heaven by which it was ratified And to preserve a clear Method in the explication of this great truth into which your Faith and comfort is resolved I shall First shew what was the work and office to which the Father Sealed him Secondly What his Sealing to this work doth imply Thirdly How and by what acts the Father Sealed him to it Fourthly Why it was necessary that he should be thus Sealed and authorized by his Father And then improve it in its proper Uses What was that office or work to which his Father Sealed him I answer more generally he was Sealed to the whole work of mediation for us thereby to recover and save all the elect whom the Father had given him So Ioh. 17.2 It was to give Eternal Life to as many as were given him It was to bring Iacob again to him Esa. 49.5 Or as the Apostle expresses it Pet. 3.18 That he might bring us to God More particularly in order to the sure and full effecting of this most glorious design he was Sealed to the offices of a Prophet Priest and King that so he might bring about and compass this work First God Sealed him a commission to Preach the glad tidings of Salvation to sinners This commission Christ opened and read in the audience of the people Luk. 4.18 19 20 21. And when he had opened the Book he found the place where it is written the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath annointed me to Preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted to Preach deliverance to the Captives and the recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised To Preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the Book c. And he began to say unto them this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears He also Sealed him to the Priesthood and that the most excellent Authorizing him to execute both the parts of it viz. Oblatory and intercessory He call'd him to offer up himself a Sacrifice for us I have power saith he to lay down my Life this commandment have I received of my Father Joh. 10.18 And upon that account his offering up of his Blood is by the Apostle stiled an act of obedience as it is Phil. 2.8 He became obedient unto death He also call'd him to intercede for us Heb. 7.21 24 25.
that have need of it unbelievers have no share in it They reject it Such have no part in it If then he neither dyed for himself as I proved before nor for Angels nor unbelievers either his blood must be shed with respect to believers or which is most absurd and never to be imagined shed as water upon the ground and totally cast away So that you see by all this it was for our Sakes as the Text speaks that he sanctified himself And now we may say Lord the Condemnation was thine that the Iustification might be mine The Agony thine that the Victory might be mine The Pain was thine and the Ease mine The Stripes thine and the Healing Balm issuing from them mine The Vinegar and Gall was thine that the Honey and Sweet might be mine The Curse was thine that the Blessing might be mine The Crown of Thorns was thine that the Crown of Glory might be mine The Death was thine the Life purchased by it mine Thou payedst the Price that I might enjoy the Inheritance We come next to the Inferences of truth deducible from this point Which follow Inference 1. If Jesus Christ did wholly set himself apart for believers How reasonable is it that believers should Consecrate and set themselves apart wholly for Christ Is he all for us and shall we be nothing for him What he was he was for you What ever he did was done for you And all that he suffered was suffered for you Oh then I beseech you Brethren by the mercys of God present your Bodys i. e. your whole selves for so body is there Synechdochically put to signifie the whole person I say present your bodys a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your reasonable Service Rom. 12.1 As your good was Christs end so let his glory be your end Let Christ be the end of your conversation Heb. 13.7 As Christ could say to me to live is you So do you say for us to live is Christ Phil. 1.21 O that all who profess Faith in Christ could subscribe Cordially to that profession Rom. 14.8 None of us liveth to himself and no man dyeth to himself but whether we live we live to the Lord and whether we die we die to to the Lord so then whether we live or die we are the Lords This is to be a Christian indeed What is a Christian but an holy dedicated thing to the Lord And what greater evidence can there be that Christ set himself apart for you than your setting your selves apart for him This is the marriage Covenant Hos. 3.3 Thou shalt be for me and not for another so will I be for thee Ah what a life is the life of a Christian Christ all for you and you all for him Blessed exchange Soul saith Christ all I have is thine Lord saith the Soul and all I have is thine Soul saith Christ my person is wonderful but what I am I am for thee My life was spent in labour and travel but I lived for thee And Lord saith the believer my person is vile and not worth thy accepting but such as it is it 's thine my Soul with all and every faculty my body and every member of it my gifts time and all my Talents are thine And see that as Christ bequeathed and made over himself to you so ye in the like manner bestow and make over your selves to him He lived not neither dyed as you hear for himself but you O that you in like manner would down with self and up with Christ in the room of it Woe woe is me saith one that the holy profession of Christ is made a stagâ—e garment by many to bring home a vain fame And Christ is made to serve mens ends This is to stop an Oven with a Kings Robes Except men Martyr and slay the body of sin in sanctified self-denyal they shall never be Christs Martyrs and faithful Witnesses Oh if I could be master of that house-Idol my self Mine own Mine own wit will credit and ease how blessed were I O but we have need to be redeemed from our selves rather than from the Devil and the world Learn to put out your selves and to put in Christ for your selves I should make a sweet bargain and give old for new if I could shuffle out Self and substitute Christ my Lord in place of my self to say not I but Christ not my will but Christs not my ease not my lusts not my credit but Christ Christ. O wretched Idol my self when shall I see thee wholly decourted and Christ wholly put in thy Room O if Christ had the full place and Room of my self that all my aims purposes thoughts and desires would coast and land upon Christ and not upon my self He set himself apart for you Believers and no others No not for Angels but for you will ye also set your selves apart peculiarly for Christ be his and no others Let not Christ and the world share and divide your Hearts in two halves betwixt them let not the world step in and say half mine You will never do Christ right nor answer this Grace till you can say as it is Psal. 73.25 whom have I in Heaven but thee and on Earth there is none that I desire in comparison of thee None but Christ none but Christ is a proper Motto for a Christian. He left the highest and best injoyments even those in his Fathers bosom to set himself apart for Death and sufferings for you are you ready to leave the bosom of the best and sweetest injoyments you have in this world to serve him if you stand not habitually ready to leave Father Mother Wife Children Lands yea and life too to serve him You are not worthy of him Mat. 10.37 He was so wholly given up to your service that he refused not the worst and hardest part of it even bleeding groaning dying work his love to you sweetned all this to him can you say so too do you account the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the Treasures of Egypt as Moses did Heb. 11.26 He had so intirely devoted himself to your work that he could not be at rest till it was finished He was so intent upon it that he forgot to eat Bread Joh. 4.31 32. so it should be with you His service should be Meat and Drink to you to conclude He was so wholly given up to your work and service that he would not suffer himself to be in the least diverted or taken off from it And if Peter himself counsel him to favour himself he shall hear get thee behind me Satan Oh happy were it if our Hearts were but so engaged for Christ. In Gallens time it was proverbial when they would express the impossibility of a thing You may assoon take off a Christian from Christ. Thus you see what use you should make of Christs sanctifying himself for you Inference 2. If Christ have sanctified or consecrated himself for us
heard him So that his very enemies were forced to acknowledge that never any man spake like him Joh. 7.46 Thirdly It implys Christ to be the Original and fountain of all that light which is ministerially diffused up and down the world by men Ministers are but Stars which shine with a borrowed light from the Sun So speaks the Apostle 2 Cor. 4.6 7. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Iesus Christ. Those that teach men must be first taught by Christ. All the Prophets of the Old and all the Apostles Pastors and Teachers of the New Testament have lighted their Candles at his Torch 'T was Christ that gave them a mouth and wisdom Luk. 21.15 What Paul received from the Lord he delivered to the Church 1 Cor. 11.23 Jesus Christ is the chief Shepherd 1 Pet. 5.4 And all the under Shepherds receive their gifts and commissions from him These things are manifestly implyed in Christs Prophetical Office We shall next enquire how he executes and discharges this his Office Or how he enlightens and teacheth men the will of God And this he hath done variously gradually plainly powerfully sweetly purely and fully First Our great Prophet hath revealed to men the will of God variously Not holding one even and constant tenour in the manifestations of the Fathers will but as the Apostle speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at sundry times and in divers manners Heb. 1.1 Sometimes he taught the Church immediately and in his own person Ioh. 18.20 He declared Gods righteousness in the great congregation Psal. 22.22 And sometimes immediately by his Ministers and Officers deputed to that service by him So he dispensed the knowledge of God to the Church both before his incarnation It was Christ that in the time and by the Ministry of Noah went and Preached to the Spirits in prison as it is 1 Pet. 3.19 That is to men and women then alive but now separated from the body and imprisoned in Hell for their disobedience And it was Christ that was with the Church in the wilderness instructing and guiding them by the Ministry of Moses and Aaron Acts 7.37 38. And so he hath taught the Church since his ascension He cannot now be personally with us having other business to do for us in Heaven but however he will not be wanting to teach us by his Officers whom for that end he hath set and appointed in the Church Ephes. 4.11.12 Secondly He hath dispensed his blessed light to the Church gradually The discoveries of light have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in many parts or parcels sometimes more obscure and cloudy as it was to the Old Testament-believers by Visions Dreams Urim Thumim vocal Oracles Types Sacrifices c. Which though comparatively it were but a weak glimering light and had no glory set by that which now shines 2 Cor. 3.7 8 9 10 18. Yet it was sufficient for the instruction and Salvation of the Elect in those times But now is light sprung up gloriously in the Gospel dispensation And we all with open face behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord. It is to us not a twy-light but the light of a perfect day And still it is advancing in the several ages of the world I know more said Luther than blessed Austin knew and they that come after me will know more than I know Thirdly Jesus Christ our great Prophet hath manifested to us the will of God plainly and perspicuously When he was on earth himself he taught the People by Parables and without a Parable he spake nothing Matth. 13. 3 4. He cloathed Sublime and Spiritual mysteries in earthly Metaphors stooping them thereby to the low and dull capacities of men Speaking so familiarly to the People about them as if he had been speaking earthly things to them Ioh. 3.12 And so according to his own example would he have his Ministers Preach using great plainness of speech 2 Cor. 3.12 And by manifestation of the truth commending themselves to every mans conscience 2 Cor. 4.2 Yet not allowing them to be rude and careless in expression pouring out indigested crude immethodical words No an holy serious strict and grave expression befits the lips of his Embassadours And who ever spake more weightily more Logically or perswasively than that Apostle by whose Pen Christ hath admonished us to beware of vain affectation and swelling words of vanity But he would have us stoop to the understandings of the meanest And not give the People a Comment darker than the Text. He would have us rather pierce their consciences than tickle their phancies And break their heart than please their ears Christ was a very plain Preacher Fourthly Jesus Christ discovered truth powerfully Speaking as one having authority and not as the Pharisees Matth. 7.29 They were cold and dull Preachers Their words did even freeze betwixt their lips But Christ spake with power There was heat as well as light in his Doctrine And so there is still though it be in the mouth of poor contemptible men 2 Cor. 10.4 The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the casting down of strong holds 'T is still quick and powerful sharper than a two edged Sword and piercing to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit and of the jâ—ynts and marrow Heb. 4.12 The blessed Apostle imitated Christ. And being filled with his Spirit spake home and freely to the hearts of men So many words so many claps of Thunder as one said of him which made the hearts of sinners shake and tremble in their breasts All faithful and able Ministers are not alike gifted in this particular but surely there is an holy seriousness a Spiritual grace and Majesty in their Doctrine commanding reverence from the hearers Fifthly This Prophet Jesus Christ taught the people the mind of God in a sweet affectionate and taking manner His words made their hearts burn within them Luk. 24.32 It was Prophesied of him Isa. 42.2 He shall not cry nor life up nor cause his voice to be heard on high A bruised reed he shall not break and smoaking flax be shall not quench He knew how to speak a word in season to the weary Soul Esa. 61.1 He gathered the Lambs with his arms And gently led those with young Esa. 4.11 How sweetly did his words slide to the melting hearts about him He drew with cords of Love with the bands of a man He discouraged none Upbraided none that were willing to come to him His familiarity and free condescensions to the most vile and and despiseable sinners was often made the matter of his reproach Such is his gentle and sweet carriage to his people that the Church is called the Lambs Wife Rev. 19.7 Sixthly He revealed the mind of God purely to men His Doctrine had not the least dash of
do your souls good Psal. 4.4 Commune with your own hearts Thirdly Labour to see and ingenuously confess the insufficiency of all your other knowledge to do you good What if you had never so much skill and knowledge in other mysteries What if you be never so well acquainted with the letter of the Scripture What if you had angelical illumination this can never save thy soul. No all thy knowledge signifies nothing till the Lord shew thee by special light the deplored state of thy own heart and a saving sight of Jesus Christ thy only remedy Inference 4. Since then there is a common light and special saving light which none but Christ can give it 's therefore the concernment of every one of you to try what your light is We know saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 8.1 that we all have knowledge O but what and whence is it Is it the light of life springing from Jesus Christ that bright and morning star Or only such as the Devils and damned have These lights differ First in their very kinds and natures The one is Heavenly supernatural and spiritual the other earthly and natural the effect of a better constitution or education Iam. 3.15 17. Secondly They differ most apparently in their effects and operations The light that comes in a special way from Christ is humbling abasing and soul emptying light By it a man sees the vileness of his own nature and practice which begets self loathing in him but natural light on the contrary puffs up and exalts makes the heart swell with self conceitedness 1 Cor. 8.1 The Light of Christ is practical and operative still urging the soul yea lovingly constraining it to obedience No sooner did it shine into Pauls heart but presently he asks Lord what wilt thou have me to do Act. 9.6 It brought forth fruit in the Collossians from the first day it came to them Col. 1.6 but the other spends it self in impractical notions and is detained in unrighteousness â— Rom. 1.18 The light of Christ is powerfully transformative of its subjects changing the man in whom it is into the same image from glory to glory 2 Cor. 3. ult but common light leaves the heart as dead carnal and sensual as if no light at all were in it In a word All saving light endears Jesus Christ to the soul and as it could not value him before it saw him so when once he appears to the soul in his own light he is appreciated and endeared unspeakably then none but Christ. All is but dung that he may win Christ. None in Heaven but him nor on earth desirable in comparison of him But no such effect flows from natural common knowledge Thirdly They differ in their Issues Natural common knowledge vanisheth as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 13.8 It 's but a May flower and dies in its month Doth not their excellency that is in them go away Job 4.21 But this that springs from Christ is perfected not destroyed by death It springs up into everlasting life The soul in which it is subjected carrys it away with it into glory Ioh. 17.2 this light is life eternal Now turn in and compare your selves with these rules Let not false light deceive you Inference 5. Lastly How are they obliged to love serve and honour Iesus Christ whom he hath enlightned with the saving knowledge of himself O that with hands and hearts lifted up to Heaven ye would adore the free grace of Jesus Christ to your souls How many round about you have their eyes closed and their hearts shut up How many are in darkness and there are like to remain till they come to the blackness of darkness which is reserved for them O what a pleasant thing is it for your eyes to see the light of this world but what is it for the eye of your mind to see God in Christ To see such ravishing sights as the objects of faith are And to have such a pledge as this given you of the blessed visions of glory for in this light you shall see light Bless God and boast not Rejoyce in your light but be not proud of it And beware ye sin not against the best and highest light in this world If God were so incensed against the Heathens for disobeying the light of nature what is it in you to sin with eyes clearly illuminated with the purest light that shines in this world You know God charges it upon Solomon in 1 King 11.9 that he turned from the way of obedience after the Lord had appeared unto him twice Jesus Christ intended when he opened your eyes that your eyes should direct your feet Light is a special help to obedience and obedience a singular help to increase your light The ELEVENTH SERMON HEB. IX XXIII It was therefore necessary that the partners of things in the Heavens should be purified with these but the Heavenly things themselves with better Sacrifices than these SAlvation as to the actual dispensation of it is revealed by Christ as a Prophet procured by him as a Priest applied by him as a King in vain is it revealed if not purchased in vain revealed and purchased if not applied How it is revealed both to us and in us by our great Prophet hath been declared And now from the Prophetical Office we pass on to the Priestly Office of Jesus Christ who as our Priest purchased our Salvation In this Office is contained the grand relief for a soul distressed by the guilt of sin When all other reliefs have been essayed 't is the blood of this great sacrifice sprinkled by faith upon the trembling conscience that must cool refresh and sweetly compose and settle it Now seeing so great a weight hangs upon this Office the Apostle industriously confirms and commends it in this Epistle and more specially in this ninth Chapter Shewing how it was figured to the world by the Typical blood of the sacrifices but infinitely excels them all And as in many other most weighty respects so principally in this that the blood of these Sacrifices did but purifie the Types or patterns of the Heavenly things but the blood of this Sacrifice purified or consecrated the Heavenly things themselves signified by those Types The words read contain an Argument to prove the necessity of the offering up of Christ the great Sacrifice drawn from the proportion betwixt the Types and things Typified If the Sanctuary Mercy-seat and all things pertaining to the service of the Tabernacle was to be consecrated by blood those earthly but sacred Types by the blood of Bulls and Lambs c. much more the Heavenly things shadowed by them ought to be purified or consecrated by better blood than the blood of beasts The blood consecrating these should as much excel the blood that consecrated those as the Heavenly things themselves do in their own nature excel those earthly shadows of them Look what proportion there is betwixt the Type and Anti-Type
the Empyrean Heaven the City of God wihther Christ ascended Where the great assembly are met Paradise and Canaan were but the Types of it More excelling and trascending the Royal Palaces of earthly Princes than they do a â—idgeon hold The company also with whom he is enjoyed adds to the glory A blissful society indeed Store of good neighbours in that City There we shall have familiar converse with Angels whose appearances now are insupportable by poor mortals There will be sweet and full closings also betwixt the Saints Luther and Zuinglius are there agreed here they could not fully close with one another And no wonder for they could not fully close with themselves But there is perfect harmony and unity All meeting and closing in God as lines in the Center This is a blessed glimpse of your inheritance Thirdly All this is purchased for Believers hence it 's call'd the Inheritance of the Saints in Light Col. 1.12 All is yours for ye are Christs that is the tenure 1 Cor. 3.23 So Rom. 8.30 Whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified Only those that are Sons are Heirs Rom. 8.17 The unrighteous shall not inherit 1 Cor. 6.9 It 's the Fathers good pleasure to give the Kingdom to the little flock Luk. 12.32 Inference 1. Hath Christ not only redeemed you from wrath but purchased such an eternal inheritance also by the overplus of his merit for you Oh how well content should Believers then be with their lot of providence in this life be it what it will Content did I say I speak too low overcome ravisht filled with praises and thanksgivings how low how poor how afflicted soever for present they are O let not such a thing as grumbling repining freting at providence be found or once named among the expectants of this Inheritance Suppose you had taken a beggar from your door and adopted him to be your Son and made him Heir of a large inheritance and after this he should contest and quarrel with you for a trifle could you bear it how to work the Spirit of a Saint into contentment with a Low condition here I have laid down several rules in another discourse to which for present I refer the Reader Inference 2. With what weaned affections should the people of God walk up and down this world content to live and willing to die For things present are theirs if they live and things to come are theirs if they die Paul expresses himself in a frame of holy indifferencie Phil. 1.23 Which to choose I know not Many of them that are now in fruition of their inheritance above had vitam in patientia mortem in desiderio life in patience and death in desire while they tabernacled with us Oh cried one what would I give to have a bed made to my wearied soul in Christs bosom I cannot tell you what sweet pain and delightful torments are in his love I often challenge time for holding us assunder I profess to you I have no rest till I be over head and ears in Loves Ocean If Christs Love that fountain of delights were laid open to me as I would wish O how drunken would this my soul be I half call his absence cruel and the mask and vail on his face a cruel covering that hideth such a fair fair face from a â—ick soul. I dare not challenge himself but his absence is a mountain of Iron upon my heavy heart O when shall we meet How long is it to the dawning of the marriage day O sweet Lord Jesus take wide steps O my Lord come over mountains at one stride O my beloved flee like a Roe or young Hart upon the mountains of seperation O if he would fold the Heavens together like an old cloak and shovel time and days out of the way and make ready in hast the Lambs wife for her husband Since he looked upon me my heart is not mine own Who can be blamed for desiring to see that fair inheritance which is purchased for him But truly should God hold up the soul by the power of faith from day to day to such sights as these who would be content to live a day more on earth How should we be ready to pull down the Prison walls and not having patience to wait till God open the door As the Heathen said Victurosque dii celant ut vivere durant And truly the wisdom of God is in this specially remarkable in giving the new creature such an admirable crasis and even temper as that Scripture 2 Thes. 3.5 expresses The Lord direct your hearts into the Love of God and patient waiting for of Christ. Love inflames with desire patience allays that fervor So that fervent desires as one happily expresses it are allaied with meek submission Mighty love with strong patience And had not God twisted together these two principles in the Christians constitution he had framed a creature to be a torment to it self to live upon a very rack Inference 3. Hence we infer the impossibility of their Salvation that know not Christ nor have interest in his blood Neither Heathens nor meerly nominal Christians can inherit I know some are very indulgent to the Heathen and many formal Christians are but too much so to themselves but union by faith with Jesus Christ is the only way revealed in Scripture by which we hope to come to the heavenly inheritance I know it seems hard that such brave men as some of the Heathens were should be damned but the Scripture knows no other way to glory but Christ put on and applied by faith And it is the common suffrage of modern sound Divines that no man by the sole conduct of nature without the knowledge of Christ can be saved There is but one way to glory for all the world Ioh. 14.6 No man cometh to the Father but by me Gal. 3.14 The blessing of Abraham comes upon the Gentiles through faith Scripture asserts the impossibility of being or doing any thing that is truly evangelically good out of Christ. Joh. 15.5 Without me ye can do nothing and Heb. 11.6 Without faith it is impossible to please God Scripture every where connects and chains Salvation with vocation Rom. 8.30 and vocation with Gospel Rom. 10.14 To those that plead for the Salvation of Heathens and profane Christians we may apply that tart rebuke of Bernard that while some labour to make Plato a Christian he feared they therein did prove themselves to be Heathens Inference 4. How greatly are we all concerned to clear up our Title to the heavenly inheritance It 's horrible to see how industrious many are for an inheritance on earth and how careless for Heaven By which we may plainly see how vilely the noble soul is depressed by sin and sunk down into flesh minding only the concernments of the flesh Hear me ye that labour for
in the hearts of men Secondly How he rules in it and by what acts he exerciseth his Kingly authority Thirdly What are the priviledges of those souls over whom Christ raigns And then apply it First We will open the way and manner in which Christ obtains a Throne in the hearts of men and that is by conquest For though the souls of the Elect are his by donation and right of redemption the Father gave them to him and he died for them yet Satan hath the first possession and so it fares with Christ as it did with Abraham to whom God gave the Land of Canaan by promise and Covenant but the Cananites Perezites and sons of Anak had the actual possession of it and Abrahams posterity must fight for it and win it by inches before they enjoy it The house is conveyed to Christ by him that built it but the strong man armed keeps the possession of it till a stronger than he comes and ejects him Luk. 11.20 21 22. Christ must fight his way into the soul though he have right to enter as into his dearly purchased possession And so he doth for when the time of recovering them is come he sends forth his Armies to subdue them As it is Psal. 110.3 The people shall be willing in the day of thy power The Hebrew may as fitly be rendred and is so by some in the day of thine Armies When the Lord Jesus sent forth his Armies of Prophets Apostles Evangelists Pastors Teachers under the conduct of his Spirit armed with that two edged sword the word of God which is sharp and powerful Heb. 4.12 But that 's not all he causes Armies of convictions and spiritual troubles to begird and straighten them on every side so that they know not what to do These convictions like a shower of Arrows strike point blanck into their Consciences Acts 2.37 When they heard this they were pricked to the heart and said men and brethren what shall we do Christs Arrows are sharp in the hearts of his enemies whereby the people fall under him Psal. 45.5 6. by these convictions he batters down all their loose vain hopes and levels them with the earth Now all their weak pleas and defences from the general mercy of God the examples of others c. prove but as paper-walls to them These shake their hearts even to the foundation And overturn every high thought there that exalts it self against the Lord. This day in which Christ sits down before the soul and summons it by such messengers as these is a day of distress within yea such a day of trouble that none is like it But though it be so yet Satan hath so deeply intrencht himself in the mind and will that the soul yields not at the first summons till its provisions within are spent and all its Towers of Pride and Walls of vain confidence be undermined by the Gospel and shaken down about its ears and then the soul desires a parley with Christ. O now it would be glad of terms any terms If it may but save its life let all go as a prey to the Conqueror Now it sends many such messages as these to Christ who is come now to the very gates of the soul mercy Lord mercy O were I but assured thou wouldst receive spare and pardon me I would open to thee the next moment Thus the soul is shut up to the faith of Christ as it is Gal. 3.23 and reduced now to the greatest straight and loss imaginable and now the merciful King whose only design is to conquer hearts hangs forth the white flag of mercy before the soul giving it hopes it shall be spared pitied and pardoned though so long in rebellion against him If yet it will yield it self to Christ many staggerings hesitations irresolutions doubts fears scruples half-resolves reasonings for and against there are at the Council-table of mans own heart at this time Sometimes there is no hope Christ will slay me if I go forth to him and then it trembles But then whoever found him so that tried him Other souls have yielded and found mercy beyond all their expectation Oh but I have been a desperate enemy against him Admit it yet thou hast the word of a King for it let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon him Isa. 55.7 But the time of mercy is past I have stood out too long Yet if it were so how is it that Christ hath not made short work and cut me off Set fire Hell fire to my soul and withdrawn the siege Still he waiteth that he may be gratious and is exalted that he may have compassion A thousand such debates there are till at last the soul considering if it abide in rebellion it must needs perish if it go forth to Christ it can but perish and being somewhat encouraged by the messages of grace sent into the soul at this time such as that Heb. 7.25 Wherefore he is able to save to the utmost all that come unto God by him And that Joh. 6.37 He that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out And that Matth. 11.28 Come unto me ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest It is at last resolved to open to Christ. And saith stand open ye everlasting gates and be ye opened ye everlasting doors the King of glory shall come in Now the will spontaneously opens to Christ. That fort Royal submits and yields And all the affections open to him The will brings Christ the keys of all the rooms in the soul. Concerning this Triumphant entrance of Christ into the soul we may say as the Psalmist rhetorically speaks concerning the Triumphant entrance of Israel into Canaan Psal. 114.5 6. The Mountains skipped like Rams and the little Hills like Lambs what ailed thee O thou Sea that thou fleddest thou Jordan that thou wast driven back So here in a like rhetorical Triumph we may say the Mountains and Hills skip like Rams the fixed and obstinate Will starts from its own basis and center The Rocky heart rends in twain A poor soul comes to the Word full of ignorance pride self-love desperate hardness and fixed resolutions to go on in its way And by an hours discourse the tide turns Iordan is driven back What aileth thee thou stout Will that thou surrendrest to Christ Thou hard heart that thou relentest and the waters gushed out And thus the soul is won to Christ. He writes down his terms and the soul willingly subscribes them Thus it comes in to Christ by free and hearty submission desiring nothing more than to come under the government of Christ for time to come Secondly Let us see how Christ rules in the souls of such as submit to him And there are six things in which he exerts his Kingly authority
or Satan be in the Throne and sways the Scepter over our souls Reader the work I would now engage thy soul in is the same that Jesus Christ will throughly and effectually do in the great day Then will he gather out of his Kingdom every thing that offends separate the tares and wheat Divide the whole world into two ranks or grand divisions how many divisions and sub-divisions soever there be in it now it neerly concerns thee therefore to know who is Lord and King in thy soul. To help thee in this great work make use of the following hints for I cannot fully prosecute these things as I would First To whom do you yield your obedience His Subjects and servants ye are to whom ye obey Rom. 6.16 It 's but a mockery to give Christ the empty titles of Lord and King whilst ye give your real service to sin and Satan What is this but like the Jews to bow the knee to him and say hail Master and crucifie him Then are ye his disciples if ye do whatsoever he commands you Joh. 15.14 He that is Christs servant in jest shall be damned in earnest Christ doth not complement with you His Pardons Promises Salvations are real O let your obedience be so too Let it be sincere and universal obedience this will evidence your unfeigned subjection to Christ. Do not dare to enterprize any thing till you know Christs pleasure and Will Rom. 12.2 Enquire of Christ as David did of the Lord 1 Sam. 23.9 10 11. Lord may I do this or that or shall I forbear I beseech thee tell thy Servant Secondly Have you the power of godliness or a form of it only There be many that do but trifle in Religion and play about the skirts and borders of it spending their time about jejune and barren controversies but as to the power of Religion and life of Godliness which consists in communion with God in duties and ordinances which promotes holiness and mortifies their Lusts they concern not themselves about these things But surely the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power 1 Cor. 4.20 It is not meat and drink that is dry disputes about meats and drinks but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy-Ghost for he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men Rom. 14.17 18. O I am affraid when the great Host of Professors shall be tried by these rules thâ—y will shrink up into a little handful as Gideons Host did Thirdly Have ye the special saving knowledge of Christ All his Subjects are translated out of the Kingdom of darkness 1 Col. 13. The Devil that ruleth over you in the daies of your ignorance is called the Ruler of the darkness of this world His Subjects are all blind else he could never rule them Assoon as their eyes be opened they run out of his Kingdom And there is no retaining them in subjection to him any longer O enquire then whether you are brought out of darkness into his marvelous light Do ye see your condition how sad miserable wretched iâ— is by nature Do ye see your remedy as it lies only in Christ and his pretious blood Do ye see the true way of obtaining interest in that blood by faith Doth this knowledge run into practice and put you upon lamenting heartily your misery by sin Thirsting vehemently after Christ and his Righteousness Striving continually for an heart to believe and close with Chirst This will evidence you indeed to be translated out of the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Christ. Fourthly With whom do ye delightfully associate your selves who are your chosen Companions Ye may â—ee to whom ye belong by the Company you join your selves to What do the Subjects of Christ among the slaves of Satan If the Subjects of one Kingdom be in another Kings dominions they love to be together with their own Countrymen rather than the natives of the place so do the servants of Christ. They are a company of themselves as it is said Act. 4.23 They went to their own Company I know the Subjects of both Kingdoms are here mingled and we cannot avoid the company of sinners except we go out of the world 1 Cor. 5.10 But yet all your delights should be in the Saints and in the excellent of the earth Psal. 16.3 Fifthly Do ye live Holy and Righteous lives If not you may claim interest in Christ as your King but he will never allow your claim The Scepter of his Kingdom is a Scepter of Righteousness Psal. 45.6 If ye oppress go beyond and cheat your brethren and yet call your selves Christs Subjects what greater reproach can ye study to cast upon him What is Christ the King of Cheats Doth he patronize such things as these No no pull off your vizards and fall into your own places you belong to another Prince and not to Christ. Inference 3. Doth Christ exercise such a Kingly power over the souls of all them that are subdued by the Gospel to him O then let all that are under Christs government walk as the Subjects of such a King Imitate your King the examples of Kings are very influential upon their Subjects Your King hath commanded you not only to take his yoak upon you but also to learn of him Matth. 11.29 Yea and if any man say that he is Christs let him walk even as Christ walked 1 Joh. 2.6 Your King is meek and patient Isai. 53.7 As a Lamb for meekness shall his Subjects be Lyons for fierceness Your King was humble and lowly Matth. 21.5 Behold the King cometh meek and lowly Will ye be proud and lofty Doth this become the Kingdom of Christ Your King was a self-denying King He could deny his outward comforts ease honour life to serve his Fathers design and accomplish your Salvation 2 Cor. 8.9 2 Phil 1.2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Shall his servants be self-ended and self-seeking persons that will expose his honour and hazard their own souls for the trifles of time God forbid Your King was painful laborious and diligent in fulfilling his work Ioh. 9.3 Let not his servants be lasie and slothful O imitate your King follow the pattern of your King this will give you comfort now and boldness in the day of Judgement if as he was so ye are in this world 1 Ioh. 4.17 The SEVENTEENTH SERMON IEPH XXII And hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church THE foregoing verses are spent in a thankful and humble adoration of the grace of God in bringing these Ephesians to believe in Christ. This effect of that power that raised their hearts to believe in Christ is here compared with that other glorious effect of it even the raising of Christ himself from the dead Both these owe themselves to the same efficient cause It raised Christ from a low estate even from the dead to
he is no way bound to give them Acts 14.16 He suffered all nations to walk in their own waies And yet should he permit sinful creatures to act out all the wickedness that is in their hearts there would neither remain peace nor order in the world And therefore Thirdly He powerfully restrains creatures by the bridle of providence from the commission of those things to which their hearts are propense enough Psal. 76.10 The remainder of wrath thou wilt restrain or gird up Leting forth just so much as shall serve his holy ends and no more And truly this is one of the glorious mysteries of providence which amazes the serious and considerate soul. To see the spirit of a creature fully set to do mischief Power enough as one would think in his hand to do it and a door of opportunity standing open for it and yet the effect strangely hindred The strong propensions of the Will are inwardly checkt as in the case of Laban Gen. 31.24 or a diversion and rub is strangely cast in their way as in the case of Senacharib 2 King 19.7 8. So that their hands cannot perform their enterprises Iulian had two great designs before him one was to conquer the Persians the other to root out the Galileans as he by way of contempt called the Christians but he will begin with the Persians first and then make a sacrifice of all the Christians to his Idols He doth so and perishes in the first attempt O the wisdom of providence Fourthly Jesus Christ limits the creatures in their acting assigning them their boundaries and lines of liberty to which they may but beyond it cannot go Rev. 2.10 Fear none of those things that ye shall suffer behold the Devil shall cast some of you into prison and ye shall have tribulation for ten daies They would have cast them into their graves but it shall only be into prisons they would have stretcht out their hands upon them all no but only some of them shall be exposed They would have kept them there perpetually no it must be but for ten daies Ezek. 22.6 Behold the Princes of Israel were in thee every one to their power to shed blood They went as far as they had power to go not as far as they had will to go Four hundred and thirty years were determined upon the people of God in Aegypt and then even in that very night God brought them forth for then the time of the promise was come Acts 7.17 Fifthly The Lord Jesus providentially protects his people amidst a world of enemies and dangers It was Christ that appeared unto Moses in the flaming bush and preserved it from being consumed The bush signified the people of God in Aegypt The fire flaming on it the exquisite sufferings they there endured The safety of the bush amidst the flames the Lords admirable care and protection of his poor suffering ones None so tenderly careful as Christ. As birds flying so he defends Jerusalem Isai. 31.5 i. e. as they fly swiftly towards their nests crying when their young are in danger so will the Lord preserve his They are preserved in Christ Iesus Jude 1. as Noah and his family were in the Ark. Hear how a Worthy of our own expresses himself upon this point That we are at peace in our houses at rest in our beds that we have any quiet in our enjoyments is from hence alone Whose person would not be defiled or destroyed whose habitation would not be ruined whose blood almost would not be shed if wicked men had power to perpetrate all their conceived sin It may be the ruine of some of us hath been conceived a thousand times We are beholding to this providence of obstructing sin for our lives our families our estates our liberties and whatsoever is or may be dear to us For may we not say sometimes with the Psalmist Psal. 57.4 My soul is among Lyons and I lye even among them that are set on fire even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and their tongue a sharp sword And how is the deliverance of men contrived from such persons Psal. 58.6 God breaks their teeth in their mouths even the great teeth of the young Lyons He keeps this fire from burning some he cuts off and destroys Some he cuts short in their power Some he deprives of the instruments whereby alone they can work Some he prevents of their desired opportunities or diverts by other objects for their lusts And oftentimes causeth them to spend them among themselves one upon another We may say therefore with the Psalmist Psal. 104.24 O Lord how manifold are thy works in wisdom hast thou made them all the earth is full of thy riches Sixthly He punishes the evil doers and repaies by providence into their own lap the mischief they do or but intend to do unto them that fear him Pharaoh Senacharib both the Iulians and innumerable more are the lasting monuments of this righteous retribution 'T is true a sinner may do evil an hundred times and his daies be prolonged but oft-times God hangs up some eminent sinners in chains as spectacles and warnings to others Many a heavy blow hath providence given the enemies of God which they were never able to claw off Christ rules and that with a rod of Iron in the midst of his enemies Psal. 110.2 Seventhly and Lastly He rewards by providence the services done to him and his people Out of this treasure of providence God repays oftentimes those that serve him and that with an hundred fold reward now in this life Matth. 19.29 This active vigilant providence hath its eye upon all the wants straights and troubles of the creatures but especially upon such as Religion brings us unto What huge volumes of experiences might the people of God write upon this subject And what a pleasant History would it be to read the strange constant wonderful and unexpected actings of providence for them that have left themselves to its care Secondly We shall next enquire how Jesus Christ administers this providential Kingdom And here I must take notice of the means by which and the manner in which he doth it The means or instruments he uses in the governing the Providential Kingdom for he cannot be personally present with us himself are either Angels or Men the Angels are ministring creatures sent forth by him for the good of them that shall be heirs of Salvation Heb. 1.14 Luther tells us they have two offices superius canere inferius vigilare to sing above and watch beneath These do us many invisible offices of love They have dear and tender respects and love for the Saints To them God as it were puts forth his children to nurse and they are tenderly careful of them whilst they live and bring them home in their arms to their Father when they die And as Angels so Men are the servants of providence Yea bad men as well as good Cyrus on that account
rule of contraries for the most part Where it fixes its marks of hatred we may usually find that which invites our respect and Love It should trouble us the less to be under the slights and disrespects of a blind world I could be even proud upon it said Luther that I see I have an ill name from the world And Ierome blessed God that counted him worthy to be hated of the world Labour to stand right in the Judgement of God and trouble not thy self for the rash and headlong censures of men Let wicked men said one cut the throat of my credit and do as they like best with it when the wind of their calumnies hath blown away my good name from me in the way to Heaven I know Christ will take my name out of the mire and wash it and restore it to me again Inference 7. From the whole of Christs Humiliation in his life learn you to pass through all the troubles of your life with a contented composed spirit as Christ your forerunner did He was persecuted and bare it meekly Poor and never murmured Tempted and never yielded to the Temptation Reviled and Reviled not again When ye therefore pass through any of these trials look to Jesus and consider him See how he that passed through those things before you managed himself in like circumstances yea not only beat the way by his pattern and example for you but hath in every one of those conditions left a blessing behind him for them that follow in his steps Thanks be to God for Iesus Christ. The TWENTIETH SERMON JOH XVII XI And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world and I come to thee holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one as we are WE now come to the Last and Lowest step of Christs Humiliation which was in his submitting to Death even the Death of the Cross. Out of this death of Christ the life of our souls springs up and in this blood of the Cross all our mercies swim to us The blood of Christ runs deep to some eyes The Judicious Believer sees multitudes multitudes of inestimable blessings in it By this Crimson Fountain I resolve to sit down and concerning the death of Christ I shall take distinctly into consideration the preparations made for it the nature and quality of it The Deportment and carriage of dying-Jesus The Funeral-solemnities with which he was buried And lastly the blessed designs and glorious ends of his death The preparatives for his death were six Three on his own part and three more by his enemies The preparations made by himself for it were the solemn recommendation of his friends to his Father The institution of a commemorative sign to perpetuate and refresh the memory of his death in the hearts of his people till he come again And his pouring out his soul to God by prayer in the garden which was the posture he chose to be found in when they should apprehend him This Scripture contains the first preparative of Christ for death whereby he sets his house in order prays for his people and blesses them before he dies The love of Christ was ever tender and strong to his people but the greatest manifestations of it were at parting And this he manifested two waies especially viz. in leaving singular supports and grounds of comfort with them in his last heavenly Sermon in Chap. 14.15 16. and in pouring out his soul most affectionately to the Father for them in this Heavenly Prayer Chap. 17. In this Prayer he gives them a Specimen or Sample of that his glorious intercession-work which he was just then going to perform in Heaven for them Here his heart overflowed for he was now leaving them and going to the Father the last words of a dying man are remarkable how much more of a dying Saviour I shall not lanch out into that blessed Ocean of pretious matter contained in this Chapter but take immediately into consideration the words that I have read wherein I find a weighty petition strongly followed and set home with many mighty Arguments First We have here Christs petition or request in behalf of his people Not only those on the place but all others that then did or afterwards should believe on him And the sum of what he here requests for them is that his Father would keep them through his name Where you have both the mercy and the means of attaining it The mercy is to be kept Keeping implies danger And there is a double danger obviated in this request danger in respect of sin and danger in respect of ruine and destruction To both these the people of God lie open in this world The means of their preservation from both is the name i. e. the power of God This name of the Lord is that strange Tower to which the Righteous flie and are safe Prov. 18.10 Alas it is not your own strength or wisdom that keeps you but ye are kept by the mighty power of God This protecting power of God doth not however exclude our care and diligence but implies it therefore he adds ye are kept by the mighty power of God through faith to Salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 God keeps his people and yet they are to keep themselves in the Love of God Iude 21 to keep their hearts with all diligence Prov. 4.23 This is the sum of the petition Secondly The Arguments with which he urgeth and presses on this request are drawn partly from his own condition I am no more in the world i. e. I am going to die within very few hours I shall be separated from them in regard of my corporal presence Partly from their condition but these are in the world i. e. I must leave them in the midst of danger and partly from the joint interest that his Father and himself had in them Keep those that thou hast given me With several other most prevalent pleas which in their proper places shall be anon produced and displaied to illustrate and confirm this pretious truth which this Scripture affords us DOCT. That the Fatherly care and tender love of our Lord Iesus Christ was eminently discovered in that pleading prayer he poured out for his people at his parting with them It pertained to the Priest and Father of the family to bless the rest especially when they were to be separated from them by death This was a rite in Israel When good Iacob was grown old and the time was come that he should be gathered to his Fathers then he blessed Joseph Ephraim and Manasseth saying God before whom my Fathers Abraham and Isaack did walk the God which fed me all my life long unto this day the Angel which redeemed me from all evil bless the Lads Gen. 48.15 16. this was a prophetical and patriarchical blessing Not that Iacob could bless as God blesses he could speak the words
corruptions of his people Nothing tends more to the killing of sin than this doth Christs blood as it's food to faith so it 's poyson to our Lusts. O what a Pill is wrapt up in that Bread what an excellent Potion is in that Cup to purge the soul One calls that Table an Altar on which our corruptions are sacrificed and slain before the Lord. For how can they that there see what Christ suffered for sin live any longer therein Fourthly Moreover his care and Love appear in providing such bellows as these to excite and blow up his peoples Love into a lively flame When Ioseph made himself known to his Brethren I am Ioseph your Brother whom ye sold be not grieved Oh what a showr of tears and dear affections was there How did they fall upon each others necks so that the Aegyptians wondred at the matter How doth the soul if I may so speak passionately love Jesus Christ at such a time O what a Christ is my Christ the fairest among ten thousand What hath he done what hath he suffered for me what great things hath my Jesus given and what great things hath he forgiven me a world a thousand worlds cannot shew such another Here it 's melted down by Love at his feet It 's pain'd with Love Fifthly To conclude Christs care and Love are farther manifested to his people in this Ordinance as it is one of the strongest bonds of union betwixt themselves that can bee 1 Cor. 10.17 We being many are one bread and one body for we are all partakers of that one bread And though through our corruptions it falls out that that which was intended for a bond of union proves a bond of contention yet in as much as by this it appears how dearly Christ Loved them for as much also as here they are sealed up to the same inheritance their dividing corruptions here slain their Love to Christ and consequently to each other here improved it is certainly one of the strongest ties in the world to wrap up gratious hearts in a bundle of Love And thus I have dispatcht the doctrinal part of this point The improvement of it is in the following Inferences Inference 1. Did Christ leave this Ordinance with his Church to preserve his remembrance among his people then surely Christ foresaw that notwithstanding what he is hath done suffered and promised yet to do for his people they will for all this be still apt to forget him A man would think that such a Christ should never be one whole hour together out of his peoples thoughts and affections that where ever they go they should carry him up and down with them in their thoughts desires and delights That they should let their thoughts work towards Christ as the longing thoughts of her that is with Child do work after that she longs for That they should lie down with Christ in their thoughts at night and when they awake be still with him That their very dreams in the night should be sweet visions of Christ and all their words savour of Christ. But O the baseness of these hearts Here we live and converse in a world of sensible objects which like a company of thieves rob us of our Christ and lay the dead Child in his room Woe is me that it should be so with me who am so obliged to Love him though he be in the highest glory in Heaven he doth not forget us he hath graven us upon the palms of his hands we are continually before him He thinks on us when we forget him The whole honour and glory paid him in Heaven by the Angels cannot divert his thoughts one moment from us but every trifle that meets us in the way is enough to divert our thoughts from him Why do we not abhor and loath our selves for this What is it a pain a burden to carry Christ in our thoughts about the world as much a burden if thy heart be spiritual as a Bird is burdened by carrying his own wings Will such thoughts intrude unseasonably and thrust greater things than Christ out of our minds For shame Christian for shame let noâ— thy heart play the wanton and gad from Christ after every vanity In Heaven nothing else takes up the thoughts of Saints to eternity and yet there is no tireing no saciety O learn to live nearer that heavenly life Never leave praying and striving till thou canst say as it is Psal. 63.5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips whilst I remember thee on my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches Inference 2. Hence also we infer that Sacrament seasons are heart melting seasons because therein the most affecting and heart-melting recognitions and representations of Christ are made As the Gospel offers him to the ear in the most sweet affecting sounds of grace so the Sacrament to the eye in the most taking visions that are on this side Heaven There hearts that will not yield a tear under other Ordinances can pour out floods Zech. 12.10 They shall look upon me whom they have pierced and mourn Yet I dare not affirm that every one whose heart is broken by the believing sight of Christ there can evidence that it is so by a dropping eye No we may say of tears as it 's said of Love Cant. 8.7 If some Christians would give all the treasures of their house for them they cannot be purchased Yet they are truly humbled for sin and seriously affected with the grace of Christ. For the support of such I would distinguish and have them to do so also betwixt what is essential to spiritual sorrow and what is contingent Deep displeasure with thy self for sin hearty resolutions and desires of the compleat mortification of it this is essential to all spiritual sorrow but tears are accidental and in some constitutions rarely found If thou have the former trouble not thy self for want of the later though 't is a mercy when they kindly and undisâ—embledly flow from a heart truly broken And surely to see who it is that thy sins have pierced How great how glorious how wonderful a person that was that was so humbled abased and brought to the dust for such a wretched thing as thou art cannot but tenderly affect the considerating soul. If it was for a lamentation in the Captivity that Princes were hanged up by the hands and the faces of the Elders were not reverenced Lam. 5.12 And if at the death of Abner David could lament and say a Prince and a great man is fallen in Israel this day 2 Sam. 3.38 If he could so pathetically lament the death of Saul and Ionathan saying Daughters of Israel weep over Saul who cloathed you in scarlet The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places Ah how much more should it affect us to see the beauty of Heaven fallen the Prince of life hang dead upon a
No ear but his Fathers shall hear what he had now to say For the vehemency and importunity of it these were those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 5.7 strong cries that he poured out to God in the daies of his flesh And for the humility expressed in it he fell upon the ground he rolled himself as it were in the dust at his Fathers feet And in divers other respects it was a very remarkable prayer as you will hear anon Secondly This Scripture gives you also an account of the Agony of Christ as well as of his prayer and that a most strange one such as in all respects never was known before in nature It was a sweat as it had been blood which as is neither an hyperbole as some would make it Nor yet a meer similitude of blood as others fancy but a real bloody sweat For so as is sometimes taken for the very thing it self As Ioh. 1 1â— And as a worthy Divine of our own well notes that if the Holy-Ghost had only intended it for a similitude or resemblance he would rather have expressed it as it were drops of water than as it were drops of blood for sweat more resembles water than blood Thirdly You have here his relief in this his Agony and that by an Angel dispatcht post from Heaven to comfort him The Lord of Angels now needed the comfort of an Angel It was time to have a little refreshment when his face and body too stood as full of drops of blood as the drops of dew are upon the grass Hence we note DOCT. That our Lord Iesus Christ was praying to his Father in an extraordinary Agony when they came to apprehend him in the Garden To open and prepare this last act of preparation on Christs part for our use I shall at this time speak to these particulars First The place where he prayed Secondly The time when he prayed Thirdly The matter of his prayer And Lastly The manner how he prayed First For the circumstance of place where was this last and remarkable prayer poured out to God It was in the Garden St. Matthew tells us it was called Gethsemane which signifies as Pareus on the place observes the Valley of fatness viz. of Olives which grew in that Valley or Garden most plentifully This Garden lay very near to the City of Ierusalem The City had twelve gates five of which were on the east side of it among which the most remarkable were the fountain-gate so called of the fountain Siloe Through this gate Christ rode into the City in triumph when he came from Bethany The other was the sheep-gate so called from the multitude of sheep driven in at it for the Sacrifice for it stood close by the Temple and close by this gate was this Garden called Gethsemane where they apprehendded Christ and led him through this gate as a sheep to the slaughter Betwixt this Garden and the City ran the brook Cedron which rose from an hill upon the south and ran upon the east part of the City between Ierusalem and the mount of Olives and over this brook Christ passed into the Garden Ioh. 18.1 to which the Psalmist alludes in Psal. 110.7 He shall drink of the brook in the way therefore shall he lift up the head For this brook running through the Valley of Iehosaphat that fertile soil together with the filth of the City which it washt away gave the waters a black tincture and so fitly resembled those grievous sufferings of Christ in which he tasted both the wrath of God and men Now Christ went not into this garden to hide or shelter himself from his enemies No that was not his end for if so it had been the most improper place he could have chosen it being the accustomed place where he was wont to pray and a place well known to Iudas who was now coming to seek him as you may see Joh. 18.2 And Judas which betrayed him knew the place for Iesus oft-times resorted thither with his Disciples So that he repairs thither not to shun but to meet the enemy To offer himself as a prey to the Wolves which there found him and laid hold upon him He also resorted thither for an hour or two of privacy before they came that he might there freely pour out his soul to God So much for the circumstance of place where he prayed Secondly We shall consider the time when he entred into this Garden to pray And it was in the shutting in of the evening For it was after the Passoever and the Supper were ended Then as Matthew hath it Matth. 26.36 Jesus went over the Brook into the Garden betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the evening as it is conjectured and so he had betwixt two and three hours time to pour out his soul to God For it was about midnight that Iudas and the Souldiers came and apprehended him there So that it being immediately before his apprehension it shews us in what frame and posture Christ desired to be found and by it he left us an excellent pattern what we ought to do when eminent dangers are near us even at the door It becomes a Souldier to die fighting and a Minister to die preaching and a Christian to die praying If they come they find Christ upon his knees wrestling mightily with God by prayer He never spent one moment of the time of his life idely but these were the last moments he had to live in this world and here you may see how they were filled up and imployed Thirdly Next let us consider the matter of his prayer or the things about which he poured out his soul to God in the Garden that evening And vers 42. informs us what that was He prayed saying Father if thou be willing remove this cup from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done These words are involved in many difficulties as Christ himself was when he uttered them By the Cup understand that portion of sorrows then to be distributed to him by his Father Great afflictions and bitter tryals are frequently expressed in Scripture under the metaphor of a â—up So that dreadful storm of wrath upon the wicked in Psal. 11.6 Vpon the wicked he shall rain snares fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest this shall be the portion of thâ—ir cup. i. e. the punishment allotted to them by God for their wickedness And an exceeding great misery By a large or deep cup. So Ezek. 23.32 33. Thou shalt drink of thy Sisters cup deep and large thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision it containeth much Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow with the cup of astonishment and desolation with the cup of thy Sister Samaria And when an affliction is compounded of many bitter ingredients stinging and agravating considerations and circumstances then it 's said to be mixed In the hand of the Lord there is a cup
Iudas his Tomb-stone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. let every one that beholds me learn to be godly indeed to be sincere in his profession and love Christ more unfeignedly than I did O Professors look to your foundation and build not upon the sand as this poor creature did That 's sound advice indeed which the Apostle gives 1 Cor. 10.12 Let him that thinks he he standeth take heed lest he fall O beware of a loose foundation If you begin your profession as Iudas did no wonder if it shall end as his did 1. Beware therefore you hold not the truth in unrighteousness Iudas did so he knew much but lived not up to what he knew for he was still of a worldly spirit in the height of his profession His knowledge never had any saving influence upon his heart He Preacht to others but he himself was a cast-away He had much light but still walked in darkness He had no knowledge to do himself good Secondly Beware you live not in a course of secret sin Iudas did so and that was his ruine He made a profession indeed and carried it smoothly but he was a thief Ioh. 12.6 He made no conscience of committing the sin so he could but cover and hide it from men This helped on his ruine and so it will thine Reader if thou be guilty herein A secret way of sinning under a covert of profession will either break out at last to the observation of men or else slide thee down insensibly to Hell and leave thee only this comfort that no body shall know thou art there Thirdly Beware of hypocritical pretences of Religion to accommodate self ends Iudas was a man that had notable skill this way He had a mind to fill his own purse by the sale of this costly ointment which Mary bestowed upon her Saviours feet And what a neat cover had he fitted for it to do his business clearly Why saith he this might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor Here was Charity to the poor or rather poor Charity for they were only a blind to his base self ends O Christian be plain hearted take heed of craft and cunning in matters of Religion This spoil'd Iudas Fourthly Beware of self confidence Iudas was a very confident man of himself Last of all Iudas said Master is it I Matth. 26.25 But he that was last in the suspicion was first in the transgression He that trusteth his own heart is a fool saith Solomon Prov. 28.26 such a fool was this great Professor It will be your wisdom to keep a jealous eye upon your own hearts and still suspect its fairest pretences Fifthly If you will not do as Iudas did nor come to such an end as he did take heed you live not unprofitably under the means of grace Iudas had the best means of grace that ever man enjoyed He heard Christ himself Preach he joyned often with him in prayer but he was never the better for it all it was but as the watering of a dead-stick which will never make it grow but rot it the sooner Never was there a rotten branch so richly watered as he was O 't is a sad sin and a sad sign too when men and women live under the Gospel from year to year and never the better I warn you to beware of these evils all ye that profess Religion Let these footsteps by which Iudas went down to his own place terrifie you from following him in them Corollary 2. Learn hence also that eminent knowledge and profession puts a special and eminent aggravation upon sin Judas Iscariot one of the twelve Poor wretch better had it been for him if he had never been numbred with them nor enlightned with so much knowledge as he was endued with for this rent his Conscience to pieces when he reflected on what he had done and presently run himself into the gulf of despair To sin against clear light is to â—in with an high hand It 's that which makes a sad waste of the Conscience That without doubt which now torments this poor soul in Hell is that he should go against his light against his profession to gratifie a base lust to his eternal ruine Had he known no better it had been more excusable Those that had a hand in the death of Christ through mistake and ignorance were capable to receive the pardon of their sin by that blood they so shed Act. 3.17 19. compared Take heed therefore of abusing knowledge and putting a force upon Conscience Corollary 3. Learn hence in the third place That unprincipled Professors will sooner or later become shameful Apostates â—udas was an unprincipled Professor and see what he came to Ambition invited Simon Magus to the profession of Christ he would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some great one And how quickly did the rottenness of his principles discover themselves in the ruine of his profession that which wants a root must needs wither as Christ speaks Matth. 13.20 21. that which is the predominant interest will prevail and sway with us in the day of our trial Hear me all you that profess Religion and have given your names to Christ if that profession be not built upon a sollid and real work of grace upon your hearts you shall never honour Religion nor save your souls by it O 't is your union with Christ that like a spring maintains your profession So much as you are united to Christ so much constancy steadiness and eavenness you will manifest in the duties of Religion and no more O Brethren when he that professes Christ for company shall be left alone as Paul was When he that made Religion a stirrup to help him into the sadle of preferment and honour shall see that he is so advanced to be drawn forth into Christs camp and endure the heat of the day and not to take his pleasure in a word when he shall see all things about him discouraging and threatning his dearest interest on earth exposed for Religion sake and he hath no faith to ballance his present losses with his future hopes I say when it comes to this you shall then see the rottenness of many hearts discovered And Iudas may have many fellows who will part with Christ for the world as he did O therefore look well to your foundation Corollary 4. Moreover in this example of Iudas you may read this truth That men and women are never in more eminent danger than when they meet with temptations exactly suited to their master-lusts to their own iniquity O pray pray that ye may be kept from a violent suitable temptation Satan knows that when a man is tried here he falls by the root The love of this world was all along Iudas his master-sin and some conjecture he was a married man and had a great charge but that is conjectural it was his predominant Lust. The Devil found out this and
this very ground Solomon concludes and very rationally that God will call over things hereafter at a more righteous Tribunal And moreover I saw under the Sun the place of Iudgement that wickedness was there and the place of righteousness that iniquity was there I said in my heart God shall judge the righteous and the wicked for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work Eccles. 3.16 17. Some indeed on this ground have denied the divine providence but Solomon draws a quite contrary conclusion God shall Iudge surely he will take the matter into his own hand he will bring forth the righteousness of his people as the light and their just dealing as the noon day It 's a mercy if we be wronged in one Court that we can appeal to another where we shall be sure to be relieved by a just impartial Judge Be patient therefore my brethren saith the Apostle until the coming of the Lord. Jam. 5.6 7 8. Inference 3. Again here you see how Conscience may be over-born and run down by a fleshly interest Pilates Conscience bid him beware and forbear his interest bid him act his fear of Caesar was more than the fear of God But oh what a dreadful thing is it for Conscience to be ensnared by the fear of man Prov. 29.25 To guard thy soul Reader against this mischief let such considerations as these be ever with thee First Consider how dear those profits or pleasures cost which are purchased with the loss of inward peace there is nothing in this word good enough to recompence such a loss or ballance the misery of a tormenting Conscience If you violate it and prostitute it for a fleshly lust it will remember the injury you did it many years after Gen. 42.21 Iob. 13.26 It will not only retain the memory of what you did but it will accuse you for it Matth. 27.4 It will not fear to tell you that plainly which others dare not whisper It will not only accuse but it will also condemn you for what you have done This condemning voice of Conscience is a very terrible voice You may see the horror of it in Cain the vigor of it in Iudas the doleful effects of it in Spira It will from all these its offices produce shame fear and despair if God give not repentance to life The shame it works will so confound you that you will not be able to look up Iob. 31.14 Psal. 1.5 The fear it works will make you wish for a hole in the rock to hide you Isai. 2.9 10 15 19. And its despair is a death pang The cutting off of hope is the greatest cut in the world O who can stand under such a load as this Prov. 18.14 Secondly Consider the nature of your present actions they are seed sown for eternity and will spring up again in suitable effects rewards or punishments when you that did them are turned to dust Gal. 6.7 what a man sows that shall he reap and as sure as the harvest follows the seed time so sure shall shame fear and horror follow sin Dan. 12.2 What Zeuxis the famous Limner said of his work may much more truly be said of ours eternitati pingo I paint for eternity said he when one asked him why he was so curious in his work Ah how bitter will those things be in the account and reckoning which were pleasant in the acting and committing 'T is true our actions physically considered are transient how soon is a word or action spoken or done and there is an end of it but morally considered they are permanent being put upon Gods book of account O therefore take heed what you do So speak and so act as they that must give an account Thirdly Consider how by these things men do but prepare for their own torment in a dying hour There 's bitterness enough in death you need not add more gall and wormwood to add to the bitterness of it What is the violencing and wounding of Conscience now but the sticking so many pins or needles in your death-bed against you come to lie down on it this makes death bitter indeed How many have wisht in a dying hour they had rather lived poor and low all their daies than to have strained their Consciences for the world Ah how is the face and aspect of things altered in such an hour No such considerations as these had any place in Pilates heart for if so he would never have been courted or scared into such an act as this Inference 4. Did Christ stand arraigned and condemned at Pilates Bar then the believer shall never be arraigned or condemned at Gods Bar. This sentence that Pilate pronounced on Christ gives evidence that God will never pronounce sentence against such For had he intended to have arraigned them he would never have suffered Christ their surety to be arraigned and condemned for them Christ stood at this time before a higher Judge than Pilate He stood at Gods Bar as well as his Pilate did but that which Gods own hand and Counsel had before determined to be done And what God himself at the same timeâ— did Though God did it Justly and Holily dealing with Christ as a Creditor with a Surety Pilate most wickedly and basely dealing with Christ as a corrupt Judge that shed the blood of a known innocent to pacifie the people But certain it is that out of his Condemnation flows our Justification And had not Sentence been given against him it must have been given against us Oh what a melting consideration is this that out of his agony comes our Victory out of his condemnation our Justification out of his Pain our Ease out of his Stripes our Healing out of his Gall and Vinegar our Hony out of his Curse our Blessing out of his Crown of Thorns our Crown of Glory out of his Death our Life if he could not be released it was that you might If Pilate gave sentence against him it was that the great God might never give sentence against you If he yielded that it should be with Christ as they required it was that it might be with our souls as well as we can desire And therefore Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift The TWENTY FIFTH SERMON LUK. XXIII XXVII XXVIII c. And there followed him a great company of people and of women which also bewailed and lamented him But Iesus turning unto them said Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children THE sentence of death once given against Christ the execution quickly follows Away they lead him from Gabbatha to Golgotha longing as much to be nailing him to the Cross and feeding their eyes with his torments as the Eagle doth to be tearing the flesh and drinking the blood of that Lamb she hath seised in her Tallons and is carrying away to the top of some rock to devour The Evangelist here observes
God and plenteous redemption for the greatest of Sinners that by Faith apply the blood of the Cross to their poor guilty Souls So speaks the Apostle Col. 1.14 In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins And 1 Ioh. 1.7 The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin Two things will make this demonstrable First That there is sufficient efficacy in this blood of the Cross to expiate the greatest Sins Secondly That the efficacy of it is designed and intended by God for believing sinners How clearly do both these propositions lie in the Word First That there is sufficient efficacy in the blood of the Cross to expiate and wash away the greatest sins This is manifest for it is pretious blood as it 's call'd 1. Pet. 1.18 Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the pretious blood of the Son of God This pretiousness of the blood of Christ rises from the union it hath with that person who is over all God blessed for ever And on that account is stiled the blood of God Acts 20.28 And so it becomes Royal Princely blood Yea such for the dignity and efficacy of it as never was created or shall ever run in any other veins but his The blood of all the creatures in the world even a Sea of humane blood bears no more proportion to the pretious and excellent blood of Christ than a dish of common water to a Rivâ—r of liquid Gold On the account of its invaluable pretiousness it becomes satisfying and reconciling blood to God So the Apostle speaks Col. 1.20 And having made peace through the Blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven The same blood which is Redemption to them that dwell on earth is Confirmation to them that dwell in Heaven Before the efficacy of this blood guilt vanishes and shrinks away as the the shadows before the glorious Sun Every drop of it hath a voice and speaks to the soul that sits trembling under its guilt better things than the blood of Abel Heb. 12.24 It sprinkles us from an evil i. e. an unquiet and accusing conscience Heb. 10.22 For having enough in it to satisfie God it must needs have enough in it to satisfie conscience Conscience can demand no more for its satisfaction nor will it take less than God demands for his satisfaction And in this blood is enough to give both satisfaction Secondly As there is sufficient Efficacy in this blood to expiate the greatest guilt so it 's as manifest that the vertue and efficacy of it is intended and designed by God for the Use of believing sinners Such blood as this was shed without doubt for some weighty end That some might be the better for it Who they are for whom it is intended is plain enough from Acts 13.39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses That the remission of the sins of believers was the great thing designed in the pouring out of this pretious blood of Christ appears from all the Sacrifices that figured it to the ancient Church The sheding of that Typical blood spake a design of pardon And the putting of their hands upon the head of the Sacrifice spake the way and Method of believing by which that blood was then applyed to them in that way and is still applyed to us in a more excellent way Had no pardon been intended no Sacrifices had been appointed Moreover let it be considered this blood of the Cross is the blood of a surety that came under the same obligations with us and in our name or stead shed it and so of course frees and discharges the principal offender or debtor Heb. 7.22 Can God exact satisfaction from the blood and death of his own Son the surety of Believers and yet still demand it from Believers It cannot be Who saith the Apostle shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that Iustifieth Who shall condemn It is Christ that died Rom. 8.33 34. And why are faith and repentance prescribed as the means of pardon Why doth God every where in his word call upon sinners to repent and believe in this blood Encouraging them so to do by so many pretious promises of remission and declaring the inevitable and eternal ruine of all impenitent and unbelieving ones who despise and reject this blood What I say doth all this speak but the possibility of a pardon for the greatest of sinners and the certainty of a free full and final pardon for all believing sinners O what a Joyful sound is this What ravishing voices of peace pardon grace and acceptance come to our ears from the blood of the Cross The greatest guilt that ever was contracted upon a trembling shaking Conscience can stand before the efficacy of the blood of Christ no more than the sinner himself can stand before the Justice of the Lord with all the guilt upon him Reader The word assures thee what ever thou hast been or art that sins of as deep a die as thine have been washt away in this blood I was a blasphemer a persecutor in urious but I obtained mercy saith Paul 1 Tim. 1.13 but it may be thou wilt object this was a rare and singular instance and it 's a great question whether any other sinner shall find the like grace that he did No question of it at all if you believe in Christ as he did for he tells us vers 16. For this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Iesus Christ might shew forth all long suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter belief on him to life everlasting So that upon the same grounds he obtained mercy you may obtain it also Those very men who had an hand in the sheding of Christs blood had the benefit of that blood afterwards pardoning them Act. 2.36 There is nothing but unbelief and impenitency of heart bars thy soul from the blessings of this blood Inference 2. Did Christ die the cursed death of the Cross for believers then though there may be much of pain there is nothing of curse in the death of the Saints It still wears its dart by which it strikes but hath lost its sting by which it hurts and destroys A Serpent that hath no sting may hiss and affright but we may take him in our hand without danger Death poured out all its poison and lost its sting in Christs side when he became a curse for us But what speak I of the innocency and harmlesness of death to believers It is certainly their friend and great benefactor As there is no curse so there are many blessings in it Death is yours 1 Cor. 3.22 Yours as a special priviledge and favour Christ hath not only conquered it but is more than a conqueror
shall utterly Spoil that proud boast that the faith of Christians is out-done by the infidelity of Heathens O Christians yield not the day to Heathens Let all the world see the true greatness heavenliness and excellency of your represented pattern and by true mortification of your corrupt natures enforce an acknowledgement from the world that a greater than Socrates is here He that is really a meek humble patient heavenly Christian wins this glory to his Religion that it can do more than all other principles and rules in the world In nothing were the most accomplished Heathens more defective than in this forgiving of injuries It was a thing they could not understand or if they did could never bring their hearts to it witness that rule of their great Tully It is the first office of Iustice saith he to hurt no man except first provoked by an injury The addition of that exception spoiled his excellent rule But now Christianity teaches and some Christians have attained it to receive evil and return good 1 Cor. 4.12 13. Being reviled we bless being persecuted we suffer it being defamed we intreat This certainly is that meekness wrought in us by the wisdom that is from above Iam. 3.17 This makes a man sit sure in the Consciences of others who with Saul must acknowledge when they see themselves so out-done thou art more righteous than I 1 Sam. 24.16 17. had we been so injured and had such opportunities to revenge them we should never have passed them by as these men did This impresses and stamps the very image of God upon the Creature and makes us like our heavenly Father who doth good to his enemies and sends down showrs of outward blessings upon them that pour out floods of wickedness daily to provoke him Matth. 5.44 45. In a word this Christian temper of spirit gives a man the true possession and enjoyment of himself So that our breasts shall be as the pacifique Sea smooth and pleasant when others are as the raging Sea foaming and casting up mire and dirt Inference 1. Hence we clearly infer that Christian Religion exalted in its power is the greatest friend to the peace and tranquillity of States and Kingdoms Nothing is more opposite to the true Christian spirit than implacable fierceness strife revenge tumults and uproars It teaches men to do good and receive evil to receive evil and return good The wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie and the fruit of Righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace Jam. 3.17 18. The Church is a Dove for meekness Cant. 6.9 When the world grows full of strife Christians then grow weary of the world and sigh out the Psalmists request Oh that I had the wings of a Dove that I might flee away and be at rest Strigelius desired to die that he might be freed ab implacabilibus odiis theologorum from the implacable strifes of contending Divines The rule by which they are to walk is If it be possible as much us lyeth in you live peaceably with all men Dearly beloved avenge not your selves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay it saith the Lord Rom. 12.18 19. It is not Religion but Lusts that make the world so unquiet Iam. 4.1 2. Not godliness but wickedness that makes men bite and devour one another One of the first effects of the Gospel is to civilize those places where it comes and settle order and peace among men How great a mistake and evil then is it to cry out when Atheism and irreligion have broken the civil peace this is the fruit of Religion this is the effect of the Gospel Happy would it be if Religion did more obtain in all Nations It is the greatest friend in the world to their tranquillity and prosperity Inference 2. How dangerous a thing is it to abuse and wrong meek and forgiving Christians Their patience and easiness to forgive often invites injury and encourages vile spirits to insult and trample upon them but if men would seriously consider it there 's nothing in the world should more scare and afright them from such practices than this You may abuse and wrong them they must not avenge themselves nor repay evil for evil true but because they do not the Lord will even the Lord to whom they commit the matter and he will do it to purpose except ye repent Be patient therefore Brethren unto the coming of the Lord Jam. 5.7 will ye stand to that Issue Had you rather indeed have to do with God than with men When the Jews put Christ to death he committed himself to him that judgeth Righteously 1 Pet. 2.22 23. And did that people get any thing by that Did not the Lord severely avenge the blood of Christ on them and their Children Yea do not they and their Children groan under the doleful effects of it to this day If God undertakes as he alwaies doth the cause of his abused meek and peaceable people he will be sure to avenge it seven fold more than they could His little finger will be heavier than their loins You will get nothing by that Inference 3. Lastly Let us all imitate our pattern Christ and labour for meek forgiving spirits I shall only propose two inducements to it The honour of Christ and your own peace Two dear things indeed to a Christian. His glory is more than your life and all that you enjoy in this world O do not expose it to the scorn and derision of his enemies Let them not say how is Christ a Lamb when his followers are Lyons How is the Church a Dove that smites and scratches like a bird of prey Consult also the quiet of your own spirits What is life worth without the comfort of life What comfort can you have in all that you do possess in the world as long as you have not the possession of your own souls If your spirits be full of tumult and revenge the spirit of Christ will grow a stranger to you That Dove delights in clean and quiet breasts O then imitate Christ in this excellency also The THIRTY FIRST SERMON JOH XIX XXVII Then saith He to the Disciple Behold thy Mother WE now pass to the consideration of the second memorable and instructive Word of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross contain'd in this Scripture Wherein he hath left us an excellent pattern for the discharge of our relative Dutys It may be well said the Gospel makes the best Husbands and Wives the best Parents and Children the best Masters and Servants in the world seeing it furnishes them with the most excellent precepts and proposes the best patterns Here we have the pattern of Jesus Christ presented to all gratious Children for their imitation teaching them how to acquit
maintenance is their due Even Christ himself took care for his Mother Secondly You have had a brief account of the duties of this Relation next let us consider how Christs Example who was so subject to them in his life Luk. 2.51 and so careful to provide at his death enforces all those duties upon Children especially upon gratious Children And this it doth two ways both as it hath the obliging power of a Law and as he himself will one day sit in Judgement to take an account how we have imitated him in these things First Christs example in this hath the force and power of a Law yea a Law of Love or a Law lovingly constraining you to an imitation of him If Christ himself will be your pattern If God will be pleased to take Relations like yours and go before you in the discharge of relative Duties Oh how much are you obliged to imitate him and tread in all his footsteps This was by him intended as a president or pattern to facilitate and direct your Duties Secondly He will come to take an account how you have answered the pattern of obedience and tender care he set before you in the days of his flesh What will the disobedient plead in that day He that heard the groans of an afflicted Father or Mother will now come to reckon with the disobedient Child for them And the glorious example of Christs own obedience and tenderness for his Relations will in that day condemn and aggravate silence and shame such wretched Children as shall stand guilty before his Bar. Inference 1. Hath Jesus Christ given such a famous pattern of obedience and tenderness to Parents Then there can be nothing of Christ in stubborn rebellious and careless Children that regard not the good or comfort of their Parents The Children of disobedience cannot be the Children of God If providence direct this to the hand of any that are so my hearts desire and Prayer for them is that the Lord would search their souls by it and discover their evils to them whilst they shall read the following Queries First Query Have you not been guilty of slighting your Parents by irreverent words or carriages the old man or woman To such I commend the consideration of that Scripture Prov. 30.17 Which methinks should be to them as the hand writing that appear'd upon the plaister of the Wall to Belteshazar The eye that mocketh at his Father and despiseth to obey his Mother The Ravens of the Valley shall pick it out and the young Eagles shall eat it That is they shall be brought to an untimely end and the Birds of the air shall eat that eye that had never seen but for that Parent that was despised by it It may be you are vigorous and young they decayed and wrinkled with Age. But saith the Holy Ghost despise not thy Mother when she is old Prov. 23.22 Or when she is wrinkled as the Hebrew signifies It may be you are rich they poor owne and honour them in their poverty and despise them not God will requite it with his hand if you do Second Query Have you not been disobedient to the commands of Parents A Son of Belial is a Son of wrath if God give not Repentance to life Is not this the black brand set upon the Heathens Rom. 1.30 Have not many repented this upon a Ladder with an halter about their necks Woe to him that makes a Father or Mother complain as the Tree in the Fable that they are cloven assunder with the wedges that are cut out of their own bodies Third Query Have you not risen up rebelliously against and hated your Parents for chastening your bodies to save your souls from Hell Some Children saith one will not take that from a Parent which Beasts yea and salvage Beasts too Bears and Lions will take from their keepers What is this but to resist an Ordinance of God for your good And in rebelling against them to rebell against the Lord Well if they do not God will take the Rod into his own hand and him you shall not resist Fourth Query Have you not been unjust to your Parents and defrauded them First help to make them poor and then dispise them because they are poor O horrid wickedness What a complicated evil is this Thou art in the Language of Scripture a companion with destroyers Prov. 28.24 This is the worst of theft in Gods account You think you may make bold with them but how bold do you make with conscience and the command of God Fifth Query Are you not or have you not been ungrateful to Parents Leaving them to shift for themselves in those straights that you have helpt to bring them into Oh consider it Children this is an evil which God will surely avenge except ye repent What to be hardned against thine own flesh To be cruel to thine own Parents that with so much tenderness fed thee when else thou hadst perished I remember Luther gives us a story of one and oh that it might be a warning to all that hear it who having made over all he had to his Son reserving only a maintenance for himself at last his Son depised him and grudged him the very meat he eat and one day the Father coming in when the Son and his Wife were at dinner upon a Goose they shuffled the meat under the Table but see the remarkable vengeance of God upon this ungracious unnatural Son the Goose was turned into a monstrous Toad which seiz'd upon this vile wretch and kill'd him If any of you be guilty of these evils to humble you for them and reclaim you from them I desire these six Considerations may be lay'd to heart First That the effects of your obedience or disobedience will stick upon you and yours to many generations If you be obedient Children in the Lord both you and yours may reap the fruits of that your obedience in multitudes of sweet mercies for many generations So runs the Promise Eph. 6.23 Honour thy Father and Mother which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with thee and thou maist live long on the earth You know what an eye of favour God cast upon the Recabites for this Ier. 35.8 from the 14. to the 20. verse and as his blessings are by promise entailed on the obedient so his curse upon the disobedient Prov. 20.20 Whoso curseth his Father or his Mother his Lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness i. e. the Lamp of his life quencht by death yea say others and his soul also by the blackness of darkness in Hell Secondly Though other sins do this sin seldom escapes exemplary punishment even in this world Our English History tells us of a Yeoman of Leicestershire who had made over all he had to his Son to prefer him in marriage reserving only a bare maintenance at his Sons Table Afterward upon some discontent the Son bid his Father get out of his
in Hell for ever Rom. 2.5 6 7 8 9 10. Thou treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous Iudgement of God Who shall render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life but unto them that are contentious and obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil c. So 2 Thes. 1.4 5 6 7. So that we our selves glory in you in the Churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure Which is a manifest token of the righteous Iudgement of God That ye may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God for which ye also suffer Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed from Heaven in flaming fire c. To these plain testimonies multitudes more might be added if it were needful Heaven and Earth shall pass away but these words shall never pass away Arg. 3. Thirdly As the Scriptures reveal it so the Consciences of all men have some resentments of it Where is the man whose Conscience never felt any impressions of hope or fear from a future world If it be said these may be but the effects and force of discourse or education we have read such things in the Scriptures or have heard it by Preachers and so raise up to our selves hopes and fears about it I demand how the Consciences of the Heathens who have neither Scriptures nor Preachers came to be imprest with these things Doth not the Apostle tells us Rom. 2.15 That their Consciences in the mean while work upon these things Their thoughts with reference to a future state accuse or else excuse i. e. their hearts are cheared and encouraged by the good they do and terrified with fears about the evils they commit Whereas if there were no such things Conscience would neither accuse or excuse for good or evil done in this world Arg. 4. Fourthly The incarnation and death of Christ is but a vanity without it What did he propose to himself or what benefit have we by his coming if there be no such future state Did he take our nature and suffer such terrible things in it for nothing If you say Christians have much comfort from it in this Life I answer the comforts they have are raised by faith and expectation of the happiness to be enjoyed as the purchase of his blood in Heaven And if there be no such heaven to which they are appointed No Hell from which they are redeemed they do but comfort themselves with a Fable and bless themselves in a thing of nought Their comfort is no greater than the comfort of a Beggar that dreams he is a King and when he awakes finds himself a Beggar still Surely the ends of Christs death were to deliver us from the wrath to come 1 Thes. 1.10 Not from an imaginary but a real Hell to bring us to God 1 Pet. 3.18 To be the Author of eternal Salvation to them that obey him Heb. 5.9 Arg. 5. Fifthly and lastly The immortality of humane souls puts it beyond all doubt The soul of a man vastly differs from that of a Beast which is but a material form and so wholly depending on must needs perish with the matter But it is not so with us Ours are reasonable spirits that can live and act in a separated state from the body Eccles. 3.21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of a Beast that goeth downward to the earth So that look as if a man dispute whether man be rational that his very disputing it proves him to be so so our disputes hopes fears and apprehensions of eternity prove our souls immortal and capable of that state Inference 1. Is there an Eternal State into which souls pass after this Life How pretious then is present time upon the improvement whereof that State depends O what a huge weight hath God hanged upon a small wyer God hath set us here in a State of Tryal according as we improve these few hours so will it fare with us to all Eternity Every day every hour nay every moment of your present time hath an influence into your Eternity Do ye believe this What and yet squander away pretious time so carelesly so vainly How do these things consist When Seneca heard one promise to spend a week with a friend that invited him to recreate himself with him He told him he admired he should make such a rash promise what said he cast away so considerable a part of your Life How can you do it Surely our prodigallity in the expence of time argues we have but little sence of great Eternity Inference 2. How rational are all the difficulties and severities of Religion which serve to promote and secure a future Eternal Happiness So vast is the disproportion betwixt Time and Eternity things seen and not seen as yet the present vanishing and future permanent state that he can never be justly reputed a wise man that will not let go the best enjoyment he hath on earth if it stand in the way of his eternal happiness Nor can that man ever escape the just censure of notorious folly who for the gratifying of his appetite and present accommodation of his flesh le ts go an eternal glory in heaven Darius repented heartily that he lost a Kingdom for a draught of water O said he for how short a pleasure have I sold a Kingdom It was Moses choice and his choice argued his wisdom he chose rather to suffer afflictions with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin which are but for a season Heb. 11.25 Men do not account him a fool that will adventure a Penny upon a probability to gain ten thousand pounds But sure the disproportion betwixt Time and Eternity is much greater Inference 3. If there certainly be such an Eternal State into which souls pass immediately after Death How great a change then doth Death make upon every man and woman O what a serious thing is it to die It 's your passage out of the swift river of Time into the boundless and bottomless Ocean of Eternity You that now converse with sensible objects with men and women like your selves enter then into the world of Spirits You that now see the continual revolutions of daies and nights passing away one after another will then be fixed in a perpetual NOW O what a serious thing is Death You throw a cast for Eternity when you die If you were to cast a Dye for your natural life oh how would your hand shake with fear how it would fall but what is that to this The souls of
men are as it were asleep now in their bodies at Death they awake and find themselves in the world of realities Let this teach you both how to carry your selves towards dying persons when you visit them and to make every day some provision for that hour your selves Be serious be plain be faithful with others that are stepping into Eternity be so with your own souls every day O remember what a long word what an amazing thing Eternity is Especially considering DOCT. 2. That all believers are at their death immediately received into a State of glory and eternal happiness This day shalt thou be with me This the Atheist denies he thinks he shall die and therefore resolves to live as the Beasts that perish Beryllus and some others after him taught that there was indeed a â—uture state of happiness and misery for souls but that they pass not into it immediatly upon death and separation from the body but shall sleep till the Resurrection and then awake and enter into it But is not that soul asleep or worse that dreams of a sleeping soul till the Resurrection Are souls so wounded and prejudiced by their separation from the body that they cannot subsist or act separate from it Or have they found any such conceit in the Scriptures Not at all The Scriptures take notice of no such interval but plainly enough denies it 2 Cor. 5.8 We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Mark it no sooner parted from the body but present with the Lord. So Phil. 1.23 I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better If his soul was to sleep till the Resurrection how was it far better to be dissolved than to live Sure Pauls state in the body had-been far better than his state after death if this were so for here he enjoyed much sweet communion with God by Faith but then he should enjoy nothing To confirm this dream they urge Ioh 14.3 If I go my way I will come again and receive you to my self As if the time of Christs receiving his people to himself should not come until his second coming at the end of the world But though he will then collect all believers into one body and present them solemnly to his Father yet that hinders not but he may as indeed he doth receive every particular believing soul to himself at death by the Ministry of Angels And if not how is it that when Christ comes to judgement he is attended with ten thousands of his Saints that shall follow him when he comes from heaven Iude 14. you see then the Scriptures put no interval betwixt the dissolution of a Saint and his glorification It speaks of the Saints that are dead as already with the Lord. And the wicked that are dead as already in Hell calling them Spirits in Prison 1 Pet. 3.19 20. assuring us that Iudas went presently to his own place Acts 1.25 and to that sence is the Parable of Dives and Lazarus Luk. 16.22 But let us weigh these four things more particularly for our full satisfaction in this point Arg. 1. First Why should the happiness of believers be deferred since they are immediatly capable of enjoying it assoon as separated from the body Alas the soul is so far from being assisted by the body as it is now for the enjoyment of God that it 's rather clog'd and hindred by it so speaks the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.6 8. Whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord i. e. our bodies prejudice our souls obstruct and hinder the fulness and freedom of their communion When we part from the body we go home to the Lord. Then the soul is escaped as a Bird out of the Cage or Snare Here I am prevented by an excellent Pen which hath judiciously opened this point To whose excellent observations I only add this that if the intanglements snares and prejudices of the soul are so great and many in its embodied estate that it cannot so freely dilate it self and take in the comforts of God by communion with him then surely the laying aside of that clog or the freeing of the soul from that burden can be no bar to its greater happiness which it enjoys in its separated state Arg. 2. Secondly Why should the happiness and glory of the soul be deferred unless God had some farther preparative work to do upon it before it be fit to be admitted into glory But surely there is no such work wrought upon it after its separation by death All that is done of that kind is done here When the compositum is dissolved all means duties and ordinances are ceased The working day is then ended and night come when no man can work Ioh. 9.3 To that purpose are those words of Solomon Eccles. 9.10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with all thy might for there is no wisdom nor knowledge nor devise in the Grave whither thou goest So that our glorification is not deferred in order to our fuller preparation for glory If we are not fit when we die we can never be fit All is done upon us that ever was intended to be done For they are called Heb. 12.23 The Spirits of the Just made perfect Arg. 3. Thirdly Again why should our Salvation slumber when the damnation of the wicked doth not slumber God defers not their misery and surely he will not defer our glory If he be quick with his enemies he will not be slow and dilatory with his friends It cannot be imagined but he is as much inclined to acts of favour to his Children as to acts of Justice to his enemies these are presently damned Iud. 7. Acts 1.25 1 Pet. 3.19 20. and what reason why believers all believers as well as this in the Text should not be that very day in which they die with Christ in Glory Arg. 4. Fourthly And lastly how do such delays consist with Christs ardent desires to have his people with him where he is And with the vehement longings of their souls to be with Christ You may see those reflected flames of Love and desire of mutual enjoyment betwixt the Bridegroom and his Spouse in Revel 22.17 20. Delays make their hearts sick The expectation and Faith in which the Saints die is to be satisfied then and surely God will not deceive them I deny not but their glory will be more compleat when the body their absent friend is reunited and made to share with them in their happiness Yet that hinders not but mean while the soul may enjoy its glory whilst the body takes its rest and sleeps in the Dust. Inference 1. Are believers immediatly with God after their dissolution then how surprizingly glorious will Heaven be to believers Not that they are in it before they think of it or are fitted for it no they have spent many thoughts upon it before and
visitation Lastly If your work be not finished when you come to die you can never finish your lives with comfort He that hath not finished his work with care can never finish his course with joy Oh what a dismal case is that soul in that finds it self surprized by death in an unready posture To lie shivering upon the brink of the grave saying Lord what will become of me O I cannot I dare not die For the poor soul to shrink back into the body and cry Oh it were better for me to do any thing than die Why what 's the matter Oh I am in a Christless state and dare not go before that awful Judgement-seat If I had in season made Christ sure I could then die with peace Lord what shall I do How dost thou like this Reader Will this be a comfortable close When one asked a Christian that constantly spent six hours every day in prayer why he did so He answered O I must die I must die Well then look it that ye finish your work as Christ also did his The THIRTY SIXTH SERMON LUK. XXIII XLVI And when Iesus had cried with a loud voice he said Father into thy hands I commend my spirit and having said thus he gave up the ghost THese are the last of the last words of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross with which he breatheth out his soul. They were Davids words before him Psal. 31.5 and for substance Stephens after him Act. 7.57 They are words full both of faith and comfort Fit to be the last breathings of every gratious soul in this world They are resolvable into these five particulars The Person depositing or committing The Lord Iesus Christ who in this as well as in other things acted as a common person as the head of the Church This must be remarked carefully for therein lies no small part of a believers consolation When Christ commends his soul to God he doth as it were bind up all the souls of the Elect in one bundle with it and solemnly present them all with his to his Fathers acceptance To this purpose one aptly sences it This commendation made by Christ turns to the singular profit and advantage of our souls in as much as Christ by this very prayer hath delivered them into his Fathers hand as a pretious treasure when ever the time comes that they are to he loosed from the bodies which they now inhabit Jesus Christ neither lived nor dyed for himself but for believers What he did in this very act refers to them as well as to his own Soul You must look therefore upon Christ in this last and solemn act of his life as gathering all the souls of the Elect together and making a solemn tender of them all with his own soul to God Secondly The depository or person to whom he commits this pretious treasure and that was his own Father Father into thy hands I commit Father is a sweet encouraging assuring Title Well may a Son commit any concernment how dear soever into the hand of a Father Especially such a Son into the hands of such a Father By the hands of the Father into which he commits his soul we are not to understand the naked or meer power but the Fatherly acceptation and protection of God Thirdly The depositum or thing committed into this hand my Spirit i. e. my soul now instantly departing upon the very point of separation from my body The soul is the most pretious of all treasures it 's call'd the darling Psal. 35.17 Or the only one i. e. that which is most excellent and therefore most dear and pretious A whole world is but a trifle if weighed for the price of one soul Matth. 16.26 This inestimable treasure he now commits into his Fathers hands Fourthly The Act by which he puts it into that faithful hand of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I commend We rightly render it in the present tense though the word be future For with these words he breathed out his Soul This word is of the same import with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I present or tender it unto thy hands It was in Christ an act of Faith A most special and excellent act intended as a president for all his people Fifthly And Lastly the last thing observable is the manner in which he uttered these words And that was with a loud voice He spake it that all might hear it and that his enemies who judged him now destitute and forsaken of God might be convinced that he was not so But that he was dear to his Father still and could put his soul confidently into his hands Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Taking then these words not only as spoken by Christ the Head of all believers and so commending their souls to God with his own but also as a pattern teaching them what they ought to do themselves when they come to die We observe DOCT. That dying believers are both warranted and encouraged by Christs example believingly to commend their pretious Souls into the hands of God Thus the Apostle directs the Faith of Christians to commit their souls to Gods tuition and Fatherly protection when they are either going into prisons or to the stake for Christ 1 Pet. 4.19 Let them saith he that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing as unto a faithful Creator This Proposition we will consider in these two main branches of it sc. what is implied and carryed in the souls commending it self to God by Faith when the time of separation is come And what warrant or encouragement gratious souls have for their so doing First What is implyed in this Act of a believer his commending or committing his soul into the hands of God at Death And if it be throughly weighed you will find these six things at least carried in it First It implies this evidently in it that the soul out-lives the body and fails not as to its being when its body fails It feels the house in which it dwelt dropping into ruins and looks out for a new habitation with God Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit The soul understands it self a more noble being than that corruptible body to which it was united and is now to leave in the dust It understands its relation to the Father of spirits and from him it expects protection and provision in its unbodied state and therefore into his hands it puts it self If it vanished or breathed into air and did not survive the body if it were annihilated at death it were but a mocking of God to say when we die Father into thy hand I commend my Spirit Secondly It implies the souls true rest to be in God See which way its motions and tendencies are not only in life but in death also It bends to its God It rolls it even puts
it self upon its God and Father Father into thy hands God is the center of all gratious Spirits While they tabernacle here they have no rest but in the bosom of their God When they go hence their expectation and earnest desires are to be with him It had been working after God by gratious desires before it had cast many a longing look heaven-ward before but when the gratious soul comes near its God as it doth in a Dying hour then it even throws it self into his arms As a River that after many turnings and windings at last is arrived to the Ocean it pours it self with a central force into the bosom of the Ocean and there finishes its weary course Nothing but God can please it in this world and nothing but God can give it content when it goes hence It is not the amoenity of the place whither the gratious soul is going but the bosom of the blessed God who dwells there that it so vehemently pants after Not the Fathers house but the Fathers arms and bosom Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Whom have I in heaven but thee And oâ— earth there is none that I desire in comparison of thee Psal. 73.24 25. Thirdly It also implies the great value believers have for their souls That 's the pretious treasure And their main solicitude and chief care is to see it secured in a saâ—e hand Father into thy hands I commit my Spirit they are words speaking the believers care for his soul. That it may be safe what ever becomes of the vile body A believer when he comes nigh to death spends but few thoughts about his body where it shall be laid or how it shall be disposed of he trusts that in the hands of friends but as his great care all along was for his soul so he expresses it in these his very last breathings in which he commends it into the hands of God It is not Lord Jesus receive my body take care of my dust but receive my spirit Lord secure the Jewel when the Casket is broken Fourthly These words implie the deep sense that dying believers have of the great change that is coming upon them by death when all visible and sensible things are shrinking away from them and failing They feel the world and the best comforts in it failing Every creature and creature comfort failing For at death we are said to fail Luk. 16.9 Hereupon the soul clasps the closer about its God clings more close than ever to him Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Not that a meer necessity puts the soul upon God Or that it cleaves to God because it hath then nothing else to take hold on No no it chose God for its portion when it was in the midst of all its outword enjoyments and had as good security as other men have for the long enjoyment of them but my meaning is that although gratious souls have chosen God for their portion and do truly prefer him to the best of their comforts yet in this compounded state it lives not wholly upon its God but partly by faith and partly by sense Partly upon things seen and partly upon things not seen The creatures had some interest in their hearts alas too much but now all these are vanishing and it sees they are so I shall see man no more with the inhabitants of the world said sick Hezeckiah hereupon it turns it self from them all and casts it self upon God for all its subsistance Expecting now to live upon its God intirely as the blessed Angels do And so in faith they throw themselves into his arms Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Fifthly It implies the attonement of God and his full reconciliation to believer by the blood of the great sacrifice Else they durst never commit their souls into his hands For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 12.29 i. e. of an absolute God a God unattoned by the offering up of Christ. The soul dare no more cast it self into the hands of God without such an attoning sacrifice than it dares approach to a devouring fire And indeed the reconciliation of God by Jesus Christ as it is the ground of all our acceptance with God for we are made accepted in the beloved So it 's plainly carried in the order or manner of the reconciled souls committing it self to him for it first casts it self into the hands of Christ then into the hands of God by him So Stephen when dying Lord Iesus receive my Spirit And by that hand it would be put into the Fathershand Sixthly And lastly It implies both the efficacy and excellency of Faith in supporting and relieving the soul at a time when nothing else is able to do it Faith is its conduct when it is at the greatest loss and distress that ever it met with It secures the soul when it is turned out of the body When heart and flesh fail this leads it to the rock that fails not It sticks by that soul till it see it safe through all the territories of Satan and safe Landed upon the shore of Glory and then is swallowed up in vision Many a favour it hath shewn the soul while it dwelt in its body The great service it did for the soul was in the time of its espousals to Christ. This is the marriage knot The blessed bond of union betwixt the soul and Christ. Many a relieving sight secret and sweet support it hath received from its faith since that but surely its first and last works are its most glorious works By faith it first ventured it self upon Christ. Threw it self upon him in the deepest sense of its own vileness and utter unworthiness when sense reason and multitudes of temptations stood by contradicting and discouraging the soul. By faith it now casts it self into his arms when it 's lanching out into vast eternity They are both noble acts of Faith but the first no doubt is the greatest and most difficult For when once the soul is interessed in Christ it 's no such difficulty to commit it self into his hands as when it had no interest at all in him It 's easier for a child to cast himself into the arms of its own Father in distress than for one that hath been both a stranger and enemy to Christ to cast it self upon him that he may be a Father and a friend to it And this brings us upon the second enquiry I promised to satisfie sc. What warrant or incouragement have gratious souls to commit themselves at death into the hands of God I answer much every way all things encourage and warrant its so doing For First This God upon whom the believer rolls himself at death is its Creator The Father of its being He created and inspired it and so it hath relation of a creature to a Creator yea of a creature now in distress to a faithful Creator
to make it good when the time of the Promise is come as at death it is It cannot be Multitudes of Promises the whole Covenant of Promises give security to the soul against the fears of rejection or neglect by God And the souls dependance upon God and hanging upon a promise it s every rolling it self upon God from the incouragement the word gives it adds to the ingagement upon God When he sees a poor soul that he hath made redeemed sanctified sealed and by solemn Promise engaged himself to receive coming to him at death rolling it self upon his faithfulness that promised saying as David 2 Sam. 23.5 Though Lord there be many defects in me yet thou hast made a Covenant with me well order'd in all things and sure and this is all my salvation and all my hope Lord I am resolved to send out my soul in an act of Faith I will venture it upon the credit of thy Promise How can God refuse such a soul How can he put it off when it so puts it self upon him Sixthly But this is not all the gratious soul sustains many intimate and dear relations to that God into whose hands it commends it self at death It 's his Spouse and the consideration of such a day of Espousals may well encourage it to cast it self into the bosom of Christ its head and husband It is a member of his body flesh and bones Eph. 5.30 It is his child he its everlasting Father Isai. 9.6 It 's his friend Hence forth saith Christ I call you not servants but friends Joh. 15.15 What confidence may these and all other the dear relations Christ owns to the renewed soul beget in such an hour as this is What husband can throw off the dear wife of his bosom who in distresses casts her self into his arms What Father can shut the door upon a dear child that comes to him for refuge saying Father into thy hands I commit my self Seventhly and Lastly The unchangableness of Gods love to his people gives confidence they shall in no wise be cast out They know Christ is the same to them at last he was at first The same in the pangs of death as he was in the comforts of life Having loved his own which were in the world he loved them to the end Ioh. 13.1 He doth not love as the world loves only in prosperity But they are as dear to him when their beauty and strength is gone as when it was in the greatest flowrish If we live we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord so then whether we live or die we are the Lords Rom. 14.8 take in all these things and weigh them both apart and together and see whether they amount not to a full evidence of the truth of this point that dying believers are both warranted and incouraged to commend their souls into the hands of God Whether they have not every one of them cause to say as the Apostle did 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have believed and am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day The improvements of all this you have in the following practical Diductions Diduction 1. Are dying believers only warranted and encouraged thus to commend their souls into the hands of God What a sad straight then must all dying unbelievers be in about their souls Such souls will fall into the hands of God but that 's their misery not their priveledge They are not put by faith into the hands of mercy but fall by sin into the hands of justice Not God but the Devil is their Father Iob. 8.44 Whither should the child go but to its own Father They have not one of those forementioned encouragements to cast themselves into the hands of God except the naked relation they have to God as their Creator and that 's as good as none without the new creation If they have nothing but this to plead for their salvation the Devil hath as much to plead as they It 's the new creature that brings the first creation into repute again with God O dismal O deplorable case A pool soul is turning out of house and home and knows not where to go It departs and immediately falls into the hands of justice The Devil stands by waiting for such a soul whom God will throw to him as a Dog for a crust Little ah little do the friends of such a one think whilst they are honouring his dust by a splendid and honourable funeral what a case that poor soul is in that lately dwelt there and what fearful straights and extremities it is now exposed to They will cry indeed Lord Lord open to us Matth. 7.22 But to how little purpose are their vain cries Will God hear him when he cries Iob. 27.9 It 's a lamentable case Diduction 2. Will God gratiously accept and faithfully keep what the Saints commit to him at death how careful then should they be to keep what God commits to them to be kept for him while they live You have a great trust to commit to God when you die and God hath a great trust to commit to you whilst you live you expect that he should faithfully keep what then you shall commit to his keeping and he expects you should faithfully keep what he now commits to your keeping O keep what God commits to you as you expect he should keep your souls when you commit them unto him If you keep his truths he will keep your souls Because thou hast kept the word of my patience I also will keep thee c. Rev. 3.10 Be faithful to your God and you shall find him faithful to you None can pluck you out of his hand see that nothing wrest his truths out of your hands If we deny him he also will deny us 2 Tim. 2.12 Take heed lest those estates you have gotten as a blessing attending the Gospel prove a temptation to you to betray the Gospel Religion saith one brings forth Riches but the Daughter devours the Mother How can you expect acceptance with God who have betrayed his truth and dealt perfidiously with him Diduction 3. If believers may safely commit their souls into the hands of God How confidently may they commit all lesser interests and lower concernments into the same hand Shall we trust him with our souls and not with our lives liberties or comforts Can we commit the treasure to him and not a trifle Whatever you enjoy in this world is but a trifle to your souls Sure if you can trust him for eternal life for your souls you may much more trust him for the daily bread for your bodies I know it is objected that God hath made over temporal things to his people upon conditional promises and an absolute faith can never be grounded upon conditional promises But what means this objection Let your faith be but suitable to these conditional promises
other disciples professed their readiness to die with him yet those flee and these appear for him when the trial comes indeed If God desert the strong and assist the weak the feeble shall be as David and the strong as tow I speak not this to discourage any man from striving to improve inherent grace to the utmost For it 's ordinarily found in experience that the degrees of assisting grace are given out according to the measures of inherent grace but I speak it to prevent a sin incident to strong Christians which is to despise the weak which God corrects by such instances and examples as this before us Corollary 3. Hence we may be assisted in discerning the depths of Christs humiliation for us And see from what to what his love brought him It was not enough that he who was in the form of God became a creature which was an infinite stoop nay to be made a man an inferior order of creatures Nay to be a poor man to spend his daies in poverty and contempt But also to be a Dead corps for our sake O what manner of love is this Now the deeper the humiliation of the Son of God was the more satisfactory to us it must needs be For as it shews us the hainousness of sin that deserves all this so the fulness of Christs satisfaction whereby he makes up that breach O it was a deep humiliation indeed How unlike himself is he now become Doth he look like the Son of God What the Son of God whom all the Angels adore to be shuffled by three or four persons into his Grave in an evening To be carried from Golgotha to the Grave in this manner And there lie as a captive to Death for a time Never was the like change of conditions never such an abasement heart of in the world Corollary 4. From this Funeral of Christ results the purest and strongest consolation and incouragement to believers against the fears of Death and the Grave If this be so that Jesus hath layen in Grave before you let me say then to you as the Lord spake to Iacob Gen. 46.2 3. Fear not to go down to Egypt for I will go down with thee and will surely bring thee up thence So here fear not believer to go down to the Grave for God will be with thee there and will surely bring thee up thence This consideration that Jesus Christ hath layen in the Grave himself gives manifold encouragement to the people of God against the terrors of the Grave First The Grave received but could not destroy Jesus Christ. Death swallow'd him as the Whale did Ionah his Type but could not digest him when it had swallow'd him but quickly delivered him up again Now Christ lying in the Grave as the common head and representative of believers what comfort should this inspire into their hearts For as it fared with Christs personal so it shall with Christs mystical It could not retain him it shall not for ever retain them This Resurrection of Christ out of his is the very ground of our hope for a Resurrection out of our Graves Christ is risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept 1 Cor. 15.20 Secondly As the union betwixt the body of Christ and the divine nature was not dissolved when that body was laid in the Grave so the union betwixt Christ and believers is not cannot be dissolved when their bodies shall be laid in their Graves It 's true the natural union betwixt his soul and body was dissolved for a time but the Hypostatical union was not dissolved no not for a moment That body was the body of the Son of God when it was in the Sepulchre In like manner the natural union betwixt our souls and bodies is dissolved by death but the mystical union betwixt us and Christ yea betwixt our very dust and Christ can never be dissolved Thirdly As Christs body when it was in the Grave did there rest in hope and was assuredly a partaker of that hope So it shall fare with the dead bodies of the Saints when they lay them down also in the dust My flesh also shall rest in hope saith Christ Psal. 16.9 10 11. In like manner the Saints commit their bodies to the dust in hope The righteous hath hope in his death Pro. 14.32 And as Christs hope was not a vain hope so neither shall their hope be in vain Fourthly And lastly Christs lying in the Grave before us hath quite changed and altered the nature of the Grave So that it is not what it was It was once a part of the Curse Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return was a part of the threatening and curse for sin The Grave had the nature and use of a prison to keep the bodies of sinners against the great Assizes and then deliver them up into the hands of a great and terrible God But now it 's no prison but a bed of rest Yea and a perfumed bed where Christ lay before us Which is a sweet consideration of the Grave indeed They shall enter into peace they shall rest in their beds Isa. 57.2 O then let not believers stand in fear of the Grave He that hath one foot in heaven need not fear to put the other into the Grave Though I go down to the valley of the shadow of Death I will fear no evil for thou art with me Psal. 23. Indeed the Grave is a terrible place to them that are out of Christ. Death is the Lords Serjeant to arrest them The Grave is the Lords Prison to secure them When death draws them into the Grave it draws them thither as a Lion doth his prey into the den to devour it So you read Psal. 49.14 Death shall feed or prey upon them Death there raigns over them in its full power Rom. 5.14 And though at last it shall render them again to God yet it were better for them to lie everlastingly where they were than to rise to such an end For they are brought out of their Graves as a condemned Prisoner out of the Prison to go to execution But the case of the Saints is not so The Grave thanks be to our Lord Jesus Christ is a priviledged place to them while they sleep there and when they awake it will be with singing When they awake they shall be satisfied with his likeness Corollary 5. Lastly Since Christ was laid in the Grave and his people reap such priviledges by it as ever you expect rest or comfort in your Graves see that you get Vnion with Christ now It was an ancient custom of the Jews to put rich treasures into the Graves with their friends as well as to bestow much upon their Sepulchers It 's said Hircanus opened Davids Sepulchre and took cut of it three thousand Talents of Gold and Silver And to this sence many interpret that act of the Chaldeans Ier. 8.1 At that time saith the
rose at that time also Yet it was by the vertue of Christs Resurrection that their Graves were opened and their bodies quickned In which respect he saith Ioh. 11.25 when he raised dead Lazarus I am the Resurrection and the life i. e. the principle of life and quickning by which the dead Saints are raised Fourthly And therefore it may be truly affirmed that though some dead Saints were raised to life before the Resurrection of Christ yet that Christ is the first-born from the dead as he is call'd Col. 1.18 For though Lazarus and others were raised yet not by themselves but by Christ. It was by his vertue and power not their own And though they were raised to life yet they died again Death recovered them again but Christ dieth no more Death hath no dominion over him He was the first that opened the womb of the Earth the first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preheminence Fifthly But lastly Christ rose as a publick or common person As the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15.20 I desire this may be well understood â—or upon this account it is that our Resurrection is secured to us by the Resurrection of Christ and not a Resurrection only but a blessed and happy one for the first fruits both assured and sanctified the whole crop or harvest Now that Christ did rise as a publick person representing and comprehending all the Elect who are called the children of the Resurrection is plain from Eph. 2.6 Where we are said to be risen with or in him So that as we are said to die in Adam who also was a common person as the branches die in the death of the root so we are said to be raised from death in Christ who is the head root and representative of all his Elect seed And why is he called the first-born and first begotten from the dead but with respect to the whole number of the Elect that are to be born from the dead in their time and order also and as sure as the whole harvest follows the first fruits so shall the general Resurrection of the Saints to life eternal follow this birth of the first-born from the dead It shall surely follow it I say and that not only as a consequent follows an antecedent but as an effect follows its proper cause Now there is a three fold causality or influence that Christs Resurrection hath upon the Saints Resurrection of which it is both the meritorious efficient and exemplary cause First The Resurrection of Christ is the meritorious cause of the Saints Resurrection as it compleated his satisfaction and finished his payment and so our Justification is properly assigned to it as before was noted from Rom. 4.25 This his Resurrection was the receiving of the acquittance the cancelling of the bond And had not this been done we had still been in our sins as he speaks 1 Cor. 15.17 And so our guilt had been still a bar to our happy Resurrection But now the price being paid in his Death which payment was finished when he revived and the discharge then received for us now there is nothing lies in bar against our Resurrection to eternal life Secondly As it is the meritorious cause of our Resurrection so so it is the efficient cause of it also For when the time shall come that the Saints shall rise out of the dust they shall be raised by Christ as their head in whom the effective principle of their life is Your life is hid with Christ in God as it is Col. 3.3 As when a man awakes out of sleep the animal spirits seated in the brain being set at liberty by the digestion of those vapours that bound them up do play freely through every part and member of the body so Christ the believers mystical head being quickned the spirit of life which is in him shall be diffused through all his members to quicken them also in the morning of the Resurrection Hence the warm animating dew of Christs Resurrection is said to be to our bodies as the dew of the morning is to the withered languishing plants which revive by it Isa. 26.19 Thy dew is as the dew of Herbs and then it follows the earth shall cast forth her dead So that by the same Faith we put Christs Resurrection into the Premises we may put the believers Resurrection into the Conclusion And therefore the Apostle makes them convertibles reasoning forward from Christs to ours and back again from ours to his 1 Cor. 15.12 13. Which is also the sence of that Scripture Rom. 8.10 11. And if Christ be in you the body indeed is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness i. e. though you are really united to Christ by the Spirit yet your bodies must die as well as other mens but your souls shall be presently upon your dissolution swallowed up in life And then it follows vers 11. But if the spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you i. e. though your bodies must die yet they shall live again in the Resurrection and that by vertue of the spirit of Christ which dwelleth in you and is the bond of your mystical union with him your head You shall not be raised as others are by a meer word of power but by the spirit of life dwelling in Christ your head which is a choice prerogative indeed Thirdly Christs Resurrection is not only the meritorious and efficient cause but it is also the exemplary cause or pattern of our Resurrection He being the first and best is therefore the pattern and measure of all the rest So you read Phil. 3.21 Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body Now the Conformity of our Resurrection to Christs stands in the following particulars Christs body was raised substantially the same so will ours His body was raised first so will ours be raised before the rest of the dead His body was wonderfully improved by the Resurrection so will ours His body was raised to be glorified and so will ours First Christs body was raised substantially the same that it was before and so will ours Not another but the same body Upon this very reason the Apostle usâ—s that idential expression 1 Cor. 15.53 This corruptible must put on incorruption and thâ— mortal immortality Pointing as it were to his own body when he spake it the same body I say and that not only Specifically the same for indeed no other Species of flesh is so priviledged but the same numerically that very body not a new or another body in its steed So that it shall be both the what it was and the who it was And indeed to deny this is to deny the Resurrection it self For should God prepare
another body to be raised instead of this it would not be a Resurrection but a Creation for non Resurrectio dici poterit ubi non resurgit quod cecidit That can't be call'd a Resurrection where one thing falls and another thing rises as Gregory long since pertinently observed Secondly His body was raised not by a word of power from the Father but by his own spirit So will ours Indeed the power of God shall go forth to unburrough sinners and fetch them forcibly out of their Graves but the Resurrection of the Saints is to be effected another way as I opened but now to you Even by his spirit which now dwelleth in them That very spirit of Christ which effected their spiritual Resurrection from sin shall effect their corporal Resurrection also from the Grave Thirdly His body was raised first he had in this as well as in other things the preheminence so shall the Saints in respect of the wicked have the preheminence in the Resurrection 1 Thes. 4.16 The dead in Christ shall rise first They are to attend the Lord at his coming and will be knockt up â—ooner than the rest of the world to attend on that service As the Sheriff with his men go forâ—h to meet the Judge before the Jaylor brings forth his prisoner Fourthly Christs body was marvelously improved by the Resurrection and so will ours It fell in weakness but was raised in power no more capable of sorrows pains and dishonours In like manner our bodies are sown in weakness but raised in strength sown in dishonour raised in glory Sown natural bodies raised spiritural bodies as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 15.43 44. Spiritual bodies not properly but Analogically No distempers hang about glorified bodies nor are they thence forth subject to any of those natural necessities to which they are now tyed There are no flaws defects or deformities in the children of the Resurrection What members are now defective or deformed will then be restored to their perfect being and beauty for if the universal death of all parts be rescinded by the Resurrection how much more the partial Death of any single member As Turtullian speaks and from thence forth they are free from the Law of mortality they can die no more Luk. 20 35 36. Thus shall they be improved by their Resurrection Fifthly To conclude Christs body was raised from the Dead to be glorified and crowned with honour Oh it was a joyful day to him and so will the Resurrection of the Saints be to them the day of the gladness of their hearts It will be said to them in that morning awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust as Isa. 26.19 O how comfortable will be the meeting betwixt the glorified soul and its new raised body Much more comfortable than that of Iacobs and Iosephs after twenty years absence Gen. 46.29 Or that of Davids with Jonathan when he came out of the Cave to him 1 Sam. 20.41 Or that of the Father of the prodigal with his Son who was dead and is alive was lost and is found As he speaks Luk. 15. And there are three things will make it so First The gratifications of the Soul by the satisfaction of its natural appetite of union with its own body For even glorified souls in heaven have such an appetition and desire of re-union Indeed the Angels who are pure spirits as they never hâ—d union with so they have no inclination to matter but souls are otherwise tempered and disposed We are all sensible of its affection to the body now in its compounded state we feel the tender care it hath for the body the sympathy with it and loathness to be separated from it It 's said 1 Cor. 5.6 To be at home in the body And had not God implanted such an inclination to this its Tabernacle in it it would not have paid that due respect it ows the body while it inhabited in it nor have regarded what became of it when it left it This inclination remains still with it in heaven it reckons not it self compleatly happy till its old dear Companion and partner be with it and to that sence some understand those words Iob 14.14 All the daies of my appointed time i. e. of the time appointed â—or my body to remain in the Grave will I wait till my change viz. that which will be made by the Resurrection come for it 's manifest enough he speaks there of the Resurrection Now when this its inclination to its own body its longings and hankerings after it are gratified with a sight and enjoyment of it again oh what a comfortable meeting will this make it Especially if we consider Secondly The excellent temper and state in which they shall meet each other For as the body shall be raised with all the improvements and endownments imaginable which may render it amiable and every way desireable so the soul comes down immediatly from God out of Heaven shining in its holiness and glory It comes perfumed out of those Ivory Palaces with a strong scent of Heaven upon it And thus it re-enters its body and animates it again But Thirdly And principally that wherein the chief joy of this meeting consists is the end for which the glorified soul comes down to quicken and repossess it Namely to meet the Lord and ever to be with the Lord. To receive a full reward for all the labours and services it performed to God in this world This must needs make that day a day of Triumph and Exaltation It comes out of the grave as Ioseph out of his prison to be advanced to highest honour O do but imagine what an extasie of Joy and ravishing pleasure it will be for a soul thus to resume its own body and say as it were unto it come away my dear my ancient friend who servedst and sufferedst with me in the world come along with me to meet the Lord in whose presence I have bee ever since I parted with thee Now thy bountiful Lord hath remembred thee also and the day of thy glorification is come Surely it will be a joyful awaking For do but imagine what a Joy it is for dear friends to meet after long separation how do they use to give demonstrations of their love and delight in each other by Embraces Kisses Tears c. Or frame but to your selves a notion of perfect health when a sprightly vivacity runs through every part and the spirits do as it were dance before us when we go to any business Especially to such a business as the business of that day will be to receive a Crown and a Kingdom Do but imagine then what a Sun-shine morning this will be and how the pains and agonies cold sweats and bitter groans at parting will be recompenced by the joy of such a meeting And thus I have shewed you briefly the certainty of Christs Resurrection the nature and properties of it the threefold influence it hath on the
Saints Resurrection and the conformity of ours unto his in these five respects His body rose substantially the same so shall ours His body was raised by the spirit so shall ours Not by the God-head of Christ as his was but by the Spirit who is the bond of our union with Christ. He was raised as the first begotten from the dead so the dead in Christ shall rise first His body was improved by the Resurrection so shall ours From the consideration of all which Inference 1. We Infer That if Christ was thus raised from the dead then death is fairly overcome and smallowed up in Victory Were it not so it had never let Christ escape out of the Grave The prey of the terrible had never been thus rescued out of its paws Death is a dreadful enemy it defies all the Sons and Daughters of Adam None durst cope with this King of terrors but Christ. And he by dying went into the very den of this Dragon fought with it and foiled it in the Grave its own territories and dominions and came off a Conqueror For as the Apostle speaks Acts 2.24 It was impossible it should hold or detain him Never did death meet with its over match before it met with Christ. And he conquering it for us and in our names rising as our representative now every single Saint triumphs over it as a vanquisht enemy 1 Cor. 15.55 O death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Victory Thanks be to God who hath given us the Victory through our Lord Iesus Christ. Thus like Ioshua they set the foot of faith upon the neck of that King and with an holy scorn deride its power O death where is thy Sting If it be objected that it 's said 1 Cor. 15.26 The last enemy that is to be destroyed is Death And if so then it should seem the Victory is not yet atchieved and so we do but boast before the Victory It is at hand to reply that the Victory over death obtained by Christs Resurrection is twofold either personal and incompleat or general and compleat He actually overcame it at his Resurrection in his own person perfectly and vertually for us as our head but at the general Resurrection of the Saints which his Resurrection as the first fruits assures them of then it 's utterly vanquisht and destroyed Till then it will exercise some little power over the bodies of the Saints in which respect it 's called the last enemy For sin the chief enemy that let it in that was conquered utterly and eradicated when they died but death holds their bodies in the Grave till the coming of Christ and then it is utterly to be vanquished For after that they can die no more Luk. 20.35 And then shall be brought to pass that saying that is written death is swallowed up in Victory Then and not till then will that conquest be fully compleated in our persons though it be already so in Christs incompleatly in ours and then compleatly and fully for ever For the same word which signifies Victory doth also signifie Perpetuity and in this place a final or perpetual conquest And indeed it drives but a poor trade for present smiting only with its Dart not with its Sting and that but the believers body only and the body but for a time remains under it neither So that there is no reason why a believer should stand in a slavish fear of it Inference 2. Is Christ risen and hath his Resurrection such a potent and comfortable influence into the Resurrection of the Saints Then it is the duty and will be the wisdom of the people of God so to Govern dispose and imploy their bodies as becomes men and women that understand what glory is prepared for them at the Resurrection of the Iust. Particularly First Be not fondly tender of them but imploy and use them for God here How many good duties are lost and spoiled by sinful indulgence to our bodies Alas we are generally more solicitous to live long than to live usefully How many Saints have active vigorous bodies yet God hath little service from them If your bodies were animated by some other souls that love God more than you do and burn with holy Zeal to his service more work would be done for God by your bodies in a day than is now done in a month To have an able healthy body and not use it for God for fear of hurting it is as if one should give you a strong and stately Horse upon condition you must not work or ride him Wherein is the mercy of having a body except it be imployed for God Will not its reward at the Resurrection be sufficient for all the pains you now put it to in his service Secondly See that you preserve the due honour of your bodies Possess them in Sanctification and honour 1 Thes. 4.4 O let not those eyes be now defiled with sin by which you shall see God Those ears be in-lets to vanity which shall hear the Alaleujahs of the blessed God hath designed honour for your bodies O make them not either the instruments or objects of sin There are sins against the body 1 Cor. 6.18 Preserve your bodies from those defilements for they are the Temples of God If any man defile the Temple of God him will God destroy 1 Cor. 3.17 Thirdly Let not the contentment and accomodation of your bodies draw your souls into snares and bring them under the power of Temptations to sin This is a very common case O how many thousands of pretious souls perish eternally for the satisfaction of a vile body for a momenâ— Their Souls must because their bodies cannot suffer It is recorded to the immortal honour of those worthies in Heb. 11.35 That they accepted not deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection They might have had a Temporal Resurrection from death to life from reproach to honour from poverty to riches from pains to pleasure but upon such terms they Judged it not worth acceptance They would not expose their souls to secure their bodies They had the same natural affections that other men have They were made of as tender flesh as we are but such was the care they had of their souls and the hope of a better Resurrection that they listned not to the complaints and whinings of their bodies O that we were all in the same resolutions with them Fourthly Withhold not upon the pretence of the wants your own bodies may be in that which God and conscience bids you to communicate for the refreshment of the Saints whose present necessities require your assistance O be not too indulgent to your own flesh and cruel to others Certainly the consideration of that reward which shall be given you at the Resurrection for every act of Christian Charity is the greatest spur and incentive in the world to it And to that end it 's urged as a motive to Charity Luk. 14.13 14.
came Fourthly When did Christ ascend was it presently as soon as he rose from the dead No not so for after his Resurrection saith Luke he was seen of them forty daies speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God And truly the care and love of Christ to his people was very manifest in this his stay with them He had ineffable glory prepared for him in heaven and awaiting his coming but he will not go to possess it till he had settled all things for the good of his Church here For in this time he confirmed the truth of his Resurrection gave charge to the Apostles concerning the Discipline and order of his house or Kingdom which was but needful since he intended that their Acts should be rules to future Churches So long it was necessary he should stay And when he had set all things in order he would stay no longer lest he should seem to affect a terrene life And besides he had work of great concernment to do for us in the other world He desired to be no longer here than he had work to do for God and souls A good pattern for the Saints Fifthly How did Christ ascend into Heaven Here it 's worthy our Observation that Christ ascended as a publick person or fore-runner in our names and upon our accounts So it 's said expresly Heb. 6.20 Speaking of the most holy place within the vail whither saith he the fore-runner is for us entred His entring into heaven as our fore-runner implies both his publick capacity and precedency First His publick capacity as one that went upon our business to God So he himself speaks Ioh. 14.2 I go before to prepare a place for you To take possession of heaven in our names The fore-runner hath respect to others that were to come to heaven after him in their several generations for whom he hath taken up mansions which are kept for them against their coming Secondly It notes precedency He is our fore-runner but he himself had no fore-runner Never any entred into heaven before him but such as entred in the name and through the vertue of his merits He was the first that ever entred heaven directly immediately in his own name and upon his own account But all the Fathers who died before him entred in his name To the holiest of them all God would have said as Elisha to Iehoram 2 King 3.14 Were it not that I had respect to the person of my Son in whose name and right you come I would not look upon you You must back again heaven were no place for you No not for you Aâ—raham nor for you Moses Secondly He ascended Triumphantly into heaven To this good Expositors refer that which in the Type is spoken of David when he lodged the Ark in its own place with musical instruments and shoutings but to Christ in the Antitype when he was received up Triumphantly into glory Psal. 47.5 God is gone up with a shout the Lord with the sound of a Trumpet sing praises to God sing praises sing praises unto our King sing praises A Cloud is prepared as a Royal Chariot to carry up this King of Glory to his Princely pavillion A Cloud received him out of their sight And then a Royal guard of mighty Angels surround the Chariot if not for support yet for greater state and solemnity of their Lords ascension And oh what Jubilations of the blessed Angels were heard in heaven How was the whole City of God moved at his coming For look as when he brought his first begotten into the world he said let all the Angels of God worship him Heb. 1.6 So at his return thither again when he had finished Redemption work there were no less demonstrations given by those blessed Creatures of their delight and joy in it The very heavens ecchoed and resounded on that account Yea the Triumph is not ended at this day nor ever shall It 's said Dan. 7.13.14 I saw saith the Prophet in the night visions and behold one like the Son of man came with the Clouds of Heaven and came to the ancient of daies and they brought him near before him And there was given him dominion and glory and a Kingdom that all People Nations and Languages should serve him This Vision of Daniels was accomplisht in Christs ascension when they i. e. the Angels brought him to the ancient of daies i. e. to God the Father who to express his welcome to Christ gave him glory and a Kingdom And so it is and ought to be expounded The Father received him with open arms rejoycing exceedingly to see him again in heaven therefore God is said to receive him up into glory 1 Tim. 3.16 For that which with respect to Christ is called ascension is with respect to the Father called assumption He went up and the Father received him Yea received him so as none ever was received before him or shall be received after him Thirdly Christ Ascended munificiently shedding forth abundantly inestimable gifts upon his Church at his ascension As in the Roman Triumphs they did Spargere missilia bestow their largesses upon the people so did our Lord when he ascended wherefore he saith when he ascended up on high he led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men The place to which the Apostle refers is Psal. 68.17.18 where you have both the triumph and munificence with which Christ went up excellently set forth together The Chariots of God saith the Psalmist are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place Thou hast ascended on high thou hast led Captivity Captive thou hast received gifts for men Yea for the rebellious also that God might dwell among them Which words in their literal sense are a Celebraâ—ion of that famous victory and triumph of David ever the enemies of God recorded 2 Sam. 8. These conquered enemies bring him several sorts of presents all which he dedicated to the Lord. The spiritual sense is that just so our Lord Jesus Christ when he had overcome by his death on the Crâ—ss and now triumphed in his ascension he takes the parts and gifts of his enemies and gives them by their conversion to the Church for its use and service Thus he received gifts even for the rebellious i. e. sanctâ—fies the natural gifts and â—aculties of such as hated his people before dedicating them to the Lord in his peoples service Thus as one observes Tertullian Origen Austin and Ierome came into Canaan laden with Aegyptian Gold Meaning they came into the Church richly furnished wiâ—h natural learning and abilities Austin was a Manichee Cyprian a Magician learned Bradwardine a scornful proud naâ—urallist who once said when he read Pauls Epistles dedignabar esse parvulus He scorned such childish things but afterwards became a very useful man in the Church of God And even Paul himself was as fierce an enemy to
the dear Son of God came from the blessed bosom of the Father assumed flesh brake by the strength of his own Love through all discouragements and impediments laid down his own life a ransom for their Souls for whom he Lived Died Rose Ascended and lives for ever in Heaven to intercede to live holy to Christ as Christ lived and died wholly for them O Brethren never was the Heathen world acquainted with such arguments to deter them from sin never acquainted with such motives to urge them to holiness as I shall this day acquaint you with My request is to give up both your hearts and lives to glorifie the Father Son and Spirit whose you are by the holiness and heavenliness of them Other things are expected from you than from other men See that you turn not all this grace that hath founded in your ears into wantonness Think not because Christ hath done so much for you you may sit still much less indulge your selves in sin because Christ hath offered up such an excellent sacrifice for the expiation of it No no though Christ came to be a Curse he did not come to be a a Cloak for your sins If one died for all then were all dead that they that live should not henceforth live to themselves but to him that died for them 2 Cor. 5.15 O keep your lives pure and clean Don't make fresh work for the blood of Christ every day If you live in the Spirit see that you walk in the Spirit Gal. 5.25 That is saith Cornelius à Lapide very solidly Let us shape and order our lives and actions according to the dictates instinct and impulses of the Spirit and of that grace of the Spirit put within us and planted in our hearts which tendeth to practical holiness Oh let the grace which is in your hearts issue out into all your Religious Civil and natural actions Let the Faith that is in your hearts appear in your prayers The Obedience of your hearts in hearing The Meekness of your hearts in suffering The Mercifulness of your hearts in distributing The Truth and Righteousness of your hearts in trading The Sobriety and Temperance of your hearts in eating and drinking These be the fruits of Christs sufferings indeed and they are sweet fruits Let grace refine enoble and elevate all your actions that you may say truly our conversation is in Heaven Let grace have the ordering of your tongues and of your hands the moulding of your whole conversation Let not Humility appear in some actions and Pride in others Holy seriousness in some companies and vain frothiness in others Suffer not the fountain of corruption to mingle with or pollute the streams of grace Write as exactly as you can after your Copy Christ. O let there not be as one well expresses it here a line and there a blanck Here a word and there a blot One word of God and two of the World Now a Spiritual rapture and then a fleshly Frollick This day a fair stride to Heaven and to morrow a slide back again towards Hell But be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long Let there be a due proportion betwixt all the parts of your conversation Approve your selves the servants of Christ in all things By pureness by knowledge by long suffering by the Holy Ghost by Love unfeigned by the Word of Truth by the power of God by the armour of Righteousness on the right hand and on the left 2 Cor. 6.6 See then how accuratly you walk Cut off occasion from them that desire occasion and in well doing commit your selves to God and commend Religion to the World That this is your great concernment and duty I shall evidence to your conscience by these following considerations That of all persons in the world the Redeemed of the Lord are most obliged to be holy Most assisted for a life of holiness And that God intends to make great Vse of their lives both for the conviction and conversion of others Consid. First God hath most obliged them to live pure and strict lives I know the command obliges all men to it even those that cast away the cords of the commands and break Christs bonds asunder are yet bound by them and cannot plead a dispensation to live as they do Yea and it is not unusual for them to feel the obligations of the command upon their consciences even when their impetuous Lusts hurry them on to the violation of them but there are special ties upon your souls that oblige you to holiness of life more than others Many special and peculiar engagements you are under First from God Secondly from your selves Thirdly from your Brethren Fourthly from your enemies First God hath peculiarly obliged you to purity and strictness of Life Yea every person in the blessed Trinity hath cast his Cord over your Souls to bind up your hearts and lives to the most strict and precise obedience of his commands The Father hath obliged you and that not only by the common tie of Creation which is yet of great efficacy in it self for is it reasonable that God should create and form so excellent a piece and that it should be employed against him That he should plant the Tree and another eat the Fruit of it But besides this common engagement he hath obliged you to holiness of life First By his wise and merciful designs and counsels for your recovery and salvation by Jesus Christ. It was he that laid the corner stone of your salvation with his own hands The first motion sprang out of his breast If God had not designed the Redeemer for you the world had never seen him he had never left that sweet bosom for you It was the Act of the Father to give you to the Son to be Redeemed and then to give the Son to be a Redeemer to you Both of them stupenduous and astonishing Acts of grace And in both God acted as a most free Agent When he gave you to Christ before the beginning of time there was nothing out of himself that could in the least move him to it When the Father Son and Spirit sate as I may say at the Counsel Table contriving and laying the design for the salvation of a few out of many of Adams degenerate off-spring there was none came before them to speak one word for thee but such was the divine pleasure to insert thy name in that Catalogue of the saved Oh how much owest thou to the Lord for this And what an engagement doth it leave upon thy soul to obey please and glorifie him Secondly By his bountiful remunerations of your obedience which have been wonderful What service didst thou ever perform for him for which he hath not paid thee a thousand times more than it was worth Didst thou ever seek him diligently and not find him a bountiful rewarder none seek him in vain unless such only as seek him vainly Heb. 11.6
Mr. Coverdale well translates filii non negantes such as will keep touch with me and will answer their Covenant engagements And again surely thou wilt fear me thou wilt receive instruction And shall not all this engage you to God What! neither the antient and bountiful love of God in contriving your Redemption from eternity nor the bounty of God in rewarding all and every piece of service you have done for him Nor yet the pleasure he takes in your obedience and upright walking Nor the incouraging promises he hath made thereto nor yet his confident expectations of such a life from you whom he hath so many waies obliged and endeared to himself will you forget your antient friend Contemn his rewards take no delight or care to please him Slight his promises and deceive and fail his expectations Be astonished O ye Heavens at this And be horribly afraid Consider how God the Father hath fastned this five fold cord upon your Souls and shew your selves Christians yea to use the Prophets words Esa. 46.8 Remember this and shew your selves men Secondly You are yet farther engaged to this precise and holy life by what the Son hath done for you is not this pure and holy life the very aim and next end of his death Did he not shed his blood to redeem you from your vain conversations 1 Pet. 1.18 Was not this the design of all his sufferings that being delivered out of the hands of your enemies you might serve him in righteousness and holiness all the daies of your life Luk. 1.74 75. And is not the Apostles inference 2 Cor. 5.14 15. highly reasonable if one dyed for all then were all dead and that he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves but to him that dyed for them Did Christ only buy your Persons and not your services also No no who ever hath thy time thy strength or any part of either I can assure thee Christian that Christ hath paid for it and thou givest away what is none of thine own to give Every moment of thy time is his Every Talent whether of grace or nature is his And dost thou defraud him of his own Oh how liberal are you of your pretious words and hours as if Christ had never made a purchase of them Oh think of this when thy life runs muddy and â—oul When the fountain of corruption flows out at thy tongue in idle frothy discourses or at thy hand in sinful unwarrantable actions doth this become the redeemed of the Lord Did Christ come from the bosom of his Father for this Did he groan sweat bleed endure the Cross and lay down his life for this Was he so well pleased with all his sorrows and sufferings his pangs and agonies upon the account of that satisfaction he should have in seeing the travail of his Soul Isa. 53.11 as if he had said Welcome Death welcome Agonies welcome the bitter cup and heavy burthen I chearfully submit to all this These are travailing pangs indeed but I shall see a beautiful birth at last These throws and Agonies shall bring forth many lively Children to God I shall have joy in them and glory from them to all Eternity This blood of mine these sufferings of mine shall purchase to me the Persons Duties Services and obedience of many thousands that will Love me and Honour me Serve me and Obey me with their Souls and Bodies which are mine And doth not this engage you to look to your lives and keep them pure Is not every one of Christs wounds a mouth open to plead for more holiness more service and more fruit from you Oh what will engage you if this will not But Thirdly This is not all as a man when he weigheth a thing casteth in weight after weight till the scales are counterpoised so doth God cast in engagement after engagement and argument upon argument till thy heart Christian be weighed up and won to this heavenly life And therefore as Elihu said to Iob cap. 36.22 Suffer me a little and I will shew thee what I have yet to speak on Gods behalf Some Arguments have already been urged on the behalf of the Father and Son for purity and cleanness of life and next I have something to plead on the behalf of the Spirit I plead now on his behalf who hath so many times helped you to plead for your selves with God He that hath so often refreshed quickened and comforted you he will be quenched grieved and displeased by an impure loose and careless conversation and what will you do then Who shall comfort you when the Comforter is departed from you When he that should releive your souls is far off Oh grieve not the holy Spirit of God by which you are sealed to the day of Redemption Eph. 4.30 There is nothing grieves him more than impure practices For he is a holy Spirit And look as water damps and quenches the fire so doth sin quench the Spirit 1 Thes. 5.19 Will you quench the warm affections and burning desires which he hath kindled in your bosoms if you do it is a question whether ever you may recover them again to your dying day the Spirit hath a delicate Sence It is the most tender thing in the whole world He feels the least touch of sin and is grieved when thy corruptions within are stirred by temptations and break out to the defiling of thy life then is the holy Spirit of God as it were made sad and heavy within thee As that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes. 4.30 may be rendred For thereby thou both resistest his motions whereby in the way of a loving constraint he would lead and guide thee in the way of thy Duty yea thou not only resistest his motions but crossest his grand design which is to purge and sanctifie thee wholly and build thee up more and more to the perfection of holiness And when thou thus forsakest his conduct and crossest his design in thy soul then doth he usually with-draw as a man that is grieved by the unkindness of his friend He draws in the beams of his evidencing and quickning grace Packs up all his divine Cordials and saith as it were to this unkind and disingenious Soul Hast thou thus requited me for all the favours and kindnesses thou hast received from me Have I quickened thee when thou wast dead in transgressions did I descend upon thee in the Preaching of the Gospel and communicate life even the life of God to thee leaving others in the state of the Dead Have I shed forth such rich influences of grace and comfort upon thee Comforting thee in all thy troubles helping thee in all thy duties satisfying thee in all thy doubts and perplexities of soul saving thee and pulling thee back from so many destructive temptations and dangers What had been thy condition if I had not come unto thee Could the Word have converted thee without me
your lives be loose and defiled you will not only be a shame to your friends but the Song of your enemies You will make mirth in Hell And gratifie all the enemies of God This is that they watch for They are curious observers of your goings And that which makes them Triumph at your falls and miscarriages is not only that deep rooted enmity betwixt the two seeds but because all your miscarriages and evils are so many absolutions to their consciences and Justifications as they think of their waies and practices For look as your strictness and holiness doth as it were cast and condemn them as Noah Heb. 11.7 by his practice condemned the world their consciences fly in their faces when they see your holy and pure conversations It lays a damp upon them It works upon their consciences and causes many smart reflections So when you fall you as it were absolve their consciences loose the bonds of conviction you had made fast upon them and now there 's matter of Joy put before them Oh say they what ever these men talk we see they are no better than we They can do as we do They can Cozen and Cheat for advantage They can comply with any thing for their own ends 't is not conscience as we once thought but meer stomach and humor that made them so precise And oh what a sad thing is this Hereby you shed Soul-blood You fasten the bonds of death upon their souls You kill those convictions which for any thing you know might have made way to their conversion When you fall you may rise again but they may fall at your example and never rise more Never have a good opinion of the waies of God or of his people any more Upon this consideration David begs of God Psal. 5.8 Lead me O Lord in thy righteousness because of my enemies or as the Hebrew my observers make thy way straight before my face And thus you see how your very enemies oblige you to this holy and pure conversation also Now put all this together and see to what these particulars will amount You have heard how God the Father hath engaged you to this conversation purity by his designment of your Salvation Rewarding your obedience His pleasure in it His Promises to it And his great confidence in you that you will thus walk before him The Lord Iesus hath also engaged you thereunto by his death and sufferings whereby you were Redeemed from your vain conversations The Spirit hath engaged you by telling you plainly how much you will grieve and wrong him resist and quench him if you do not keep your selves pure Yea you are obliged further by your selves your clear illumination your high profession your many prayers and confessions your many censures and reprehensions of others do all strengthen your obligation to holiness Yea you are obliged further to this holy life by the shame grief and trouble your loose walking will bring upon your friends And the mirth it will make for and mischief it will do to your enemies Who will fall and break their necks where it may be you only stumbled and brake your shins Who are Justified and absolved as before you heard by your miscarriages And now what think you of all this Are you obliged or not to this purity of life Are all these bonds tied with such slip-knots that you can get loose and free your selves at pleasure from them If all these things are of no force with you if none of these bonds can hold you may it not be questioned notwithstanding your profession whether any spiritual principle any fear of God or love to Christ be in your souls or no O you could not play fast and loose with God if so you could not as Sampson snap these bonds assunder at your pleasure Consid. 2. Secondly As you are more obliged to keep the issues of life pure than others are so God hath given you greater assistances and advantages for it than others have God hath not been wanting to any in helps and means Even the Heathen who are without the Gospel will yet be speechless and inexcusable before God but how much more will you be so who besides their light of nature and the general light of the Gospel have first such a principle put within you Secondly such patterns set before you Thirdly such an assistant ready to help you Fourthly so many rods at your backs to quicken you and prevent your wandering If notwithstanding all these helps your live be still unholy First Shall men of such principles walk as others do Shall we lament for you as David once did for Saul saying there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away the shield of Saul as though he had not been anointed with oyl There the honour of a Christian was vilely cast away as though he had not been anointed with the Spirit You have received an unction from the holy one which teacheth you all things 1 Joh. 2.20 Another Spirit far above that which is in other men 1 Cor. 2.12 And as this Spirit which is in you is fitted for this life of holiness for ye are his workmanship created in Christ Iesus to good works Ephes. 2.10 So this holy Spirit a principle infused into your souls hath such a natural tendency to this holy life that if you live not purely and strictly you must offer violence to your own principles and a new nature A twofold help this principle affords you for a life of holiness 1. First It pulls you back from sin as in Ioseph How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God! And it also inclines you powerfully to obedience 'T is a curb to sin and a spur to holiness It is unpossible for all others to live spiritually and heavenly because they have no new nature to incline them thereunto And methinks it should be hard for you to live carnally and sensually and therein cross the very bent and tendency of the new creature which is formed in you How can you neglect Prayer as others do whiles the Spirit by divine pulsations is awaking and rousing up your sluggish hearts with such inward motions and whispers as that Psal. 27.8 Seek my face Yea whilst you fell during your omissions of duty something within that bemoans it self and as it were cryes for food pains and gripes you like an empty stomach and will not let you be quiet till it be relieved How can you let out your hearts to the world as other men do when all that while your Spirit is restless and akes like a bone out of joint And you can never be at ease till you come back to God and say as Psal. 116. Return to thy rest O my soul. Is it not hard yea naturally impossible to fix a stone and make it abide in the fluid air Doth not every creature in a restless motion tend to its proper Center and desire its own perfection So doth this new creature
you out of the temptation If you attend his voice you may hear such a voice within you as that Ier. 44.4 Oh do not this abominable thing which I hate What mighty strivings were there in the heart of Spira as himself relates He heard as it were a voice within him saying Do not write Spira do not write To this purpose is that promise Isa. 30.20 21. Thine eyes shall behold thy teachers and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying this is the way walk ye in it when ye turn to the right hand and when ye turn to the left Here you have a twofold help to holiness the outward teaching of the Word ver 20. and the inward teachings of the Spirit ver 21. He shall say this is the way when ye are turning aside to the right hand or to the left Alluding to a Shepherd saith one who driving his Sheep before him whistles them in when he sees them ready to stray 2. Secondly When ye walk holily and closely with God in your duties the Spirit incourages you to go on by those inward comforts sealings and joys you have from him at such times How often hath he entertained your souls in publick Ordinances in private duties with his hidden Manna with marrow and fastness with incomparable and unspeakable comforts and all this to strengthen you in your way and encourage you to hold on 3. Thirdly When you are indisposed for duties and find your hearts empty and dry he is ready to fill them quicken and raise them so that oftentimes the beginnings and end of your Prayers hearing or meditations are as vastly different as if one man had begun and another ended the duty O then what assistances for a holy life have you Others indeed are bound to resist temptations as well as you but alas having no special assistance from the Spirit what can they do It may be they reason with the Temptation a little while and in their own strength resolve against it but how easie a conquest doth Satan make where no greater opposition is made to him than this Others are bound to hear meditate and pray as well as you else the neglect of these duties would not be their sin but alas what pitiful work do they make of it Being left to the hardness and vanity of their own hearts when you spread your Sails you have a gale but they lie wind-bound heart-bound and can do nothing Spiritually in a way of Duty Fourthly And lastly to mention no more you have a further advantage to this holy life by all the rods of God that are at any time upon you I might shew you in many particulars the advantages this way also but I shall only present these three to your observation at this time First By these you are clogged to prevent your straying and wandering Others may wander even as far as Hell and God will not spend a sanctified rod upon them to reduce or stop them but saith let them alone Hos. 4.17 But if you straggle out of the way of holiness he will clog you with one trouble or another to keep you within bounds 2 Cor. 12.7 Lest I should be lifted up a thorn in the flesh a messenger of Satan was sent to buffet me So David Psal. 119.67 Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I have kept thy Word Afflictions are used by God as thorns by husbandmen to stop the gaps and keep you from breaking out of Gods way Hos. 2.6 I will hedge up her way with thorns and build a wall that she shall not find her paths A double alusion First to Cattle that are apt to stray I will hedge up thy way with thorns Secondly to the Sea which is apt to over-flow the Country I will build a wall to prevent inundations Holy Basil was a long time sorely afflicted with an inveterate head-ach he often prayed for the removal of it at last God removed it but in the room of it he was sorely exercised with the motions and temptations of Lust which when he perceived he heartily desired his head-ach again to prevent a worse evil You little know the ends and uses of many of your afflictions Are you exercised with bodily weaknesses it 's a mercy you are so and if these pains and infirmities were removed these clogs taken off you may with Basil wish for them again to prevent worse evils Are you poor why with that poverty God hath clogged your pride Are you reproached with those reproaches God hath clogged your ambition Corruptions are prevented by your afflictions And is not this a marvelous help to holiness of life Secondly By your afflictions your corruptions are not only clogged but purged By these God drys up and consumes that spring of sin that defiles your lives Esa. 27.9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged and this is all the fruit to take away sin God orders your wants to kill your wantonness And makes your poverty poison to your pride They are Gods Physick to purge ill humours out of your souls When they fall by the sword and by famine and by captivity and by spoil it is to try them and to purge them and to make them white They are both purges and Lavatories to your souls Others have the same afflictions that you have but they do not work on them as on you they are to you as fire for purging and water for cleansing and yet shall not your lives be clean It 's true as one well observes upon that place of Daniel Christ is the only Lavatory and his blood the only fountain to wash away sin But in the virtue and efficacy of that blood sanctified afflictions are cleansers and purgers too A Cross without a Christ never made any man better but with Christ Saints are much the better for the cross Hath God as it were laid you out so many daies and nights a whitening and yet is not the hue of your conversation altred Hath he put you so many times into the furnace and yet is not your dross separated The more afflictions you have been under the more assistance you have had for this life of holiness Thirdly By all your troubles God hath been weaning you from the world the lusts loves and pleasures of it and drawing out your souls to a more excellent life and state than this He makes your sorrows in this life give a lufter to the glory of the next Who ever hath be sure you shall have no rest here and all that you may long more ardently for that to come He often makes you groan being burdened to be cloathed with your house from Heaven 1 Cor. 5.4 And yet will you not be weaned from the lusts customs and evils of it Oh what manner of persons should you be for heavenly and holy conversations You stand upon the higher ground You have as it were the wind and tide with you None are assisted for this life as
you are Put all this together and see what this second argument contributes towards your further conviction and perswasion to holiness of life Have you received a supernatural principle fitting you for and inclining you to holy actions resisting and holding you back from sin Hath God also set before you such eminent patterns to encourage and quicken you in your way Doth the Spirit himself stand ready so many waies to assist and help you in all difficulties That bloody Tyrant was convinced in his conscience of the worth and excellency of that servant of God and was forced to reverence him for his holiness So Darius Dan. 6.14 18 19 20. What conflicts had he in himself about Daniel whom he had condemned his conscience condemned him for condemning so holy and righteous a person Then the King went to his Palace and passed the night in fasting neither were instruments of Musick brought before him and his sleep went from him He goes early in the morning to the Dâ—n and cries with a lamentable voice O Daniel servant of the living God How much is this for the honour of holiness that it conquâ—rs the very persecutors of it and makes them stoop to the meanest servant of God! 'T is said of Henry the second of France that he was so daunted by the heavenly Majesty of a poor Taylâ—r that was burnt before him that he went home sad and vowed that he would never be present at the death of such men any more When Valence the Emperour came in person to apprehend Basil he saw such Majesty in his very countenance that he reel'd at the very sight of him and had fallen backward to the ground had not his servants stept in to support him O holiness holiness thou art a conquerour So much as you shew of it in your lives so much you preserve your interest in the consciences of your enemies Let down this and they despise you presently Fifthly And lastly God will use the purity of your conversations to Iudge and convince the world in the great day 'T is true the world shall be Judged by the Gospel but your lives shall also be produced as a Commentary upon it and God will not only shew them by the Word how they ought to have lived but bring forth your lives and waies to stop their mouths by shewing how others did live And this I suppose is intended in that Text 1 Cor. 6.2 The Saints shall Iudge the world yea we shall Iudge Angels that is our examples are to condemn their lives and practices as Noah Heb. 11.7 is said to condemn the world by building the Ark i. e. his faith in the threatning and obedience to the command condemned their supineness infidelity and disobedience They saw him every day about that work diligently preparing for a deluge and yet were not moved with the like fear that he was this left them inexcusable So when God shall say in that day to the careless world did you not see the care and diligence the holy zeal watchfulness and self denial of my people who lived among you How many times have they been watching and praying when you have been drinking or sleeping Was it not easie to reflect when you saw their pains and diligence have not I a soul to look after as well as they a Heaven to win or lose as well as they Oh how speechless and inexcusable will this render wicked men yea it shall not be only used to Judge them but Angels also How many shocks of temptations have poor Saints stood when as they fell without a Tempter They stood not in their integrity though created in such excellent natures how much then are you concerned on this very account also to walk exactly If not instead of Judging them you shall be condemned with them And thus you see what use your lives and actions shall be put to and are these inconsiderable uses Is the winning over souls to God a small matter Is the salving the honour and reputation of godliness a small matter Is the encouraging the hearts and strengthening the hands of Gods poor Ministers amidst their spending killing labours a small matter Is the awing of the consciences of your enemies and Judging them in the last day a light thing Which of these can you call so O then since you are thus obliged to holiness of life Thus singularly assisted for it and since there are such great dependencies upon it and uses for it both now and in the world to come see that ye be holy in all manner of conversation See that as ye have received Christ Iesus the Lord so ye walk in him Alwaies remembring that for this very end Christ hath redeemed or delivered you out of the hands of your enemies that you might serve him without fear in righteousness and holiness all the daies of your lives Luk. 1.74 75. And to how little purpose will be all that I have preacht and you have heard of Christ if it be not converted into practical godliness This is the scope and design of it all And now Reader thou art come to the last leaf of this Treatise of Christ it will be but a little while and thou shalt come to the last Page or Day of thy life and thy last moment in that day Wo to thee wo and alas for ever if interest in this blessed Redeemer be then to get The world affords not a sadder sight than a poor Christless soul shivering upon the brink of Eternity To see the poor soul that now begins to awake out of its long dream at its entrance into the world of reallities to shrink back into the body and cry O I cannot I dare not die And then the tears run down Lord what will become of me O what shall be my eternal Lot This I say is a sad sight as the world affords That this may not be thy case relfect upon what thou hast read in these Sermons Judge thy self in the light of them Obey the calls of the Spirit in them Let not thy slight and formal Spirit float upon the surface of these truths like a feather upon the water but get them deeply infixed upon thy Spirit by the Spirit of the Lord turning them into life and power upon thee And so animating the whole course and tenour of thy conversation by them that it may proclaim to all that know thee that thou art one who esteemest all to be but dross that thou maist win Christ. FINIS An Alphabetical Table Referring to the Principal things contained in this Treatise A. ABilities of men to use Gods means what and how far page 122 123. Abuse Christ abused in a Court of Iudicatute p. 313 314 c. Accessories to the Saints happiness what p. 187 188. Accommodation of the body a Snare to the soul. p. 557. Adoption Civil and Spiritual p. 180. Adoration of Gods Iustice and Mercy in Christs death p. 475 476 381. Advancement of the humane nature by its